Ham On Rye

Jim was splashing water on the girls. He was the Water God and they loved him. He was the possibility and the promise. He was great. He knew how to do it. I had read many books but he had read a book that I had never read. He was an artist with his little pair of bathing trunks and his balls and his wicked little look and his round ears. He was the best. I couldn't challenge him any more than I could have challenged that big son-of-a-bitch in the green coupe with the looker whose hair flowed in the wind. They both had got what they deserved. I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the green ocean of life.

I watched them come out of the water, glistening, smooth- ski

I watched Jim toweling off, using one of their towels. As I watched, somebody's child, a boy of about four came along, picked up a handful of sand and threw it in my face. Then he just stood there, glowering, his sandy stupid little mouth puckered in some kind of victory. He was a daring darling little shit. I wiggled my finger for him to come closer, come, come. He stood there.

"Little boy," I said, "come here. I have a bag of candy-covered shit for you to eat."

The fucker looked, turned and ran off. He had a stupid ass. Two little pear-shaped buttocks wobbling, almost disjointed. But, another enemy gone.

Then Jim, the lady killer, was back. He stood there over me. Glowering also.

"They're gone," he said.

I looked down to where the five girls had been and sure enough they were gone.

"Where did they go?" I asked.

"Who gives a fuck? I've got the phone numbers of the two best ones."

"Best ones for what?"

"For fucking, you jerk!"

I stood up.

"I think I'll deck you, jerk!"

His face looked good in the sea wind. I could already see him, knocked down, squirming on the sand, kicking up his white- bottomed feet. Jim backed off.

"Take it easy. Hank. Look, you can have their phone numbers!"

"Keep them. I don't have your god-damned dumb ears!"

"O.K., O.K., we're friends, remember?"

We walked up the beach to the strand where we had our bicycles locked behind someone's beach house. And as we walked along we both knew whose day it had been, and knocking somebody on their ass could not have changed that, although it might have helped, but not enough. All the way home, on our bikes, I didn't try to show him up as I had earlier. I needed something more. Maybe I needed that blonde in the green coupe with her long hair blowing in the wind.

40

R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was for the misfits. Like I said, it was either that or gym. I would have taken gym but I didn't want people to sec the boils on my back. There was something wrong with everybody enrolled in R.O.T.C. It almost entirely consisted of guys who didn't like sports or guys whose parents forced them to take R.O.T.C. because they thought it was patriotic. The parents of rich kids tended to be more patriotic because they had more to lose if the country went under. The poor parents were far less patriotic, and then often professed their patriotism only because it was expected or because it was the way they had been raised. Subconsciously they knew it wouldn't be any better or worse for them if the Russians or the Germans or the Chinese or the Japanese ran the country, especially if they had dark skin. Things might even improve. Anyhow, since many of the parents of Chelsey High were rich, we had one of the biggest R.O.T.C.'s in the city.

So we marched around in the sun and learned to dig latrines, cure snakebite, tend the wounded, tie tourniquets, bayonet the enemy; we learned about hand grenades, infiltration, deployment of troops, maneuvers, retreats, advances, mental and physical discipline; we got on the firing range, bang bang, and we got our marksmen's medals. We had actual field maneuvers, we went out into the woods and waged a mock war. We crawled on our bellies toward each other with our rifles. We were very serious. Even I was serious. There was something about it that got your blood going. It was stupid and we all knew it was stupid, most of us, but something clicked in our brains and we really wanted to get involved in it. We had an old retired Army man, Col. Sussex. He was getting senile and drooled, little trickles of saliva ru

Lt. Herman Beechcroft was best. His father owned a bakery and a hotel catering service, whatever that was. Anyhow, he was best. He always gave the same speech before a maneuver.

"Remember, you must hate the enemy! They want to rape your mother and sisters! Do you want those monsters to rape your mother and sisters?"

Lt. Beechcroft had almost no chin at all. His face dropped away suddenly and where the jaw bone should have been there was only a little button. We weren't sure if it was a deformity or not. But his eyes were magnificent in their fury, large blue biaxing symbols of war and victory.

" Whitlinger! "

"Yes, sir!"

"Would you want those guys raping your mother?"

"My mother's dead, sir."

"Oh, sorry… Drake."

" Yes, sir! "

"Would you want those guys raping your mother?"

" No, sir. "

"Good. Remember, this is war' We accept mercy but we do not give mercy. You must hate the enemy. Kill him! A dead man can't defeat you. Defeat is a disease! Victory writes history! NOW LET'S GO GET THOSE COCKSUCKERS!"

We deployed our line, sent out the advance scouts and began crawling through the brush. I could see Col. Sussex on his hill with his clipboard. It was the Blues vs. the Greens. We each had a piece of colored rag tied around our upper right arm. We were the Blues. Crawling through those bushes was pure hell. It was hot. There were bugs, dust, rocks, thorns. I didn't know where I was.

Our squad leader, Kozak, had vanished somewhere. There was no communication. We were fucked. Our mothers were going to get raped. I kept crawling forward, bruising and scratching myself, feeling lost and scared, but really feeling more the fool. All this vacant land and empty sky, hills, streams, acres and acres. Who owned it all? Probably the father of one of the rich guys. We weren't going to capture anything. The whole place was on loan to the high school. NO SMOKING. I crawled forward. We had no air cover, no tanks, nothing. We were just a bunch of fairies out on a half-assed maneuver without food, without women, without reason. I stood up, walked over and sat down with my back against a tree, put my rifle down and waited.

Everybody was lost and it didn't matter. I pulled my arm band off and waited for a Red Cross Ambulance or something. War was probably hell but the in-between parts were boring.

Then the bushes cracked open and a guy leaped out and saw me. He had on a Green arm band. A rapist. He pointed his rifle at me. I had no arm band on, it was down in the grass. He wanted to take a prisoner. I knew him. He was Harry Missions. His father owned a lumber company. I sat there against the tree.

"Blue or Green?" he hollered at me.

"I'm Mata Hari."

"A spy! I take spies!"