Once a Warrior (4 page)

“I know what I’m fighting for,” John said around the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

Obviously tipsy from that second gin rickey she’d just finished, Kitty looked up and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. They’d met at Randolph Field, Texas, where she’d been a typist and he an Army Air Corps cadet. Even though they weren’t yet formally engaged when he received his commission, she’d quit her job to follow him from training camp to training camp—and, ultimately, to Kansas City.

“What’re you fighting for, Flyboy?” she demanded in a voice that was more slurred than sultry.

Still nursing his first beer, John was drunk on love and happiness. And why not?  He’d completed his combat training with a “very high” rating and was scheduled to report to Chatham Field, Georgia, next week to begin final processing for assignment overseas. To top it off, he was going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world before he left.

His answering grin was almost sappy. “I’m fighting for the right to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Kitty’s reaction to his declaration shook him to the core. She sat bolt upright and stared at him, her eyes growing misty and her smile wobbly. For no apparent reason, she then buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

John didn’t know what to make of her sudden crying jag, but the sight of her, weeping and wretched, spurred him into action. He yanked the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray. Then he put his other arm around her, gathered her close again and held her. Just held her.

“Aw-w-w,” Blondie crooned from her perch on Mike’s lap. She leaned forward, propped her elbow on the tabletop and put her chin in her hand. “Ain’t that sweet?”   

Mike took advantage of both the situation and her position by cupping the weight of her full, firm breast in his palm and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Sure is,” he agreed, and took another swig of beer.

Buck Private Charlie Miller, sitting to Mike’s right, was in no mood for this maudlin crap. He’d delayed joining up until he got his draft notice, then quit his soda jerk’s job to enlist. Only to be rejected by the Navy because he had insufficient chest expansion and the Marines because he wore glasses. The Army, however, hadn’t been the least bit bothered by either his shallow chest or his visual impairment. To the contrary, they’d welcomed him into their ranks with an embarrassing “short-arm” inspection.

So now, with basic infantry training behind him and orders to report to cook’s school safely packed in his duffel bag, this dogface was home on furlough and ready to howl. He tossed back the remainder of his whiskey as the jukebox began wailing, “I’m Walking the Floor Over You.”  Then he wiped his mouth on his uniform sleeve and turned to the girl who was sitting quietly beside him.

“Wanna dance?”  He didn’t wait to hear her answer but simply scraped back his chair and stood.

Daisy English didn’t have to be asked twice. She leaped to her feet, almost spilling what was left of her beer in her haste. After steadying the swaying bottle, she rushed to catch up with Charlie, who was elbowing his way toward the dance floor.

Mike drained the last of his beer and set the empty on the table. He scanned the low-ceilinged room, looking for their waitress so he could order another round. Seeing that she was busy, he turned back to the couple still wrapped in their darkly passionate embrace.

“Tell me again.”  He had to shout to be heard above the din of that god-awful song. “What time is the wedding tomorrow?”

John, his cheek still resting on the crown of Kitty’s hair and her face still buried against his chest, raised his own voice to reply, “Ten-hundred.”

“I know what that means,” Blondie chirped. “It’s military talk for ten o’clock in the morning.”

Mike flashed her a grin, then rewarded them both by copping another feel. He was standing as best man because John and he were Catholic and Charlie wasn’t. Except for that and for the few months’ difference in their ages, however, they might have been triplets.

They’d grown up on the same block, gone through the same grade school and graduated from the same high school. Hell, they’d even dated some of the same girls. But now, at the ripe young age of twenty-one, they were going to be fighting this damned war in completely different outfits.

After making a mental note to hit the sack early tonight—with the blonde, he hoped—Mike finally caught their server’s eye. When the empty bottles and glasses had been cleared and replaced with full ones, he paid for them from the rapidly diminishing roll of bills he’d received last payday.

Big fuggin’ deal, he thought as he added a hefty tip for the waitress. With the future he was facing, what better way to spend his money than on wine, women and song?  Any song, that is, except “I’m Walking the Floor Over You.”

When Blondie made to stand, he tightened his arm around her. “Where’re you going?”

“I’ve gotta get rid of that last beer before I start on another one.”  She grabbed her purse off the chair she’d abandoned earlier and got to her feet. Then, as if to guarantee he wouldn’t disappear while she was gone, she also snatched his officer’s hat off his head and put it on her own.

Mike watched her walk away, his hat tilted at a jaunty angle on her bottle-blonde hair and her hips working smoothly beneath her straight black skirt. Looking around, he noticed that he wasn’t the only one who was watching. Every other man in the joint seemed to appreciate the fully orchestrated anatomical symphony playing out before his eyes.

Anticipation swam sweetly along with the beer in his bloodstream. If this was a preview of what he was in for later tonight . . .

Turning his head, Mike was amused to see that even the engaged John wasn’t immune to some gentle voyeurism. Their eyes met over Kitty’s bowed head and, together, they grinned. At the same time, someone punched in the “Pennsylvania Polka” on the jukebox.

“Why don’t they play some Glenn Miller?” he griped.

“Or Sinatra,” John suggested.

“Spit on me, Frankie, I’m in de toid row!”  Mike’s falsetto impersonation of one of the New Jersey crooner’s fans, complete with an ecstatic facial expression, brought a chuckle from John. Even the melancholy Kitty managed a small laugh.

He should have quit while he was ahead, but he had just enough of a buzz on that he didn’t stop to think before he blurted out, “So, has your mother changed her mind about coming to the wedding?”

Wrong question, Mike realized, sobering instantly. Because even in the dim light, the flush that climbed John’s face was clearly visible.

Kitty had been raised a hard-shell Baptist, but had agreed to be married by a Catholic priest. When she’d called her parents in Houston to invite them to the wedding, they’d been horrified to hear that she was actually going to marry that “mackerel snapper” and had hung up on her. Naturally, she’d been devastated by their rejection.

Now the reminder that John’s mother had also declined to attend the nuptials of her only son, saying she certainly hadn’t raised him to see him married in a priest’s parlor instead of at the altar where she took daily Communion, brought a fresh batch of tears from his bride-to-be.

“I
promised
to raise the baby a Catholic!” Kitty cried against his chest. “What more does she want?”

“She’ll come around.”  John’s comforting words aside, his bleak expression said he didn’t believe for a moment that his dogmatic mother would budge an inch on this issue. Or that his browbeaten father would dare go against her.

Wishing he’d kept his big mouth shut, Mike reached for his beer. He wasn’t surprised to hear that Kitty was pregnant. The passions of war were prompting shotgun weddings from coast to coast. He was just glad that
he’d
managed to avoid that particular trap.

Not that he didn’t want to get married and have a family of his own someday. He did. But it was bad enough worrying about how his widowed mother and younger sister and brother would take the news if he were killed in combat. He couldn’t even begin to fathom the thought of leaving a wife and child behind.

Frowning, he glanced toward the dance floor just as Charlie and Daisy waltzed by. And had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. Charlie was a pump-her and grind-her, raising and lowering Daisy’s arm in time to the music and rotating his pelvis against hers with every other step.

An adoring Daisy didn’t appear to care that her parents considered Charlie to be rude, crude and a drunk in the making. It was no secret that she was madly in love with him. She’d started chasing him when they were seniors in high school, then had continued her pursuit when he left for the Army by sending him letters liberally splashed with “Evening in Paris” perfume. Now that he was back, her gap-toothed grin seemed to promise, he was finally going to catch her.

Restlessly, Mike checked his watch and wondered what could be keeping the blonde. She’d been gone a good ten minutes and should have finished her business by now. He lifted his beer to his lips and let his gaze wander toward the back of the room, past the newly-acquainted couples who were sitting around the cluttered tables and the small knot of soldiers still standing at the bar . . . and stopped cold.

Instead of coming out the bathroom door, Blondie was coming
in
the back door. Right behind her was a sailor wearing a sheepishly satisfied grin and crookedly buttoned bell-bottoms. They were careful not to speak to each other as they parted ways, but given the fact that she was now wearing his hat with the bill turned backwards, Mike had no doubts about what they’d been doing in the alley behind the bar.

As if to confirm his conclusion, she wiped a smear of lipstick from the corner of her mouth with her pinkie finger while making her way back to the table.

Cursing himself for a fool, he set the bottle down with a bang. This was his own damned fault. He’d thought about calling up one of his old girlfriends and asking her out, but he’d been gone so long that he didn’t know anymore who was married and who wasn’t. So he’d gotten exactly what he deserved—some khaki-whacky who wasn’t shy about spreading it around.

He waited until she came to a stop in front of him before he stood and yanked his hat off her head.

Blondie blinked twice, obviously taken aback. “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“I stand in line for inspection and I stand in line for chow. I even stand in line to shower and sometimes to shit.”  Mike pulled on his hat without bothering to smooth back his dark brown hair, then lowered his scowling face dangerously close to her surprised one. “But the one thing I
don’t
stand in line for is a woman.”

* * * *

“You’re home early.”

Mike snapped his head around at the sound of his mother’s hushed voice and just barely made out her shadowy figure seated in her favorite living room chair. He hadn’t

come straight home from Bully’s. Instead, he’d driven by some of the landmarks on the compass of his childhood—Jeeter’s Market, where he used to deliver groceries on his second-hand bike; Paseo High School, where John and he had played varsity football and Charlie had lugged water for the team; and the Bijou Theater, where he’d stolen his first kiss in the last row of the balcony.

Taking a right onto Garfield Street, he’d realized with a sharp pang that those days were long gone. And that the happily-ever-after he’d always dreamed of might never happen. He’d parked the old Buick in the gravel drive that he’d helped his father build the summer before he died and entered a darkened house that had led him to believe everyone was asleep.

Now, he slid the front door’s chain lock into place and hung his hat on the hall tree. “I’ve been in the Army for three years, Mom,” he reminded her quietly. “You don’t need to wait up for me anymore.”

Millie Scanlon switched on the floor lamp behind her mission oak rocker, then stood and crossed to the Christmas tree she’d stubbornly left up until he got home. There were no lights on it because of the blackout. Still, she rearranged a couple of shiny ornaments that weren’t hanging straight enough on its drying branches to suit her.

Finally satisfied, she resumed her seat and fixed her oldest son with a reproving look. “You know how mothers are. We wait on and for our children from the day they’re born.”

“Well, you can rest easy, ma’am.”  Mike gave her a mock salute. “I’m home for the night.”

Millie pursed her lips, obviously remembering the time she’d gotten up to use the bathroom and caught him sneaking out to keep a late date with Mary Frances Walker in the hollow behind their house. He’d been in the tenth grade then and was already taller than his newly widowed mother, but he would never forget the way she’d cut him down to size. Now here he stood, a grown man, with her blistering lecture about treating girls with respect still ringing in his ears.

“Something tells me I’m not the only one who performs bed check,” she surmised.

He grimaced. “I had a battalion commander in California who believed that two weeks on KP was the cure for breaking curfew.”

“And was it?”

“If I never peel another potato, it’ll be too soon.”

She laughed softly. “Three cheers for Uncle Sam.”

Mike grinned, flashing the Scanlon dimple which, along with his height, he’d inherited from his father. He didn’t just love his mother. He liked her. A lot. She knew when to push and when to pull back. When to punish and when to praise. More important yet, she’d managed to keep her family together after her milkman husband succumbed to pneumonia.

Following the funeral, he’d offered to quit school and go to work full time to help make ends meet, but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. Neither one of his parents had graduated from high school and they had both been determined that their children would go to college. It was his father’s dying wish that he complete his education, she’d argued—using guilt when all else failed—and it was his duty to fulfill that wish.

So Mike set a goal of a law degree and, after graduating from high school, got a job as a pipe fitter’s apprentice to save money toward college. To augment his income, he also joined a field artillery regiment of the National Guard. Six months later, his unit was mobilized and he was inducted into the Army of the United States.