First Stories

The Wedding Notice                       933 wds

Yesterday i saw a wedding notice in the newspaper. It was Tom Hahne's wedding and the article said they were going to spend their honeymoon in Corpus Christi. He and his new wife, who is Flora Kunz, tried to look good in a photo and below in the third paragraph it said he works at the Red Dot grocery store. He 's probably unloading trucks, he's the meanest guy i ever worked with. We were on the same carpentry crew for a few months and he spit tobacco everywhere, on the chalk box and other tools and once i saw him accidentally spit in his own nail belt. He did it. He twisted himself around suddenly and spit in his own belt. I carried fewer nails after that, so the openings in my own belt were a little smaller.

Tom Hahne was full of plans. He cussed our boss when Baskin wasn't around and said he was going to up and drive a turkey truck. This outfit he knew of was wanting him. He drove one, too, for awhile after he quit us, and now he's working at the Red Dot unloading trucks. 

We used to tell him if we saw him driving his turkey truck we wouldn’t know which end the turkey was in. He didn’t like that. We drank plenty of beer together after those hot summer work days and i listened to hours of his talk. He fell for the old Henway joke. Ask someone "What's a Henway?" The answer is about eight pounds. One day we were in Reed’s Ice House, it was the first or second day he worked with us, fresh out of high school, and the first thing he told me was how sorry he was because he becomes uncontrollably pissed off and hurts people. I knew then he was one of these guys who apologizes now and smacks you later. “Guess i can’t hold my liquor.” He wasn’t afraid of the Russians. We were talking politics and he said, “By God, i’m not afraid of the Russians.”

I laughed and he looked at me mean.

“You know any Russians?” i said, laughing louder. “I don’t see no Russians around here. Never saw one of them.”

“By God, i don’t give a shit how many bombs they got. I’m not afraid of the Russians!” He looked at me meaner. Then i knew i better be serious, so i said,” I don’t care much for the bastards myself.” That cooled him. He’d already told me he had a rotten temper, like giving an excuse before he made a mistake. I didn’t want him to do what he already said he was sorry for. 

Now he’s working at the Red Dot Grocery store. I didn’t hear what happened to his job driving a turkey truck, he didn’t tell me when i called him on the phone. 

The first thing i said on the phone was congratulations.

He said thanks and he appreciated the call. How was i? he asked.

I was okay, i said, still working for old Baskin.

Then he said Baskin was a good man. That’s what getting married does to you, you start saying, “He’s a good man,” or “She’s a fine woman.”  And after he 

tried to put the pressure on Baskin for a raise. He’d been working for a week or two, maybe three, and he goes and tells Baskin, ”I’ll get a raise or i’ll quit on   

you.” Baskin said goodbye, Mr. Hahne. By the way, Baskin is like that, saying Mr. this and Mr. that; he knows where the money is. 

Did Tom Hahne cuss old Baskin! It stuck to him all day and the next and on and on until he quit, shaking his head and calling Baskin names under his breath, his anger rode him.

On the phone i agreed with him about Baskin being a good man and then threw a wrench into his works; i asked him how he liked unloading trucks at the Red Dot grocery store. You never ask anyone that, especially if that’s what they’re doing. In school we used to say about a guy we didn’t like that when he got out he would be unloading trucks at the Red Dot. For some people it’s the only job in town.

He started yelling, asking who told me he was unloading trucks, as if it wasn’t in the paper. I said i just assumed  that was what he was doing, since he couldn’t do much else.

I thought the phone would break from what he yelled into it. He called me everything obscene and vile, some things you wouldn’t say to Jeffry Dahmer or someone like that, his voice getting higher and higher, and when he was through with obscenity he started with the animals, calling me an octopus and a fish and a weasel. At that time i hung up.

I’m not afraid of him coming after me because to find my house he’d have to be able to read the numbers, and besides, i’m getting out of this dump of a town. I know an outfit in Wichita Falls that’s looking for men. I grew up here and all i have to show for it is knowing about a lot of dopes like Tom Hahne and their fat wives and the only thing happening is a marriage or a death or a birth, another dope who spits into his own nail belt and on and on and on. I’m getting out of this stinking armpit of a town.

end of “The Wedding Notice”

                           Do You Want to Play Cards?                           1,174 wds

         To avoid her roommates and find her alone he walked around to the kitchen door. He saw her three roommates watching tv as he passed the living room windows. She looked up from the sink when he tapped on the glass of the kitchen door. He walked into the kitchen.

"Hello, how're you?" she said. She continued washing the dishes.

"Oh fine." He stood behind her. He didn't touch her. "Have you been studying hard?"

“Pretty hard.” Her hands wiped out a frying pan with a sponge. 

He stuck his hands in his pockets. 

A girl walked into the kitchen and said, “Hello, Billy.” 

“High Christi, how’re you?”

“Pretty good.  Are you going to stay and watch the movie?”

“What movie?”

“It’s really good,” said the girl at the sink. “I’ve seen it about four times.” 

Christi told him the name of the movie but Billy didn’t remember it.

“Maybe i’ll stay and watch it,” he said. “I just finished playing softball for six hours.”

“You look like you’ve been in the sun,” said the girl washing dishes. She didn’t turn around. 

“Where do you play?” asked Christi.

“Williamsburg park,” and he paused to consider which players she would know, “with the regular bunch.” 

She nodded. 

“We had some good games today.”

“For six hours, i bet,” said Christi.

The girl at the sink finished the dishes, dried her hands on a towel and walked past Christi and Billy into the living room. Billy and Christi watched her leave.

“What was the name of that movie?”

“Heaven Help Us.” 

Billy followed her into the living room. In the living room Christ’s husband Walter sat in his favorite rocking chair watching a show called Battle of the Stars, in which two groups of actors and actresses competed in a race up and down a water slide. 

“What is this show now?” said Christi

Walter told her the title of the show and what time Heaven Help Us would begin.

Billy looked around for the girl who had washed the dishes. She wasn’t on the porch out the front windows where he hoped to find her alone, so he knew she could only be upstairs in the bathroom or her bedroom. 

“Where did Barbara go?”

Walter looked up at him for the first time. “She’s upstairs. She’ll be down in a second.”.

Billy heard footsteps on the sirs. Barbara and another roommate, Andy, came down talking about playing cards. 

“Do you want to play cards?” asked Barbara.

“Sure.”

“Barbara you can’t play now, the movie starts in thirty minutes, you’ll never finish your game by then.”

“We can play for thirty minutes.” said Andy

“You won’t get finished with the game.”

“You want to play, Christi?”

“Let me think about it.”

Barbara cleared off the dining room table. 

“Okay, i’ll play until the movie starts. What are we playing?” 

“Hearts or spades.”

Billy pulled out a chair. 

“Don’t sit there,” Christi said, pointing. “Sit over there.” 

He looked at Christi’s face trying to see why she didn’t want him to sit beside her. “Why, why not sit there? 

“The mirror is right behind your chair. We can see your cards in it.” 

Billy moved to a chair across the table. 

What are we playing, Andy?

    Andy shuffled the cards and before sitting with the mirror behind him he hung an old army blanket over the mirror. “Hearts, or spades if you like.” His hands shuffled the red backed cards. 

“Let’s play hearts,” said Barbara.

“I don’t know how,”  said Christi. “I’d rather play spades. What would you like to play, Billy?”

“Oh, anything you like.”

Barbara had started smoking recently. She lit a cigarette. 

“I know how to play, i just don’t remember right now, Billy said. 

“We can play spades.”

“Okay let’s play spades.”

“Do you want to play spades, Billy?

“Sounds good to me.”

He looked at Barbara and tapped her foot under the table. She curled her feet up under her chair and hooked them behind a chair leg and didn’t look at him. He didn’t know why he had tapped her foot. He wanted to talk to her alone but tapping her foot would not make her leap up and say, Billy let’s go someplace where we can talk alone.”

“But i really would rather play hearts.”

“Okay let’s play hearts.” 

“Can you play hearts, Billy?

“I think so.”

“Don’t you know how to play?” said Christi

Billy shrugged. 

Christi and Andy quickly explained the rules of the game Hearts. 

“Deal the cards now and i’ll figure it out as we go along,” said Billy. 

Andy dealt the cards

Later in the game, Christi said “You shouldn’t have used that card Billy.  Now you get thirteen points against you. Are you sure you know how to play?”

Billy said, “It takes me awhile to remember how to play. I’ll get it.”

From the living room Walter called, “The movie’s on, the movie’s starting.” 

“Oh, the movie,” said Christi. Christi and Barbara stood up and threw their cards on the table. 

“Is it the movie or just previews of the movie?” said Barbara

“Just previews,” said Walter.

The women sat down.

“No wait, it is the movie.”

Andy remained. He said, “Hold on a minute, let’s finish the hand.”

Barbara said, “What for, you’re winning what are you complaining about?

“Let’s just finish this hand.”

“We’re gonna watch the movie,” said Christi. 

Billy and Andy looked at each other. The women walked into the living room and sat down. Billy gathered the cards and looked into each hand and folded them into a deck and followed Andy into the living room. All the chairs were taken so Billy sat beside the tv on a footstool and looked around the corner at the screen. He couldn’t see the picture very well. 

For five minutes Billy tried to watch but his neck was sore from playing softball. He felt his attention fading and knew he was tired. He said, “I’m going to split.”

“You’re not staying for the movie?”

“No, i played ball all afternoon and i‘m tired. I need a shower.”

“Nice of you to come over,” said Barbara. She didn’t look at him. They all said goodbye to him. As he left the house, he glanced behind him. He waited a few moments on the porch in case Barbara followed him out wanting to talk alone in the cool evening. Through the screen door he saw her watching tv. He thought of what to say to her. At his car he waited awhile longer but she didn’t come out. So he started the engine and drove away. 

“We don’t’ really have anything to say to each other. She told me on the phone. A hundred and thirty six dollars. Split that in half. Sixty eight dollars, that’s my half for the procedure. She’s really being nice to split it with me, to share the costs. I guess i should feel lucky. No, not bad, i should feel lucky. That’s not much at all.”

end of “Do You Want to Play Cards?”

                          Real War                    Games                         2,228 wds

   We were issued rifles and went out to do battle in a ditch. Daddy gave us the plastic M1 Garand rifles, models of the type he used fighting the Japanese in World War Two. That was his war, ours would be in Vietnam. These replicas of the M1 Garande being Plastic, were not as heavy as a real rifle but they were otherwise authentic in many ways and the right size in relation to our smaller, children’s bodies. The standard issue infantry rifle in Vietnam, the M16, was very light, we were told, and the stock was made out of hard plastic. 

“If you were men they would have to be bigger and heavier, “ Daddy told us, “but 

for boys they’re just right.”

“Can we go shoot Dan’s twenty-two?” my brother asked. Dan was our oldest 

brother and the only one of us with a real rifle.

“Sure, we can go to the rifle range. We can shoot bows, too.”

We were not excited about the bows. It was hard to hit anything with an arrow, hard to shoot and it made no noise. No shell was flung smoking and glittering brassy from the chamber of the weapon and besides, did Daddy fight the Japanese with a bow? When he was stationed in Japan near Tokyo after the war the Japanese taught him archery, but did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor with arrows? Besides being useful for killing a guard with complete silence, what good was a bow?

“We can’t shoot bows at the rifle range, “ i said.

“ We can go off to one side, “ Daddy said, as if the other guys at the rifle range would throw down their rifles and come over and say “Nifty bow! Let me shoot it!” There was no chance of that! My father wanted us, I later learned when I became a father, to resist the opinions of others.  Putting us in such a contrary position would teach us. “We’ll stop by Meckelndorf’s farm on the way and shoot some rabbits for the old man.”  They were the same age, but anyone he admired for enduring troubles my father called “the old man.”   

Mr. Meckelndorf knew trouble; he had lost two sons. The first son was suffocated when a truck driver delivering feed corn from the field dumped it in the earthen silo or “pit silo” where the boy was playing with his younger sister and brother. The driver said the boy was taunting him, standing in the deep end of the wedge shaped pit and daring him to dump the corn on him. The boy must have thought he could get out of the way fast enough, but the corn knocked him flat and smothered him. Daddy called the truck driver an “old drunk.”  This bothered me because our mother had called Daddy an old drunk.

Mr. Meckelndorf’s other son was killed a few years later hunting. We felt bad for the boy until we heard he had shot himself while swinging a loaded weapon by the muzzle and the bullet hit him in the chest. After we heard this we were only sad for his family, not him, because he violated the safety rules by goofing off and being careless.  

The farm was far better for shooting than the rifle range, it was a place where real conditions existed, but we could only shoot bows there. After his son shot himself Mr. Meckelndorf, who let us hunt rabbits around his out- buildings, took all the firearms in the house and threw them into a pond beyond the barn. When he told us, yes, they are still rusting down there in the mud we ran to the cow and horse hoof pocked edge of the pond, as big as a football field, and tried to see the guns on the bottom. We ran back to Daddy and Mr. Meckelndorf and asked if we could go fishing. 

“I want to catch me a pistol,” my brother shouted.

“That’s not all you’ll catch, boy! “ Mr. Meckelndorf said, his face gray and severe. He suddenly turned and walked back to the house. Daddy said, “You boys go wait in the truck right now.”  I remember this because my brother, who is slow in understanding but very sensitive to the moods of others, worried about it for a long time. I tried to comfort him by insulting Mr. Meckelndorf, calling him a fool for destroying all those good weapons just because his son was stupid and killed himself, but my brother liked Mr. Meckelndorf and wanted to live on the farm so i was no comfort to him at all.

We didn’t return to the farm for a long time. Daddy said “the old man” should be pitied and respected, even though he had plenty of money, a big family, eleven kids in all, and a beautiful farm. Our mother used Mr. Meckelndorf as an example of how good and bad luck balance out, how for everything good you get something is taken, how it is not good or bad luck, but the Lord’s way.   

Daddy told us when we needed haircuts. If our hair got too long a Japanese or Nip soldier would grab it in hand to hand combat, “And then they’ll get you by the ying-yang.” This was just before protesting the war in Vietnam became popular and long hair became a symbol of resistance. My father was right about long hair being a handicap in battle, but it would not be grabbed by the Japanese but the Chicago police. All this was to come and we never suspected we might have more than one enemy or the enemy could change. 

When we went out to fight in the farmland around our suburb with our plastic rifles and needing a haircut we would leave our positions worried but confident.  Not only were our rifles too light, but the red rolled caps we loaded in them  (on the porch, never indoors) were not even close to the weight of real ammo. To find out how heavy real ammo was, we loaded our pockets with rocks.

All I ever carried in my pockets were matches if I could find or steal them, and a folding knife. If my brothers or their friends discovered I had matches they would take them away and light the whole box or book, or keep them for themselves.  A popular joke of the day was; “Wanna see a match burn twice?

“Yes.”  The match is lit, allowed to burn for a moment, then shaken or blown out.

The victim of this joke may then believe an attempt will be made to strike the match again or another match taken out to light and apply the flame to the first match, in either case the joke will fail by not being funny. 

But that’s not how this painful joke is concluded. Moments after the flame goes out the sizzling tip of the match is touched to the victim’s exposed skin and there it  burns again, burning flesh.  If  you’re dumb as a cow and this fools you it’s your own fault.

I had plenty of rounds of the tightly rolled caps in red paper that slipped into the magazine of the rifle and from around a leaded tin post that held them,  threaded up against a striking surface. Against this surface the paper lay flat and the hammer fell on the round  bulges of powder evenly spaced between the two thin sheets of paper. As we walked along farm roads on patrol i shot at enemy aircraft or snipers perched on telephone wires or resting in trees. Some were meatballs  (Japanese), others were Stukas (German).

As we walked along the road my brother Art said, “ Dan (our oldest brother) told us about a Sparrow Hawk (now known as an American Kestrel), who was completely tame. The man who trained it turned it loose and it flew up to and sat next to the first person it saw and . . . “

“Was it a chicken hawk?” asked Brian. Brian was chubby and jolly, or mean, and we let him lead us in battle if he had a good idea. 

“No, it was a Sparrow Hawk.”

“There’s no such thing as a chicken hawk,” i said. I stepped to one side, out of his range in case Brian tried to hit me. “ Stupid farmers say hawks steal chickens just so they can shoot them.”

“They do not. My uncle owns a farm and he says his chickens always disappear when there’s a chicken hawk around.”

“There’s no such thing as a chicken hawk. It’s just a dumb excuse to kill a hawk.”

Seeing I was out of range of an easy strike and that I held my weapon ready should he lunge, Brian said, “Shut up. What happened to that hawk, Art?”

“He got killed. He flew up to this man and the man just looked at him and put a gun up to his head and killed him.”

Art and I mourned for the Sparrow Hawk, which is really a small falcon and lives on rodents, small birds and insects. Brian said the bird was dumb to trust a human and got what it deserved. We didn’t talk to him for a long time. Killing a hawk was so bad we couldn’t speak to him until we had forgotten about it or our thoughts were distracted. 

On some of our patrols we passed a white, two-story house with a big porch and trees in the front yard. There were no shrubs, hedges and bushes in the yard, it was wide open grass except for some exceptionally large cottonwood trees shading it. On three sides of  the house on its square of lawn pegged with the immense trees grew wheat. Two dogs lived there and if we were on bikes they would come out and chase us and they were old so we had to slow down or stop until they got close enough. If they didn’t hear us making the noise on the road we had to call them, then we could usually keep them away with grenades. There were plenty of grenades along the road.

Today, walking, with our new weapons, we were eager to shoot the dogs. Brian had a weapon he found along the road, said he took it from the corpse of a German and called it a machine pistol, and it was fairly straight. Art said it may have been German made, but it looked like an old flintlock compared to our M1 Garands. This made Brian mad and he shot at Art but missed him. Brian tucked his rifle under his arm and picked up the biggest grenades he could find.

Art and I decided not to fire until we saw the whites of their eyes and to shoot together from a half kneeling position.  Brian would be our rear guard. We began to walk past the house and the dogs immediately attacked, but slowly. They were old and stout, they had spent plenty of time in the kitchen around the legs of that farmer’s table. One was brown, the other black. They came out from each side of the house, attempting to envelope us in a pincher movement. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” cried Brian, who knew their plan and lobbed grenades on either side of them to force them back together. We had talked it over and determined this might be their tactical strategy. Brian was proud because he was first among us with the idea they might attack this way and his lips fell and popped on the word pincher briskly. 

Art and I opened fire and fired ten rounds each, but the enemy advanced, barking. Brian lobbed all his grenades, picked up more, but every one was a dud. We retreated. The dogs were disinclined to get their paws wet in the ditch and so they came together,  advancing over the driveway. We kept up a heavy fire until they were so close we had to keep them away with the muzzles of our weapons. Had we bayonets, even the gray dull plastic type, we could have charged them and they wouldn‘t have chased us away.

Overall, our retreat was orderly. Brian dropped his rifle and ran. He picked up another one down the road. The dogs were old and slow enough that if we ran fast, that is, boy-fast, when you hold in mind as you run that your body is now a flash of light,  most dogs won‘t even try to beat that. This type of running is only possible for short distances. 

Two miles later, walking, we arrived at Warren Lake and climbed into our tree house and dressed our wounds.  The other rifle Brian found was long enough to also serve as a crutch. When I told him he would get dirt in the muzzle using his weapon like that he told me to shut up. Art brought out some band-aids and I put one on my forehead where it was plain to see and would stay clean. I used only this one because there were only a few left in the box and I thought we better save them in case one of us got a real cut.