Mama's Boy Page 18

  “Yes, sir,” Gus mumbled.

  “Goddamnit, Reppo, speak up! I’m in a fucking jam here!”

  “Yes, sir!” Gus said.

  Major Darling lit a cigar and put his feet up on the desk. “You ever see that movie about the bombing of Hiroshima? Called Above and Beyond? Just before Colonel Tibbets takes off in the Enola Gay his commanding general says, ‘Tibbets, I can’t give you any guarantees your plane will come back.’ And Tibbets says, ‘Sir, this uniform didn’t come with guarantees.’ Truer words were never spoken, Reppo.”

  “I believe it, sir,” Gus said.

  “It’s not the money, you understand. My flight pay this year won’t buy me a carton of cigarettes. That’s not the fucking point, Reppo.”

  “Yes sir,” Gus said.

  “I’m talking about the discrepancy. I’m talking about false statements. Misrepresentations. You see? That little discrepancy is leverage, Reppo. I don’t want to give them any goddamn leverage. You with me on this?”

  “Yes sir,” Gus said.

  “Convince me, Reppo.”

  “I’m with you, sir!” Gus said.

  “Say it again, with more conviction, airman.”

  “I am with you, sir!” Gus said.

  “Leverage, Reppo. Leverage is everything. Your enemies want leverage. Don’t give it to them. Remember that, you’ll do well in this fucked-up world. You understand me?”

  “I understand you, sir,” Gus said.

  “Let’s have a little drink on it.”

  Major Darling opened the file cabinet side of his desk and took out a bottle of expensive scotch. He filled two paper cups and handed one to Gus.

  “I flew sixty low-level B-26 missions with the 484th bomb group in Italy. Flattened the Montecassino monastery twice. Probably killed a dozen monks to every Kraut. Got a DFC for it. I flew C-54s full of supplies into Tempelhof during the Berlin Airlift. Now the bastards want to lynch me for getting my knackwurst nibbled by a general’s wife. They can’t nail me for that since it’s too delicate a subject for them to make public—no leverage there—but now there’s this flight pay shit and Christ knows what else. That strike you as fair, Reppo?”

  “Not fair at all, sir,” Gus said.

  “Reppo, let me ask you something,” Major Darling said after knocking back his cup of scotch.

  “Sir?”

  “Did you know it’s against the law to be a member of the Communist Party?”

  “No sir, I didn’t.”

  “The Communist Party was outlawed by Ike and the Congress in 1954. That’s what the HUAC hearings were all about. Party members, unless they renounce their affiliation and pledge allegiance to the USA via loyalty oaths, are going to find their Commie asses in a federal prison.”

  “I didn’t know that, sir,” Gus said.

  “Sergeant Runkle tells me you have some pinko friends in town—those kids who tried to make trouble at the Hanford Works. Is that right?”

  Gus felt blood rushing to his face and neck. He squirmed. He finally recognized what Major Darling was driving at. “They’re just college kids, sir,” he said.

  “Lenin was just a college kid once, airman. Listen to me, Reppo. You don’t want the OSI finding out you’ve been trafficking with Reds, am I clear on that?”

  Gus stopped himself from squirming. He looked at Major Darling. Major Darling looked at Gus. Some unspoken deal was being offered.

  “You understand what I’m saying here, Reppo?”

  “I shouldn’t see these people anymore—or else—?”

  “No, Reppo. See them all you want. Fuck those little pinko twats cross-eyed. Pussy is pussy—pink, or red white and blue. I’m just telling you that you don’t want OSI agents finding out who you’re keeping company with.”

  “I see, sir,” Gus said. “I think I understand, sir.”

  “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You screw me, I’ll throw you to the dogs. You get my drift?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Now: Who flew the C-47 all the way back to Great Falls, nonstop?”

  “How did they find out you didn’t, sir?”

  “Christ knows. Some flight inconsistencies. Radio chatter, or the lack of it. Maybe your fat buddy let it slip. In any case, they’re just guessing at this point.” Gus drained the scotch out of his paper cup and Major Darling refilled it. “I recall that you lost your stripe a few months ago for hitting Sergeant Runkle, the AP.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That’s too bad. Personally, I don’t think fighting is a good reason for demotions. Fighting shows spunk. Spunk is a good thing. Shows spirit. There are other punishments for fighting besides demotion. Like a month of KP. Or a month restriction to the base.”

  “Yes sir. I agree sir.”

  Major Darling relit his cigar. “Get yourself some corporal stripes, Reppo. Sew them on today. I don’t care to see a highly trained technician with a naked sleeve.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  “I believe we understand each other. Am I right about that, Reppo?”

  “Yes sir,” Gus said.

  Major Darling poured scotch into his cup. He looked at Gus as if still undecided about his loyalties. He tossed some peanuts into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully. He sipped his scotch. Gus, feeling invisible again, squirmed in the hard wooden chair.

  “You need some cash, Reppo? Is cash a problem?”

  “No sir.”

  Major darling took out his wallet, slipped out a twenty-dollar bill. He held the money out to Gus. Gus hesitated.

  “Take it, Reppo. I insist.”

  “Sir …?”

  “Take the money, goddamn it. Buy your commie girlfriend a Bible. You don’t want her to go to hell for her dumb-ass political views, do you?”

  Gus started to laugh, appreciating Major Darling’s sense of humor, but the Major frowned and Gus managed to choke off the mistaken impulse, but not soon enough.

  “You find that amusing?” Major Darling said. “There’s nothing amusing about the goddamn Bible, Reppo. You find a joke in the Bible, I’ll promote you to staff sergeant.”

  “Didn’t mean to laugh, sir.”

  “Soldier gets a blow job from a general’s wife in the Bible, they make him cut his own pecker off. That make you split a gut, Reppo?”

  “No sir.”

  “Some things are not funny.”

  “Definitely not, sir.”

  Major Darling’s eyes went distant again as he chewed his peanuts.

  After a full minute, he said:

  “You still here, Reppo? What is it? Twenty not enough? You want more?

  “No sir. I didn’t …”

  “Glad to hear it, airman. Now get your blackmailing ass out of my office. Remember, two can play that game.”

  Gus stood, saluted, and almost ran out the door.

  He met Lyle Dressen outside the administration building.

  “How much did he give you?” Dressen said.

  “Twenty bucks,” Gus said, “and corporal stripes.”

  “He gave me ten and a boost to buck sergeant.”

  “I look at it as flight pay,” Gus said.

  “I think the major’s flipped his wig,” Dressen said.

  “The Big Empty strikes again.”

  “I hear you, airman.”

  30

  Lamar Harkey, failing to get his secondhand TV to produce pictures, asked Gus for advice. The TV was a black-and-white table model manufactured in the late 1940s. It had an ebony Bakelite cabinet and a circular five-inch screen. Harkey had attached rabbit ears to it but couldn’t find a test pattern on any of the twelve channels.

  “You need more than rabbit ears, Lamar,” Gus told him. Once Harkey thought he heard a voice coming through the static. Gus said it was just background noise—universal static from cosmic space, not human speech. Harkey persisted. (“There’s a talker out there, Reppo!”) He spent half the day studying the tiny electrical snowstorm, determined to find a picture to match the imagined
voice.

  “I paid a feller sixteen dollars for this TV set,” Harkey said, as if a sixteen-dollar TV should be able to bring in pictures from a distant station.

  “You could’ve asked some questions before you bought it,” Gus said.

  Harkey stared hopefully into the pictureless five-inch screen. “It’s a good-lookin little TV set, though, aint it, Reppo?”

  “It’s beautiful, Lamar, even without pictures.”

  It was too nice outside to sit around in the barracks. Gus walked the perimeter of the radar squadron twice. The snowdrifts were melting and water in little streams guttered along the pathways between buildings.

  A pair of Scorpions flying low and slow passed over the radar domes. One of them waggled its wings. Gus saw the pilot’s white helmet. The pilot waved and Gus waved back. The Scorpions, flying home after making practice intercepts on each other, turned a wide circle. Black smoke trailed from their muttering engines. They flew by again, even slower. Both pilots waved. Gus waved back.

  Gus wondered if it was too late to change the terms of his enlistment. Could he still apply for OCS and flight school? How great would it be to fly a Scorpion! He imagined himself in the cockpit of the plane that waggled its wings, imagined himself waving to an airman on the ground below.

  The pilots lit their afterburners and the Scorpions slanted upward into the steep sky, engines belching thunder until they were too small to follow.

  Gus went back to the barracks.

  “Gosh dang it!” Lamar Harkey said. He’d wrapped aluminum foil around the metal rods of the rabbit ears but still found nothing as he clicked the selector through the channels.

  “We’re a hundred forty miles from the nearest TV station, Harkey,” Gus said. “You can’t expect to pull in a picture from that far away with rabbit ears. Besides, a woman who should know once told me that TV was Satan’s tool.”

  “Yeah, that’s what my ma says,” Harkey said, dejected.

  “Then why’d you buy it?”

  “I like to have a TV to watch, Reppo. I don’t think the devil gives a cow pie one way or t’other about it. I like to watch it even if it’s just snow.”

  “You got a serious mental problem, Harkey.”

  “I sure wish I could get just one TV show, like that one with the talking horse, without going to a whiskey bar in town.”

  “You need a real antenna, Lamar.”

  “You got any idea how to fix one up?” Harkey said. “I’ll let you watch any program you want, you make this thing work.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Gus said.

  31

  Light snow dusted the alley. Gus looked at his wristwatch. It was too dark to read the dial but he felt that at least a half hour had passed. Gus thought: The greedy pig’s paying five more cartwheels for a blow job.

  Gus didn’t know if he had the stomach to go through with it. He thought of Ray. What would Ray say? “Pull your head out of your ass,” is what he’d say. “Don’t fuck up your life. This is not the right thing, Gate.”

  You’re the one to talk, Gus argued. Besides, it’s not just about you. For me it’s exactly the right thing. I can’t look at the son of a bitch without getting sick to my stomach. I don’t do this, I’ll get an ulcer.

  “This is the wrong right thing. Think about it. Use your goddamn head.”

  I have thought about it, Ray. I’m done thinking.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Gate.”

  The voices in his head stopped arguing: Mutt Runkle came out of the Moomaw whorehouse. He unzipped, spread his legs wide to avoid the spatter. He hummed a toneless tune.

  Gus came out from behind the rack of garbage cans. His right hand ached from gripping the jack handle while he’d waited for Runkle to come out. His hand felt frozen to the steel bar. He didn’t think he’d be able to open his fingers when it was over. The jack handle felt like it had become a permanent part of his anatomy.

  He stepped up behind Runkle, jack handle held high. It was a good GM jack handle, an inch thick and almost two feet long. Gus swung it at Runkle’s head. He put all he had behind the swing but it was a glancing blow, not the dead-on shot he’d meant it to be and, worse, the jack handle flew out of his suddenly weak hand and clattered down the dark alley.

  Runkle didn’t seem affected. He didn’t turn around to see what had hit him. He broke stream, shook the drip, tucked his penis back into his pants, zipped up. He touched the back of his head and looked with some surprise at the blood on his fingers. He started to turn, arm raised defensively, but then his legs gave out. He dropped to his knees.

  After a frantic search Gus retrieved the jack handle. He stood over Runkle, who was now on all fours mumbling curses, and swung again, a two-handed log-splitter’s stroke that landed squarely. The blow jarred his bones all the way to his shoulder and Runkle flopped face down into the yellow puddle he’d made.

  Gus walked back to the Buick, jack handle held down at his side. The car was parked on Main, in front of the Moomaw Dairy. He peeled the locked fingers of his right hand off the jack handle one by one, then tossed it into the trunk next to the spare. He looked up and down the empty street but saw no one. He got in the car and started the engine. Then turned it off.

  “Shit,” he said. He rested his forehead against the cold steering wheel. He’d forgotten an important detail.

  He walked back to the alley. But now his legs were shaky, knees unlocking with every step. Runkle was still face down in yellow slush. Gus took Runkle’s wallet and the few silver dollars he had in his pants. He took the bills—thirty dollars—then tossed the empty wallet next to Runkle. The cops would see it as a random mugging behind a whorehouse: These airmen should be more careful. Could happen to anyone.

  Gus went back to the Buick, forcing himself to keep a casual gait though his legs were unreliable. He got in. The adrenaline surge had ebbed. He felt weak and disoriented and sick to his stomach. His mouth was dry and he wanted a drink.

  He was shaking hard and couldn’t get the key into the ignition. When he did, he raced the engine until the fan belt screamed. He slipped the gear lever into drive and the car fish-tailed away from the curb and bolted west.

  Half a mile down the road Gus pulled off the highway. He set the brake, opened the door, leaned out, and puked.

  Then he drove off again, accelerating to eighty miles an hour. After a while at this speed he rolled down the window and tossed Runkle’s thirty dollars into the wind. He tossed the silver cartwheels after them.

  “Feel better?” Ray said.

  Gus would have to think about that.

  PART FIVE

  32

  Son of a bitch had it coming. Tell me about it. Is he dead? The only one who gives a shit is his partner Jeff Sparks. Tell you the truth, I don’t think Sparks is all that broken up. I mean, did you ever see Mutt and Jeff eat together? Drink together? Play cards at the same table? Fuck no, Mutt was a psycho loner. Jeff just did what Mutt told him to do. Hell, Jeff Sparks, he’s a good ole boy down deep. But Mutt, shit, no one really knew him or wanted to. How could you like a fuckhead like that? Is he dead? They kill him? Someone tried. Kicked his ass and took his cash. Town boys been getting more and more pissed at airmen sniffing around the local herd of heifers. Yeah, but that’s just normal kid stuff. Why would they kill the guy, especially Mutt who only went to the whores for his poon? No, you’re wrong there, shit-for-brains. Runkle had a thing with the town pump. Mutt the city slicker aka the kitty licker. The town boys wouldn’t get worked up over that. Even so, they catch an airman alone they don’t let the opportunity go by. Ever since the viaduct brawl they be looking to stomp flyboy ass. They went overboard on this one, don’t you think? What I think don’t mean jack. I advise you airman, do not get caught alone in Milk River. Travel in pairs. Carry a weapon, like a sock full of shot. You might of wished you had if you get caught in a blind alley, I shit you not. You better believe Mutt wished he had his .45 or a stick. But is he dead? Don’t know, don’t care. H
ow about you Gogolak? Don’t know, don’t care. You Norton? Don’t know, don’t care. Perez? Don’t know, don’t care. If you guys could harmonize we’d have a quartet. We be goin to town, find us a town boy and shank his crank. Will that help Runkle? Who cares? Fuck Runkle. Runkle can eat shit. Okay, but answer me this: anyone know if the muthufuckah be dead? Is Mutt muthafucken Runkle dead?

  Gus busied himself with other things. He couldn’t sleep, so he stayed up at night working out the problem of the feeder line. He’d need two-hundred feet or more of coaxial cable. It had to be quality stuff, capable of being buried in a shallow trench without cracking or rotting away in a year or two. He’d leave that part of the job to Lamar Harkey.

  “Harkey, here’s what we’re going to need,” he said. “Two hundred feet of 75 Ohm Belden RG6 weatherproof coax. I don’t think you’ll be able to find that much in Milk River. Go to Great Falls, or, if you have to, Billings or Rapid City. Some electronic shop in one of those towns should have it. Hell, you might have to go to Minneapolis or Seattle. I don’t especially care where you go. That’s your part of the job, not mine. But we can’t move ahead on this until we get that cable.”

  Harkey looked sorely troubled. “Geez, I don’t know, Reppo. That’s kind of hard to think about. I mean, Seattle? Minneapolis? You want me to go by myself? I don’t care to fly. Would I have to fly in a airplane?”

  “Why’d you join the air force if you’re afraid of airplanes, Harkey?”

  Harkey shrugged. “Recruiter said I could go to college on the GI Bill when I got out. All expenses paid.”

  “You want to go to college?”

  “Shoot no! He just made it sound like a good deal and that I’d be dumb to pass it up. Heck, I never even went to high school. When I was ten my Pa …”

  “Listen to me, Lamar. You want the talking horse? You want Saturday night wrestling? You want to slam your ham watching the Miss America contest? You’ll do this.”

  Harkey’s lips tightened into a grim line as he fought to master the terrifying idea of air travel. He nodded stoically, accepting the awful necessity of searching the Northwest for coaxial cable. “I’ll do it, Reppo. I’ll take some leave time and do it.”