Mickey’s Wars
by
Dave McDonald
Mickey’s Wars by Dave McDonald
Text copyright © 2017 by Dave McDonald
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written agreement of the author.
First Edition October, 2019
First Paperback October, 2019
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to any real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN-9781701855069
Independently Published
Cover design and art
by Gina Mancini
For
All my friends and readers
who inspire me to write
as many books as time will allow
Chapter One
Bluffton, South Carolina
June 1950
Clarence’s Sinclair Station smelled like the old rags Dad used when he worked on his car; scorched oil mixed with gasoline. And no matter how many times Mom washed my work uniform, a grey shirt embroidered with Clarence’s emblems and dark blue work pants, the odors clung to it.
I fumbled around in the dark in the front office until I found the light switches. Several flicks of my finger and the place was ablaze, inside and out, with both lights and multi-colored neon signs. Then I turned on the gas pumps and the Philco radio.
My yawn gave birth to a stretch. I shouldn’t have stayed out with my buddies so long at Goodman’s last night. I knew better. I shook off my drowsiness. I had to clean the ‘johns’ before the early-risers started arriving; not my favorite job first thing in the morning.
The radio tubes finally warmed, airing WTOC, a Savannah radio station. A male voice broadcasted the news; something about another bullet-riddled body in a car trunk in Youngstown, Ohio. It seemed as if the only news these days was either mob-related or about Korea.
Lugging a mop bucket filled with hot, soapy water; a mop, and a couple of clean rags, I did my Quasimodo walk around the side of the station to the toilets. I set down my baggage and blocked open the men’s room door with the bucket. I always did the men’s room first since they were the early customers.
I could still remember how the ‘johns’ looked and smelled my first day on the job almost a year ago, the summer before my senior year in high school. Clarence’s station sat on the corner of a major thoroughfare and a dirt road. The dirt road led to a community of shacks several hundred yards behind the station, concealed in dense woods. There were no sewers or running water piped to that community. Chamber pots and the creek or Clarence’s were their only choices for relief or pseudo bathing. And whoever my job predecessor had been, one thing was blatantly obvious, he wasn’t a cleaner. The first morning on the job, I almost lost my breakfast several times cleaning those wretched restrooms. But when I was done, they sparkled. And keeping them clean made each morning’s chore much easier.
Having just finished scrubbing the men’s room, as I blocked the door open to start to clean the women’s bathroom, the bell clanged, indicating a car had pulled up to the pumps. I trotted around the corner in the dawn dimness to see a huge, 1950 ruby red Packard Super Eight Victoria convertible stopped at the pumps, reflecting the Sinclair Dinosaur on its shiny hood. A dream machine except for its top being up.
Wiping my wet hands on a shop rag, I walked around to the driver’s open window to see the back of a woman bent over getting something out of her purse. When she turned to face me, my groggy state, my fascination with her car, my surroundings, everything vanished except her eyes. Her sky-blue irises had to have been made special by God, and only God. They would have made a male bluebird jealous.
As the rest of the woman’s face came into focus, her long black hair framed a young face centered by a little perky, turned-up nose. The only make-up she wore was brilliant shiny red lipstick on her pouty lips.
Her features weren’t quite arranged to be beautiful, but striking none the less; too striking for this early morning hour.
Squaring up my shoulders and standing tall, I prayed she couldn’t smell my shirt or the clinging odors of the bathrooms. The only mature-sounding thing I could think of saying was something my grandfather always said early in the morning. “You’re, ah, you’re up before the roosters. How can I help you?”
Her focus returned to her purse. “I have an early-”
“Just fill up the tank, kid,” a deep voice demanded from the shadows of the back seat causing me to flinch.
“Regular or ethyl?” I asked with a trace of indignation as heat raced to my cheeks. Rarely, which was too often, an adult would remind me of my place, a kid in a lowly service job. It always bothered me, but not as much as today in front of such an attractive young lady.
The woman’s eyes glanced toward the back seat and then focused on me. “High test.”
I switched on a pump and inserted the ethyl nozzle into the car’s tank and used the tank cap to hold the nozzle’s lever open. “Want your fluids checked?” I asked as I stepped to her door.
The woman broke into a smile and snickered. “Sorry, I just . . . sorry.” She bit her lower lip and glanced away.
A man’s head covered by a brimmed hat emerged from the shadows of the back seat. All of his features were indistinguishable under the hat save his chin and mouth. “Just fill up the tank, boy, like you’ve been told.” His tone was flat and yet stern.
Goose bumps tickled the flesh on my arms and the back of my neck, offsetting the male-pride anger tempting my vocal chords.
With my jaw muscles clenched, my mind added this moment to my long list of reasons why I didn’t want to do menial jobs for the rest of my life. I finished filling the tank, twisted on the cap as hard as I could, and then returned to the driver’s window.
“That’ll be three bucks, ma’am,” I said looking over the top of the car.
“Thank you,” her voice was coarse and yet silky regaining my attention. “And don’t mind Ben, he’s just cranky,” she half turned to the backseat, “as usual.”
She pulled three dollars from her wallet and handed them to me. She squinted one blue eye, raising the side of her pouty lips. “Sorry.” She keyed the engine.
I stood and watched the big red Packard fade into the gray light. Despite how lovely she was and how sweet she had tried to be I was glad she was gone.
When I entered the station, my best friend, Carl Henry, leaned his tall lanky body against a block wall.
“Classy set of wheels,” he said. “Mucho-moolah.”
I nodded as I put the cash in the drawer, wanting to bury my embarrassment.
Carl Henry jabbed a thumb toward the radio as a newsman spoke about President’s Truman’s decision to support South Korea after the recent invasion by North Korea. “Mick, you’re gonna enlist in the Marines with the rest of us, right?” he asked.
“Is that why you’re here?” I shook my head. “You got up at this hour on a Saturday to ask me that?”
“So, I’m kookie. I’m cranked. I couldn’t sleep.” He blew out a long breath as he raked a hand over the stubble of his crew-cut brown hair. “So what’dya gonna do, work here at Clarence’s for the rest of your life?”
That’s all I needed to hear this morning. “How many times do I have to tell you? I want to go to college; maybe be an engineer or a doctor. I don’t know.”
“Where you gonna get that kind of dough?”
I shook my head.
“So you and Bob are smarter than the rest of us. I get it. So go to school after the war on the GI Bill. My uncle did
that. But for right now, remember this, both our ol’ men were in the Marines and in the big war. And,” he glanced away, “well for the first time in my life, I feel like I have a purpose. And all our friends, including Bob, are committed. So, are you?”
After what had just happened in the middle of cleaning the local community’s shitters, joining the Marines sounded perfect. But my respect for my parents stepped in the way.
“I need to talk to my folks. Now scram, before my boss gets here.”
“Today?”
“When I get home. Now git.”
Carl Henry left me standing alone rubbing the peach fuzz on my chin.
I glanced around. I had to do something with my life other than working at Clarence’s, and my parents couldn’t afford to send me to college.
Chapter Two
It was a few minutes after noon when I got home Saturday from work. I entered the small two-bedroom ranch and found Mom in the kitchen, an apron over one of her flower-print housedresses. She hummed one of her many nameless tunes as she rolled dough on the flour-coated table next to a pie dish.
I loved her pies.
As Mom always said ‘she was too short for her weight.’ Though a little plump, I thought she was beautiful. Her long brown hair, twisted into a bun, and almost black vibrant eyes complimented her aquiline nose and strong chin.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “What kind of pie you making?”
“Blackberry, your Dad’s favorite.”
“Hmmm.” I rubbed my hands together. “Mine too. Where is he? There’s something I want to talk to you both about.”
She stopped rolling and looked at me as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “About what?” Her focus returned to rolling.
“My future. I’m thinking about-”
“You need to go talk to your dad, and tell him lunch will be ready in a half hour. Oh, be a sweetie on your way and get the milk off the front porch. That new milkman doesn’t always put a piece of ice in the box. You’d think those boys would realize what they do affects their Christmas gift.”
Mom had always been my shoulder when I’d been hurt, physically or mentally. The soft lap, the warm rocking-chair-hug, the hummed tunes, the soothing reinforcement that all would be right again, could be counted on. However, with time, the lap and rocking chair moments had faded, but my trust in her solace had been tested and proven over and over again. The only flaw in her parenting was when it came to choices, directions, or guidance, she quickly passed me to Dad, always.
I found my father in our one-car garage with his head under the hood of our ’47 Town Sedan Chevy. His broad back and small waist were a testimony to his physical condition. Mom liked to brag that he could still wear his Marine uniform.
Working on the car was more of a hobby to him than a chore.
My little brother, Jeffie, who was half my age, was
pounding on something on the work bench.
Getting my father’s blessing to enlist should be a piece of cake. Both he and his father had both been Marines. And both had fought in world wars. My becoming a Marine to fight in a war would be a natural progression for the Mackenzie family.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Mick, how was work?” Dad asked without diverting his attention to whatever he was doing.
“Same old stuff, mindless repetition.”
His head came out from under the hood, and his blue eyes fixed on mine. “I completely know what that’s like.”
My gut knotted. Dad was a smart, well-read man, stuck in a menial foreman’s job at the Bluffton Oyster Factory. On more than one occasion, I’d overheard conversations between he and Mom on the subject. I hoped I hadn’t hurt his feelings. I glanced away and nodded.
“There aren’t a lot of work choices locally unless I move to Savannah or Charleston,” I said.
“And how could you afford to live away doing menial work? Like your mother and I have told you over and over again, you need to get a college degree,” Dad said, sticking his head back under the hood and turning a wrench on a spark plug. It was his way of conveying we had unsuccessfully discussed that topic too many times.
My parents were financially barely scrapping by now. And they still had Jeffie to worry about. I wouldn’t burden them with additional costs.
“I agree. And I think I know how to pay for it,” I said confidently.
Dad’s wrenching stopped. “And how would you do that?”
“My buddies and I have been talking, and . . . and we’ve decided to enlist in the Marine Corps.”
He banged his head as he bolted out from under the hood. “No!”
Both the volume and emotion jammed into my father’s one-word response coupled with his rapid movement caught me off-guard. It was like I had awakened a monster inside him I had never seen before.
Jeffie, my little brother, took off running like a hive of hornets were after him.
I stood speechless; my shoulders pulled down by disappointment. The walls of our one-car garage seemed to have moved closer.
I’d thought Dad would be proud of me.
Dad blew out a breath, rubbing his head as he set the wrench on the fender. Then he gently placed his large, calloused hands on my arms.
“Mickey, son,” he shook his head, “you don’t want to do this, trust me.”
“But, Dad, I could pay for college with the GI Bill. And, and you and grandfather did it. And I see how people look at you when they find out you were a Marine. It’s keen. They have instant respect. I want that too. And, besides, all my friends are joining.”
“I don’t care what your friends are doing,” the edge crept back into his tone as he released my arms. “And that ‘look’ people give me is probably more curiosity than respect. They’re the same knuckleheads who slow down and gawk at car wrecks, looking for blood. Just by my age, they know I served in World War Two. And being a Marine, they figure I was in the Pacific. And they all want to know if I was in combat, and what was it like, and if I killed any Japs. They’re wacky thrill-seekers who get their kicks from others’ misery.”
A pang of guilt caused me to avoid his intense eyes. I had often been tempted to ask him those very same questions. Thank God, I hadn’t.
He turned back to the opened hood and picked a small box and an adjustment tool off the cloth-covered fender. “Here, make yourself useful. Set the gap on this spark plug to thirty-five-thousandths. And when you’re done, do the rest. There are five more plugs in those boxes on the fender.”
Out of habit, I took the plug and tool, the father-son gig. He and I hadn’t worked on cars together since I had found better things to do other than be his fetcher.
Maybe I had more of the ol’ man in me than I realized. I set the items on top of his tool box that he’d positioned next to the car. His chin pulled in and his eyebrows arched. Before he could utter the words I knew would follow, I said, “I didn’t come down here to help you. I’m here because I wanted to let you know what I’m going to do.”
A grease-smudged finger pointed at my nose. “You seem to have forgotten how things work around here, son.” His tone dripped with authority. “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do as I say. And I’m saying no. You aren’t joining the Marines. I don’t want you to be like me, a mentally scarred ex-Marine who ended up a lowly foreman, going nowhere fast. I want you to go to college and make something of yourself, a better provider than me. End of discussion.”
“And who’s going to pay for that?” I asked.
He looked away. “I’ll find a way.”
“I’m eighteen.”
“So?”
I had learned a long time ago that there was a thin line between fear and respect. I summoned my courage. “I’m enlisting.” And before he could respond, I turned and bolted out of the garage.
Chapter Three
After my confrontation with my father and a quiet lunch in my room, I had plopped down on the front porch swing. I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there,
but the urge to join my pals was getting stronger and stronger.
I had previously told my buddies I wasn’t going out tonight because I had to open Clarence’s Sinclair Station again tomorrow. Late-night partying and early mornings didn’t mix well for me.
July was normally a harsh month in the Lowcountry with the temperature and humidity in constant competition for high numbers. But this afternoon a light breeze came off the May River. I rocked and watched the sun paint the Spanish moss dangling from the three old oak trees surrounding our yard as the moss fluttered in and out of the shade.
I could hear one of Mom’s wordless songs as she worked in the house. It reminded me of other rocking chair times years ago when Dad was away in the war.
Every now and then Mom’s humming and the buzzing of a pestering mosquito would be interrupted by a passing car tooting its horn. I’d exchange waves with the driver, though I didn’t always know them.
Bluffton was a small, lazy berg; a stop sign on Route 46 just west of Hilton Head Island. Both my parents had been raised here. In the past, I’d complained about living in such a small town. My parents’ defense was Bluffton was not only home, but a community founded on kindness and brotherhood. A place where people bonded particularly when life showed its rare ugliness.
The squeaking screen door diverted my attention as Dad came onto the porch, causing every fiber in my body to come to attention. His muscular mass thudded across the wooden porch, each step testing my resolve. Dad, smelling of Old Spice with a hint of grease, sat down next to me. His large frame jarring both the swing and me,
We sat there unmoving for a long moment as he stared into space. He broke the tension by patting my knee and glancing at me.
“I was a little tough on you, Mick. I’m sorry.”
It was if my dad’s words were being spoken by someone else; someone I didn’t know. I’d never heard him tell anyone he was sorry.
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