By the end of the second week, Johnny’s pants were practically falling off him. He had to keep shortening his belt. At the end of three weeks, Johnny looked down at himself when he was trying to wash off the stench and saw that his stomach was sinking back toward his spine. His ribs were protruding. He caught a glimpse of himself in somebody else’s metal mirror and he was so startled by the sight, he ran back to his sleeping bag and pulled it up over his head.
Johnny didn’t know what to do, his life seemed so bleak. He thought and thought if there was anything he’d liked to do. And if there was, where did he like to do it? Back home? He couldn’t remember where home was. He remembered a river he used to swim in. He also remembered he used to like arithmetic. Though when he tried to do simple addition or subtraction, he had to think really hard how to do it. But that turned out to be a good thing because thinking hard about how to add or subtract meant he could stop seeing, smelling, feeling what he did every day.
He soon tired of adding and subtracting. He tried dividing and multiplying. Over and over he multiplied time and then divided it. How many hours were in a month, how many minutes, how many seconds. He did the problems in the dirt with the point of his bayonet. He didn’t have to look at anybody, nobody had to look at him. He didn’t have to think about how skinny he was becoming. But in the middle of the third week he’d started to hallucinate. He saw a leg walking, hands clapping, a hand throwing a ball, a foot kicking a ball, teeth biting the air, lips spitting blood, brains thinking. When his first sergeant asked him what the fuck was going on with him, Johnny said, I’m seeing what thinking looks like.
Is that supposed to be funny? the first sergeant said.
Oh, it’s no joke, Johnny said. It’s hideous.
On his thirtieth day, seven hundred and twenty hours, forty-three thousand two hundred minutes, two million five hundred and ninety-two thousand seconds after he had been assigned to Graves Registration, on their first break of the morning, Johnny picked up his M-1 carbine, extracted the magazine to make sure it was fully loaded, reinserted the magazine, worked the bolt to put a round in the chamber, pushed the safety off, put the barrel in his mouth, and thought, here I am in the war and the only person I’m ever gonna shoot is me.
The next thing he knew, he was on his back and somebody was sitting on him, punching and pummeling him in the face, screaming.
His attacker kept shouting at him, You think you’re gonna blow your fucking brains out and leave the rest of us here to stick your fucking dog tag in your teeth and hang the other one on your fucking carbine! You think you’re gonna get out of this shit that easy? The fuck you are!
He didn’t know who had knocked him down and beat him; he hadn’t seen him coming. All he knew for sure was that he was having trouble breathing. He didn’t know his nose had been smashed nearly flat. Blood was streaming into his eyes from the deep cuts on his eyebrows. Everything looked red. Some of his teeth had been knocked out. He was gagging on the blood pouring from his gums, trying not to swallow his teeth.
By the time he got to Paris, most of the swelling had gone down in his face. By the time he got to England, all the cuts had healed. By the time he got to Fort Dix, New Jersey, he wasn’t wearing the straitjacket anymore, but he was still in handcuffs and leg irons.
A couple of months later, when the commanding officer of the prison ward in the hospital handed him his discharge papers, Johnny barely glanced at the words. Both of them said, Unfit for Military Service. Or maybe they said, Unfit for Military Duty. He wasn’t sure. He was sure that he didn’t care. He also didn’t care that all the brass insignias had been removed from the new uniform he’d been issued. He didn’t care that he had cash in his trouser pocket or that the corporal who’d handed him the cash had subtracted the price of a bus ticket back to Pittsburgh.
The last thing the prison ward CO said to him was, There’s a VA hospital in Pittsburgh. Maybe they’ll be able to help you there, son.
Johnny asked if he was supposed to report to that hospital.
No, the CO said, you’re officially separated from the army, Mr. Giumba. I can’t order you to report anywhere. I am advising you and suggesting strongly that you go there and ask for help because, son, you really need it.
The last thing they did before he got on the bus was remove the handcuffs and leg irons.
Sitting on the bench in the back of his parents’ house on Washington Street in the McKees Rocks Bottoms, head back, eyes closed, the sun warm on his face, he wondered if anything would happen if he didn’t go to that VA hospital, wherever it was. Since he was legally discharged, he was pretty sure they couldn’t say he had deserted. They shot some guy in France for deserting.
He thought he’d keep wearing his uniform, even though he couldn’t remember why he didn’t have any insignias. He believed that if an MP showed up and tried to say he was a deserter, he could tell him the reason he was wearing his uniform was to show he was planning to go back. And if he was planning to go back that would mean he was not a deserter, just Absent Without Leave.
He read the discharge papers again. They said the same thing they said every time he’d read them. And five minutes later he couldn’t remember whether it was Service or Duty he was unfit for.
When his mother and father were in the kitchen, they stopped talking when he passed through to go back to the bench outside. After he closed the door, he could hear them speaking, their voices low. Lately, it seemed every time he passed them, they were whispering. Another thing he noticed was they both were looking guilty. He wondered what they had done to look that way.
One afternoon his mother came to the door and said, How you feeling today, Johnny? You feeling any … different?
He shrugged. Just like he did every time she’d asked him that before.
Next question was as predictable as the last. You sure you don’t want me to wash your clothes?
He shook his head no, closed his eyes, and lifted his face to the sun.
Her next comment had as little impact as the previous two. Johnny, don’t get mad, but you’re starting to smell.
He thought, starting? Jesus, you think I smell now? Should’ve smelled me a couple months ago. He didn’t say it. There wasn’t any point smarting off to his mother. She’d always been good to him. And anyway, none of what had happened since he’d arrived in France was her fault. Nothing was her fault. His father’s either.
He started thinking about something he’d been thinking about for the last week or so. He’d been thinking about not talking anymore. But if he did stop talking, he worried his mother might think it was because she kept asking the same questions every day, and it wasn’t that at all. It was just because he was running out of things to say and he was pretty sure that if he used up all his words talking about how he was or wasn’t feeling or whether he did or didn’t want his clothes washed, he might try to talk one day and find out all his words had been used up and he wouldn’t be able to say anything else ever again because he was also pretty sure he didn’t know where to go to get a supply of new words. Not new new words. Just words new to him. That, he felt sure, would be a real problem.
A big, poofy cloud hid the sun for a couple of minutes. Johnny took off his Ike jacket, hooked it over his shoulder, and started walking toward the river. He hadn’t been down there since yesterday and he wanted to make sure it was still there. There was something about the river that soothed him. Maybe because one time he talked to some guy from the museum who was digging on the Indian Mound and that guy told him the river was real old. It had been there since the last glaciers melted. Thousands of years ago. At home that night Johnny multiplied how many hours, minutes, and seconds there were in a thousand years and he couldn’t even pronounce the number he got. He did like the name of the river, although he’d had to ask his father what it was.
Ohio, his father said. It’s the Ohio River. When you were a kid you used to go swimming in it, remember?
He wasn’t sure if he could remember swi
mming in it. He did like the sound of the river’s name. He walked around saying it over and over, singing it, sort of. Oh-high-oh.
It was unusually warm for November. Indian summer, his father said. He couldn’t figure out why the summer would be named after the Indians. Maybe it was because of the Indian Mound, which was a little bit closer to Pittsburgh, where he talked to the guy from the museum who told him how old the river was. There were supposed to be a lot of Indians buried in that mound. Johnny believed that was true because he’d found a whole jarful of finger and toe bones. They were still on the shelf in his closet upstairs. Maybe when he went home he’d take them out of the jar and count them again. He wondered why finding those Indian bones had never bothered him, not anywhere near the way finding bones in France had bothered him. The pieces of bodies he collected in France made it impossible for him to eat, to nourish himself. In a month he’d lost nearly thirty pounds. A pound a day. When he was weighed in Fort Dix, he was so weak medics had to steady him on the scale.
A little before he reached the end of the block, he heard a horn and somebody calling his name. He kept walking at the same pace, but he thought he recognized the voice, so he turned and looked. The car was keeping pace with him. The driver was smiling.
Hey, Johnny boy, I heard you was home. Wasn’t over there too long, huh?
Johnny stopped and bent over to get a better look at the driver. I know you?
Do you know me? The hell kinda question’s ’at? I’m Billy. You don’t remember me?
Billy?
Billy Pristash! The hell’s the matter with you? You lose your mind?
No. I know where it is. He tapped his head. It’s right up here.
Billy thought that was funny. You’re jagging me, right?
Jagging you? I’m way over here, how could I be jagging you?
Oh, now I know you’re jagging me. Hey, serious now, I wanna talk to you about something.
You said we were supposed to pretend we didn’t know each other.
Ah, c’mon, man, that was a long time ago. My old lady talked to your old lady in church. Your old lady said you practically don’t talk to nobody anymore. Says you just give everybody real short answers. Or else you don’t say nothing.
Saying nothing, Johnny started walking again.
I guess you probably heard, Billy said. They tried to draft me last year, but I flunked the physical.
I heard something? What?
You didn’t hear about me being 4-F?
Four what?
Four-F. You don’t know what 4-F means?
No.
Well, before you hear some jagoff spreading rumors about me trying to beat the draft, I’m telling ya I flunked the physical. So you’re hearing it right out of the horse’s mouth. Something wrong with my heart. Some kinda murmur or some shit like ’at. So I’m 4-F. Unfit for military service.
That’s what my discharge says. Or maybe it’s duty I ain’t fit for.
Billy threw his head back and laughed hard. He wiped his eyes. That’s rich, he said. That’s really rich. You and me. The same. Unfit.
No. Not the same.
No? How’s come no?
You said I was dumb. You didn’t know why you were friends with anybody dumb as me.
Aw, c’mon, Johnny, forget about that. That was a long time ago.
I remember like it was yesterday.
Aw, hey, man, I’m sorry I ever said anything like ’at, okay? Had it to do over, I would’ve never said it. So we’re straight now, right?
Straight?
You know what I mean. Straight like friends again. Like we used to be. Like in junior high. Ninth grade.
You were in ninth. I was in eighth.
Okay, okay, so you was a year behind me. One year, what’s the difference?
You never talked to me until now.
Ah, hey, you know, the conquering hero comes home, gotta talk to him, you know, that kinda shit.
Ain’t a hero. Didn’t conquer nobody.
Huh? You ain’t? You didn’t? See, right there, that’s what I wanna talk to you about. What’s it feel like, killing somebody? How many Krauts you kill?
None.
None? You didn’t even kill one lousy Kraut? C’mon.
Not one.
C’mon, man, quit jagging me. Fuck were you doing over there?
Collecting garbage.
Collecting garbage?! Git outta here.
That’s what war does. Makes garbage.
And that’s what you were doing, huh? Picking up garbage, emptying cans, crap like ’at?
Johnny nodded.
Aw, quit jagging me, man, come on! This is me here. Billy.
Johnny turned away from the car and continued walking toward the river.
Hey! Where you going? I was just joking around, I didn’t mean nothing.
Johnny kept walking, no faster, no slower.
Billy kept pace with him. Hey! Johnny! Wanna go for a ride?
To where?
Anywhere, nowhere. C’mon, I’ll show you my car. Just got it. Practically brand new. Only got twelve thousand miles on it. Not even that. Eleven nine five oh, to be exact. Bet you’re wondering where I got the money, huh?
No. Ain’t wondering.
You ain’t? I’m gonna tell you anyway. Shit, man, I’m rolling in it. I’m driving a lift truck down the Wheel and Axel. They converted more than half the plant. Half’s still making wheels and axles, the other half’s making artillery shells. One oh five millimeters. Musta seen a lotta them over there, right?
No. I collected garbage.
Uh-huh. If you say so. Well, anyway, I’m getting all the overtime I want. I could work twelve hours every day if I wanted. And you know, everything over forty hours is time and a half. I paid cash for this baby. Only trouble is the gas rationing, you know?
No.
Yeah, well, how would you? They started last year. You’re only allowed to buy so much a week, depending on what kinda job you got. I walk to work, so I’m only allowed, like, five gallons a week. Ain’t much, but I know some guys, know what I mean? For the right price, the right people, whatever you want, you can get it. Hey, where you going? C’mon, get in.
This baby can really go, it’s a V8, you know?
No.
Well where you going anyway?
Oh-high-oh.
Ohio? You mean the river? Fuck you going there for?
To look. Makes me feel …
Makes you feel what?
Quiet.
Quiet?! Billy’s face got pinched and wrinkly, like that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. For a long moment, he inched the car forward, not saying anything.
Hey, Johnny! Ho, Johnny! Hold up, man, I wanna ask you something, you know? I’m serious now.
Johnny stopped and looked over his shoulder at Billy.
What was it like, man, huh? I’m serious now. And don’t bullshit me. You know. The war. Last couple guys I knew was over there, I asked them, but I know they was bullshitting me. I could tell, you know. They were trying really hard not to laugh at me. But I’m serious, man. I really wanna know.
Collected garbage.
Aw, come on, man, stop with that garbage shit. I wanna know what it was like. You can tell me.
I can?
Yeah. Cause we’re straight now. Like before.
Nothing’s like before. I collected—
C’mon, Johnny! Man, stop with the garbage shit.
Only person I ever tried to shoot was me.
Huh? You tried to kill yourself? What’d you wanna do that for?
Didn’t wanna collect garbage no more.
Jesus Christ, you got a one-track mind, I’ll say that for ya.
I like sitting on the tracks. I can watch the river.
One-track mind, I said, not railroad tracks. Thought I was gonna learn something talking to you. Turns out I was right all along. You really are fucking dumb.
Johnny stopped walking toward the river. He stepped out into the s
treet. They were where Ella Street’s bricks ran out, where it turned to dirt. Because it hadn’t rained for more than a week, the dirt was a powdery grayish-tan dust. Johnny bent over from the waist.
He lowered his voice and talked evenly, not emphasizing anything. You wanna know? he said. You really wanna know what the war was like? Okay. I’ll tell you. There was garbage. Everywhere. That’s what the war was. Wasn’t like anything. It was just garbage.
Oh, for Christ sake, stop it, willya?! You collected garbage. Maybe that’s all you’re good for. Don’t know why I thought you was gonna give me the straight poop. From now on, it’s gonna be just like before. Pretend you don’t know me.
Johnny turned away from Billy and, stepping through the powdery dust, made his way across the Rox Boys Club baseball field. He walked past third base and through the grass of left field, hearing the cars and trucks humming above him on the McKees Rocks Bridge. He crossed the railroad tracks and slid down the bank of the Ohio to a small outcropping where he could sit and watch the greenish, grayish, brownish river flowing by. He felt better just thinking about how long this river had been flowing past where he was sitting and how much longer it would flow after he was dead. He thought of a song he’d heard one time.
Ol’ man river, ol’ man river, he don’t know nothin’, he don’t say nothin’, he jus’ keeps rolling along.
Thinking those words made him feel even better.
I almost drowned in you once, he said. You damn near kept me down. But you didn’t. Maybe I’d be better off if you had. I don’t know how to think about that. But you got me for sure now. I’m gonna come here and look at you every day it’s not raining or snowing hard. I’ll do most of the talking. Sometimes I talk too much. A little while ago I almost told Billy Pristash a lotta stuff I said I was never gonna tell anybody. But I caught myself in time.
I didn’t tell him, cause he would’ve blabbed everything I told him. But I can tell you. Cause like the song says, you don’t know nothin’, you don’t say nothin’, you jus’ keep rolling along.
It was a lot like here, Johnny said. Houses, apartment buildings, streets, gardens, trees, the river, factories, animals, cows, pigs, chickens, people. All blown to shit. All turned to garbage. Every day, every stinking day, and I do mean stinking, cause there ain’t no stink like it in the whole world. When people die, when animals die, if nobody buries them, as soon as they die they start to rot. And when they start rotting, they give off all kinds of smells, there ain’t any words for it, at least I don’t have any words for it, all I know is it gets in your clothes, in your hair, in your mouth, in your nose, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it. And you think, the first time you smell it, what could be worse? Nothing could be worse than this. But there is something worse. It’s called Graves Registration, a nice bullshit army term. And if you’re unlucky enough to get put on GR, what you do every day as long as you can stand and bend over and zip and unzip body bags, you walk through wherever they drop you off, and you pick up bodies. And it ain’t a picnic if the poor slob got dropped with one in the head or the heart, because the real hell is when you got to pick up the pieces of a whole lot of slobs that got hit by 88s. Cause that’s when you have to walk around picking up heads, hair, brains, ears, eyeballs, noses, tongues, arms, legs, torsos—and that’s if you can even make out what it is.
Pittsburgh Noir Page 10