Crank ambles up two steps. It is then her backside hurts, a red, burning sensation. She reels. The left thumb and index finger of the Traveler are pinching her flesh.
"Not as tough as I'd hoped. Still, I like them soft."
She leaps up the steps, a move causing the pinch to be removed. Crank runs, each lift of the legs pulls her knees up to her chin. In the blink of an eye, she's on the other side of the door. Slammed shut, she breathes in the soothing scents of fuel, welding flame and metal shavings. Eyes closed, lungs open, she takes it in.
How much time passes? She doesn't know.
"Crank, you okay?"
Of all people, Larry is before her. She opens her eyes, and only then does Crank realize tears have fallen from them. "Who? Me? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Alcohol spilled down there and it uh...Benny keeping us on schedule?"
"We're fine," his voice holds an uncommon sympathetic tone. Larry rubs his beat up hands, blisters and a hundred cuts earned from performing engineering feats of daring. "Planes are practically done. We started prepping your baby for the overhaul. Him and Skinny went into town. Haircuts or something."
She sniffs hard. Rubs her backside and assumes a man wouldn't notice. From his pants pocket, Larry produces a handkerchief and lays it in Crank's hand. "Here ya go, kid. They didn't leave but ten minutes ago. Why don't ya go catch 'em, get some air?"
Crank nods, stares across the hangar at the skeletal beauty of La Donna, engine aglow like a white sun, and heads for the door, head down. She folds her arms around her body, and picks up the pace.
As she goes out, the steel door leading down to Bay One opens. Traveler Coursey walks out like a conquering Caesar. The prideful grin he sports is knocked lopsided when he runs smack into the short frame of Larry.
"What's going on Coursey?" Larry keeps his hands in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket, wool collar up like some street bruiser. A burning cigarette clings to his lips, the smoke causing the pilot to squint.
"Do you usually lurk behind doors?"
"Sometimes yes, sometimes no," says Larry. "What's up with Crank dropping the tears?"
"I wouldn't know. She seemed fine in Bay One, perhaps worse for wear from the information obtained from Motherville."
"Oh? Good intelligence, eh?" Larry smacks the cigarette as if it were chewing gum.
"Exceptional! Lacking any cohesive strategy, the thing was more than willing to announce she'll send forces after us in four days, at precisely 4:30 in the afternoon. We'll gather the planes together and swat the Slicks out of the sky. Easy peasy. Dumb robot has no knowledge of strategy, much less subterfuge."
"Just like that, huh?"
"Yes pilot. Just like that. So, finish your gawking and return to work!" Coursey returned to his arrogant stroll, making his way to his office.
Larry's not satisfied. "Hey, Jack!"
Coursey skids to a dead stop. The heels of his perfect polish shoes click like angry cicadas. He doesn't bother to turn and face his subordinate. "Yes, pilot?"
"Sometimes I don't just gawk, ya see? Sometimes, once I'm done gawkin', I act. Ya dig?"
"No, pilot. I don't. Back to work."
Chapter Thirteen: Salem Shuffle
Benny plays passenger as Skinny Bubba drives the G-505 onto West Broadway. He watches the expansive tract of the Gayner Glass Works recede, the numerous age old homes and tree-lined sidewalks of this county seat. Despite his reservations about the city, he has to admit to himself the feel of outdoor air is amazing. The tide is in, his favorite. A tinge of salty, lung cleansing Atlantic Ocean is on his lips. He tries to think of ducks quacking, of crabbing in the Delaware Bay, his father cooking them, five lifetimes gone by.
But the eyes tell it all.
"You alright, Benny?" asks Skinny.
"Huh? Oh yeah, yeah. Never better. I get a good crop and some scrapple in me, I'll be one hundred percent."
"Oh. It's just that I've seen your nerves on edge lately. Your hands, I mean." He shifts gears as the truck comes to a park on the side of the road by the Fenwick Theatre. Benny sees the theatre and lets out a long grumble.
"You noticed, did you?" Benny cracks his knuckles.
"I noticed."
"Well, thanks 'Mom' for the concern, but Mrs. Haskins' son is a big boy and doesn't need coddling."
"Alright, man. Suit yourself." Skinny slams his door shut.
They exit the Army truck, and what few people there are on the street don't hesitate to give the guys some optical abuse. The disciplined jet black of their 'ST' uniforms stands out, but not for pride.
"Great. Why'd he have to park in front of this disaster scene?" mumbles Benny.
The Fenwick is now boarded up. Signs layer its exterior, propaganda made by what appears to be school students from the overwhelming use of crayons. A few are propaganda pieces by the state of New Jersey. Scuttlebutt is forces are gathering in Trenton to mosey on Down Jersey and assist. Yeah, scuttlebutt.
What do the signs say? Benny, glutton for punishment, takes a peep.
SUPPORT THE WAR AT HOME!
(a husband and wife shooting robots. Hubbie wields a shotgun, the missus a .22. But her hair is a perfect shade of red and she wears tank goggles, if it's any consolation)
LOUD CLICKS BRING SLICKS! DON'T LET YOUR FRIENDS GET REMODULATED!
(A freckle-faced child making drum noises gets ratted out to the police. Youngin’ is off to the clink! Bye bye, lil' Johnny!)
PASS THAT GLASS!
(Ladies at Gayner and Anchor Glass Works turn bottles into explosive cocktails. The new way to liven up Friday nights! Blow up Slicks, and still have time for Bridge Club!)
But the most gut wrenching of the collection:
WHO CAN YOU TRUST?
(a man, a woman and a boy, trapped between two shadows: a giant, gruesome robot, and a shady figure in an ST uniform oddly like the Shadow)
"Place sure has changed a lot these past weeks," Skinny says. "They ought to be glad. Least their town is still standing." He silently mourns Clayville, the Negro town struck by a fire a few years earlier.
"But for how long? I'm afraid half the destruction will be done by us. You've, eh, seen what we're making."
Skinny nods. "Oh yeah, yeah. Necessary evil and all that. A bad term for hard times."
Benny feels all warm and sarcastic inside. "Right. Necessary. C'mon, let's go down the street--"
He angles left while talking, and just about knocks over an old woman pacing the sidewalk on a cane. They lean into one another to avoid falling. She's average: white hair in a tight bun covered in a gray head scarf, severe wrinkles, a mountainous hunch under a faded gray dress straight from the Eleanor Roosevelt collection. They lock eyes. She has the vision of a wary eagle. Benny breaks down in the huddle like a slaughtered hog.
"Benny? Benny." Skinny speaks, but Haskins isn't game.
"Benny!"
Benjamin Haskins shakes his head, rubs his worn boyish face. The Brown Bear tacks five years onto his age in five seconds. The old lady returns to her slug's pace.
"Excuse me...young...man."
You'd think she was giving off cosmic rays the way Benny jumps when she speaks in her agonized whisper. As she passes by, ignoring Skinny, Benny takes off down the street, heavy breathing, pouty face, the whole shebang.
Skinny watches the lady depart. A grown man terrified of some brittle dame? He walks after Haskins, but the big guy is gone. Skinny looks down the corners, down Chestnut and Market, down Walnut. Nothing. How did he lose a giant white man who's scared stiff?
Running around Walnut Street and then behind the storefronts on Broadway, he at last finds Benny. The big guy's hunched over, fresh vomit on the dirt at his feet. He doesn't notice Skinny.
"Benny, man. What's going on?"
Benny raises an arm, a gesture to keep back while he continues bending down, a pale tree in a make believe hurricane. More ochre vomit spews out of his mouth, a rough gag that makes Skinny feels sorry for the guy, all the while hands caress his own gu
t.
"It's just...an...old war injury," Benny gargles between spitting. "Yeah, old war wound. I, uh, don't like to talk about it."
"Ain't got anything to do with that old lady, does it?"
Tick-tock. Tick-tock...
Skinny is sure if he had a knife, he could literally cut the tension between himself and his pal. This hassle ain't worth scrapple and a cut! This is steak dinner and three shots of Jack kind of problems!
"Skinny...I'd rather you and I..."
"Brother it's between you and the Lord. Skinny Bubba ain't in it. I'm taking you to get that haircut, right?"
Haskins manages a grimace. "Yeah. Yeah, you are." He inhales as if for the first time, a newborn self-denier. "Lead the way."
They round Walnut, hitting the first red and white pole they encounter. By now, Benny walks shamefully, Skinny marches as if trying to forget what happened.
And then...
"Uh-oh," says Skinny.
Benny lifts his weary dome. "Oh, are you kidding me?" He rushes the three steps to the barbershop door, where a simple sign hangs on the glass:
ABSOLUTELY NO SOLDIERS
Benny punches the door. Instantly, an old man sporting ridiculously thick spectacles comes to the door, waving a broom like a rifle. "No military!"
"Listen, Old Timer...!"
"No, you listen you big brute! You're not making me into some robot's tinker toy! Get on outta here!"
Benny kicks the door. Somehow, he thinks of Crank at the movie theatre. "Fine, Pops! Don't buy any war bonds! They don't gain interest in the hands of traitors!"
"Devil Dog!" says the barber. "Town Killer!"
"Ah, your Mom's the leader of a Bunt! C'mon Skinny, let's go."
They about face for the street, noticing a few souls traversing the sidewalk hastily detour at the sight of men in uniform. Salem has all the characteristics of a Wild West ghost town, haunted by real men (plus Crank) trying to save it. The irony is not lost.
"Well, I can cut your hair. Or, we can hit up the barbershop I frequent." Skinny starts to shiver. C'mon Haskins! Make up your mind!
Down the street comes an automobile, a Fleetline Aerosedan, Bobby Meyer's car. But Bobby never drove it so fast and so smooth at the same time.
Guess who?
Crank pulls up to the boys and puts it in park, cool as a cucumber, tense as a startled tomcat.
"Benny! I, uh, was looking for you. You and Skinny, I mean. Yeah..."
"Why? What's wrong?" Benny cracks knuckles. Either he's raring for a fist fight or lover's quarrel. Skinny can't call it, and ain't trying.
"No, vecchio. We got Bobby to talk. Motherville attacks in four days. Larry radioed me. We gotta get jumping!"
Benny and Skinny give each other a tired stare. "Whose they?"
Crank looks at the street, the dashboard, her gloves. "Ah, Coursey." It's a slow answer, like waiting for the tide to go out in a person's throat.
Benny rushes the car. "What's eatin' you, Kid? You're a lot paler than usual."
"So...are you." She places a hand on his. Benny's fingers twitch like inchworms on a skillet.
"Listen, Crank, I--"
"Benny, you need to tell me what's wrong with you." Her eyes swell into a puppy-darling glaze, a visual, mushy therapeutic consolation.
The Brown Bear turns away, only to find Skinny Bubba giving him the same psychiatric glance, minus the cute. The bear growls.
"Why is everybody so concerned about my past?" He's about to punch a brick wall.
"Because we need you," says Crank. "We need you whole and in top fighting form."
"It's got to do with some old lady here in town." Oh yeah, Skinny gives up the goose.
"Hey! If I wanted my problems broadcast--"
"Is he right, Benny?" asks Crank.
"This conversation shouldn't even--!"
"Is he?"
Benny's back and shoulders slouch, as if Mount Everest landed on them. His face weighs down from the dumbbells of regret.
"Yeah." Soft spoken, hands in his pockets, Benjamin Haskins stands alone, and exposed.
"Get in boys. I'll drive us outta town, while you talk, Benny."
Skinny opens the door, waiting for his brother to get in. Benny paces. He oscillates between the beginnings of throwing a fit and the slouching angst of letting go.
Several short breaths pass
He gets in the Aerosedan, and begins letting it go. Full throttle.
Chapter Fourteen: Men Don't Look Back
Summer's Bloom, 1919...
An ambulance brakes before the Salem County Memorial Hospital late in the day. Market Street is bustling with pedestrians, tired horses and black automobiles. Market Street bustles with people enjoying the warmth of the sun. The ambulance is all business, a long strongbox on spindly wheels. The hospital is a broad Italianate brick marvel of many windows, its front juts outward to add an artistic touch to an otherwise flat geometry.
The sign above the darkened doorstep blatantly states HOSPITAL. It currently services the battered and bloody, the castaways of savaged Europe.
They carry in a big man on a cot, griping about his weight, long legs dangling off the side. Two pretty yet spindly nurses in reverent white jog down the stone steps to assist them. Their tiny bodies miraculously offer strength on demand. Down the hall and up a flight of stairs they go, the big man groaning, grasping at bandages on his weighty head.
"Got a man here!" one of the drivers screams. "Eh, Haskins is the name! Benjamin Haskins, one of the Aero Squadron boys!"
"War ended last year year, didn't it?" a disgruntled nurse asks. She doesn't offer aid. Perhaps she's seen one broken young man too many.
A doctor with too many things on his mind and too little time to collate them casts a sly eye at this new admittance. "Why is he so bad off? Didn't anyone take care of him on the ship?" He kneels down to check pulse, observe the pupils, sneer at crooked bandages with the floppy brown hair jutting out.
"This guy came over on the Callao, took a crash in a Spad flying over a German prison camp a few weeks back. Banged up but good! Lips were tight on the details, paperwork too. Only this guy knows what really happened. Anyway, on the voyage here, he tries to get up and play normal, but tumbles head first down the stairs and..."
"I understand. You've quite the resilient nature, Mister Haskins. And, a deeply ingrained stubborn streak." The doctor posits a grin.
Benny smiles, but looks just off the doctor's position.
"I'm over here, ah--"
"Doctor, I uh, can't see so good. It seems to come and go." Benny's eyes rove like uncaged animals.
The doctor waves to another nurse. She brings along a table lamp to give the doctor a better view of the irises. "Mm-hmm. Comes and goes, you say? Side effect of the crash, and the fall. That will be temporary. Take him into the main infirmary with the other boys. Don't worry Mister...Haskins." Doctor glances at the clipboard handed to him by one of the drivers. "We'll take excellent care of you here in Salem. Nurse, call the man's family, and tend to his wounds.”
The infirmary opens up in soft brown, wood paneled comfort. It's a quiet place, a wide space with nine beds on either side, four of them occupied. In silence they lay, men lacking an arm, eyes covered in cotton bandages, wheelchairs resting at bedsides. One is unresponsive, his left arm bonded to an intravenous tube. Benny sees none of it. Pain and dizziness are his primary occupations.
Time sneaks behind him after he's transferred to a bed, wounds redressed. While nurses tend to him, they speak about him, not to him.
"One inch gash along the right temporal lobe," says one.
"Deep too. Left pinky and ring finger are broken. His sheet says the wrist as well, but there's no tape on it. No splint? Honey, did you have a splint for your wrist before you took a tumble?"
"No ma'am."
The nurses cough up puzzled looks.
They gently remove his khaki uniform, a dusty thing decorated in medals of dried blood, burn marks and German soil. O
nly the winged patch in black borders on the left breast stands unblemished. Benny whimpers, fidgets. The nurses find they have a fighter on their hands.
"Another big baby. Send you off to war, fill the skies with smoke only to come home and cry on our little girl shoulders!"
"Vera!"
"What?" Vera rolls Benny over, both participants grunting along the way. He from agony, she from the Brown Bear's mass. Vera's tiny, but ornery. "Gotta tell 'em like it is. Get this baby boy soaped up and quiet before night falls. You and I know how Nurse Lyle likes the infirmary quiet."
"And in order!" they exclaim at once.
Benny can barely take the undressing. He's not embarrassed one bit. Girls like their men tall. It's the injuries. In his short lifespan, Benny has been bruised, shaken, garnered the occasional broken bone (a.k.a 'male initiation'), but only now has he experienced what it's like to be battered. He can't feel his toes. The ceiling is either a blur, or all black, he can't determine. He wants to scratch an old itch on his left hand (running through thorn bushes at age eight left some spectacular tiny scars), but the slightest twitch sends rusted barbed wire pangs up the arm. His neck is numb, then swollen it seems. Whatever it is, he can't turn his head. And the head! Dogfights take place in the unseen region between the eardrums. Big Bertha sets off explosive rounds in the trenches of consciousness. There's no rest. There's no satisfaction. There's only pain shards and flopping on the bed, fish out of water, soldier out of battle.
"Good grief! Grace, get this kid some morphine, or we'll never finish!"
Nurse Grace makes for the medicine cabinet down the hall while Vera again plays wrestler. She manages to get Benny in the nude and washed head to toe. Grace returns, bearing a brass syringe full of liquid armistice. She hesitates to put it into the patient's vein. Instead, she eyes Vera in between combat maneuvers.
"It's like riding a wild bull!" Vera screams. She sees Grace's expression and rolls her eyes. "Don't just stand there! Stick it in!"
Grace sits on Benny's arm, and slides in the needle. It enters as soft as her name. Benny feels the burn in his arm. It removes the itch, but brings on a blood fever. He bucks.
Down Jersey Driveshaft (Book One of the Diesel Series 1) Page 12