Old Warriors - Part I

I’m sitting on a white plastic patio chair bellied up to the table in an apartment in Poughkeepsie, NY.  The sun flaking in through the don’t-open-cause-it’s-broken sliding glass door and the heat radiating from the pots-and-pans-littered stove in the open plan kitchenette force the apartment’s thru-wall air-conditioner to rattle and complain loudly as it fails to keep us even pretend-cool.

Face sheened with sweat, drops running down my back, I’m all eyes on the pan of sizzling steak tips that Bill, our aged, carpenter-laborer-chef, is carrying over from the kitchenette.  His stubbly cheeks balloon and his lips billow as he issues the trademark sigh of an older, tired, hard-working human.

“This durn carpet’s rougher‘an sandpaper,” he complains as his socked feet build up static against the flooring’s rough texture.

Everything to do with this apartment is rough. 

Our accountant, Mind-Your-Pennies-Janet rented it for us after less than an hour of cranky phone-calls to sketchy landlords willing to rent by the month to a construction company.  When I phoned to complain to her that it was a dingy, nuthin’-works two-bedroom apartment for three people, way too far from the jobsite she responded with her passive-aggressive over enunciation of every word:

“It’s coh…erent with your budget’s projections for housing … and meals.”

“It’s a shithole more than an hour away from the job, we’re wasting half our….”  

“Yoouu,” she emphasizes my role in her guilt, “said the Paw…keep…see area and Herb, the very nice old gentleman landlor, says he considers Newburgh as part of thee Paw…keep…see area.

“Newburgh is its own area, and Herb hasn’t returned our calls about no hot water or the smell of a dead sumptin in the alleged kitch….”

“Please take up whatever problem you have with Herb, just remember in two weeks he’s having cardiac surgery on his heart.”

The click of her phone hanging up completes the finality of our lack of communication.      

Now before me, on the rented, tubular stainless steel and white Formica table lies the makings of one of Bill’s Thurty Minute Feasts awaiting for the main course: The sizzling steak tips.

“If an’ it takes more’an thurty minutes ta cook it, than it ain’t worth spendin’ that much a yer life a cookin’ it,” Bill, with his John-Wayne-clipped-wisdom, had advised me at ten o’clock the night before in the deserted aisles of the Newburgh Price Chopper supermarket.

“Let me give ya some advice Joe, life’s too short fer standin’ at a stove,” he draws in a sharp-fast breath raising his barrel chest, broad shoulders and wild-bushy eyebrows.  “See there’s gals out there as needs ta git laid an’ cold beer as needs ta git drunk an’ most impertant a all, there’s fast cars as needs ta get driven … FAST!”

Down the aisle stocking the spaghetti shelves, a woman of great girth, in a disquietingly red Price Chopper shop coat, spins her head rapidly in our direction, stares suspiciously at us, then slow-anxiously turns back to the shelves.

“What we need is gud food, I see ya eatin’ salads an’ bah…nan…ahs,” Bill snorts and waves his hands at shelves of packaged food. 

“That shit’ll kill ya an’ when they slab ya down the County Morgue, the doctor’ll cut ya open an’ find yer insides aint no more’an a bunny rabbits!”

His thick arms try to shoot up over his head, but they don’t go all the way anymore and stop halfway, leaving him looking like a lost-his-verve-preacher. 

“How’d ya think thee United States of ‘Merica runs this crazy world full a human beans, huh?  Huh?  Like as if we wuz bunny rabbits … HUH?”

The stocker half-turns her head but content that it’s just an old man schooling a young man, she returns to her boxes of linear carbs.

We load up with “gud food:” Steak tips – marked down 60% for reasons unspecified; corn on the cob – 10 for $1; and a pint of store made potato salad – with an expiration date of yesterday.

“Oh, don’t worry none about them expiree days,” Bill assures my food-anxiety, his stubbly jowls trembling.  “Tha’s jus’ the store manager wantin’ ya ta eat more an’ faster, so’s he can git he’s bonus ferta buy heself a new set a gulf clubs.”

Bill leans his thick torso on the shopping cart’s bright red handle as we move along the aisles of alarmingly colorful “gud food.”

“What we all need now is a pile a disposable plates, paper towels, forks an’ such.  Now where intheSamHill would they keep that sorta stuff in a market?”

He stops the cart, stands upright, cracking his back.

“Ooohhh, that felt gud,” he gushes, both hands on his lower back.

We read the signs dangling from the ceiling.

“Household goods?” I turn to Bill, my eyebrows raised hopefully.

“Naw, it’s ta do with stuff we just use t’once an’ then git rid of it.  Disposable, ya know,” he wags a gnarly old finger in my face, his wild eyebrows bunching together. 

“Disposable!  Ya know, gittin’ rid of it.  There ain’t nuthin’ this side a heaven nor hell a human bean can’t do without.  Back in Koh…rea, fer the first few days, when we didn’t have SHIT!”

He stops and looks all around, swiveling his thick torso with remarkable ease.

“Sorry, I don’t mean ta offend no one, an’ I hate ta hafta say it to a fereigner an’ all, no offense, but back then the Marine Corp didn’t know their asses from their elbows.  I mean fer the first few days.  Couldn’t blame ‘em I suppose.”

He stops to wave his hand at a garish yellow and red “TWO FOR ONE” endcap display of Utz Barbecue chips.

I grab two bags and drop them into the cart.

“That’s when ya learn jus’ how disposable ya are … ta the war on commies that is.  See, the reds wuz ready ta fight, but they didn’t git hardly no trainin’, they wuz all gorillas an’ such.  So, when they’d ambush us goin’ down a valley or somewhere, we’d just hunker down in around our trucks an’ jeeps.”

He rips open the Utz bag showering the white tiled floor with flecks of red-tan chemical dust.

“Then our first wave of counter-ambush Marines’d rush ta positions at the bottom a the hill.  The commies’d always git surprised by that first wave.  They never could figure it out.  What’d they think we wuz gonna do?  Stay there like sitting ducks so they could call in artillery.  Course, maybe they didn’t have no artillery.”

He stuffs a handful of chips into his mouth, instantly turning his lips an orangish-red.  He holds out the bag for me; I shake my head.

“Well, the second wave wuz what we cum ta call ‘the disposable wave’ cuz the commies’d finally a woken up theyselves up that we wuzn’t gonna jus’ let ourselves git shot ta shit.  Oh, they’d be ready fer ‘the disposables’ awright, an’ when that second wave cum out from under the trucks an’ such there’d be a MarymotheraGod barrage a shootin’. So, remember ….”

He stuffs another crunchy handful of chips into his mouth.

“Don’ never be a part a no second group in nuthin’.  Course, by the time the third and fourth wave left we’d have them little yellow bastards runnin’!”  

He stands there munching chips, still staring at me but his mind is back Korea in the summer of 1950.  It goes there a lot, either when there’s stress on the jobsite or, like this, out of the blue in quiet moments.

“Oh, it took a couple a years of us whalin’ on them commies an’ then … my day cum. Yeah, I wuzn’t payin’ ‘nough attention an’ I end up in a disposable wave.  Course pretty much all the waves wuz near disposable at that point, cuz even commies learn.  Anyhoo, I took a slug in the shoulder, right there.”

He lifts the yellow and red Utz bag up to his left shoulder.

“No gud commie ammo, weren’t no more’an a bee sting, … well, they did took me to a hospital in Japan fer a few weeks, but then …,” his eyes come back to Price Chopper as, lacking imagination, we have blindly turned into the HOUSEHOLD aisle and see what we’ve been hunting.

“Git some a them plates, the big uns, I’m a gonna cuk us up a Thurty Minute Feast tomorrow.  Anyways,” his eyes drift off again, “eventually good old Teddy Ballpark shows up in the sky, him an’ he’s airplane finished them reds off quick.  They didn’t have no hardware like we had, their factories wuz still set on makin’ shovels an’ buckets an’ stuff.  But they had guts though, the little bastards, they’d creep right up ‘til they could smell the coffee off yer breath, then BANG!”

He index-finger blows my brains out all over the HOUSEHOLD aisle.

He shakes his head, the insides of which is 11,000 miles and forty years away.

“Not them papery plates,” he snaps back to the present moment.  “Git the gud Styrofoam uns, them paper uns can’t hardly soak up no butter nor fat atallatall. Ya know he’s a awful nice feller that Teddy Williams, I bumped inta him one time down Florida.  He wuz signing autographs or sumptin at a hotel in Hialeah.  I seen a sign an’ I pulled up illegal in my big rig, pushed on in past all sorts of fellers in black suits.  I weren’t payin’ ta see, I jus’ wanted ta tell old Teddy that I wuz in Koh…rea with the Old Breed, that’s what we call the 1st Marines.”

Behind his eyes flicks back to Korea, 1953: Bullets; bombs; death; clarity, of a sort.

“Right off Teddy up an’ invited me back ta he’s place way down the Keys fer a steak dinner.  Course I couldn’t go, even if my truck wuz allowed on them bridges down there, I had a load a Canadian lumber as needed deliv’rin’.  A dock manager waiting in Florida City standin’ there with his hands on his bony hips; a clipboard under his arm with my contract clipped to it; an’ a nasty scowl plastered across he’s nasty face.”

He shrugs his shoulders and hitches up his jeans.

“Now we’re gonna need enough paper towels as cud mop up Lake Superior, go on, git the biggest package they got.  My friend Janet’s footin’ this whole bill, tol’ me herself she did, when I brun’ her some a that Donkin Donuts coffee las’ Friday.”

He nods and smiles a telling smile. 

“She’s a nice ol’ gal behind all that huffin’ n’ puffin’ she does.  She never did have that Donkin Donuts brand afore.  I tol’ her it’s good even though it aint.  Tol’ her it’s gonna be the next Howard Johnson’s if an’ ya can believe people is gonna ‘ventually be that stoopid.”

We load up the cart with household goods for the sort of house that can be thrown in the bin the end of day of the day Friday.  Then we turn into the SODA & WATER aisle, wherein the aforementioned Lake Superior appears but trapped in bulging plastic bottles and colored bright orange, electric yellow, black. 

I wave the cart to be stopped as I reach for a 24 pack of Poland Spring water.

“Don’t be buyin’ no water with Janet’s money,” Bill snaps.  “She won’t cover payin’ fer no water as ya ken get fer free outta the faucet.  Go grab a case a Coke, now that’s the freedom drink.  Didya know back in the day, in old Europe the Generals’d order up the buildin’ off a Coca Cola plant in some town fer ta piss off the local commie politicians.  But them sniveling French commies couldn’t hardly complain.  The durn packaging of our freedom drink come in their very own color!”

He laughs too hard at his own joke.

“It’s gonna be a fuc…,” I start but stop myself because Bill complains that we all engage in “easy cussin’, su’prise me next time, spend some brain power on a good insult.’

“… hotter tomorrow than a witch’s fart.  We’re gonna need water for the jobsite.”

“Well, yer gonna hafta splain that ta Janet, she aint one fer bankrolling no perks fer the

guys as is gittin’ well paid fer werkin’ on the jobsite.”

I take a deep breath and stare at the swamp green wall that is the Fresca shelf.  The dead end “must do” logic loops manufactured by the Greatest Generation’s minds tire my mind.

“When wan a the Connemara bricklayers topples off the scaffoldin’ from his hangover an’ heat dehydration, what d’we tell OSHA?”

“OSHA?  Just a bunch a ‘Merican commies is all they is,” he purses his lips and pushes them up against his nose in disgust.

But he does stop the cart to let me load the two cases of water.

“A witch’s fart …,” he nods a big nod.  “Not bad, not bad, but ya gotta keep workin’ that one, I never did give no thought as to whether witches even had holes in their asses.”

Then he waves frantically at the Coke display until I grab a 24 pack of that black liquid to balance out the wastefulness of buying a product freely available by turning on a tap that doesn’t yet exist at the jobsite.

We turn out of the liquid sugar aisle and into the fat and sugar aisle.

“Now this here is real ‘Merican food,” Bill stops and holds out both hands like we’ve attained the summit of some great mountain.

He shakes his head in satisfaction, behind his eyes is now fully present.

“Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Snoballs, an’ look they gots my favryte girlfriend!” he reaches out and strokes a plastic package.

“Suzy Q … do I love you!”

He gazes at the display, his mouth opening and closing, his stubbly jowls shuddering.

“An’ look Joe, they evens have a healthy one that ya ken wash down with that water – a Orange Cupcake!”

“Will Janet bankroll this?” I ask, not without some bitterness creeping into my voice.

“She durn well bitter or I’ll be the one in her office huffin’ n’ puffin’!”

Fifteen minutes later, I pull down the tailgate on Bill’s rusting F150, sling in the plastic bags of disposable household goods, cheap bovine flesh, already spoiling potato salad and slide in the cases of competing-for-legitimacy liquids as the truck engine rattles to life. 

Bill revs hard to keep the truck from “playin’ possum on me;” forcing out a choking blast of exhaust.

Inside the cab he cranks the AC on full.

“Janet’s gotta cover the cost a gas,” he winks.  “That’s awready in writin’ somewhere, so Caleb tol’ me.  Once they puts it in writin’; there’s no more fightin’!”

We’re rolling excruciatingly slowly across the sloped parking lot when Bill manages to jam us to a sudden stop, throwing me forward in my seat. 

He rolls down his window fast.

“HANG ON THERE MAM!” he yells before he even has the window down.

Out his window there’s a forty-something woman holding her cart in one hand and unloading heavy plastic bags of groceries into her trunk with her free hand.

“Jus’ hang on now an’ we’ll take care a that durn cart fer ya.”

He slams the truck into Park and starts to open his door.

“Aint ya gittin’ out too,” he turns and stares at me.

“I … eh, it doesn’t seem … sure-sure-sure.”

I start to open my door but the woman has already spun her cart around to push it up against Bill’s door preventing him from opening it any further.

She stares at us, panic in her eyes.

“Oh, no-no-no …,” I start to say.

“Mam, we can’t he’p ya out wit….”

“… it’s nothing bad, it’s just Bill always offerin’ ta help.”

The woman keeps up her panicked stare; knuckles whitened against the cart’s red handle; her eyes darting from Bill to me and back.

“Honestly,” I raise my hands, shake my head.

“Evur’thin’ awright mam?” Bill’s still got the rusty old door of his truck pressed against the front of her cart.

“We should go Bill, just close your door an’ we’ll go.  SORRY THERE,” I raise my voice, lean forward, hold up the palms of my hands, “we were just tryin’….”

“WhatintheSamHill ya talkin’ about,” Bill huffs, “this here lady needs help an’ you’re fer….”

“BILL!” I snap.  “Drive the fuck away from here, ye’re scarin’ the shit outta that poor woman.”

The silence of unhappy realization settles over the scene, broken only when a few seconds later Bill’s door clicks closed.

He nods one big-slow nod, sighs and staring forward we drive on across the poorly lit parking lot. 

He clicks on the radio.

“Get ready folks, the geeks down the weather office ‘re tellin’ me it’ll be ONE HUNDRED DEE…GREES tomorrow.  Yeah, they couldn’t stop it, don’t have the know how yet.  Just to start the day it’ll be seventy-five, watch for a classic burnt-orange daw….”

Bill flicks off the radio.

We cross the parking lot and stop at the light to get back onto the parkway.  I sense Bill turning to me and glaring.

“Whatinthedurnation jus’ happened back there?”

“She got a fright,” I turn to him, forcing a scowl onto my face.  “It’s ten o’clock at night; she’s in a parking lot; suddenly a truck pulls up….”

“Ta help her cuz she wuz fightin’ that stoopid cart an’ tryin’ ta load her trunk all at once, there’s no way a Marine wirth his salt cud pass that kinda situation.”

“She was scared shitless, how was she ta know it was the marines an’ not two serial killers pullin’ up?”

The light turns green.  

I have to wave at Bill to move forward.

“Well … I … nev…,” he starts but can’t finish.

We motor on through the next light but when the following light oranges and flips to red on our approach, he jams the truck to a stop way too far back from the light. 

He spins around in his seat and resumes his glare.

“That lady haint got no right ta think I’m no Ted Bundy.  HowintheSamHill cud she think ….”

“Bill, she was just frightened, a truck pulls up to a fast stop with two guys in it….”

“Ooohhh, so I shudda tol’ you ta git out an’ then go pull up the truck a few spaces away an’ wal….”

“Look, ya freaked out the woman, ya mightn’t ha’ meant ta but you did, for sure!”

“NO!” he shakes his head rapidly, the red from the traffic light rouging his face.

We sit in silence. 

Bill’s face turns green as the traffic light changes.

Still, we sit.

“We … we better go,” I say, pointing at the traffic light.

“Ya know what it is, that woman musta seed us in the market, I bet she did.  She hadta, you wuz makin’ so much noise about water an’ rabbit food an’ all that fereign stuff.  I bet that wuz it, no offense, but I bet she wuz ‘fraid we wuz a bunch a fereigners!”

“Are you serious?” I ask, stunned by his illogical logic.

“Yeah, no offense, but if she’d a known I wuz with the 1st Marines, there’s no way beneath this God’s sun that she’d behaved like that, unless… unless maybe she’s a commie?”