I survived the week, lasting until Sunday. After I refueled at breakfast that morning, I checked on my spider, who still lurked in the ear-plug case. That Black Widow, she was still full of hostility. That was good, too, because she was about to take a one-way vacation. On a folded sheet of paper, I wrote, "A souvenir for you from Basic Training, Staff Sergeant Bauer." I placed the note and dumped the spider into the envelope, letting her out of her jail. The feisty Black Widow was on her way to a Milwaukee Army recruiting station, to visit the man that promised me Ranger school. However, the whole plan backfired when I sealed the envelope and in doing so, a wet blotch formed on the paper. I had squeezed the envelope in the wrong spot. Opening the envelope to inspect, I found eight idle legs inside.
Sundays in the barracks were sad for some guys, but not for Shipman, who beat his chest and commanded people to clean.
"We are going to clean every tile," he proclaimed.
Shipman dragged me into his cleaning power-trip. The only perk was that we were allowed to go into the female barracks to oversee their progress.
"Male on the floor!" Shipman shouted as we entered the female barracks.
Inside, twenty females scrubbed the tiles, wearing their camouflage pants and brown T-shirts. The radio blared. Whenever the song changed, singing and dancing started anew. Some females wept in their bunks. This happened in our barracks as well, and for either sex, Shipman tended to every teardrop like a new puppy.
When she saw us in the doorway, West reacted. "Hi Shipman!"
I heard a girl from first-platoon say, "Our favorite boy is back."
I pointed at my chest and told her, "If you want it, just jump on it."
"Who said anything about you?"
Next to Shipman, like equals, we paraded through the barracks. Shipman whipped out his notebook and started jotting down complaints and supply deficiencies.
A song came on the radio that activated the women into a higher state of energy. An MTV-obsessed group of girls acted out the entire video. They sang and teased Shipman. Some of them gyrated and grinded on each other. Three of them bumped against Shipman, who kept scribbling in his notebook, pretending to ignore the attention. The scrubbing on the floor continued to the beat. "Mmm, that feels good," one of the females purred. They sang into their brushes and spray bottles. Hips everywhere swayed, the barracks was like a nightclub but with Sunday morning shining through the windows. Shipman took his notes while I took in the crazed party. Their hair, all week wrapped tight under helmets and caps, touched their shoulders and seemed longer than the Army Regulation 670-1 allowed. In their plain brown T-shirts, they scrubbed, rubbed tiles, sang into each other's mouths, and gushed with music. Two females held an old shirt between them and they spun around until it tore apart and then they tossed the rags down to the girls who worked on the floor, scrubbing at the tiles to the beat. Other females performed amazing feats, moving bunks and massive lockers around, all while never breaking out of song. When I thought I could handle no more, Private West emerged from the latrine area carrying a large pitcher of some cocktail that the females passed around to each other.
"What is that?" Shipman asked.
"We pooled our lemonade packets from the MREs," said West, referring to the Meals-Ready-to-Eat that we received on the rifle range.
"May I?" asked Shipman.
West said, "Be my guest."
"Where did you put your lips?"
She took a drink and made a kissing sound when she pulled the pitcher away from her mouth. "Right there."
"Give it to me." Shipman drank and lingered with his mouth on the pitcher, filling it with his backwash.
Pint ruined their precious moment. The barracks was stifled. The music died. The man lived his whole life like a stink in an elevator.
Pint made his usual Sunday announcements:
"Baptist service is leaving right now. Gospel leaves in thirty minutes. Catholics at ten o'clock, Lutherans at ten fifteen. Jewish service leaves at nine forty-five. Wiccan also leaves right now. Pentecostal departs at nine thirty and Buddhists, so do you. Scientology, you should have already left. Muslims, Mormons, you go at ten twenty. Did I miss anybody? Ok then, Baptists and Wiccans, make two formations outside. Drill Sergeant Pfeffer is waiting out there for you. Any questions? Good. The rest of you, get back to work."
During the first weeks of Basic Training, when these announcements were made I didn't react and therefore missed out on a good deal of candy. Thanks to Private Major's reconnaissance, I was converted to the Wiccan religion.
"Shipman," I said, "I'm need to go to the Wiccan service. Did you hear that the Mormons are meeting later on?"
"That's wonderful for them."
"Is it true that you guys kill a goat or a ram every Sunday?"
"I'm not Mormon and I'm not going to the Mormon service, and no, they don't kill rams on Sundays." He sighed. "Unfortunately, I'm not going to any service. I need to make sure the barracks is clean so I don't get blamed for dirt all week."
Down the barracks steps I trampled, stopping to look for my Kit-Kat stash underneath the staircase, but the Gut Truck driver continued to betray his verbal contract. No Kit-Kats - not a single one.
A group of Baptists gathered in front of Drill Sergeant Pfeffer and a small group of Wiccans made another formation. There were only seven of us practicing Wiccans.
Pfeffer came over and said, "Y'all better be Wiccans, whatever the hell it is. Ain't no experimenting here. You came to the Army with a religion, you stick with it. This isn't some retreat to find your inner freak."
Private Waters stood in the center of the Wiccan formation and I knew he wasn't a Wiccan, but I couldn't out him, because neither was I. However, Sunday was an important day to keep my mouth shut, because if I timed everything right, I could attend the Wiccan service, get back in time for the Buddhist service, and then catch either the Jewish service or the Muslim one. Whichever one I attended didn't matter, just as long as I escaped the barracks for the maximum amount of time.
I learned a good deal about the Wiccan tradition. First, we all marched to the Shoppette convenience store and bought supplies for the service. I chose beef jerky and chocolate milk, mini-donuts and pork-rinds. One Wiccan, Private Ganger, argued about this ritual, saying that we needed to get out to the parade field and draw the pentagram. "There ain't no such thing as a Wiccan ceremony," Private Major assured her, "unless you got gum."
Ganger's opposition to the shopping never lasted long, because she was hungry as her fellow Wiccans - we had a hungry faith. When we did reach the parade field, she asked us to join hands and repeat some words after her.
"Handfasting?" Private Major said in disbelief. "No, me and my girl are off the woods for another kind of handfasting, but it's more like fasthanding. We'll see you all in a bit."
That left only five of us Wiccans to enjoy the service. One of the Wiccans didn't seem to understand the religion. He started quizzing Private Ganger on what it meant to be Wiccan. The name on his uniform said 'Baker'.
"So you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" he asked Ganger.
"Well," Private Ganger said, "Of course not, I'm a Wiccan."
Baker continued in this line of questioning. "Do you know that this star is a symbol of the devil?"
"No it's not," said Ganger.
"You should not be allowed on a military installation."
But Baker was interrupted by Private Waters.
"This is not a Christian ceremony," Waters said, visibly upset. "If you've come to convert people, then leave. But Private Ganger doesn't need to spend her only hour of the week getting bullied by you."
"Who's byullying? I'm just asking."
Private Vang, also not a Wiccan, seconded Waters. Private Ganger smiled. I yanked and pulled at a stubborn piece of beef jerky.
"Wow," I said to Private Waters, chewing on the end of the jerk
y. "For a guy with three Bibles, I'm surprised you are Wiccan."
"Sprungli, can you seriously be that dense?" asked Waters.
For a while we all stared at Baker, who eventually stood and left the circle, abandoning Wiccanism. Finally, Ganger began her ceremony. While I watched, I tapped on the bottom of the pork-rind bag to shake out the crumbs and crunched them in my mouth.
"Please chew with your mouth closed," Ganger said to me. She then leaned back and faced the sky with open mouth. Two rows of teeth lined both the top and bottom of her mouth. In some areas, she seemed to have three rows of teeth. How so many teeth fit inside a mouth, I had no idea, but I watched carefully every time that she opened her mouth and exposed the double-tiered pearlies. In some ways, her mouth reminded me of deep-core drill bits used on Armageddon and Total Recall.
At the end of every Wiccan service, someone had to go find Private Major and his sweetheart in the woods. I had grown tired of watching Private Vang and Private Waters tickle each other and giggle, so I volunteered to locate the stray members of our flock. Private Ganger walked with me.
"Richard?" I called out in the woods, "Oh King Richard, where are you?"
Ganger followed close to me, so near that we bumped each other several times. Her perfume smelled wonderful, like peach cobbler. Before long, we stopped looking for Private Major and sat on a log next to each other. I offered her beef jerky and she accepted. Using an old magic trick, I produced a mini-donut from her ear. One thing led to another. Before long we fell off the log together, onto the forest floor with a thud, and there we kissed. She was all over me, and definitely an amateur.
"How do you like that?" I said, exciting her. "Right there, you like that?"
"That's my hip."
A first-timer. We performed a barrel roll on the grass and leaves. We did not roll far, perhaps only once around, because we had tumbled into a patch of brambles and vines. Before I could react, my arms were pinned together. The position allowed me to see my beef jerky, but I could not reach it with my mouth. Ganger wiggled on top of me and tried to escape.
"What are you trying to do?" I asked.
"I'm trying to get off of you," she said.
"Ouch! Careful where you move your knees, Ganger. Can you reach my jerky?"
The situation worsened when she managed to rise to her knees and lean forward onto the log. I wiggled back and forth on the grass until I was able to turn over, but I should have stayed put, because when I rolled, the vines locked me in place, and my face landed right in the center of her ample rear. She slapped at me with her hand, but I could not escape that ripe spot. The forest had swallowed us. I leaned back, but could not maintain the position, and without any other choice, I fell forward into her rump once again.
I heard footsteps behind me, a rustling in the leaves.
"God-dog, is that Sprungli and Ganger?" The voice of Private Major. He was already laughing. "That's Sprungli, all right. And he's snorting crack! Sprungli, are you trying to get out on a perversion charge? Damn, you are the master, Sprungli."
I spoke into Ganger's buttock. "Piss off, Major. I'm trying to get untangled."
Major's girlfriend said, "Damn, you are nasty, Sprungli."
"You said it, baby," Major agreed. "Like two whales pushed up on a beach. Two sea lions stuck on a pier."
"Help us," Private Ganger whelped. "I'm so sorry. Please give me a hand."
"Sorry for what?" Major asked. "Hell, if I was you, I'd rip one right on the bridge of his nose."
Chapter 12. Article 15