Amelia was high maintenance. Every dollar Doc earned was abruptly spent on restaurants, movies, and enjoyment of the present. For the first couple months he didn’t mind because he felt that he was being adequately compensated. Besides, it was the summer between high school and college. There would be time to be more sensible with money when college started up. Amelia would be headed back East to her university studies and Doc would be free to explore college life at Gonzaga. By mid-July his world turned inside out with one simple sentence.
The only honorable solution was to face up to his responsibilities. The plans for Gonzaga were in the past, the plans for tomorrow topped his list. Like most young men in his senior year, Doc had been pestered by military recruiters with exciting job opportunities involving a move half a world away on poverty level income, learning trades that did not translate into civilian careers, with the added danger of imminent death and dismemberment. What was not to like about an attractive offer like that? A couple of months ago he didn’t have to even think twice before cutting off the recruiter’s pitch at the first couple words. Now he saw no other solution and Amelia agreed.
It was appropriately raining the day Doc visited Sergeant Irwin at the recruiting office. He drove up to the strip shopping center location shortly after eight o’clock instead of reporting to work at the rental equipment shop. The fluorescent lights were on in the office. Doc watched as no one entered or left during the first full hour as Irwin made phone calls from his desk near the front glass window.
Over and over in his mind ran the list of alternatives: head off to college and throw what little money he could scrape up at the situation, try to find a decent job in the local market, fill up the Honda and see how far he could drive before his problems caught up with him. The last solution was the one he wanted most, but the one he could least execute given the values instilled by Anna and John. The rain let up a little bit about five after nine. Doc thought Irwin had seen him out the parking lot, but the sergeant continued writing and phoning.
Doc started the engine of the little Civic and drove down the strip shopping center past its anchor, Tyler’s Grocery, to the four-lane. Straight ahead was the corner where its intersection with the thirty-foot wide residential street marked the end of the world a dozen years ago on that chilly October night, only this time he was on the opposite side of the street. He could almost envision himself as the lonely little six-year old on the far corner, not daring to cross the rapids of the coursing river of asphalt. But now he was trapped on the adult side of the rapids.
Doc drove back and parked in a space directly in front of Irwin’s window to commit himself to following through. Irwin noticed the car pull in and leaned back to watch Doc behind the rainy windshield. Doc wasn’t sure how long they stared at each other, although it was probably only a minute or two at the most. Doc gave in by stepping out into the rain and hustling through the glass door of the office.
“Wet enough for you?” Irwin introduced the conversation in a long Texas drawl and stretched out his arm as he stood up. “The name’s Irwin, and you are?”
The question was significant. Was he Doc Harrison, son of John and Anna Scott, or was he William H. Harrison, Jr.? He used his birth name on school registrations and college admissions papers, but the man’s question got to the heart of the matter. Who was Doc, or more precisely, who was he becoming? He really didn’t know where life was leading him at this point. He was basically floating downstream toward the rapids, toward calm waters, toward the falls, toward the endless ocean. Doc had nothing but a fuzzy idea of what the years ahead now concealed.
“William H. Harrison, Jr., sir.”
“From George Clark High?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We always get a good crowd of young folks in here the summer after graduation. You’re in good company. What can I do for you?”
Doc was startled by the question. What could Irwin do for him? It seemed pretty obvious that Doc had not dropped by for an early lunch or to get his car washed.
“I came in to see about signing up, sir.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Have a seat,” he said gesturing with his right hand to the metal frame waiting room chair on the business side of his desk. His pen was gripped at the ready in his southpaw hand. “What are you interested in career-wise?”
“I’ve got a merit scholarship to Gonzaga in pre-law.”
“Great plan. Don’t know that I can top that. What changed?” Irwin tossed down his pen on the yellow legal pad. Doc was not in the mood for explanations and squirmed ever so slightly with embarrassment. Irwin’s expectant stare pierced the morning dullness.
“I’d be safe to presume that it’s not a problem with the law?”
“Yes, sir, you would be safe to assume that.”
“Married?”
“No, sir.”
“Not as big a problem as you would think. I see it every week. So what time frame are we looking at, son?”
“The end of February.”
“No, I was asking when you were thinking about applying to the Air Force.”
“Maybe I could start the paperwork this morning.”
“Do you have a copy of your birth certificate and a driver’s license on you?”
Irwin simultaneously reached in the second drawer of the file cabinet behind him without getting up. It was a familiar routine he had traced so many times before with so many other young men with similar transgressions. Doc coughed up the papers from his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans. He had already paid for a copy of his birth certificate yesterday at the county clerk’s office in preparation. Irwin put out the government forms and a black pen on the desk in front of Doc.
“If you have any questions, just ask. It’s all pretty straightforward. If you were born here, background shouldn’t take but a couple days. You probably haven’t established a credit history unless you’ve cosigned on a car loan or something like that?”
“No, sir, no loans.”
“Sign this form and we’ll get those transcripts from Clark in a couple days. I’ll drop the form off in person this afternoon. I was heading in that direction anyway for a meeting.”
Doc was signing away a large chunk of his life and freedom in black ink in each of the little blue boxes asking for a regurgitation of his entire life thus far. It was a surprisingly simple task for eighteen years of living experience. The box requiring parent information gave him pause.
“Who all do you contact on the background section?”
“I just call a couple of the references you put down for a quick conversation, nothing really deep. Usually they put down a favorite teacher or neighbor or a best friend.” Irwin hunched over the desk to determine which box caused Doc to pause. “Give me the word when you’ve told them, so I don’t break the news first.”
There was no judgement in Irwin’s voice. Irwin took a couple phone calls and shuffled some papers while Doc continued writing. Finally Doc reached the blank line to which he affixed ‘William H. Harrison, Jr.’
When Doc finally laid down the black pen, Irwin picked up the mass of papers and scanned them with a practiced eye. “Now for the skills test – shouldn’t be a problem for a smart guy like you. It’s just a written test to determine what occupational fields fit you best. Why don’t you take a break and we’ll start at ten-thirty when I have another applicant coming in to test. There are some soft drinks in the fridge in the break room beyond that open door and I’ve got brochures on different career fields on the stand by the couch in there.”
So there it was. Doc’s life was changing. He felt like he was walking through a heavy pre-dawn fog, feeling his way downhill on a wooded path to somewhere with unseen danger all around and no hard and fast promise of great things to come. A few days ago life was a string of endless possibilities after Gonzaga, but now he was slowly sinking into his future with Amelia. He resigned himself to thinking that it could have been worse.
The front door ope
ned and clunked again well before the test time. Irwin greeted the incoming. Doc was relieved to hear Garfield’s voice return the salutation. Gar was not a close friend of Doc’s at George Clark High School, but they knew each other fairly well over many years of public school. Irwin stuck his head in the break room door.
“Let’s get started early since you’re both here. We’ll set you up here in this back cubicle where you won’t be bothered by the phone or people coming in and out.”
Doc followed Irwin across the main office and exchanged greetings with Gar. It was reassuring to have someone he knew going through the testing process at the same time.
The test was not that difficult, but Gar seemed to be putting a lot of thought into each question and seemed to be showing signs of stress. Doc went over his answers several times, stalling until Gar threw in the towel and handed his answer sheet over to Irwin. Gar scored high enough to sign up for military police; Doc scored high enough to take his choice of career fields. He chose legal technician; Irwin assured Doc that it wouldn’t be a problem to lock it into his enlistment contract.
“Looks good, boys. I’ll get these backgrounds going and get back to you in a couple weeks,” Irwin promised. “Since you guys went to school together, do you want to go through boot camp on the buddy system if I can arrange it? Never hurts to have a friend in a tough situation.” Gar and Doc looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Doc gained confidence from the fact that Gar was so sure of what he was doing. After they left Irwin’s office, they crossed the parking lot to Tammy’s Hamburgers for a quick lunch before Doc headed to the rental lot for a half shift.
On the homefront that night Doc shared his news with Anna and John. Anna was shocked while John was speechless. Doc would have suffered less if it had been the other way around. Anna begged him to reconsider Gonzaga and offered to pay whatever needs Amelia would have until Doc graduated from college. As attractive as the offer was, Doc was too stubborn and proud to allow his mother to assume his responsibilities to Amelia. His mind was made up no matter the cost.
John felt a separation between himself and Bill Senior’s family for the first time in a long time. John felt that the wise course of action was to stay out of the fray unless Anna enlisted his support. Anna was angry that she was losing another child to the same entity that claimed her ex-husband and older sons. She was sure that Doc would follow suit with his father and brothers and she would never, or rarely ever see, hear or touch him after he was gone.
On the following Friday afternoon Doc and Amelia pledged their lives in the courtroom of the justice of the peace. Anna and John looked on with Doc’s sisters. Amelia’s parents were present. By four-thirty the task was completed without any elaborate fanfare or expense. Since there were only a couple weeks left before the military called, Doc and Amelia moved into the basement guest room offered by her mother. Amelia planned to move back upstairs after Doc was gone.
A month before orientation week at Gonzaga would have started, Irwin cleared the background paperwork and set up the military physical. Although Doc had been told by Sergeant Irwin that the swearing in ceremony was the postscript to the physical, the awesome power of that point of no return had not yet gelled in his mind.
Gar was ready to pounce outside the front doors of the regional armed services examining station when Doc pulled up. He eagerly chatted with Doc for about fifteen minutes while the other young men with paperwork in their sweaty hands gathered in varying states of apprehension. A non-descript public servant unlocked the doors about eight-thirty and herded them into a large common area where names were called and paperwork collected in alphabetical order and reissued in labeled manila folders.
In short order the crowd was herded into a locker area, stripped of everything but issued paper booties, a locker key and their folders. They were sternly ordered to keep quiet while the machinery of processing was set in motion. Doc was part of an indiscriminate line of copies of the same meek creatures. He always felt that his superiority was inherently obvious to others, but at that moment he felt like common livestock at a slaughterhouse. In a social environment it was easy to assign class by clothing, hygiene, and speech patterns, but for all their differences in height and weight, hair color and eye color, skin tone and facial features, they were essentially all the same human being processed mechanically one after another. His uniqueness was tenuous during the ordeal.
As the morning progressed, the men were separated into smaller groups to go from examining station to examining station. Gar was in an earlier group, so Doc was amid strangers for the morning. The natural human tendency to converse was cut short by fear and respect for the earlier orders forbidding talking in line. It was surreal that so many people would make so little human noise over several hours, and very distracting not to have the power to communicate with fellow travelers.
Doc assumed that the psychology of the process was to start bringing every man down to the same basic level of survival as an introduction to becoming part of a larger brotherhood of soldiers. Doc was unnerved, but still self-assured of his own superiority over the mass of fellow beings around him. He would never surrender to becoming ordinary. At the end of the trial it felt safe to be back in his own clothes again.
The mood in the locker area changed at the end of the morning. The young men were talking in post-game decibels, and most were enjoying a feeling of exhilaration, mainly in relief that the examination phase was completed. There were reports in the crowd that a few men were dismissed for various medical reasons at different stages, but they apparently dressed quietly and left well before the current crowd hit the locker area. With the exception of talking with Gar, Doc refrained from cutting it up with the others as if he were actually one of them. Doc hated the fact that his confidence in his own uniqueness had been rattled by the experience.
Irwin and several other uniformed military recruiters lined up the crowd in alphabetical order in a large assembly room. The oath was taken like a responsive reading at church as the men parroted the phrases of induction. ‘To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States...’
Doc felt an unfamiliar stirring of patriotic pride in repeating the words with his right hand raised in a sea of raised hands. In a conflicted way he felt he was beginning to assimilate into the brotherhood while his individuality was still precariously perched above the ceremony anxiously watching the proceedings.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, about three sets of fifty names were read and the eager victims led down to waiting buses to the airport devoid of any personal belongings which they would not be allowed to retain in boot camp anyway. The remaining victims were instructed to report back to the assembly room on Monday morning at eight o’clock unless their recruiters had given them different instructions. Gar met up with Doc on the way out to the cars.
“The great adventure begins, huh?” Gar opened.
“Yup. On Monday.” Doc answered.
“I figured you for the college type. Weren’t you on scholarship to Gonzaga?”
“Didn’t work out,” Doc cut short.
“It’ll be good to have a paycheck coming in. Irwin says I should be able to bring my car up to tech school after boot camp, but then what happens if you get shipped overseas on your first assignment? Can’t take it with you. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. It’ll be weird not being able to come and go as we please anymore. No TV, movies, quick trips for hamburgers, or jeans and t-shirts for a couple months at least,” Gar commented without seriously lamenting the prospect.
“We’ll survive, I’m sure,” Doc noted. The impending loss of personal freedom was beginning to hit home. He did not especially care that his routines were being changed, only that he was relinquishing control to someone else. Anna had instilled a strong sense of individuality in Doc as a weapon to deter peer pressure and to avoid some of the pitfalls that his older brothers and sisters had suffered. Being independent and being part of the military team did not seem congruous to
Doc, but what choices did he have?
He pulled up the handle of the driver’s door of the faded dark blue Civic and it opened with a squeal. The paint had become enmeshed with a purplish hue as the dark blue coating disintegrated into the primer. The door panel never fit right again after being repeatedly removed to fix the driver’s window when it routinely slipped off its track. The dash was cracked parallel to the center speaker and the dash coating was uneven despite the vinyl conditioner he frequently applied. The remaining shards of roof liner hung limp from where the low hanging sections had been ripped off.
John had been waiting for the new fall model of Ford pickups to come out before replacing the Civic with a low-end pickup for Doc to drive to Gonzaga, but that plan had gone awry. But even the ailing Civic was precious at that moment for the freedom it represented. Doc would leave it behind on Monday. He didn’t know if he would come back for it, or whether it would be easier to replace it with something else wherever he and Amelia landed after tech school.
Amelia looked up from the cashier’s counter when Doc returned to work. Doc nodded back.
“Everything go OK?” she asked hesitantly.
“It’s a done deal,” he assured not breaking his pace to the metal framed glass door to the equipment area. The enlistment contract had been signed and the oath had been taken, but it was far from a done deal emotionally. Doc mentally compared it to falling off of a tall building. The final thump of the street below was a done deal, but the poor victim would be pleading and bargaining with God as the floors whizzed by.
He wanted to share his apprehension with Amelia, but he was afraid to reveal his misgivings about how his life was unfolding. She might mistake his fear as contempt for the situation they found themselves in. The jigsaw pieces of the plan they had worked out a couple weeks ago seemed to be on the verge of fitting together in a picture that was workable, yet devoid of the great adventure and possibilities he had envisioned before Amelia.
Living in Quiet Rage Page 4