by Dale A. Dye
j
Sergeant Major Shaeffer wasn’t hard to spot among the affluent Chicago businessmen and the out-of-town power brokers who dealt with them over generous drinks in the darkened bar of the Sheraton Blackstone. The Sergeant Major had to be the lanky guy with only a waxy expanse of freshly shorn scalp showing under the muted amber lights. Willy Pud pegged him at sixty or better, but the solid sheet of steel tempered in Korea and earlier battlefields around the world was still very much in evidence. He was medium height with a bull neck and barrel chest that seemed to distort an expensive, immaculately pressed business suit. When they shook hands, Willy felt the bite of a large ring on Schaeffer’s right hand. Even before the stone flashed as the man ordered drinks, Willy knew it was one of those old-time Marine Corps signet rings, the kind of thing true Lifers wore everywhere and all the time.
Willy Pud sipped at a tall glass of cold pilsner and smiled, watching Schaeffer’s flinty blue eyes crawl up and down his frame. He wished he’d stopped for a haircut before reporting to this man who was—no matter what uniform hung on his wiry frame—obviously and unequivocally a Sergeant Major.
“Welcome to Chicago, Sarn’t Major.”
“Thank you, Sarn’t Pudarski. Semper Fi.”
“Semper Fi, Sarn’t Major. It’s good to hear that again.”
They carried their drinks to a quiet corner table and sat examining each other for a few minutes. Willy Pud understood he was being evaluated by an expert at it. If he was somehow found wanting, he’d hear about it shortly.
“Let’s get this off on the right foot. How about I call you Willy Pud?”
Willy stared at the small, understated lapel pin Schaeffer wore, a pale infantry blue with five tiny stars and a roseate cluster. He had one just like it in the box containing his Medal of Honor. He’d considered wearing it to the meeting, but had decided against it. He just didn’t have the balls to put himself in the same class as a hero like Shifty Schaeffer.
“Call me anything but late to chow, Sarn’t Major...but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make myself call you Shifty.”
The laugh was a rich, throaty wheeze that turned a few heads in the bar, but Sergeant Major Schaeffer didn’t seem to mind. He waved at a passing waitress with one hand and balled the other into a fist that he drove painfully into Willy Pud’s shoulder.
“Spoken like a heavily hung enlisted man, Willy Pud. I’d have been surprised at anything else!”
They tasted the imported beer and swapped information for a few minutes on people in the Corps they both knew. It was warm and comfortable. Willy found himself wondering if the meeting might turn into a night on the town. Two Marines on liberty, steaming hard, 40 knots and no smoke.
“You’re at the university, right? So how’s that going?”
“OK, I guess. I’m getting a new slant on some things. But sometimes I miss the Marine Corps, you know?”
“I know, believe me, I do. Civilian life is a necessary evil once we shed the uniform. I’m glad to hear you miss the Corps though. There’s more than a few Marines who miss you too. I talked to some old panyos of mine who really thought you might stick around.”
“It wasn’t an easy decision. But my Dad was all alone and he was worried about me and all.”
“Uh huh…well, I’m damn glad it wasn’t Vietnam that drove you out We lost enough young talent over that as it is.”
“It was the only war I had, so it was the one I fought, you know? I figure if you take the long view, if you look at it from the professional standpoint, Vietnam is just another war like the Boxer Rebellion or Korea.”
“It’s hard to take that long view when you’re losing, Willy Pud.”
“We ain’t lost it yet.”
Schaeffer merely nodded and signaled for more drinks. If the situation in Vietnam bothered him he didn’t let it show.
“Listen,” he said when the fresh drinks arrived, “This might turn into a long night, so let me get down to business. We want to hold an installation dinner for you, Willy Pud. Right here in Chicago. As many members of the Medal of Honor Society as can make it will fly in to welcome you aboard. We do this sort of thing because membership in the Society ain’t automatic. You don’t become a member just because the President hangs a medal around your neck.”
“You mean there are guys who’ve got the Medal and they don’t want to be members of the Society?”
“Just a few…and they usually don’t make a public stink about it. Sometimes a guy just rebels against the military and all it stands for after what he went through in combat. There’s others who don’t join because they think we’re a bunch of old hawks who’ll use our clout to push for more wars. Sometimes a guy just doesn’t want to be reminded.”
“Well, I ain’t likely to forget what happened…not ever.”
“I didn’t think so, Willy Pud. That’s why I nominated you for membership. See, there are all kinds of guys who wind up with this medal.” He tapped the lapel pin but kept his eyes locked on Willy Pud. “It’s sometimes the results of just one incident or an accident, you know? We got one guy jumped on a Jap grenade to save his buddies on Okinawa. The grenade was an incomplete detonation. Went off OK and tore him up pretty bad, but it never killed him like it does most guys who do something like that. To this day he wanders around wondering why he ain’t dead.”
“I’ve spent some time wondering the same thing.”
“Hell yes…and so have I. But we come to grips with it in the end. That guy is gonna die wondering what he was thinking in that frozen moment of time. You and me? We made a decision to take considerable chances on getting killed in a shitty situation. The reasons don’t matter. The fact that we thought about it and then we did it is what matters.”
“So, if I’m a member, what do I have to do?”
“You don’t have to do anything, Willy Pud. We may call on you from time to time to lend your name to some project. Or we might ask if you’re interested in working on something important, usually something to do with veterans’ affairs, or support for the active military, things like that. We avoid being overly political. What we’ve got is clout and we want it used for important things. Like now, I’m working on support for refugees from Southeast Asia. It’s a legacy this country’s got to own up to no matter how the war finally turns out.”
“There’s no dues or anything like that?”
“You paid your dues in Vietnam, Willy Pud.”
j
“I think you want more than I’m willing to give right now, Willy Pud.”
Her voice sounded distant, as if she were whispering into a phone in Tokyo rather than sitting in her apartment a couple of blocks away from him on a Chicago evening where the first hints of spring were in the air. The persistent breeze off Lake Michigan had lost most of its winter bite and Willy Pud had lost his struggle to keep from contacting Ricky Richards.
“Look, Ricky, I’m sorry. OK? I tried but I can’t forget about you.” There was silence on the other end of the line but Willy could hear her breathing. He struggled for words, watching out the living room window as a bolt of lightning caused the streetlights on South Calumet to flicker momentarily. The summer of 1974 was bound to be a hot one. “I just figured you were stringing me along for some reason. It’s like you didn’t want to make a commitment or something. That’s hard for me to take the way I feel about you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to make a commitment. Maybe I’m not ready for all that.”
“I ain’t gonna push you and I ain’t gonna beg, Ricky. You don’t owe me anything. I just want to see you again. I’ve been miserable all this time.”
“And what’s the end game for you?”
“No end game, Ricky. We go out and we see how it goes. How’s that sound?”
“I can’t see how a guy like you can play that game, Willy Pud. You’re the type who has always got to have a plan.”
“People change, Ricky. I can change anything but how
I feel about you. I love you.” He lit a cigarette and squeezed the handset trying to hang onto this initial contact with her and hoping she couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice.
“You don’t mean that, Willy Pud. You don’t know what love is.”
“Yes, I do. It’s what I’m feeling for you right now.”
“We come from such different worlds.”
“What? You’re from Evanston. I’m from Chicago. Your old man’s a dentist; mine’s a carpenter. We go to the same school for Christ’s sake!”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“You mean I’m ten years older than you...I went to Vietnam?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Nothing I can do about that. What’s the other part?”
“We just see things differently, Willy. You paid your dues, so now you want a little house out in La Grange with kids and a wife waiting at the door for you to get home from work. You want stuff right out of Leave It to Beaver.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing for you, but there’s plenty wrong from my perspective. I don’t want to wake up one morning and discover I’ve become Donna Reed in an apron wearing a tolerant smile and clueless about what’s happening in the world. There’s more to life these days. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I noticed. And none of that alters the fact that I love you, Ricky. I want you.”
“Not on your terms, Willy Pud.”
“On any terms you say. All I want is a fair shot...and I’m not gonna give up on this.”
Her laughter was like a refreshing breeze. It swept over the phone line and across his body like a stimulating mist. He felt himself gaining strength and confidence.
“You’re hardheaded and determined, I’ll give you that. Must be your Marine Corps training.”
“Well, they were never big on retreating. The emphasis was always on the attack.”
“OK, I surrender. We’ll give it another try.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. Listen, Lu’s having a little celebration tomorrow here at the apartment. Why don’t you come by around eight?’
“What kind of celebration? Should I bring something?”
“Wine, beer, grass...whatever, it’s a victory party.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You been hiding under a rock? Nixon resigned! Lu and her pals are throwing a victory party.”
Willy Pud felt a strange itch and reached up to scratch the spot at the base of his throat where a disgraced Chief Executive had hung the Medal of Honor two years earlier. Those smelly feet were apparently made of clay.
“So? Are you coming or what?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“But you won’t be celebrating, right? Tricky Dick was your man, the one who gave you the Medal of Honor.”
“It’s not that, Ricky. It’s just…well, that’s some heavy shit.”
“I guess it is. First the Pentagon Papers and now the President resigns in disgrace. And it won’t be long before Vietnam collapses. You ready for all that, Willy Pud?”
“I don’t guess there’s anything I can do about it is there?”
“You can come party with us Saturday night.”
“OK…see you there.”
Stosh Pudarski was in the kitchen alternating his attention between the front page of the Sun-Times and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Willy snagged two more beers from the noisy old refrigerator and sat across from him at the table. The old man’s eyes never left the paper as he reached for the fresh beer. He finally shook his head and tossed the paper across the table. The banner headline declared that Richard M. Nixon was gone under a dark cloud and Gerald Ford was the new President of the United States.
Willy ignored it after a glance and reached for the daily mail stacked nearby. It was mostly the standard mix of ads and bills except for one embossed envelope bearing the seal of the Medal of Honor Society. It was a note from Sergeant Major Schaeffer. His installation dinner was set for September 15 at the Sheraton Blackstone. He had less than six weeks to rent a tux and prepare a speech.
Stosh retrieved the newspaper and slapped it on the table. “You seen this, right? Ain’t that a kick in the ass? Nixon’s the man gave you the medal. I shook his fucking hand right there in the White House. It ain’t right, Vilhelm!”
“Goes to show you, Pop.” Willy shrugged. “Nobody’s immune. You fuck with the bull, you get the horn—even if you are the President.”
“That ain’t what it goes to show you. What it goes to show you is there ain’t nothing but a bunch of fucking communists in Washington.”
Willy reached for the paper and unfolded it. “I ain’t had a chance to read the details yet. We can talk about it later if you want.”
Stosh Pudarski stood and reached into his old khakis for the money from the paycheck he’d cashed on the way home from the job in Cicero. He counted carefully and then went to the kitchen cupboard where a Maxwell House coffee can on the second shelf held cash committed to rent and regular bills. Tomorrow Willy would add his share, convert the cash to money orders, and meet their financial obligations. It was the way they handled the domestic finances. Stosh had closed their joint checking account the day after his wife died and refused to open a new one.
“Maybe we ought to just take this cash and buy us a ticket to somewhere out of this goddamn country.”
“C’mon, Pop…” Willy looked up from the paper and shook his head. “That’s bullshit and you know it. We ain’t leaving. You fought for this country and I fought for it.”
“Well, who the hell you gonna trust now? Tell me that. Who the hell is in charge of this country we fought for?”
“I honestly don’t know. What fuckin’ difference does it make?”
“That’s pretty shortsighted coming from a man who won the Medal of Honor. Wasn’t you over there fighting for freedoms?”
“I was killing gooks, Pop. I was trying to stay alive. I never asked why we were doing it. That didn’t seem to matter.”
His father fingered a twenty out of the coffee can, shoved the bill in his pocket and reached for his old Cubs hat covered with a layer of the day’s sawdust. “I never asked them kind of questions either when I come home to see you for the first time back in forty-five. Maybe I should have.”
Stosh slapped the old hat on his head creating a shower of sawdust. “I’m going down to Hogan’s. Come on if you want, but do a personal favor. If you come down there, don’t be taking any of them damn pills. I can’t stand to see you lit up and bouncing around in front of our friends like a damn pinball machine.”
He can stop worrying about that, Willy thought as he listened to the old man’s heavy work boots thumping down the stairs. He hadn’t touched any kind of speed or uppers since the meeting with Sergeant Major Schaeffer. He flushed what he had in a stash down the toilet that day, and hadn’t been inclined to replace it. There was a long road ahead of him and Willy Pud had decided he’d make the trek without crutches.
Willy tossed the newspaper in the garbage can and picked up the invitation from the Medal of Honor Society. National politics and the deteriorating situation in Vietnam would be hard to avoid when he had to make a speech in front of a bunch of patriots, a bunch of genuine heroes. He had no idea what he might say. He carried the invitation toward the rickety old writing desk in his bedroom and sat to make some notes.
j
An old Republican campaign poster covered one wall of the apartment. Richard M. Nixon, confident and charismatic in a pre-Watergate pose, scowled down on the stoned and stoked college crowd that hated his guts. Lu Harris was proud of the modification she’d made to the poster and kept dragging new arrivals over to admire her sense of humor. She’d drawn a speech bubble that said “I am not a crook” on one side of his head. On the other side, she’d drawn a thought bubble that said “I am, however, a crooked, war-mongering asshole.”
W
illy stood, hitching self-consciously at a new pair of Sears Roebuck double-knit bell-bottoms and tried to catch the clamorous mood of the party. Ricky had answered his knock with a peck on the cheek, thanked him for coming, and then ran off to continue some unfinished conversation with a guy wearing shades and a suede vest covered with buttons bearing anti-war slogans. Lu Harris wandered through the crowd and handed him a beer in a plastic cup. She touched his glass with her own.
“Here’s to truth, justice, and the American way.”
Willy Pud tasted the beer. It was flat. Beneath the campaign poster, two hard-edged women sucked on a joint and then kissed to pass the potent smoke. He hit the beer again.
“‘Thanks for having me. It’s been a long time since I was by here.”
“Yeah, Ricky was surprised when you called. We thought that was over long ago.” Lu Harris let the venom drip and watched him for reaction. He kept his face straight and just nodded. The prospect of having him around on anything like a permanent basis didn’t make her happy, and that made him happy.
He wandered and listened to party noise for a while, trying to avoid further confrontations with Lu Harris. The Beatles were chanting mantras from their Magical Mystery Tour. Pipes were passing around the room and the dope smoke was becoming a purple haze. Ricky was giggling in a corner with two girls he recognized from a political science class. Her cheeks were flushed and she’d stripped down to a loose tank top that let her breasts bobble and shift as she laughed. Trying to avoid a pair of uninhibited, energetic dancers, Willy Pud found himself crushed up against Lucinda who was leaning against a nearby wall. As he pried himself loose, he was surprised to discover she generated her own sort of sexual heat. She gave him a little bump and grind with her hips and smiled.