by Big Tobacco "Zonk!" I watch as the formation scatters. Soldiers take off running in all directions. I imagine that this would be the view inside a hunk of uranium as a neutron is introduced, splitting the company, releasing hundreds of soldiers off to cause chaos on a three day weekend. The first sergeant is that rogue neutron. But I stand in place, a lone atom of hydrogen that is about to be bonded with a corporal for CQ duty. The first sergeant approaches me: "Private Tobacco, right?" He speaks with a thick, Tennessee drawl. He seems puzzled by me. One hundred and fifty pound Jewish kids from New Jersey are about as foreign to him as a toothbrush. "Yes, first sergeant?" I say still standing at attention. "I thought you were supposed to be a smart kid. Didn't you think that when you saw everybody else running, you should have been running too?" "I didn’t want to get in trouble, first sergeant." "Well at least you are honest." He produces a chewed cigar from his PT sweatshirt pocket and lights the stick. Smoke blows in my face and I fight the sensation to cough. What a filthy, disgusting habit. "You got CQ with Corporal Lane," the first sergeant says as he walks back to his office. "Go shave and change into your BDUs." He stops and looks back at me. "Why are you still here?" I run into the barracks to change. An hour later, I am sitting in the orderly room with Corporal Lane, who is grumpy and nursing a hangover. For the next 24 hours, I will sit with Corporal Lane and answer the company phone as we wait for the call to let us know that the Russians have crossed the Fulda Gap. I look through a box of VHS tapes as Corporal Lane rests his head on a desk. "Let’s see,” say as I peruse the box of videotapes, “We got Footlose. We got Tremors. We got Quicksilver.” “Private, shut the fuck up!” Corporal Lane doesn’t move his head a millimeter. “Roger, corporal. Ghostbusters?” “Private, shut the fuck up.” “Roger, corporal. Ooh, Flatliners! Do you want Flatliners or She’s Having a Baby?” “I want you to shut the fuck up.” Corporal Lane looks up at me with bloodshot eyes. “You know what, put in Flatliners and get in the fuckin’ front leaning rest.”” For the next half hour, Corporal Lane smokes me while William Baldwin and Julia Roberts die and are revived on screen. By the time Kiefer Southerland starts being attacked by the dog, I am ready to die myself. “Get up. Shut up. Sit by the phone and don’t move,” Corporal Lane says. “I have to do my checks.” I get up and sit in the CQ chair. A half hour passes. An hour passes. I have to pee, but I won’t dare get up lest the corporal come back and see that I’ve disobeyed an order. The phone rings. My first call of the day: “Charley Company, Private Tobacco speaking. This line is unsecure. How may I help you sir or ma’am?” The voice on the phone seems distant. It’s the voice of a woman, yet she seems husky and very demanding. “Who is this?” she breaths. “Um, Private Tobacco. Charlie Company-“ “I’m going to come over and fuck you tonight.” I look the phone. What? “Er. Yes, ma’am.” I say into the mouthpiece. She hangs up. I put down the phone. What on earth just happened? Corporal Lane comes back into the orderly room trailed by two civilian workmen: “Help me move the CO’s stuff, the carpet guys are here.” “Hey, uh, corporal?” I say as I get up from the desk. “Yeah?” “Um, this woman called me and said that she was going to come over and have sex with me tonight.” The corporal gave me a wry smile: “That’s Dixie.” One of the workman turned around and points at the corporal. “Yeah, Dixie.” He turned again and looked at me: “You don’t know Dixie?” “No sir,” I say to the workman. “He’s an FNG,” the corporal says. He gestures at me, making smacking motions with his hands. “Dixie works at billeting or something. She goes around and fucks people who are on CQ.” “Like a hobby?” I ask. “Hey, some people collect stamps,” one of the workmen says. I go to the latrine. When I come back, Corporal Lane and I and help the workmen move furniture out of the commander’s officer, crowding the orderly room with chairs, desks and bookshelves. The workmen leave and reappear with a gleaming new tan rug for the commander’s office. We watch Tremors as the workmen install the new carpet in the commander’s office. When they are finished, they suggest that we wait a couple of hours before moving the furniture back into the room. I go to lunch and bring the corporal back a hamburger. We watch Friday The 13th and do some more checks around the barracks and arms room. Time passes. Corporal Lane’s hangover slowly disappears and he starts to engage me in probing conversation while we watch movies. “You sound smart,” the corporal asks, “why did you go infantry?” “I wanted to be like Moshe Dayan,” I said. “Who the fuck is Moshe Dayan?” “He was an Israeli General. He won the six day war. I wanted to be mechanized infantry like him. Thunder down the Sinai and all that, corporal.” “You Jewish?” He asks. “You sound Italian.” “There are Italian Jews, corporal. Shylock, the Merchant of Venice, was an Italian Jew. The first ghetto was in Venice.” The corporal sighs. “Dude, let me tell you this straight-up. You seem like a really smart guy and we are going to tear you apart. And it’s not because you’re Jewish. It’s because you’re weird. Your military days are numbered, dude. In fact, I’m going to smoke you right now just because I can.” The next hour is a blur of push-ups, flutter kicks and the dying cockroach. Soldiers come in to bullshit with Corporal Lane and drink coffee while they watch me suffer on the floor. Dinner comes around and Corporal Lane is tired of me. He sends me to get chow. I drag my thoroughly smoked ass out of the orderly room. When I am a safe distance from the barracks, I sit down under a tree and cry for a good five minutes. He is right. I am a 150 pound Yid that had just made the biggest mistake of my life. I pull myself together and go to chow. I pick up the meals to go in a Styrofoam container and return to the barracks. When I reach the orderly room, Corporal Lane isn’t there. Fear racks my body. The phone! What if the battalion commander had called! What if the Russians were pouring across the Fulda Gap at that very moment now my company commander wouldn’t know because somebody wasn’t by the phone! I am practically hyperventilating by this point when the commander’s office door opens. A small, rough-looking middle-aged blond with 90’s vintage teased hair appears in the door. She looks at me quizzically and lights a cigarette. She takes a drag and walks past me. “Don’t you wish you would have stayed?” she asks as she leaves. I watch her walk through the door. I turn back to the commander’s office and see Corporal Lane shimmying into his BDUs. “Corporal?” I asked. “Yeah, dude. Did you get me a hamburger?” “Uh, roger, corporal. Who was-“ “That was Dixie.” “Roger, corporal.” As we eat, the corporal relates stories of his own sexual exploits while on CQ. I sit still, only moving to eat or nod my head to his story, lest some movement result in yet another marathon smoke session. When we are finished eating the corporal says: “You know, Tobacco, you aren’t a bad guy. Now you can move the commander’s furniture back into his office.” I get up to move the furniture and deflate when Corporal Lane leans back in his chair to watch a movie. I walk into the commander’s office to evaluate the space I have to work with when I gasp in revulsion. There is a stain on the floor. “Uh, corporal?” “What, Tobacco?” “I think you might want to see this.” “You’re going to make me get up?” “Um, did she get really wet, or something, corporal?” I hear him sigh and get up from his chair. He pushes past me. “Holy shit,” he says when he sees the diameter of the stain. He looks at me. “Go get some simple green and a sponge.” I spend the next half hour scrubbing the stain while Corporal Lane watches a movie. The effort is futile. “Corporal, this isn’t coming out.” He looks around at the office furniture that crowds the orderly room. “Well, maybe we can cover it up.” The two of us move the commander’s furniture back into his room and try to arrange the guest chairs to cover the stain. The tactic doesn’t work. All of the commander’s furniture is back in the room and the stain is still uncovered in the middle of the floor. “Maybe I could get a throw rug or a bathroom mat?” I offer. For a moment, the corporal seems almost human. “No, he would know it wasn’t there before. Well, keep scrubbing it. Maybe um… go and get some bleach and one of those green scrub pads.” I retrieve bleach and the green pad. Something tells me that this is a bad idea, but I dump bleach on the stain and start to scrub. Fifteen minutes later, the stain is gone, but has been replaced by a foot-wide white splotch in the carpet. “Uh, corporal?” “What?” “Well, what do I do now?” He sees the stain. “What the fuck did you do?” “I used bleach, corporal.” “Well, did you scrub it?” “Yes, corporal.” He looks at the stain. “Let me think.” He goes back to his chair and starts to watch the movie again. After a moment, he says: “Tobacco, don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Put down your cleaning stuff. The drunks are going to start coming in soon and you need to stay by the phone.” The night is a blur of drunk infantrymen and the occasional phone call. I answer the phone as Corporal Lane runs interference on the drunks. By three in the morning, Corporal Lane finally gives me permission to stretch out on a collapsible cot. Somebody kicks the cot. I awake. I smell freshly brewing coffee. I look at my watch. It’s eight in the morning. Corporal Lane stands over me. “First sergeant wants to talk to you,” the corporal says. I leap from my cot and come to the position of parade rest. The first sergeant is wearing civilian clothes and has a cup of coffee in one hand and a manila folder in the other. He is looking at the commander’s new carpet with a scowl on his face. “Private Tobacco, come here,” the first sergeant says. “Yes first sergeant.” “Did you fuck that girl on the carpet last night?” My eyes flick over to the corporal. Corporal Lane has his arms crossed and is staring at me. “Yes, first sergeant,” I lie. “Well, did you use a condom?” “Yes, first sergeant.” The first sergeant sighs. “You boys are lucky that I forgot something and saw this before the commander did on Monday. Tobacco, you seem like a pretty smart kid and you may make a marginal infantryman one day. This is your free one. I’m going to teach you a lesson that will be more important than anything you ever learn at PLDC, BNOC, ANOC, OCS or whatever.” The first sergeant walks over to the stain and dumps his coffee on the carpet. He hands Corporal Lane the cup and speaks: “If the commander comes in, tell him the first sergeant spilled coffee on the floor.” He walks toward the orderly room door: “Always take care of your soldiers, boys.” “Roger, first sergeant,” I say as he leaves. And to this day I do. Copyright of Big Tobacco |
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