by Deforest Day
The Loadmaster pointed to a spot on the tarmac under the wing of the giant aircraft. A yellow circle marked a six-inch deep hole with a tie-down ring at the bottom. “Stand the fuck there and don’t fuckin’ move until I tell you.” He stomped back to the rear of the aircraft. “Fuckin’ civilians!”
Raising his bullhorn, he directed a ballet of forklifts, container trucks, and contract workers that ended forty minutes later with a fully loaded C-17 Globemaster III, ready to taxi to the flight line. As soon as the flight crew showed up.
A sleek, twin-engine Lear taxied past. Its engines spooled down and their high pitched whine became a whisper. The door opened, stairs unfolded. Eleven men descended. Swarthy, unkempt beards, native garb. They clustered around the baggage hatch, watching a jitney pulling a string of empty carts thread its way toward them.
“Camel jockeys,” Bumpsy said, and dropped to a squat against a tire taller and fatter than he was. He wondered what kind of shitfit the loadmaster would have if he lit up.
Chick looked them over. “They’s some kind of foreigners.” One of the men called to the jitney driver. “Hear that? he’s talking Fartsy.”
“Whatever they are, they’re gonna need what I don’t.” Howie picked up his K-pot, stuck it under his arm, walked toward the group. “Any of you guys talk American?”
One of the men turned. He had a hat that looked like a pancake, and a heavy jacket like the one his grandpa wore, back when Howie was in first grade. The man wasn’t just dark, he was black. He eyeballed Howie, smiled. “I can talk it, a little bit. Wassup, mo’ fo’?”
“Hey, a brother! This is your lucky day, bro. ‘cause you’re gonna need one of these helmets and this here bullet proof vest I got. I can let you have the pair for a thousand. Cost me twelve hundred, and it ain’t even been shot at. Whata ya say?”
“I say you’re an asshole, Waggoner.”
The sound of the name drew the Farsi speaker’s attention. “Waggoner? You related to Henry Waggoner? Bob Justice's cousin? Second Battalion, 101st Airborne?” Davy walked over, studied Howie, gave Chick and Bumpsy a swift survey.
Howie shook his head. “Naw, I ain’t in the Army. We’re exterminators, been killing bugs. Reason I’m selling this stuff, is we’re heading home. Don’t need it no more.”
The copilot of the Lear came down the stairs and unlocked the baggage hatch. The men started removing their gear, piling it on the carts. Enough armament to start their own war. Including K-pots and body armor. “Take your helmet home,” the Farsi speaker said, chuckling. “A souvenir.”
“Frikko.” Howie trudged back beneath the wing of the Globemaster, sat on the helmet.
Major Baer came aboard just as the gigantic rear doors closed with a hydraulic whine and the four Pratt & Whitney engines came to life. He settled into a seat next to Manny, Moe, and Jack, and considered the many ways to launder bundles of cash without drawing the attention of the IRS. As he had done a time or two, back in Cleveland.
Separating the money from his new partners could wait. “Tell me,” he ordered, “all about Shaleville, Pennsylvania.
Chapter 11
In no time at all Sergeant Justice was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Sergeant Driver was in Erbil, Iraq. Justice was confined to barracks, a situation somewhere between desk duty and clapped in irons. Driver was checking ID's at Battalion HQ, a situation somewhere between scanning groceries and jury duty.
His Special Forces unit, men more at home moving fast and living rough, began exploring avenues of escape from their new routine. For Driver it meant grabbing the brass ring of accrued leave. He constructed a new pipeline to Penny.
Greetings from sunny, scenic Kurdistan!
The place is a combination of a cluster and the word Mom spanked us for saying.
Shia, Sunni, Kurds, ISIS suicide bombers, and contractors from all over; Iraqis, civilians from the States, Saudis, Filipinos. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
It’s pretty boring here. I long for Afghanistan, where Justice and I roamed free. Crazy as it sounds, I miss hunting for our supper and sleeping on the bare ground. Bob is right; so called ‘civilization’ is less civilized than nature.
Speak of The devil, he got caught between a rock and a hard place, and they shipped him back to the States. I’ve told you about some of his exploits. This last one (very, very classified, so use your imagination!) was as much my fault as his, and I feel bad.
On the brighter side, I’ve got fifteen days leave coming, so I have started the process that I hope will end with me in Shaleville. Wherever that is. ‘Til then,
Love ya Sis,
Davy
Chapter 12
Eight time zones later the Globemaster landed at its home base, the 305th Air Mobility Wing, McGuire AFB, New Jersey. Major Baer’s Class A uniform and a sheaf of official forms sped them through the Air National Guard reception process. In the military even the outrageous becomes mundane, if accompanied by proper documentation.
He led the trio to the base PX, and handed them each a hundred dollars, told them to exchange their singed and smoke scented clothing for new outfits. He bought an off the rack suit, added a couple of shirts and enough underwear to see him through the next few days. His Army uniform, shorn of identifying tags and insignia, went into a dumpster behind the building.
Two hours later the RoachMobile, with Bumpsy behind the wheel, and Major Baer riding shotgun, was on I-78, heading home. Howie, Chick and Mr. Tomczak's steel coffin followed in a yellow U-Haul. “How much you think we got in the RoachMobile?”
“Aw, man. I don’t know; gotta be thousands. We’ll find out soon enough, Howie. What you plan to do with your share?”
“First thing, is go see Pudge. See just how many beers she can squeeze out of a hundred dollar bill!”
They delivered their former employer to the Johnson Funeral Home, to finish the cremation begun in an Erbil garage. Government paperwork documented his demise, and a handful of Major Baer’s cash sped its accomplishment. Chick chose the stainless steel urn, basic model, $59.95.
Howie watched two men in black suits and white shirts unload Mr. Tomczak from the van, and said, “I been here three times. For Pop Pop, Gran, and my Dad.”
“Four.”
“Huh?”
He pointed. “We roach sprayed the basement, where they keep the bodies.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. But that was business, not pleasure.”
“Sometimes I wonder about you.”
They drove to the Ford dealership, turned in the U-Haul, got a rental car for Major Baer, using his cash and Howie's driver's license. Chick dealt with the paperwork while Howie checked out the new pickups lined up along the highway under fluttering red white and blue bunting.
Howie and Chick walked into the old garage, found Major Baer up on the truck, wearing a Level Three HAZMAT suit, courtesy of the late Mr. Tomczak. Bumpsy, having spend more than a year dealing with the chemicals every day, had a more casual attitude. He just wore elbow-length yellow rubber gloves.
The Major had a broom handle and a wire coat hanger formed into a fish hook. He searched in the viscous liquid, came up with a shrink-wrapped package of cash, dripping with foul-smelling witch's brew. He lowered it to Bumpsy, then angled for another.
Bumpsy washed the bundles in a bucket of solvent, eyes smarting from the fumes. The Major locked the hatch, reconnected the Claymore, climbed down.
Chick said, “What the hell?”
“There’s gotta be way more than that in there,” Howie yelled, memories emerging from the smoke, fire, and confusion of that other garage. “Me and Chick figured there was thousands of dollars!”
Bumpsy glowered. “Fuckin’ A, there’s more, mister. A lot more. What the hell you pulling?”
Baer ignored their outrage as he peeled off the suit, spread it on the desk, and dropped the two stacks of money on it. Then rummaged in the drawers, found a letter opener, used it to slit the plastic. He tossed the wrapping aside, and divided the m
oney into four equal piles, each less than two inches thick.
He looked up from the task, eyed each man in turn, watched them squirm beneath his stare. “Of course there’s more. You boys know that better than I do. You put it there.”
It the heat of the moment, literally, he doubted that they had any idea of how many shrink wrapped bundles were in a box, nor how many boxes they'd transferred from the vault to the truck.
He remembered the stories of similar stashes, discovered after the fall of Baghdad, so many years ago. Civil Affairs and the Military Police had been responsible for the counting and security of the more than a billion dollars recovered in those few frantic weeks.
He pushed three of the stacks to the edge of the desk. “I’m an accountant by trade. I know money, I know about the laws governing money, and I know the Government. If we empty that truck, go our separate ways, it won’t be a week before a horde of local, state, and federal agencies are crawling all over you fellows, wanting to know the source of your sudden wealth.” He pocketed the fourth stack. “Consider this a taste; walking around money, until I can sort things out, set things up.” He clapped his hands together, and the sudden pop made them jump. “In the meantime, don’t get crazy. Anybody asks, this is money you earned over there.” He pointed at the truck. “And, if any of you have some cute idea of doing something stupid, remember what happened to your former boss.”
Remember. Chick wished he could forget. He put the cremation urn and Taurus keys on the desk. His own car, a black Z28 Camaro, eight years younger than Chick, was in the lot, keys behind the visor. He couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of his baby. And away from this lunatic.
Bumpsy’s bike was where he had left it, a few short weeks ago, in a corner of the garage. He said he needed some thinkin’ room, and wheeled it outside, kicked it to life, roared out of the lot.
Howie started to follow Chick. Baer picked up the urn, and stiff armed Howie's chest. It was like walking into a wall. “Lock up, sonny, then drive me to Tomczak’s.”
Howie pulled to the curb in front of a row house with aluminum siding and vinyl shutters. “Wait here,” Baer ordered, and quickly crossed the sidewalk, then climbed several shallow concrete steps, to a narrow wooden porch. He rang the bell.
Howie watched Mr. Baer talk to Mrs. Tomczak, saw him catch her by the elbow, lead her into the house, close the door. Ten minutes later Howie muttered, “Frikko”, and went across the street, to Ma.
Who also nearly fainted, when he walked into the kitchen. Her teeth were in a glass on the drain board, and her mouth was a gaping tunnel in a wrinkled mountainside of flesh. She turned from the sink, sunlight flashing in her eyeglasses. She dropped a dish, wrapped her arms around him, pressed her face to his chest, and wept. When he finally freed himself from her smothering hug his shirt was damp; tears in front, dishwater in the back.
She bent over the sink, fumbled her dentures back into place, crossed herself, and cried, “Thank the Lord you’re back, safe and sound. I been worried sick since the day you drove away with them others. Promise me you won’t go off again; my poor old heart won’t take it.”
“Aw, Ma. Quit treatin’ me like a kid.” He went to the fridge, found a two-liter bottle of A-Treat cream soda, and poured a glass. “You got any cake?”
“Sit,” she said, putting a green Fiestaware plate and a Tupperware container on the kitchen table. Inside was a box mix yellow cake, two layers, with fudge icing and confetti sprinkles. She’d made it only yesterday, hadn’t known why at the time, but now she saw it was clearly a sign from on high. She sought the comfort of the rosary in her apron pocket
“Big slice, Ma. I ain’t had cake like yours since I left.”
She cut a wedge, and carefully laid it on the plate, then got her son a fork, and sat, holding his free hand in hers, and watching him eat. “So, Howie, how was it over there? Dangerous, was it?”
“Crazy,” he said around a mouthful of cake.
“Well, all I can say is, I’m glad you’re back home again, safe and sound. We didn’t expect to see you boys for months, yet.”
“Yeah, I know.” Howie washed down the last of the cake with the last of the soda. “Mr. Tomczak got kilt, so we come home.”
“Kilt!” She crossed herself. “My word, but that’s terrible news. Does Mrs. Tomczak know?”
Howie left the plate and the glass on the table, stepped to the cellar door, thinking about that Mr. Baer man across the street. “She does now.”
He hurried down cellar; time to harvest some fresh buds. Over there they’d heard tales of hash and ganj and opium and such, but, not speaking that Fartsy, they hadn’t scored none.
The stone walls, given a fresh coat of whitewash every spring before his dad took sick, were dingy. Narrow, rough-sawn shelves that once were crammed with Mason jars were empty. A wooden bin in the corner that little Howie had helped fill with glossy chunks of anthracite gathered at the mine spoil, now held a half inch of black dust.
Back when Gran had lived with them she spent the summer and fall putting up jams and jellies, vegetables from the back yard beds, pickled cuts of venison when some neighbor dropped off a front shoulder. Habits; left over from the depression, and later, when the mines began to close.
Her John started out at sixteen as a back sight rod man on an underground survey crew, and worked his way up through the ranks, from door boy to loader, laborer, and finally company miner with a union card.
Through the years of layoffs, mine closures, down sizing, and bankruptcies he continued to be a company man, until the company left and he was reduced to working bootleg holes. It was all he knew.
Howie was just a kid when the old man had died, ‘miner’s asthma’ Gran called it, the obituary in the Shaleville Recorder named it black lung. His son, Howie’s father, saw what the mines had done, swore he’d find work above ground.
He worked a drag line in the open pit for thirty years, until he died of Camel lung. Howie vaguely remembered his Pop Pop coughing up blood, then watched his father dwindle to eighty five pounds, and swore he’d never smoke another cigarette. Tobacco, that is. Marijuana didn’t cause cancer. Everybody knew that.
The drip irrigation tubes were clogged with crystalized fertilizer and Ma had turned off the lights. His plants were withered and dead. “Frikko,” he said, and rolled a fatty with salvage.
His mother’s voice echoed from the top of the stairs. “Sweetheart? Chick’s here.”
“Send him down, Ma.”
He passed the doobie and waved his arm at his crop. “Can you believe this?”
Chick sucked in a hit. “Hey, now you can buy all the primo you want.”
“Yeah, but growin’ it gave me a purpose in life.” He took the joint from Chick and studied it. He hadn’t thought of that; he could indeed buy all of anything. Before Eye-rack his fortune consisted of what was shoved in the front pocket of his pants. A few hundred dollars the day after payday, spare change the day before. He grinned. Things were going to be different from now on. “Speaking of buy, Chick, I need you to give me a ride back to the Ford dealer. I ain’t begging for Ma’s Civic no more. Time to get my own set of wheels!”
Chapter 13
When you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up they say a Nurse a Fireman a Mommy. Justice said a Soldier. Like my Daddy and his Daddy before him.
The first Justice in America left his ship at the foot of Market Street, found Philadelphia too busy for his liking, and walked west, momentarily pausing to buy a map from a printer named Franklin.
He settled long enough in Lancaster to learn the intricacies of the Pennsylvania rifle, then continued on, following the Crocketts and the Boones through the Cumberland Gap, and into Tennessee, where he was fruitful, and multiplied.
Along the way he and his offspring fought the indians, the French and Indians, the British, the indians again, then the Mexicans, the Yankees, and the Spaniards in Cuba.
Having run out of New World foes, a Justice went
back across the Atlantic, and helped the British and the French fight the Germans. Twice. Because Tennessee is the Volunteer State.
Over the previous twelve years Private, Corporal, and then Sergeant Justice, along with every other career noncom, had weeded and watered, toiled and pruned in the enlisted vineyard. Now he consumed the vintages laid down over those years. Instead of facing vague charges threatened by General Roark, he hand-carried his separation paperwork through a speedy mustering out process at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Generals decide, Sergeants provide; officers may give the orders, but it is the noncoms who execute them.
Twenty four hours after his out-processing he was an assistant manager in a sporting goods store owned by a pair of retired Supply Corps sergeants.
He ran 10k three times a week, and bought a set of free weights. Volunteered to ride the community ambulance on weekends. Scraping drunks off the highway was not all that different from dealing with combat trauma.
He enjoyed working in the sporting goods store; it was a gentle transition from using the equipment to save his own life while taking the lives of others, to teaching civilians how to safely enjoy the outdoors.
And it kept him from dwelling on the disenchantment.
Mid afternoon; he was setting up a display of a self erecting tent that was anything but. A couple came in with a boy, about ten. Arguing. He left the tent to finish the job by itself, and greeted the family.
They ignored what he thought was a friendly hello. “He’s plenty old enough, Janet. I was only eight when I got one.”
“Yes, well; things were different a hundred years ago. And Montana is a whole lot different from Tennessee.”
“Right. Physics West of the Rockies are from another dimension.”
“Sarcasm is not the way to win me over, John.”
“OK, OK. How about we let this guy settle it? I imagine he knows something about the subject.” They finally included Justice in the discussion. “Sir. My son’s friend got a BB gun for his birthday, and now Billy wants one. I got my Red Ryder when I was younger than he is, shot a million BB’s with it, and never got hurt. Laid waste to a heck of a lot of grasshoppers, and tormented the family cat and my kid sister, but no harm done. I say he’s old enough, and my wife says they’re too dangerous.”
