by Weston Ochse
“Let it touch you and don’t move.”
I stand as rigid as I can.
“Think of the memory you told me about. Think of it and nothing else.”
I can’t stand to look at it so I close my eyes. I think of the bad memory, a day in high school when I got beat up and left for dead in the back of the library. I’d been working on some school project when Reggie McKinney had run up to me and started flinging his fists into my face and stomach, launching words like Jew-Fag and Christ-Killer. There was no warning. He just started hitting. The shock of it made it so I had no way to defend myself and ended up curled into a ball. For weeks afterward, I couldn’t even go into the Library without shaking.
I feel something that is both sharp and sticky on my face. I can’t help myself. I open my eyes and stare into a night sky comprised entirely of teeth. I begin to hyperventilate just as the thing makes a sound like paper being wadded. I feel a gun barrel removed from behind and the door slams shut.
I sag as relief washes over me. Strong hands turn me and hold me until I face Lt. Chalmers.
“Do you remember who Reggie McKinney is?” he asks.
I think for a moment but come up blank.
He asks again, this time shaking me harder.
I fight against his grip and manage to struggle free. “Who the fuck is Reggie McKinney?” I ask.
“Do you remember what you used to do with your dad?”
As exhausted as I am, I can’t help but smile. “Yeah, we used to play baseball.”
Chalmer’s eyes light up and he smiles with me. “Thank God. First time the thing hasn’t turned one of the men into jabbering idiots.”
The next morning I’m spooning food into Frankie’s mouth, trying to answer everyone’s questions. What’s it look like? Did it hurt? Were you scared? I answer as best I can. That I’m alive and not like Frankie still stuns me. Then someone asks a question that gives me pause.
“How do you know that is the only memory it took?”
I don’t. I can’t. How could someone know if they no longer knew something?
I finish feeding Frankie, wipe his face clean, and then find a quiet spot beneath a tree. I inventory my memories, both good and bad, reliving as best I can all the important events in my life. They all seemed to be there, but how am I to know? I’m still sitting there when Chalmers exits the bunker. He sees me and comes right over.
“Having any issues? How do you feel?”
“Peachy,” I say.
“And your memory?”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t know what I forgot. Can I get a cigarette?”
Chalmers shakes one free and hands it to me, then takes one himself. He squats down beside me and lights them both. “You know, I hate keeping this fucking thing alive,” he says, staring at the bunker. Seeing my unasked question, he answers, “But the brass think it’s their secret weapon. Japs are so entrenched in Gifu that without it we’d have to send hundreds of men in there to get them out, probably have hundreds of casualties.”
“Instead you sacrifice a few of us.”
Chalmers shakes his head and takes a deep drag. “Which I fucking hate to do. Listen, I know your stories. You’re all basically good soldiers who got caught doing shit we’ve all done. Had Reed not taken a bullet, he’d be doing it.”
I glance over at Frankie and witness the alternative.
“How did you do it?”
I think for a moment. “Remember when you were a kid and someone said don’t think of a white horse. Most people can’t help but think of a white horse. But I never did.”
“What’d you think of?”
“Why some dumbass thought up that test in the first place. I mean, was it really just created to trick people, or was it something to help train your mind?”
“What’d you think of instead?”
“Baseball.”
“Baseball? You play it in your mind?”
“Hell, no. I recite stats. I’ve always been partial to Hank Greenberg. Did you know he had a minor league career before he went to the Lions? In 1930, he played seventeen games in Hartford, Connecticut, then moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he hit nineteen homeruns and had a batting average of .314. Then the following year he played in Evanston as part of the Indiana-Iowa League, where he hit fifteen homeruns, batted .318, with eighty-three runs batted in.”
Chalmers cigarette hangs from his mouth. “You remember all that?”
“And more. I could go on and on. My father and I used to try and outdo each other by remembering statistics and important events about our favorite players and teams.”
What follows is a long silence as I watch Chalmers staring at the others. I can see his mind working. I can see him come to a decision. When he turns to me, I shake my head. “No,” I say.
“But it won’t hurt you. I don’t know about the rest of the men.”
“That’s not my problem.” I remember Hank refusing to play on Yom Kippur even when it was one of the most important games of the year. I feel the same way now. How dare he make their situation my problem? This is my choice and I choose to live.
Chalmers gives me a look like I just smacked him across the face. “How can you not? You know if you don’t do it, then I’ll have to get one of them.”
I shrug.
“But that’s a death sentence.”
“Says who?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “How do you know they won’t be like me?”
“You’re special. The chances of another of them having your discipline is rare.”
I shrug again. “Not my problem.”
“I could make you,” he says, glaring at me.
“You could,” I say, responding in kind.
He stands, tosses his cigarette into the dirt, and stomps it out. “You’re serious.”
“As a fastball.”
I ended up being a pretty good ballplayer. We made it to the city finals in my high school years. I played third base and batted .275. Not the best on the team, but I was solid. We were especially good our senior year. We made it all the way to the final game. We had several chances to win that game. We could have hit better. We could have pitched better. We could have caught better. But all everyone remembers is that it was my fault we lost the game.
I’d opened the final inning with a double, making it safely to second base. It was a tie game and all we had to do was score one. I’d done my part, now it was the rest of the team’s responsibility to get me home. But they didn’t respond. I was stranded on the lonely island of second base as the next two batters struck out. That left one more batter who would decide the fate of the season and it was Ronnie French, so our chances were good. Everyone knew Ronnie could slam the hell out of a fast ball, so the pitcher was forced to work the corners with curve and breaking balls. Their delivery was much slower than a fast ball, so there was a chance I could steal to third base, which if I could manage, would put me in immediate scoring position. And as I suspected, the coach gave me the sign. He wanted me to steal.
When I turned to the pitcher, he was watching me. He knew what I was thinking. Stealing third base was almost impossible with a right handed pitcher. Still, if the catcher bobbled the ball, I might have a chance. I crouched and led a few feet from the bag. The first pitch was wild, but the catcher fell on it and was ready before I could make my move. The second pitch was a strike down the pipe. Ronnie grinned at the pitcher and let a stream of spit hit the ground near the batter’s box. Meanwhile, the third base coach was giving me the sign. He wanted me to steal… regardless. If I stole third as Ronnie hit the ball, I could score with ease. But if he missed, then the catcher could throw me out with equal ease. What made the coach think that he knew better?
When the pitch came, I held fast. Ronnie connected with the ball, which looped over the second baseman’s head. He loped to first as I ran to third.
But by the time I turned the corner, the ball was already on its way home. I had no chance. The next batter struck out. We lost the game. The couch called me a pathetic Jew. I never played baseball again.
Three more conscripts go into the bunker to feed the thooloo. Each of them comes out looking like Frankie and each time Chalmers gives me a look that he probably thinks will change my mind. But my mind can’t be changed. I know the right thing to do and I’m doing it.
Christmas morning Booth comes up to me after I finish feeding Frankie and the three others. “You owe me a fin,” he says, unable to meet my eyes.
I fish the five out of my pocket and hand it to him. He grabs it and takes his time putting it in his wallet.
I know he wants me to say something. I refuse to for a good thirty seconds, but when he doesn’t move, I can’t help myself. “So what’s your problem?”
“What do you think?”
“You’re afraid it’ll be your turn soon.”
“Is that what you think?” He shakes his head. “You never did learn anything from Bernstein and Barrows.”
I feel the heat rise and my face turns red. “Don’t talk about them. You don’t know.”
“I know what you told me. That’s enough.”
“You don’t know nothing,” I say, trying hard not to shake.
“I know enough to know that you don’t know what it means to be a soldier.”
I watch him leave wishing I had a knife, or a hatchet, or a Buick to throw at him.
Retrograde is the army’s fancy term for retreat, but since the army never retreats, we spent the last part of 1941 and the first part of 1942 in retrograde. Me and Beanie and Saul were stationed together through basic and infantry training and were sent to the Philippines to help the other 135,000 fighters protect it from the imperialistic intensions of the Japanese. We were in the same platoon, and spent most nights near each other as we shot and fought our way from one end of Luzon to the other. When it became apparent we were going to be overrun, we joined the rest of the forces who retrograted to Bataan. But Bataan was even worse off than Luzon. Without supplies, 43,000 soldiers and refugees were starving. Several times, the navy tried to supply us, but it was becoming more and more obvious that the closer the Japanese came, the less chance we were going to have of getting resupplied. One evening, I caught a platoon of SEABEEs rushing for the sea. I managed to stop one, who I’d met while scrounging for food and discovered that there was a boat waiting to take them out of here and the boat had one empty seat. Bennie and Saul came up on us and I told them about the seat.
Without hesitation, they told me to take it and come back with help.
Without hesitation, I accepted their choice, boarded the boat, and never saw them again.
Over the next few months, word filtered out about the capture of the island by the Japanese and how they marched 78,000 prisoners into the interior. Tales of bayoneting those too slow to walk, mass burials, and wanton murder came to me when I finally pulled into Australia. My dreams were wracked with images of Beanie and Saul at the end of those long Japanese bayonets. I made myself believe that it had been their choice all along. I made myself believe that I would have done the same, but I found the truth of it at the bottom of an Australian whiskey bottle and it told me that I wouldn’t have – that I was glad to have been the one to survive and would do it again if asked.
I find Booth during the heat of the day, shading himself under a canopy of palm leaves.
“You’re wrong about me,” I say.
“If you say so.”
“No, really.” I grab his shoulder. He throws off my hand as he leaps to his feet.
“No really bullshit! You’re about as much a soldier as my grandma. Fuck that. My grandma is more a soldier than you’ll ever be and she’s never left Western Kentucky!”
I try and keep my voice level. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say to me. I take care of the others. I make sure they get fed. Remember back on the ship? I was the only one to help Alphabet. Without me, he might have died.”
“What you want, a medal?”
“No. I mean… no. I’m just trying to show you that I’m a soldier.”
He shakes his head viciously. Then as if on afterthought, he digs into his pocket, pulls out a folded wad of money, whips off a five and throws it at me. Then in a fit of anger he takes the whole wad, turns, and throws it deep into the woods.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I don’t want you to think this is about money. I don’t want to confuse you.” His scarlet face holds a look of utter contempt. “I’m going to say this once. Will you listen without saying anything, or am I wasting my time?”
I try and control my confusion and can only nod. Finally I manage, “Go ahead.”
“Here’s the truth of it. Being a soldier is about one thing. It’s not about honor. It’s not about courage. It’s not about the red, white and blue. It’s simply about sacrifice. It’s about you willing to sacrifice yourself for your fellow soldier, without question, and without hesitation. All that other shit comes later.” He jabs towards the line of slack-faced men. “Frankie did that for us. He didn’t run. He didn’t even tell someone he didn’t want to do it. He took it like a soldier because he knew that if he didn’t do it, someone else would.” Then he points his finger at me. His hand is shaking as he says, “And think about your two best friends. How bad did you argue to stay on Bataan? How badly did you want your friends to survive vice yourself?”
“I didn’t think about it. It was their choice.”
“There it is again. You talk about choice like it’s your shield. It’s a cop out. It was their choice. Of course, it was their choice. They were acting like soldiers. They knew that sacrifice is central to the theme of soldiering. How the fuck did you get through all your training and never learn that single fucking fact?”
I try and answer, but my brain locks around the image of the picture of Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg I used to have on my dresser. He stood tall and proud in his Detroit uniform. They called him the Hebrew Hammer and he refused to play on Yom Kippur. It was his choice and I admired him, but was it really a choice? Did he sacrifice his Yom Kippur for a cause? As if it had been a great hidden secret, the knowledge that he could have played had he wanted to surfaces like the bloated body of a dead hero. Sure he chose. But there was a reason behind his choice. Why hadn’t I ever realized that?
Booth walks away, shooting one final look of contempt over his shoulder.
He sacrificed his ability to play to demonstrate the importance of the holiest of days. He set himself up as the whipping boy for every Jew-hating baseball lover to castigate because he chose not to play. He sacrificed himself for all of us. I stand there for God knows how long. Finally, I stumble my way to the bunker.
That night I lose the memory of when I broke my arm trying to leap over the creek at the Ralston’s Farm,
The next night I lose the memory of my father catching me posing naked in the mirror, a picture of Charles Atlas beside me as I try pathetically to copy the body-builder’s poses.
Then I lose my memories of everything I can remember that happened bad to me before the age of eighteen.
The New Year arrives and I no longer know that Saul and Bennie even existed.
Then it’s January 10th and I give up Bonnie and my first night of sex.
Then it’s January 20th and I have nothing left that I want to give… or so I think.
“Fuck it,” Chalmers says, looking into my eyes. “Let the thooloo die. There’s nothing it can do now. The Japs are starving and it’s only a matter of time before they surrender.”
“It’s all right,” I say, as tired as I’ve ever been in my life. “I need to do this. It’s what a soldier does.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve done enough. You’ve been a terrific soldier, Cupcake.�
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I smile weakly. “It’s Kupchak, sir.”
“Right.” He returns my smile. “I’m serious. There’s no need to do this anymore.”
“Let me ask you this,” I say with a dry mouth. “Is there any chance at all that they’ll need the thooloo? Any chance at all?”
Outside we hear the bombardment of Gifu, which had started New Year’s Day and had never let up. The thumps of artillery shells had become like the heartbeat of the war. As long as they continued, I knew that I was still needed.
He looks at me hard, then his eyes soften. “Yeah. There’s a chance.”
“Then I gotta keep doing it. I still have more in me.”
He sighs. “What is it going to be now?”
I tell him about the championship game. I tell him about how I’d always thought that it wasn’t my fault that we’d lost, but that I now knew it really was. If I’d listened to the coach we would have been champions. But I hadn’t wanted to take the chance and be wrong. I didn’t want to be blamed for losing the game, even though it had turned out to be the case. Then I cried for a while as I told him about my father and how we’d always had baseball. Even when he’d had cancer and had withered away to nothing, we’d sit by the radio listening to the Tigers’ games, cheering whenever the Hammerin’ Hebrew slugged one over the fence.
“Why don’t you get rid of that memory?” Chalmers asks.
