...but few are chosen
John Tuohey
John Tuohey is the author of three novels, numerous short stories and flash fiction pieces. He is coauthor, with Michael Connolly and Richard Olive, of "...but few are chosen," a memoir of the years three spent in a Franciscan seminary .
He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army Reserve. He was a Registered nurse for forty-seven years, thirty-four as a nurse practitioner, working mostly in emergency departments and urology.
Since retirement he has traveled throughout the United States, camping in national parks and riding his bicycle in all the contiguous states and Hawaii.
He is married with five grown children.
"... but few are chosen" is the story of three young boys from tough urban neighborhoods and families scarred by alcoholism and violence. The troubling trajectories of their lives in forever changed when they enter a Franciscan seminary to study for the priesthood. Over the years in the seminary, the kindness, order and direction of the priests they encountered instills a passion for learning and values that save their lives and souls.
…But Now I See
John Tuohey
At sixteen I had never seen a dead body until I stood with my mother outside the door to her ward as an orderly pushed a litter past. On the litter, covered by a sheet, was a body.
I noticed marble white feet sticking out from beneath the sheet. There was a toe tag with a name, date and time. I thought of the USDA tags on meat. This thing was just meat now. I began sweating. My stomach roiled.
My mother saw my distress and grabbed my forearm. She said, “It’s a dead body. That’s all.” So cold. I would never be like that.
When I was twenty I had seen countless dead bodies. Some were my friends. Most others were dead because I killed them
May 6, 1967 we rose from the discomfort of our night positions, apparitions rising with the mist over the river and rice paddies. We silently moved across the dikes, focused as cobras, inevitable as death. A hundred meters ahead the ville lay indistinct in the fog.
I could smell rice, fish and coffee. The NVA platoon we expected to find was making breakfast. I sensed that something was wrong.
“Lieutenant,” I whispered, ”we have a problem.”
“Be quiet, sergeant. Just keep moving.”
Fucking new guy.
“Listen, Lieutenant. Do you hear anyone moving around? We can smell the cooking, but there are no cooking noises.”
“I’m in charge here, Sergeant. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.” Dumb fuck.
I told the guy next to me, “We’re in the shit. Keep your intervals. Go slow and low, and be ready to be attacked. Pass it on.”
It started with a few AK rounds and escalated immediately to a wall of lead, mortar and RPG rounds. This wasn’t a platoon we were facing.
We groveled in the muck, trying to create shelter with our fingernails, elbows, feet and knees. Worm-like we sought as much earth as we could get.
I saw elements from the ville spreading out towards our flanks. It was a company at least. I crawled to the radioman.
“Where’s the Looie?”
“He’s dead.” One less problem.
“Get me fire support.” I told them we needed fast movers to come in on our coordinates and bomb on our smoke, and since we’re in the middle, just bomb the smoke. Odds were that we would be killed in a few minutes by one side or the other.
I spread the word, “Throw green smoke as far into the NVA as possible, then stay down.”
The amoeba was engulfing us. Soon we would be nothing.
The doors of Hell opened to the whoosh of the jets and the napalm, the crackling of things on fire, the screams. It stank of napalm, cordite, feces and cooking meat.
“Shoot everything that comes out of the fire,” I told my men. And we did. To the ones on fire, the kisses of the M-16’s were a bitter mercy. To those not on fire they provided the last surprise of their lives, the answers to each man’s questions: how and where and when do I die?
“Jesus Christ, this is awful. Everyone’s dead.” It was Callahan, another new guy. He began retching.
An arm’s length, but a thousand yards away, I looked at this member of a species to which I no longer belonged.
“I’m not dead, Callahan. You’re not dead. Not today
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Exclusion Criteria
John Tuohey
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“Billy Carson deep in the left corner. Hayes rushing at him. Billy fakes, steps left, and he drains the three. The Knicks have a one point win.”
His thirteenth pro game, his first game ever in Chicago, first game winning shot. He was mobbed. It felt great.
As he left the court, he was approached by perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had a mike in her hand, and a wire trailed from the device in her left ear.
“Billy, Billy, can I do an interview?” She smiled, but was too busy with her technical issues to seem sincere.
“Sure, I’ll do it.” It would be a pleasure to stand near her.
“I’m Alicia… from ESPN.” She looked at him, floor to hair, quickly, but he noticed. Her smile seemed more genuine, her pupils dilated. Good so far.
“You must feel great to have made such an important shot.” It wasn’t a question, yet begged a response.
“Well, given that we only won by one point, I’d have to say that every point was important. That is, if we disregard the fact that making a basket has no significance in the grand scheme of things.” She looked shocked, glancing towards the man he assumed was her producer. The man’s hands made rolling motions..
“Ahhh. Well, Billy, some folks think it was important. It was certainly a clutch shot, don’t you agree?”
“Gee, if you consider that I am being paid a ridiculous amount of money to do just that, it was no more than providing what I owed.”
Startled, she immediately answered, “Are you saying you just play for the money?”
“No. I would play ball for nothing. Hell, I’d pay to play. But if vast sums were not involved, few people would have seen this, there would have been no TV, no interview. Were you and I not being paid to be here, we would never have met. I, for one am glad we did. Can you recommend a restaurant that will be open for the next few hours, and a museum or gallery where I could spend a few hours tomorrow?”
She looked flustered. “This is Alicia Haynes for ESPN.” She removed her ear piece and handed the mike to the man with her. “Did you just ask me out on air? That’s not cool, and I don’t date ball players, even gorgeous ones. Especially gorgeous ones.”
“Well, addressing your points in order: no, I didn’t ask you out, I asked for a restaurant and museum recommendation; I have no interest in being cool; I don’t date ball players either; and only my mother has ever thought I was gorgeous.” He smiled warmly at her. She blushed and had the thought that not dating ball players was not a mandate from God.
“You could have looked that stuff up on your smart phone, you know.”
“I don’t have a smart phone. They are anti-existential. I prefer human interaction. The only value the phones have for me lies in identifying people I should not spend time on.”
“You don’t have a smart phone? Oh, my God. I couldn’t live with out my phone.” Just then her phone buzzed. She placed it to her ear, raising her index finger, turning for a muted conversation. Finished, she turned back and found herself alone.