Saga of Fred

Fred (not his real name) was intelligent, but he was gullible—and a born sucker. We first met in the Navy while attending radar school at Great Lakes, Illinois. During the year I knew him before he got married, he seemed like an average guy, and nothing particularly memorable happened. But after we completed radar school and transferred to another base for additional training, he got married… and he also got stupid.

The first mistake was the marriage itself. He married an 18‑year‑old who was both dim‑witted and hot‑headed. Fred was also hot‑headed, so the two of them together were a disaster. Separately, they might have been tolerable; together, they were combustible. As far as I knew, there was never physical abuse, but she delighted in provoking him until he punched holes in the walls. Picture frames hung in odd places throughout their home to cover the damage.

Before transferring, Fred reenlisted and received a ten‑thousand‑dollar reenlistment bonus—about eight thousand after taxes. Instead of depositing the check, he decided he wanted the money in $100 traveler’s checks. I went with him to the bank as he collected eighty checks, and then sat there signing all eighty. When we arrived at the next base, he opened a bank account and had to sign all eighty again to deposit them.

I rode with Fred and his wife to the new duty station. Before we left, he bought an Irish Setter puppy, so I spent the trip in the back seat babysitting the dog. At the new base, they lived in a trailer park, and the dog often ran loose. One day it was hit by a school bus, leaving one front leg paralyzed. When it ran, the leg swung around and hit things, so they wrapped it in a rubber hose for protection. South Texas summers are brutal, and they left the dog outside during the day. One day, it died of heatstroke. His wife insisted on getting another Irish Setter—but only from the same breeder—so they drove from South Texas all the way back to coastal Georgia to get another puppy.

Before leaving the old duty station, instead of waiting until they reached the new base, they bought a double‑wide mobile home. Because of its size, it could only be towed on certain roads. To get it to the new base, the movers had to detour around states that didn’t allow it, and the move cost nearly as much as the home itself.

Fred must have had “sucker” tattooed on his forehead. He would buy anything, whether he needed it or not.

One morning at work, we were discussing a news report about encyclopedia salesmen ripping off homeowners. A few minutes later, Fred walked in, bragging that he had been “selected” to buy a set of encyclopedias at a special price. Two young, beautiful women had come to his door and convinced him to buy them.

Another day, he came in talking about fire alarms he had bought from a door‑to‑door salesman. The alarms were pressurized air horns triggered when a metal strip melted from the heat. The salesman had shown photos of children burned in house fires and shamed Fred into buying them. I pointed out that most people die from smoke inhalation long before the heat melts anything, and that the alarms were useless. Fred called the salesman requesting a return. Instead of taking them back, the salesman convinced Fred to become a fire‑alarm salesman himself.

Once, while waiting for a potential fire alarm customer to come home, Fred and his wife wandered into a furniture store “just to look around.” They walked out with a new living room set.

Another time, Fred went to a man’s house to sell him alarms and ended up buying a poodle puppy instead. The puppy was black except for a large white spot on its back. The man convinced Fred that the spot would spread as the dog grew older until it became a solid white poodle. Of course, that never happened.

When Fred’s car needed a new muffler, he went to the dealer to purchase one. He came back with a new car.

Fred didn’t camp, but he bought a huge camping tent because it was on sale. He set it up in his backyard to see how it worked. He never took it down; it just sat there until it rotted away.

He bought a boat for fishing. Even though the ocean was a hundred miles away, he wanted to fish offshore, so he bought a relatively large boat. It was too big to tow with his new car, so whenever he wanted to use it, he had to find someone with a vehicle large enough to haul it to the coast.

I had a motorcycle, so naturally Fred wanted one too. He and his wife were expecting a baby, and she didn’t want to spend more money. He insisted, so she finally agreed—on the condition that she also get a new washer and dryer. Now they were even deeper in debt.

After three years at the base, Fred and I transferred to another base for a few months of school before receiving new assignments. He still had the boat, but by then it had deteriorated from neglect and was worth very little.

After school, we went to different duty stations. I never saw Fred again.