by Byron Craft
There were small puddles the size of footprints leading out of the stagnant pool and with an icy chill I observed that they terminated indoors leaving wet blotches on the carpet. I guess the whole thing, if I would have had time to dwell on it, might have become eerie, but as it happened, my meeting was rushed and the overall appearance of Ephraim Pryne diverted my attention.
When we first came face to face, I knew then the reason why he had such an overwhelming concern for the handicapped. Mr. Pryne was confined to a wheelchair. Supplied with a little electric motor, he had full access to the room which had been constructed at a level about him so that he could reach everything.
What was even more unexpected was his physical appearance. His lower torso was covered with a thick green wool blanket that had been tucked tightly around the waist and legs. His hands surprisingly enough were concealed behind a pair of bright yellow mittens, while a full beard, mustache and a bushy head of hair, all of shocking red color, masked most of his features. I could make out a flattened almost nonexistent nose and eyes that were anything but deep-set. His appearance was similar to those poor unfortunate souls that afternoon outside my lab.
All in all, with red hair, yellow mittens and green blanket, he would have been comical if it hadn’t been for his intense and congenial manner. He had forgone the handshake explaining that he had been severely crippled in an accident and any such contact was painful to him. His actions towards me were kind, soft spoken and almost fatherly in nature referring to me occasionally as, “my son.” Not at all the personality I expected from an entrepreneur.
I learned that Emmerson had passed away several years ago leaving Pryne the sole owner of the corporation. Ephraim had decided to dedicate his remaining years of business, whenever possible, toward the execution of social and political change, “for the good of the masses.” He repeated that at least three times in our short conversation. For who’s good and what changes, I wasn’t quite sure nor did I get a chance to ask. If it hadn’t been for his massive enterprise, I would have sworn, by the way he talked, that he was a Marxist.
Pryne did all of the talking while Falbridge just stood and nodded. I had a tough time getting a word in edgewise and after a while gave up and became a disciplined listener like Falbridge. I did manage to ask if he had seen my piece on the Twin Towers but the question was ignored in lieu of praise for my simple blow-ups. I figured that he saw something in them that I failed to notice.
The meeting went along this way for awhile then they laid the transfer on me, to all places can you imagine, West Germany, for a period of no more than one year. The purpose was to head up a special photographic team and crew of lab technicians. The reason; a photo-geographic study of a selected area in Germany backed by the United States Air Force and the Army Corp of Engineers to map out in detail a mountainous wooded region in the southwestern corner of that country...the Black Forest.
On the surface, the assignment seemed authentic enough, even though I didn’t understand why I was chosen as one of the principle players in the deal. There was, of course, a precise aim to this project. It was thought that some of the densely wooded areas would be an excellent place to conceal missile sites from Soviet surveillance satellites. The last of our military bases slated for withdrawal because of the old Yalta agreement was Fort Blish, a U.S. airfield 60 miles southwest of Stuttgart that could be saved from extinction by the arrival of one hundred and eight Pershing II missiles and the influx of forty-three hundred Americans needed to maintain them. The military creatively called their missile deployment schedule “Project Firefly.”
Valsbach, a placid town of two thousand, faced a cultural revolution if the Americans decided to take up residence at the old World War II airbase down the road.
The locals were split in dispute over living alongside NATO’s new nuclear missile silos. The shopkeepers and businessmen wanted the Americans to stay and looked forward to economic gains when the basing started late that year. While some rural residents planned to expand local stores and hoped to grab a share of building contracts, others feared for the future of their small community. The fear is that U.S. support crews will crowd the small town causing an increase in crime, prostitution and drugs and the threat of violent demonstrations to a one room general store village was a greater threat than the missiles.
The European press was having a field day with public appeal and the Emmerson-Pryne public relations department was hard at work letting the American and German public know what a fine job we were doing with our deployment to offset the Soviet arsenal of SS-20’s aimed at Europe. “After all,” said Mr. Pryne, “it is better to have Pershings in your backyard than an SS-20 on your roof.”
I guess I could have said no to the transfer, but the thought hadn’t occurred to either Pryne or Falbridge, because they had already made plans for my departure. I wasn’t too keen on working for the military again but the money was too good to turn down. My salary would be doubled and there would be a fifty thousand dollar bonus upon my return to the states. I knew I was taking the easy way out but in a years time I could kiss the job good-bye and be back home with enough capital to start my own business.
***
My job with the military was as disappointing as the one I held at home. At first sight of the airbase I was gripped by the sudden fear that I might be forced into re-enlisting.
I was given the ten-cent tour by a young nervous pimple faced lieutenant from security that spoke in such a halting, agitating voice that he would stop in the middle of every other sentence and clear his throat. He pointed out different installations as if rehearsed and managed to squeak out the areas of the base that were off limits to civilian personnel, which was most of the surrounding eleven hundred acres, and which areas I was permitted to frequent. This was largely comprised of one grey melancholy concrete building situated in the middle of a gravel parking lot.
The building was a narrow, single-story construction, flat roofed and stretched about ninety feet in length. The only windows were at the front entrance where my guide hastily deposited me inside. Here everything was painted with gloss enamel in the same lack of color as the exterior. Grateful to part company, the lieutenant left me in the charge of an SF, a United States Air Force Security Forces Military Policeman.
I was greeted by a large grinning face that appeared uneasy not knowing if he should maintain a military attitude in my presence or give in to something more informal. Taking the first steps and with an outstretched hand I introduced myself. I am sure my arrival at that moment caught him off guard, because he had just gotten through shoving a wad of Skoal in his mouth. The can of chewing tobacco still remained open on his desk blotter. He behaved like the cat that swallowed the canary and suppressing my amusement I hoped he didn’t swallow it. He swept the can of Skoal into the center desk drawer and rose hesitating briefly between saluting and being at ease.
Finally coming forward, he took my extended hand with one the size of a ball mitt and said, “Sergeant Ruttick, James Fennimore Ruttick. Friends call me Jim.” He shifted the chew from the left cheek to the right and glanced around for a place to spit.
Jim Ruttick was the only color within that drab building. His story only added to the comedy. The sergeant didn’t know a thing about photography or map making. By virtue of his great size and an overflow of personnel at the motor pool he was assigned the day watch at the lab, I figured that the young lieutenant was probably responsible for the assignment. He was to guard the front entrance against any possible intrusion of unauthorized personnel.
Jim became more my shadow than a policeman. He went with me wherever I went on the base and would report on regular intervals to security, an unnecessary precaution I thought, because as time progressed I didn’t see where any of the work that came out of my lab would have been of any international interest. All discussions as to what work was relevant, was made elsewhere, out of my hands by powers unseen. I didn’t mind it though, his character, on the surface, though
tough and brash, was really harmless and unassuming and we soon became friends. He tagged along, always asking questions about the lab work, and me pretending to tolerate the simple inquiries all along secretly welcoming the company.
We didn’t see much of each other while working, mainly during breaks and lunch. I spent most of the day in the darkroom and Jim at his desk doing God knows what.
We took lunch together frequently, locking the building up at noon and retiring to the enlisted men’s mess. We weren’t sure if it was permitted but so long as no one said we couldn’t, we went right on doing it. This was one of the rare times I would get out into the sun and it felt good.
My contract required me to put in long hours. Coupled with a healthy drive to and from work, if it weren’t for our lunch breaks, I was almost under a continual cloak of darkness. Arriving every day at sun up and always coming home after dark. I started wearing sunglasses whenever going out. Spending the majority of the day in my darkroom made my eyes painfully sensitive to light yet acutely more perceptive in the dark.
At lunch I would attempt to manipulate the conversation. Jim, if left unchecked, would wander on about the latest in automobile parts or the recent advancement in weaponry. He had a good knowledge of antique weapons and boasted of a large personal collection which he tried to relate to my field mentioning occasionally that he hoped to catalogue them on film some day.
He was obsessed with talking about World War II and I found him several times wishing himself back to those days. He said he was a soldier without a war to fight, referring to the historical conflict as “the real war.” I didn’t tell him about my two years in the service. The area around the schloss where I lived didn’t present many opportunities to meet English speaking people, nor did the isolation of a darkroom, so the conversation was appreciated.
I believe the sergeant had a drinking problem. Even though some mornings his eyes were a bit bloodshot I didn’t become aware of the problem until I began to notice his irregular eating habits. Hamburgers and tomato soup in the morning, while only picking at his lunch in the afternoon and a compulsion for sweets.
Perhaps he drank out of loneliness. His desire to make friends was definitely strong. I felt sorry for him and invited him to dinner one weekend. One thing I came to learn when in the service, living in close quarters with other men is not to be critical of someone’s behavior and accept them for what they are. As I said earlier, I welcomed the company.
Jim was the only one I got to know well on the base. The rest were just acquaintances in the form of messengers dropping off exposed film, delivery men and the Cutters, as Jim called them, of others, there were none. I worked alone.
The Cutters were a group of young geologists assigned the task of cutting up and trimming the aerial blowups our labs produced and piecing them together like a large jigsaw puzzle. Thus they were dubbed “The Cutters.” They were a cliquish group and impossible to get to know. Most of them refused to acknowledge our presence. Any friendly inquiries on my part were answered with as few words as possible followed normally by indifferent stares. One time I had a door slammed in my face. I gave up any further attempts to make friends and returned to my lab feeling like the new kid on the block who was not allowed to play.
Early in one of these encounters I noticed that at least two displayed the same physical deformity. The webbing of skin between the fingers. One wasn’t that noticeable, but another and probably the most tight lipped among them, had fingers and thumbs completely joined by thick expanses of tissue. I hadn’t encountered this rare affliction since Falbridge in New York and the connection, if one existed, between them gave me an uneasy feeling.
Jim decided to avoid the Christmas rush and hate them early. After noticing their slight bow legged and arched back characteristics he started calling the two of them “frogs” behind their backs. Then after watching a couple afternoons of them crawling along the floor moving the large puzzle pieces he was reminded, he said, “of monkeys in the zoo” and for awhile couldn’t decide on a proper handle. His labeling process soon fell upon “Monkey Frogs” and there it stuck. “Monkey Frogs and Cutters” or “The damn Cutters are friggin’ Monkey Frogs.” Followed by crazy monkey shenanigans of his own.
I know it was cruel, abusive as well as discriminatory but I couldn’t help from laughing. He tickled a mischievous child in me. On occasions, while suppressing laughter, I would beg him to be quiet when they were in the building, fearing they would hear him. Jim’s manner was anything but quiet. He would save up his comments until in the hallway just outside their room and across from mine. Because of Jim’s size, I figured that he was not the type to mess with if angered. I guess the geologists were of the same opinion. If they heard him, they carried on as if nothing had been said and whatever grudge I might have harbored against them because of my suffered indignation was cheerfully revenged several times over by James Fennimore Ruttick.
There were two shifts that ran the lab. Mine, the day shift, of course, and the other at night. Our check in and check out times must not have coincided, because I never met any of my evening counter parts. Jim was on the same shift as me and never met any of these people. I think that in time I would have found out more about the other people that worked in the building but as it happened my employment there was only short lived. I often wondered if there was more than one to the night shift or if there was another as me, lonely and isolated from the outside.
I began to fantasize that there was something diabolical afoot. Without an exact knowledge of geology or topography I had come to my new appointment a bit apprehensive, but my duties were even less than in New York. I thought I was to head up a lab and work with photographers and geologists in the field. As it turned out I was more disappointed than when I first started with Emmerson-Pryne. I only processed film.
Now, to someone not familiar with a modern processing lab, you may not realize the menial task I was given. I didn’t handle any print making or blowups while there. This was done by the night crew. Very little of what I did was color work, mostly black and white. A task today that is handled by a processing machine that requires little skill to operate. My orders were relayed by a messenger that delivered hundreds of shots daily for developing or by way of a work order that would be left in the over night box. There were so many to develop in a day that I very seldom had the time to closely examine them.
Twice I was shaken from the tedium by a long distance phone call from Falbridge but these were as uneventful as my duties. He was concerned only that I was on the job, not with the quality or quantity of the work and would always cut our conversations short. I was ready for him the second time he called though. I threatened to leave if there weren’t some improvements and received a raise in pay mixed with shallow praise.
Forced to work under these conditions, and overpaid as well, I was achieving results any high school student could do. I kept thinking of that character in Arthur Conan Doyle’s, The Red-Headed League that was kept away from his own shop being handsomely paid to hand copy the encyclopedia Britannica, while his new employers tunneled beneath his store to a neighboring bank, and into the vault.
I was becoming a creature of the night, hardly ever seeing the light of day during the week and gradually shunning daylight on the weekends. I would become restless after coming home and spent a lot of time wandering in the woods. Those subsequent walks at night were conducted as a search, only I had no idea what I was looking for.
My appetite for music dwindled as well. I have been a great fan of classical music for years and my favorite is an obscure German composer and violin player by the name of Erich Zann. Zann died over fifty years ago and I have a collection of his old recordings. His world of beauty laid far in his imagination and I am usually in the custom of devoting one hour in the evening listening to his fugues of captivating quality. But since I started working at the Fort Blish Lab, I have had an aversion towards the old recordings, shunning them as if with an unconscious dread an
d I haven’t touched them since.
While puzzling over my nocturnal wanderings and my lack of appreciation for Zann’s recordings I came in contact with a strange set of events.
When the Cutters were not in we had free run of the building, except for one room. The door had been marked “authorized personnel only.” Jim didn’t have a key to it. There were two labs in the building. Mine was used only for processing, the other contained enlarging equipment and was manned exclusively by the unseen night crew. Across the hall from the two labs on the west side of the building was the place occupied by the young geologists. Requiring adequate floor space to lay out the aerial maps it ran nearly the length of the building on that side minus the area taken up by the lobby.
When first arriving at Fort Blish I was surprised to find that the work area assigned to me was a carbon copy of the one I had in New York. Exact in almost every detail save for the spacious area to the right side of the room where my enlarger would have stood was empty and in its place was a door. It opened into that restricted room. It had always remained locked and the knob on my side had been removed. I suspected that it was probably larger than the two labs combined, because both of them occupied less than half of the east side of the building and the rest seemed to be taken up by the locked room.
