by C. E. Murphy
‘course, it was a long way down to the ground when somebody tackled me at the height of a jump. Dirt an’ grass an’ bodies flew. The wet ball squirted outta my grip an’ went bouncing end over end across the field. About eight other guys jumped on it, an’ a couple more jumped on me for good measure. A whistle blew an’ everybody piled off, lined up, an’ started all over again.
I knew this game. It was the last college game I was gonna play for four years, an’ in about two minutes I was gonna miss my last chance at a touchdown. A little fella on the other team was gonna foul me and the refs weren’t gonna catch it. I was gonna eat dirt, lose the ball, and in the end, lose the game. I’d replayed it in my mind prob’ly ten thousand times over the years, the way ya do.
‘f I took two extra steps sideways, though, there would be nothin’ between me an’ the goal posts ‘cept clear air and a few thousand screams cheerin’ me on, and I’d go into the Army a football hero instead of feeling like the pariah who lost the big game. Grinning like a fool, I snatched the ball when it came my way, put on a burst of power, dodged to my left…
…an’ let the little guy foul me, an’ fell, an’ lost the game. Plenty’a complaining in the locker room later, mostly from the other guys, my pals who’d seen the foul even if the ref hadn’t. “Thought you were gonna make it there, though, Muldoon,” one of ‘em said to me. “You looked like you knew he was coming.”
“Almost saw him outta the corner of my eye,” I allowed. “Just couldn’t get my feet going fast enough. Shoulda been you with the ball, Smit. You got lightning feet.”
He did a shuffle that made everybody laugh, an’ a couple guys pounded me on the back on the way out. They knew, even if the refs didn’t, an’ they didn’t know about the double-play I was living that coulda let me save the game if I’d chosen to. I watched a bunch of ‘em go, waving an agreement to meet for beers an’ burgers later on, then ran a towel over my head an’ chased after the coach, callin’, “Coach. Coach, wait up, I gotta talk to you.”
Saunders was another little guy like the one who’d fouled me, ‘cept not a jackass like that fella. He’d been a quarterback in his day, and didn’t mind admitting he was a better coach than he’d been player. He slowed down without looking at me, studying a clipboarded playsheet instead. “Sorry about that foul, Muldoon. You know how some of these referees get if you suggest they’ve made a mistake. Wild horses couldn’t change their minds.”
“Don’t matter. Ain’t a life-defining moment.”
He did look at me then, a grin flashing across his face. “That’s what I like about you, Gary. You get your fight up when you need it, but everything else you take in stride. It makes you a good player. I’d like to see you as a co-captain next year.”
“Yeah, me too.” I shoved my hands into my pockets with a sigh. “But it ain’t gonna happen, Coach. That’s why I gotta talk to you. I’m dropping out of school at the end of the semester and enlisting.”
Coach quit walking like he’d hit a wall. He’d fought in the first war, and I could see all of those memories rise up and whiten his face before he got ‘em under control an’ looked like he was tryin’ ta sound reasonable: “What in hell would you do that for?”
I shrugged. Hands in my pockets meant I couldn’t wave ‘em around like I was asking for forgiveness. “The GI bill, Coach. It’s the only way I can figure payin’ for the rest of college.”
“We can find you a scholarship—”
“Nah, Coach.” I kept my voice quiet, remembering this conversation from most of a lifetime ago. “I got the grades for ‘em, but it’s late in the year, and other guys have snatched ‘em up.”
“There are private avenues, people I can talk to—”
“Coach.” This one wasn’t worth arguing. If I didn’t join the Army, I’d never go to that USO dance and I’d never meet Annie. No way I was risking that big of a change to my life. “I don’t need the special treatment, Coach. This is what I’m gonna do.”
“They’ll send you to war, Gary. You’ll go to Korea.” There was a tremor in Coach’s voice I hadn’t been able to hear fifty years ago, when I was young and dumb an’ full of fire. The way most of me was right now, ‘cause the kid was in charge an’ the old man was only a voice of experience along for the ride. I wanted to make that kid say I know, Coach. I know what it’s like, I know about the sleepless nights you get for a lifetime after. I know about the faces that don’t go away. I understand, and I wanna thank you for looking out for me. But this is what I gotta do anyway.
I couldn’t, a’course, not anymore than I could have when I was twenty years old and feeling a little smug about my prospects and not a bit afraid getting sent to war. Best I could do was try not to sound condescending, like I thought I knew what I was talking about, when all I said was, “I know, Coach. I’ll send a postcard from Seoul, all right?”
Saunders got a tight pinched smile an’ patted my shoulder. “All right, son. I wish I could talk you out of it, but if your mind’s made up…”
“It is, Coach.”
“Then you send me that postcard, and I’ll put it with the rest.” He shook my hand and we walked away, my heart bangin’ with a young man’s excitement and an old man’s dread.
Next step I took was into the recruiter’s station, though real memory told me weeks had passed, that I’d said g’bye to all my buddies, gone out drinking more than I shoulda and kissed a few girls who weren’t mine to kiss. I stood up an’ got measured, six foot two, two hundred ten pounds, good vision, no asthma, strong heart, all of it ticked off on boxes like I was a piece of meat being processed until I was pronounced fit for duty. Another step and I was in uniform, in Basic, turning back to give a fellow recruit a helping hand, an’ the drill sergeant was in my face givin’ me hell for doin’ it. I said, “Sir, yes sir!” and “Sir, no sir!” like I was supposed ta, and next time gave the guy a hand again. Little skinny black fella named Andy, he told me that time. Andy from Alabama. Him and me would stay friends the rest of our lives, all the way into the next century. I wanted to say somethin’ to him when I gave him a hand the third time, maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I was starting to get it then.
This was a young man’s life. This was me, an’ I wasn’t just going through the motions. I was living this, living it for the first time, the way anybody would, except I had just enough awareness to know how to change things if I wanted to.
“Horns,” I said out loud and a little desperate, “not every minute, buddy, or I’ll go crazy. Give it to me in chunks. Lemme just touch down at the important parts—” Because if I sat in the back of my own head for fifty years, judging and second-guessing and making my older self re-think every choice I’d made as a kid, knowing I had to make the same damned choices every time anyway just to get where I was going, then I wouldn’t make it through. Everybody liked to say “If I knew then what I know now,” but knowin’ then, acting on it then, would make now different. Nobody could do it the same way twice, live the exact same life a second time. It wasn’t humanly possible.
I got the faintest idea that Cernunnos was laughing, like maybe he hadn’t thought about humanly possible ‘cause he wasn’t human, and the idea of my life started speeding up again. He would send me through my life the same way I’d just skipped through the games and volunteering for the Army, like I was seeing the highlights reel. Big events stood out, an’ some of those little moments a guy can’t shake for some reason, like trippin’ over my shoelace comin’ around a corner during Basic. Nobody saw it except me and some birds, but a lifetime later I still got hot around the collar thinking about it.
I muttered, “Thanks,” and hunkered down in my own head to watch the highlights, tryin’ hard not to think too much about what I was doing when I took Andy’s hand and pulled him up for the third time. Not the last, either, but he offered his own hand to me a lotta times down through the years, until neither of us could count how many or who’d done it first.
But I w
asn’t gonna worry about that, or anything else. I was just gonna hold on, and live…now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Basic training ended with two days of leave. Me an’ a buncha squirrely guys who hadn’t seen a doll in weeks came outta the gates like scatter from a shotgun. Half of ‘em split off right away, heading for the bars and the docks. Me and Andy and some of the others thought better of ourselves, and headed for the USO dance. I guessed it wasn’t that we weren’t hoping ta get lucky. It was more a matter of pride, and maybe of figuring the world wasn’t gonna end if we didn’t score. Not even if we got shipped off tomorrow an’ didn’t see another woman for months.
‘sides, we were all looking pretty good in our sharp new dress greens with the seams pressed crisp an’ the shoulders sitting square. Ten weeks of training got even the softest of us in some kinda decent condition, an’ the guys like me who’d been athletes to start with were leaner an’ harder than we’d ever been. Way I saw it, there was a dance floor full of girls who were just waiting for some fresh new Army boys to come say hi, and I hated to disappoint ‘em.
The dance hall was an Eagles Club, plenty big for a city with a base the size of Fort Ord. Even with half the lights in the joint off, an eight-piece band was easy to see at the far end of the hall, ‘cause hardly anybody was on the dance floor yet. The band was dressed even better’n we were, and the singer was so light-skinned he looked white. A whole group of Negro girls near the stage looked like they might be there for the band insteada the boys. Mosta the white girls were standing in little groups against the walls, though a few were dancing together and a few more were standing all alone looking forlorn.
Andy just about backed outta the room the minute he walked in. Woulda, in fact, if I hadn’t been right behind him and getting my toes stomped by his spit-polished shoes. I shoved him forward. “Where you going? We just got here.”
“I can’t dance, Muldoon.”
I grabbed him by the scruff an’ hauled him off to one side so we were at least outta the way of the other fellas wanting to come in. “What the hell are you doing at a dance if you can’t dance, Anderson?”
“I didn’t think there’d be anybody I could dance with! I thought maybe I could watch and get an idea of what to do!”
“For cryin’ out loud, Andy, Monterey’s got Negros who ain’t in the Army. What, you thought none of ‘em were dames? An’ you didn’t think to ask somebody to teach you to dance?”
“Who was I going to ask—Sarge?”
That made me grin. I smacked his shoulder and he rubbed it, looking sour. “That’s what would’ve happened if I’d asked Sarge, too.”
“Yeah, forget it. Look, you go ask one of those girls down there to dance. One of ‘em has gotta take pity on you, soldier.”
He said, “Look,” and I said, “Listen,” and a pretty, petite blond walked up and said, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing that you wanted to learn to dance. I’m Anne Marie Macready, and I don’t expect anybody can learn to dance until someone gets us on the dance floor,” and offered me a hand.
I fell in love with her right then.
Turned out Annie Marie Macready didn’t have to dance with a fella to teach him how. Instead she led me through every dance she knew at half speed or slower, making sure Andy followed along once he got himself a partner. I didn’t hardly get a word in, ‘cause she was concentrating so hard, but I didn’t reckon I needed to. I was happy as could be, doing slow steps and admiring her teaching lessons. She was perfect as a picture in a lacy green dress with a straight neckline an’ wrist-length white gloves, and it didn’t matter to her that she was twelve inches shorter than me: I went where she led, so Andy could see how it was done. After a couple times around the floor, another girl tapped his partner’s shoulder, and he got a couple inches taller for not looking like a fool. After a bit the floor filled up and we couldn’t see ‘em anymore, and Annie let me go even if I didn’t much want to be. I spent the next couple hours tryin’ ta catch sight of her again, and did: she never left the floor, always dancing with other fellas. I guessed I couldn’t complain, ‘cause I was dancing with other girls and she didn’t even know my name, but I felt prickly over it anyway.
Least I did right up until she tapped the shoulder of the girl I was dancin’ with, and cut in. Me and the girl were equal parts surprised, and she stepped outta the way looking like she only did it because it was the done thing. Annie stepped into my arms without missing a beat, and I grinned at her all the way around the floor.
“Private Garrison Matthew Muldoon out of Seattle,” she said when the music stopped. “It’s nice to meet you.”
I felt like a fool, grinning so much, but she had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen and a smile that would stop traffic. “Miss Anne Marie Macready outta Monterey,” I said back. “Nice to meet you too. What else did the guys tell you about me?”
“That you don’t have a girl back home, and that you’re all right.”
“It’s true I don’t have a girl back home, but doll, I’m a whole lot better’n ‘all right’.”
Annie Macready laughed out loud, and I spent the rest of the night tryin’ ta get her to do it again. Turned out it wasn’t so hard. She liked to laugh, and wasn’t afraid of people turning to look when she did. She only got solemn when she said somethin’ about school, and I asked what she was studying. “Nursing. I’m going to be a nurse.”
“Lotta long hours on your feet. Pretty girl like you could—”
“Get married straight off, instead of working? I know. I’ve been asked three times. Four if you count your friend Mick over there.” She smiled real quick, showing off dimples, an’ I made a fuss of standing up straight to look for Mick with a glower. We were off the dance floor by then, leaning in a corner and drinking fruit punch, and I gave up searching for Mick to lean again.
“So why’d you say no? I’m only asking so I know what not to do when the time comes.” I kept a face straight enough to be kidding, but I thought maybe I wasn’t.
Annie lifted an eyebrow high, like maybe she thought I wasn’t, either, but she answered anyway. “One of them couldn’t imagine a wife who went to college, much less had a job of her own. Another one liked the idea of an educated wife, but I think that was all he liked about me. I was pretty enough and smart enough. Nothing else mattered. So I didn’t like him very much.”
“Can’t imagine why. What about the third?”
Annie looked away, soft blond curls blocking most of her expression. Then she looked up again, smiling, but her eyes were sad. “Well, I was only thirteen, and I’m sure he didn’t mean it. He was my oldest brother’s best friend, and he didn’t come back from Europe.”
“Oh, darlin’.” I couldn’t say why, but a pang shot through my chest. “I’m sorry. So he’s why you’re studying to be a nurse?”
“No.” A quick shake of her head set those curls swaying again. “No, that’s…my brother did come back. He’d been shot, but he was all right. And for two years he didn’t say a word about the war, but he talked about his nurse. He worked, and he saved up, and he got on a boat and went back to Europe, and found her.”
I put a hand over my heart. “An’ they lived happily ever after?”
Somethin’ wicked sparkled in Annie’s eyes. “Well, no. She’d gotten married and had twin girls and another baby on the way, but that’s a happy ending too. And George met another girl while he was over there, and they’ve gotten married since, so it was all okay. But it made me think about how a person can affect another, and how if I got married and settled right down, how I might not get the chance to be that important to someone. I’m sure I would be to my husband, of course, but it’s not quite the same, is it.”
“I don’t reckon it is. You’re a remarkable woman, Annie Macready.”
“Oh, I’m Annie now, am I? Not Miss Macready, not even Anne? Annie?”
“’fraid so.”
“Then I suppose you’ll just have to be Gary, won’t you?”
“’til the day I die, sweetheart. D’you mind? Me calling you Annie?”
She smiled again, crazy sweet smile that was gonna haunt my dreams. “Not at all. But I see Private Anderson over there stumbling over his feet with another young lady, so I think I’ll go find your friend Mick and lead him through a dance or two so Private Anderson can learn them and look good.”
“I’d be happy to let you lead an’ teach Andy a thing or two, darlin’.”
“I couldn’t have that. I wouldn’t want everyone to start imagining I’m the stuck-up sort who lands a handsome soldier and then won’t dance with anybody else.”
“’zat mean you think I’m handsome, doll?”
She only laughed an’ walked away, which coulda killed me. I watched her bring Mick out on the floor and between the two of ‘em they showed Andy what to do and pretty quick he did look good again. I danced with a couple other girls whose names I forgot as soon as I heard ‘em. Somewhere ‘bout one in the morning I caught a glimpse of Annie getting her coat, and had one a’them moments where it seemed like my whole life was gonna hang on whether or not she was the kinda girl who liked a guy to play it cool. For a couple seconds I couldn’t get my feet going right, or anywhere at all. Then I said, “Ta hell with that,” loud enough to shock the girl I was dancing with, an’ like a cad left her on the floor so I could chase after Annie.
I caught up with her a couple steps outside the door. She was wrapped up in a fuzzy-looking thing that was mostly collar and sleeves. I was in shirtsleeves, having run out the door without stopping at the coat check, afraid the time spent waiting there would lose me the girl for good. “Mind if I walk you home?”
She didn’t even look up, much less look surprised. “Would you follow me anyway if I said I minded?”