A Simple Act

            “Christ, but I’m hungry.”

            “Why don’t you just shut the hell up about it?”

            There was no way I could fault either sentiment. We were hungry, and we had a long wait ahead of us. On the other hand, it wasn’t doing much good to keep mentioning it. Doing so was sort of like scratching at a scab and hoping it would help heal the wound. My life, if you want to know, was like one big scab at that time so I didn’t know where to start scratching. Not just me either, the other two fellows were pretty much in the same boat.

            “In the same boat.” That’s pretty funny. We weren’t in the same boat but we were in the Navy, all three of us, and our beloved Navy had screwed us over pretty bad.

            The first speaker was a Seaman Apprentice from Tennessee. Wilson was his name, Robert maybe. We had been together for over six weeks now and had gotten to know one another well. The third man was Eddie Conners, a Seaman from East St. Louis—a brown-skinned fellow as rough as his hometown’s reputation. The fourth of our crew, Seaman James Dykes, hadn’t travelled from San Diego with us and we weren’t sure where he was.

            We knew where we were. We were at an airport terminal in California, waiting for the plane to take us to Da Nang in the Republic of South Vietnam on a lonely Saturday in late November of 1967.

            It was like this. We had joined the Navy to ride the Waves, as the old joke goes. Each of us, in our own way, had managed to piss off this venerable institution, and it had gotten back at us in classic fashion. I have no idea what the others did. I dropped out of one the Navy’s “A” schools and had told the personnel officer that I had joined the Navy to go to sea and see the world, not to spend my time studying at some shithole base in California. I had foolishly thought that the ghost of John Paul Jones would break into a broad sailor’s smile up in Navy Heaven upon hearing this 1967 version of “Give me a fast ship and so forth.”

            I had misjudged the prevalent sense of humor in the modern Navy and was now waiting for the goddam plane that would take me to Vietnam.

            “N-A-V-Y,” as in, “Need Any Vaseline Yet?” In short, I, we, all of us were in hell of a fix. Some Navy higher up—had to be an Annapolis grad, it was such a strange idea—decided that it was a waste of good Marines to guard Navy bases in the war zone and they should train predominately misfit sailors for the job. So, they had sent us to a few weeks of training on shooting various weapons, throwing hand grenades, standing guard, and going on patrols, things that would be of no value either in the free world or our subsequent Navy careers.

            “Give me a cigarette then,” Wilson said. “If we can’t have breakfast, at least we can have a cigarette.”

            He had a habit of explaining things that way when he talked. Sometimes it got on a person’s nerves like when they had us throw hand grenades with the marines at some god forsaken Marine Base out near San Diego. I hadn’t thrown one as far as they would have liked so on the way back, Wilson explained it to me. “They want you to throw it as far as you can so the shrapnel doesn’t fly back and hit you.”

            “Shut the fuck up about it,” I had said, “I don’t care what the Marines want or don’t want.” For the present, I handed him a cigarette and said, “Make it last. We have a long time to wait.”

            He lit the cigarette and leaned back. “They wanted us to get here early so we wouldn’t be late.”

            “Moron,” I said and leaned back to consider why I hadn’t fled to Canada when I had the chance.

            “Wake me up if they decide to leave early,” Conners said. He leaned back in his chair and pulled his “Dixie Cup” hat over his eyes so it rested on the bridge of his nose. He had creased such “gull wings” in it that it looked like if it slid off, it would sail ten feet. The Navy didn’t care much for that shit. They wanted you to wear that silly hat just like they gave it to you, completely round. Only Yoemen, or “squat to pees” as they were lovingly called by the Bosun’s Mates, did that. It is said that if all the hats on a ship got mixed up and had no names on them, a person could find his hat by the way it was rolled or creased. I don’t know. There is a lot of crap they say about sailors that never has been proven.

            Anyway, here is the deal. During the weeks of training for this assignment, the United States Navy had screwed up our pay records big time. Actually they didn’t screw them up, the payroll guys told us. It was that the large training bases didn’t like to pay all those temporary trainees that came through. They just kept adding your pay to your records. “What’s your beef?” was their attitude. “We give you a place to live and three meals a day. What you need money for? You’ll get paid when you get in-country.” That term “in-country” was a strange one. It meant to them that we weren’t their problem. To us it meant the physical location whereupon we could start counting the days until we returned to the “land of the round-eyes.” To others, it would mean the end of the road, that “in-country” was where they would buy the farm.

            We eventually would get paid when we arrived at our permanent location. But right now, it wasn’t helping. We had to get from San Diego to the airport on our own and be at this crummy place, they said, at 0600, or six in the morning, to catch a plane for Da Nang. The Navy talked like that, “Zero Six Hundred.” They, the Navy, didn’t add “hours” like the Army guys do. So if you ever see a movie where a character playing a Navy officer says, “Zero-Six Hundred Hours,” you will know it is bullshit and the scriptwriting lacks verisimilitude.

            So, after spending every cent we could muster between the three of us, and picking up a ten-dollar money order my daddy wired to San Diego, we got to town, procured three bunks at the YMCA, bought hamburgers, two packs of cigarettes, and a six-pack of beer—which we had to drink in the goddam alley behind the “Y.” They take that “C” in the cornerstone very seriously. Despite all we managed to follow orders and arrive at the airport, broke and hungry, right when they told us to.

            “Good,” the “squat-to-pee” who signed us in said. “Now your plane leaves from here between 1900 and 2000 so don’t get lost.”

 For those of you in the free world, that’s a wait of between 13 and 14 hours. Each of the three of us expressed our disappointment in our own way.

            “Jesus.”

            “Oh hell. They want to get everyone signed in on time so the plane wouldn’t be held up.”

            “Goddam mutherfuckin’ son of a bitch’n asshole Navy pricks.”

            I, being the oldest, and nominally in charge, did think to ask, “Are there any arrangements to feed us while we wait?”

            The yeoman looked at me as if I had just asked to be promoted to admiral. He attached tags, one by one, to our sea bags and placed them with a stack of others, behind him.

“Meals,” I said. “We haven’t had anything to eat and we haven’t been paid in six weeks.”

“Next,” he answered, looking past me to where stood a small, young Seaman Apprentice in line who had his mom and dad with him. I recognized him from our weapons training group but didn’t acknowledge it. You could tell that all three had been crying. We left and found a seat, orders in hand. Just then, a snappily dressed man in a blue blazer and white pants walked up to us. He wore a serious-looking badge that identified him as manager of the terminal. He looked at each of the three of us in turn and then asked, “Who is in charge here?”

            We looked back at him and didn’t answer.

            “Would you mind?” He said pointing to a far corner of the waiting room where some metal folding chairs had been placed. “We have a special waiting area for our servicemen.” He smiled.

            I looked at the metal chairs and at the soft cushions on the ones where we were sitting. “Doesn’t look that special to me.”

            His smile disappeared faster than a whore’s hug. “We like to keep the military personnel separate from our regular passengers,” he said.

            “They want us to sit by ourselves because we bother people,” Wilson said.

            “Mister,” I said, “do you have any idea where we are headed?”

            His face took on a stony look now. “Sir,” he said, “that’s not important for me to know. I’m just asking you to respect our rules.”

            “Fuck your rules,” Conners said.
            “Sir,” the attendant said, “The military has an MP stationed nearby and I wouldn’t like to have to fetch him.”

            “Fetch him?” What was this guy, a godammed trained puppy or something?

            “I’ll bet you would too … wouldn’t you?” I said.

            His smiled returned. “If I must,” he said.

            Conners started to rise. “No,” I said to him. “We’ll move.”

            “If we whip this motherfucker’s ass,” maybe they won’t send us over there,” Conners said. The attendant took a step back and put his hand to his mouth.

            “No,” I said, “they’ll still send us. They’ll just give us a shittier assignment once we get there. Come on.” I rose and took my orders in hand and headed for the segregation area. It wouldn’t be the last one I saw during my military career.

            So there we sat, our stomachs beginning to growl and our asses already sending protests up our spine to our brains. It was 0700, almost.

            A short time later, Dykes showed up. “Where you been?” I said. “We thought you might be a ‘no show,’ and you’re the squared-away one.”

            Dykes was a tall Seaman with a ruddy complexion and short hair somewhere between brown and red. He was one of those guys—you know the type—that could pick up any girl in any bar and no one could ever figure out why. He just had that something. His hat was cocked to the side of his head, the brim formed into a ‘circle-lip’ of even geometrical proportions. “I’ve been here since before daylight,” he said. “I stayed in a hotel last night.” He said it like someone might say “I graduated from Harvard.”

            “La di fuckin’ da,” Conners said.

            “He just said that to make us feel bad,” Wilson said.

            “So you must have money,” I said, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.

            “Had,” he said. “That’s the right word, ‘had,’ as in I had some money but I just spent the last cent on a sweet roll.”

            We deflated like three balloons. “You were our last hope,” I said. “We’re all financially embarrassed at the moment.” Then I added, “And hungry, too. We didn’t even have a sweet roll.”

            “It wasn’t much of a sweet roll,” Dykes said. He sat. “Why aren’t you sitting in the comfortable seats?”

            “Don’t ask,” I said. “Patriotism probably.”

            “They want us here so they can keep an eye on us,” Wilson said.

            “Cocksucker motherfuckers,” Conners said.

            Having thoroughly explained the decision regarding our location, we welcomed Dykes into our little sea of misery. It was almost 0730.

            Several “Navy-Years” later, Conners was softly snoring, his hat just ready to slide from his nose. I was, with closed eyes and an open mind, trying my best to reconstruct the series of events that had gotten me to this place at this moment. Wilson was reading a newspaper he had retrieved from a trash can, his lips moving with each word and his head nodding with each sentence—a sort of literary ballet in action—while Dykes studied a group of keys on a chain.

            “Why am I taking all these keys with me?” he said to no one in particular. “What am I going to need keys for in Viet-fucking-nam?” It was the first time I had heard that name. I would hear it again, and again.

            I opened my eyes and turned to him. “Hell,” I said, “Wilson is taking his alarm clock.”

            Wilson quit reading. “I’ll need to know when it’s time to go on duty,” he said.

            “I think they’ll let you know things like that,” Dykes said.

            “But if they ever forget to, I’ll have a backup plan.”

            We nodded in appreciation of this exquisite slice of logic. “Backup plans are nice,” I said. “I only wish one of the four of us had thought of one for today. Then maybe we could all eat.”

            Connors was awake now and chimed in. “Goddam asswipes led me to believe we would be winging our way to the Orient by now,” he said. “Why would we need a goddam backup plan?”

            Again, the logic was unimpeachable. “Have you considered,” Dykes said, “that we are the first generation to fly off to war in a commercial airliner?”

            “I guess we are,” I said. “Never thought of it before.”

            “It will beat a troop ship,” Wilson said. “They don’t have stewardesses on troop ships. There are too many troops.”

            Why was our country sending such deep thinkers to fight in somebody else’s war halfway around the world? I suddenly suspected that there had been more pristine logic expressed in our little group this morning than in all the cabinet meetings held on the war so far. With Wilson as Secretary of State, Conners as Secretary of War, and Dykes as Chief of Staff, our country wouldn’t have been in this mess. As for me, I didn’t see any role in politics. I thought for a moment and decided that my role would be to report. Yeah, report. I made a vow that I would put all this down on paper someday when I thought the world at large was ready for it. It was 0900.

            A thousand years or so later it was 1000, or “four bells,” if you must. I know that was the time, for Dykes gave a start, punched me, and politely asked, “What the fuck time is it?”

            “Ten hundred, I said. “Nine hours or so hours to go. Why?

            “I fucking forgot something.”

            “What?” I said. “Your Bible?

            “Hell no,” he said indignantly. “I nearly forgot to do something.”

            “All you had to do was show up here,” I said.

            “No,” he said. I promised my mother I would call this aunt who lives here that I don’t even know.”

            “You don’t know your own aunt?”

            “It’s a long story,” he said. “They moved here from Pennsylvania nearly 20 years ago and haven’t been back since. I don’t even remember them.”

            “But you’re supposed to call them?”

            “I promised my mother.”

            Now for a short lesson in nautical propriety. You can mess with a sailor. You can mess with the Navy. You can mess with his ship. You can mess with his shipmates or about anything or anybody that impacts his life. Hell, you can mess with an admiral if your rigging is tight enough. But you don’t mess with a sailor’s mother. I understood fully the moral obligation that Dykes felt. “So go call your aunt,” I said.

            “Do you have a dime?”

            “Hell no. I have maybe three cents.”

            “Wilson,” Dykes said. Wilson looked up from his paper. He had gotten to the third page by now. “Do you have a dime?”

            “I pitched my last dime in on the cab fare so we could make sure we got here on time,” Wilson said.

            “Pile it on, motherfucker,” Conners said from beneath his hat.

            “He’s dreaming about food again,” I said. “Wake him up.”

            Dykes looked at the skull and crossbones tattooed on the back of Conners’ hand and the scars on his knuckles. “You wake him up,” he said, looking at me.

            “I know he doesn’t have any money,” Wilson said, “so you really don’t have to.”

            “Shit,” Dykes said. “What am I going to do?” He reached under his top and pulled out a wallet that was folded over his 13-botton pants. He showed me that it was void of folding money. Then he pulled out a piece of paper. “I have their number right here.”

            “Maybe the airline folks will let you use a phone,” I said.

            “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll bet when I explain it they will.” He sprang from his seat and rushed toward the ticket counter. I watched as he moved from agent to agent, his enthusiasm evidently dropping with each move. Finally, he moved to a desk manned by the same man who had made us move earlier. I saw Dykes gesture, his arms spreading toward the sky and I saw the man shake his head and say something. Dykes sagged and walked away, but when he had gone about ten feet, he turned and shot the man the finger with a loud slap of his free hand. Passengers stared as he returned.

            “They all said …” he began.

            “I know,” I said. “I watched.”

            “They won’t do it for one because they would have to do it for all,” Wilson said.

            “Shut the fuck up,” Dykes said. “Only one thing left to do,” he said.

            I said, “What’s that?”

            “Turn beggar,” he said. “Either that or tell mom I failed.” With that, he rose and headed toward the main part of the waiting room.

            It was painful watching him. The few passengers that would listen shook their heads as soon as he started talking. One lady even moved her young child to behind her in a gesture of protection. One thing I’ll say for him: he was persistent. The Navy was lucky to have a man who stuck to his mission like Dykes. It appeared, nevertheless, that he was destined for failure. As his dejected figure started back, he passed a janitor mopping an area of the terminal. Dykes looked at him, stopped, stared, and spoke. The man listened quietly and nodded. Then he thrust a hand into a pocket, pulled it out, and handed Dykes something. They talked for a moment. Dykes patted the man on the arm, said something to him and started back toward us.

            He reached us just as the terminal manager arrived with a huge, muscular Army MP following. As Dykes sat, the manager pointed at us and said to the MP, “Them.”

            “I’ll handle it,” the MP said, motioning for the manager to return to his duties. He then turned to us. “You boys been causin’ a little ruckus, I hear. Y’all got some problem or t’other?”

            Oh shit. There is no meaner creature on earth than an illiterate southern redneck with the tiniest speck of military authority. None of us spoke.

            “I ain’t askin’ you agin.”

            “We’re just waiting for a plane, Sir,” I said, “to take us to our duty station in the Republic of South Vietnam.” Now that’s a subtle way of pissing them off, these authority-crazed enlisted men, calling them “Sir.” They know you’re mocking them but there’s not much they can say or do.

            He considered the situation, probably computing behind his thick skull how much paperwork he faced if he harassed us too much. “Let me tell you soon-to-be war heroes somethin’.” He drew himself up and, I’ll swear on my parents’ graves, actually patted his pistol. “If I have to come back, you’ll miss that plane and that ain’t no way to start off being a hero.”

            We said nothing. None of us had been in the military long, but we knew already that backtalk was nourishment for the bullies that drifted through the service like damaged goods passing along an assembly line. He waited, sniffed the air, turned, and walked away.

            “Got it,” Dykes said, holding up his dime.

            “And from a janitor,” I said. “What made you ask him?”

            “I saw the anchors tattooed on his arm,” Dykes said. “He told me he was World War Two, USS Arkansas. Bosun’s Mate Third Class.”

            “Well jack me off with a bilge pump and call me a snipe,” Conners said.

            “I’ll be back,” Dykes s said and, with that, he was off. It was 1030.

            He was gone less than 10 minutes before he came back on the run. “Come on,” he said, “They’ll be here shortly.”

            “Who?” I said.

            “My aunt and uncle. They’re coming for us.”

            Conners stood. “All of us?”

            “All of us,” Dykes said. “Turns out they just live a short ways from here.”

            “They don’t want us to spend the whole day here bored to death,” Wilson said. We all looked at him and shook our heads.

            What else is there you would like to know? They were there in less than 20 minutes and we were at the terminal entrance to meet them. Since we were the only four sailors standing in one group, they had no trouble finding us. Dykes ran around and identified himself, spoke to them briefly, and motioned for us to get into the car. We introduced ourselves.

            What about them? They were a quiet couple in their early fifties, ancient to us in other words. Uncle Earl had landed at Normandy with the Big Red One and fought his way through France and Germany. Aunt Louise married him while he was attending college on the GI Bill. He was a mechanical engineer and a hell of a nice guy. She was, well she was a sweet aunt. What else can I say? They lived in a ranch-style bungalow in a subdivision near the airport.

            He was tall, with brown hair beginning to turn grey. She looked as if she had just stepped from one of those 1940s movies about a happy family. For reasons we didn’t discuss, they never had children, but Dykes later hinted at war wounds.

            Uncle Earl dropped us all off at the house and left us there to freshen up and enjoy coffee and snacks. Then Aunt Louise ordered us to go into the living room and make ourselves comfortable watching television.

            It was much nicer than the airport terminal.

            Uncle Earl came back with groceries, including a big bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey and six of the thickest steaks I had seen up until that point in my life. Dykes went into the kitchen and caught Aunt Louise up on family news. Wilson helped Uncle Earl cook the steaks. Connors and I watched a football game and drank whiskey. It all ended too soon. We finished the meal with an explanation by Wilson that they had left the steaks medium rare because “It improves the flavor.” We never would have guessed.

            We even napped for a few minutes before Uncle Earl and Aunt Louise took us back to the airport. After hugs all around, we watched them drive away. I was thinking how a simple act of kindness could transform one of the worst days of my life to one of the best. It wasn’t, I regret to say, the best time in American history to be a member of the armed services and it would be a long time before the kindness of a stranger was shown me to me again. I never complained though, for it made the support of shipmates that much more important.

            Speaking of shipmates, when we joined the line for the plane, the young Seaman Apprentice who had checked in behind us that morning was there. We introduced ourselves and welcomed him into our group with him appreciating the comradeship. He sat with me all the way to Da Nang and we got to know one another. He was an only child and devoted to his parents. This would be his first time away from them. He came from a long line of sailors and, facing the draft, joined the Navy more from tradition than any longing for adventure on the high seas. During our in-country processing, he became a part of our bunch and never tired of telling us how nice it was to have friends.

            His name was Matheson and we learned that he wanted to go to college on the GI Bill when he got out of the Navy. He planned to be a teacher and, as we got to know him better, we would often tell him how good we thought he would be at it. That always made him feel better about being away from home.

We eventually received our permanent assignments and would be parting ways. Someone suggested we share a final evening in the EM Club at Camp Tien Sha, sort of a “goodbye shipmates, hello Vietnam” party. We met up there, had a few beers, watched the first of many USO shows we would see while in-country, and wondered about our future. Far too soon, our time was up and we had to leave.

Standing outside the club, Matheson wanted to hug us all before we left. We weren’t used to such displays, and the Navy would hardly have sanctioned it, but his family had moved to California from Ohio and that’s how they do things there. So, being a little drunk, we humored him, because by then we thought of him as our little brother. Even Conners joined in—albeit reluctantly—observing, “You white motherfuckers are crazy.” It was just a small act of kindness, and it seemed to make Matheson so happy: a group of grown men hugging one another under a brilliant oriental moon as drunks staggered by laughing. It was the second good time the original four of us had together before our tours got underway, and Matheson enjoyed being a part of it this time. He always seemed to feel good about knowing us. For our part, he made us smile and feel a little better about ourselves. The Navy was lucky to have him, and so were we on that warm night with a soft breeze blowing in from the South China Sea, the mingling smell of salty air, ancient vegetation, rotting fish, and human endeavor flowing over us like messengers announcing our place on the planet. It was a smell you wouldn’t easily forget.

We said goodbye in a sort of “So long, it’s been good to know you,” style and wished each other smooth seas. Matheson insisted on a final hug so we lined up and complied before we went our separate ways on unsteady feet that faced an uncertain future.

            It had been a great night, wrapping up an adventurous trip over from the states. Conners, Wilson, and I would meet again one year later as were processing out of Vietnam to new berths. We would have enough stories to last all the way back stateside. Dykes wasn’t there because, according to Wilson, he had extended his tour for six months. If you did that, the Navy gave you 30 days off free, a reward called “Basket Leave.” They would fly you anywhere in the “free world” and then back to Vietnam. According to Wilson, who ran into Dykes at a PX after he returned, Dykes had used the opportunity to go to Paris, France because he wanted to climb that big tower there and because he had read that they—the French—drank wine with breakfast, good reasons, I suppose. It sounded like Dykes anyway.

            We talked a lot about our trip over and the party we had the night when we first got in-country. We were changed, I suppose, and would never be the same young men that stood outside the EM Club in their new, but ill-fitting green uniforms—Matheson’s being at least a size too large making him look like a kid playing grown-up—and all of us with our stiff, clean, combat boots. We were just “new guys” but we would learn fast.

Oh yes, we also talked about Matheson. He didn’t make the whole tour. The Tet Offensive hit a month and a half after we got there and he bought it in a rocket attack out near Marble Mountain on the third day. I imagine we would have hugged him again that night if we could have foreseen the future—that he wouldn’t be there a year later to fly back home with us.

But that was one of the many things we had no way of knowing at the time.

Youth

 

My Short Life of Crime

By Jimmie von Tungeln

 My father decided, the year I turned fifteen, that a summer job would provide just the catalyst through which to redirect me from a life of idle languor to one of resolute achievement. He was, he assured me, there to help. Little did he know that his efforts would nearly veer me into a life of crime.

It happened this way. Daddy procured for me a job at a “filling station” in downtown Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It was during the late 1950s and life was slow and predictable, particularly in the summer months. The station employed two full-time attendants plus me and a college student, the son of a multi-millionaire cotton farmer, a father who also saw work as curative. The college kid arrived at work each morning in a brand new Corvette Stingray that probably cost more than the annual salary of one of the regular workers. My sister dropped me off on her way to work at a bank in the family car, an old purple Pontiac my classmates dubbed “The Purple People-eater.” Life can be sorrowful for a high school kid with a color-blind father.

Social disparity aside, we were a happy crew. When we weren’t serving customers, we washed cars, the college kid and I. When there were no cars to wash, we greased vehicles that were hoisted on racks like kings on their thrones. When there were no cars to grease, we learned things that would, the older guys assured us, stand us in good stead in later life—like shooting craps, doing card tricks, and learning how to spot girls who lived “on the spicy side of life.” What, one might ask, could go wrong?

It had to do with the FBI.

Two Special Agents, both bachelors (I think maybe all the agents were then) roomed in a boarding house two blocks from the station. It was our privilege to maintain their vehicle, a powerful Ford, in peak condition from which to fight crime, ferret out the Communists lurking in Pine Bluff, and keep the region safe.

The agents left that car in one of our vehicle bays at night and that is where the trouble started.

During the day, the car sat on the street, ready for action in the event of a Communist uprising or a chase after known criminals. It came to pass that it was my lot one hot summer afternoon to move the vehicle from the daytime spot to the vehicle bay. Like a good scout, I drove the car into the bay, left the key in the ignition as I had been taught to do and, having been told not to forget to close the bay door, followed that instruction. Then I was careful to lock the bay from the inside.

By exhibiting such a high level of professionalism, I could already visualize being accepted as a Special Agent myself, with all the glory that such a life promised. Certainly I would achieve a grander post than a sleepy Southern town, maybe New York. Just wait.

What no one had told me was that, due to a lack of criminal activity and the sleepy nature of our city, the station owner had agreed that the vehicle bay door wouldn’t be locked at night, just closed. This presupposed that nobody would be stupid enough to prowl around where an FBI vehicle was parked.

Wouldn’t you know it? That night, the only bank robbery that I remember occurring during my entire time of growing up occurred. It was in a little farming town with a branch bank some thirty or so miles away.

I knew nothing about this until I slammed the door on “Old Purple” next morning, ending some argument with my sister, and walked into the station.

Somber can’t describe it. All three of my comrades were leaning against a counter looking at me as if I were carrying a violin case and a copy of Das Kapital. I nodded but not a single one of them nodded back. They just stared. Finally the one we called Boss spoke.

“Where were you last night?”

“Me? At home.”

“Can anyone prove that?”

I knitted my brow. What business was that of his? “Sure, the family. Why?”

“What time did they go to bed?”

He knew what time my parents went to bed. “With the chickens,” as they say down South.

“Your sister there?”

“No, she was on a date.”

“Hmm,” he said. “You better get your story straight.”

“My story?”

“Your story.”

“What,” I said, “on earth are you talking about?”

“Somebody robbed the bank at Sherrill last night, just as they were closing.”

“Really?”

“Really. Guess what else happened?”

“What?”

“Somebody locked the FBI car in the bay here and the FBI guys had to walk all the way back home and get the key or they might have gotten over there in time to catch the robbers.”

The weight of the world began to lower on me like one of our fully loaded vehicle hoists. I said nothing.

“Don’t leave,” Boss said.

“What do you mean, don’t leave?”

“The agents want to take you in for questioning when they get back.”

“Questioning? Why?”

He looked at me as if I had just asked where sunlight originated. “Because you are the one who locked the FBI car in the bay.”

I couldn’t speak. I tried but my vocal chords just made a little squeaking sound like a screen door being opened on a hot summer day.

“They are pretty sure,” Boss said, “that you were in on it.”

Robinson Crusoe, on first reaching shore, could not have felt more abandoned and alone than I did at that moment.

“Don’t worry,” the college kid said. “We won’t get to listen to them.”

I finally found my voice. “Listen to them what?” I said, a half tone below “High-C.”

“Interrogate you,” he said in a grave voice honed by years of hazing fraternity pledges. “They are going to take you to the Police Station. That way they can just go ahead and lock you up if they decide to.”

“Lock me up for what?”

Boss said, “Aiding in a bank job is a pretty serious offense.” He told me that he had assured the agents that all his employees knew not to lock the bay at night. Mine was clearly a renegade action. With that, they all found something to do that didn’t include me. I moseyed around, bumping into things, until I finally found a quiet place to sit and await my doom.

Maybe prison wasn’t so bad, I thought. Maybe I could learn to sing there. Elvis did in some movie. Or maybe I could escape. As the minutes evaporated, so did my options, until only dark despair remained. Then I heard the sound.

It was the dark rumble of the FBI car’s powerful engine. The car came into view, lumbered alongside a gas pump, and stopped. It didn’t occur to me to attend it until I looked around and saw nobody else in sight. I was alone. The agent driving honked and it evoked the sound of a large creaking door closing on my life. I wandered out.

The driver rolled down the window and smiled. “Hey sport,” he said. “We drove this old gal a piece today so fill her up.”

“Fill her up?”

“Fill her up, and check the oil.”

“Yes sir,” I said. “Anything else?” I would get this thing over with, once and for all.

“Windshield’s dusty,” he said. “Oh…” Here it came. I froze. “They forgot to tell you but you don’t lock that bay door at night. Saves us some time and trouble.” With that, he turned to the other agent and began to compare notes. I moved to the gas pump.

As the pump hummed to life, my life hummed afresh. I even whistled. Then I saw three heads peer from the back of the station, laughing like they might never have another chance. I squeezed the pump handle like it was the hand of a lover, took in the smell of gasoline as if were the scent of roses, smiled at the three guys, and nodded. That was a good one, all right.

 

Jury Duty

               “How do you like jury duty so far?” the man next to Clyde Olsen asked. They had been cleared for the next case and were waiting in the Jury Room—a narrow space stuffy and thick with cigarette smoke. A ceiling fan swirled the smoke around in the heat, and Clyde could hear the sound of chairs scraping and people talking in the courtroom. It was still early in the morning but nearing time for the trial to begin.

            “Oh I like it fine,” he said. “I don’t get out much—gives me a chance to get away from work and do something useful.”

            “Tell you the truth,” the other man said. “I’d rather be fishing.”

            They both laughed. Clyde eyed the man. He was trim and well-dressed. His suit was cheap but new and the man was clean-shaven and short-haired. Clyde saw the Service Pin in the man’s lapel. “You been in the service?” he asked.

            “Seventy-ninth Infantry. Landed at Normandy on D-day plus four. With it all the way into Germany.” He paused. “How about you?”

            Clyde smiled and looked away. “Had two kids, one of them just a baby, so I was exempted until the last few months. They finally called me in January and I was set to be taken but then Germany surrendered. This your first jury duty?”

“First time. Hope it’s the last,” the other said.

“Oh, I’ve been here before,” Clyde said. “During the war they were short of men to choose from so I got called pretty often. Armistead, Arkansas ain’t a big town, you know. Myself? I kinda enjoy it. Mostly bootleggers and wife beaters so far.”

“This your first murder case?”

“Yep, and I understand it’s an open and shut affair.”

“Open and shut. That’s what I hear.”

Just then, the bailiff walked through the door and announced that it was time for the trial and asked if anyone had any questions.

“Will they feed us dinner?” asked a thin young man with a large Adam’s apple.

“We may be through before noon even gets here,” the bailiff laughed and said.

“Shucks,” I’m already hungry,” the man said to a ripple of laughter from the group.

The jury filed out and Clyde found himself looking down the row of attorneys’ tables. At the farthest one sat a man in a wrinkled suit and next to him another who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old, wearing khaki pants and a white shirt and looking for all the world as if he might bolt for the door at any moment—the defendant.

The crowd was small, basically divided into two groups of five or so each. Clyde noticed a couple of children but movement drew his attention back to the defendant. He had turned in his seat and was looking into the crowd, his neck pulsing from the effort. The man in the suit nudged him and nodded toward the front as the Judge entered the room. The crowd rose and remained standing until the Judge sat and the bailiff announced that court was in session. After those in the room had seated themselves, it became quiet except for the clicking of ceiling fans. The judge nodded and the trial began.

As had been predicted, it appeared to be a simple affair, a case of a tragic set of circumstances and a youthful and horrible lapse of judgment. There was first a bar, where a young married man should never have been in the first place. Then there was an argument over something so silly and meaningless as to almost make the jury laugh. There were threats and, later, after feelings should have cooled, there was violence on a man who was walking home alone.  Through the morning, there was enough evidence and testimony to convince any juror that the defendant had caused the death of an innocent man.

The only balancing weight would be the sincerity of the youthful defendant when it came time for him to testify. Though he swore his innocence, he had no way of proving it. The jury watched without emotion as the prosecutor destroyed, one by one, his protests.

Then it was noon and the Jury was escorted to a local diner to be fed. They were instructed not to talk about the case until they returned but there were few who didn’t whisper about the scope of the tragedy.

Clyde sat next to the man with whom he had talked earlier. Clyde expressed his opinion that a man would stay out of trouble as long as he minded his own business.

“There ain’t a thing outside a man’s family that ought to concern him,” Clyde said, then added, “Unless it’s something like this that somebody has to do.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” the other man said. “I don’t much care for being on a jury.”

Clyde seemed surprised. He lit a cigarette and said. “Why, don’t you think it’s our duty?”

“I reckon. I’ve just had enough of duty to last me awhile.” The man rose and headed outside to take the air.

Clyde turned to the man seated on his other side. “Ain’t he the one, though?”

After lunch the attorney in the wrinkled suit questioned two people that had been in the bar when the argument started. He seemed to be building up a case that the defendant had been goaded beyond some human breaking point. Then he produced a short parade of witnesses who swore to the goodness and honesty of the defendant.

After that, each lawyer gave a speech, both of which the jurors seemed to find boring, and it was over.

Back in the jury room, the heat was intense and none of the jurors seemed energetic about discussing what they had just heard. Most of the conversation centered on the tragic waste and the role of circumstances in a person’s life. On the first vote they, one and all, found the man guilty of murder. It was second-degree murder, but still murder, and the jurors were solemn as they waited for their decision to be delivered to the Judge.

Clyde didn’t look at the defendant when he was seated again in the jury box. He and the other jurors stared at the judge without moving. It was now late in the afternoon and time for them to go home, having done their duty in the only way possible.

Shortly, the ceremony was over. The jury foreman announced the verdict. The defendant declined to speak, simply lowering his head and waiting for the announcement. The judge handed it down and two bailiffs appeared from nowhere to handcuff the prisoner. The judged thanked the jurors and dismissed them.

Clyde had begun to stand when it happened.

It was just a sound but one like he had never heard. Vicious and unreal, it pushed him back into his chair. He almost threw his hands to his ears but this wouldn’t have stopped it. Nothing would have. He turned toward the back of the room, jerking his head like the first movement of an animal in danger.

From the crowd a woman was screaming. High and piercing, it was first just a sound of anguish torn from an unimaginable depth of feeling like someone had punched a hole in a pressurized tank. Then it formed along “Nooooooooo…” A quick breath and then again, “No, no, please God no.” The sounds tore past Clyde like winds in a storm.

They were from a woman dressed in a shabby, floral-patterned dress. She was thin and wore a pair of glasses that dominated her face. She kept screaming and tried to move toward the prisoner, but she was being held by the group of people who had sat with her during the trial.

“Oh God… don’t let them take him,” she screamed again, trying to break loose. They held her, though, and her screaming turned to wet sobs as arms closed around her.

            The arms didn’t stop a boy of about five years of age.  He tore from the group and, vaulting a low partition, raced to where the prisoner stood and wrapped his arms around one leg.

            “Daddy, daddy,” he yelled. The sound echoed from ceiling to wall to be strengthened and spun by the ceiling fans. “Please don’t take my daddy. Please, please!”

            He sobbed into the khakis of the prisoner who stared at him with surprise. The entire courtroom stopped. Even the judge had turned to see what was happening.

            One of the bailiffs who had been holding the prisoner’s arm let go and said to him, “Don’t move.” He moved around the man and began pulling the boy loose.

            “Oh daddy, don’t, don’t, daddy don’t,” the boy said. The bailiff wrenched him free from the man’s legs and dragged him backwards, the little arms flailing in circles like the blades of a windmill, as if he might generate enough wind to free him.

            “Daddy, daddy,” he sobbed. His entire head had turned red and tears flowed through the redness and then were slung away as he shook his head from side to side to emphasis the “No, no” he voiced. His cries joined those of the woman to form a sound that flooded the room.   “Don’t take our daddy,” the woman yelled, but the strength was going from her. There was a rough sound as the bailiff and another man, each holding an arm, dragged the young boy backwards along the hardwood floor with the heels of a ragged pair of brogans scraping the floor.

            Through it all, the prisoner had not moved, nor had the judge or the jurors. They all watched the scene as if it were occurring in some strange theatrical performance. They kept watching as the woman and boy were led from the room, their faces still turned toward the prisoner and still entreating someone—the judge, the jury, the bailiffs, maybe God himself. It was a general and non-directed plea for mercy.

            Then the courtroom was quiet again. No one moved for what seemed like minutes. Then the bailiffs began leading the prisoner toward the side door. Just when the jurors thought the spectacle might be over, the young prisoner broke the silence with a series of hoarse and guttural sobs that sounded as if they were erupting from Hell itself. It was as if the shaking of his body might cause the entire building to fall.

            “Come on now,” a bailiff said. “Don’t let these folks see you like this.” The man tried to nod but the sobs conquered him. They led him from the room in that state.

            Now the jurors stirred, as if they belonged to one great organism, and filed from their seats. As they moved toward the door, Clyde’s companion turned to him.

            “Maybe I’ll see you again some day… at another trial.”

            Clyde’s eyes seemed to be trying to focus. His face was pale and slack, like a balloon from which the air had been released. His mouth moved several times before sound emerged.

            “Never,” he said. “Not me, never again. No… not ever.”

Fiction Friday

 

ARTIFACTS

By Jimmie vonTungeln

 The fierce August heat poured from the sky without mercy upon the solemn fields. Below, nothing moved or showed any signs of life except the efforts of a small boy darting like an atom below the cruel sun. He hopped along a turn-row from one stalk of cotton to the next. The loose soil burned hot enough to scorch the soles of his feet, but at row’s end, the cotton threw a small circle of shade, providing relief for the traveler. He rested in each shadow for a moment before hopping to the next and, with this strange rhythm, reached the trees along the edge of the bayou where the dark forest promised relief. He reached into the pocket of his overalls to make sure his prize was still there, that it hadn’t bounced out or found a hole and escaped. Feeling its cool, polished form, he smiled and entered the woods, safe from his ordeal by heat. The woods enveloped him like a mother’s arms might wrap around a young child and the vast fields of cotton again lay unmarked by human activity.

            Inside, giant, brooding trees shut out most of the sun’s light so that the boy felt the cool damp soil against his bare feet. He eased to his right and found a familiar trail, then struck for the bayou. The forest was quiet like the world on a frost-covered morning and the boy shivered at its majesty. He moved with a knowing assuredness among the vines and bushes. Before long, he spotted his target. He approached without making a sound on the soggy leaves.

            The old man sat in his place, like a piece of the ancient vegetation itself. A rusted five-gallon bucket provided a seat. He held a long bamboo fishing pole over the water and a white flour sack on the ground held, the boy knew, both bait for fishing and food for the old man. The man sensed, rather than saw, the boy and he spoke without turning his head or removing a battered pipe from his mouth. “Marse Robert,” he said.

            “Hey,” the boy replied. “They bitin’?” He found a spot to the old man’s right and sat.

            “Mostly slow, today,” the man said. “How you doin’?”

            “I’m almost six years old. My birthday’s day after tomorrow—August 21.”

            “Well now isn’t that something?” The old man eased the fishing pole forward until the baited hook emerged. Then he swung the line toward him, grabbed it and inspected the bait. A mangle of worms dangled in several directions and he found no sign of molestation. He adjusted the cork—a relic that had long ago been retrieved from the top of an empty snuff jar—then slid his hand along the line towards the hook. Turning away from the boy, he spat on the bait and tossed it back into the bayou. Late summer rains had flooded the banks and the dark, sluggish water pulled the cork toward some unseen destination until the line went taut and stopped it.

            “I was born in 1920,” the boy continued when he saw that the man was no longer occupied.

            “You don’t say,” the man said, pulling the pipe from his mouth and exhaling a puff of smoke which floated across the bayou like ghost seeking a companion. “You be grown before we know it.”

            “How old are you?” the boy asked.

            The old man looked at his pipe. “The ‘chidren’ says I must be pushin’ on the door of 90 years or so,” he said. “I don’t rightly know.”

            The enormity of the number stunned the boy and he drew is knees up and stared at the meandering water. Then he remembered. He stood up in that single, fluid movement that only the young can accomplish and thrust his hand into his pocked. He retrieved his prize and thrust it toward the old man. “I fount an indian ‘arrerhead,’” he said. He held a perfectly formed artifact of pure black stone, contrasting against his small, white hand. The stone approached five inches in length and still held the sharp edges and fine point that its maker had first chipped into it.

It was too large to fit an arrow’s shaft. It doubtless had formed the head of a small spear. The old man regarded it, admiring its symmetry and the perfection of the creator’s art. “You shore fount a beauty there. Wherebout’s did you get it.?”

“Up the bayou aways, on the edge of the field the day after it rained. Hit was just a layin’ there. Poppa said Indians used to live here before we did.”

“They did indeed,” the old man said. He took the pipe from his mouth again and looked at the boy, bent toward him slightly to increase the importance of the moment. “Would you like to know something?”

“Sure,” the boy said, infected by the old man’s solemnity.

            “I remember when there were Indians here, at least one family. I remember when that last family left.”

            “You never…,” the boy started. The man’s look stopped him. “How could you remember indians? Ain’t that been long time ago?”

            “It has for a fact,” the man said. “But I’m an old man and I wasn’t much older than you when the last ones left.”

            “Where were they at?”

            “Right down on this very bayou. This land wasn’t all cleared then and they lived in a lean-to right down near the edge of the water.”

            “Did you ever talk to them?”

            “Never did,” he said. “They kept to ‘theyselves’ and nobody ever went near them far as I knows.”

            “What happened to them?”

            “They just disappeared one night. Somebody noticed they left and nobody ever knew a thing about where they went.”

            “Did they leave anything?”

            “Not that I ever saw. When folks disappear like that, ain’t usually much left of them, ‘cept something like that there thing you holdin’. Folks finds things like that ever now and then.” He nodded for emphasis.

            They boy stood without moving, absorbing this information and turning it around in his mind. The man returned to his fishing and his pipe. After a time, the boy closed his fist and returned the artifact to his pocket. “See you around,” he said and started walking upstream.

            “Yassuh,” the old man said and moved to inspect his bait again.

            The boy found a trail and followed the water as it edged sullenly toward its destination. From time to time, he felt in his pocket for his prize. It seemed to grow larger, he thought, the farther he went upstream. He thought about what the man had told him, and he thought about how the old man’s eyes had seemed to sparkle as he talked, almost as if a mist settled on them. He seemed to see the mist again and he felt as if he could see through it right into his own existence until he could almost see the very essence of what made him himself. He shuddered, “Indians,” he said to himself. Then he stopped. He had made a decision.

            The bayou was about to make a bend and he knew the trail would end. This was the perfect place. He searched among the trees until he found what he needed—the stump of a large tree left when a storm had taken its top. He scooped up a double handful of the soft mud at the water’s edge and carried it to the stump.

            He formed the mud into a small, smooth base. Then he went back to the water and washed the mud from his hands and wiped them dry on the legs of his overalls. He walked back to the stump, and looked at it, examined the small mud bed he had formed, and evaluated the worthiness of his handiwork. Then he took the artifact from his pocket and examined it as if he were seeing it for the first time. He held it in both hands, aiming the point upstream and into the impenetrable forest ahead. He slowly, and with as much respect as he could muster, laid the object on the bed of mud, pointing into the unknown. Then he backed away and stood still until he felt himself merging with the woods, the bayou, the artifact, and even the old man still fishing downstream. Maybe even, he felt, with the vanished ancients themselves. He felt himself becoming dizzy and then he felt a shaft of light coming from beyond the trees. He turned towards it and started from the forest.

            He whistled now as he walked.