I was doing pretty well there for a while, I objected. I think I was about fifteen hundred dollars to the good before I started losing. Ill win that back in just a few hours, the way the pots have been running.
You broke your string, son, Riker said softly, looking out over the water. You been losin cause you was ashamed of yourself for what you done to that heavyset boy.
I still think he had it coming to him, I insisted.
I aint arguin that, Riker said. Like as not he did. What Im sayin, son, is that youre ashamed of yourself for bein the one that come down on him like you done. I been watchin you, and you aint set easy since that hand. Funny thing about luckit wont never come to a man who dont think hes got it comin. Do yourself a favor and stay out of the game. Youre only gonna lose from here on out.
I was going to argue with him, but I had the sudden cold certainty that he was right. I looked out at the dark ocean. I guess maybe the bit about the pants was going a little too far, I admitted.
Yeah, he said, your buddys watch woulda been plenty.
Maybe I will stay out of the game, I said. Im about all pokered out anyway.
Yeah, he said, well be gettin home pretty quick anyway.
Couple, three days, I guess.
Well, he said, Im gonna turn in. Been nice talkin to you, son. He turned and walked off down the deck.
Good night, Sergeant Riker, I called after him.
He waved his hand without looking back.
So I quit playing poker. I guess Ive always been a sucker for fatherly advice. Somehow I knew that Riker was right though. Whatever the reason, Id lost the feeling Id had that the cards were going to fall my way no matter what anybody tried to do to stop them. If Id have gone back the next day, theyd have cleaned me out. So the next day I watched the ocean, or read, and I didnt think about poker.
Two days later we slid into New York Harbor. It was early morning and foggy. We passed the Statue and then stacked up out in the bay, waiting for a tug to drag us the rest of the way in. We all stood out on deck watching the sun stumble up out of the thick banks of smoke to blearily light up the buildings on Manhattan Island.
Its a funny feeling, coming home when you dont really have anything to come home to. I leaned back against a bulkhead, watching all the other guys leaning over the rail. I think I hated every last one of them right then.
Two grubby tugboats finally came and nudged us across the bay to a pier over in Brooklyn. Early as it was, there must have been a thousand people waiting. There was a lot of waving and shouting back and forth, and then they all settled down to wait. The Armys good at that kind of thing.
Benson dragged his duffle bag up to where I was and plunked it down on the deck. I still hadnt told him I had his watch. I didnt want him selling it again so he could get back in the game.
Hey, Alders, he puffed, I been lookin for you all over this fuckin tub.
Ive been right here, kid.
Feels good, gettin home, huh? he said.
Its still a long way to Seattle, I told him. His enthusiasm irritated hell out of me.
You know what I mean.
Sure.
You think maybe they might fly us out to the West Coast?
I doubt it, I said. I expect a nice long train ride.
Shit! He sounded disgusted. Youre probably right though. The way my lucks been goin lately, theyll probably make me walk.
Youre just feeling picked on.
Eventually, they started unloading us. Those of us bound for West-Coast and Midwest separation centers were loaded on buses and then we sat there.
I watched the mass family reunion taking place in the dim gloom under the high roof of the pier. There was a lot of crying and hugging and so forth, but we werent involved in any of that. I wished to hell we could get going.
After about a half hour the buses started and we pulled away from the festivities. I slouched low in the seat and watched the city slide by. Several of the guys were pretty boisterous, and the bus driver had to tell them to quiet down several times.
Look, Benson said, nudging me in the ribs. Eine amerikanische Fräulein.
Quit showing off, I said, not bothering to look.
What the hells buggin you? he demanded.
Im tired, Benson.
You been tired all your life. Wake up, man. Youre home.
Big goddamn deal.
He looked hurt, but he quit pestering me.
After theyd wandered around for a while, the guys who were driving the buses finally found a train station. There was a sergeant there, and he called roll, got us on the train, and then hung around to make sure none of us bugged out. Thats Army logic for you. You couldnt have gotten most of those guys off that train with a machine gun.
After they got permission from the White House or someplace, the train started to move. I gave the sergeant standing on the platform the finger by way of farewell. I was in a foul humor.
First there was more city, and then we were out in the country.
We in Pennsylvania yet? Benson asked.
I think so.
How many states we gonna go through before we get back to Washington?
Ten or twelve. Im not sure.
Shit! Thatll take weeks.
Itll just seem like it, I told him.
Im dyin for a drink.
Youre too young to drink.
Oh, bullshit. Trouble is, Im broke.
Dont worry about it, Kid. Ill buy you a drink when they open the club car.
Thanks, he said. That game cleaned me out.
I know.
We watched Pennsylvania slide by outside.
Different, huh? Benson said.
Yeah, I agreed. More than just a little bit.
But its home, man. Its all part of the same country.
Sure, Kid, I said flatly.
You dont give a shit about anything, do you, Alders? Sometimes Benson could be pretty sharp. Being in Germany, winning all that money in the game, coming homenone of it really means anything to you, does it?
Dont worry about it, Kid. I looked back out the window.
He was right though. At first Id thought I was just coolthat Id finally achieved a level of indifference to the material world thats supposed to be the prelude to peace of mind or whatever the hell you call it. The last day or so, though, Id begun to suspect that it was more just plain, old-fashioned alienation than anything elseand thats a prelude to a vacation at the funny-farm. So I looked out at the farmland and the grubby backsides of little towns and really tried to feel something. It didnt work.
A couple guys came by with a deck of cards, trying to get up a game. They had me figured for a big winner from the boat, and they wanted a shot at my ass. I was used up on poker though. Id thought about what Riker had told me, and I decided that I wasnt really a gambler. I was a bad winner. At least I could have let that poor bastard keep his pants, for Christs sake. The two guys with the cards got a little snotty about the whole thing, but I ignored them and they finally went away.
You oughta get in, Benson said, his eyes lighting up.
You oughta get in, Benson said, his eyes lighting up.
Ive had poker, I told him.
I dont suppose youd want to loan me a few dollars? he asked wistfully.
Not to gamble with, I told him.
I didnt think so.
Come on, Kid. Ill buy you a drink.
Sure, he said.
The two of us walked on down the swaying aisles to the club car. I got myself about half in the basket, and I felt better.
In Chicago there was another mob of relatives waiting, and there was a general repetition of the scene on the dock back in New York. Once we changed trains though, we highballed right on through.
I spent a lot of time in the club car with my heels hooked over the rung of a bar stool, telling lies and war stories to a slightly cross-eyed Wave with an unlimited capacity for Budweiser and a pair of tightly crossed legs. At odd moments, when I got sick of listening to her high-pitched giggle and raucous voice, Id ease back up the train to my seat and sit staring at North Dakota and Montana sliding by outside. The prairie country was burned yellow-brown and looked like the ass-end of no place. After a while we climbed up into the mountains and the timber. I felt better then.
I had a few wild daydreams about maybe looking up the guy Sue had told me about in her last letter and kicking out a few of his teeth, but I finally decided it wouldnt be worth the effort. He was probably some poor creep her mother had picked out for her. Then I thought about blousing her mothers eye, and that was a lot more satisfying. Its hard to hate somebody youve never met, but I could work up a pretty good head of steam about Susans mother.
I generally wound up back at the club car. Id peel my cockeyed Wave of whomever shed 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 wed 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 Id 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 beena ready-made tourist attraction, needing only a beer sign on the summit to make it complete. Id 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 Id really felt anything for a long time.
Maybe I was human after all.
2
THEY werent 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 mans 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 didnt sound too hopeful about it.
I walked on past the mob-scene in the parking lotparents, wives, girlfriends, and the like, crying and hugging and shaking hands and backslappingand headed toward the bus stop. Id had enough of all that stuff.
Hey, Alders, someone yelled. You want a lift into town? It was Benson naturally. Hed been embarrassingly grateful when Id 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 Bensons arm like grim death. I could see that they werent 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 wouldnt 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, Id 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 Id 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. Thats 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 everybodys 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 GIs, 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 GIs 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.
Whats 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?
Ive 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. Im 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 governments doing in Vietnam? She got right to the point, old Clydine. No sidetracks for her.
They didnt ask me.