The Kaserne
A mémoire historique, that isn’t.
By Stephen Ricker
Copyright 2011 by Stephen Ricker
Smashwords Edition
The Kaserne is work of fiction. The military facilities, units, and formations did exist in the locations specified. Aside from historical figures, the characters, their speech, thoughts, and actions are entirely fictional: figments of my imagination, corresponding to no person(s) living or dead.
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The Kaserne is dedicated to those who served: The quick and dead.
Raymie Wolfsohn
16 August 1984
US Army Music Center
Wilkin Barracks
Greater Stuttgart Military Community
Kornwestheim, West Germany
My dear lovely wife Désirée and I are civil servants, working for the US Army here in the Federal Republic of Germany. We do discreet jobs of work for a quiet, yet immense, agency whose interests and activities encompass the 7 continents, four oceans, the many seas, and outer space. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is senior uncle in size, scope, seriousness, and budget to the frat boys, debutantes, and show horses at Central Intelligence Agency. As we say in the trade: our assignments are under cover. I, here at the music center located above the recreation center across the street from Wilkin Barracks. Désirée, poses as a dependent wife and post-doc scholar of romance era German poets and poetry. Those of you whose imaginations and enthusiasms tend to vivid and fanciful might suppose Désirée and I are Secret Agents; however, our projects and duties and routines are pedestrian in reference and context and scale to The Eternal Cold War.
Four years ago today, on the third anniversary of Elvis The King Presley’s peculiar death, a ghastly accident occurred across the street on Wilkin Barracks. At exactly 1500 hours, which is armyspeak for 3:00 PM, wildly frantic and hysteric female screaming issued up and out from besides the motor pool road down around the corner past the far end of the 3/71st Air Defense Artillery (ADA) building. Far away, upstairs here and across Aldinger Strasse, we clearly heard the desperate wailing. The Saturday afternoon the scouts platoon, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment (2/4), returned to post after 2 weeks training at the French commando school. The day following the night Désirée made her debut and swan song singing classic rock and roll with The Band at the post EM/NCO club; wherein, she inadvertently incited the biggest and most cinematic barroom melee I’ve seen.
On the base, as the incident commenced: Inge Schuler, the club’s German pixie cocktail elf, signed in at the front gate; she and gate guard Janney interrupted the formalities to stare down the main post road towards the source of the screaming they couldn’t see. Captain Rodgers rushed out of his basement commander’s office towards the commotion. Dr Adams, Mrs Captain Rodgers, mailroom Jenkins, and his staff of pregnant Privates First Class (Pfc) were distracted by the ruckus from getting and giving of mail in the Army Post Office. Julie Colson walked through the front gate to what would turn out a reluctant mission of mercy; and later that balmy evening, to conceive her first born child: Kelly Colson. Later that sad night, Dr Adams and Inge would finally, thanks to the efficacy of modern medicine, not conceive their first born. A few months later, Adams and Inge left Germany to found a Hegelian/Tantric fusion ashram in a town called Mullaitivu on the northeastern coast of the enchanted isle of Ceylon. Sergeant Durrell pulled up to the front gate in an army pickup truck to deliver a newbie, Private Castor, to his new unit. Corporal Martin’s heart broke, to some uncertain degree. Eventually, most everyone on Wilkin Barracks became involved. Some few responded to the horror at hand with classical fear and pity; others with shrugs of indifference; a not small contingent wallowed glee full in base morbid arousal.
Désirée’s reaction was nuanced and flamboyant, she suffered flashbacks and an episode of existential angst. The antecedents of which derive from an especially hushy low key quiet assignment we betook ourselves at the behest of our DIA masters to the arid grim north African nation of Niger; wherein, dengue fever swoop savagely upon us. Désirée refers to that whole gruesome go around with the pitiless and inflexible nature of things as WeeBee Fever. Vivid and exalted were the sudden pangs of ravenous hunger and thirst, followed fast upon with fits of cold and shivering or fervid purging restorative acute fevers. We discovered, when properly timed to our fever cycles, marital romance of the most intimate sort morphed sticky sweetly viscous from our accustomed shared hygienic sensual pleasures unto mad phantasmagoria of voluptuous rapture-like excess. There were dreams, fever dreams and hallucinations, hypersensate ultrasentient heightened realistic nonsense gone wildly amok. To this day, though she admits hallucinations, Désirée refuses to discuss them. Once I mention them, she hics and stutters, her inviolate sense of self and solid possession of dignity diminish: waver thin and shimmery about the edges; quickly beyond self control, she violates her usual immaculate self contained fastness and alternately reddens in a chaste blush, as suddenly, blanches horror stricken bloodless pale.
The army, The Big Green Machine, Uncle Sugar, as many of us are wonted to call it, operates here and abouts in a big way; and has been doing so since 1945 when, during April the US Army 100th Infantry Division’s thousands of ready, willing, able, but none too enthused soldiers fought their way into the upper Neckar river valley and the ancient and honorable German state of Baden-Württemberg. The reasons and motives behind the astounding events are much and roundly chewn and mult upon in the press, classroom, popular media, in novels and films of manly adventure, and at the family dinner table; so much so, I will not bother going into the whole tangled affair.
My dad, the late Saul Wolfsohn, paterfamilias and La Ciénaga Boulevard TV series production financier par excellent, was one among that great green horde of conquering liberators. Nothing special, just another GI struggling to survive the Big One. Dad landed in the south of France during June of ’44; he walked and fought his way into Germany and ended here, coincidentally, during the battle of Stuttgart. Whenever I invited him to visit, he demurred, saying, “Well, Raymond, I was there once before. And I didn’t have a very good time. Fact is, to this day, just thinking back on it kicks up my blood pressure a few notches.”
Brünnhilde, who poses as my secretary, whose desk and high security file cabinet and safe are wedged between drum sets and electric bass guitars, was born locally. In 1946. Once, at the Robinson Barracks (RB) Officer’s Club, where I brought her for a Secretaries Appreciation Day Luncheon, I jokingly suggested she and I were perhaps half-siblings; that her mother was one of those half starved and eminently practical German women with whom my father bartered Lucky Strikes, nylon stockings, and canned hams in return for the traditional favors of comfort to lonely soldiers far away from home and hearth during a formal military occupation. Germans are a notoriously dour people. The local variety: Schwabians, are especially humorless.
Consequent of these grand historical doings a great olive drab green statelet came to be established in and around Stuttgart, the major city and historic capital of Württemberg. This huge military organization hunkers; ready to fight any and all comers: with no war in sight. Only The Eternal Cold War. There are 8 squared dozens of army facilities in the Greater Stuttgart Military Community (GSMC): housing areas, post, bases, kasernes, missile sites, munition depots, airfields, AAFES PXs, and lots of places where they store military stuff. Everything else is called The Economy.
Hundreds of thousands of GIs and their family dependents stationed here presume the Germans, our comrades in arms, ‘Rads to most GIs, dwell on The Economy. Although few can imagine why that might be so, except for how they’re trying act all different. They believe the German’s refusal to speak right and sensible, their mulish intransigent pretending to talk German is an elaborate hoax or practical joke: A way to talk shit about us without having to wait ‘til we got our backs turned on ‘em. Local reaction to this is, well, various. And, in fairness, I too might resent the presence of several hundred thousand barely educated, heavily armed, underpaid, not completely disciplined, and altogether pissed off German occupation troops tearing up the roadbeds of Los Angeles and surrounding countryside with their armor, abusing established local customs and raping the girls next door.
To minimize or eliminate these messy international confusions the army spends wads of money providing culturally insulated entertainment and wholesome edifying recreation for the troops. Music Centers, Community Playhouses, Sporting Leagues, Arts and Crafts Centers, and Recreation Centers seem noble and uplifting goodies; however, facts are: few people use them. I include my own cover operation here at The Kornwestheim Music Center in this harsh yet realistic judgment. Our cover niche aboard the great green gravy train is, frankly, a big waste of money, time, and bureaucratic effort. I do not often mention this in public, particularly in the presence of my superiors and colleagues. But, if you are right, you’re right. I have a few soldier bands dreaming and rehearsing here: ad hoc ensembles called: The Thunder Funk Orchestra, Seldom Sober, Party Hearty, and UltraBeat. They hope to become rich and famous and adored and be not too much bothered with the tedium implicit to learning to play their instruments properly or read music. The guys beat the life out of my already exhausted electric guitars and amplifiers. The drum sets are of some practical therapeutic use as they provide a real outlet for pent up tensions basic to military living. What though ought I do with hundreds of thousand dollars worth of violins, Hawaiian guitars, alphorns, oboes, and glockenspiels? I ask you!
Oh, dear. I am rattling and raving away in a unseemly and unprofessional manner.
From my desk up here, which I have positioned so as I might gaze out quaint old style German double pane windows whenever the mood strikes, I can see the front gate of Wilkin Barracks. This Kaserne, which is the German word for barracks, is neither large nor small. The German army built it during the Nazi period and we have occupied it since 1945, doing little renovation or improvement. The buildings are large, decrepit, and musty. The electrical wiring is old and dangerous. Radiators so corroded they cannot be adjusted. It’s something of a forlorn and threadbare outpost of the cold war. The heating plants are located in dark spooky basements. Honest to God dungeons where the Jew killers stored slave servants: places no amount of need or reward tempt me to visit alone at night.
Wilkin Barracks has ghosts; bumping and groaning and whispering in the night for the most part. The 385th Military Police barrack’s ghost entertains itself staring into sleeping faces and pressing upon chests. During my time here three different babbling and hysterical MP’s were taken to Bad Cannstadt, Army 5th General Hospital, to the mental unit for observation and stabilization. This being the very heart of old middle Europe, we get an occasional itinerant vampire or two. When it happens, the installation coordinator calls the German Police (GP) Geist Kämpfer Polizei, the Spirit Fighting Police, they take the creatures to a local derelict medieval castle where the Germans operate a thriving business of seminars and writer’s retreats servicing the eternal ever vivid undead cottage industry of vampires in publishing and commercial media Anglo/American consumer never get enough. Used to be, before the Germans caught on to that nifty bit of pulp pop culture scamola, higher command dispatched a platoon of Special Forces hunter/killer psychic Ninja commandos to deal with the unholy fiends. Wonderful gothically lurid gruesome stories of those encounters form an integral part of local GI lore.
Though interesting, haunting it is not tangent to the spirit and purpose of this modest document. No, not at all. I am intent upon documentation, most strictly so, as to conform to the exacting and rigorous standards of a mémiore historique; although, I hope not be accused of pedantry or dullness of descriptive style or uninteresting selection of representative events. I might even be so free as to engage in a bit of whimsy and psychological speculation, for color and whatnot, as best my abilities permit. I can assure you, nothing written here is at variance with facts-observed or tales heard directly from peoples involved.
I am quite keen on pulling off an effect or two one might call literary or artistic. You see, during the silly seasons, Désirée volunteers at our local dependent’s overseas elementary school down the road in the Pattonville housing area. Désirée likes children, but not quite enough to conceive and bare one to term though. The principal there, a certain Dr George Goodrich, is a pompous ass who puts on airs of literary ability, perhaps a spark of genius. He is yet another one of those irritating St. Louis, Missouri anglophiliatic literati who persist preceding with An initial sounding H-words such as Hotel, Ximenez, or Whodunit. He has been trying for years now to write a serious literary novel about the army here in Europe, but his starts proved false.
He often says, “All of this is so bizarre, genuinely perverse even, that by chapter five my accounts read as crassly commercial bug-eyed monster genre science fiction pulps will.”
Ol’ George has had his rheumy eye on my lovely Désirée for some time. In fact, I have reason to suspect, while they were at an educator’s workshop in Munich, during a moment of weakness, the smelling old bag had his way with her. Goodrich’s approach, that tack he takes to storm my dear Désirée’s citadel, is simultaneously crow and strut his self awarded artistic sensibility while regretting Désirée must live a life, be degraded and somehow lowered spiritually, with a plodding type bureaucrat as I. He slyly depicts me a loathsome unimaginative nerd who, as an adolescent, was chubby, pimply faced, and spent time in the attic reading science fiction, gobbling Reesey Cups, and jerking off. I feel this characterization is grossly unfair: Although I am a member in good standing of The Star Trek Association. Naturally, George Porgie isn’t cleared to know of our other duties. He believes our cover stories. I freely grant Désirée is a step-up: Out of my league, so to speak. She is a beautiful woman; strikingly so, passing Lufthansa pilots often swoop for a closer look. She earned better degrees than I. Phi Beta Kappa, no less. So, you understand why I am eager to include a bit of creativity and insight and artfulness in this admittedly realistic historical document; to expose and reveal in best light hitherto unknown and unappreciated facets of my character and abilities. I desire to raise the value of my stock in Désirée’s estimation. As it were. You see. I love her dearly.
I digress.
Again.
As I said: From my desk here on the 2nd floor I can see the front gate of Wilkin Barracks. The Nazis called the place Hindenburg Kaserne. The army renamed it Wilkin Barracks in honor of Corporal Edward G. Wilkin who was awarded a posthumous congressional medal of honor for conspicuous bravery during an assault on the Siegfried Line in 1945. Today is much like that day exactly four year ago. The weather is unusually still, balmy and hot. A genuine midwest style heat wave. Rare northern European heat that pushes depressives to suicide; and on army bases in Germany, provokes race riots and brawls in the club. Four years ago today, Saturday, 16 August 1980 a tragedy occurred on Wilkin Barracks. I do believe it can be called a tragedy. I recall from my college days there are specific structural and procedural elements to tragedy. I shall look into the matter. Or, ask Désirée. Army policy since 1979 is to not assign soldiers to overseas duty for longer than three years at a stretch. My dear Désirée and I are the only civilian witnesses still in the area. Anyway, the incident commenced at 1500 hrs and wrecked its way to conclusion for six dreadful minutes, not unlike like the proverbial Wrath of God. It involved two GI’s who were wonderfully in love. The lives of Corporal Oleolander and Paulette Broaring were directly and awfully struck; and, the event touched profoundly many others among us.
I should like now explain how and why that is.
Corporal Oleolander
Fort Fucking Dix. New Jersey. A place so pissant the local trolls are actual proud of a ratty low life dive like the Pink Flamingo Lounge: pointing it out like it’s some national shrine or tomb of a president instead of hiding it back of some billboards the way any other unmutated people would that don’t eat, drink, and breath toxic waste all their lives from every kind of chemical factory there is around here.
Basic training. Six weeks of mindfuck, little sleep, chicken shit discipline, and lots of pushups. Mostly pushups, with some gorilla squats and wind sprints thrown in between for variety: but your basic grunt sweat pushup is preferred and traditional. At mail call every day all us grubby, sleepy, and generally pissed off troops assemble in the company area where the Drill Sergeant passes out packages and letters like it’s a favor instead of a right a soldier’s got. Like if we’re real good the he’s going to pass around free pussy or Leprechaun gold instead of stale cookies from Mom or a bible from some churchy virgin girlfriend back home didn’t have the consideration to put out even one time before you left town for the Army where you’re maybe going to end up getting blowed away or your dick shot off by some foreigner. The Drill Sergeant picks up every piece of mail like it’s the first time he ever saw one, he examinates it to see if there’s hearts and kisses on the outside and sniff for perfume smells.
If the guy who it’s for is a farm boy out a say Kansas the Drill Sergeant says, “Cavanaugh! I never have seen any barnyard stock with such sweet pretty little lips like on this here envelope. What kind a stock you yokels humping Saturday nights? Give me 30 pushups for doing unnatural acts with animals.”
Or if the return address is from New York City or Florida or California he says, “Everly, your boyfriend must be one butt ugly faggot he’s got time in between getting ass fucked to write letters. Give me 40!”
The color of the envelope, shape of the postage, weight of the package, or whatever whims and particularity of mood strikes the man is enough reason to assign us all remedial pushups.
A guy expects to do a lot of them in basic for no really comprehensible reason.
Now and again, not too often though, the Drill Sergeant shouts, “Oleolander! You got too damned many letters in your name. I can’t say it all out easy. Give me 40.”
Oleolander replies, “Yes, Drill Sergeant!” Carry out the command. Stand up again and shout, “Thank you, Drill Sergeant!” And accept his mail. He did not receive so much mail as to exhaust himself or curse his father’s name; however, those unplanned exercises coming as they did after a grueling day begun at 3:30 AM were sufficient for Oleolander to regret somewhat his literacy and his mother’s too anxious concern.
Oleolander was willing to do 10,000 pushups, endure 1,000 all night forced marches, and dig miles of trenches to become an expert soldier. For 2 years he lacked certainty and conviction, since he graduated high school and Oleolander got hisself kicked out the house. Understand, he wasn’t purely discarded or shunned in any way; in fact, his father said if Oleolander managed to swing the down payment and mortgage they’d be real pleased when moved back into the neighborhood.
Back then, back before he knew his true calling as A Warrior, Oleolander was going to Drive Truck. Not candy-assed short haul delivery wagons. But big ol’ honking highway mangling kickass cross-country tractors and trailers. Kinda Truck Driving Cowboy where a man is known and respected for his strength and courage, his wit and humor, and for the bigness of his heart; or else, if he ain’t good enough, gets his sorry ass kicked by Smoky, then all a the whores with hearts of gold’ll just act like he’s only another limp-dick factory drone that has to pay for it too.
Back home, Bossier City, Louisiana is a town full of nothing but drones and geldings and shranken souls who walk around on two legs like real men and women. It’s all people who don’t have a pig’s idea about camaraderie and doing wild and crazy deep heartfelt stuff just on a bet or willing to get your butt beat by a bunch of shitkicker California bikers because they said a insult on the honor of a good old buddy of yours. Bossier City is the kind of place where a true trucker’s soul withers up and dies because all they got there to drive is some Jap-made 4-banger tin can rice cookers without even a CB radio or a Blaupunkt Country and Western tape player system in ‘em. Driving around delivering Tidy-Diddies to the rich bitches over at Sherwood Forest Manors who’re too lazy and lacking self respect to take care of her own children. Kinda place they sit around bitching and grousing how come they ain’t got a better dental plan on their comprehensive health-net and the old lady’s tits are sagging. All a that bullshit instead a speed-balling a vital load a cargo 72 hours straight knowing you’re squeezing the last bit of endurance you got in you and coming up this side of Tulsa there’s a whorey truck stop diner waitress waiting to hear your CB handle who knows exactly how you like your breakfast cooked and she has her wise ways to know what a man needs to soothe away his truck driving cowboy pain and heartache before you up and make the final last blazing run into Atlanta.
Oleolander packs his dad’s old Army duffel bag with clothes, a good sharp knife, and a Good To Go! jumbo coffee mug. Stashes his savings into his right sock and hitches a ride to the interstate where he figures he’ll thumb another ride on a big rig northbound into Memphis. Oleolander knows how after a few hours in the cab with any kind of real trucker, the guy will know nature instinct Oleolander has the heart and guts and rambling spirit to make the cut and he’ll take Oleolander on as apprentice.
Over across the interstate is Johnson’s Woods, which aren’t hardly woods anymore but mostly piney scrub and poison oak and no account sorry ass rodents. First time, Johnson’s Woods got clear-cut by a traveling jobber mill in 1869 for good straight building board to replace everything the Yankees burned down in 1864. 30 years later another jobber came in and clear-cut again after it was mostly all growed back with tall pines and clearings. There was still deer and bear and real wildlife. They didn’t cut for prime construction lumber because the growth was young and more spindly than virgin forest. Nobody bothered with the third growth until 1947 when they clear-cut it for paper pulp because there wasn’t a tree in the forest straight enough to get chop sticks. By June of 1976, when Oleolander got his self kicked out the house, Johnson’s Woods was a tinder scrub of malnourished treeish things, none higher than 5 feet, clinging to barren stone and patches of starved red/gray soil. Home to mice and rats and bugs and snakes. It was reduced and diminished, to a grainy antique black and white 3rd rate picture of The Tall Timber. Oleolander tries to imagine the primeval forest, teeming with strong healthy game animals and predators; Indians dancing and hooting around a blazing campfire whipping themselves into a frantic blood thirst; Johnny Reb’ partisans stalking blue belly Yankees invaders; when he notices the surveyor’s stakes.
More falling down cheap shit built condos going up.
He raises both arms full stretched above his head and flips the middle fingers to Johnson, his woods, and Bossier City in general.
Oleolander is jumping up and down, his fists and two fingers pointed towards the woods, when the semi’s honking air-horn goes off like the trombones and tubas of hell. Hard gray shoulder gravel spray fast and hard at Oleolander’s shin bones, huge recap tires nearly squish his toes bigtime under tons of Peterbuilt tractor and double tow trailers, its air-brakes whooshing, crying out shrill a terrific fierce powerful animal blowing hot winds of uncracked diesel, overworked oil, hot steel, and rubber that even trying to stop, draws awesome with momentum and gravity. Oleolander grabs his duffle and runs to the cab where a skinny-jawed tired looking driver needs a shave and a trim on his DA is leaning over the shotgun seat and holding open the passenger side door.
He says, “I do guess judging from them signals a yours and your duffel bag you’re looking for a hitch. I gotta say, bud, you got the damndest style. Where you headed too?”
“Anyplace there’s truck to drive.”
“Hop on in then.”
Oleolander grabs a quick look into the back of the cab just make sure the guy isn’t rolling with his big orange monkey. Quick and natural, like he’s been on the job a long time, Oleolander swings himself up into the shotgun seat.
Inside there’s a extra long bumper sticker stuck onto the windshield facing inside says on it: All a Hells Wrath Ain’t Got Shit On My Fury.
After they go through the small talk and personal stuff and generally checking each other out Oleolander launches straight into how he’s looking to hitch up with a trucker and become one a them himself.
Cye, that’s the guys name, says, “Kid? Ain’t you heard about De-Fucking-Regulation? All them damned shit-ass socialists over at Washington-Jewtown-DC are killing the old honest trucking business. Used to be a driver, all he had to do was show up at the hall or his shop, get his ticket and off he’d go making good money in a company truck without no pissing and moaning about it. Now it’s ever guy for himself scrambling around like god damned door-to-door miracle hand cleaner salesmen rustling up his own runs on the lowest bidder. And that’s in your own god damned truck costs more than a decent doublewide on a couple of flat laying acres. All kinds a guys are going broke that can’t even make enough for diesel. Shit! I got retreads on my Pete’ here things are so bad. You see, it’s them Washington socialists trying to wreck the trucking industry so’s the Jews can take it over and hire them some nigger drivers what’ll roll for watermelon and fried chicken and a shot at a piece of Jew pussy on the Sabbath Day.”
Cye ragged and rattled on and on the same way all afternoon long and Oleolander had to admit it did sound depressing: how a honest good old boy can’t make a living anymore. ‘Round about Little Rock, he got to thinking about how if Cye spent less time worrying about the Jews and socialists and That Fonda Bitch and put in more time using his natural truck driving cowboy humor and charm and big heart winning over some big company shippers he could get back to the happy go lucky truck driving way of life.
Mid-State Number 7 Truck Depot isn’t like any kind of trucker’s hangout Oleolander ever did hear about that any good old boys stop to get their go-go juice at, get some eats from heart of gold slutty wisecracking waitresses, and sometime get into a broad open highways adventure. It’s more like a huge old converted Howard Johnson’s with a whole shit load of diesel pumps out front. Fact of it is there are even a bunch of out a state family looking station wagons with all kinds of vacation crapola tied onto the roofs parked out front. Cye gets the tanks topped off and instead of paying for it out of a big old horse-choker wad of twenties and hundreds he won last night skinning a bunch of slick smart alecky downtown Memphis city niggers at a 24 hour floating crap game, he uses a plain old Ohio/Exxon credit card not any bit different than Oleolander’s old man carries in his plastic fake snake-skin wallet. While they parked the rig away in the lot so they could go chow down Cye went on bitching away about how the Arabs and Rockefellers are in cahoots jacking up the price of oil along with the damn Jews charging kick ass interest rates on every kind a plastic a guy’s got to have to make it from month to month anymore. Cye tells Oleolander to leave his duffle in the cab because he has hisself a extra heavy security kit installed onto it on account a how the greasers and shit skins and sleaze balls in general try every time to rip off a guy who still works for a living.
Inside looks like a gigantic MacDonald’s with these kids Christmas tinker toy orange plastic tables with 4 little bucket seats bolted onto the floor around them: like something they’d put in a high school library/multipurpose room. In fact, what with the fluorescent lights and Please Clean Up After Yourself trash can signs next to where you go get your condiments at, they’re free with the meal, but still you might want to pass them up if a guy’s got to walk extra, the whole bright light echoing place looks less warm and friendly and camaraderie even than a library. Oleolander figures all a the regular truck driving cowboy places must a been tooken over by California biker gangs or Baptists or closed down on orders of Smokey.
They sit down in one of the rinky-dink cheapo butt ache hard table rigs. Cye mentions the Original Homemade Bavarian Meat Loaf Dinner Plate is pretty good and the coffee don’t get a burnt aluminum taste to it until after midnight. He goes on saying how he really appreciates having a eager beaver guy like Oleolander to talk to on the road and how it perks up his own outlook that was sagging down lately on account of De-Fucking-Regulation was kicking his ass some. Cye stands up and tells Oleolander to order him a meatloaf and whatever he wants for himself because it’s on Cye; he heads off way across the restaurant and around a corner to the rest room to take a dump and wash up some.
A waitress shows up wearing one of those light blue rough cotton uniforms the world never will get rid of; like they’re made special by blind kids and other pathetic cripples and restaurants keep ordering them out of pure pity and heartbreak. Hers is way too small in the top part, probably because blind kids didn’t know nothing about titties. Or else it’s the biggest size they make, because this waitress has huge knockers. An oval shaped embroidered nametag says Dotty on it is stretched out smooth and taunt on where her big left tittie is at and it looks like the thread is going to give way any second and Dotty will pop off her uniform and ricochet off some guy’s head. And pretty painful fast and hard at that too.
Even being that Cye never did let him touch the wheel even once. And never mind his first trucker hangout is a county jail looking recreation room somebody went nuts on with orange paint. Oleolander is still up to living the true Truck Driving Cowboy way of life. He looks up to the waitress and puts on his best lopsided good old boy grin and says, “Well, hiya Dotty. What’s the other one named?”
Oleolander honestly was expecting a good ol’ gal shucks gum snapping Don’t mean no harm by it repartee and wisecracks from the waitress; instead, she reaches into her apron pocket and pulls out a tiny pen flashlight thingy and squirts a handy dose of Mace onto both of Oleolander’s eyes. He’s down on the linoleum thrashing away with every joint’s any give to it and clawing at his eyes to wipe the damned stuff off when this old nigger janitor wearing a white paper cunt cap starts prodding at him with his push broom and ordering Oleolander off a the property like he was Pharaoh Tut himself. After a couple of pretty hard broom pokes Oleolander struggles up onto his feet, nearly falling back down again, when the janitor gets in jabbing him at the small of his back, herding him along towards the front door. Oleolander figured how fiendish Jap torture or staked out on a hill of red fire ants by Comanches couldn’t be half as painful as 2 eyeballs full a Mace he’d rubbed in real good by then. He staggers along to the door like a sterno-blinded wino playing at See No Evil until he crashes into the panic bar with his hip and the plate glass with his forehead. Somebody: Dotty, the janitor, or a trucker grabs him back by the shoulder, opens the front door, and gives him a goodly shove into the humid twilight air.
Oleolander is laying there total piteous on the concrete outside the depot like a no account welfare bum, or a drunk, or a California hippie all fucked up on drugs. Laying there with both hands clamped hard and still across his face because some wounded wolf nature instinct tells him clear and true rubbing at the Mace only will make it worse than it already is, which is pretty ass ripping bad. Hot acid-coated bits of jagged broken glass grind slow, medium, and frantic into his eyeballs and the insides of his nose, his lips, and in between this fingers where they meet up with the hand. Hell, someway there’s some of it inside of his left ear hole.
There’s a lot of traffic going in and out of the restaurant, guys just stepping over and around Oleolander’s pitiful sprawled out body. 2 or 3 different guys stop long enough to give him a swift kick or 2. No mean personal fighting hard kicks, but not just taps and nudges either, more just being curious or playful. Oleolander doesn’t take any offence because kicking a guy who’s down and helpless and pathetic is about as natural as face fucking a whore or pissing on a faggot. Through the misery and pain and humiliation Oleolander never does ever loose faith when Cye comes out of the pisser and sees what happened he’ll fill with the spirit of battle and truckers pride, no matter how bad the odds are, set himself to kicking some booty and taking that candy ass tinker toy place apart to avenge Oleolander.
‘Round about a hour later Cye shows up and he’s dragging along Oleolander’s duffel behind him over to where Oleolander crawled off to the side and out of the way of the good natured kicks.
Cye says, “Kid, I suppose I ought a told you about the Mace and how Dotty’s right particular about her honor if you ain’t paying. You damned near ruined the whole run for me in there. I just love me them big titties and hefty round fat behind Dotty’s got. Yes Sir, I tell you, like I always say: If she’s got her big behin’, she’s a friend a mine. After I ate my supper, it took me a whole extra lot a talking and the promise of $50.00 on top a the usual to get her on out to my cab for a slam bam quickie dessert. Shit, I was getting to like you enough I was planning to buy you sloppy seconds. Free a charge. All on good old Cye. My advice to you kid: hitch your next ride out west. Them good old boy cowboys out there ain’t got them no ideas about the finer social graces and how to treat a lady that’s got her a fat behind and big titties. You’ll fit in out there just great.”
Though Oleolander’s misery abated some the last hour, he still didn’t feel fit enough to answer Cye or stand to shake his hand or even to give him a comrades of the road manly hug. After Cye had droven off, Oleolander dragged himself and his duffle into some nearby bushes so Smokey wouldn’t roust him for vagrancy. Next morning the automatic sprinklers came on and Oleolander managed to rinse off his sore eyeballs and nostril and mouth pretty good before getting himself too completely soaking wet. He used the restroom and bought himself a coffee and ham sandwich from the vending machines and took himself over to the truck park exit that’s pointing west towards Fort Smith to hitch another ride.
West. There’s plenty of it out there.
Sergeant Durrell
Durrell is an E5 buck sergeant, 28 years old, Vietnam veteran, a soldier on and off now for 6 years. He has driven to Frankfurt International Airport today to meet and escort Harry Castor to his new duty station at Wilkin Barracks. Durrell is not doing this fine and good deed as a gesture of friendship to Harry, a sense of humanity, or even finer feeling for military brotherhoodship in arms: Durrell is being punished with this tedious escort detail, lightly so, for intemperance and brawling in the club last night. Friday. A bit of good natured recreational brawling and fisticuffs between white soldiers on a payday Friday night is expected, de rigueur, traditional even; however, last night’s good old boys having some fun of a beat up and knock about was inflamed and exacerbated by infantry’s return to base after 2 weeks away at The French commando school; and, by addition of a volatile accelerant to the nascent inferno: My dear wife Désirée’s provocative, and, dare I go as far as to say, even brilliantly scandalous debut chanteuseering ‘60s classic rock and roll.
Between enlistments, following a tour in Vietnam, sergeant Durrell used his GI bill to earn an undistinguished bachelor of arts in political science from an indifferent Florida state college. This was before that inspired Roosevelt era program faded into history along with the draft. He figured doing homework was as good a way as anything else to clear out his ‘Nam heebie-jeebies: it didn’t really work, but the weather in Florida was nice and he even learned to swim. Durrell is, in nearly everyone’s estimation, a drunk of unfortunate but not yet truly sad stature. A point Durrell neither disputes nor resents. Durrell is the NCO In Charge (NCOIC) and spiritual and intellectual light of his social set: The Dog Brothers; most of whom are 18-20 years old and members of the scouts platoon of Bravo Company, 4th Infantry Battalion. They are white, drink a lot of beer, and enjoy a good brawling punch-up. Especially if MPs are involved in the mêlée, which lends a certain extra authentic aura of back home living while stationed in a foreign land. As a group, they dislike Durrell, but respect his erudition and carriage. Durrell intended the name Dog Brothers to be ironical; but his devotees and the higher command at 2/4 infantry embraced it as a good to go and hot to trot celebration of their prowess and dedication to martial élan.
Private (Harry) Castor, age nineteen, lately of Wyoming, fourteen months in the army, is nervously self-conscious of being The Newbie. The FNG. He was met and welcomed to Germany at the Frankfurt International Airport, Der Flughafen to the locals. This happened at 11:45 AM on the 16th of August 1980.
Private Castor is wearing the second suit of clothes to include a tie he ever has owned. He wore his first suit one time only, for his high school graduation ceremony. Private Castor’s mother insisted he do so, as she hoped the end of her son’s high school career would be more elegant and inspiring than their Wyoming boomtown surroundings bode. This second suit, a Class-A uniform, is a two-button affair in military dark field-green: Coat, tie, and trousers. The shirt is a lighter shade of synthetic green no self-respecting plant will ever mutate and select. Pvt Castor habitually stores the tie, pre-knotted, in his barrack’s locker. On the day the army issued Pvt Castor the tie he managed to persuade a somewhat more worldly recruit to properly arrange that unlikely Croatian fashion rage. Pvt Castor worries he won’t always find another such sophisto as his circumstances might demand.
Pvt Castor is feeling fatigued, he is not so experienced a traveler as to identify the sensation as jet lag. When Sergeant Durrell first sees him, Castor is leaning against a heavy square terrazzo-faced pillar and gazing without particular attention at the passing crowds. The newbie is quietly humming the melody line of a ‘70s soft-rock ballad from MegaDeath’s seventh album.
Were Harry less a dreamer and sensationalist, given over instead to objective introspection, he would organize his feelings and apprehensions at leaving his native land in the following order:
1. Sense of loss for the familiar in his life: His family, the eminent utility of his Ford pickup truck, the excellence and diversity of USA television programming, and a comfortable knowledge of his homeland’s courtship rituals and rites.
2. Unabashed awe of the Pan Am 747 Clipper and the comeliness of its flight attendants.
3. Amusement at the sounds of the German. A national language the neighbors have found anything but amusing these many centuries.
Sgt Durrell and Harry spend more than three hours driving back to Stuttgart. One would normally expect to cover the route in two hours: but Durrell is conservative in his method. The drive is harrowing, as the army forced him to acquire this basic American skill only later in life.
I have an epic hangover, a fricking welt-quality bruise up side my head where some sneering-eyed GP whacked me with one a those evil flexi vibrating truncheons they carry. And, I have the horrors. By rights I ought a be bunked up in my rack. With the door locked. Why is it a man who works in the same building where he lives at needs a driver’s license is another damned inscrutable army mystery. Whenever I need to get around and deploy to the field the army has themselves all kinds of special trained eager beaver motor heads to operate the tanks and APCs and jeeps and trucks. Even a whole damned division of crazy ‘Nam-Nuts wild-eyed chopper pilots to get me where they want me to go. Damn near all of my men believe they’re natural born truck driving cowboys. So why in the hell do I have to drive this piece of shit M880 like I’m in a demolition derby with these ‘Rads here on the autobahn?
Their means of conveyance is what the army calls as an M880. What civilians call a Dodge 4-wheel drive pickup truck of immaculate not military design and function. Uncle Sugar got these vehicles in exchange for bailing out Chrysler from its feckless lame-brained follies in 1979. The army transformed these civilian vehicles into tactical M880’s by removing the AM radio and repainting them a variegated camouflage pattern. As they were not sufficiently robust for military use, when compared to purpose-designed and built tactical vehicles, most of the M880s were unceremoniously junked within a few years or PDOed (Property Disposal Office, which are these great used gear and junkyards the army keeps to sell off its extra, obsolete, unwanted, and plain busted up stuff. I figure if you poke around in PDO long enough you’d finally assemble enough spare parts of this and that to construct an entire working starship warp-factor thingamajiggy.). While they lasted, GIs liked driving them ‘cause it felt like being back home. The army transformed these civilian vehicles into tactical M880’s by removing the AM radio and repainting them a variegated camouflage pattern. Durrell drew it earlier today from of the 3/71st Air Defense Artillery, Headquarters Company’s motor pool. Its state of upkeep and mechanical reliability can only be guessed at, as vehicles from the motor pool are often dispatched without oil in the crankcase or with hamstrung emergency breaks. A soldier wise in the ways of the early all volunteer army knows never ever to expect both a jack and a properly repaired and inflated spare tire.
Harry asks, “Sergeant?”
“Whatcha got, kid?”
“Is it always so hot here?”
“Nope. This is freakish. Normal German weather fluctuates between almost comfortable and blue-butt freezing. What’s the problem? This piece of shit vehicle’s Mark 265 AC is dialed up to the max.”
“265?”
“Yeah. 2 windows down, 65 miles per hour.”
Harry is awed by and envious of autobahn: Speed, perfectly designed banking turns, and long flawless straight a ways. He is particularly taken by the number of Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Porsches zipping past them and their poor plodding abused and misused heap of Detroit steel. Luxurious items. Expensive, exotic, and indicative of class status among the nabobs of America; spiritually stunted and restrained, as it were, by pokey fuel saving 55 mph interstate highway speed limits. Harry searches out and sets sight on several ramshackle medieval castles and fortifications atop the riotously verdant hills to either side of the autobahn; something easily enough done, as autobahns follow established trade routes upon which the local lords and brigands of the castles robbed or extorted tolls from passing travelers and merchantmen for their livelihood and local prestige. Harry grows bored with tourist novelty after about two hours, but resolves to make further and closer photographic inspections at a later date. During his 2 years long stay in the Federal Republic Harry never did quite manage that cultural experience, although he did buy a packet of picture post cards at the main PX on Robinson Barracks so his mother could enjoy the castles and battlements too.
Strains of the drive and Harry’s growing apprehensions of his new circumstances keep conversation between the two soldiers to the minimum of basic information. As Sgt Durrell and his newbie exit the autobahn at Ludwigsburg though, Durrell’s tongue and thoughts loosen remarkably.
He says, “This is it. Well, not really yet. This is the city of Ludwigsburg, which has five of our posts. You can call them Kasernes too, which is what the old time Nazi ‘Rads called their bases, posts, and barracks. When it’s a kaserne we took in ’45 and the army decided to commemorate it special after some poor GI got himself killed spectacular and earned a Medal of Honor; then it’s called the American name: like Coffey Barracks here in Ludwigsburg or Wilkin Barracks. Next comes Kornwestheim. It has two posts and three housing areas. You’re going to Wilkin Barracks, in Korn City, to 3/71st ADA. There are also 2 companies of Infantry there, and one company of Military Police: The 3/85th”
They drive southy along B-27 through central Ludwigsburg and Durrell is careful to point out the various army posts along the way. He nods to the left and says, “You can tell we are almost there: because you start to see niggers on the street. The Germans don’t have any of their own. Only Turks, who they treat like niggers anyways. Course, like everywhere else these days, it’s best not to call them niggers out loud in public and in front of officers unless you want to get written up and disciplined; or, in front of the brothers either, unless you want to get written up and your ass kicked too. ‘Round abouts here we have a quaint local convention helps avoid these problems. What you do in polite society is call the niggers WeeBees. And then everything is beau coupe better. I don’t know where it came from; everybody on Wilkin’s was already using it back when I got here. What it refers to is how the niggers and some California professor says is their language: Ebonics, and how they always conjugate the verb to be in present tense singular: I be. You be. We all be. WeeBees. Rhymes with SeaBees. The Navy guys. SeaBees, they have themselves this motto: Rude, Crude, and Socially UnAcceptable, which my men would love to have. But it’s already taken.”
Harry carefully remarks this intelligence.
This is going to be a pain. I wish he would stop saying nigger so much. But if everyone else does it, I guess I’ll have to start too. After the time honored fashions of the true, the simple, and the just: Harry accepts the issue as settled.
He asks, “How much longer?”
“Almost there, as a matter of fact. We take this turnoff here, at Kornwestheim Nord, as the ‘Rads say. The army likes us to call the Germans our Comrades In Arms. So we shorten it out in the interests of brevity and simplification and call them ‘Rads.”
Harry’s parents (Who might as well be named Bud and Ethel of Indiana but are actually Harold and Carol of West Pennsylvania coal country) were transferred some years ago by The Company to the new fields in Wyoming. The entire family regretted leaving Pennsylvania: their family, friends, and comfortable customs for what was basically a slapdash boomtown out on the windswept open high plains of Wyoming. During 1974 the ubiquitous They of the federal government, reeling under the effects of the first OPEC oil embargo, were under pressure to encourage and to lavishly subsidize and encourage private initiative and the spirit of free enterprise to exploit the considerable coalfields and shale oil in the western United States. Harry Castor Senior, being a man of known common sense and experience in coal was chosen/commanded by his superiors to assist the effusion of free market initiative and creativity. Many nights Harold and Carol lay in bed discussing the proposition. Harold’s job was not immediately in jeopardy there in Pennsylvania, but in a company town where 20% unemployment was the norm, even during boom periods, nothing could be certain.
An awesome network of Castor familial relations spread out through the Pennsylvania coal country. The names Castor/Eisminger/Castorp/Carr are found on local tombstones going back over two hundred years to revolutionary times when the first of them arrived upon the verdant plains and seas of golden grain as Hessian mercenaries in the employ of Looney King George. Naturally, being sensible and grimly rational ‘Rads, they deserted and/or switched sides to the radically liberal democratic colonist’s banner.
Hey, a free boat ride’s a free boat ride.
A matter of great concern, was leaving their chosen church: one of several variants of middle stream Baptist most of clan belonged; save for a few old time Quakers who managed, clinging to principle, to resist the war hysterias of 1917-18 and ’41-’45. The Castor’s congregation was a bulwark abandoned only with hesitation.
The Castors managed by way of contemplative spirituality and difficult rejection of long standing local traditional wisdom to inculcate in their children an abiding sense of and respect for simple human dignity. Harry learned, and he respected the judgment of the lesson, to reject such tags: Nigger, wop, kike, yid, spic, and hillbilly. Mexican-Americans and East Asian Orientals being otherwise unknown in West Pennsylvania at the time.
We shall have to place our trust in good Harry’s youthful fortitude and honest sense of personal integrity to resist the allure of peer conformity during his 2-year tour of duty at Wilkin Barracks. No mean feat this, as the US Army of 1980 is a troop force of forty per cent northern urban blacks, forty percent ruralish southern whites, and twenty per cent of everyone else.
Durrell and Castor, their M880 dangerously overheated, turn left off of Aldinger Strasse to the front gate of Wilkin Barracks. It is exactly 3:00 PM. Durrell stops at the vehicle barrier and awaits permission to enter from the gate guard, who is standing in the roadway and staring with great intent not a the M880 but down onto the post, off towards the far end of the 3/71st Air Defense Artillery barracks. Seventy-five meters down the road, along the right hand turning to the motor pool: from where, a female is screaming at an hysterical pitch, volume, and tempo. Why, we can hardly guess: Physical pain, grief, aimless violence, rape, or any other of the strange yet likely outrages normal on Wilkin Barracks. I am but a simple historian and curious observer, thereby required to avoid fanciful or poetic speculation.
Durrell, whose nerves are overwrought and bladder full, is impatient with the gate guard’s dereliction and honks the M880’s horn.
He says to Castor, “Damn nigger guards! They always put the real zeros on the gate. And then they wonder why terrorists can leave bombs in the clubs and these fucking German whores are living in the barracks. You see the cobblestones there? All the roads on post are cobblestones. Left over from when the Nazis built the place. Look quaint, don’t they? Back home, in the world, tourists come from hundreds of miles around to look at cobblestones. Well, during the winter they are nothing but a hazard to anything on wheels. You skid like a motherfucker and cannot stop to save your ass or anyone else’s. And these so called barracks, our beloved living accommodations, were also left us by the Nazis. They’re abominable. The Wehrmacht’s revenge, I call them.”
What’s a Wehrmacht?”
“It’s what the Nazi ‘Rads called their army; until we kicked the shit out of it 7 ways to Sunday.”
“I thought it was the Soviets defeated the Nazis.”
“Kid, given our mission and tactical/strategic situation over here, it’s best not to dwell too deep on inconvenient truths and pesky points of fact.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The gate guard brings a military vehicle dispatch form and clipboard to Durrell’s window. As Durrell fills in the time, mileage, and his signature in the appropriate spaces he asks, “What’s going on down there?”
The guard says, “Some dude messed up.”
Formalities completed, formalities are the bedrock upon which our army rests, the guard raises the vehicle barrier and neatly signals Durrell to proceed.
Some dude messed up. What is language for other than to clearly describe action, circumstances, and thought? What does some dude messed up tell me? Nothing! Illiterate cretin nigger. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here with these idiots.
Pfc Janney
The M880 with the smart-ass Sergeant and the sucker newbie drive onto the Kaserne ‘bout 15 feet and park on the red zone front of ADA headquarters section.
Janney puts down the barrier gate. He looks at the red and white stripe paint him and two other guys painted onto it last week ‘cause they messed up and got in trouble coming late to work in the mailroom it was and how long took to get away the paint smell off his hand after.
The woman starts up screaming again, a higher up kicked cat pitch than before. Janney looks down the road towards the group a guys forming at the far end of ADA barracks. Some dude messed up bigtime. She be screaming like that. Bigtime.
Only some gets girlfriends here. Mailroom Jenkins got him a girlfriend. German. Little bit fat and she been with lots of other guys ‘fore Jenkins ever been here. Be with lots more too when Jenkins go back to the world. Big fat ‘Rad bitch. Don’t make no difference no how. Girlfriend’s a girlfriend. Jenkins he got him a car too. Raggedy ass old VW. And he always got good hash. Even end of the month. Jenkins pretty damn smart.
Janney sees Captain Rodgers run out of the ADA headquarters section and down towards the gathering crowd. Janney quick hops into the guard shack doorway. While not engaged in traffic control, Wilkin’s gate guards are required remain there.
Sorry ass Captain. Can’t command nobody nowhere he don’t be a Captain. People just laugh at his ass back in the world ain’t got him no officer rank. I got to listen to him and stand out here like a fool waiting to let in people be coming anyway. Be in the club I don’t be standing here. Have me a rumcoke and play the jukebox and talk to that German bitch sign in and gone to the club. She ain’t nobodies girlfriend. That for sure. He be with her. Maybe she don’t do black. Lots do, maybe she don’t. She got her a nice tight ass and she talk good American. No titties. She be in the club lots. Maybe she like black dudes. Next time I sign her in the gate I talk her some shit. Give her my rap. Don’t hurt none find out.
Nope.
Janney looks over at Harry Castor, frozen still in a salute to Captain Rodgers. The Captain did not notice Harry.
Sucker newbie. ADA too. That be one sorry ass unit. Least ways don’t got them no field duty like infantry. I got four month left in the raggedy ass place. Got me a PX stereo to take home. 350-watt amplifier, turntable, reel to reel, and JBL speakers. Might sell them speakers and buy me some bigger ones. Best ask Smittie what he think. Ain’t hear a nobody back home got them a stereo like mine.
Nobody.
Party bigtime back home. Been in this punk post twenty months. And they wants me to re-up. No way! I ain’t never even going to extend no way. Catch me The Freedom Bird.
Janney leans against his weather-beaten shack. Abstracted: waiting for his new life to begin: in a more delightful place, with a better name. Images of his life and friends back in Washington DC rise and blend in his imagination: mostly nubile young women ogling and praising his stereo’s intensity and sound.
Durrell and Harry are looking downhill towards the crowd and wondering. Captain Rodgers is ordering nobody in particular to call for an ambulance.
Janney shakes off his reverent trance and says, “Time to smoke me a Kool.”
Private (Paulette) Broaring
Just plain old Paulette Goddard Broaring who always was way more Boring than Roaring from Redding, Tennessee who never ever could pass pre-algebra at Hopkins High no matter how many times I tried; and who always was only getting all a my ideas about life and love and adventure from reading the novels and magazines and such. All five foot and one inches of me that sometimes weighed 120 pounds: but sometimes less than that too.