by John Rechy
I told no one other than her, my brothers and my sisters that I was going into the army. Only one day before I left to be sworn in, I visited my sister Olga: “I’ll miss you so much, little brother,” she sighed. Overwhelmed by a possible wave of sad emotion, I asked her quickly for the latest news—and the last I would hear before leaving—about Isabel Franklin. The prospect of new gossip—information—livened her, a I had intended.
“She’s left New Orleans, that’s all I know. Whatever she was doing there, she did it. Let’s see where she turns up next—and under what new name. What is she up to?”
It was particularly poignant for me to get this not entirely enticing news from my sister now that I was leaving. Her adamant belief that whatever she chose to believe was unassailable had further endeared me to her. I had long accepted, and now smiled at the fact, that she rejected any duty to cite any source other than the original conveyer of information—but only if she liked the source, usually her sister-in-law Tina.
“Good-bye, beautiful sister,” I said.
“Shush! We don’t say good-bye, remember? We say so long.”
“So long, beautiful sister.”
“So long, little brother.”
Leaving my mother—especially leaving her still in the projects—was one of the most mournful moments of my life.
“Que Dios te bendiga, m’ijo,” she blessed me through her tears, matching mine.
Behind her, my father stood mutely, an ambiguous silhouette about to disappear. He extended his hand to me with something in it, which I took. A ring, a ring he had cherished, a ruby, he had said once, that was owned as a tie pin by his grandfather, converted into its present form by his father, given to him, and, now, to me.
Would that sad moment eventually be able to wipe away all the horrors he had inflicted on us, horrors that, only later, I would allow myself even to recall?
I was processed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, from where I would be assigned to a regular unit elsewhere for basic training. Because of its proximity to Louisiana, many Negro—that was the word then—inductees and “Creoles” were being herded there daily with the rest of us.
The tension between Negroes and “Americans” simmered, threatening to erupt. Fists would clench ready to strike at a perceived insult; accusations piled on accusations, threats on threats, for any tiny slight. The heat, the sense of dislocation, of being pushed crowded into flimsy wooden barracks in a distant place not our own, dirt ground into prickly dust by thousands of marching feet, dust mixing with the stench of sweat—all of that stirred, tension in the crowded barracks.
“Motherfucker, whatcha lookin’ at?”
It was the first time I had heard that startling word, aimed by one recruit at another. I thought I had misheard it, but there it was again:
“What d’ya mean, motherfucker?”
The second time, hearing it exactly, I was shocked even more.
“Motherfucker, if I ever catch—”
From Fort Sam Houston, I was sent to Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky, for basic training, assigned to the 101st Airborne Infantry Division, to a compound of red dust, more heat, and pale-yellow barracks. We wouldn’t jump from parachutes; we were only nominal members of that division, allowed to wear the famous insignia of the screaming eagle.
I was now able to send my mother more money. I arranged an allotment for her, and to augment that amount added my father as a dependent. A portion of my army pay would be deducted; a similar portion would be added by the army. That would nudge us farther out of the damned poverty, with my brother Robert continuing to contribute to our income although he was now in his second marriage.
At Camp Breckenridge, we were roused before dawn by a hillbilly sergeant shouting into the barracks:
“Drop your cocks, and grab your socks!”
That caused him, each time, to roar with laughter, a sound more grating than his shouted words.
We stood outside for endless roll calls, an endless chain of names that we must answer with “Here, sir!” Then we would be ordered to run—“Faster, faster!”—until the sweat had soaked through our uniforms and dripped to the ground.
I hated the subservience demanded of us, ordered by squads of sneering “regular army” sergeants who delighted in taunting and torturing servicemen in their ranks.
When the sixteen weeks of infantry basic training were completed, every member of our company, about 100 of us—and hundreds more of the several other companies throughout the camp—would be getting orders. Those orders might send us to Korea, where the war was bloodier each day; or, if we were lucky, to Germany, which was still scarred by the occupation. We woke to the awareness of the probability that before long we would be facing death in a deadly foreign conflict.
Basic training ground on, week after week, then months.
As intense as the heat, the cold of winter chilled the ground into ice. Every morning before dawn, we would rise for roll call, then run around the camp, our heated bodies warring with the cold. On the icy ground, we practiced bayonet training, ordered to shout, “Kill, kill!” as we lunged against a sand-filled dummy, the pretended enemy. The exacerbated shouts—“Kill, kill, kill, kill!”—resounded as a contagious frenzy contaminating the ranks. I resisted joining the angry cries, jabbing at the imaginary enemy only enough so that I would not be detected by one of the sergeants in charge and ordered to perform the ritual over and over.
When one of the soldiers in our training group went absent without leave, causing the whole company to be denied a contingent two-day pass, a mangy sergeant addressed the barracks: “If he comes back an’ y’all wanna ‘thank him’ for ruining your pass, you can be sure no one’s gonna question you about it.”
The man returned. That night, I was awakened by cries and stomping. Several of the men had ganged up on him, and thrown him down the steps of the second level of the barracks, kicking him as he fell bloody and unconscious. True to the sergeant’s word, no action was taken against them.
On the firing fields, where we had to qualify as, at least, “marksmen,” the lowest allowed rung, I deliberately did not aim at the center of the target; I aimed only at its periphery, shot after shot, increasingly resisting the indoctrination to killing. Lying on the dirt on the firing range with my rifle blasting, I felt kicks at my boots. A lieutenant loomed over me. I could not hear, deafened by the shots from my own rifle and others firing nearby. I shook my head and pointed to my ears to indicate I was deafened. The lieutenant squatted down and shouted into my ears:
“What the fuck are you doin’, soldier; you’re not even attempting to score.” I heard him then, but I continued to pretend not to, a growing defiance.
Despite the dismal grading that should have guaranteed failure, I was awarded a “marksman” designation—a plus for the company at headquarters—indicating that I was ready for battle in the real war in Korea.
There were hated maneuvers in preparation for war; sleeping in army bags on the chilled ground, eating vile canned meals. I avoided the communal toilets—rows of men squatting—as long as anyone else was there. I discovered that the recreation room—closed till early evening—needed cleaning every morning. I volunteered for the task to guarantee the privacy of the toilet there.
In the barracks, I tried to shower at the end of rows of sprouting water. The sight of naked men pushed me back uncomfortably to that time when I had invaded the showers after my brother’s basketball game, the bare flesh.
Like all the others, I waited eagerly for mail daily, loving letters from my mother, from my sister Olga—“no really interesting news, little brother”—my sister Blanca and my brothers; and, almost daily, from Wilford, long letters of encouragement for my future life.
So it went.
* * *
The whole company had to go on bivouac just before Christmas. That meant living in muddy foxholes. At the same time, there was a competition for the best-decorated barracks in the camp. I bought poster paints of my own and dr
ew, late at night when no one else seemed to be around, a screaming eagle on the window of the company office. Though feeling foolish, I painted a ridiculous Santa Claus hat cocked atop the eagle. Under it I drew a colorful Christmas wreath.
The captain in charge of the company did exactly as I had intended. He assigned me to decorate the whole company area. Since the deadline of the contest was nearing, I was allowed to stay in the camp during the days of bivouac, painting screaming eagles with Santa Claus hats on every front window of our barracks.
When the rest of the company returned, grim, from bivouac, I felt guilty; because of this, too: my two brothers had fought in the big War, one during the invasion, the other in the South Pacific. That had been another war, another time, a time of some clarity in goals. The war in Korea was a confusion of maiming and killing. I did know, of course, that by avoiding all the preparations for the battles in those jungles, I would not survive if I was sent to the front lines.
My company won the Christmas decorations contest.
Winter melted. As fiercely as heat had been replaced by icy cold, cold was replaced by heat, mounting daily. Seared yellow dust infiltrated our lives.
In that dry heat, there would occur a campwide test of endurance. Those who excelled in various physical exercises would be pitted against those from other companies in the camp, yet another of the army’s tactics for creating ferocious competition that could turn into rage during war.
A crucial part of the test involved sit-ups, overseen by three sergeants and a lieutenant roaming the ranks, goading.
When a sergeant barked the signal—“Hit the dirt!”—everyone in our platoon threw himself on the ground. On more growled orders, we all began doing—or, for some, only attempting to do—full sit-ups, hands interlocked behind the head, knees propped, upper body crunched and raised so that elbows touched steadied knees, over and over and over.
Heavier men, many huffing, dropped out after one or two strained attempts. They were loudly derided by the sergeants:
“Fatso, what did your mama feed ya?”
“That’s all you can do, pussy?”
“Your fat-ass pull ya down, Miss?”
“That ain’t sweat, boy, that’s fat.”
As more recruits dropped out, the monitoring sergeants began counting aloud, moving from one to the other of those still performing, calling out the number of sit-ups being performed.
At the count of “Twenty!” less than half the company was still competing. “Twenty-five!”—more fell out.
I knew I could go on much longer; especially in high school, I had sustained a rigid regimen of sit-ups to keep my waist tight. The weeks of anger against regimentation aroused in me the need to win, as if in doing so I would again best the army, denying it any prepared ridicule.
“Thirty!”
“Forty!”
Only a few of us—ten—remained. Those who had dropped out and regained their breathing gathered about us; the sergeants continued their taunting, a lieutenant laughed at each dropout.
“Fifty!”
“Only fifty-one? Droppin’ out already, GI?”
Three more inductees dropped out, falling back, gasping, wiping away sweat with their hands, one or two dramatically emphasizing exhaustion.
Seven of us remained. I could feel the terrific strain of the exercise on my abdominals. I shut my eyes. I demanded that my body resist fatigue. The sandy dirt underneath me was soaked with my sweat.
“Sixty!” “Sixty-one!” “Sixty-two! …”
“Eighty!”
There were three of us left. One of the two soldiers flanking me would soon drop out—I could hear his breath choking; Another one, a lean good-looking young man—and that pushed me even harder—seemed to have gained new forceful impetus. I had to match him, overcome him.
“Eight-five!”
“Eight-six!”
The gasping recruit dropped out. The other quickened his pace. One sergeant was counting his sit-ups; another was counting mine. I was two behind, but moving more slowly would allow me to endure longer.
“Ninety!” That was me.
“Ninety-one!” That was the other soldier.
“Ninety-one!” That was me.
The soldier next to me twisted his torso, forcing it up, up, to touch his elbows to his knees. He fell back, groaning.
I had outlasted them all. That wasn’t enough, I had to continue, go on, continue. …
“One hundred!”
I pushed myself harshly, squeezing out three more sit-ups to ensure my own victory, now over myself. My body contracted, my stomach wrenched, sweat evaporating under the searing sun. I exhaled, and let myself fall back on my own moisture.
“One hundred and three!”
I stood up, dripping wet, nauseated from the exertion, ignoring cheers that seemed to be muted because my body was pulsing, my ears thumping.
“Private Rechy!” A sergeant from the orderly room was calling out my name. “You have a telegram.”
My father had died.
16
With limited funds provided by the Red Cross, I traveled by Greyhound bus back to El Paso. Along miles of shifting scenery, I tried to grasp what I felt toward my father—what I had felt, what I felt now. I tried to imagine what I might feel for him later, what I would want to feel, hope to feel.
Death had halted new memories; whatever was to be remembered had occurred, all evidence was in for a verdict on the intimate stranger who was my father. I grasped for a benign summary of his life.
With pride, my mother had often recalled his days of outrage at injustice, the time he refused to play with his orchestra in a hall in New Mexico that barred Mexicans; the escape he provided for the poorest Mexicans with his magical productions, converting field pickers into grand ladies and courtiers; the flowers for my mother during the most dire poverty; the serenades at her window on her saint’s day, even, eventually, with musicians as tattered as he. Was it possible he really loved her? Oh, God, had she loved him?
The Greyhound bus ground on out of Kentucky, leaving behind the stench of dust at Camp Breckenridge, and it moved, still miles ahead, night and day, to El Paso.
My father. There were those times when he had presented my sister and me with many toys at Christmas when we were children, despite my mother’s insistence that whatever meager money there was should be spent on clothes. He surprised me with the boots I wanted and the movie projector I longed for—it came with several colored cartoons for screening, giving me hours of joy.
The cherished moment when he had given me the Royal typewriter—I lingered over that memory, and how he had placed the typewriter on my “desk” for me to find after the graduation ceremony he had quietly attended.
He was a kind man violated by stark changes in his life, yes, a pitiable man worn down by the weight of crushed hope. During deepest poverty—I didn’t want to remember this and then welcomed the harsh memory in defining him—he worked at a hospital, rising early in winter before dawn, my mother’s coffee steaming the cold air; he would trudge, bent, on his way to clean the vestiges of death, bloodied towels, dirty corridors in the one place that had given him a temporary job.
Yes, and remember those times, recalled with smothering pity now, when he demanded that my sister, my mother, and I sit attentively to listen for hours to operas playing on the radio, and he was imagining himself again the conductor he had been, leading a splendid invisible orchestra. He would slice the air with an imaginary baton, up down, up down, goading the frenzy of the music, smoothing its lyricism. His face glowed with remembered honor, perspiration, and tears. As he worked at his relic of a desk reorchestrating his unwanted compositions, frantic sweat stained inked notes.
“I am known, I am respected! Wherever I go, I’m greeted with dignity!” he had often told us.
None of us ever questioned that. Out of work, he spent more time at the old courthouse building, a solid block of heavy architecture squatting across from a small park that could n
ot compete with the building’s ugliness. Along the hallways, he would walk with his newly acquired cane. Often he demanded I go with him, walking beside him, silent.
“Professor!” A judge would come out of his chambers to greet him warmly as we walked along the ugly echoing corridors.
“Professor Rechy!” Two lawyers would interrupt their conversations to note his presence, to chat with him.
“Professor Rechy!” Up and down the halls, I would hear that greeting. Perhaps, during those walks, he wanted me to be his witness of his claims, the implicit accolades—wanting me to remember them, as I did now traveling to El Paso for his funeral on an indifferent rumbling bus.
What in me had aroused the extremity of his hostility? A hidden judgement on himself? Did he see me as the artistic child he had been?—detecting the origin of his failure in my own hopes? Was that enough for the reign of fear he created with masterful cruelty?
That was all I needed to allow forth memories long withheld, memories demanding consideration now. As night deepened into a cavern of darkness that the bus carved with its lights, I would not allow myself pity even for his tears because they were a prelude to his rages.
From the very beginning …
When I was a child, he would flail crazily with his fists at my mother, accusing her of all the filth he could summon, shouting, cursing her, extending the accusations to me as I rushed to her side, to hug her tightly, form a shield so that his blows would connect with me, not her. His threats escalated. He would set the house on fire when my mother and I were asleep, he told me in a soft whisper. When he threatened to leave us to cope alone, my mother begged me to go after him. With his clenched fist pounded on my head, he knocked me out, I lay unconscious on the sidewalk, then he knelt over me trying to resurrect me from the blow.
My sister Olga would scream with horror, at times beating at him with her fists.
