The entire company piled into a large room where we received the official briefing on POSH, or Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Pint held the floor. The other Drills patrolled the crowd in search of people dozing off. Several times I was scared awake. Waving his arms in the front of the room, Pint explained POSH and he baited me for trouble.
"Can anyone give me an example of sexual harassment?"
Someone said, "Improper touching."
"Right. That means no contact that goes outside the scope of training. What else?"
Another Private said, "Calling someone names or saying crude things."
"Like what?" Pint asked. "What might someone say that would be sexual harassment?"
I raised my hand.
"Sprungli. Give us an example."
I took the bait. He seemed to begging for a joke. "'Suck me,' Drill Sergeant?"
The laughter barely reached my ears before I was chased out of my chair by several Drills. Outside, into the grass, a fresh smoking ensued. My bunkmate Private Shipman was forced to join me in the grass to partake in the punishment. Because of my comment, I missed the remainder of the briefing, which included watching part of a movie.
Front-Back-Go was followed by an endless session of the Overhead-Arm-Clap and lastly, they rolled me on the ground like bread dough, back and forth, left and right, right and left, until the POSH briefing ended and a new briefing began. Shipman and I spent little time on our feet that morning, except when we were doing the side-straddle-hop, known more commonly as jumping-jacks.
Stewing with rage, Pint marched Shipman and I back to the barracks and seated us in the Drill Sergeant's office, where he administered official disciplinary action.
"Private Shipman, I'm also writing a counseling statement for you."
"Me?" he said.
"Yes, you. You're his battle buddy. Sprungli is out of line. It's on you to correct him. Whatever happens to Sprungli will go into your file as well."
"But, Drill Sergeant, he was way out of line in the briefing."
"Out of line?" I said. "Drill Sergeant Pint, you asked for an example of harassment, and I just gave one. I had a good example, too. Wouldn't it be harassment if someone said 'Suck me', Drill Sergeant?"
Pint said, "Sprungli, trying to be clever is putting nails in your coffin on this counseling statement."
"I'm not trying to be clever, Drill Sergeant."
Pint said, "It sounds like you are saying 'Suck me, Drill Sergeant.' Because that is what you are saying."
"Is it my fault," I said, "that I have to add 'Drill Sergeant' to the end of everything I say? If I was saying 'Suck me, Drill Sergeant', I would have to say, 'Suck me Drill Sergeant,' Drill Sergeant."
"That's it, you are both getting statements."
"But," said Shipman, "I agree with you, Drill Sergeant - he deserved to be punished."
"No buts, Shipman," Pint said. "Now where did I put those counseling statement sheets?"
Pint rustled through the drawers in his desk, fingered every folder, and tapped a pen against his chompers until he said, "They must be in the female barracks. Follow me."
We followed him outside, onto the white gravel that I already knew so well. Pint paused at the door of the female barracks. He said, "Always call out, 'Male on the floor' before entering the female barracks, do you understand? But no one should be in here right now, so we'll just go inside." He entered the door with us following close behind. Twenty feet inside the darkened barracks, he stopped and held up a fist, the infantry hand-signal for halt. He looked back at us.
"Did you hear something?"
We both shook our heads. Like a trail donkey, Pint had his ears up.
The sound of a singing woman filled the barracks. Beautiful singing, high-pitched, and the bare tiles seemed suddenly filled with flowers. I half-expected to see a bird passing through an open window. None of us could move. What was the song? Was it something old or something new? I could not place it, nor did I want to because I could not think. I could only listen and observe a shadow lengthening on the floor as the owner of the voice emerged from the latrine and shower area. Her singing seemed to hypnotize even her, because the woman came out with her eyes closed, singing loudly, pouring out her soul for her secret audience of three men lost in the echoes. I saw a pair of feet first, perfect feet, ankles unblemished, followed by calves that rose into my view like twin vases. Soft and tender knees led upward to dark thighs neither thick nor thin but an ideal curve that surrounded a soft area of olive-drab toweled mystery. Then her hourglass hips tapered into a slender waist, her arms were bent at the elbows, her hands were lifted and drying her dark hair like in a shampoo advertisement. I forgot the singing altogether and let my mouth hit the floor with a clang.
It was Private West.
None of us spoke. We couldn't. Electricity passed through the room, just like that time I reached into the toaster with a butter knife to retrieve a captive bagel.
The barracks changed all around me. I felt like I was sitting on a beach looking at an exotic woman lying out by a grand ocean. But surely any ocean's grandeur was second to this. I was not in the Army anymore. I was on that beach with her. She and I were together in a foreign land, with a blue backdrop, and her bottom was dusted lightly with sand. The sun traveled over her to the West - the West! Arching, she bathed in drunken kisses of sunlight, while simultaneously begging for (I imagined) the touch of my thumb and my hand. There were no words exchanged, for her singing stopped and her lips settled into a slight part as she invited me in to kiss...
"Oh my God!" she screamed at me. Was it ecstasy? No, it was definitely fear.
"Get away from me, Sprungli!"
"Oh sorry," I said, unpuckering my lips.
She ran, leaving behind wet footsteps, ghostly evidence of a lost artwork. Again, I wondered how she ever became a Fat Camper. She must have arrived in tubland by human error. This Private West was the kind of woman that gamers would dedicate their high scores to, using her initials instead of their own. If she strapped a gun to each thigh, she would have been a ringer for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
At that point, I felt like turning to both Pint and Shipman to congratulate them, like baseball players after a good game.
Pint shook his red face. "You two - pick up your jaws. Now get into that office." He marched to a small corner office and unlocked the door. "Wait in here. Quietly." His voice trembled. "I need to find out why she is here in the barracks instead of at the POSH briefing. I may need to write up another counseling statement."
When I sat down in my chair, I looked at Shipman and his face was as flushed as Pint's. I asked, "Is my face red, too?"
He ignored me. I said, "Yoo-hoo, Shipman."
His head snapped to attention, as if something broke in him, and he spoke like a fool.
"It's over," he said.
"What's over?"
He scrambled and grabbed a piece of paper off the desk and started writing a letter.
"Dear Erin?" I read as he wrote. "Is that your girlfriend? Are you going to tell your girlfriend that you saw a naked lady?"
"Sprungli, it's none of your business, but yes, I'm breaking up with my girlfriend at home. We left on bad terms and I've had an epiphany. Silly as it seems, I now know that I don't want to repair things with her."
Soon after Shipman's admission, Pint returned with his military bearing around his ankles.
I asked Pint, "So what was she doing in here?"
"Never mind that, Sprungli."
Shipman said, "Did you apologize to her?"
"Quiet," Pint snapped. "She was at Sick-Call this morning and the line of people was very long. She has a...ahem...a sore throat."
Shipman put his hand on the desk and leaned forward. "Is it strep or just a cold?"
Pint looked down at his trembling hands.
"The doctors don't know yet." He looked up. "But her throat culture wi
ll be read by tomorrow." Pint started opening and closing desk drawers. For a moment, he searched frantically in the office, even standing on his tip-toes to swipe his hand over the top of the file cabinets.
"Ah! Found them. Drill Sergeant Brown always keeps some around."
"What are they?" Shipman asked.
"Vitamin C tablets and throat lozenges."
"May I," Shipman asked, "give them to her?"
"Sit down, Private. I'll give them to her. And can I get a Drill Sergeant? Is that too much to ask?"
"Yes, Drill Sergeant."
"I should write you up for that, too," Pint said. "I'll be right back to fill out your counseling statements."
Pint did not come back for fifteen minutes. I think he needed some privacy.
Chapter 7. Jell-O