Cooch

by Robert Cook

  The coach leaned over a little, thinking back. “He was four pounds lighter than me, and twice as strong. I just couldn’t believe how strong he was. I think my skills were a little better than his, but I’d work toward a move, find it, and then he’d just hold me back when he shouldn’t have been able to. Weird. He made All-American. A lot of it was just because he was so damned strong for his size.

  “Cuchulain’s like that, except he’s big,” Webb said. “That frame of his will support a lot of weight. He’s smart too—real smart. You don’t have to show him anything twice, and he has a spatial sense of wrestling that is pretty rare in a boy his age. You sorta gotta know where the other guy is and what he’s going to do while the two of you are spinning around in three dimensions. I think it’s like that fighter pilot stuff you read about. I have some of that, but Cuchulain’s got it in spades.”

  Webb stood up, paced a few steps and walked back. “I may get myself in trouble saying this, Mr. Francis, but it’s just too damned bad that this happened. Those assholes that he hurt were just that—assholes. Chickenshit, no-good, spoiled-brat assholes.” He sat back down. “Cuchulain’s dad used to come in his wheelchair to watch him wrestle. Poor guy is a war hero in a wheelchair, but he was proud of his kid. I’m not quite sure why you’re here, but if you can do anything to make things a little easier for Alex, I’d appreciate it.”

  Mac stood up. “We’ll work on that, Coach. I think we might be able to help him out.” He turned and walked away from the coach, who looked both puzzled and delighted. As Webb watched the way he walked, it struck him that Mr. Francis seemed a lot different than anyone else he had met from the US Department of Education.

  The math teacher was small, slight, with a moustache and a slightly effeminate air. “The principal said you had a few questions for me, Mr. Francis. What may I do for you?”

  MacMillan thought for a second and said, “You were one of the few teachers who gave Alex Cuchulain an A, Dr. Olsen. Tell me how that happened.”

  Olsen paused, and then sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have. The rules in this high school are that if a student doesn’t do his homework assignments, he may get no higher than a B. Most teachers here will give a C in this circumstance. Alex Cuchulain seldom turned in a completed assignment for me. He seldom paid attention in class. Once, during class, I walked behind his aisle during my lecture and found him near the end of a differential calculus book that he must have taken from my library shelf over there, apparently reading it like a novel.

  “After that, I paid more attention to him,” Olsen said. “I would call on him to answer questions that others in the class, good students, could not answer correctly. Invariably, he would ask me to repeat the question and give me the correct answer, obviously solving it on the fly. I don’t mind telling you that it was quite disconcerting for me, but also fascinating.

  “Later, I didn’t bother with the algebra questions. However, on three or four separate occasions, I asked him a question on differential calculus. The procedure was the same. He would ask me to repeat the question, then solve it on the fly. He was so removed from the class that he didn’t even realize I was not asking something the class had studied. You must understand, Mr. Francis, that a student like that comes along only once or twice in a teacher’s career. It was particularly frustrating to me that I did not have the opportunity to nurture his development, but I have forty students in each of my five classes. To fail to help develop a mind like that is wrong. To give that student a grade lower than an A would have been criminal.”

  Dr. Olsen straightened and pushed his glasses up his narrow nose. Looking Mac in the eyes, he said, “I realize my views may not be consistent with yours or those of the Department of Education, but I stand by them.”

  Mac stood and smiled. “For what it’s worth, Dr. Olsen, I think you did just fine. Thanks for your time.” He turned and walked from the office and out of the school to his car. He started the car, turned on the air-conditioning, and consulted his map for a route to the Cuchulain residence. After a moment, he looked out of the window at nothing and organized his thoughts. A few minutes later, he put the car into gear and drove off. He was thinking that this was the most interesting assignment he had been given for quite some time. It also occurred to him that he couldn’t let Moreau know that, because if the senator owed the DDO a big one, then the DDO owed Mac one of similar size. He liked that.

  Mac knocked on the Cuchulains’ door. It was answered by a slim woman in her midforties with fading beauty and a mass of thick, shining, silver-streaked black hair piled casually on her head. She looked tired.

  “Mrs. Cuchulain? My name is MacMillan. I work for the United States government, and I would like to speak to you and your husband about your son, Alex.”

  With a puzzled look, Maria invited him into the living room where Mick Cuchulain sat in his wheelchair by an open window, reading a book. He looked up.

  “Mick, this gentleman wants to talk to us about Alex. He says he’s from the US government,” she said.

  Cuchulain looked at Mac for a second and said, “The only thing I want to talk to the US government about is when my son will be out of jail.”

  “The answer to that, Mr. Cuchulain, is eighteen hundred hours today. All charges will be dropped and you will receive an apology from the sheriff’s department. The people in Audley who caused this to happen will suffer severe setbacks in their careers. You and your family will be treated by county officials with the respect you deserve. If there is anything further with regard to this matter that needs to be resolved, we will resolve it.”

  Mac stood, almost at attention, when he delivered this message, looking Cuchulain directly in the eye. He waited as Cuchulain’s wife ran to him and began to sob in joy as she wrapped her arms around him.

  After a few moments, Cuchulain looked up at Mac. “I’m tremendously relieved and pleased that you’ve done what you have, sir. Please express my gratitude to the senator. My only worry now is what to do with a sixteen-year-old kid who everyone in town thinks is a criminal. You probably don’t know how to change that, and it’s going to be a problem.”

  “Mr. Cuchulain, we’ll do what we can to help,” MacMillan said. “As you know, there are no answers that will change the past, but I may have some ideas that could help in dealing with the future.”

  Cuchulain studied Mac for a long while and finally said, “Well, if it ain’t Mac MacMillan! I always wondered what the hell happened to you. You just disappear one day and no one ever hears from you again. The scuttlebutt was that you went off to be a spook, since the old man wouldn’t talk about it. I suspect you are now a senior spook, based on the rapidity of your results today.”

  MacMillan grinned and said, “I’m the same guy, Mick, and Jesus Christ, I’m glad to see you. If I’d known, I’d have done this all by myself, even if you hadn’t called the senator. Of course, there would be a bunch of dead guys around, so it’s probably better this way.”

  Maria walked off to the kitchen, delighted to see Mick more animated than he had been in years. She was even more delighted that Alex would soon be free and at home. Her father would be pleased that the matter had been resolved; his fury at the story had concerned but not surprised her. She had difficulty convincing her father that it would be hard for Bedouin assassins to hide in Audley and break into the jail, so it was good for town tranquility that Alex was free.

  Cuchulain

  Residence

  ALEX arrived at home at a quarter past six that evening, transported in an Audley police cruiser driven by Sheriff Huntley. He walked up the broken and heaving concrete walk to the house, looking tired and worn. His mother rushed to the door to hug him, tears streaming down her face, and said, “My son, my heart, you have been through hell!”

  Alex held her, saying, “Mom, I’ve just been in jail for a while. It was just a mistake. Sheriff Huntley told me it was a mistake.”

  He walked into the house and over to his father, then leaned over
and hugged him.

  “I’m glad you’re out, son,” Mick said. “We should talk about it sometime.”

  “I’d like that, Dad,” Alex said. “It was spooky and a little weird.”

  Mick looked behind Alex to the chair in the corner, and nodded to Alex. Alex turned and looked to see MacMillan sitting quietly in the chair. He smiled slightly and nodded.

  “Alex, this is an old friend of mine, Mac MacMillan,” Mick said.

  “You probably know, Dad, but this is also Inspector Francis from the FBI. He was at the jail today, talking to me.” Alex looked at MacMillan. “Sheriff Huntley told me three times on the way over here that if I saw you, I was to tell you he had done everything you wanted and treated me real nice too.”

  “Why, that was right neighborly of him, don’t you think, Mick?” Mac smiled.

  “Yeah, he’s a real prince,” Mick said with a snort. “What about the mayor and Old Man Harris?”

  MacMillan thought for a second about letting Mick and Alex in on all of it, then decided. “The mayor seems to have fallen temporarily in love with his assistant, a fact that is documented in several nice eight-by-ten glossies that were taken Sunday night. I’ve been told that he seemed more interested in the voters and his wife not getting an opportunity to share these little photo ops than in seeing his son’s injury avenged. The senior senator from South Carolina also called him and offered some high-volume counseling about his future.

  “Our powerful and esteemed factory owner is in a little more trouble. It seems that one of his former chief financial officers is upset with him over the loss of his job, and was pleased to share, several weeks ago, with our colleagues at the Internal Revenue Service the existence of a second set of books—and their location. Four or five IRS agents are out there now. I see a criminal indictment in his future, which was a little more than we had hoped for.”

  Mac grinned at Mick and said, “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  Mick laughed, then seeing the puzzled look on Alex’s face, told him the whole story.

  When Maria called them to dinner, Mac said. “We should talk later about what Alex does from here. He may not be too popular with the homefolks after this fiasco.”

  “Ah, you’re probably right,” Mick sighed. “We’ll discuss it after dinner. Maria will sit in too. Elena, our daughter, is out tonight, so we’ll not worry about her right now.”

  Later, Mick sat with his chair against the porch rail, while Alex and Mac settled into the cushions of the hanging swing. The sounds of dishes rattling came from the kitchen.

  “Okay, Mac. It’s your show for now. Maria said to start without her. It’s men’s talk, she says. What’s on your mind?”

  Mac was quiet, then said, “We can be sure that nothing official around Audley causes any trouble for you or your family, Mick. Small-town attitudes being what they are, though, I suspect Alex isn’t going to be terribly well received around here from now on. There’s not much we can do about that.”

  “Any ideas?” Mick said.

  “I was thinking about getting him into the Marine Corps, Mick. He’s sixteen, and will be okay if you sign a permission form for him. Four years in the corps would cause everyone around here to forget about this mess, and could be a real benefit for Alex. It’s a pretty good life, all things considered.”

  Several moments went by, then Mick said to Alex, “You aren’t exactly setting the world on fire in school here, son, and Mac’s right about the way the people here will treat you. The corps is not an easy life, but I found it to be a good one.” He looked down at his chair and added, “Mostly. It will be your decision, Alex. Take as much time as you need to think it over. I’ll back you whatever you decide to do.”

  Alex looked at his father and then at Mac. “I want out of Audley. I almost got railroaded into state prison by those folks, and the people of this town let it happen to me—turned their heads, or worse. I was lucky you had contacts to get me out of it, but I don’t want to see them, and I don’t want to be around them. I don’t know what else I would do, so I guess the marine corps is as good a place as any. I don’t like school much anyhow. When do I go?”

  Mac stood up and stretched. “I’ll have to make a couple of phone calls. My guess is that we can have you out of here sometime tomorrow, on a bus to Parris Island. I’ll go downtown in the morning and get the paperwork from the local corps recruiter.”

  “Sound okay to you, son?” Mick asked quietly. “I’ll talk to your mom and sister tonight.”

  “I guess it’s fine with me, Pop.” Alex stood. “I’m exhausted. I can’t say I slept much in jail.” He walked into the house and up the stairs.

  The two men sat quietly for several minutes, then Mick said, “Have them lean on him a little down there, Mac. He has potential, but wasn’t on his way to anyplace good. He’s done a half-assed job in school and nothing seems to interest him except wrestling. His tests say he is bright, really bright, but we’ve not found a way to get him going. Keep my name out of it if you can.”

  Mac sat in the fading light, looking out into the quiet street, where flickering lights began to greet the gathering twilight. He nodded and glanced at his watch. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow,” he said. Excusing himself, he told Mick he had a few remaining items to clean up in Audley. Mac walked slowly down the walk to the now dusty Chevrolet, eased himself into the seat, and drove off to his meeting at Jim-Bob’s.

  US Marine Corps

  Recruiting Depot

  Parris Island, South Carolina

  ALEX got off the bus at Parris Island after the short ride from the town of Beaufort. Sergeants in uniform were yelling, “Move, move, move!” and, “Fall in, fall in now, you stupid shit birds,” as young men piled out of the bus and attempted to form a line. As he stood in what he thought was a pretty good line, Alex was worried. All of the men on the bus were older than he was—some a lot older. They had the marks of heavy beards on their faces, and several had tattoos. Their talk was of pot and poontang; Alex had never experienced either one. A sergeant stood in front of their group, flat-brimmed Smoky hat tilted down, shading his eyes. His uniform seemed to fit him perfectly, each crease sharp and straight. The button line of his khaki shirt, the edge of his brilliantly shined belt buckle, and the flap of the fly on his trousers were perfectly aligned. The shine on his black shoes seemed bottomless. He glared at them, seeming to pick each recruit individually. He opened his mouth and shouted, “HRAAAT HACE—HORWAARD HAAARCH!” There was confusion as some recruits executed a right face and others stood without a clue, looking around them.

  After several more hours of screaming by the sergeants, and even more confusion by the new recruits, each ended up standing by a bunk and a footlocker in a barracks with arms full of new clothes and gear, and haircuts that cost them only fifty cents and took less than forty-five seconds. Just as Cuchulain had sorted through his new clothes and laid them on his new bunk, someone started yelling, “FALL IN! FALL IN, YOU HOPELESS SHIT BIRDS!” As his fellow recruits ran for the door, Alex followed, wondering what was next. He was already wishing he was back in class at Audley High, where he at least had some idea of what to do.

  They formed up in lines as they had all day. The platoon lines were still ragged, but an improvement over the efforts at the bus. A tall, muscular black sergeant stood in front of the platoon. He too was immaculate, as he paced back and forth in front of the assembled platoon. He walked through the ranks, looking at each man and shaking his head sadly, yet sternly. He had not spoken a word.

  He moved back to the front of the platoon, spread his feet apart, clasped his hands behind his back, and said, “My name is Jackson, Sergeant Jackson. I will be your drill sergeant for the next twelve weeks. It is my job to turn you from your present sorry state into United States Marines. I don’t think it can be done—not by me, not by anyone. You are the sorriest bunch of fat, weak, sloppy, stupid, no-good bunch of shit birds it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. You are the worst I hav
e seen in my twelve years as a United States Marine. Since I am a non-commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps, it is often my job to accomplish the impossible, and I will therefore spend a few weeks with you before admitting to the Marine Corps that there is no hope for you—that you are untrainable, and that we are wasting the government’s money. We will then send you back to your families and friends in disgrace, as you deserve.

  “You will address me as Sergeant Jackson or Sergeant at all times. You will obey my orders without question. None of you is qualified to question my orders. If I say ‘shit,’ I expect you to say ‘Yes, Sergeant’ and then squat and strain. Is that clear?”

  A few voices said timidly, “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Sergeant Jackson’s voice roared, “IS THAT CLEAR, SHIT BIRDS?”

  “YES, SERGEANT!” they roared in unison.

  Jackson shook his head sadly. “I AM THE MEANEST MOTHERFUCKER ANY OF YOU WILL EVER ENCOUNTER. IS THAT CLEAR, SHIT BIRDS?” he roared.

  “YES, SERGEANT!”

  Jackson paced back in forth in front of the platoon standing erect, hands again behind his back. Each of the recruits felt singled out by his glare. “YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME! YOU DON’T BELIEVE I AM THE MEANEST MOTHERFUCKER IN THE WHOLE WORLD. IF EVEN ONE OF YOU THINKS HE CAN WHIP ME IN A FAIR FIGHT OR A DIRTY ONE, TAKE ONE STEP FORWARD.”

  No one moved. Jackson roared again, “YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO BE UNITED STATES MARINES. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BADASSES. IF EVEN ONE OF YOU THINKS HE CAN WHIP ME, HE’D BETTER TAKE ONE STEP FORWARD!”

  After a few seconds, one man in the second row stepped forward.

  Jackson spun and pointed at him. “You, shit bird! Front and center, on the DOUBLE!” The young man raced to the front of the platoon and stood in front of Sergeant Jackson in an exaggerated position of attention.