by J. L. Salter
Roger started to search for a restroom before heading toward the hors d’oeuvres.
Pete tugged his shirt sleeve briefly. “Earl’s the one who pees in a gallon jug and saves it for his little garden.”
Less than a minute later, Irene appeared with a moist towelette, which she handed to Roger. She’d probably witnessed his handshake with Earl.
“Oh, thanks.” Roger wiped the remaining grease off his hands and then held out the used towelette.
Irene received it with a dry paper towel over her left palm. Then she shook Roger’s newly-cleaned hand with her right. “Lucille’s nephew. I’m Irene Henley.”
“Roger Jenkins. Pleased to meet you.” He appeared slightly embarrassed by the towelette incident, but tried to be gracious just the same.
“Don’t dawdle too long, Pete. Keep the traffic flowing.” Irene patted the small of her husband’s back and hurried toward the kitchen to dispose of both soiled items.
Pete shook his head very slightly. “She gets a little worked up with this many people in the house.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Wednesday at 11:40 a.m.
On his way from Great Vista Boulevard into the Community’s entrance at North Pleasant Drive, Mitch had been partly blocked by a huge household moving truck. He was still muttering about it as he passed Kelly’s four-wheeled-drive parked on the south curb. Mitch left his SUV high up on the hill of Placid Lane and walked back down to the Henleys’ condo. It was obviously the correct place — a gigantic American flag fluttered from a long pole bracketed to the inside edge of the garage. Several people were clustered outside near the entrance and others moved in and out of the front doorway.
He hadn’t recognized anyone yet, but when one of the other guests looked his direction, Mitch used that opportunity to complain about the big truck. “Took up half the road. Couldn’t hardly get around it.” He pointed approximately northeast.
That individual nodded, but quickly returned to his own conversation.
Mitch made his way inside and was greeted first by Wade and later by Roger. A couple of other guests looked vaguely familiar and Mitch just waved. The only person he was truly looking for was Kelly.
Through the huddle of guests milling around the entry-way, living, dining, kitchen, and sun porch, it took Mitch a few moments to locate her. Then, across those spaces, he saw Kelly standing at the arched entry to the sun porch. The sunlight from those multiple windows silhouetted her slim figure and highlighted her generous curves. It also gave a slight aura to her hair, still short off her neck until the colder weather set in.
When it’s said somebody’s smile lights up a room, people automatically label that a cliché. But in Kelly’s case, it was accurate. When Mitch caught her eye, Kelly smiled, sending an electrical current across that distance through his body.
Kelly dodged several people as she made her way toward him. “Glad you could come.” She raised up on her toes to kiss his cheek and then hugged him briefly.
Mitch started to let her disengage, but then pulled her closely again and held her tightly.
Kelly looked up at him. “What’s that for?”
“Don’t know. Just awful glad to see you, I guess.”
“That’s a lot more hug that I usually get from you.” She seemed to look through his eyes into his mind. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just had a weird feeling this morning. Like something had happened or you were in trouble or something.” He shook his head briefly. “Obviously you’re okay, so I guess it was nothing.”
She felt his forehead with the back of her hand. “No temperature.”
Mitch grinned. “All my heat comes from you, Kelly.”
“Hey, you two, get a room,” Wade admonished, much too loudly.
It was obvious most of the nearby guests had noticed their embrace. Mitch cleared his throat and Kelly giggled softly. They separated, but Mitch continued to hold her hand gently.
“If you’re all through necking, come on out back. You’re just in time.” It was a great day for both Wade the griller and Wade the inventor because he would finally get to demonstrate his new contraption.
Along with several others, Mitch and Kelly followed Wade through the back door, past the deck, and down to the yard. The long retaining wall extended south from the east edge of the Henleys’ unit and nestled up against their wooden deck. The concrete wall was about seven feet high nearest the duplex, but tapered down to roughly four feet. At the end was a run of thick hedges, which would have been about four feet high, but presently needed trimming. The immediate area southwest of the Henleys’ unit would have been considered their turf if those condos featured individual back yards.
Mitch had only heard the barest mention of Wade’s invention. “What on earth is that? A primitive bazooka?”
“It’s my Pea Shooter,” Wade said proudly. “But my official name’s going to be Vegge-zilla in case I sell some of ‘em.”
Mitch thumped it and hurt his finger. “Who’d want to buy a rusty pipe that shoots vegetables?”
Wade ignored him. “The one at Deer Holler has a thirty-foot barrel, loads at the breech, and fires thirty pound pumpkins several hundred feet. This has a four foot barrel, loads from the muzzle, and shoots taters and such. Nothing no bigger than this.” He held up both thumbs and forefingers into a rough circle.
“About the size of a softball?” Roger estimated as he peered closely at the device.
“Not that big.” Wade adjusted his digits.
Mitch licked his hurt finger. “What’re you going to shoot out of that, besides spuds?”
“Just about anything that fits into a five inch pipe.” Wade closed his eyes briefly to visualize the possibilities. “Apples, oranges, tomaters, and real small cannalopes.”
“Never seen tomatoes that large or a cantaloupe that small.” Roger thought of an alternative. “Maybe you could use an Ugli fruit.”
“These are pretty ugly.” Wade held up a blotchy orange.
“No. Ugli.” Roger explained the little he knew about Ugli, but Wade had clearly tuned him out to work on his assembly.
“How many P-S-I?” Roger crouched down to investigate the dial.
“Only a hundred. The guy at Deer Holler said it don’t take much pressure because of how small the pneumatic line is. They got a humongerous air tank and they almost empty it on each shot.”
“With such a high volume of air, I’d think they’d be using a large diameter line instead of small.” Roger’s finger and thumb made those adjustments. “If they want maximum propulsion.”
Wade gave him a look. “I’m not a rocket doctor. Maybe their line is big. But mine’s half-inch, plus a ten gallon air tank.”
“So how many fruits and veggies can you shoot with each tank full?” Mitch continued to scrutinize the device.
“Three seems to work all right. Then I gotta let the generator cycle more air back in the tank. If I try to shoot four on one tank, the last one just goes bloop.” The short arc of Wade’s hand motion told the rest of that story.
Mitch looked at three sturdy cardboard boxes on the back of Wade’s nearby golf cart. “Where did you get all this ammunition?”
“Bought some from Cincinnati. And some came from Pete’s neighbors.” Wade shrugged. He didn’t explain whether those neighbors even realized they’d donated to his cause.
Good science sometimes requires sacrifice, even if it’s involuntary.
As Wade responded to questions and generally explained things, he was also setting up his invention. Shortly he called for everyone nearby to ready themselves. A few people on the Henleys’ small rear deck descended those two steps and moved closer. Some came from inside and stood on the deck to watch.
Wade started his gas-powered generator and then turned on the compressor. He looked left and right, and then motioned two people to step back a bit. Then he stuck a forefinger in his mouth and held it up to gauge the wind. None at the moment. He shrugged and tapped the p
ipe slightly. Then he crouched down, peered along the logical line toward the stack of hay bales, and pronounced its acceptability with a loud, satisfied sigh.
He waited for the pressure to rise to the required level and then dropped a big orange down the barrel. Several people involuntarily winced when the orange hit bottom with a loud Blap, but that was merely the loading step. Then Wade flipped the lever while turning his torso slightly away from the device. Whump!
The blotchy orange traveled about two-hundred-fifty feet on a high arc trajectory and landed in the same neighborhood as the hay bales. The audience clapped appropriately. The compressor was still cranking and the pressure re-stabilized.
Next was a potato which Wade carefully inspected before dropping down the barrel. Blap. He turned the lever. Whump! “You got to knock off those things growing out of them. Aerodynamics, you know.” Wade carefully watched the landing of the potato, which flew noticeably less distance than the orange. More applause.
The third object was a big juicy tomato. Whump! Seconds later, it landed with a loud splat and a few people cheered.
Wade took a modest bow. “So what do you think about my Vegge-zilla?” Several spectators had already begun walking back toward the Henley household.
Mitch had the only reply. “Looks like a rusty bazooka and sounds like a muffled mortar.”
“How’d you know what a mortar sounds like, besides movies?”
“R-O-T-C.”
Pete looked down range, which was actually uphill, toward the general landing area of those three projectiles and then walked over to Wade. “You need a spotter and an O.P.”
“An oh-what?”
“Observation post. Need somebody up high who can see where the rounds hit so the artillery can effect their adjustments.”
“Everything’s not about the war, you know.” Wade switched off his generator. “Sometimes you just shoot tomaters into the air because it’s fun watching ‘em smash.”
“Still, you ought to know where they’re landing. If the rounds fall short, lower your barrel a bit.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind if I need to pin down some invasion troops.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Lawrence. I knew your granddaddy in the war.”
Wade looked at him for a minute. “I was just messing.”
“Knew your daddy too, Lawrence.” Pete exhaled through his nose loudly, then turned to leave.
“Call me Wade. Only my deaf Aunt Tilly calls me Lawrence.”
After a short pause, Pete faced Wade again. “You need a spotter, Lawrence.” Without waiting for a reply, Pete headed back toward his rear deck.
Mitch watched Wade, who stared at his Vegge-zilla, possibly trying to decide how much disassembly would be necessary, when Norm walked over and led Wade away a few feet. Mitch could not hear what was said, but Norm grabbed Wade’s meaty shoulder and spoke earnestly. He also gestured frequently toward Wade’s device.
Sweat was forming above Norm’s bushy eyebrows, which caught that moisture and could have handled considerably more. Norm pointed to a distant object and his hand traced an arc through the air. Next he pointed to the end of the device’s tube and again arched his hand through the air, but at a different height.
“Wonder what they’re talking about over there.” Kelly smiled discreetly. “Can’t be swapping recipes.”
“I’d say that’s just one mortar man giving pointers to another.” Mitch nodded wisely.
“Huh?”
“I heard somebody say Norm was a lieutenant in charge of a mortar platoon.” Mitch patted her rump discreetly and his hand remained there until she turned around and hugged him.
“I can’t hang around out here with you, Sport. The fleet’s in — I’ve got sailors to meet. Well, mostly soldiers.” Kelly trotted back to the Henleys’ deck.
Mitch watched her trot.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wednesday at 11:55 a.m.
After the Vegge-zilla demonstration, people attending the luncheon went different directions inside the crowded Henley condo.
The host, who had already introduced Kelly to most of the Honor Guard members and several neighbors, was standing near her when Arthur, another neighbor, approached for the luncheon.
“Now that’s Arthur, call him Art. Army engineer in Korea. Don’t recall which outfit but he dealt a lot with explosives. He was a tad young for World War II, but he tried to enlist anyhow. By the middle of ‘45, though, the military wasn’t taking fifteen-year-olds pretending to be seventeen. They took plenty of sixteen-year-old boys in ‘43 and ‘44, though.” Henley shook his head briefly. “But when the North Koreans invaded the South in 1950, Art was one of the first Pulaskians to join up.”
Art lived not directly across the street from Pete, but in the next duplex to the east, in the far half of that condo. Art was nearly six feet four inches tall and gangly, mostly bald with a thin fringe of hair — horseshoe-shaped — around the sides and back of his skull. His goatee was self-trimmed, though he did not manage it obsessively. Because of his heart stent, Art was on blood thinning medicine which always made him feel cold. He was the only person at the luncheon wearing a windbreaker on that warm afternoon.
He had never joined the American Legion despite several invitations, but Art had been a guest at some of the Legion events and knew most of the Honor Guard members. Since his wife was visiting her sick sister in Cincinnati, Art had been on his own for meals in the past week and was looking forward to Irene’s big luncheon.
Art drove a big Chrysler sedan about eight years old. Washing it earlier, he had parked on the street to keep the soapsuds from running into his grass. But after it had dried, he couldn’t get the car started again. So Art’s first question on arrival was whether anyone had a battery charger.
Pete greeted him. “Come on in, Art. Yeah, I got a charger somewhere. Let me get these folks moving in the right direction and I’ll go find it for you after we eat a bit.”
Art thanked him and headed toward the smell of food.
Back outside, Herb the goat man had checked on Billie again, way up the street past the duplex to the west of Norm’s unit. Satisfied the goat had enough water and blackberry briars, Herb returned along the street and headed inside toward Irene’s assembled food.
Ellie intercepted him in the entry way. “Herb, you and me gotta talk. Now, yer old enough to be my daddy, but I’m just bossy enough to be yer momma, so I kin just tell you straight.” They stood eye-to-eye, both about the same height. “Yer spending too much time with that Bless George goat and yer starting to smell like him.”
Herb was startled, but he didn’t debate the matter. He suspected Ellie’s assessment was accurate, even if overly blunt. “Crime-n-Italy, Ellie. It ain’t like I’m sleeping with Billie. He just stays in my truck all the time. So the truck might be smelling a little ripe. That’s all.”
Ellie reached for the front of Herb’s shirt, brushed off a sprinkling of sawdust, and lightly twiddled the button second from the top. “Yer as much of an old goat as Billie is. Now go wash up before you eat.” She patted the button she’d been holding.
Herb looked down at Ellie’s strong tanned hand on his chest and started to say something to the handsome younger woman standing so closely. But then he looked over at Chet and just sighed.
Isaiah appeared in the open doorway. Like most others, he had also changed from his uniform before arriving. When he entered, some of the conversations stopped until the guests who’d never met him realized he was invited. Such awkward moments were among the reasons Isaiah didn’t often attend Honor Guard luncheons. But Pete had made such a point of the invitation, so Isaiah decided to accept. Might’ve been a mistake. Being the only dark face in a crowd of some three dozen whites was not new to him, but it almost never felt comfortable.
Chet saw him and nodded — an effusive greeting from Chet. Ellie came over, shook his hand, and spoke briefly.
Pete smiled broadly and grabbed Isaiah’s forearm. “Glad you cou
ld make it. You’re just in time.” He pointed vaguely toward the rooms full of guests. “You know all the Legion men, of course. I think you’ve met some of my neighbors.”
Isaiah cleared his throat. “I probably won’t be able to stay very long.”
“Well, while you’re here, enjoy the food. Irene has gone all out.”
Irene came over. “Glad to see you again, Isaiah.” She usually asked about his wife, because Irene couldn’t seem to remember if Isaiah was married, divorced, or widowed. Instead, however, she introduced Isaiah to Kelly.
Kelly shook his hand and asked a few questions about the Red Ball Express.
In the back yard, things were cooking. From Wade’s local dwelling in the northwest part of Somerset, he had hauled over a long metal trailer loaded with his golf cart, a huge grill, various boxes and crates, plus a special bracket he’d built just to hold his vegetable mortar.
Since unloading the grill, he’d been cooking several kinds of meat Irene kept bringing out the back door to the small wooden deck. There were burgers, of course, plus a few chicken breasts, some spicy sausage patties, and a few loops of juicy bratwurst. Sometimes it was agonizing to be the chef for such an array without consuming most of the results. Wade’s solution was a small pocketknife he’d occasionally pull out to cut a sliver and check the status of the item being grilled.
It was warm for that early October midday and he was already sweating heavily after monitoring his grill for only about twenty minutes. As he’d previously explained to Kelly, preparing meat was an art. One must baby it, spray the porous rocks which buffer the propane flames, brush on some special sauce occasionally, et cetera. Plus they must be poked, prodded, and nudged a bit. When the maestro ran out of other things to do, he must shift the portions around, swapping positions over the hotter areas of flame.
Everybody else was inside the Henley place ready to consume Irene’s big spread. Not even Irene got an actual count of the guests, but they spilled over into the dining area, living space, kitchen, and sun porch. A few were even out on the periphery: rear deck and front stoop. Must have been about three dozen total.
