March 16, 2006 Issue                                               

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Meeting the tunnel rat who murdered an angel
by AL ERLICK

Al Erlick, of Mt. Airy, the retired editor of The Jewish Exponent, is seen at his part-time job behind the counter at Penguin Photo in Chestnut Hill. (Photo by Len Lear)

Edward the tunnel rat is afraid he might have murdered an angel. Accidentally, of course, but it still feels like murder, he says.

He has walked up to me from out of the darkness, clothes and skin as black as the night, moving soundlessly on child-like feet, body poised for action or flight and vibrating with energy. He’s carrying a knapsack stuffed to its limit.

Try as I might to be urbane in such situations, to handle contacts with strangers with equanimity, there seems always to be a moment when my stomach flips over and my urban antennae quiver. The meanness of the city streets takes its toll, whatever the politically correct response.

Another panhandler, I guess, reaching into my pocket to count my change. How aggressive will he be? He’s small, but he moves as though he were much larger. I’m large, but so what? Such thoughts tumble over one another, unbidden and unwelcome. The fear I feel is irrational, but no less real because of that. The filter of rationality separates humans from other animal species. I am determined not to act on my irrationality.

I am a thinking being, after all, not given to acting on raw emotion. I carry a weathered note in my wallet, a message from a fortune cookie that ended a Chinese meal years ago. “Life,” it reads, “is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.” I choose to laugh.

I find two quarters in my pocket and hold them out to the man who has stopped beside me. He leans against the building.

“What’s that for?” he says, sounding surprised, even hurt.

“Get yourself something to eat,” I mumble.

“It really would be a lot nicer if you would wait until I ask,” he says reasonably, albeit with a tinge of disappointment at my presumptuousness.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry.” I’m shocked to realize I mean it.

“Apology noted and accepted,” he says, smiling a smile that chases some of the shadows from his face. The silence separating us ceases to be uncomfortable.

“You from around here?” I ask. He interests me — professionally. He reminds me that I was a reporter before becoming an editor, that every human being is a story, or so a city editor long dead told me many decades ago.

“I’m Edward,” he says, holding out his hand, letting me know there are bases to be touched before significant information can be exchanged.

“I’m Al.” I take his hand, feeling the strength in his arm. He nods gravely. We can talk now.

“I’m just passing through,” Edward says, answering a question left hanging a while back. “This is a tough city.”

I feel the need to defend the city I love. “That’s pretty harsh,” I offer. “Have you given it a chance?”

“More than a chance.” The subject is closed, the details unimportant. “I’m going to Baltimore. I know some people who can get me work there … Sometimes I forget where I am, and I hardly ever know where I’m going,” Edward says with a singular lack of emotion.

“You went to college, didn’t you?” he says. “I can tell by the way you talk.”

“Yes,” I say, “a long time ago, in another life.”

“I started college, did almost a year. Ran out of money. Then the Army. Then Vietnam.”

Damn! The word hang out there like an obscenity, images of dark history, not geography.

“You a veteran?” he asks, the question a plea for some sort of understanding. I nod, but not with any emphasis. “I was 18; it was 1946. I didn’t have enough money to go to college either.”

“A lot different from Vietnam.” In his voice are all his reasons for running so hard for so long to so many places. “Yes, a lot different,” I say. “For me, the Army was just a lull between ‘good’ wars.”

“You went back to college,” Edward says. “What do you do now?” “Newspaperman,” I tell him. “I write, I edit — that kind of stuff.”

“Writing, that’s great,” Edward approves as I preen a little. “I could do that, I think. I tried to write a story once, about Vietnam.” A pause, a smile. “I hated it, too, but it sure had its moments … I was a tunnel rat,” Edward says, a floodgate opening somewhere inside him. “You know what that is?”

I nod. “Something about Vietcong tunnels, underground, all through the jungles.” My rudimentary understanding of his exotic profession pleases him.

“I don’t know exactly how many of us there were. Lots, I guess. You had to be small. I was even thinner than I am now — and you had to be able to twist and turn pretty good.”

“You seem to be in fine shape still.”

“Not bad,” he agrees, and then he shakes his head and shoulders as if trying to shed some unpleasant weight. “We had to blow up the tunnels. We had to volunteer. They told us over 90 percent of us would die. I don’t know, I must have been nuts.”

“You beat the odds. I’m glad,” I tell him softly. Edward’s laugh is harsh. “You know why I didn’t die? Because I wouldn’t go in unless we found the way out. There were phony holes everywhere, mines, ambushes, Unless I knew I could come out somewhere, I wouldn’t go in. You always have to make sure there’s a way out.”

And so off to Baltimore, an exit hole, a way out. It makes perfect sense. He’s stiff with memories; my neck and shoulders are tense. The taste of fear dries my tongue. Tunnel rat — what a job.

“I think I killed an angel. I was sure of it when it happened. Do you believe in angels?”

Angels? What are we talking about now? Do I believe in angels? Wrong question. What do Jews think about angels? I’m more comfortable at least once removed from the issue. Let’s see. Jacob wrestled with an angel, and Israel was born. Angels ran up and down Jacob’s ladder carrying messages to and from God. Angels argued with God over whether or not human beings were worth the energy it took to keep them around. As I recall, the angels would have been just as happy if God had dropped the whole project as a bad idea.

Actually, Jews — me included — always seem to be uncomfortable, embarrassed by concepts like angels, heaven and hell. We are too much of this world, I think. We leave angels to our mystics, who also can be a source of embarrassment.

“No, I don’t think I believe in angels,” I finally answer Edward. “Why do you think you killed one?”

“That’s the story I want to write,” he says. “We’d fly choppers into an area where we wanted to work. We’d hover over a spot that was clear enough, jump out of the chopper and do our thing. We’d be 10, 12 feet off the ground when we jumped, and you could get shook up pretty good when you hit the ground. Some guys bought it when they jumped, hit the ground and accidentally blew themselves away with their own rifles.”

“What a lousy way to die,” I say.

“Know a good way? … So we get an order to discharge our piece into the air as the chopper comes down. That way we’re sure the rifle won’t fire accidentally. We’re coming down one day, directly out of the sun. I’m sitting in the hatchway, feet over the edge, and I lean out, point my rifle up and fire. Over the noise of the chopper I swear I hear a cry. I look up toward the sun, and I see large wings flapping like crazy, then going still. And something falls out of sight.

“I murdered an angel. I knew it for sure back there. I hear the cry and see the wings in my sleep. My wife, she couldn’t stand it after awhile. Had to leave. You think I’m crazy, huh?”

My hands are trembling; my voice, too. “No,” I almost whisper. “I don’t think you’re crazy.” For an endless moment, neither of us has anything to say. Edward laughs, then looks at me. “Now you can do it,” he says, almost jovially.

“Do what?”“Offer to help me get something to eat,” he says. “Oh, yeah, sure.” I take out my wallet, fish for a dollar bill, offer it to him.

“A buck won’t buy much of a meal,” Edward says mildly. “You’re right again,” I agree, putting the one back and handing him a five. “See you,” says Edward.

“Good luck in Baltimore,” I call into the darkness, but he is long gone. And I wonder how many angels died in the skies over Vietnam. How many died today?

Al Erlick is a Mt. Airy resident and former editor at the Jewish Exponent. He says this incident was a “true occurrence that haunted me until I wrote it.”