Something About a Soldier - Charles Willeford

by Charles Willeford

  "East Fifth is my beat,. and I'm down there every day. If I see either one of you on Skid Row again, you're going to Lincoln Heights on a vag charge. And that means three days in the slammer, twenty-seven days suspended. You ever been in Lincoln Heights before?"

  "No, sir," I said. Willie shook his head.

  "I guarantee you won't like it. So as of now, both of you guys are washed up on Skid Row! D'you understand me?" .

  We nodded and got out of the car. The cop was a big man, and looked as tough as he talked. I was completely sober now. I noticed that the sleeves of my suit jacket were torn loose at the seams under the arms. But my mind was bemused by what the cop had said.

  Jesus Christ! I was only nineteen years old and I was washed up on Skid Row!

  Hell, from Skid Row, there was no place lower to go. The absurdity of it hit me, and I started to laugh again. I laughed so hard I had to sit on the curb. Willie didn't laugh with me, but he sat beside me. He fingered his teeth to see if they were all there. They were, but his front teeth were a little loose.

  "You lost your hat," he said.

  I felt my head; the fedora was gone. "I can't go back for it, either, because I'm washed up on Skid Row."

  "That cop didn't scare me," Willie shrugged. "I've been in Lincoln Heights before. I ate swordfish there for three days, courtesy of Zane Grey, who donates all the swordfish he catches to the county jail. They don't know how to fix it, though. They boil it, and that isn't the best way to cook swordiish. But if you're scared, Charles, I'll go back and find your hat for you."

  "It wouldn't be there. It's a new hat. Somebody's probably sold it by now. Did you ever eat any dog, Willie?"

  "Not yet."

  "Dog's got to be better than boiled swordfish. Why did you kick that guy's crutch out from under him?"

  "Why did it rain? Why did it stop?"

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  "Everything," he said. "Everything."

  We sat there for a long time, smoking my Chesterfields, not talking, thinking our own thoughts. Then Willie got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and started walking up Figueroa toward Eighth Street. I watched him go, but he didn't turn around and wave, and I didn't tell him good-bye.

  TWENTY-ONE

  IT DOESN'T PAY A MAN TO TAKE his worries too seriously, but it didn't take much thought to realize that life as an L.A. civilian could only lead, at best, to bleaker prospects. When the fifty dollars I had given my grandmother was gone I would have to leave, and I didn't have anywhere to go. Job prospects were dismal for everyone, not just for me. Of the guys I had known most of my life, only one was working, and he had a low-paying job as a swamper on a Van de Kamp's bakery truck. The other guys, still living with their parents, or an aunt, or a divorced working mother, hung around Exposition Park in the daytime and around the comer at night. When they had a little cash, they shot pool or had donuts and coffee in Johnson's Donut Shop, but most of the time they just stood around in the parking lot next to the donut shop. If a man had no money at all, he wasn't cordially welcomed by Pop in the poolroom either. On the counter, Pop kept a water glass full of tightly rolled marijuana cigarettes, which he sold for ten cents apiece. Marijuana was an inadequate substitute for a gallon of wine, but a man can't graduate to drinking if he's broke. Reefers were for the kids still going to Manual Arts High in the next block, not for us, who were all men now, not children. But these guys, my age and older, still seemed like kids to me. Any man who has been a soldier feels superior to men who have not been in the Army. He has been tested, and they have not. It was also strange to call these guys by their first names again, after being used to addressing men by their last names only. And some of the nicknames, which had sounded natural in grammar school and junior high, no longer seemed germane. There was "Pep," who got his nickname in the seventh grade by falling asleep in center field during a softball game, and "Stinkbag," who never, to anyone's knowledge, skinned back or cleaned his uncircumcised cock, and Four-Eyes," who had worn glasses since the fifth grade. I could not bring myself to call a guy who now wore pleated gabardine pants and a necktie and looked as clean as anyone else "Stinkbag," so I called him Wayne, his real name. The other guys still called him "Stinkbag," and it didn't bother him a bit. I was still called "Sonny," but I no longer felt like a "Sonny."

  Time meant nothing to these guys, either. I had been away for more than three years, and yet, to them my long absence meant nothing. Like Willie Taylor, they hadn't "seen me around the corner for a while," that's all. I resented their lack of curiosity about where I had been and what I had done, but my resentment was short-lived. I had outgrown these guys, and the only thing I had in common with them was a lack of money.

  There were two or three girls I would have liked to see, but I couldn't look them up without any money to spend. A man should be able to buy a girl a Coke, or take her to a movie—something. But this idea didn't bother these other guys. They would drop in at a girlfriend's house, usually around suppertime, eat with her family, and hang around all evening listening to the radio or helping the girlfriend make fudge. The girls understood their situation, but I couldn't do something like that.

  There was only one thing for me to do, and that was to re-enlist. It was as inevitable as doom.

  That wasn't my intention, however, when I took the number 5 streetcar downtown to Main Street. I told myself I was going to talk to the recruiting sergeant about the Reserves. I would tell him I wanted some of that "found money" he was talking about. He remembered me when I came into the office and shook hands with me, ignoring two other guys who had been sitting in the oflice when I arrived.

  "You couldn't've picked a better day to come in," he said. "Let me see your discharge."

  I handed it over. He read it and smiled. "I've got four openings this morning, but none in the Air Corps. However—"

  "I don't want the Air Corps anyway. I'm not sure what branch I want, but I never want to wear dirty coveralls aga1n."

  "You're down as a chauffeur," he said, tapping my discharge, "so almost anywhere you go they'll probably make you drive a truck."

  "I just want straight duty."

  "How about the cavalry? I can send you up to Monterey in the Eleventh Cavalry, and before you do anything else you have to learn how to ride a horse. Ever ride a horse before?"

  "No. I was on a horse when I was six because a man came around the neighborhood with a horse and camera, and my mother had a picture taken of me sitting on the horse. My grandmother still has the picture, and I look scared."

  "That's all the better. I'm a field artilleryman, as you can see, and the worst thing that can happen to a man is to already be a cowboy when he starts riding military style. He has to forget all the bad habits he's already leamed, so we prefer a man who knows nothing at all about horses, in the cavalry and in the Field Artillery both."

  "What else is open?"

  "Infantry, Panama, and infantry, Fort Missoula, Montana." .

  "Montana? I didn't know they had any infantry in Montana."

  "There's a battalion up there. It isn't bad duty if you like snow. During the winter they don't do much of anything because they're snowed in. And in the summer you can get hunting passes to shoot mountain sheep. And, of course, you've heard about the Thirty-third Infantry in Panama. Why don't you talk to the colonel?" the sergeant suggested.

  "The colonel?"

  ·"That's right. Colonel Hanson. He's a cavalry officer, our L.A. recruiting officer."

  "And I was wearing a beret," I said.

  "A beret?"

  "In the picture. The photographer didn't have a cowboy hat for me to wear, so my mother got her beret and put it on my head. A kid wearing a beret looks silly sitting on a horse, especially when he's scared. And I remember now. I was really scared." (I was nervous, or I wouldn't have rattled on like that.)

  "I'll be back in a minute."

  He went into the other office, and I waited. The two other guys, both eighteen or nineteen, sitting
on the bench against the wall, looked frightened. One guy licked his lips and looked at the door. If the recruiting sergeant didn't come back soon, that kid was going to bolt. But the sergeant came back and told me that the colonel would talk to me now.

  I went into the colonel's office, wondering whether to salute or not. I wasn't back in the Army yet, but old habits are hard to forget. What the hell? I thought. I saluted the old lieutenant colonel and stood attention.

  "Sit down, son," he said, pointing to his client's chair. He was old, truly old, with a close-cropped circle of white hair around a brown bald skull, and although he was fat, he looked sick. His tanned face was splotchy, and there were brown spots ("death marks," my grandmother called them) on the backs of his wrinkled hands. He was probably on the verge of retirement and they had assigned him to recruiting to fill in the bottom line on his last dance card.

  He was wearing a gray gabardine shirt, highly pegged breeches, and a pair of boots, with chromium spurs, that must have cost at least a himdred dollars. The effect of his beautifully tailored uniform was spoiled by his paunch. It was like a basketball under his shirt. He folded his hands on top of it.

  "Sergeant Morgan told me you were in the Air Corps, but that you now want to re-enlist in the cavalry. That interests me. Most of the young men who come in here ask us about the Air Corps first."

  "They probably associate the Air Corps with flying. I was in the Air Corps three years, but never had a plane ride. I drove a gas truck."

  "I see, and you didn't like it?"

  "It was an easy job, sir, but it wan't what I wanted to do as a soldier. On the other hand, I don't know anything about the cavalry. The Philippine Scouts at Fort Stotsenburg at least wore uniforms, not coveralls."

  "You were at Stotsenburg?"

  "At Clark Field."

  "I commanded a troop in the Twenty-sixth Cavalry once. It was a pleasant three years for me, but I never made the polo team. I've won my share of ribbons in horse shows, but I could never hit the polo ball worth a damn. Of course, as an enlisted man, you won't be able to play polo, but you'll be able to enter horse shows. The Chamberlain seat is the answer to that. When you think your stirrups are too short, tighten them up one more notch. That's the secret to the forward seat. That, and good hands. But they'll teach you how to ride. You're a fine-looking young man, just the kind we like to get in the cavalry. I've been commanding this station for six months, and you're the first young man who's come in wearing a suit and tie."

  I was glad now that I had sewn up the jacket seams under the arms, and that my white shirt was clean.

  "What else," he said, "can I tell you about the cavalry?"

  "How far is Monterey from L.A.?"

  "I'm not sure. Less than three hundred miles, I'd say. Why?"

  "I live in L.A. with my grandmother, and might want to come home on a three-day pass. I rode down from San Francisco on the bus, but I don't remember coming through Monterey."

  "That's because you didn't. Monterey's out on the peninsula. You probably came through Salinas, where they have the rodeo every year. That's another thing. You'll be able to_ride in the Salinas rodeo and make some extra money. Last year a trooper from F Troop, Eleventh Cavalry, won the Brahma bull-riding contest."

  "Before I try the rodeo, I'd better wait till I've finished basic training first."

  He laughed at that. Then he looked at his watch and got to his feet. I stood up too, saluted, and went into the outer office. He was right behind me, tapping his paunch with a riding crop.

  "You got anything else for me to sign, Sergeant Morgan?"

  "No, sir."

  "In that case, I'll be leaving now. If you need me for anything this afternoon I'll be at the Standard Club." He handed the sergeant a dollar bill. "Before you send these men down to San Pedro, see that they get haircuts. It'll make a better impression down there."

  The colonel returned Sergeant Morgan's salute and left the office.

  The three of us spent about an hour filling out papers. Then Sergeant Morgan gave us meal tickets for supper and breakfast at the U.S. Café, and a ticket apiece to turn in to the desk clerk at the Roslyn Hotel. We would have a three-man hotel room for the night. Sergeant Morgan gave me seventy-five cents in change and told me to take the other two men (Shimer and Abbott) out for a two-bit haircut. After their haircuts, Shimer and Abbott both had to go home and get their mothers to sign permission papers for them to get into the Army. When we got downstairs,

  I took them down the street to the Main Street barber college, where haircuts were fifteen cents apiece, or two haircuts for a quarter. I got the fifteen-cent haircut, with short sidewalls, and told the other barbers to give the same kind to Shimer and Abbott. This way I had thirty-five cents left over, which I retained. Sergeant Morgan, of course, had kept the other quarter from the colonel's dollar.

  After we checked into the Roslyn and went up to our room, I told Shimer and Abbott that they didn't have to I come back that night. They could stay home all night if they wanted to, but they had to be back by eight in the morning. We could check out then, eat breakfast, and be back at the recruiting office by nine. Abbott had signed up for Fort Missoula, Montana, and Shimer was going to the 11th Cavalry with me. In addition to permission forms signed by their mothers, they also needed three letters of recommendation apiece. I told them how to write the letters.

  "Just head the letter ‘To Whom It May Concern' and say ‘I think Shimer [Abbott] would be a good man for the service,' and get three neighbors to sign their names and addresses. "

  They both wrote this information down on some hotel stationery, and Abbott asked me whether "service" was spelled with an "e" or a "u." (That question explained why the dumb bastard had signed up for Fort Missoula, Montana.)

  "Don't worry about it," I told them. "These letters are never checked. So if you can't get three neighbors to sign them, just pick three names at random out of the phone book, in your neighborhood, and fake the signatures and addresses. "

  But they were both certain they could get three neighbors to sign their letters. I left the room key at the desk, and we,all took off in our own different directions.

  ***

  I WAITED UNTIL AFTER SUFPER BEFORE TELLING MATTIE that I was re-enlisting in the Army the next morning. She cried about it because she didn't want me to go. But after we talked, and I told her that I'd be able to come home every once in a while from Monterey, she became reconciled.

  "After all," I told her, "the Depression can't last forever. Maybe by the time this hitch is over, the Depression will be over too. I can't stay here and live off you and Uncle Roy, and there's no way he can increase your allowance to include me. And even if he could, I wouldn't feel right about it."

  At ten-thirty I packed my toilet articles, clean underwear and socks, and my other white shirt in a paper sack, and left,. Mattie insisted on giving me a dollar bill, even though I told her I didn't need it. I told her that I had to stay downtown at the hotel because I had to be at the oflice early. I didn't, but I couldn't stand the idea of another emotional scene, all over again, at breakfast. I felt lousy riding the streetcar downtown, and if there hadn't been other people in the car I probably would have cried. Shimer and Abbott didn't know how long three years in the Army could be—but I did.

  TWENTY-TWO

  WE STAYED IN THE CASUAL BARRACKS IN SAN Pedro for three days, just long enough to get physical exams, our typhoid and smallpox shots, sworn in, and measured for uniforms. Cavalrymen were only issued one uniform at San Pedro, however, because there was a shortage of cavalry boots. I liked the idea of boots instead of wrap leggings; they laced up the front, almost to the knee, and they were much more comfortable. Cavalry and field artillery uniforms were undoubtedly the handsomest uniforms in the Army.

  Shimer, the kid from L.A., and I took the train together from San Pedro. We were given three silver dollars apiece, and sleepers in the Pullman car, even though we had to be awakened at four A.M. at Watsonville Junction. We waite
d at the junction station for a half hour for another train to take us on the spur line into Monterey.

  After we reported into headquarters, at the Presidio of Monterey, we were both assigned to Machine Gun Troop. We joined a group of twenty or so recruits in a separate barracks squad-room behind Headquarters Troop. We ate at our regular troop mess halls, but all of us recruits in this large squadroorn were from different troops on the post, including the line outfits, A, B, and F troops. They were waiting for a complement of thirty new men, enough to form a platoon, before beginning our basic training. Micaloni was in this bunch too, as I mentioned earlier, and for more than a month he had been doing odd jobs and details while he waited for basic training. Shimer was only five foot seven, wore size eleven boots, and stuck to me like white on rice. When we came up on the train he bombarded me with questions about the Army, but I was as much in the dark about the cavalry as he was.

  The other recruits came from all over California, not just from L.A. There were also two young guys, both nineteen, from Ogden, Utah. These two, Bartlett and Wilcox, were Mormons. Their parents had sent them away from home for two years without any money to be Mormon missionaries. They were supposed to recruit Gentiles, as they called everyone who wasn't a Mormon, into the Mormon Church. Broke, hungry, and tired after hitchhiking from Ogden to Sacramento, they gave up the idea of being missionaries, lied about their ages, and joined the Army.

  These two guys were pitiful. They had failed their families and their church, and they felt guilty. When they finally wrote home and told their parents they were in the Army, their parents tore their letters into pieces and mailed them back. Sometimes, late at night, you could hear them crying in their bunks, trying to stifle their sobbing. I didn't know anything about the Mormon religion, but I thought it was cruel to send two penniless men away from home for two years to be missionaries. These guys were both from large families, and fairly well-to-do families at that, and had no knowledge of the outside world. How in the hell had the Mormon Church and their parents expected them to survive?