So the recruiter did lie. That sent me over the edge of my bunk, into Shipman's locker for another envelope and stamp. Before I shut Shipman's locker door, I noticed that he possessed an excess of clean and folded socks. I decided to borrow some.
My locker - what a mess. I scrambled through all the Army junk in my locker to find my ear-plug case, where I had stored that Black Widow spider.
As carefully as possible, I opened the case, but quick as lightning the spider jumped out, forcing me to chase her on my hands and knees. She holed up in a crack in the wall beside my locker. I became angry and started smacking the wall, trying to encourage her to come out of hiding. I could even see her inside the crack, but she would not move. Before I could think of a way to lure her out, the time came for lights-out.
In the dark, I couldn't see anything but a glistening spider-eyeball in the crack. Nothing would work - I clapped my hands, stamped my feet, blew air into her hiding place, but she held her position. By then I was tired. In the morning, I decided, I would get the spider.
As I climbed the bunk, Shipman asked, "Did you shine your boots, buddy?"
"Yeah," I said. "Three times."
"Come on Sprungli, you have to find time for it. I know it's hard." He sighed. "See you in the morning, Sprungli."
All night I thought about that spider. Actually, I thought about French toast, but sometimes I thought about the spider. My stomach growled every three minutes. That may have been the only night I stayed up as late as Shipman, who scratched away at his waterproof notepad and read his New Testament under the red-filtered flashlight.
At one point, I leaned over the bunk to see what he was doing and he sensed my presence.
"Hi, Sprungli."
"How did you know I was looking?"
"Because usually you're snoring."
I said, "Whatcha doin'?"
He turned over a piece of paper so that I couldn't read what it said. "Writing a letter," he said, "to someone."
"Private West?"
Jerking his head sideways, he looked up at me in surprise. "Who told you?"
"Nobody. I saw you two flirting."
Shipman sat up in his bunk and looked me straight in the eye, upside down. "Don't say anything, right?"
"Why would I say anything?"
"I mean it. I would really appreciate if you keep it quiet."
Then by instinct I felt the power enter me from this newfound leverage. I said, "No one will ever find out. Wow, I can't wait for breakfast. I love those desserts. Do you think you could grab me an extra Pop Tart tomorrow morning?"
Shipman smiled and said, "No." But I nodded at him to let him know that I meant business.
"Fine. Just this once, Sprungli. Just don't say anything about any letters."
"Oh, of course, just this once. What letters?"
I tried to lift myself back up to my bunk, but the blanket underneath me started to slide. I tried to grab the railing, but my hands slipped. My toes, my last line of defense, I dug them into the mattress. Too late. In a flop, I fell to the floor, landing on my head. I swore and woke up several people. Shipman shined his flashlight at me where I lay on the floor.
"Why aren't you wearing any underwear, Sprungli?"
A scratching, tickly sensation started on my abdomen. It was her, the Black Widow. She had come out of hiding and was now attacking her patron. By the time I pulled up my shirt and convinced Shipman to point the red flashlight at my navel, the Widow had already worked her way down to my special area. I screamed, waking more people. The spider sank her teeth into my special area. I trapped her right where she had bitten me. I waddled over to my locker. The sound of a door slamming did not distract me at all.
"Get in bed," Shipman whispered, "someone just walked in."
"Wait!"
With the spider trapped, I searched in my locker for the ear-plug case, which had fallen into a pile of unfolded clothing on the bottom of my locker. I picked up the case and flipped open the lid. I placed the case near my hand. To transfer the spider into the case required some quick hands. I rocked back and forth.
"Yep, that's it, right there. Ok, I'm ready now." I said, "Hey Shipman, shine a light on this so I can see what I'm doing."
A flashlight illuminated my special place. I leaned over and said, "Ok, here we go. I'm going to count to three and do this. One, two, three!"
I removed my hand and dumped the spider into the case. The lid snapped and the Widow was trapped. "Oh yeah, I did it. Oh, wow," I said, but then the venom seemed to take effect. I looked at Shipman, but he was pretending to be asleep. The light was not coming from his flashlight. No, it came from Drill Sergeant Pfeffer, the psycho Metroid from fourth platoon, and standing behind him was Pint.
Pfeffer spoke first. "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" He paused. "Because it looked like you just wanked into your locker."
Before I could explain, I became dizzy, maybe from nerves or from the Widow's poison. Bubbles began to pop out of my mouth, even as I felt myself wobbling.
"Jesus," Pint said, "it was that good, huh? Look at him."
Their faces became distorted, then dark, and I fell to the floor right in front of them, face-down, ass-up.
When I woke, it was morning. I found myself sitting in the Drill Sergeant's office. Private West sat across from me, answering the phones.
"Echo Company, this is Private West speaking. How may I assist you? Yes, can you please hold?"
On her left sat Pint, poring over my file. Behind him hung an old yellow Army poster with the words, "Be on the watch for: DISAFFECTION - DISLOYALTY - TREASON - ESPIONAGE," and under each word a definition written in bold explained what each word meant. Having played Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, I knew all about the backdoor deals that went down in the name of national security. Someday I would work for the NSA, after I finished being an Army truck driver. I knew how to deal with espionage. In Splinter Cell, when dealing with non-signers of the Geneva convention, the only method of combating the enemy was to send out teams of commandos on missions of complete deniability. Also, I knew that these commandos must wear green goggles with a thermal lens and a night vision lens. Gaining the trust of terrorists takes time. Espionage must not be rushed, but the act of treason must be swift and decisive. I learned all of this one night in an online pitched battle, from a janitor from Stockton, California, who was supposed to be my ally, but became a turncoat and gunned me down in a digital street.
In the Drill Sergeant's office, lots of posters hung on the wall. Seven posters trumpeted the Army Values. I let my eyes hop from one poster to the next. The seven Army Values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Integrity, Honor, Personal Courage. Each of the seven Values was represented by a picture of a soldier climbing a rope or looking up at something. Between Honor and Integrity was the coolest poster, one of a sniper emerging from a swamp and pointing his rifle at the final Value, Personal Courage.
The surroundings made me optimistic about my future, and that one day I would be a hero, like the sniper. But then I learned why I was sitting in the Drill Sergeant's office.
"Indecent exposure is the charge," Pint said. "It's in your Smart Book, Sprungli. Did you read that part? No, you didn't. I'll read it to you." Flipping through the pages, he chewed on his lower lip. "Ah, here it is. It states: The accused soldier exposed a certain part of his or her body to public view in an indecent manner and the exposure was willful and wrongful. The maximum punishment is six months confinement and a bad-conduct discharge." He frowned at me.
Private West said, "They could have chosen a better word than 'discharge' for that sentence."
Suddenly, I remembered the spider, and understood why they accused me. Without waiting, I looked down into my shorts and inspected for bites. I counted three bites. Three!
"Sprungli!" Pint barked. "Don't you start playing with yourself right here."
"But D
rill Sergeant, I was bitten..."
"Don't try to talk your way out of this one. I could have you discharged, er, ejacu...ejected from the Army for this offense. But I'm only going to give you a counseling statement. Drill Sergeant Pfeffer wanted to crucify you. Dammit, Sprungli, you need to focus. I want to see you graduate, so I am going to make it my mission to be your shadow for the next four weeks."
"But Drill Sergeant, I was bitten by a spider, right on the..."
"That's baloney. That's worse than 'the dog ate my homework.' You were spanking your monkey."
"But Drill Sergeant, I..."
"Don't lie, Sprungli."
"I'm not!"
Pint refused to let me go to the doctor that morning because he insisted that I perform one full day of training without any mistakes. As promised, he followed me, making it impossible for me to get any snacks. Luckily, Shipman owed me. I managed to get a Pop Tart from him.
But other than that measly 500-calorie snack, the only time I ate that day was at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The hunger, along with my venom-injected loins, forced me to drink water, gallons of it, which sent me shuffling (in my mandatory underwear) to the bathroom time and again. While I stood over the urinal, I thought of food and imagined seeing a delicious pink donut in front of my eyes. So real - was it real? I picked it up. The donut, still moist and warm - I could feel it. My teeth opened wide and came down on the donut, but instead of being soft, the donut jarred my teeth, nearly knocking out one of my incisors.
I pulled the donut away from my mouth, only then noticing that my donut was not a donut, but a pink cake from the latrine.
"Ha! Sprungli, you're sick, baby." Private Major stood naked in the bathroom, rounding the corner just in time to witness me with the donut. "You sick. I love it. You're crazy, baby." Major punched me in the shoulder, slapped my back, and then gave me a wedgie, pulling my underwear almost to my head.
"Ow!" I threw the cake at him and it ricocheted off his forehead.
"Oh, gross. Oh, God. Oh! Nasty!" He started scrubbing his face in warm water. Between scrubbing, he asked, "Is that how you're trying to get out of the Army? By eating?"
"Get out of the Army?" I asked. "Why would I do that?"
"Yeah right." Private Major turned off the water. "Ain't that what you tryin' to do? I'll tell you something, Sprungli. You don't need to eat out of the toilet. There's a better way. Just wet your bed."
"That works?"
"I don't know," Major said. "But I'm going to find out. I've tried everything else."
"What if I don't want to get out of the Army?"
"Are you messin' with me?" Private Major laughed and started to inspect his nose in the mirror. "Sprungli, at the rate you're going, you'll be home before me. I'm impressed. I got love for you. That thing in the locker, damn, that was crazy! One more trick like that and you might just get your ticket home."
"But I wasn't..."
"That's good." He shook a finger at me and then resumed trimming. "Yeah, you got the game down, Sprungli. You know how to sell the lie. That's what will get you out. Never back down from your story, no matter what stress they put on you. I like that about you. Never thought you could teach me anything, but there you go teaching me. That means you can get out, Sprungli, as long as you don't flip-flop on your claims. Don't say boo until you're back in Milwaukee with one of your large ladies."
A few of Major's buddies came down to the latrine and before long we had a free-style rap session underway. The distraction was nice because for ten minutes I forgot about my hunger. Me and my boys dropped beats like the latrine was the Death-Row studio. When I enlightened them with some of my lyrics, Major exploded with laughter again, nearly falling into a commode.
The noise level of the latrine soon brought Shipman through the darkness to investigate.
At first, his presence did not interrupt us. He smiled and even danced a bit, exhibiting his lame moves. He joined in the beat by tapping on a mirror with his dog-tags for a moment. But his cool act could not last, because at the end of a loud verse, Shipman said, "Fellas! Sprungli. Major. Hey, listen up for a minute. You have to quiet down. Everyone needs sleep, including you guys." His eyes squinted in confusion. "Major, why is your pecker sitting on the sink? You know, people brush their teeth over that spot. Do you always do that?"
Major laughed.
"And Jesus," Shipman said, "can you spare a few inches for the needy?"
We fell over laughing on the latrine floor. Shipman made a joke.
But always the spoiler, Shipman waited in the latrine until everyone returned to their bunk. When the rapping stopped, my hunger returned. It was an angry hunger, whittling and lathing my stomach like my high-school shop teacher on a piece of birch.
A withdrawal started to occur within my body. Every cell called out for a bit of trans-fat, some molecules of lard to allow daily operations to continue as usual. I needed some fast-food. I needed a large fry - a Biggie Fry from Wendy's, perhaps a bowl of Wendy's chili on the side. Wendy's didn't compromise, they personalized. Square hamburgers and Frosty malts, Lord, I prayed, let there be a drive-up window in the sky.
One memory of fast food led to another. The hunger prodded me like a boy at a dead cat. Chick-fil-A came to me not in a dream, but in a biscuit. I imagined myself huddled over Chick-n-Minis, remembered all the times I enjoyed a coupon lunch of 3-for-2 Chargrilled Chicken Sandwiches, and laughed at the night I spilled Lemon Pie into my lap.
Then I recalled my first love, that redhead - Ronnie. Oh, the extra value he brought to my life. I don't believe all those haters - everybody trying to knock Ronald down with McLibel, saying things like worm meat, choko pies, cow eyeballs, pig-fat milkshakes, bird-feather McFlurries, beef-tallow tainted fries, but I know the truth. I say judge not, lest ye have tasted a Triple Thick Shamrock Milkshake.
And Burger King. That was my senior-year sweetheart. The King knew how burgers should be. He welcomed me in, took my order, gave me my first Whopper. I was nervous and intimidated. He showed me the world, introducing me to exotic tastes, such as the Croissan'wich as well as the Double Croissan'wich. The exotic seafood in the BK Big Fish reminded me that fish, just like cattle, can be pressed into bun-fitting shapes.
There is one Colonel I will always salute, long after my Army career ends. He gave me homestyle mashed with Twisters on the side, not to mention buttered corn and whipped-cream Chess Pie. Sometimes things started out hot & spicy, on occasion extra crispy, but with his gravy at the ready, things never got dry. Once I had a Puffy Meat Pattie in one hand and a Tender Roast in the other. I didn't know which way to turn.
I also had a lot of fast food one-nighters: White Castle, Krystal, Jack-in-the-Box, Hardee's, Carl's Jr, Long John Silver's. They were all a little dirty. To have those moments back.
In my bunk, I recalled those late evenings. To taste those fries again. To let the buns fall out of their paper dresses. In my mind, I still pump so many ketchup dispensers.
But of all the relationships, the old flame that never stopped burning inside me was for Taco Bell. Day or night, I could make a run for the border and fetch some food. No matter what altered mental state I showed up in - Taco Bell treated me as an equal, asking, "Want some?" and I would answer "Heck yeah, yo quiero." I spiced up the night with fire sauce dripping over Baja Chalupas. I remember my favorite order: Double-cheesed fish tacos, Crunchwrap, 7-layer burrito, Cinnamon Twist happy-ending, and a large Mountain Dew." If I did not get my fill, if I required a Steak Enchirito and an Extreme Chicken Quesadilla to eat along with a Meximelt and a regular taco, the Bell did not flinch when I came back for my fourthmeal.
I wanted them all, all the burgers. The thoughts tortured me that night. To think that another day would pass burgerless - not even the idea of French Toast at breakfast could assuage me. For a burger, I would have journeyed in bare feet and over broken glass. Be
hind my closed teeth hid a sultry tongue, pining to strike a salty sandwich.
Chapter 11. Sunday