by Jay Heavner
Johnny eased the four-on-the-floor into reverse. The Chevy slowly backed across the parking lot. The big bumper guards on the boys’ car gently made contact with the back of the cop car. It was enough to spill some of the coffee that the cops were sipping and get their attention. “Hey!” came a cry from the police car.
Johnny chuckled and looked at Tom. “Now, the fun begins.” He put the car in first and drifted away about three feet. Quickly he threw the four-on-the-floor into reverse. “Let the good times roll!” he said with enthusiasm and slammed the Chevy into the back of the police car. Donuts and coffee went flying, and loud cursing came from the vehicle.
Johnny looked at Tom. “Told you this would be fun.”
“You’re crazy!” exclaimed Tom. “Get us out of here!”
“You got it!” Johnny threw the Chevy back into first gear and burned rubber getting out of the parking lot and onto the four-lane Industrial Boulevard. It didn’t take long for the drenched and mad cops to be in hot pursuit.
Johnny looked into his rearview mirror and chuckled again. “Just as planned. I got them in the palm of my hand.”
Tom looked at the cops. Their lights and siren were going wild. “I must have been nuts to let you talk me into this. This is insane! I’m really gonna regret this! I must be crazy!”
“Relax. What could go wrong? You’ll remember this great day for the rest of your life.”
“I just got a bad feeling about this. It’s not gonna end well.”
The two speeding cars continued down the four-lane highway. There was about 500 feet between them. The road narrowed to two lanes shortly after it crossed Evitts Creek near where the drive-in sat off to the left. Johnny roared down the curvy highway. Tom could tell he was letting the cops catch up. They neared the intersection with the Mexico Farms Road. Johnny swerved the car to the right down the dead-end road. “Bet those flatfoots think they got us now,” said Johnny. Tom didn’t reply. He was hoping it all worked out. It better go as planned, he thought.
The two cars continued down the narrow road that got narrower as they went on. “Almost there,” said a smiling Johnny. Soon the fork-in-the-road would be there. They would go right and skid to a stop, and the cops would have to go left to avoid them. The soupy, muddy field would get them. Then, the two boys would laugh at the madder-than-wet-hornets cops, turn, and drive off to safety. He went around another blind curve, and the fork was right in front of him. A curse word slipped from Johnny’s lips. Parked in the right fork was a green and yellow John Deere tractor, and it completely blocked the way. Johnny grabbed at the steering wheel and tore it left. His hot rod and its two passengers went through the left fork and into the muddy field. With a mighty splash of mud and muck, it skidded to a halt and sank to the axle. The two boys sat stunned in the mud-covered car. The police car slowly pulled to a stop and blocked the way out, not that the boy’s car was coming out without the help of a tow truck.
The two cops got out of their car. The short policeman, who had been driving, looked at the other Cumberland cop. “Thought they might try this. They should’ve picked another road. I know this one. I live on it.”
The second cop began to laugh, and he laughed hard. The short one walked over to where the muddy field began. “Boys,” he said, “looks like you two are in a bit of a jam. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You guys are in enough trouble. Why make more?”
The two boys got out of the stuck car and sank in the mud well over their ankles. Johnny looked at Tom. “I think we better take the easy way.” Tom nodded, and the two boys struggled to walk in the mud to the police. They were quickly handcuffed and placed in the back of the cop car. Neither spoke on the way back to town. They were taken to the Allegany County Jail, booked, given a jail uniform, and placed in a jail cell together. They would appear before a judge tomorrow.
Finally, Johnny spoke. “Told you this was gonna be fun. It would be something you would remember for the rest of your life.”
“Remember and regret. How are we gonna get out of this? We’re in up to our eyeballs.”
“Trust me. I got a plan.”
“Didn’t you tell me that earlier today and look where your plan got us?”
“Trust me. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”
“I hope you got something big up your sleeve ‘cause we could use a small miracle ‘bout now.”
“Trust me. I make a phone call, and I think I have one coming.”
“Hope that one includes me.”
“It will. I’ll do my best for you, too. Don’t know about you, but all this fun can wear a guy out. I’m getting some sleep. You should try to get some also. Tomorrow is gonna be a busy day. I have a sneaking feeling.”
“Don’t know if I can sleep after all this.”
“Well, I can. Good night. You just got to make the best of it. Sleep tight.” Johnny laid back and pulled the cover that looked like it came from WWII surplus over him. Soon, he was quiet and then began to snore lightly.
Tom looked at Johnny sleeping soundly. How could he sleep after all they’d been through? What would tomorrow bring? Why had he let Johnny talk him into this? Tom lay down on the hard bed and stared at the ceiling. He had better try to get some sleep. Johnny was right. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. What would it bring? He closed his eyes and, like Johnny, was soon asleep, but his sleep was full of tossing and turning. There were no sweet dreams for him.
***
The Next Morning
Tom opened his sleepy eyes. He still felt tired. Where am I? The iron bars and concrete block walls brought him back to reality. He was in jail, awaiting a judge and a hearing. He looked around, but Johnny was nowhere to be seen. Tom was alone in the cell, and his heart sank. He’d been abandoned. Why did he ever listen to Johnny?
A half-hour passed, but it seemed much longer. Tom heard a heavy door open and then close. Footsteps approached. A man in a guard uniform appeared. “Tom Kenney?” he asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
He unlocked the door. “Come with me.”
Tom did as told. The large guard directed him down a long hallway. They turned left at an intersection and went down a still longer hallway painted a drab gray. “In here,” the guard directed.
Tom went into the well-lit room and saw his father sitting in a chair at a small bolted-down table. The guard directed him to sit across from his dad, left the room, and locked the door behind him. Tom looked at his dad. A tear rolled from Tom’s eye. “Dad, I messed up big time. I’m sorry.”
His dad looked at him. “Yeah, you did.” They sat in silence for a long moment.
“Dad, I …” But his dad cut him off.
“Yeah, you messed up big time.” He held his thoughts and began again. “It may feel like the end of the world, but we’ll get through this. Are you wondering where your friend is?”
“Yeah, it looks like he threw me under the bus and took off.”
“He’s gone, but let me tell you the whole story. You ever wonder what he was doing up here?” Tom nodded his head. “His family has, shall we say, connections. He needed that fast car because they run bootleg moonshine out of the hills of North Carolina to Charlotte, Atlanta, and other places. Your friend’s family pulled some strings and greased some palms. Johnny is on his way home to North Carolina on the condition he never returns to this area.”
“So he left me up-the-creek-without-a-paddle?”
“Well, he didn’t forget you. I don’t have any money to spread around to buy off the law here. The best deal his family’s lawyer could get was this. You get a get-out-of-jail-free card if you agree to certain conditions.”
“What are they?”
“You come home with me so you can graduate, and you stay out of Cumberland till this dies down.”
“That sounds much better than I could ever have imagined.”
“There’s more. After graduation, you’re going to the military. The judge and
me think the Army would be the right place for you.”
Tom’s shoulders shrugged. “The military! That sure wasn’t what I’d planned.”
“You get an honorable discharge, and the whole thing will be expunged from your record. You’re still seventeen. They can do that. If you don’t complete this, they could come back and throw the book at you.”
“The military? It’s got to beat doin’ time in jail. It sure wouldn’t be my first choice, but I guess the alternative is a lot worse. Okay.”
“Good. We can get through this. Jailer? We’re ready.”
They could hear the key turning in the lock. The door opened, and the guard stood in the exit way. “So, he took it, did he? I think you made a wise decision, young man. Make it work. I don’t ever want to see you in here again, understood?”
“Yes sir,” said Tom.
“Yes sir,” repeated the guard. “I think he might make it. He’s off to the right start. I’ll take you to the judge.”
It all went as they had said. The judge read Tom the riot act and then set him free with a stern warning. “If you don’t complete this agreement, the State of Maryland will see you’re punished to the full extent the law allows.”
Tom said he understood. The judge slammed the gavel down hard and told them to leave, which they did as quickly as possible. The men exited the courthouse. It was bright out. Tom put his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. It had never looked so good. They rode to the old farmhouse they called home in silence.
A week later, Tom graduated from Fort Ashby High School in the class of 1965, 55 boys and girls. Tom walked down the aisle with a dark-haired gal named Betty Jean. She was headed off to college at Shepherd State. And Tom was headed off to boot camp. He wondered if he would ever see her again or anyone in his hometown. It seemed like he was walking to the end of the world and jumping off. This wasn’t at all what he could have dreamed in his worst nightmare.
Chapter 5
Tom sat on the porch he’d known as home. How different it felt now, and he’d only been away a few months. The morning air was already warm. It was going to be a hot one this early August day. The long Beatle-like hair he had disappeared on the first day of boot camp. The barbers at Camp Jackson had made sure every man looked the same. The last time Tom had that little hair on his head was at birth. His dad, a veteran of WWII, had given him a warning about boot camp. “You just gotta get through it,” he said. “Boot camp is like a prisoner of war camp with a few differences. They’re restricted from hitting you. They can’t kill you, but they can make you wish you were dead. You just gotta get through it.”
That’s what Tom had done. It was, “Yes, drill sergeant. No, drill sergeant.” He’d said little more to the man who had pushed him further and harder than he’d ever been pushed in his young life. There were countless marches back and forth, forth and back, up hills, down hills, around hills, and through rivers and smelly swamps. He slept in leaky tents and on the hard ground, ate rations manufactured for WWII that made him long for anything else and got cussed at a lot like all the other grunts. He knew he didn’t want to be the one who stood out like Gomer Pyle. Those that did got special attention for the drill sergeant. Boot camp was bad enough without that.
He had two weeks leave before he was to report to Camp Benning in Georgia for his next phase of army life. It was something new some high-level brass has dreamed up, air infantry. Under this new idea, the foot soldier not only could walk to battle but be transported in by helicopter. He’d been picked for this because he’d made Marksman in shooting. All that hunting for squirrels, rabbits, deer, and other small animals had made him a crack shot, and that’s what the Army wanted. His path in the Army had been determined for him.
It was a long ride home from South Carolina. The old Greyhound bus took the interstate highways where they’d been completed, but Tom saw more two-lane roads than he cared for. About the only good thing that had come from the long trip was that he had met another GI on the bus. The shaved head gave it away. He had initially been seated behind Tom. Early in the long ride, Tom had turned and spoken to him. His name was Hairston, Bill Hairston, and he was from Keyser, West Virginia. When the man next to him got off the bus at a stop in Fort Dobbs, North Carolina, Tom had moved back and taken the seat next to Bill. They chatted about their homes back in the hills of West Virginia. Bill had just graduated from Keyser High School and been a guard on their basketball team. He reminded Tom how the Golden Tornados had put a whuppin’ on the Eagles of Fort Ashby High. To Bill’s chagrin, Tom told him he forgave him for the whuppin’. After that, the two got along just fine, and both of them being Steeler fans didn’t hurt either. Bill had just finished boot camp, also at Camp Jackson, though their paths hadn’t crossed there. He, too, had left and was to report to Camp Benning for the new air infantry. Bill said he came from a poor family, and the military was his ticket out. Even though he had never fired a gun before, he also made Marksman at boot camp and had been picked to go to this new unit. And Bill was black. Tom had never been around many black people before. In Tom’s small world, there had just not been any black people. He told this to Bill. Bill responded, “Black folks are pretty much like white folk, just tryin’ to make a livin’ and keep the wolf away from the door. Don’t matter what color of skin a man has on the outside, we all bleed red.” Tom could see the wisdom in that logic.
The front door to the old farmhouse opened, and Tom’s dad walked out. Something seemed different about him. He seemed slower, and Tom thought he saw his father’s left hand tremble slightly. He sat down in the old chair next to his son. “So, how was boot camp?”
“About like you said, Dad. And maybe even a little worse than you described.”
“Yeah, I thought so. They don’t want to make it too easy on you. They have to weed out the weak that would be a drag on the unit. I’m proud of you, son. You made it through and made Marksman too. Guess all that killing of pop bottles and tin cans we did with the .22 when you were growing up paid off.”
Tom said he was glad for all the practice time spent with his Dad and then told him about the GI from Keyser he’d met on the bus.
“Some people are just gifted like that,” his dad said. “They never know they have it in them until they try it.”
There was a moment’s silence between them — the cars zipped by on WV Route 28. Tom had never really noticed the traffic on the nearby highway before. He had just grown up with it until it was part of the scenery.
“You’ll do good at this new camp. Do what they tell you. Learn all you can. It will help keep you alive. I don’t want to lose my only son,” his dad said.
“Hey, I’m not planning on getting myself killed. I…,” but his father cut him off.
“Listen to me, son. No one plans on getting themself killed, but it happens. I seen many a man die when I fought in Europe. Dying ain’t pretty, and it can happen to any soldier.”
The two men sat in silence again, and then Tom’s dad spoke. “Seems to me this war in Vietnam is heating up. I don’t like what I see. After WWII and Korea, I don’t know if the nation is ready for another war. And this guy in the White House, Johnson, I don’t trust him. He says all the right things, but it seems to me he’d leave you twisting in the wind if it was a political advantage for him.”
Tom had never heard his dad speak like this, and it surprised him.
A long moment passed before the elder Kenney spoke, “I want you to be careful and come back home in one piece. I love you, son, and don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
Tom didn’t know what to say. He reached over and took his dad’s hand that trembled slightly. “I love you too, Dad, and will work at makin’ sure I come back home okay.” He noticed that his dad’s hand continued to shake. “Why is your hand shakin’, Dad?”
His dad looked away and spoke, “Oh, it’s nothin’. I’m just kinda shook up thinkin’ about you goin’ off in this big ole hostile world. Be careful. I don’t wan
na see nothin’ bad happen to you.”
Tom looked at his dad. How he loved the man who had raised him, the man who’d been both father and mother to him after his mom was taken by cancer. He gave the old man a big hug. “I love you, Dad, and I’ll do my best to make it home in one piece.” His dad nodded his head in agreement. “Hey, Dad, I heard there was a new restaurant, Linda’s, just opened up about a mile from here toward Cumberland. How about I spend some of that newly found GI wealth and take you there?”
“Okay, best offer I’ve had all day. This will be a treat - you payin’ for something for me out of your own pocket. Do you remember when you were little and asked for money to buy me a Christmas gift?”
“Yeah, Dad, I do. My treat today. Your little boy’s growin’ up. The world’s there for me to conquer.”
“Be careful, my son. I don’t think you have any idea what’s in store for you.”
Chapter 6
Tom got ready to ship out. He was part of an elite experimental combat division trained in the new art of airmobile warfare ordered by President John Kennedy, now dead for two years. The division received the colors of the historic 1st Cavalry Division, and all proudly sewn on the big yellow and black shoulder patches with the horse head silhouette. His country and the new president asked him to go to war, and he felt it was his duty to go.
Tom remembered the departing words of his commander, “Men, we are going to war. You will be on the battlefield. There you will discover that in that depressing, hellish place where death is your constant companion, that we love one another. We kill for each other. We die for each other. And we weep for each other. We will come to love each man there with us as a brother. In battle, your world will shrink to the man on your right or the man on your left as the enemy is all around. You will hold each other’s lives in your hands. You will share each other’s fears and hopes and dreams as readily as you share what little good luck that comes your way.