Every time I ride on a bus some old lady or a guy who sells bird cages by mail gets the seat next to me. No matter what I do. I concentrate every time some girl comes down the aisle, trying to lure her to sit next to me, but it never works.
“Care for a smoke, soldier?” Blue Jowls snapped out a pack of Camels. They always smoke Camels.
“No, thanks,” I answered, staring out at the gray, frozen Indiana skies as we barreled north along Route 41 toward my new golden life, the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City.
As we pulled out of town, a bullet-riddled sign flapped in the icy wind–COME BACK SOON–LION’S CLUB. I settled deep into my seat and felt a slow, rising wave of excitement banging and crashing around in my guts. Home! A new life! I’m out!
I dozed off in the sweaty half-sleep that you sometimes have in buses and planes. We droned on and on and on. Twilight came and went. The villages became towns, then cities. I slept fitfully.
“Let’s go, buddy. End of the line.”
I woke in a daze. The bus driver rousted a drunken sailor out of a front seat, his blue pea coat covered with a verminous green, lumpy substance. We were the last passengers. The swabbie carried a yellow envelope, too.
Out on the street I pulled my collar up against my old enemy, the Indiana wind, and set out for home. I sniffed the air, the familiar, fragrant, sickening aromatic air of home, redolent of blast furnace fumes, the noxious gases of innumerable refineries, the pungent yet titillating overtones of the Grasselli Chemical Works, subtly blended with the exhalations of Lake Michigan, its frozen, clammy, detergent-laden waters.
Ah, how familiar. How warm. Home is more than just a place, a geographical location, a house. It is light, it is sound, it is smell. I breathed in deeply the rich compost of life-giving poisonous vapor and trudged on into the night. For three years I had not walked this ground. I had grown from callow, feckless youth to hard-jawed, flat-bellied, iron-muscled man. With Company K I had roamed the earth. Now, like all returning warriors throughout history, I had come back to claim my own. The wind screamed through the ropes of my barracks bag, down my spine, around my bent form as I carried it on my back for the last time.
In the darkness I passed a familiar house, half-hidden behind luxurious shrubs. My God, yes! Daphne Bigelow! Beautiful Daphne. Daphne, the Daphne of my dreams. A sick feeling hit me deep in the gut as I remembered the night I had disastrously struck out with Daphne. I straightened up, walking proudly in the darkness, my campaign ribbons digging deep into my chest. She should see me now. By God, she should see me now, my skin bronzed by endless tropical days, pockmarked by endless tropical nights fighting endless tropical mosquitoes and heat rash. I was no longer the sweaty yap who had made such a horse’s ass of himself in the long-ago. It’s a whole new ball game, I exulted.
My eyes were watery from the cold. I battled on past laundries and bowling alleys, past the little candy store where as a loose-limbed stripling I had bought a sinister top. I tacked into the wind and around a bleak corner, and there before me lay the Warren G. Harding School. In the blackness of the playground I almost saw the dark, moving shadows of Farkas and Grover Dill, of Schwartz and Flick, of me playing a ghostly game of softball.
I slogged on past my alma mater, past my infanthood, past the scenes of my most humiliating traumas, into the Future. I felt thirty feet tall; free, strong, magnificent.
At last I walked up the sidewalk of my childhood home, banked high on either side with midwinter Indiana snow. I could see our old garage faintly outlined against the dull cherry-red, the purplish skies of the steel mills off to the north.
Home at last. Easing my barracks bag off my aching shoulder, I straightened up my cap and rang the bell. It hit me suddenly that this was the first time I had ever rung the doorbell of my own home. I glanced at the radium hands on my PX watch, which I had been allowed to buy, as a bona fide GI, at only seven dollars over the price ordinarily charged to mere civilians. It read exactly 2:34 A.M. It was at that instant, that minute, that my new life truly began.
“Who’s there?”
I heard the weak, quavery voice of my mother coming from behind the locked door.
“It’s me, Ma.”
Dead silence. My mother had always been afraid that something was going to come and Get Her out of the dark, and she probably figured that it had now arrived.
“IT’S ME, MA!” I hollered again, louder, in a voice more fitting to a returned warrior still dressed in his armor. I heard faintly a muffled squeak, and the clankings and bangings, the clinkings of chains, latches, and locks being manipulated.
Silence, and then: “I can’t get it open.”
Nothing had changed. That door had been sticking since before I was born, and I knew exactly what to do. I gave it a swift kick at the lower left corner, at the same time hurling my right shoulder forward and simultaneously giving it a blow with my left knee. It never failed. The door swung open.
Instantly, I was engulfed in the totally familiar smell of my own family nest. Every home has its own distinctive aroma, which reflects the diet, the skin condition, the personal habits, the state of deterioration of the sofa, of the specific family that is holed up in that particular cubicle. Meatloaf, red cabbage, the old daybed, moldy tires in the basement, my mother’s Chinese red chenille bathrobe, which faintly breathed out the myriad aromatics of countless breakfasts past, swept over me.
“Ma!” I blurted. “It’s me. I’m home!”
My mother, faintly luminous in the reflected glow of the street light, peered sleepily at me, her hair festooned with aluminum rheostats. For an instant I was sorry that I had not sent a telegram or something letting them know I was coming home. I figured the surprise would really be great. But I had the distinct impression that my mother looked a little like Ebenezer Scrooge seeing the ghost of old Marley rattling his chains.
“What are you doing home?”
“I’m home, Ma. I’m out. Lemme get the hell out of this wind.”
“Don’t use such bad language.”
“Jesus, I’m freezing my ass off!”
I squeezed into the living room, dragging my barracks bag behind me. She closed the door, struggling against the howling Indiana gale. Stumbling into the kitchen, I flipped on the light and sank down at the kitchen table, the old white enamel kitchen table.
My mother seemed stunned to see me squatting in the kitchen, wearing a snowy GI overcoat, loaded down with equipment and speaking a strange tongue. Everything seemed totally unreal, yet so completely familiar, but somehow smaller, more worn.
“When do you have to go back?”
She stood by the sink, plucking nervously at her bathrobe. Obviously I was as unreal to her as she was to me. Three years is a long time.
“I don’t have to go back. I’m out.”
“Out of what?”
She turned on the hot water in the sink and instinctively began to swab the cupboard top with a damp Brillo pad.
“Out of the Army. I’m done. I paid my dues.”
“You mean you’re home for good? Is that what you mean?”
“Yep. Home for good. Got any salami in the icebox?”
I unbuttoned my GI overcoat, pretending not to notice her glistening eyes. Our family never was much for crying, and when someone did, you weren’t supposed to notice.
“I think there’s some summer sausage left. You mean you never have to go back? Never?”
“Never, Mom.”
She busied herself with buttering bread and pouring milk.
“WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON OUT THERE?”
A familiar bellow boomed out through the house. It was the old man.
“HOLY CHRIST! MY GOD ALMIGHTY! I’ll break my leg one night!”
Ever since my twelfth year, when the family invested in a Carole Lombard-style chromium-and-glass coffee table, the old man had regularly crashed into it in the dark. He had more lumps on his shins than a second-string goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks. He lurched into the
light in the kitchen, his long johns flapping.
“Howcome y’didn’t let us know you were coming?” he hollered while rubbing his shin.
“Figured I’d surprise you.”
“Boy, you could have given your mother a heart attack. When y’gotta go back?”
“I’m out.”
I dropped my bomb in the same quiet voice that John Wayne always used in moments of cool.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You’re really out?”
He belted me on the shoulder, spilling my milk all over the table.
“Hey, bring me a beer.”
He always accompanied big moments in his life with a beer, winter or summer. Beer for him spoke the language of Joy.
“Heard from Randy lately?” I asked.
My kid brother was also in the Army, forty million light-years removed around the globe.
“Yep. Got a letter from him last week. Got a case of heat rash.” He banged me on the arm. “It sure is good to have you back.”
The old man took a drag of his Blatz. His stomach rumbled distantly.
“Yep, it sure is good to be here. Yep, it sure is.”
“You’ve grown,” my mother said faintly from near the stove. “You’re so brown …”
“Yep” was all I could think of to say. I had dreamed of this moment for three years, off and on, this instant of reunion. Now here it was, and all I could think to say was “yep,” “nope,” and to chew on a summer sausage sandwich. I was overcome by a great weariness. For the past two weeks we had stood reveille at 5:30 A.M. at the Separation Center; countless formations punctuated by mysterious whistles in the night, and now it was catching up with me.
“What’s the matter? You look sick.”
My mother hovered over me nervously, patting my shoulder tentatively as though touching a mysterious visitor from an unknown planet.
“I guess I’m tired, Ma. Just tired.”
“You better hit the hay. Seven o’clock comes early.” The old man laughed. It was his eternally repeated joke. He had said that every day for as long as I could remember. He never got up at 7 A.M. in his life.
“Yep. It sure does,” I answered.
I got up wearily, went through the dining room into the old familiar bathroom. The sink seemed far lower than it had when I left; the tub was so small. I looked in the mirror. A heavy stubble had emerged since my distant 5:30 A.M. shave four lifetimes ago, when I was still in the Army. My GI tie had twisted slightly under my OD collar. The Signal Corps crossed flags glinted back at me from the mirror. I took off my overseas cap with its orange-and-white braid and tossed it in the tub, doused some water on my face, and slowly began to undress.
“I’ve got your pajamas,” my mother called through the bathroom door.
Five minutes later I was in my childhood sack, back in the bedroom where my fielder’s mitt moldered in the closet and my ice skates rusted under the bureau. Instantly, I tumbled into blackness.
For a minute or two I couldn’t figure out where the hell I was. It was morning; I knew that. But where the hell was I? For the past three years I had gazed up into the dark gloom of tents and barracks’ ceilings. I couldn’t figure out what all those roses and birds were on the walls. A moment of terror hit me, figuring that any minute now the MPs would burst in and drag me out of this whorehouse.
I smelled bacon and heard the whooping and splashing that my old man always made in the john. I leaped out of bed. I was free! Free! Waves of ecstasy roared through every fiber of my being. Never again would Sergeant Kowalski tell me to get the lead out of my ass as he had every morning for years; never again would I have to watch Elkins, our company driver, slurp his soggy Wheaties down like a demented pig. Never again would I pull another shit detail and find myself wallowing around in the grease trap or pulling Latrine Orderly on the weekend and doing nothing but swabbing out crappers.
I pulled on my olive-drab GI shorts, opened my barracks bag, and took out my PX clogs. Dog tags rattling, I wandered out into the kitchen to begin my first civilian day.
The old man was sprawled out at the kitchen table, reading the sports page of the Tribune. My mother hunched over the stove, stirring the Cream of Wheat. I sat down at my usual spot.
“Son of a bitch,” the old man muttered, peering at the paper, “I can’t figure out what the hell them dumb bunnies in the front office are thinking.”
“White Sox make another bad trade?” I asked.
“Boy, they got nothin’ but morons in the front office.”
It was as if the three years hadn’t passed. Every year the White Sox systematically traded away all their talent for an endless succession of little skinny scurrying infielders with many-syllabled names and low batting averages. Every year the old man roared at breakfast with each new outrage.
“What’s that stuff on your back?” my mother asked timidly.
“Heat rash.” I scratched under my arms.
“What are those things on your neck?”
“Dog tags, Mom.”
“Oh? What are they for?”
“Well, it’s like sort of a dog license. If a dog gets lost they can tell who he is by looking at his dog tag. And if you get blown up or something, they can find out who you were, if they can find ’em.”
“Oh.”
She sprinkled brown sugar on my Cream of Wheat, something Banjo Butt, our mess sergeant, never did. I looked around the kitchen at the weak sun streaming through the windows.
“I’ll bet you’re gonna have a wild time New Year’s Eve this year,” the old man laughed as he folded up the paper.
“New Year’s Eve?”
I had forgotten. New Year’s Eve was two days away. In the excitement of coming home, I had even forgotten what time of year it was. New Year’s Eve! The beginning of a new time. Jesus, yes, I gotta get a date for New Year’s. I’m gonna really swing wide and high.
“Gee, that’s right, Dad. I better get myself a date.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. You can have the car. After all, you don’t come home from the Army every day.”
“Fuckin’ A right!”
For one brief flashing blue instant I had the sensation that a grenade had gone off in the kitchen. There was a high, faint ringing in my ears. Everything seemed frozen in place; my mother’s wide staring eyes, my father’s astounded gaping jaw.
Just this exact situation had been a standard running joke in Company K since my days in Basic, the GI home on his first leave calling loudly for the fucking mashed potatoes. My God Almighty! It had happened to me!
Slowly the smoke cleared and the wounded and dying lay about me. I weakly reached out for my spoon and numbly ladled in Cream of Wheat. The old man rose to his feet and said:
“Well, I gotta get off to work. I’ll see ya when I get home, sol’jer.”
He went out the back door. I could hear him laughing on his way to the garage.
“Well, I guess I’ll get dressed and go out. It sure is great to be back.”
I lamely tried to rally. When you’ve really laid a monster egg the best thing to do is pretend nothing has happened.
“What are you going to do today?” my mother asked in a strained voice as she cleaned away the breakfast wreckage.
“Well, I guess I’ll just go out and fool around. Walk around and take a look at things.”
I got up and stretched nonchalantly, still staggered by my spectacular gaffe. I wondered how Gasser was doing back home in his kitchen, and what Zynzmeister was having for breakfast.
I pulled on my OD trousers, took a clean suntan shirt out of my barracks bag, and began to dress. Ten minutes later I was wandering aimlessly up Main Street, looking for action.
It was cold as hell, but I didn’t mind. I was home. I was grown up. I had the world by the ass. My back pocket was full of GI discharge cash. There was nothing I couldn’t do.
I stopped in at the drugstore, squatted on the stool at the fountain where I’d frittered away the better part of my teens, and o
rdered a lemon Coke from the waitress. I didn’t remember her from the old days.
“Where’s Janie?” I asked as she swabbed away at some glasses.
“Janie who?”
“Janie. The girl who works behind the counter. The redhead. Janie … uh … Hutchinson.”
“You sure you got the right place, soldier?” She eyed me narrowly. It was an eerie feeling. What the hell was going on? This was our drugstore, me and Schwartz and Flick. We were the stars here.
Old Doc Millard, the pharmacist, came puttering out of the back and spotted me.
“Is there anything I can do for you, soldier?”
“It’s me, Doc. Don’t you remember me?”
He wiped his hands on his white uniform coat and peered myopically at me through his glasses.
“Why, of course. When did you get back? Well, by George, I certainly do remember you. By George, of course. Um … uh … you’re …”
It was obvious he didn’t remember me from Adam. He went back into his den. I finished my Coke and left as fast as I could.
I strolled aimlessly up the street, past Friendly Fred’s used-car lot, its stiff plastic pennants flapping in the icy breeze, the mass of assembled used clunkers huddling together like a herd of aged buffalo against the cold.
Rounding the corner, I headed toward George’s Bowling Alley and ran smack into a girl. In fact, we almost banged heads. As I ducked right to let her pass, she ducked left and for an instant or two we carried on that idiotic ballet of shifting from foot to foot, making sounds like “oops,” “sorry,” “heh heh.” After the third or fourth duck-and-feint, I recognized her.
“Barbi!”
“Excuse me?” She seemed surprised.
“Barbara. Aren’t you Barbara … uh … Barbara Jean Dorthoffer?”
She backed off warily. “Why, yes. Do I know you?”
“Don’t you remember me? We were in Chemistry class together and …”
She gave me a long, hard look, and brightened as virtuous girls will when they feel danger has passed.
A Fistful of Fig Newtons Page 25
