The Man Who Walked Away From War, Part II

       The first time was after Hunter told us about his T-Bird. Hunter was from LA, and before the Green Machine grabbed him, had attended a couple semesters at UCLA. Before that, Hunter had a black ‘57 Thunderbird.

       “Call her Miss-T,” Hunter said one night when we were back at base camp and had a couple days to clean equipment and replace worn out boots and take showers. “Call her Miss-T ‘cause she glide like mist through California nights.” Hunter talked that way sometimes; mostly, I believe, for the benefit of us white boys who understood Black. Some white guys got confused when a black man used proper English, so, depending on his audience, Hunter sometimes talked Black. Hunter shook his head when talking about his car. We sat on a bunker next to the squad tent, five of us, sucking up a case of Black Label and watching flares float through moonlit sky and land in the rubber trees beyond the wire.

       Somebody -- Billy D, I think -- asked of Miss-T, “You put her in storage when The Man got you?”

       “Nah,” Hunter said. “Los’ her a year before. Somebody stole her one night. She was parked in my garage, and some motherfucker stole her.”

       I asked if he called the police, but Hunter just laughed. “Sheeit, Man. Somebody steal a brother’s car, po-leece don’t give a damn. What I want to call the po-leece for?” He crumpled a can in his big hands. “I found her, though. Partner of mine, he tell me he hear she was in this vacant lot. I went there, and sure enough, there she was. I like to have cried, Man. All her windows busted out, body look like somebody take a sledgehammer to it. Wheels gone, seats cut up.” He shook his head, then said, “Robby, pass up another beer. Black Label. Who buy this shit, anyway?”

       I said, “Sergeant Reid.”

       Hunter laughed, and the sound was like charcoal, smooth and black. “Well, can’t be too bad then. Who got the church key?” I handed up the opener. Hunter punched holes in his can, then went on with his story. “One thing, I find out who stole my Miss-T.”

       “Uh-oh,” Billy D said. “Somebody was in for payback.”

       Hunter chuckled. “You got that right. And as you know, payback’s a motherfucker.” He leaned forward, dropping his shoulders, settling in to the story. “My partners check around, find out who did it. People say they use a baseball bat to beat up on Miss-T. I got me a bat too. Went down to a sports store, got me a thirty-four-inch Jackie Robinson bat.” He laughed that laugh, then went on with the story. “Man, Willie Mays ain’t never hit a baseball hard as I hit those motherfuckers. I got both of ‘em same night, same place. Cocksuckers never knew what hit ‘em. They found out though. I put the word out, they want some more, just let me know. Any place, any time, just let me know. They didn’t RSVP my invitation.”

       Moreland sat to one side of the bunker, not out of the area, not quite with the rest of us either. He laughed when Hunter finished the story. It was a high cackling laugh that made my skin crawl. “You should’ve made ‘em pay for the car,” Moreland said.

       Hunter didn’t even turn, just said, “Ain’t you listened, Man? They paid. They paid big time.”

       “No,” Moreland said. He moved his head then, and I saw his silhouette against the moon, his face all sharp angles -- high cheekbones and sunken cheeks and a pointed chin. “What I mean is, they should’ve paid money. Enough to fix your car, anyways.”

       Wizard spoke up. “There’s payin, and then there’s payin, Moreland.” (Wizard got his name because of his talents with the M-60 machine gun: He pointed the thing and the bullets went where he wanted them to, like he was a wizard using a magic wand.)

       “Yeah,” Moreland said, “but ... ” and he went into this long-ass story about three guys, cousins, Back Home in Iowa and how they had a hard-on for him. I listened to Moreland’s story, but mostly keeping an ear just enough to catch him if he contradicted himself. “The biggest one,” Moreland was saying, “was Jobo Friddle. Man, he ... ”      

       Billy D jumped in. “Say what?”

       “What, what?” Moreland asked.

       “You say the big one, his name was Jackoff Fribble?”

       “No, Man. Jobo Friddle.”

       Wizard about fell off the bunker laughing. “Jobo Friddle? Man, now I know you lyin. Nobody got a name ... His folks might as well name him Jackoff. Jobo.” He shook his head. “Shit, Man.”

       “No,” Moreland said. “See, his real name was Joe Bob, but we called him Jobo. Everybody’d always called him Jobo.”

       “Sheeit,” Hunter said. “You sure this was in Iowa? Sound like Alabama, maybe Mis-sippi.”

       Moreland got mad, as mad as he ever got. He was always the butt of our jokes, and he had learned to take it, just like the kid bullied at recess learns to take it. “Fuck, no, it wasn’t Alabama. Wasn’t no fuckin Mississippi either.”

       “Okay, okay,” Hunter said. “So the big one is Jobo Friddle. What about the other two?”

       “James and David,” Moreland replied. He talked on then, about a couple of high school sweeties named Charlene and Charlotte -- both blonde -- and how he was in with them, and that was what pissed off Jobo and his cousins.

       “They twins?” Wizard interrupted. “Charlene and Charlotte? Man, twins. Think about that, huh. Hey, Robby. You think you could do twins?”

       I nodded. “In a heartbeat. Maybe they were cheerleaders. Yeah. Twin cheerleaders, and you get them in their cheerleader uniforms, short skirts that swirl when they do those cheerleader jumps, and touch their toes with their fingers, and all you see is thighs round and firm.”

       Wizard laughed. “I be lookin between their thighs, Man. Oh, yeah. I tell ‘em jump high as they want, long’s they land on my face.”

       “Jesus,” Moreland said. “Man can’t get a word in edgewise around here.”

       Hunter quieted us. “Hey, let the man finish his story. So there’s these twin cheerleaders ... ”

       “They weren’t twins,” Moreland said, “and they weren’t cheerleaders. They could have been. I mean, they were pretty enough. Like Robby said, their thighs were round and firm.”

       Billy D was in again. “You know about their thighs, huh. They sit on your face or somethin?”

       Moreland stared at Billy D. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, they did.” He grew frustrated because no one would listen to his story. “Fuckin-A they did. One at a time. I did Charlene while Charlotte watched, and then I did Charlotte. Satisfied?”

       Billy D shrugged. “Don’t make a fuck whether I am or not. Were they?”

       Moreland stood up, black against the moon. “Shit, Man. Fuck it.”

       “No,” Hunter said, and it was like an order. “Sit down, Moreland. Finish your story. And you guys shut up.”

       The way Moreland told it, Jobo had the hots for Charlotte, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Moreland said Jobo was a prick, and I could believe that. Anybody hung with the name Jobo Friddle, how else is he going to turn out? Moreland said he took out Charlotte and Charlene, a weird kind of double-dating, but one most of us would extend for. I mean, if the army said we could spend, say, a month, all expenses paid, with two beautiful girls -- or relatively pretty ones -- if we would only extend for six months ... Yeah, we would have signed the papers.

       There was a 1954 Chevrolet involved, too; the link with Hunter’s Misty. Moreland said the Chevy was butterscotch color and two doors, a two-door with window posts, not a hardtop. Now, that is why I believed Moreland’s story. Most guys telling a story like that, the car will be a two-door ‘57 Chevy, hardtop and cherry red or candy-apple red or midnight black, with chrome that shines in the sun. But Moreland talked about that ’54 Chevy like it was the best car ever made. He didn’t say anything about how fast it would go, no records in the quarter-mile at the local drag strip. Moreland just said, “It was a damn good car, Man. Best car I ever had.”

       I understood, in an empathetic sense. Sitting on that bunker, drinking warm beer and smoking too many cigarettes, I saw myself in the back seat of that butterscotch ‘54 Chevy, muffing Charlotte while Charlene watched, Charlene leaning on the back of the front seat, with a knee in the space between the backs of the seat, sipping at a beer, maybe even chewing gum. She was on her knees, round knees with dimples, her arms on the seat, resting her chin on her forearms, occasionally raising her head to get a better view of what Charlotte and I did in the back seat. And Charlotte, skirt and slip pushed to her waist and her legs apart, her left foot on the drive shaft hump, white lace panties wrapped around that ankle. In that picture, I was on the floorboard, on my knees, head buried between Charlotte’s thighs, and she made noises, good noises. I couldn’t wait to finish with Charlotte so I could do Charlene, but at the same time, I was wrapped up in the work at hand. Jesus, yes, I could empathize. That car, that 1954 two-door butterscotch Chevrolet, was a damned good car.

       “Jobo was some kind of pissed ‘cause Charlotte wouldn’t have anything to do with him,” Moreland was saying. I listened now. I wanted to be in that Chevy; I wanted two girls like Charlotte and Charlene -- hell, either one would have been good, but both of them ... “He said he was going to take care of me.” The first climax of the story began while Moreland was in Dubuque, at an FFA contest, judging hogs. (I shit you not, that’s what he said, and nobody makes up that kind of thing.) What happened was, while Moreland studied the finer points of Yorkshires and Ohio Improved Chesters, Jobo Friddle and his cousins James and David went to the Moreland farm, while Mom and Pop Moreland were in town (it was a Saturday). Jobo, James and David carried 12-gauge pump shotguns, and they each put five rounds into Moreland’s Chevrolet, Number 6 shot, Moreland said.

       “Man,” Moreland said, “when I got home, I couldn’t fuckin believe it. My car, Man! Like Hunter said, windows gone, big fuckin holes in the windshield and back window. Fifteen rounds of Number 6 shot, Man.” He shook his head, even a year later almost unable to believe.

       Wizard asked quietly, “You call the police?”

       “Sheriff,” Moreland said. “Things like that happen in the country ... Shit. What am I saying? A thing like that had never happened before in Cooke County, Man. Never.” The deputy sheriff, Moreland said, took notes and “Hummed” over the car, even a “Goddam” when Mom Moreland went into the house to make coffee and she wouldn’t hear him cuss. Moreland told the deputy of his suspicions, that Jobo had it in for him and took out his dislike on the car.

       Billy D asked, “You tell the law you ate Charlotte and Charlene in the car, that’s how come it was so special?” but Moreland just said, “Fuck, Man.”

       “So,” Hunter said. “What did you do? You take a baseball bat ... ”

       Moreland cackled. “Not a chance, Man. I’m tellin you, Jobo was big. Baseball bat wouldn’t have fazed him. Naw, Man. I ambushed ‘em. Got all three of the cocksuckers next Friday night, right after midnight. Reconned their neighborhood, waited across the street from Jobo’s house ‘til they come back from this whorehouse in Franklin County. See, Jobo was twenty-one, and he used to take James and David when he went whoring.”

       “Hey,” Wizard said. “You mean you wasted ‘em? Over a fuckin car?”

       Moreland cackled again, and I wondered if he’d hung around the chicken house too much. “Naw, Man. Law in Iowa takes a dim view people wastin each other. Naw.” What he did, Moreland said, was wait. “I had a 20-gauge pump, figured they used shotguns on my car, I’d pay ‘em back same way. But I took out the shot and filled the rounds with rock salt. Gets into the skin, burns like a motherfucker.” He shrugged, as though what he did next was a run-of-the-mill operation. “Jobo had this ‘48 Mercury, black, with orange flames. He was proud of that car, Man. See, Jobo, James and David were drunk on their asses when they got to Jobo’s house. Practically fell out of that Mercury.”

       The Friddles, Moreland said, struggled to their feet, leaning on the car when almost erect. Moreland simply walked across the street, and, in his words, “Cut their legs out from under them with that rock salt. Man, they was cryin. ‘Oh, it hurts! It hurts!’ Shit like that. I said, ‘Too fuckin bad,’ and then I went back to Daddy’s pickup and got a gallon can of gasoline. Poured the whole can all over Jobo’s Mercury, stepped back and threw a match.” He laughed. “Man, you should’ve seen ‘em. They was like crabs, tryin to get away from the fire. I laughed myself sick. Even while I was emptyin their billfolds, I was laughin.”

       “Uh,” Billy D said, “this was like in town, right?”

       “Sure was,” Moreland nodded. “And, yeah, next mornin the same deputy as looked at my car came out and questioned me. You’re wonderin how come I’m doin time in Viet-fucking-Nam and not in a state pen?”

       Hunter said, “The thought had crossed my mind.”

       “Robby,” Moreland said, “pass me another beer.” He leaned his elbows on his thighs, hands between his knees, beer can dangling from his right hand, proud as fucking Punch to tell his story. “Here’s how things work. Daddy had backed Sheriff Dawkins in five elections, campaigned, even bought advertisements in the newspaper and radio. And, Momma had a second cousin was district attorney in town. Momma and Daddy, they were pissed at what I did, but, hey, they gonna let me go to the pen ‘cause I peppered the Friddles with rock salt? No way, Man.”

       “So,” I said, “you and the law struck a deal. You enlist, nobody does anything?”

       Moreland nodded. “You got it. ‘Course, Daddy had to pay the hospital bill -- I mean those three sunsabitches were filled with rock salt -- but I’ve been sending fifty dollars a month home, ever since basic. Almost a year now.”

       Hunter asked, “What about the robbery? You taking their billfolds?”

       “I denied it,” Moreland said. “Gave the money to a body man to fix my car. ‘Course, it took more than the fuckin Friddles had. Been sendin money home for that too.” He laughed again, but the sound wasn’t as harsh as before. “The funny thing, when I get home? I’m trading that Chevy for a GTO.”

       Hunter began, “In the long run . . . ”

       “It was the principle,” Moreland said. “Same as with your car, Man. The Friddles ... ”

       Headlights speared the darkness, illuminating the bunker, interrupting Moreland’s tale. A jeep bounced over bumpy ground, brakes squealing as it came to a stop. Marsetti’s voice cut through the silence. “Hey! I got two cases of Budweiser. Cold Budweiser.”

       We scrambled from atop the bunker, gathering around the jeep. Hunter asked the obvious question. “Where’d you steal the jeep?”

       “I ain’t stole shit,” Marsetti said. “It was up by battalion headquarters, not locked or anything. I just borrowed it. Hell, how was I supposed to carry two cases of beer back here?”

       Billy D touched the cans. “Shit, Man! They are cold!”

       Marsetti turned in the seat. “What’d I say? Didn’t I say they were cold? See, on the way back here, I sort of had to drive across the air strip. They got these fire extinguishers out there. Big fuckers on wheels. Must hold, I don’t know, a hundred pounds of whatever they hold.”

       “C-0-2,” Hunter said.

       “Whatever,” Marsetti said. “Anyway, I sprayed most of a bottle on the cans. Hope I didn’t freeze ‘em.”

       “Don’t matter,” Wizard said, lifting a case from the jeep. “If they’re frozen, we got time for ‘em to thaw.”

       Billy D took the other case. Marsetti said he would be back as soon as he returned the jeep.

       Moreland touched my shoulder as the others walked back to the bunker. “Robby,” he said, “you believe me, don’t you? About the Friddles. The other guys ... ”

       I nodded. “Yeah, Moreland, I believe you. Charlene and Charlotte, though ... ”

       “Naw, Man. That’s true too.” He made a fist and punched my arm. “I get back, I’ll do ‘em for you. Tell ‘em it’s for my friend Robby.”

       I laughed. “Yeah, Moreland. You do that.”