Continuation of Chapter Nine [9]

of danger.

The letter was sent to Washington D.C., in hopes it would cause some kind of havoc, and generate a food inspection, supposedly a Congressional Investigation. I had heard the higher ups, the officers, Sergeants, on base were taking the meat and selling it on the black-market, which I didn't care for, for the most part, so why am I getting into signing things, luckily I have access to both mess halls like they said, or it would be more personal I expect: --or I'd starve to death here, which was off limits to anyone other than Security or Military Police, people.

I had also heard the higher ups had used military equipment to create a football or baseball park for the local merchants (we are now talking about colonials and majors and perhaps a general or two); the only problem was, was that they got paid for it, and it was not allocated and properly authorized. That had happened before I came to this military base. And again, I just didn't want to get into the politics of things. One guy, Terry, had said (to me, and everyone else he caught sight of) that he was falsely inducted into the Army, and had started a law suite against the Army, and I think he was the one always trying to get even with the Government. The antagonist I called him, inside my head. I'd talk to him, but he was trouble like Ski, but more trouble I think.

As I walked to the guardhouse, my post, I was already in my green-fatigues and had my military helmet on that read SG [Security Guard] in the front middle of it, and my arm band in place, and so when I got to the gate it was just a simply matter of stepping in front of James, who was on duty, and taking over. The sun was out, I liked it, the grass was a pretty shade of green, dark with light shades interwoven, as if the sun was warming it up right in the center and lit its vanes"and somehow the whole area seemed a little too perfect today, you feel that way I think when you get a few bad days, or things go wrong for a day or two, and then when everything is fine, it kind of pushes you off balance.

"No problems this morning," James commented as he left his post, and I stepped into his position. Then he turned around and commented, "Hay, Sergeant First Class Flattery, knows Chris has been coming around, he kind of told several of us to whisper to you he knows about her staying overnight in the barracks, and it would be best you let her know not to...Yoooouu a, you knoooow... right?"

"Yaw, I figured it would be sooner or later he'd find out. But it's kind of nice he isn't being a snob about it. I guess if he tells me, he would have to write me up, you know make it official, and I could be busted to plain private instead of Private First Class."

"Yaw, that's a good point," commented James.

I started to wave a few cars through, but my mind was on how to tell Chris she couldn't walk freely through the hallways anymore. Again I refocused, and again my concentration was broken by the conversation I had a few minutes ago. I continued to wave a few cars through without attention. Then I noticed there was the colonel, I didn't salute his car, "Oh shit...I suppose this will come back to haunt me also."

James just kept walking into the main guardhouse, while I walked across the road to the other side were there was a small guard shack, we used both on each side of the road in case we needed to pull over a car leaving or coming in. On that side of the street, was where I normally went at the end of the day, when people were leaving the compound, and on the opposite side in the morning when they were coming to work.

Chris pulled up with her boyfriend's Mercedes. It wasn't a moment too late I thought, my mind was on her and what the sergeant had said, also on the thing I signed: everything, and it was a good time to give her the bad news anyhow. She stayed in her car, "You have breakfast?" She commented.

"Not yet."

She pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich, "Here's thinking of you," she smiled, and did a U-turn.

"Shit," I said, I had to turn my back as to wave another car through... and she did a damn U-turn right in the middle of my guard post: man, I feel my face hot, hold your temper, I told myself hold it, hold it back you're going to explode, I told myself.

"Here is the sandwich," she was holding it out of the window for me"

"Chris, I didn't see that, if I did, and someone saw me not see what you did, they would reprimand me for not reprimanding you, you're going to get me into trouble...!"

She smiled dumbfounded, as I simply shook my head, and she drove off the post, fast out the entrance. As a matter-of-fact, I was happy she was gone, so I could do my job, but it seemed I always looked forward to seeing her car at such strange moments, and she did show up most often; when you least expected her; as if we both had ESP, and were simply expecting the other.

"Oh," said James as he was leaving the barracks to get lunch for himself, "Chris was here earlier." I didn't respond back, his smirk on his face told me he was not happy with my setup, and him having to report to me about her comings and goings, I suppose I can't blame him, we both were First Class Private, in rank: equal. Matter-of-fact, I heard enough bad news from him for a day; maybe it was I with the smirk, plus he was no big friend, only one of the guys who kept to themselves. But he wasn't a troublemaker either, and I respected him for that. He was short, hated the Army, and like me got drafted. He shook like crazy when he was in front of officers, funny, I felt like I was at home with them, just the opposite. He was a big time coward I'm sure, and really didn't belong in the Army, the kind of guy that would get you killed in battle, god help me if I go to Vietnam and he was behind me. I would be the first one to say, 'Hay, let this man out of the Army...' he's out of sight now, in that nasty mess hall.

Now for this ham and cheese, my mind was a little calmer at the present, for some odd reason. If anything I didn't have to worry about an unannounced inspection, and the Command Sergeant Major finding her in my room, which could be quite messy; that is, she wouldn't be around to get me caught.

Matter-of-fact, it was but a few weeks ago when I and some of my comrades were painting the hallways in our barracks with their high WWII ceilings, until 2:00 AM in the morning, and left beer cans all over the place, and the Sergeant Major came through the barrack hallways that evening about 4:00 AM, and reprimanded everyone for the sloppiness of the cans, but thanked us for the fine painting job. This whole Army thing doesn't make sense, but it's a meal, a paycheck, and a roof over my head I told myself; that's a way to survive, find the good out of a troubling situation; put horns on the bad so you can walk away making it look good, that's my way of thinking, and you can survive the rest, that is, if you got to live with it.

It was a little ridiculous, maybe peculiar, I thought of the Command Sergeant Major coming into the barrack the way he did, because I was naked and had to cover-up and explain to him the situation. What an asshole,--he could have waited until the next day to confront us: --he simply thought he was a hotshot, and I guess he is as far as a military career man goes.

I waved in a few more cars through, and started to think about what Chris had told me the night before, about having a daughter. I felt a little uncomfortable with that, every time I think there is no more to this relationship she comes up with something new. Evidently she did not care to let it all out at once. She would probably decide to let me know the rest later, whatever the rest is, and somehow, I know there is more. In that mind of hers is a constant assortment of business categories rolling over and over, for most everything could be put into a form of business with her I suppose. That is not to say she was cold, not at all, just calculating.

I looked at my watch; I was getting off at 4:00 PM today, doing a half-day for a friend...who I had to pay back for taking an afternoon a while ago for me. I wanted to be with Chris that day, a month ago, or so...

Chris was going to bring Camren today, her eight-year-old daughter. We were going to go bowling. It was a pleasant idea I thought at the time we talked about it, not sure why she wants me to meet her, or for that matter, everybody she knows, she's only going to drop me when I leave Germany anyhow. Why get to know the whole clan. But maybe I'll be here for the rest of my tour, fifteen-months left. Or maybe I'll stay and take a European out, I heard about them, they are like a delayed free ticket home from an extended stay in Europe, all the way up to a year; that is to say, after you are discharged from the Army; as a result, the US Government will pay us soldier's way back home, up to a year after our release. Good deal.

As I straightened out my helmet, a car pulled up asked for directions to the motor pool.

'Let her do what she wants, I got nothing better to do,' I said out loud as the car pulled away in the direction I was pointing. It was with some effort, I refrained from swearing; she had so many deletions, things she neglected to let me know after months of dating, and then spring a kid on me.

I poised motionless, pausing for a quick release of oxygen. As I gazed up now thinking with a little resentment: of course she had taken her good old time about telling me, no rejection this way. Like fishing, pull him in slowly. When she found I was comfortable in our relationship"at any given point"something else came up, another deletion came up...this is the last straw. A fool of a woman got me lovesick, -- but it was not quite that way really, the truth of the matter is I am a little gullible, thinking women for the most part"in general, that is"do not have that kind of malice inside their bones as us men do. Oh yes, but I am learning, like that damn poem I heard, "The Spider and the Fly," I was the fly, and she was the spider, and slowly she was humming me on, tranquillizing like, and then -now"I'm in the fucken webbbb...and she's going to eat me up

but many men think like I do, I think (?)

I feel like I'm a frog being boiled alive sometimes, slowly, and the funny thing is I'm just finding out the water is boiling. Yes, yes...I'm like those dogs you train: --put a piece of meet out, turn on the light, and salivate"go for it. And then one day you turn the light on and you look around for the meat, and it is not there, only emptiness. If anything I am learning. On the other hand, I knew I was a little gullible anyway, shit, she even told me in so many words I was, I didn't believe that, like I didn't believe her illness, I don't know if I believe anything, except I'm in Germany, it is summer, the sun is out, and the grass is two shades of green, and I see the flag flying over by that big rock. Everything I believe in is right in this department called 'a minute'.

I'm here for however long they want me here, and when I go so be it. Matter-of-fact, if I do not get orders to go to Vietnam soon, I will most likely stay here out of the twenty-four month military commitment I have, I would have less than a year left. They wouldn't send me to Vietnam for eight-months, I don't think so. They never send anyone to Nam for eight-months, I'm repeating myself.

"Stop," the car entering the Kasarine doesn't have a sticker on it,

"Your ID please!"

"Is this OK sir...I just started working for the MP Mess Hall yesterday?"

"Yaw, it's ok, you're German right?"

"Yaw, why...?"

"You really need to get a sticker as an employee, or you're going to get stopped all the time and checked."

I looked into her eyes, she was young and pretty, plus she worked at my mess hall...I should say, the one I eat at.

"Go on through Miss."

She headed in the right direction, so I turned to thinking about Chris somemore, right on time"another car, no...it's Chris, she waved at me, she's coming back, no, no UUUUuuu-tueeeern...

..pleasessss

ssse no!

"Come, jump in I got to pick up my daughter at the Pizza Caf, I left her there with my girlfriend, Holly. Leave your uniform on, she'll like to see you in it."

"Hold on," I said, "I have to wave this car through, I got to get my replacement, is it time already?"

"I got it Chick...go," said my friend John. I jumped into the car.

"Good lord," I shouted, you're dressed so fancy and I'm...I'm you-- know, just kind of plain."

"Chick, not so loud, I'm right here."

"Sorry, I forgot I'm off duty." She smiled.

Carmon