I generally wound up back at the club car. I’d peel my cockeyed Wave of whomever she’d promoted to beer-buyer first class and go back to pouring Budweiser into her and trying to convince her that we were both adults with adult needs.
Anyhow, they dropped us off in Tacoma about five thirty in the morning on the fourth day after we’d landed in New York. My uniform was rumpled, my head was throbbing, and my stomach felt like it had a blowtorch inside. The familiar OD trucks from Fort Lewis were waiting, and it only took about an hour to deliver us back to the drab, two-story yellow barracks and bare drill fields I’d seen on a half dozen posts from Fort Ord to Camp Kilmer.
They fed us, issued us bedding, assigned us space in the transient barracks, and then fell us out into a formation in the company street. While they were telling us about all the silly-ass games we were going to play, my eyes drifted on out across the parade ground to the inevitable, blue-white mound of Mount Ranier, looming up out of the hazy foothills. I was dirty, rumpled, hung over, and generally sick of the whole damned world. The mountain was still the same corny, picture-postcard thing it had always been—a ready-made tourist attraction, needing only a beer sign on the summit to make it complete. I’d made bad jokes about its ostentatious vulgarity all the way through college, but that morning after having been away for so damned long, I swear I got a lump in my throat just looking at it. It was the first time I’d really felt anything for a long time.
Maybe I was human after all.
2
THEY weren’t ready to start processing us yet, so they filled in the rest of the day with the usual Mickey-Mouse crap that the Army always comes up with to occupy a man’s spare time. At four-thirty, after frequent warnings that we were still in the Army and subject to court-martial, they gave us passes and told us to keep our noses clean. They really didn’t sound too hopeful about it.
I walked on past the mob-scene in the parking lot—parents, wives, girlfriends, and the like, crying and hugging and shaking hands and backslapping—and headed toward the bus stop. I’d had enough of all that stuff.
“Hey, Alders,” someone yelled. “You want a lift into town?” It was Benson naturally. He’d been embarrassingly grateful when I’d given him back the watch, and I guess he wanted to do something for me. His folks were with him, a tall, sunburned man and a little woman in a flowered dress who was hanging onto Benson’s arm like grim death. I could see that they weren’t really wild about having a stranger along on their reunion.
“No thanks,” I said, waving him off. “See you tomorrow.” I hurried on so he wouldn’t have time to insist. Benson was a nice enough kid, but he could be an awful pain in the ass sometimes.
The bus crawled slowly toward Tacoma, through a sea of traffic. By the time I got downtown, I’d worked up a real thirst. I hit one of the Pacific Avenue bars and poured down three beers, one after another. After German beer, the stuff still tasted just a wee bit like stud horsepiss with the foam blown off even with the acclimating I’d done on the train. I sat in the bar for about an hour until the place started to fill up. They kept turning the jukebox up until it got to the pain level. That’s when I left.
The sun was just going down when I came back out on the street. The sides of all the buildings were washed with a coppery kind of light, and everybody’s face was bright red in the reflected glow.
I loitered on down the sidewalk for a while, trying to think of something to do and watching the assorted GI’s, Airmen, and swab jockeys drifting up and down the Avenue in twos and threes. They seemed to be trying very hard to convince each other that they were having a good time. I walked slowly up one side of the street, stopping to look in the pawnshop windows with their clutter of overpriced junk and ignoring repeated invitations of sweaty little men to “come on in and look around, Soljer.”
I stuck my nose into a couple of the penny arcades. I watched a pinball addict carry on his misdirected love affair with a seductively blinking nickle-grabber. I even poked a few dimes into a peep-show machine and watched without much interest while a rather unpretty girl on scratchy film took off her clothes.
Up the street a couple girls from one of the local colleges were handing out “literature.” They both had straight hair and baggy-looking clothes, and it appeared that they were doing their level best to look as ugly as possible, even though they were both not really that bad. I knew the type. Most of the GI’s were ignoring them, and the two kids looked a little desperate.
“Here, soldier,” the short one said, mistaking my look of sympathy for interest. She thrust a leaflet into my hand. I glanced at it. It informed me that I was engaged in an immoral war and that decent people looked upon me as a swaggering bully with bloody hands. Further, it told me that if I wanted to desert, there were people who were willing to help me get out of the country.
“Interesting,” I said, handing it back to her.
“What’s the matter?” she sneered. “Afraid an MP might catch you with it?”
“Not particularly,” I said.
“Forget him Clydine,” the other one said. That stopped me.
“Is that really your name?” I asked the little one.
“So what?”
“I’ve just never met anybody named Clydine before.”
“Is anything wrong with it?” she demanded. She was very short, and she glared up at me belligerently. “I’m not here for a pickup, fella.”
“Neither am I, girlie,” I told her. I dislike being called “fella.” I always have.
“Then you approve of what the government’s doing in Vietnam?” She got right to the point, old Clydine. No sidetracks for her.
“They didn’t ask me.”
“Why don’t you desert then?”
Her chum pitched in, too. “Don’t you want to get out of the country?”
“I’ve just been out of the country,” I objected.
“We’re just wasting our time on this one, Joan,” Clydine said. “He isn’t even politically aware.”
“It’s been real,” I told them. “I’ll always remember you both fondly.”
They turned their backs on me and went on handing out pamphlets.
Farther up the street another young lady stopped me, but she wasn’t offering politics. She was surprisingly direct about what she was offering.
Next a dirty-looking little guy wanted to give me a “real artistic” tattoo. I turned him down, too.
Farther along, a GI with wasted-looking eyeballs tried to sell me a lid of grass.
I went into another bar—a fairly quiet one—and mulled it around over a beer. I decided that I must have had the look of somebody who wanted something. I couldn’t really make up my mind why.
I went back on down the street. It was a sad, grubby street with sad, grubby people on it, all hysterically afraid that some GI with money on him might get past them.
That thought stopped me. The four hundred I’d won was in my blouse pocket, and I sure didn’t want to get rolled. It was close enough after payday to make a lone GI a pretty good target, so I decided that I’d better get off Pacific Avenue.
But what the hell does a guy do with himself on his first night back in the States? I ticked off the possibilities. I could get drunk, get laid, get rolled, or go to a movie. None of those sounded very interesting. I could walk around, but my feet hurt. I could pick a fight with somebody and get thrown in jail—that one didn’t sound like much fun at all. Maybe I could get a hamburger-to-go and jump off a bridge.
Most of the guys I’d come back with were hip-deep in family by now, but I hadn’t even bothered to let my Old Lady know I was coming back. The less I saw of her, the better we’d both feel. That left Jack. I finally got around to him. Probably it was inevitable. I suppose it had been in the back of my mind all along.
I knew that Jack was probably still in Tacoma someplace. He always came back here. It was his home base. He and I hadn’t been particularly close since we’d been kids, and I’d only seen him about three ti
mes since the Old Man died. But this was family night, and he was it. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have driven a mile out of my way to see him.
“Piss on it,” I said and went into a drugstore to use the phone.
“Hello?” His voice sounded the same as I remembered.
“Jack? This is Dan.”
“Dan? Dan who?”
Now there’s a great start for you. Gives you a real warm glow right in the gut. I almost hung up.
“Your brother. Remember?” I said dryly.
“Dan? Really? I thought you were in the Army—in England or someplace.”
“Germany,” I said. “I just got back today.”
“You stationed out here at the Fort now?”
“Yeah, I’m at the separation center.”
“You finishing up already? Oh, that’s right, you were only in for two years, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, only two,” I said.
“It’s my brother,” he said to someone, “the one that’s been in the Army. How the hell should I know?—Dan, where are you? Out at the Fort?”
“No, I’m downtown.”
“Pitchin’ yourself a liberty, huh?”
“Not really,” I said. “I’ve only got three more days till I get out, and I think I’ll keep my nose clean.”
“Good idea—hey, you got anything on for tonight? I mean any chickie or anything?”
“No,” I said, “just kicking around. I thought I’d just give you a call and let you know I was still alive, is all.”
“Why don’t you grab a bus and bag on out? I’d come and pick you up, but Margaret’s workin’ tonight, and she’s got the car.”
“Your wife?”
“Yeah—and I’ve got to watch the kids. I’ve got some beer in the fridge. We can pop open a few and talk old times.”
“All right,” I said. “How do I find the place?”
“I’m out on South Tacoma Way. You know which bus to take?”
“I think I can remember.”
“Get off at Seventy-eighth Street and come down the right hand side. It’s the Green Lodge Trailer Court. I’m in number seventeen—a blue and white Kenwood.”
“OK,” I told him. “I’ll be out in a half hour or so.”
“I’ll be lookin’ for you.”
I slowly hung up. This was going to be a mistake. Jack and I hadn’t had anything in common for years now. I pictured an evening with the both of us desperately trying to think of something to say.
“Might as well get it over with,” I muttered. I stopped by a liquor store and picked up a pint of bourbon. Maybe with enough anesthetic, neither one of us would suffer too much.
I sat on the bus reading the ads pasted above the windows and watching people get off and on. They were mostly old ladies. There’s something about old ladies on buses—have you ever noticed? I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but whatever it is, it makes me want to vomit. How’s that for an inscription on a tombstone? “Here Lies Daniel Alders—Old Ladies on Buses Made Him Want to Puke.”
Then I sat watching the streets and houses go by. I still couldn’t really accept any of it as actuality. It all had an almost dreamlike quality—like coming in in the middle of a movie. Everybody else is all wrapped up in the story, but you can’t even tell the good guys from the bad guys. Maybe that’s the best way to put it.
The bus dropped me off at Seventy-eighth, and I saw the sickly green neon GREEN LODGE TRAILER COURT sign flickering down the block. I popped the seal on the pint and took a good belt. Then I walked on down to the entrance.
It was one of those “just-twenty-minutes-from-Fort Lewis” kind of places, with graveled streets sprinkled with chuckholes. Each trailer had its tired little patch of lawn surrounded by a chicken-wire fence to keep the kids out of the streets. Assorted broken-down old cars moldered on flat tires here and there. What few trees there were looked pretty discouraged.
It took me a while to find number seventeen. I stood outside for a few minutes, watching. I could see my brother putzing around inside—thin, dark, moving jerkily. Jack had always been like that—nervous, fast with his hands. He’d always had a quick grin that he’d turn on when he wanted something. His success with women was phenomenal. He moved from job to job, always landing on his feet, always trying to work a deal, never quite making it. If he hadn’t been my brother, I’d have called him a small-time hustler.
I stood outside long enough to get used to his face again. I wanted to get past that strangeness stage when you say all kinds of silly-ass things because most of your attention is concentrated on the other person’s physical appearance. I think that’s why reunions of any sort go sour—people are so busy looking at each other that they can’t think of anything to say.
Finally I went up and knocked.
“Dan,” he called, “is that you? Come on in.”
I opened the screen door and stepped inside.
“Hey there, little brother, you’re lookin’ pretty good,” he said, grinning broadly at me. He was wearing a T-shirt, and I could see the tattoos on his arms. They had always bothered me, and I always tried not to look at them.
“Hello, Jack,” I said, shaking his hand. I tried to come on real cool.
“God damn,” he said, still grinning and hanging onto my hand. “I haven’t seen you in three or four years now. Last time was when I came back from California that time, wasn’t it? I think you were still in college, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“You’ve put on some beef since then, huh?” He playfully punched me in the shoulder. “What are you now? About a hundred and ninety?”
“One-eighty,” I said. “A lot of it’s German beer.” I slapped my belly.
“You’re lookin’ better. You were pretty scrawny last time I seen you. Sit down, sit down, for Chrissake. Here gimme your jacket. It’s too fuckin’ hot for that thing anyway. Don’t you guys get summer uniforms?”
“Mine are all rolled up in the bottom of my duffle bag,” I told him, pulling off the jacket. I saw him briefly glance at the pint I had tucked in my belt. I wasn’t trying to hide it.
He hung my blouse over a kitchen chair. “How about a beer?”
“Sure.” I put the brown-sacked pint on the coffee table and sat down on the slighly battered couch. He was fumbling around in the refrigerator. I think he was a little nervous. I got a kick out of that for some reason.
I looked around. The trailer was like any other—factory-made, filled with the usual cheap furniture that was guaranteed to look real plush for about six weeks. It had the peculiar smell trailers always have and that odd sense of transience. Somehow it suited Jack. I think he’d been gravitating toward a trailer all his life. At least he fit in someplace. I wondered what I was gravitating toward.
“Here we go,” he said, coming back in with a couple caps of beer. “I just put the kids to bed, so we’ve got the place to ourselves.” He gave me one of the cans and sat in the armchair.
“How many kids have you got?” I asked him.
“Two—Marlene and Patsy. Marlene’s two and a half, and Patsy’s one.”
“Good deal,” I said. What the hell else can you say? I pushed the pint over to him. “Here, have a belt of bourbon.”
“Drinkin’ whiskey,” he said approvingly.
We both had a belt and sat looking at each other.
“Well,” I said inanely, “what are you up to?” I fished out a cigarette to give myself something to do.
“Oh, not a helluva lot really, Dan. I’ve been workin’ down the block at the trailer sales place and helping Sloane at his pawnshop now and then. You remember him, don’t you? It’s a real good deal for me because I can take what he owes me out in merchandise, and it don’t show up on my income tax. Margaret’s workin’ in a dime store, and the trailer’s paid for, so we’re in pretty good shape.”
“How’s the Old Lady? You heard from her lately?” It had to get around to her sooner or later. I figured I’d get i
t out of the way.
“Mom? She’s in Portland. I hear from her once in a while. She’s back on the sauce again, you know.”
“Oh, boy,” I said with disgust. That was really the last damned straw. My mother had written me this long, tearjerker letter while I was in Germany about how she had seen the light and was going to give up drinking. I hadn’t answered the damned thing because I really didn’t give a shit one way or the other, but I’d kind of hoped she could make it. I hadn’t seen her completely sober since I was about twelve, and I thought it might be kind of a switch.
“You and her had a beef, didn’t you?” Jack asked, lighting a cigarette.
“Not really a beef,” I said. “It just all kind of built up. You weren’t around after Dad died.”
“Naw. I saw things goin’ sour long before that. Man, I was in Navy boot camp three days after my seventeenth birthday. I barely made it back for the funeral.” He jittered the cigarette around in his hands.
“Yeah, I remember. After you left, she just got worse and worse. The Old Man hung on, but it finally just wore him down. His insurance kind of set us up for a while, but it only took her a year or so to piss that away. She was sure Mrs. High Society for a while though. And then, of course, all the boy-friends started to show up—like about a week after the funeral. Slimy bastards, every one of them. I tried to tell her they were just after the insurance money, but you never could talk to her. She knew it all.”
“She hasn’t got too much upstairs,” Jack agreed, “even when she’s sober.”
“Anyway, about every month, one of her barroom Romeos would break it off in her for a couple of hundred and split out on her. She’d cry and blubber and threaten to turn on the gas or some damned thing. Then after a day or so she’d get all gussied up in one of those whorehouse dresses she’s partial to and go out and find true love again.”