“AW SHIT. The Marines have landed.” A few customers at the bar turned our way and smiled. They obviously were tuned in to Bull’s sense of humor.
He came around the bar, shook hands with each of us and recommended pulling some tables together. “First round’s on me, boys.”
Staff Sergeant Holeman answered him when he asked what was our pleasure. Bull brought a tray with glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He stood beaming, big tattooed arms folded, as we all grabbed a chair.
“I landed you boys on Iwo Jima. I was Coxs’n on a landing craft and made nine trips into Green Beach, right at the foot of Suribachi.” He started pouring the booze. “In all that hellishness, machine gun fire and artillery, my goose got cooked when plunging surf filled my craft with water and sand – broached her sideways and threw me into five feet of water, out cold like a friggin mackerel. Boys from the 1st Battalion, 28th Marines took time out of their busy day to save my life.”
He offered a toast, “To the Corps!” We all drank and slammed our glasses down. “I spent an hour on that slaughterhouse beach before I could get back to ship; that friggin black sand was like trying to walk in coffee grounds – no idea how you boys did it. Let me know when you want another bottle. That round, you’ll pay for,” he smiled big.
We drank liquor and told all the Ed Kowalski stories we could think of, and then we retold the same old jokes. There were a couple of ‘Coxs’n’ comments, but nobody wanted to do more than whisper about it with Bull only a few yards away. Holding his inverted shot glass in the air, Sekach declared we were all going to become drunks. Holeman leaned back in his chair, “You know, I think it was Hemingway who said, ‘it ain’t drinking that makes you a drunkard, it’s opening bottles’.” After a couple of glances around, that brought on more toasts, one for bartenders.
We talked about the other Marines we had lost, and then we talked some more about Eddie on into the night. Somewhere around 2200, when the bar was half full, Bracket, who was in civilian clothes, came out of the head wearing somebody’s uniform field scarf like an Indian headband.
Cournea yelled, “Hey, look at that. Let’s sing the Marine’s Hymn for Brack.”
We all jumped to our feet and delivered in unison, “Him, hiiimmmm... FUCK HIM!” It was magic how fast Bull McDermott was standing by our tables.
“Liberty’s secured, boys.” Nobody doubted he meant it. Holeman took up a collection and cleared our tab. Bull shook our hands as we left.
***
I got back to Memphis Sunday evening, plenty hung over but happy about seeing everybody. I was on Cloud Nine thinking about Ginger, thinking how lucky I was. The week inched by. I made a couple of calls regarding school plans and what the GI Bill could do for me.
Friday finally arrived and Mama and I drove the 200 miles to Huntsville. Ginger and I got married the next morning at her folk’s house. We planned the ceremony for ten a.m. so we could get a start on driving to Mobile for our honeymoon. At 9:30, expecting the preacher, Mrs. Wilson called down the stairs for me to answer the knock at the front door. I swung it open. There stood Dave Cournea and Mike Sekach full of piss and vinegar.
“Stone, close your mouth before a fly gets in.” Dave slugged me in the chest.
I had told everyone about my wedding the week before in New York, but after the trip to the memorial service, I didn’t expect anyone would be making a trip to Alabama. Besides, they were all plenty drunk when I told them. Tears came to my eyes.
The preacher did arrive. After the brief ceremony, a photographer from J.C. Penney came by and we all had our pictures made.
Walter Wilson was my new father in law. Walt had thin sandy hair and wore gold wire-rimmed glasses. He was a quiet man who doted on his beautiful daughter. He seemed cut from a different cloth yet as gingham as they come. He struck me as a happy man. After Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army at the age of 34.
On 6 June, 1944, he jumped out of a Higgins boat onto Omaha Beach and into a merciless firestorm. Within days, he had fought his way deep into France. Eventually, he came home to his wife and young daughter with two Purple Hearts. He went to school in Birmingham on the GI Bill and became a pharmacist.
Walt ushered Jim, his younger brother, Cournea, Sekach and me into his office. He walked to the small bar and took the top off a bottle of Jim Beam. He pointed and indicated we should each take a glass. He poured a healthy shot in each.
“Here’s to Woodrow Stone”, Walt said, “a man I’m proud to have as a son in law. Welcome to our family, Woody.”
We all clicked glasses and tossed back the bourbon. I stared at the framed rack of World War II campaign medals hanging on the wall. ‘This corn liquor can’t hold a candle to Jack Daniel’s’, I thought.
Ginger and I drove to Mobile for our honeymoon. We were gone six days.
We actually went to the coast 30 miles south of Mobile to a place that Ginger had been as a little girl. She wanted to show me Dauphin Island three miles off the coast. It was an undeveloped tropical paradise. The few inhabitants were involved in fishing and shrimping, and somebody had been smart enough to build a few cottages to rent.
Even though the rest of the Gulf Coast was developed and catering to tourism, Dauphin Island was kept pristine owing to the long boat ride from the mainland. As it turned out, a four-mile bridge was built from the mainland two years later, and the barn door was opened.
At first, I liked the Mobile idea because we’d be going through the hometown of my favorite singer, Hank Williams. Soon, traveling back in time to Dauphin Island was the experience I’ll always remember. We found a filling station on the mainland that would keep the station wagon for fifty cents a day, and, on their suggestion, we rented bicycles to take over on the ferry with us. The ferry wasn’t on a schedule - it was just an oyster boat drawn into service as needed. The few dozen structures on the island were wooden boxes built on stilts. Our rental cottage was the same, except smaller.
The east end of the island was the widest and covered with palmetto, pine, and oak trees laden with Spanish moss. It was home to the abandoned hundred-year-old Fort Gaines. At the western tip, about 14 miles away, where the island was the narrowest, you could throw a baseball from side to side in two tries.
The Gulf-side beach stretched most of the 14 miles and was ours alone. The blue-green water rolled in and folded under itself in a long foaming line on the pure white sand, slid down the beach and broke again. We strolled hand-in-hand for hours and never saw another soul on land. Sometimes, we’d get a glimpse of the island’s wild cattle and goatherds. The goats slept in trees every night.
We got lots of sun and exercise and slept very well in the cool Gulf breeze. One small store offered crackers, potted meat and soft drinks; so we ate way too much at Mac’s Pig Pit on LeMoyne Road. On a picnic table in his sandy back yard, Mac served up the best seafood we’d ever tasted. After three days, we laughed that we had better get on home while our clothes still fit.
We thought it would be a great idea to come back to Dauphin Island every five years on our anniversary and, someday, bring our kids on this pirate adventure. We never saw the place again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ginger and I picked up Mama at the Wilson’s and the three of us drove on back to Memphis. My plan was to get a job and get my degree through the G. I. Bill at West Tennessee State University right there in Memphis. Daddy had graduated the same school. The name had been changed from State College in ‘41.
Mama insisted we stop by the house in Collierville first. I wasn’t all that comfortable about my inheritance. It would always be Pop Gilliam’s house in my mind. On the way, I wondered what kind of shape it would be in. It hadn’t been occupied in the five years since his death. As I turned on Powell Road down along the park, Mama became animated and downright cheerful in the back seat. I admit it did my heart good to see her like that. All I could do was trade amused glances with Ginger. Mama got out of the car and was waiting for us by the porch
steps where she handed me a key ring and said I should carry my bride across the threshold. Ginger and I were happy to oblige.
We were kissing when Mama came in and asked what we thought. I saw Ginger’s puzzled look, too, before it dawned on me. The place was spic and spin top to bottom. Crisp new curtains were hanging in the windows. There was the faint smell of lilacs. Mama had been very busy; she must’ve worn out that city bus schedule. We gave her a hug and started the grand tour arm in arm. Ginger was being treated to stories of Mama’s childhood that I knew nothing about.
Mama decided we needed some ice tea, I think mainly to show she had brought in some groceries. Ginger and I drifted out the kitchen door to the small back stoop. I asked her if she could keep a secret. I took her hand, unlocked the side door, and we made our way into the garage. Pulling some crates aside, I showed her the bullet hole and told her the story of the misadventure with Pop’s old revolver from the footlocker. When I got to the part about Ronnie’s and my dinner-plate-sized eyes, she laughed so hard, I thought she would pee her pants.
“What are you children laughing about?” Mama stuck her head in the door. “I didn’t really know what to do with this place and all this stuff. I do know that Daddy kept his war medals in that old footlocker over yonder.” Ginger shot a look at me and busted out laughing again.
“Child, you come inside and cool down with some sweet tea.” Mama took Ginger’s hand. “Maybe you been on that hot road too long.”
Ginger followed Mama, but glanced back at me and had to clamp her hand over her mouth. I stood in the middle of the concrete floor alone and thought about the hundred times Ronnie and I had peeked in that small window, always wondering out loud what wonderful things Pop had stored away. I thought again about that one time we found out and I could only shake my head and smile. Had Ronnie really been dead for eight years? Had Pop Gilliam been gone for five? I wanted to go back. Scratch that, I wanted all them there to meet Ginger.
Miss Virginia and I set up housekeeping in the following days. It was easy after all the work Mama had put into the place. A trip to Sears and Roebuck for sheets and towels and we were in business. Our new bed was delivered the same day. Pop and Grandma Ruth had those single beds that sit side by side. None of that for us! A big truck brought our new Frigidaire the next day, and we were cooking with gas.
Monday I drove to Memphis job hunting and dropped Ginger in Germantown to visit with Mama. Mama showed her about the bus schedule in the neighborhood. Soon Ginger had the whole greater Memphis bus system as her magic carpet. She would visit Mama, often taking her shopping in town, then take the bus all the way back to Powell Road Park, just across the street from our house.
I passed on a job at the Army Supply Depot and took an evening shift in the Accounting Department at Goldsmith’s Department store, ‘A Mid-South tradition since 1870’. The store had been newly renovated and expanded into the former Gayosa Hotel, the historic Yankee Headquarters after the Battle of Memphis.
It had been six weeks since we had gotten married. Ginger and I were happy as our life together started to unfold. After all, Memphis had been named the country's quietest, cleanest and safest city not once, but twice. I was enrolled and ready to return to school the following week. Mama told me later that Ginger had stopped by on her way to East Memphis that day. Ginger had told me the night before she was going to the beauty shop to get her hair done.
She told Mama she wanted to hurry and get home. It was our six-week anniversary and she wanted to cook something special. Ginger was in a crosswalk, in the middle of the street, when a drunken driver came around the corner behind her and took her completely off this earth. The policeman who had been driving the pursuit vehicle filled out the report.
***
Maple Hill Cemetery was the oldest in Huntsville, Alabama. It was full of ancient trees and life-size stone statues. I stood near the Wilson Family and stared at Virginia’s casket suspended above the hole in the ground. The preacher was speaking, but I heard nothing. I didn’t want to go near what the Wilsons must think of me. I could feel no more than the stone angel that mocked with cold eyes over the preacher’s shoulder.
I thought of Pop Gilliam. The world will take away what you love. Too much pain, I swore this never would happen to me again. I was 23 years old and a very old man. Hank Williams moaning the blues in my head gave me the strand of sanity that got me through that ordeal.
I’ve heard that the headshrinkers call it ‘anxious ruminations’ - mulling over minute details of an incident looking for the key to a different outcome, whether awake or asleep. Of course, all it does is cause a lifetime of crippling guilt, and it puts a corkscrew through your soul. Most folks are aware enough not to indulge. Some seem incapable - I think maybe they’re the lucky ones.
I had taken Virginia’s body home to Huntsville by train. I decided it would be convenient to return to Memphis by bus - liquor stores. I went back to Mama’s house. I couldn’t stand the thought of returning to the Collierville house I had briefly shared with Virginia. I don’t know what I expected Mama to do about my terrible loss. I found she could do nothing, bless her heart. She was like a neon sign. For all the light she gave off, there was no warmth. I took the city bus to Memphis and stayed drunk for a week.
One morning, the harsh rays of the sun woke me. I was lying flat on my back on wet asphalt off Beale Street. I was so sick that death would have been a relief. I had no coat, no hat, and my wristwatch was gone. My billfold lay a few feet away. Beside it was a paid light bill and a picture of Virginia.
I found my way back to Mama’s house and crawled into a hot shower. Next morning I called both Dave Cournea and Mike Sekach. I told myself it was a courtesy because they’d been at the wedding. In fact, I needed to talk to somebody.
“Mike, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve just got to figure a place to go. Everything about Memphis reminds me of Virginia. Man, I hurt and I’m lost!”
“Bull...SHIT!” Hmm, not the response I’d expected. “Look here, Woody, you’re not lost. You’re heart-broken, and you have every right to be. Virginia loved you for the good man you are, not for being a steaming dog turd on the quarterdeck of life.”
“I...”
“Now, look, I just turned 21, so I’m signing up for the NYPD Academy that starts in a few weeks. Come out here. We’ll get you set up. You can use my address to establish residency. Come go to the Police Academy with me.” I thought about lying in that Beale Street alley the previous morning…
***
It was pushing midnight at my stakeout in Queens. Hampton Street would have been a funeral if there’d been a stiff and some limousines. I could count on one hand the number of cars that had moved on Gallo’s street that night. A Ford had parked on the curb at the far end of the block. No foot traffic. Nothing but lights on and lights off at Number 54.
Just knowing someone was in that house might have kept me there, but I was out of smokes and I needed to take a leak. I started the Hawk and slowly drove west on Hampton without burning the headlights. As I passed the Ford Business Coupe that had parked on the opposite curb hours earlier, the burning coal on the end of a stogie revealed Weegee’s shadowy face. He touched the brim of his hat as I passed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
(1:00 a.m., Monday, June 13, 1960. 481 Wythe Ave, Brooklyn.)
I parked the Hawk in the spot where the streetlight crawls part way up the alley behind my office. I locked it and climbed the stairs. I located a carton of Lucky Strikes in my desk drawer and lit one. After making a head call, I poured the last ounce of Jack from the bottle on my bookshelf. I had drained my flask on the stakeout in Queens; no problem. I went back down the stairs to get the pint in the Hawk’s glove box. I put the key in the driver’s door.
Something caused me to raise my head. A shadow? A dim sliver of light escaped from the door to the first floor, standing open half an inch. A sound? I turned to my right. Just feet away, Poor Jack McCoy rushed from the darkness with h
is hand extended in front of him. I sidestepped and deflected his thrust as I brought my shin up square into his grapefruit - hard.
He went down like an express elevator. I had a grip on his tie. The ice pick he dropped bounced and rattled when it hit the pavement. Everything was back at the familiar slow motion speed. I watched the pick tap dance in the sparse light, metal point, wood handle, metal point, before coming to rest.
Leaning over I clenched the hood’s cheap tie in my right mitt. The idea struck me, it’s not much of a way for a man to die, but I wasn’t in the mood. I sat on the pavement, putting a foot on each of his shoulders, and leaned back gripping his necktie with both hands. Jack Mack kicked, and his flailing hands beat a tattoo on my ankles; then he just slid off to the big sleep. I pulled his Hudson forward and threw the fat skeeve in the trunk. I walked over and pushed the ground floor metal fire door until I heard the lock click. ‘Thanks, Dupree’, I thought.
Three miles south on Kent Avenue sat the ass end of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, absolutely deserted at that hour. I parked the Hudson ‘hearse’ in the boondocks, not even a streetlight. Struggling, I lifted the stiff out of the trunk. I dropped it beside the open driver’s door and took his billfold that I later threw in the East River.
Using my handkerchief to wipe the prints off the steering wheel and McCoy’s ice pick, I tossed the pick back on the floorboard. I took two steps over and kicked the lifeless ribs. He could dish it out, but he didn’t take it so good. My plan did have a downside; I had to walk five blocks to Bedford Avenue before I caught so much as a glimpse of a taxicab.
I was colder than I thought it was possible to be. I laid in the frozen darkness staring out across naked Korea. Mortar flares popped overhead. They eerily illumined the inside of the heavy cloud cover. The dark, backlit sky looked like an airborne portal to Hell. The flares burned brilliantly as they swung back and forth drifting to earth under their parachutes. When they broke through the clouds, they lit the barren landscape like a thousand suns. Hideously stark shadows were attached to anything vertical and wiggled rhythmically with the swaying of the parachute loads. In the distance, the Chinese Communists played crazy-ass bugle calls over loud speakers. That was designed to keep us from what little sleep we could grab and, mostly, just drive us nuts. It was working.
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 12