Nobody would fade me when my shot came. I passed my turn to the next shooter and started betting on the side. I had the same feelings Emma did about that, “I’d ruther be shootin at a bird than have the bird shootin at me.”
She opened up one of the O.G.D. bottles, drank a big swallow and passed it around. By early evening I was just twenty dollars ahead. The “Wizard Ganzi” label they hung on me stuck like glue. Still nobody would fade me and I was losing incentive in a game of “fade, but can’t shoot.”
Emma didn’t have her mind on the game, AT ALL. She was losing, and drinking that 100 proof like it was water. The pace of the game slowed down, matching the tempo of her lack of interest and enthusiasm. “Say Big Emma, whutcha got to eat?” Sweetie asked.
“Nuthin.”
“Well, hell. When you gon cook sump’n?” he asked with customary expectations.
“Is you nigguhs ALWAYS hongry?” she fired back, semi-aggravated.
“Yeah!” Acie and Pee Wee chimed.
Nobody was betting anything. Walter was “playing” with the dice on the table. Looking up at the ceiling, he said, “Les see, I been over heah all day, when’s the last time I et?” rubbing his chin, feigning to remember.
“Awright, awright! I’ll git up an cook somethin in a minute. My bottle’s empty, an I ain’ goin NOWHERE til I git anutha drank.”
Walter ran his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a nearly full pint of Gordon’s Gin. Reaching it to her after uncapping it, “I know this ain’ yo drank, but you sho welcome to sum uv it.” Adding, “Ain’ nobody drunk out uv it but me.”
“Hand it here,” taking the bottle and turning it up. After she drank, it was half-empty. “Percy, you the closest to the kitchen. Step in there baby an see if you kin find Big Emma a piece uv lemon, an brang the salt box.”
He came back with it and she salted the lemon, took a big suck-lick, frowned and told Walter, “Now, hand me that bad-tastin muthafucka again. I’m ready for its ass now.” When she took that next slug of gin, I said to myself, Pull y’all’s hats down tight, we goin round some mighty steep curves.
“Jake, I’m gon leave my dice wit you. If y’all wanna play some mo, go ‘head. But be sho an git my cuts. Y’all lemme out,” as she pushed and we pulled the table back. “Baby,” talking to me as she passed by, “go out there an see if you kin find Pat. Tell her I said cum on in here an help me.”
I walked out on the front porch, not seeing her, “Paaat! Paaat!” She came running out of what seemed to be her second home.
“Whutcha want Bubba?”
“Emma wants you to cum in the kitchen an help her.”
“Oh, awright,” she sulked. Stomping up the porch steps, “Evertime we git to playin good, she calls me.”
I followed her back through the house and stopped at the crap table to rejoin the “jaw-jekin” session. I listened to my fill of bull and went in the kitchen. “How y’all comin in here?” I was getting hungry too.
Emma, wearing an apron over her black chiffon dress, didn’t say a word as she cut up the two fryers. I knew why Pat wasn’t talking, she was still mad. I stood watching until Emma looked around and asked, “I miss Blue already, don’t you?”
“In a way,” I replied without much sentiment.
“You never did lak him.”
“He never did like me frum the day I wuz born.”
“Well, I guess carryin his name aroun eighteen years don’t mean nuthin.”
“Sho as hell don’t, he wudn’ my daddy. You coulda give me anybody’s last name. He wuz jes anutha nigguh to me.”
She gave me a hard look, then asked, “Whut time you got?”
“Eight forty-five.”
“Go down to the liquor store an git me anutha bottle befo it close.”
I said jokingly but meant it, “Emma, git somebody else to go. I don’t work here no mo.”
She turned away from the sink to face me, glaring that hateful stare that used to send icy shivers up and down my spine. Gripping the butcher knife tighter, “Whut’d you say to me?!”
“I said I don’t work here no mo. Emma, I dun been down there two or three times. I brought you two an—”
“Why you Gotdam half-white sonuvabitch! Don’tcha talk back to me! You do whut I tell you! If it wudn’ for yo muthafuckin ass, Blue—”
“I’m goin back in the crap room,” turning to walk away.
She and Old Grand Dad went on the attack. She grabbed my arm and spun me back around, “Don’t walk yo peckerwo—”
The anger swept through me so suddenly I didn’t have time to bite my lip. Retaliating, “Don’t you put yo muthafuckin hands on me!”
Pat screamed, “Bubba, no!”
The explosive blow to her jaw carried her 200-plus pounds crashing into the refrigerator. She slid to the floor, still clutching the knife. “Don’t never call me that no mo!” Grabbing her wrist, I positioned the blade against her throat, “If you do … I’ll kill you. It wuzn’ my fuckin fault!”
I brushed past the onlookers in the doorway, got my duffel bag and stormed out of the house, heading for the bus station. I felt like I had just committed the most shameful act of my life and didn’t try to hold back the tears.
BREAK TIME
I broke restrictions, “All new personnel are restricted to the base for thirty days prior to eligibility for passes to town,” the same day I arrived at Ft. Bliss, my new base. Soon as I was located in my quarters and the corporal left, I left. I walked off the base, hailed a taxi and went to downtown El Paso. After reporting back three days later and getting my ass chewed out, I caught extra duty for thirty days cleaning the latrines. And re-restricted, this time to the company area. “One thing you better learn quick Private Sample, I’m not gonna put up with any horseshit,” my CO told me.
It took a week to get my gambling-bootlegging operations in full swing. I kept a hut full of drinkers and would-be gamblers nightly. My hut was the hottest spot in the company area. As soon as the daily latrine inspection was over, I’d run half a mile to the off-limits liquor store, pick up four gallons of cheap wine and resell it to the players for two bucks a half-canteen full. When it wasn’t my shot and I took my time and measured it right, I could pour twelve half-canteens from the $3.50 a gallon wine. Since we were using my blanket in my hut with my dice, I cut the game for “wear an tear.”
Even Sergeant Top, the company First Sergeant, joined in the crap games when he had to pull weekend duty. He was a good bettor but didn’t know how to gamble. On more than one occasion, he left my hut owing me as much as eight hundred dollars. Usually, he paid it back during the game. But the times when he couldn’t or didn’t pay up when due, I didn’t pressure him. One hand washes the other; he covered for me at roll call and kept my name off the KP and guard duty rosters.
Five days prior to expiration of my area restriction period, I won seventeen hundred smackeroos! All that money started, as the old folks used to say, “burnin a hole” in my pockets. I sneaked out of the area, caught a cab and hooked it for town. Top took care of me long as he could, but after eighteen days he had no choice but to declare me AWOL.
On the twentieth day, I got arrested by the locals in El Paso for fighting in a bar. After checking with the base and being instructed to “hold,” the locals turned me over to the two MPs. Top, with twenty-four years in the service and practically running the company, used his pull to persuade the CO to push for only a Summary Court Martial and thirty days in the stockade.
Rejoining the company after I pulled my sentence, I resumed my gambling-bootlegging operations right where I left off. Less than a month after I was released from the stockade, I won big again. I took off AWOL and went to Juarez, Mexico, got with a senorita, bought some civilian clothes, and was shacking up. I’d been AWOL for twenty-seven days and didn’t try to hide. I knew the MPs couldn’t touch me in Mexico.
One’s good fortune breeds envy. Some of my compadres in my company saw me at the same bar several times and told Top. He
came to Juarez and waited around in the bar until I finally showed up. “Sample,” he said, “I can help you if you come back with me now. But man, if you fuck around over here three more days, you’re gonna be up for a General which means at least ninety days in the stockade, and possibly a BCD [Bad Conduct Discharge]. If the CO recommends a General Court Martial for you, there won’t be much I can do.”
He pleaded with me to go back with him, but I steadfastly refused, “Top, I ain’ goin back with you. Tell you whut I’ll do, I’ll cum back tomorrow.”
After much dickering, “Okay, Sample,” he conceded, “I think I can hold things off one more day, but get your butt back tomorrow,” he warned.
As shithouse luck would have it, I got arrested that night in Mexico for assaulting a police officer and put in their no-top jail. I escaped, and three days after I promised Top I’d be there, I showed up at the base. I got a Special Court Martial, the middle rung on the military courts’ ladder, and was sentenced to sixty days in the stockade and forfeiture of all pay except ten dollars. I’d hardly begun serving my sentence before I broke a fellow stockade inmate’s face, and got thrown in solitary for assault and battery.
I was in the stockade so much I thought that’s where I was stationed. I kept the company roster screwed up because I was either in jail, in the stockade, or on my way. Each time in the brig I was sentenced to “hard labor” (the rock pile) under the gun. The rock pile had become my second home. After listening to the provost marshal’s hell-laced sermon about the last time I was there, two guards marched me to the laundry, where I changed from khakis to fatigues with a big P on the back of the jumper.
We crossed the concrete yard and entered an inner structure surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire and pickets with rifle-toting guards at all four corners. The provost marshal made it perfectly clear, “You’ll stay in the prison barracks until hell freezes over unless you start making some positive adjustments.”
It was during this “hell freezes over” time that a colored minister from one of the local churches began visiting the stockade, encouraging the prisoners to come worship at his church when we got out of the brig and had passes to town. I seized the opportunity and started buttering him up in no small way. I convinced him on his next visit I wanted some work done on my soul. If the provost marshal wanted to see some positive improvements, I had a wagonload. The bullshit was working like a charm. The minister increased the frequency of his visits and spent most of his time with me, talking about the “Lawd” and what He could do for me.
My mind was on getting off the rock pile and getting one of those sop trusty jobs at the PX or in the dispensary. I didn’t know or care if the minister was sincere or not, but as far as I was concerned it was just another game. When I told him I might have to go to war (Korea), “maybe git killed” and hadn’t been baptized, that got it. A few days later, I was escorted out of the rock pile by a guard with a rifle butt resting on his hip. He walked behind me as we approached the stockade gate.
When we got to the gate he shouted, “Rock detail, halt!” I stopped. Reporting in a very military manner to the lieutenant standing there, “One rock detail prisoner ready for entry, sir!”
The lieutenant looked at his clipboard and made a check mark on it. “Take him in the office. The provost marshal wants to see him.”
“Yes, sir! Prisoner, about-face!” I about-faced and he marched me into the small building just outside the gate. He knocked on the office door, shouting, “One rock detail prisoner delivered as ordered, sir!”
The provost marshal opened the door, “Guard, wait outside. You can take him back in a few minutes.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“C’mon in, Sample.”
In my salty, sweat-stained fatigues and chalky combat boots, I stood at attention in front of his desk. He took his seat behind it and proceeded to fill his pipe. I had stood before him many times for creating a disturbance in the messhall, disobeying a direct order, fighting, being disrespectful to an officer, a guard, the mess sergeant, et cetera. “At ease,” he finally ordered. I relaxed into the position, folding my hands behind my back. A hard-boiled lifer with his chest covered in campaign ribbons and medals, he said with a bit of cynicism, “That minister’s been telling me he’s seen some improvement in you, that you’re interested in saving your soul. Tells me you want to be baptized. Is that true?”
“Yessir!” I responded with all the gusto I could muster after a long day with the sledgehammer.
Lighting his pipe and taking a puff, “Maybe you’re beginning to see the light.”
“Oh yessir, I am, sir,” I quickly inserted.
Smoke swirling around his face, “How long have you been busting rocks this time?”
“Forty days, sir.”
In a fatherly manner, “You could be a damn good soldier, Sample, if you’d just channel your energies in the right direction instead of screwing up all the time. You could go a long way in this man’s Army if you’d apply yourself and develop some self-discipline and respect for authority. I think everybody ought to be baptized. At least, that’s what my folks taught me.” Contemplating, “Tell you what, when you get back in the compound, find out how many of those guys would like to go with you. Get their names and we’ll see if we can’t make arrangements to get you all down there. A little church-going might do all of you some good. If you can get a load, I’ll see to you all getting down there this Sunday. Since this is of a religious nature,” smiling slightly, “I won’t send any guards along. You’ll report back here no later than nineteen hundred hours. You’ll be on your own merits. Understood?”
I snapped to attention, “Yessir!”
“That’ll be all.”
I about-faced and headed for the door.
“Sample.”
“Yessir?”
“Screw this up and I’ll make you hate the day you were born.”
“Yessir, I already do, sir. Thas the reason why I wanna be born again.”
After chow I sat on my bunk talking to my cellmate, “C’mon, Vasquez, go down there with me, man. It’s a chance to git outta this dump for a few hours. Besides, we might git to meet some uv them foxy church broads.”
“Naw, I don’t wanna go. I been baptized. My abuela used to tell us kids the worst thing you kin do is play around with the Headman. Count me out.”
Unable to “get a load,” I reported to the provost marshal that I was the only one who wanted to go. He said I could go alone. When Sunday came, I was decked out in a new khaki uniform, minus any insignias, and driven to town in a Jeep. The driver dropped me off in front of the church, gave me ten bucks to catch a taxi back to the base, and left. I sat on the steps waiting for the eleven o’clock service.
By eleven thirty, the small church overflowed. The minister spotted me and instructed the usher to seat me on the front row. The choir finished its rendition of “Rock of Ages” that seemed to last forever. I never knew a song could have so many verses. Deacon Somebody got up and prayed another ten minutes, begging “Gawd” for every blessing under the sun and thanking Him for everything from the choir’s new robes to the hole patched in the roof.
With heads bowed and eyes supposedly closed, every time I sneaked a peak the young lady seated across the aisle was looking straight at me. I winked and she winked back. All during the minister’s sermon about what one has to do in order to get into the Kingdom, I was thinking of a way to get between her thighs. Wiping the sweat from his brow and catching his breath, the minister leaned forward, “Brothers and sisters, I’m proud to announce we been blessed with a special visitor frum out at the Army base.”
The audience shouted, “Amen!”
“A fine young man,” he added, motioning for me to stand.
The young lady who had been eyeing me yelled out a solo, “Amen!”
The minister cast her a stern look, cleared his throat and went on, “A young man who wants to be cleansed in the water and accept Jesus Christ as his personal Sa
vior.”
Horseshit! The only thing I’m acceptin is whut this chick wants to give me an a job the provost marshal’s gonna give me so I kin git off that fuckin rock pile.
After the baptizing, I shook everybody’s hand in the church. The young lady who I had exchanged winks with offered me a ride back to the base. We ended up in a motel out on the highway (her treat). I barely made it to the stockade gate before deadline. Lying on my bunk telling Vasquez about the great time I had at the motel and razzing him, I heard the key turning in the lock. The corporal flung the cell door wide open and stood looking inside. I knew he was going to jack with me.
“Sample! On your feet! You’re pulling extra duty tonight.”
“Go fuck yoself! I been pullin extra duty ever since I been here.”
“I said on your Gotdam feet, prisoner!” he hollered while entering the cell. He walked to my bunk, grabbed my shirt collar and jerked me up. When he did, I kneed him in the groin and upper cutted him clear out into the quadrangle, where he fell. As he tried to get to his feet, out went his front teeth with a kick to the chops. I had him down, feeding him a flurry of lefts and rights. The commotion brought three more guards to his rescue.
As they rushed into the quadrangle, one of them ordered me to “STOP!” I didn’t. When they got to us, I was straddling him, banging his head against the brick floor. One of the guards hit me in the shoulder blade with the butt of his rifle. I reeled over from the pain, giving the corporal the upper hand, and now he was on top of me. Seeing his fist coming at my face, I ducked my head just in time and heard his knuckles crack when his fist hit the concrete. He groaned and folded over me in pain.
I shoved him off and went after the guard who rifle butted me. Two more came running. They pulled me off him and dragged me (kicking, fighting, and cussing) to the provost marshal’s office with my nose dripping blood all over my torn fatigues and my fists bawled up. One of them shoved me into his office with such force I almost went over the desk.
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