Rally Round the Flag, Boys!

by Max Shulman

  In June of the year there accrued to each of them some parchment and some shiny, inexpensive metal. They both got their diplomas, Maggie got an engagement ring, and Guido got second lieutenant’s bars.

  There followed an exchange of visits to meet the folks. Guido travelled to Jessup Falls, a hamlet in the northwest corner of the state, to see Mr. and Mrs. Larkin. Mr. Larkin was a jolly fat man in the grain and feed game. Mrs. Larkin was a motherly type who baked her own bread. Mrs. Larkin cried and kissed Guido, and Mr. Larkin cried a little too and took Guido out in the garage and gave him a belt from a pint bottle of Schenley hidden behind the skid chains. “If these people have deep, buried destructive impulses toward Maggie,” thought Guido, “then I am Rex, the Wonder Horse.”

  After two jolly days at the Larkins, Guido took Maggie to Putnam’s Landing to meet the di Maggios: Vittorio, the father; Serafina, the mother; Anna and Teresa, the sisters; and Pete, Bruno, Dominic, and Carmen, the brothers. The father cast an experienced Neapolitan eye on the lavish contours of his daughter-in-law-to-be and pronounced himself well pleased. The sisters pressed gifts of lace upon her. The brothers were amiably obscene. The mother made enough pasta fazool to feed the retreat from Caporetto. Everybody cried like crazy.

  Three days later there were more tears; Guido got his induction orders. Guido and Maggie traded salty kisses and clung desperately and declared they would love one another for ever and ever. Then Maggie went home to dry her eyes and look over the numerous offers of teaching jobs for the following fall, and Guido marched off to defend his homeland.

  Guido had been graduated from college with a major in marketing and a minor in Spanish, so, naturally, the Army assigned him to a guided missile school. He reported to Fort Bliss, a parched and baleful post outside El Paso, Texas. Here he had thirteen weeks of OBC (for Officers Basic Course) in SAM (for Surface to Air Missile). This meant, of course, electronics, which was pure Choctaw to Guido. But it did not seem any more intelligible to any of his classmates, so he just sat and listened and, to his vast amazement, he found after a couple of weeks that he was able to tell an ohm from an oscillator. He was also able to do one hundred deep knee bends, shave in thirty seconds, and stay awake through a three hour lecture on armature winding while the classroom temperature stood at 104 degrees.

  After two weeks of lectures in mathematics and electronic theory, the class was introduced to the SAM—a liquid-fueled missile with a solid-fueled booster, the whole thing approximately twenty feet in length and one foot in diameter, needle-nosed, supersonic in speed, painted white, containing three warheads and many thousand electronic components, and officially designated as Nike.

  Guido gasped when he saw the sleek and lethal Nike, and that was the last time at Fort Bliss he had time for a gasp. He was far too busy trying to master enough of radar and rocketry to fire a Nike if the occasion should ever arise. That’s all the Army wanted of him. They did not expect him to repair a Nike or build a Nike or adapt a Nike or alter a Nike. All they hoped for was that he could learn what buttons to push and who to yell for if nothing happened. And that, when you are dealing with millions of parts, all frangible, and miles of wire, every inch of it whimsical, and radar, which is a training camp for poltergeists, is quite enough to learn in thirteen weeks.

  His skull bulging and his eyeballs eroded, Guido finished the course and went off with his battery to the dismal hills of Red Canyon, New Mexico, to see if he had indeed learned what buttons to push. Here Guido actually fired the Nike. He took a long breath and banged the button and the Nike zoomed up and found the target plane in four seconds and filled the sky with kindling. “Mamma mia!” whispered Guido. “Carissima mamma mia!”

  There was a happy letter waiting for Guido at Red Canyon. Maggie wrote that she had chosen her teaching job for the fall, and guess what it was? It was the second grade in the Nathan Hale Elementary School in Putnam’s Landing! So she would be right in Guido’s home town, and wasn’t that wonderful?

  It was indeed—and doubly wonderful when Guido got his next piece of news: his battery had been assigned to Upper Marlboro, Maryland, which was just outside Washington, which was only five hours by train from Putnam’s Landing or an hour and a half by air, which meant that Guido could be in Maggie’s arms every single time he had a day off!

  On his last day in Red Canyon, while Guido was sacked out in his bunk thinking jolly thoughts about all the pleasing prospects ahead, the fly entered the ointment. One Clyde Greenhut, an officer in Guido’s battery, a large young man with unsightly lumps of muscle all over him and a morbid addiction to athletics, came up to Guido, gave him a jolly whack, and cried, “Hey, di Maggio, let’s play some ball!”

  “No, thanks, Clyde,” said Guido pleasantly. “It’s too hot out there.”

  “What? A hundred and ten is hot? Come on!”

  “No, thanks, Clyde. I really don’t feel like it.”

  “Ah, come on! Who ever heard of anybody named di Maggio who didn’t feel like playing ball?”

  So, responding to the familiar call, Guido went out to the ball field. In the top of the fourth inning, with Guido playing shortstop, the batter hit a sharp ground ball to the second baseman. There was a runner on first, so Guido dashed over to second to get the double play. The second baseman whipped the ball to Guido. The runner came charging in to break up the throw to first. The runner was Clyde Greenhut. He barreled into Guido, knocked him into short left field, and divided his ankle into two unmatched pieces.

  So Guido went into traction instead of Upper Marlboro. For weeks he lay in his hospital bed and cursed steadily, cheered only slightly by the bubbly letter which arrived every three days from Maggie. She was now in Putnam’s Landing, which she loved, and had found a darling apartment, which she adored, and was busy teaching the second grade at Nathan Hale Elementary School, which was composed of the most fetching and cuddlesome little organisms ever begotten.

  Glum tidings were awaiting Guido when, all healed, he finally got out of the hospital; his lovely assignment to upper Marlboro was no longer available. Another officer had replaced him during his confinement. Guido was told to report to area headquarters at Fort Totten, Long Island, where he would receive a new assignment. He took some consolation, however, from the fact that he was allowed to go home for a week’s leave before reporting to Fort Totten.

  Guido’s family was gathered on the station platform when he arrived in Putnam’s Landing. It was a raucous reunion, full of wet kisses and shrill endearments. Then Guido asked about Maggie, and a strange thing happened. The festive mood vanished abruptly. Dead silence descended on the clan. They all avoided Guido’s eyes with great care.

  Guido looked at his family with perplexity. “Didn’t you hear me?” he said. “I asked how Maggie was.”

  The silence deepened.

  Guido turned to his father. “What is it, Pa? What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” muttered Vittorio. “Don’t aska me.”

  “Ma—” said Guido.

  “I don’t wanna talk about her,” said his mother.

  Guido turned frantically to his brothers and sisters. “For God’s sake, what is it? Is she sick or what?”

  For a moment nobody answered. Then Bruno spoke. “She ain’t sick,” he said curtly.

  Dominic gave a short nasty laugh. “Don’t be so sure,” he mumbled.

  There was a cab stand at the station platform. Guido wheeled abruptly from his family, raced to the stand, got in a cab and gave the driver Maggie’s address. He was there in five minutes. He ran into the building, rang Maggie’s bell, pounded on her door, threw it open, and burst into a tiny two-room flat.

  Maggie was in the kitchenette washing dishes. She uttered a cry of delight, gave her hands a quick wipe, and ran to Guido. “Oh, darling, you’ve come!” she said exultantly. “I knew you’d stick by me!”

  “What?” said Guido, blinking in bewilderment. “Stick by you? What have you done?”

  “Only my duty, dear,�
� she replied and kissed him soundly. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here to help me fight this thing!”

  Guido took her shoulders and gently disentangled himself. “Maggie baby, I’ve been on a train from New Mexico for the last four days. Would you mind filling me in?”

  “That’s right. You couldn’t know about it.”

  “About what?”

  “I’ve been fired from my job.”

  “Fired? From the school? For what?”

  “For trying to let a little light into the darkness!” declared Maggie, lifting a fist. “For trying to clean out the ignorance and sickness of centuries!”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “I gave,” said Maggie, “a talk on sex.”

  Guido’s jaw plopped open. “To the second grade?” he whispered in horror.

  “Of course.”

  “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAM MIND?” shrieked Guido.

  Maggie jumped back in alarm.

  “Have you gone completely off your rocker?” he roared bearing down on her. “What the hell do second grade kids know about sex?”

  “But that’s just the point, darling. They don’t know anything. Somebody has to tell them. Do you want them to grow up repressed? Traumatized?”

  “So you had to go and tell them?”

  “Well, they asked me to. One day they came back from recess and asked me where babies came from. I decided the best thing to do was give them a simple, truthful, straightforward explanation.”

  “I don’t suppose you left out anything?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “All the details, huh?”

  “Everything.”

  Guido clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, my back!” he moaned. “Oh, my aching, breaking, cruddy, bloody back!”

  “Guido, I don’t understand you at all.” There was an edge of anger in her tone. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Oh, yours, of course!” said Guido with a low bow. “What right-thinking American wouldn’t be?”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that anyhow.”

  “What are you going to do now—go back home?”

  “Certainly not!” she said ringingly. “I’m going to stay here and fight for reinstatement.”

  “That’s what I figured,” he said morosely.

  “Do you think I’m going to let Mr. Vandenberg get away with this?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Vandenberg—the principal. He’s the one who found out about my sex lecture.”

  “Oh, grand! What’d he do—walk in while you were talking?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, he didn’t come in till after the class. But, of course, the pictures were still on the board.”

  “YOU DREW PICTURES?” screamed Guido.

  “How else do you explain anything to seven year old children?” answered Maggie hotly. “And don’t you raise your voice to me. I’m beginning to think you’re not on my side at all.”

  “And I’m beginning to think that you’re a public menace!” Guido shot back. “Good God! Dirty pictures in the second grade! What’s your next project—reefers?”

  “Guido di Maggio,” said Maggie, trembling with fury, “you get out of here and never come back again. Never! You’re just as ignorant and benighted as the rest of them. Out! Out!”

  Guido, seeing his love going glimmering, was suddenly drained of anger. “Now, Maggie honey,” he said placatingly.

  But she wasn’t having any. “Out! Out!” she repeated. “You’re not on my side. You never have been, have you?”

  “Now, Maggie, let’s not be hasty—”

  “Of course you haven’t. You lied to me. Lied from the beginning! I can see that now. Oh, get out of here, you vile, awful man—and take this with you!”

  By “this” she meant her engagement ring, which she now yanked off and slapped into his startled hand.

  “Maggie, this is ridiculous—”

  “Out! Out!” she screeched, hammering him randomly on the head and shoulders with both fists.

  “I’ll come back when you’re calmer,” he said and fled.

  He came back, but she got no calmer. Not toward him, at any rate. He was outside her door every day for the seven days of his leave, but not once did she speak to him. She did, however, kick him three times.

  Then, lorn and sick at heart, he had to report to Fort Totten, where, as we have seen, the coup de grâce was administered by Major Albert R. McEstway, post adjutant, who unmoved by Guido’s tragic circumstances, put him on a shipping list to Fairbanks, Alaska.

  And now, a broken man, Guido lay on his sack in the BOQ and contemplated his frigid future. For hours he lay, a lifeless hulk, a mound of anguish. At last he stirred.

  “Che sarà,” he said, forcing a ghastly smile, “sarà.”

  2

  Harry Bannerman stood at the bar in the club car of the 5:29. In his hand was a bourbon and water, his second since leaving Grand Central Station twenty minutes earlier. Harry was not ordinarily a bourbon drinker—scotch was his usual tipple—but he had discovered that bourbon made him more drunk more quickly. That, in recent months, had become an important consideration.

  Harry was a typical commuter of Putnam’s Landing, Connecticut, which is to say that he was between 35 and 40 in age, married, the father of three children, the owner of a house, a first mortgage, a second mortgage, a gray flannel suit, a bald spot, and a vague feeling of discontent.

  Though he loved his wife and children, though he enjoyed his house and had hopes of reforesting his bald spot, though he was, all in all, not dissatisfied with his lot, just the same, from time to time, a sort of helpless feeling took hold of him—a feeling that he had no control over the forces that shaped his life—that he was merely a puppet in the hands of some dimly understood power. Namely, his wife.

  Make no mistake: he loved her. Grace was handsome, fair, supple, and bright, and he had wanted to marry her the minute he had clapped eyes on her. It had been right after World War II. Harry had just been mustered out of the Navy and had returned to New York where he found a job on the “Talk of the Town” section of The New Yorker. Grace was an assistant in the same department. When she saw Harry walk in wearing his prewar civvies, his wrists and ankles sticking out like Huck Finn’s, she promptly burst into laughter. But it was warm, friendly laughter, and Harry did not mind a bit. He told her that if she really wanted some laughs, she should see him in his tuxedo. So they went to dinner that night, and then they had a lot more dinners and rode in hansom cabs and listened to jazz at Condon’s and took trips on the Hudson River Day Line and pressed their noses against Cartier’s window and got married.

  Harry’s idea of married life was simple: you rented an apartment in Greenwich Village and sat on a pouf and listened to Rodgers and Hart records and drank wine from wicker covered bottles and held each other very tight.

  Which is just how it was for the better part of a year. They lived in a high-ceilinged two-room apartment on Bank Street with a mattress, a box spring, a corduroy throw, a red and blue pouf, an electric percolator, a hot plate, and a phonograph without a changer. That was the only thing Harry lacked to make his happiness complete—a changer for the phonograph.

  Grace’s ambitions were rather larger. “Darling,” she said to Harry one night, “don’t you think people ought to start their families when they’re young so they can grow up with their children?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he replied casually, and the next thing he remembered, his son Dan was upon him.

  (That was Grace’s idea of a conference. She was always coming up to Harry and saying something like “Wouldn’t it be nice to have panelling in the basement?” or “Don’t you wish we had more closet space?” and he would answer absently “Yeah,” or “Uh-huh,” and the next time he came home from work, the house was teeming with carpenters.)

  So now they had their son Dan. He did not do much for the first six months except cry and spill things, including a bottle of cod liver oil on
Harry’s bed, and if you have never slept on a mattress reeking of cod liver oil, you have never known anguish. But Harry got a new mattress and eventually the boy turned fat and pink and no trouble to anyone.

  One night after this satisfactory child had been put to bed and Harry and Grace were curled up on the red and blue pouf, she said to him, “You know, it must be terribly lonely to be an only child. Don’t you think so?”

  “I guess it is,” he replied absently, and before you could say twilight sleep, he was the father of another boy.

  After Bud (for that was his name) joined the family, there were no longer enough poufs to go around, so, of course, they had to move to a bigger place. “Why not buy a house in the country?” suggested Grace. “It’s just as cheap as paying rent, and it’ll be so wonderful for the children.”

  “Well—” said Harry, and while he was scratching his head, he became the owner of a house on a hill in Putnam’s Landing, Connecticut.

  For Grace and Putnam’s Landing, it was love at first sight. Almost before she was unpacked, she had had another baby, bought a large brown dog, joined the PTA, the League of Women Voters, the Women’s Club, the Red Cross, the Nurses Aids, the Mental Health Society, and the Town Planning Commission. “How wonderful,” she would cry, slinging Dan on one hip and Bud on the other, tucking young Peter under her arm, putting the dog beneath on a leash, and rushing out on errands of mercy, “to live in a town with real community spirit!”

  Harry’s enthusiasm for Putnam’s Landing was kept under somewhat tighter control. He liked the place, mind you. It did have, as Grace said, real community spirit, and the people were interesting—writers, artists, actors, ad men, TV executives, and other such animated types—and there was a pleasant patina of New England upon the winding lanes and rolling land. But living in Putnam’s Landing was a blessing not entirely unmixed. For one thing, it cost more money than Harry was making. For another, it required more hours than there were in a day.