by James R Benn
Clay let himself play through his usual list of complaints about modern life as he leaned his head back against the headrest. It gave him something to do while he waited for his breathing to slow down. Everything made him tired lately, and he was popping aspirin like candy for a headache that wouldn’t quit. Funny, but the thing he disliked most about new things is that they seemed to come along when he was too old to enjoy them, too set in his ways to make room for them in his world.
So who said life would be fair? The future is here, but the joke’s on you, you’re too old to enjoy it. Clay twisted his legs out of the car, holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and pushing himself off. He grunted, got halfway up, and lost his balance. His other hand flailed at the door beam, trying to steady himself, but the garage seemed to be falling down around him as he fell back into the car, hitting the side his head on the doorframe. It was a small whack, but he saw stars and the headache thumped inside his skull. He closed his eyes against the pain but it was too much, and he had to open them, afraid the room would spin down around him. But the walls stayed where they should. Steadying himself, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, pressing his forehead against it. Fear flooded his body as he tried to breathe and relax. Calm down, don’t be an old fart about it. Tell it to the chaplain. Whaddy want, egg in your beer?
Closing his eyes again, he laughed, even though it hurt, but the memory seemed to drive the pain down a bit. Who drank egg in their beer anymore? He hadn’t seen an egg cracked into a glass of beer since before the war. Although everyone in the Army complained all the time, no one would show any outward sympathy. The usual response was to tell it to the chaplain, he might give a shit. Or, to ask what did you expect, an egg and a beer? The Army might give you one or the other, but to expect both was plain unrealistic. The first time he had heard that was in a line at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Supply clerks were issuing uniforms and Clay ended up with a fatigue shirt too large and boots too small. When he complained, he didn’t get the correct sizes, he got, Whaddy want, egg in your beer? Move along.
Clay laughed out loud, oblivious to the pain. It was hilarious. That was his whole problem, in a nutshell. He wanted egg in his beer. Life was quite willing to offer up a nice, white egg now and then, and a cold glass of draft beer whenever he needed it. But no one was cracking an egg into his glass anytime soon. He could see what it would look like, a woman’s hand holding the egg, giving it a quick, sharp rap against the edge of the glass, opening it up one-handed and letting the yellow yolk plop into the beer and turn golden as it floated to the bottom, the egg white trailing it down. A gentle bounce as it settled in. He saw the glass raised to his lips, felt the foam tickle his nose as he drank and drank, gulping the beer and letting the egg slide down his throat as easy as can be.
Clay smacked his lips, imagining the taste, and then forced himself to open his eyes. There was no woman holding a white egg in her hand, no draft beer. He was leaning sideways in the driver’s seat of his blue 1998 Saturn, on a rainy Wednesday morning, his legs shaky and his head pounding, and he was about to drive to the hospital. No egg, no beer.
Pulling himself up, Clay sat still for a minute. His left leg was out of the car and his right jammed between the brake and the accelerator. He waited for his breathing to settle down and the pain in his head to recede, conscious of the need to get moving, unable to get his limbs to coordinate with his will. Once it was all smooth motions. Lifting a beer keg and carrying it up the basement steps. Making love. Doing pushups. Diving for cover and coming up shooting.
Stop it, he told himself. It’s only a fucking Saturn! He felt a surge of fury rise in his throat, frustration bursting out from the pit of his stomach, and he wanted to yell out to God, scream and damn him, but instead he beat the steering wheel with his fists, two, three times with each hand, hard, thumping it like a punching bag.
I used to dodge bullets, goddamnit! I jumped ditches and dug holes, I threw grenades, I shot people! Jesus H. Fucking Christ! I carried eighty pounds on my goddamn back through the snow, I jumped out of a fucking window two stories up, landed on broken concrete and ran like hell as bullets hit the street all around me. They couldn’t fucking kill me then so why the fuck am I like this now?
Clay’s hands hurt him as he ran out of words, but the anger pulsed in his head. He didn’t think he’d sworn like that in years, maybe decades, and he wondered if he’d yelled all that out loud or if it had all been in his head. Confusion fueling anger, he grabbed his pants by his right knee and lifted his leg, turning out of the car and throwing it onto the concrete floor next to his other foot. He wanted to propel his body forward, make it do all the things it used to do without a thought. More and more he could see himself separate from his body, cursing its uselessness, the fragility of old bones and thin skin his enemy, seeking to destroy him, every day a victory, every fall and each unsteady, shaky moment a battle lost, complete defeat not far down the road.
Clay had killed an old man once. He looked old, in any case, no telling what his real age had been. The Krauts had been dug in front of some small village, when they surprised them with a hidden machine gun that killed three G.I.s right off. The fire held them up, keeping them pinned and wounding two more men until Red called for artillery support. Mortars hit the German position as another platoon worked its way through the woods onto their left flank. Explosions churned the ditch where the Germans fired from and a direct hit took out the machine gun. Between mortar bursts, screams rose up from the ditch and were blown back into silence as the next rounds hit, throwing up red-tinged geysers of smoke and soil. Red called off the mortars as the two platoons blasted the Germans with rifle fire from the side and front, the other platoon firing right down the length of the ditch. It was nearly a full company of Krauts, no shortage of targets. They tried to pull out, but they couldn’t take the road into the village since there was no cover, and they’d be picked off. Instead, they took off to their left, over a small, low-lying field. They scrambled up a steep slope of loose, gravely soil trying to make it into the safety of the thick woods. Both platoons were firing at them as the Germans tried to find a foothold, their heavy boots digging into the gravel and long gray coats flapping as they slid back down, the brown, sandy soil, pebbles falling away beneath them. Some turned and fired back. Some raised their hands, but this wasn’t a day for prisoners. There had been too many ambushes like this, Krauts opening up on them, then surrendering after they’d been surrounded and G.I.s were dead and dying all around. This was revenge, and as long as there was running, firing, screaming and yelling, it wasn’t time for Kamerad, bitte, Kamerad, not yet. So the Germans kept clawing their way up into the woods, dropping their rifles and pushing each other up and into cover. The ones who made it kept going, crawling into the trees, no return fire. It was a turkey shoot. The platoons advanced, firing as they went, taking aim deliberately as they sensed their victory, their power over this mass of scampering sheep. Step forward, fire. Once, twice. Step forward, fire. Germans tumbled down, arms flailing, bodies jumping under the impact of the bullets. Finally they were only yards from the last of them. Clay had to stop to reload, and the slight halt to his pace and shooting broke the methodical killing frenzy. He wiped sweat from his face. Smoke and dust swirled around him as he watched one last German make it almost to the top. Clay was the closest to him, and he saw the German slide down a few feet, then start to work his way up again. The other members of the squad gathered around him and waited. It was like a show.
“Maybe we should take a prisoner,” Shorty said.
“Halt!” somebody yelled at the German. Rifles were raised, and other voices called out for him to halt. Clay looked at the men around him, and then he yelled halt too, feeling that somehow it would be wrong to shoot this last man in the back after he had survived this far, knowing what it felt like, that blind rush for cover, all the prayers you ever knew running through your mind, over and over. Heavenly Father… hail Mary, full of grace…now I lay
me down to sleep…pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen, amen, amen.
But the Kraut didn’t halt, he held onto his rifle and used it to push himself up the gravelly slope. He was almost to the top when Clay decided, fuck it, he didn’t want to face this guy behind another machine gun at the next village. He should have halted, he had his chance. So Clay raised his M1, aiming square at his back, and squeezed off two shots. Bang bang. Two puffs of dust along the German’s spine, a spray of red, and he tumbled down the slope still holding his rifle by the barrel.
It was quiet, except for the clacking of small stones that followed the body down. No one spoke. They all walked over to the base of the slope, checking the pile of bodies for any signs of life. Clay turned over the German and the man’s helmet rolled off. His head was shaved close, but Clay could see by the gray stubble on his face he was an old man, too old for the infantry anyway. His mouth hung open, as if he had been gasping for air, winded by this last desperate bid for life. Clay could see his top row of teeth were gone. A really old man, gaunt, with thin, sunken cheeks, probably carrying his dentures in his pocket. The hand that gripped the rifle was blue-veined, bony, swollen knuckles looking huge around the barrel.
It was quiet in the garage. Clay looked into the mirror and saw the old man’s face, slack-jawed and surprised. He held up his hands, already bruising dark blue from the hits to the steering wheel. Rubbing them together, Clay felt the thick aching knuckles and could almost see them embracing the gun barrel. It took a second to sink in, for the memory to fade in all its perfect clarity and the confused, murky present to take center stage.
Clay felt the gravel give way.
Chapter Ten
1945
Under a full moon and clear skies they had walked most of the night. South, or as southerly as they could, detouring around icy ridges and steering clear of open spaces. You could read a book by that moonlight bouncing off the snow, and twenty dark forms moving across a pure white field would be seen by any Kraut with one eye half open. So Jake kept them in the thick woods, skirting open ground, off ridgelines where they’d be silhouetted against the night sky, moving south, moving to stay warm, moving to not stand still and feel lost and alone. As long as you’re moving, you’re going somewhere, and if you’re going somewhere, you aren’t lost, are you? So get a move on.
Sometime after midnight the wind picked up and what had been simply freezing cold became icy frigid bone-chilling cold. The snow glistened and cracked as the top layer frosted over, ice sparkles reflecting little pieces of moonlight like diamonds scattered over their path. Most of the men hung their rifles over their shoulder, warming their hands under their arms. Rustles of frozen cloth stirred up and down the line as they pulled and arranged what protection they had tighter, covering necks and faces, trying to keep the cold from blowing in and freezing the sweat that sheened their skin as they waited. Cold was the enemy now.
Jake stood next to a thick pine tree, shielding himself from the wind, waiting for Tuck to head back. Shorty, with his good eyes and few extra inches of height, had spotted something off to their left, up a small rise where pines lay on the ground, toppled by high winds, or axes, for a clear line of fire, firewood or a display of nature’s capriciousness. Shorty had sworn he saw camouflage netting strung up on poles. No one else could make out a thing, but Jake knew Shorty had once spotted a German sentry on a dark night, two hundred yards out, even though the guy was standing still. It took the eyes of an owl to do that, so when Shorty said he saw something, Jake believed him.
Now Jake waited, listening to the sound of Shorty and Tuck making their way up the hill, boots crunching the brittle snow cover with each step. Jake winced, cursing the frozen crust, until he realized the noise was good news. If anyone was up there, they would have been shooting by now and tossing grenades at the noisy approach. So he leaned into the tree, getting as much of it between the wind and his body as he could, warming his hands under his armpits. Another noise rose up behind him, and he realized it was the echo of his own chattering teeth. Men pressed together, trying to gain a bit of warmth from each other, their bodies cooling down as they waited. The staccato clatter of their teeth sounded like castanets as the cold drove itself deep into their bodies, their brains responding, ordering jaws to spasm and run up some heat before everything frosted up.
Jake couldn’t stop his own teeth from chattering any more than anyone else could. He felt the cold inside himself, and the fear too. Fear of noise, fear of drawing attention, fear of how the men looked to him, waited for his decisions. Up or down, move or stop, everyone wanting him to decide. Now here they were, closer to death than most of them understood. Jake knew that they didn’t have much time left out in the open with this wind. They needed shelter, soon. Leaning his helmet against the tree, he let his cheek rub against the rough bark, the sensation allowing him leave where he was, for a precious moment. Closing his eyes, he left his freezing feet and shivering body behind, holding everything that would ever matter in that hard, cold, sticky pine bark on his cheek. The feeling stunned him. His whole future fell into place. He could see everything. A future as cold and lonely as this night, an agony of life, fear eating at him forever, as it did now. He wondered how scared everyone else was, if anyone felt the way he did. Alone, a freak of nature. Wrong, just plain wrong.
He knew he was cursed, cursed with bad blood, and he thought about the mark of Cain they’d told him about in Sunday school. Pa never went to church, but he always made Jake go, and Alice too. Maybe Pa knew he was damned and church was too good for him. Maybe he thought prayer might do them some good, or maybe he didn’t want them around the house on the Lord’s day to remind him what kind of sinner he was. Cain was a killer, and his mark was on all men. Some more than others. It ain’t fair, it ain’t your fault. Well then, whose fault was it? Whose fault will it be, with Pa’s mark on me?
Jake heard crying. A whimpering, and he was afraid it was him crying, feeling more like a little boy than he had in years. He took off a glove and rubbed fingers under his eyes. Nothing but pine smell, gritty, sticky, pungent. Pushing his hand back into the glove, he turned and saw Clay with his arm around a G.I., leading him away from the other men. The guy was crying, sobbing, his breath all gone as he heaved in air between gasps and tears. Jake could tell he was a replacement. He was young, barely out of high school, red cheeks and wide wet eyes, coat dirty, but not yet worn at the edges from living in it day after day.
“I’m c-c-cold,” he said, looking up at Clay, the effort to speak between sobs breaking his face, knotting his forehead, quivering his lips. Tears froze in tracks alongside his nose as he stopped to look at Jake.
“C-c-can’t we s-s-surrender?”
Jake looked away, towards the hill.
“C’mon, boy,” Clay said, his arm around his shoulder like a coach at school. “Let’s walk a bit, it’ll be okay, really. You know your momma don’t want her boy giving up first thing. Where you from anyway?”
Jake heard the words and didn’t care. Oakland. So what? What was that but a place to hope for, a home, a mother waiting by the fire or on the porch or at the train station, wherever mothers from Oakland waited for their Oakland boys. It had been years since Jake saw that piece of paper, held it up to Alice, figured out who was really who in his life and what that meant he was. But it wasn’t until this very moment, leaning against this cold tree, that he understood he really would never go back to the way it was. Bad as the knowing had been, he’d always had it tucked away in the back of his mind that he’d go home a hero, maybe wounded, but nothing bad, and everyone would be waiting, waving little flags down at the train station, and that piece of paper would be long forgotten. Ma would cry and Pa would be proud and maybe smile a bit. But Ma was no one to him now, nothing but a woman too stupid to know what her man was up to, or too scared to stop him. She was no mother, no mercy, nothing. Pa was Pa and that was bad enough right there. Alice, well Alice was another thing. His big sister n
ever again. She probably wouldn’t even want him around, reminding her of the shame. Worked both ways, too.
There would be no going home. No one waiting at the station, no flags, no slaps on the back. They could all go to hell. He’d find someplace else to go, someplace safe, where he could keep his secret, where no one knew him, where his past was nobody’s business. Jake felt his shoulders shake. Shudders flew through his body. It was the cold, it had to be the cold. Squeezing his eyes tight, he jammed his head against the tree, whispering a prayer to the frigid air, but it didn’t stop the shivering or the chattering.
The cold carried Jake back to Pennsylvania, back to the deep winter of 1938, or maybe it was ’39, when he and Tommy Owens had gone outside in a blizzard. Biting wind, like this. They were fourteen and foolish, daring each other into acts that were now dazzling in their simplistic stupidity. Bundled up in wool coats, they climbed to the top of Miller’s Ridge, where you could look down into the valley and see the twists and turns of the old river, and feel the winds roaring up and slam into the hillside. Then, stripped to the waist, they stood bare-chested to the winds, hooting and hollering their youth and defiance, feeling their oats, daring the world to throw against them what it could. It seemed like it lasted forever, standing there, laughing, the worst winter they could remember harmless against their boldness. Did my teeth chatter? Did I shiver? Maybe, but it didn’t matter. There was hot soup and a warm fire waiting for us, our whole lives left to live, and secrets still hidden in desk drawers and cold hearts.