“It’s just that . . . well there are things I’ve never told you,” he said. “Things I’ve never told anyone for that matter. Things you need to know before joining the Marines during a, a ‘Police Action’ as they call this stupid Korean War.”
Sitting fixed, unmoving, he rubbed the stubble on his chin.
My surroundings, the motionless rocker, everything melted into the background. He had my full attention.
“Like you, I got swept up in the surge to join up when the war broke out. Unlike you, I wasn’t a kid when I enlisted in the Marines. I was twenty-seven and married with a nine-year old son, and although we didn’t know it at the time, a pregnant wife.”
“I remember,” I said, trying to relieve some of the tension. “Mom and I went to Grandpa’s to live. I thought you looked hip in your uniform. But I hated to see you leave. And you were gone for such a long time.”
“I was ‘hip’ alright, a member of the First Marines, the Fighting Leathernecks. Gung-ho; until they shipped us to a little island called Guadalcanal.”
I looked at him; his neatly combed and parted wet brown hair, his broad nose, and blazing blue eyes. I had always wanted his blue eyes versus my plain old brown ones.
Mom often reminded me that I looked like her dad both facially and physically; tall, thin, and ‘heart-breaking’ handsome.
“I remember that name, Guadalcanal. Mom read your letters to me,” I said.
“She did, did she?” His eyes scanned me.
I nodded, not wanting to derail his story.
“I don’t know if it was my age or what, but I had been promoted to a Corporal by then. And I knew the Japs were building an airfield on the island, and it was our job to take it.”
His gaze roamed to the porch floor. “I’d never shot a gun at anything more than a rabbit, hog, or paper targets, and no one had ever shot at me. Sitting on the boat the night before we landed, if I could’ve ran away I would’ve. I didn’t sleep all night. I was scared, but not as scared as I was gonna get.
“The landing was a piece of cake. We walked onto the island with no resistance. Everyone was jabbering about how we’d either surprised them or that those little yellow fellows were afraid of us, the mighty US Marines. Two days later we had taken the airfield, and I hadn’t fired my rifle. Our unit had been held in reserve, but the fighting had been brief.
“All the stories we had heard, all the training in preparation for fighting a fearsome foe fell to the wayside. Life was good, for a while.
“Unbeknownst to us, we had greatly outnumbered the Jap force on the island, and they had withdrawn. But then the Jap Navy drove our ships off and dropped thousands of additional troops on the island. They wanted their airfield back.
“I was jolted awake one morning by a ground-shaking explosion. My buddies and I grabbed our helmets and rifles and tore out of our tent, just in time to see several other Marines running toward the perimeter disappear in a deafening eruption of dirt and concrete.”
His word-painted picture came to life in my mind. And I wondered how I would have reacted seeing fellow soldiers vaporized, knowing I could be next.
He nodded as if he were back there. “Every second thereafter, for the next four years, I was scared; every second. That’s a horrible way to live. Thousands of good, young men died on that island, and many more suffered God-awful wounds, and most of the rest of us got malaria, and jungle rot.”
If Dad’s intent was to give me second thoughts, he’d succeeded. I’d been scared before and hated it. I couldn’t imagine being scared for years.
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes fixed forward. “And that was just the beginning. We spent the next four years going from one Jap-infested island to another, places like Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa. Four years of death and fear, a soul destroying, hate-filled time in which men did unbelievable things to other men. Unbelievable things. And the only reason I’m here in one piece is I was lucky.” He looked away and sighed. “Just lucky.”
He turned to face me with tears welled in his eyes and touched my knee. “Please listen to me. You don’t want any part of that. It was hell; a hell that stays with you; won’t let you forget, ever.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Chapter Four
There was no way I could stay home after my meeting with Dad. I had never seen the man cry about anything. What could I say after that? And what would I do? He was a Marine; I didn’t think Marines cried. But what did I know? All I knew was if he asked me what I was going to do, and he would, I couldn’t answer him. Not now.
I decided to go out and join my buddies, the ones enlisting. The ones I’d told I’d enroll with them. And even though Dad had seeded my mind with concerns for joining the Marines, I decided that I’d rather be out carousing with my buddies than stay at home. If everything went as they’d planned, they’d be gone soon. And I wasn’t sure I’d be with them.
The Goodman’s Store drinking area consisted of two four-place round tables and an eight-stool make-shift bar pieced together from planking supported by three barrels. The temporary saloon was put together every day when the merchandise store closed. The tavern, so-to-speak, was then opened a half-hour later.
If you were looking for privacy, this local beer joint wasn’t the place. As my buddy, Jerry, always said, “Goodman’s Store is so small you have to go outside to change your mind.” We and probably half the male population of Bluffton hung out at this tiny pub after their eighteenth birthdays.
The temporary saloon was about half-full when I got there. I found my four friends, Jerry, Bob, Sam, and Carl Henry, sitting at the bar, instead of their usual table. It had to be Frieda’s night to tend bar. In our little world, she was a dish, a hubba-hubba dame with a frame. Though Frieda had crooked teeth and wore too much make-up, and was in what I’d guessed to be her late twenties, she had a classy chassis which she liked to show off via tight clothes and low cut tops.
I mounted the fifth stool, next to Jerry.
“What’ll ya have, Mick?” Frieda asked as she cleaned a glass. Tonight Frieda wore one of those blouses with a large swooped neckline that she had pulled down off her shoulders.
“Ah, a Knickerbocker, please,” I said as I searched my pockets for some change, trying not to stare. Conversations with Frieda always made me nervous. I couldn’t compete nor wanted to be compared with the men, some with a lot of bread, pursuing her.
Immediately in front of us, Frieda bent over and fished in the ice cooler searching for my beer.
I didn’t think her blouse’s material would contain her supple breasts.
Jerry, a short stocky fireplug of a guy who was a football star too small for college, leaned close to me and whispered in my ear, “Sittin’ here watching Frieda in that outfit makes me feel like a character in God’s Little Acre. This is like too crazy, man.”
Being mesmerized, I could only nod.
Back in high school, Carl Henry had stolen his parents’ copy of God’s Little Acre and passed it around. We had all read the church-banned, dog-eared book; me, tucked away in my bed at night with a flashlight.
Frieda broke my spell by handing me the bottle of Knickerbocker.
I mumbled my thanks.
“That ain’t no local beer is it?” she asked.
“No, it’s a New York beer that was brought south decades ago by the New York hunters. Many of those rich northern men owned land around here just for hunting, like the Wilson place. At least that’s what my dad told me.”
“Learn somethin’ new every day,” she responded.
“So what’d your ol’ man say when you told him you was joinin’ up?” Carl Henry asked, leaning forward to look at me. He was sitting on the other side of Jerry next to Sam.
Carl Henry’s favorite subject in high school had been Shop; he could do magical things with tools. “My ol’ man was readin’ the paper and grunted. And that was that. With six other mouths to feed, I think he was glad
I was finally leavin’. Can’t blame him.”
I peeled the label off the cold beer. “He said war was hell.” I took a big swig.
Carl Henry turned to the others. “Hey, guys, Mick’s in.” And he gave me a thumbs up.
The other three cheered and clinked bottles with Carl Henry.
I angled and reached past Jerry, grabbing Carl Henry’s shoulder. “Whoa, whoa. I didn’t say that. I . . . my parents . . . well we still haven’t finished talking about it.”
“What’s to talk about? You’re eighteen,” Sam, the biggest and strongest one of the bunch, said. The Marines would love Sam.
My mind was searching for a response when I felt more than heard a presence near me followed by a subtle cloud of jasmine. I straightened on the stool to see Frieda, with no prompting, pour a shot of bourbon into a shot glass. She placed the brimming shot-glass in front of a woman who had taken the stool next to me. The dark haired woman was turned away from me digging in a purse.
I had never seen anything but beer served at Goodman’s before and never seen a woman there to drink beer let alone booze. Strange.
The woman wore a silky-looking light blue dress that was way over the top for Goodman’s Store. She put a fifty-dollar bill plus a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes on the bar next to her drink.
Fifty dollars. I don’t think I knew until that moment that Grant’s picture was on the fifty-dollar bill.
“Excuse me, young man,” her voice was like raspy satin, soft and yet coarse, “do you have a light?”
I turned, and was pushed slightly back and more upright as if I had walked into a wall. The woman was my first customer at Clarence’s today; the young attractive girl in the new Packard with the rude mystery man in the back seat.
She held a cigarette between fingers with the longest nails I’d ever seen, painted the same brilliant red color as her lips.
My hand dove to my pocket despite the fact that I never carried matches. I had to think to breath in order to respond. “Ah, no, I don’t. Sorry.” I wanted to tell her I knew her, but I looked into her blue eyes, inches from mine, and lost my intent.
Carl Henry, a smoker, slid his Zippo lighter down the bar toward her, breaking my spell.
I intercepted it, flipped it open, lit it, and held the flame to the end of her cigarette. I took the opportunity to study her. I wasn’t very good at guessing people’s ages, but I thought her to be in her early twenties.
She took a deep drag, and blew out a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. “Thank you, ah,” her beautiful eyes squinted, and she tilted her head, “don’t I know you?”
I sucked in some air. “Yeah. We, ah, we met early this morning . . . at the gas station.”
She nodded. “Oh yeah. You wanted to check my fluids.” She rolled her eyes.
“What?” Carl Henry asked in a high pitch.
I shook my head and gave him a quick glance. “Her engine fluids.”
She smiled, exposing perfect teeth, bordered by deep dimple wells. “What’s your name?”
“Mick, Mickey Mackenzie, ma’am.”
She held out her tiny hand, and I took it. My eyes locked on hers.
“Sara Wiggs. Nice to formally meet you, Mick. And I hope my rude passenger didn’t offend you.” She eased her hand from mine and took a sip of the whisky.
“Actually, he did me a favor.”
“How’s that?”
“Career planning,” I said. I nodded at my mates. “We, ah, we just graduated from high school.” I introduced Sara to my friends.
“Yeah, but we have plans; tell her, Mick,” Bob said, pushing his wireless glasses up the bridge of his nose.
My eyes fixed on Bob, who stared straight ahead. Bob rarely talked to anyone let alone a stranger who was also a lovely woman. What was up with him?
“And what might those plans be, Mick?” Sara asked, sitting so close I swore I could feel the breath carrying her words brush my cheek.
“We’ve been talking about joining the Marines,” I said.
Her eyes looked down as she tapped her cigarette on an ashtray. She finished her drink and motioned to Frieda for another. “Wow, those are some real serious plans.”
Chapter Five
Not much had been said though the next round of drinks in Goodman’s. I was nursing my second beer, and Sara was on her third whiskey, when my buddies, after a few whispered exchanges, decided to play darts. And just like that, bam, they were gone into a back room, and I was left sitting at the bar next to Sara; just me, Sara, and Frieda.
“You’re not a dart player?” Sara asked.
“I wasn’t invited.”
“Oh. They think—”she pointed at herself and then at me.
I shrugged.
Sara lit another cigarette with Carl Henry’s Zippo.
“How’d you get here?” I asked, hoping to end the cumbersome moment.
“I drove and before you say anything else, this is probably my last drink, and yes, I can handle my whisky.”
“Okay.”
“How’d you get here?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm.
“I walked.”
“A Bluffton boy, huh?”
“Yeah, what about you?”
“Up the road a-ways,” she said as if I were invading her privacy.
“Where?” I pried.
“Okatie,” the word encased in smoke.
“Ain’t much around there,” I said out of curiosity and to keep the silence from returning.
Her eyes bore into mine as if I were making her say something she didn’t want to. “My father’s family own a hunting lodge there.”
“So, you’re here with your folks?”
She played with her cigarette, taping it on the ashtray, over and over. “No, I’m with family friends and their son.”
“How old is the son?” My speculating mind taking control of my mouth.
She glared at me. “What’s with all the questions?”
“I, uh, I’m sorry. There isn’t a lot to talk about in this little town. We’ve been raised to feast on strangers.”
She chuckled. Took a sip of her whiskey, a drag off her smoke, and then took her time putting out the stub.
“Johnny’s a little older than me and . . . well, if it were up to my parents and his, we’d probably be married.”
“Oh.” I took a swig of my beer.
She looked off into space. “But there’s nothing between Johnny and me. Saying we’re friends would be stretching the truth. However, to shut up our nagging folks, we decided to pretend we cared, and he gave me a ring. Sort of a mock engagement.”
“I didn’t see a—”
“A ring? Normally I don’t wear my ring. It’s too . . . too ostentatious.”
I arched my brows as I considered her words. So she came from money but didn’t like it, or maybe those who had it.
“The ring is too big,” she clarified in a patient tone. “The stones. Gaudy. I never liked it.”
“I know what ostentatious means; I was just wondering why you wouldn’t like that. Most girls-”
“I’m not ‘most girls’. The gigantic stone was just another opportunity for Johnny to show off his wealth; or more appropriately, his daddy’s good fortune.”
“Figures.” The word escaped before I could stop it.
“How’s that?”
“I’ve never seen a woman served in here. And I’ve never seen whiskey sold. So you must have pull. Plus, your dress, the fifty-dollar bill; you’re way too classy for this place.”
“I like this place.”
I swiveled my head scanning the small room. “Why?”
“It’s a small town hang-out for the locals. People are friendly, like yourself and your buddies, and,” she looked down, “and no one knows me here.”
Without thinking, I said, “My Dad always said people who drink alone are most likely both troubled and alcoholics, one leading to the other.”
She gulped her drink and put her pack of Pall Malls in her pu
rse. “Your daddy’s a wise man.” She waved at Frieda. “Could I have the bill for all the boys and me, please.”
“That’s not necessary. And I spoke without thinking, I didn’t mean to imply-”
“I know.”
We sat through an awkward quiet moment or two until Frieda brought her change.
“I’ve got to go,” she said and turned to leave.
I impulsively touched her arm. “Don’t go. I didn’t mean to offend you.” My mind whirled and an idea not only formed but spilled out. “There’s a little diner down the street. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I couldn’t believe I had said those words. It was like someone else had taken charge of my mouth. I was asking an older, engaged woman, who was living above my dreams, to go have a cup of coffee. Had I lost my mind? If her fiancé came looking for her I could be over my head in deep shit.
She looked at my hand on her arm, and I immediately removed it.
She glanced up at the ceiling and sighed. Her sparkling blue eyes returned to me. “Sure, why not?”
Chapter Six
Walking from Goodman’s Store to the Debbie’s Diner was the first chance I had to physically gauge this woman who had me totally off balance. I guessed Sara at five feet plus or minus a stone in her high-heels and maybe one hundred pounds. She walked like someone who missed being outdoors, swinging her arms with a bounce in her step, and looking at everything.
“So, Mickey, why do you want to become a Marine?”
“My dad was a Marine in World War Two.”
“You don’t look the type.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
She stopped, stopping me. “You don’t look like a killer.”
“Does anyone look like a killer?” I asked.
“All the guys I’ve known who were Marines in the last war and came home, they do.”
I didn’t know if Dad had changed that much, I was too young when he left. But I had often heard Mom comment on how other people, people who had known him, looked at him and treated him differently than they did before. “And what’s a killer look like?”
Mickey's Wars Page 2
