Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  CHAPTER THREE

  Working at Home

  In view of Jimmy Murphy’s experience in a war that may involve him personally, I begin myself to keep up with the Gulf news, reading papers more attentively than usual. At the same time I have a dilemma of my own to resolve, given the incursion into my life of politically correct faculty and administrators taking control of college affairs. Do they represent legitimate progress…given how long women and African Americans have been excluded? Time will tell, or not, as time in its infinite wisdom and infinite ignorance chooses ever to do. It looks like progress to me, no matter that the white male category to which I belong is the object of their scornful exclusion.

  Giving no consideration to joining the battle (it isn’t how I wish to spend my remaining days and represents a sea change that appears unwinnable) I decide to relocate to an inexpensive town in New Hampshire or Maine or Vermont, to country that is quiet, pleasing to the eye, more pollution free than the city. In rural New England, as a widower, I’ll be able to get by in a minimal space on my pension and savings, and on reaching sixty-five (ten years hence), the invoking of my social security. I’ll have income enough to pay my way, travel if I wish, and maintain a garden as I go on working at a desk doing what I enjoy doing. A bonus of small town life (writing stories and essays to bring in added income) will be my ability to do as I please while retaining one last student to whom, by correspondence, I can provide educational and personal guidance.

  Bristol, near Newfound Lake in New Hampshire, is a town I determine to visit during my ultimate year and a half of receiving a salary. So is Wakefield, a town on Lake Winnepausaukee that I’ve driven through many times on the way to visiting friends who have a vacation home on the meandering body of water, a town that in my passing views appears to have ceased evolving in about 1955 despite its modern automobiles and trucks. Old time diners, stationary shops, dry goods stores, city parks, tree-lined streets, minimal traffic. A quiet life apart from the threats of urban noise, assaults and anger, blaring horns and curses. A peaceful setting within which to live and work, to stroll and shop, to sit on park benches reading books and papers while feeding pigeons and squirrels. An atmosphere within which to think and to gaze unimpeded and uninterrupted over greater distances.

  In my reply to Jimmy Murphy’s steno journal I don’t mention my enforced mission of finding a new place to live any more than I share with him or with my children the denial of tenure I’ve suffered upon eight years at Massachusetts State. My concern (assuming Jimmy’s view of me as big brother and father figure) is that he not regard my move as abandonment by an adult male in his evolving life. He’ll likely conclude his enlistment in three years and enter college at twenty-one under the GI Bill. The combat he may face in Kuwait will settle, and we will continue to correspond. He will visit me in New England at a future date. Not a loss of his big brother/teacher, merely a changed address.

  Reminding my son and daughter by way of telephone exchanges that I’ll be giving a weekend to driving through central New Hampshire, I don’t mention the soldier I’ve taken under my wing as a correspondence student who has also become something of a son. They won’t mind, though they could experience some passing jealousy or rivalry that I see no reason, just now, to impose on them. Later, I think.

  Entering into a mentoring relationship, as I have with Jimmy Murphy, will be regarded as odd by certain busybodies. Not suspect, I don’t think, but odd. A fifty-five-year-old widower and an eighteen-year-old barely mature enough to be in attendance in one of his university classes. It would pass without notice had my wife, Maddy, remained alive. A friendship between a teacher and a former student. But as a single male, beyond sexual life or not, I know full well that suspicion will be aroused. Even as I know there is not now, nor will there ever be, anything about which to be suspicious, I’m aware of the times in which we live and know that most eyes are inclined to see the worst where nothing but the best may exist.

  In response to Jimmy’s steno-pad journal I write to tell him how much I enjoy hearing of his experiences, and encourage him not to let his record-keeping slide. I also present him with added small challenges. “When you next write, I’d like to see more sense impressions capturing sounds and smells, colors and textures, the weather, things that give texture and color to the world within which your experiences are taking place. Without giving up any narrative movement, “I add, “try to add spice by capturing the physical world. Recreate a world for readers like me. The smell of shoe polish. Diesel fuel. The squeaky sound of tank treads turning. Keep in mind that all animals communicate through the senses. Effective writing always includes sense-impressing touches presented in subtle ways. Not by saying outright that ‘it’s an overcast rainy day’ but by having someone use their shirttail to wipe raindrops from their glasses. Make a list of all sense impressions available. How do things smell, taste, feel, look, sound? In what ways are the sense impressions conveyed? Stroke them in like dashes of salt and pepper. Don’t overdo it, but give it a try. It will make you a writer worthy of the name.”

  My drive and overnight stay in the town of Bristol, next to Newfound Lake, I also keep to myself. I’m becoming ever more of a loner, I realize, while also coming around, at my age, to feeling increasingly vulnerable in the city. At the same time, I feel more contemplative and creative in a town like Bristol that is quiet and safe. Let the teens, students, and twenty-somethings have the bright lights and pulsating sounds, the police sirens and honking horns, the gang warfare and errant gunshots that punctuate each night like warnings of mortality. Myself, I’ll opt for walks on quiet streets to dairy bars that serve milkshakes and hamburgers and close at ten. Walks to a cabin or condo without fear of being mugged…back to my TV, my books from a local bookstore and town library, my falling asleep in a quiet room unlikely to be startled at two a.m. by police cruisers and fire engines bawling into my heart.

  Not at all good-looking, I’ve never been distracted by women perceiving me as attractive. Being homely is a role I accepted in adolescence and have lived with ever since. On my initial overnight to Bristol, however, walking into town from a nearby bed and breakfast called the Henry Whipple House, sitting at a counter in an old-fashioned dairy bar to read the local paper and have a bite to eat, I’m apparently different enough to arouse a dash of interest, as much as it takes me by surprise. A fifty-five-year-old teacher wearing a tweed jacket and white shirt and tie, sitting alone late in an evening to read a newspaper. A common scene in Boston, where a diner of the kind would be packed and just starting rather than just ending its day.

  I’m the only customer at the counter, and the town’s openness and clarity is conveyed in the friendliness of the waitress. Having no need to rush about, she comes along to ask if I’d like anything else before tearing my check from a small pad. Given that we have the dairy bar to ourselves, I feel free to ask if many apartments or condos are available in town, how expensive they may be, if there’s a local bank she would recommend for checking and savings? In time, as she is straightening things along the counter and I’m about to leave, I say, “Excuse me…could I ask your name?”

  Hesitating some, she says, “Roberta. Friends call me Bert.”

  I can’t help smiling, nor can she.

  “It’s an awful nickname, isn’t it?” she says.

  “It’s what it is,” I say. “To be sure, I won’t be forgetting it.”

  There exudes a warm smile from her as I say, “Thank you, Bert. Thank you for the info. A pleasure to meet you.”

  She keeps smiling as I place money on the counter and turn to leave. There is nothing else from her, no asking my name, to be sure, nor any inquiry from me of her marital status. A woman in her late forties working in an old-fashioned dairy bar, wearing a yellow and white uniform. A straightforward and pretty woman, I think in view of her managing my order and answering my questions. Something about her appeals to me. Her openness, I believe. Her pretty smile. Something simple I had come to believe would
never be presented again to me.

  If I visit Bristol again to delve into possibilities of houses and condos, my thought is to stop by to see her again. Maybe to ask if a hardware store is close by, or a supermarket or pharmacy. Or a local restaurant where she might join me for a bite to eat and some casual conversation.

  August 1990

  Iraqi troops stormed into the desert sheikdom of Kuwait today, seizing control of its capital city and its rich oilfields, driving its ruler into exile, plunging the strategic Persian Gulf region into crisis and sending tremors of anxiety around the world. Witnesses in Kuwait said that hundreds of people were killed or wounded as Iraqi ground forces, led by columns of tanks, surged into the desert emirate at the head of the gulf.

  –The New York Times, August 3, 1990

  There’s a quote from something I want to include in my journal. It grabbed my attention when I read it, given the chatter in the air about our ultimate destination.

  Our move to Graf, in any case, begins as an alert that catches everyone off guard. Catching people off guard is a way of maintaining a cav edge. Border duty, for which the edge evolved over forty-four years in the Fulda Gap, may be a thing of the past but isn’t anything anyone is inclined to give up. An alert is called, setting off a sprint to our big mud-bellies.

  The schedule, we had been told, would be to start loading at 0900 after morning chow in the mess hall and last-minute tying down. Our task in any case is to road-march the big mud-bellies to the rail head, where a soldier in each crew (but for tank commanders who walk backwards to do the guiding) will back the M1A1s and Bradleys up a concrete ramp onto rail cars. Then an alert is called at 0400! The barked order is to be in convoy by 0430. Grabbing rucksacks, checking out assault rifles from the armorer in the basement, soldiers rush in all directions as word flies that a simulated hostile force has breached the recently erased East German border and has to be met head-on. It’s also shouted that midday chow will not be served until we arrive at Graf and have stopped the enemy…when a field kitchen will become operational.

  “Let’s hope the chow isn’t simulated!” is shouted out, as is “I thought the army moved on its stomach!” and “Does ‘operational’ mean my scrambled eggs will come from powder and be served cold?”

  With my roommate Sherman Killebrew I lope to The Claw with my rucksack in one hand and my assault rifle in the other, only to find the lieutenant and Sergeant Noordwink already present, gear tied down, waiting for the crew to come running. Tanks and Bradleys with motors growling, lights flashing, back-up signals beeping, are jockeying in the cool predawn darkness in anticipation of moving out.

  “Killebrew, take the driver’s seat, start the engine, clear all systems, and prepare for loading and rolling,” the lieutenant shouts.

  “Thought Murphy would do it, sir,” is Killebrew’s reply.

  The Lieutenant pivots, livid. “Get it moving, Corporal! Don’t ever question an order from me, not under alert conditions!”

  “Only joking, sir.”

  “Bad timing if you think that’s a joke. Get it moving!”

  The starting of the 1500 horsepower diesel, the checking and clearing of its systems, the creaking and squeaking of the mud-belly itself into convoy is part of a test that will conclude when the beast is on a rail car, tied down, and approved by the German Bahnmeister.

  “Pay attention, Murphy, you’ll be up next,” Sergeant Noordwink says as we climb aboard and enter the vehicle’s belly through its several hatches.

  Inside, getting into seats and harness, into defined positions as Killebrew cranks up the diesel power, Noordwink shouts “Murphy, these are alert conditions…while what we’ll be doing at Graf is gunnery! Alert moves need to be SOP, as automatic as scratching your ass.”

  “Gotcha, Sarge,” I say, attributing Noordwink’s grouchy tone with me as the newcomer to awakening early and missing his coffee.

  “Firing for score, Murphy, is but one aspect of tank warfare,” Noordwink calls. “There are twenty other skills that are just as important.”

  “Gotcha, Sarge,” I call back.

  “Don’t be insolent!” he replies.

  “Don’t mean to be, Sarge.”

  “Pay attention! Keep your mouth shut! Keep your mind on your business!”

  I settle into the loader’s position, checking systems while locking in focus as ordered. I’m not in a warm and fuzzy mood myself and know that I should avoid human interaction for a bit…until all has been checked out, control has been established, and we’re underway. Is this the family life we’ve heard so much about? Grouches snapping at each other for no real reason?

  Friendship is a private issue for me and as we roll squeaking to the rail-head, I consider how I’m doing. Okay, I think. Friendship will evolve as we compete in the field and do other things together.

  Our speed is nine miles per hour and first light–it’s 0430 hours–is washing in. My crewmates remain silent, the lieutenant and Killebrew are in their hatches as we squeak through cool early autumn air, and I think, well, so far so good, nothing too special, but okay. Riding in a 60-ton tank–70 tons when armed and fueled, as it is now–filled with an anticipation I’ll probably never know again.

  Friendship is an issue for me because I’ve wanted from the beginning to do better in the army than I did at home. As the man of the family, I had but few friends in the first place. Not my stablemates and almost no one at school. Acquaintances, but hardly friends. (Only you, Bro, and your willingness to listen and reply!)

  The risk is to backslide into the loner I was in high school. If you want to have friends, you have to be one…as was repeated a dozen times at Knox and here in Germany. Make an effort, I tell myself, and so it is that I begin looking for something to say in our grinding mud-belly that will get through to my comrades and let them know I’m here and likewise missing my morning coffee.

  “Lieutenant…can we roll through Dunkin Donuts for some take-out coffee?”

  The Lieutenant snorts a laugh–fortunately–and I feel saved from the branch onto which I dared to crawl.

  “I could go for an Egg McMuffin,” Killebrew adds through his helmet mike, and I sense that here in action, as a crew, my reticent roommate may be coming around.

  “I’d like that…rolling through Dunkin Donuts for coffee,” the lieutenant says. “We’d make USA Today! Welcome to sleep and food deprivation, you dog soldiers,” he adds. “This is the life of a tanker!”

  “There’ll be coffee at the railhead,” Noordwink lets us know, his mood changing.

  “I have some in a thermos,” the lieutenant volunteers from his TC hatch. “Pass a cup and I’ll pour you a touch. It’s what I brought it for.”

  “Don’t mean to be insubordinate, sir,” Killebrew says, “but I’m getting the impression that some of the white folks around here had early notice of an alert.”

  “Eyes and mind on the road,” the lieutenant says. “Insubordination is punished by no coffee!”

  “Sir, I’d go for a taste,” I say. Seated next to the loader’s trap-sprung door where the mud-belly’s ordinance is stored, I swivel to unstrap my rucksack and free up my canteen cup.

  Noordwink relays the cup to the commander’s seat, where the lieutenant pours from a canvas-colored thermos and, passing it back, says, “Toujours pret.”

  Receiving the cup, holding a wash of coffee, I take a sip and say, “Tastes great…has me smiling already.”

  To my surprise, Noordwink adds, “Touché,” as if to reconcile his grouchy behavior and say that this is how it should be, that all is well in The Claw.

  “Murphy, you’re what we’ve needed here,” the lieutenant says. “Not to speak ill of a recently departed loader, but there’s some chemistry here now. Fast gun, too, I’m hoping. Says The Claw will score distingushed for the first time ever! I’m tasting it! Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I reply. “Let’s hope so.”

  “You know what you know,” the lieutenant says.

>   All at once, at a day-breaking hour in August 1990, I feel brotherly with my crewmates as I had been told I would. Here I am, more part of a team than I was as a stablemate at the gym (but for Willis Webb) where, though I tried, they were unable, in their anti-white anger, to let me in. Everybody was out for number one, while here it’s live or die as brothers, black or white…and I need to say that I like it.

  In a passenger compartment of the train that is carrying–on rail cars–our chained-down armor the fifty-odd klicks to Graf, as my crewmates snooze, I watch Germany and Europe clicking by through the clean German glass. Being here, being in the army, isn’t bad. I had my doubts–doing what my father did–but am into it and liking it.

  One of these days, when gunnery and field maneuvers are over, I’m going to make my way into town, if only to have a closer look at where I’m stationed. Bindlach. Bayreuth. I’ll take a bus to one town, and a bus to the other. If I were not in armor there would be extended time in garrison, and female soldiers would be in the ranks with us. Truth is, I wouldn’t have been as happy–or as proud–if I hadn’t gone armor and become a tanker. Nor am I sorry–unlike older soldiers who have wives, children, girlfriends–to think that we may end up going to the Middle East. The war games, the gunnery and field maneuvers we’re undertaking, may be competitive and heart-stopping for old timers, while my deeper feeling is to go for the real thing–to advance to gunner, to show my stuff, to get back into the ring in a sense with Hector Chavez.