A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [4]
Or how tiny his room was.
The closeness of space and people led to a repetition of life.
Now, Justin Quinn had a real home! Justin Quinn had never returned. He had been killed in Saipan, but even the night before his death he had spoken of the beauty of his father’s ranch in Colorado. It was the perfection sought by all but experienced by few.
A Marine’s life can be boring, but there is always a jazzy sparkle when he is polishing up for shore leave. He and Justin blew through the camp gates. Justin would go to waiting arms. Dan played it straight with Siobhan for the entire time. But he was a singer and dancer and great teller of jokes. Well now, he did get into an awkward situation or two with the ladies in New Zealand, but nothing he couldn’t tell Siobhan of, at a later time.
Home! Relatives and friends who spent most of their lives stirring the pot in each other’s kitchens and salty old yarn spinners bragging about WWI, the “big” war in France and their blowout in Paree.
No Sunday came and went without a wedding or a christening. Hardly a week passed without a wake.
“How many Japs did you kill, Dan?”
“San Diego! That’s the end of the earth now!”
“Go over your medals one more time, Dan. Which one was for getting wounded?”
“Is it true what they say about them Asian women?”
WELCOME HOME, DAN read the banner over the entrance of the precinct station. It was a happy event, indeed. The precinct had lost five men to the war.
A big cake had been baked and several cases of Coke hustled. (Can you believe it, Dan? Coke is up to a dime a bottle.)
Dan’s new uniform came compliments of a grateful mayor. He was issued a revolver, a sweet .38 Smith & Wesson Police Special.
“You know, you can wear your military ribbons on your police uniform. Now, what’s that one?”
“It’s called a ‘ruptured duck,’ to signify you are a veteran.”
The powers that be knew Dan would not be able to take up a walking beat again. He could handle it somewhat, but he’d lose too many suspects and arrests if he had to give chase. Well, no matter, Dan O’Connell was a war hero, and they’d talk about a desk job or perhaps a patrol car and, just maybe, becoming a detective.
A rookie named Kofski was on Dan’s old beat. He put on his new uniform and holstered his new pistol for “the walk.” Kofski was all thumbs. Dan preferred Irish cops to polacks.
“The walk” would be a sort of victory lap to reclaim the homage of his protectorate. It started as all walks started, with Dan taking an apple from the Italian vendor.
Farther along, they rushed up to a third floor to break up a marital. In the old days, Dan had been an arbitrator, along with the parish priest. Consultation fees, a cup of tea and a slice of pie. Jesus, Kofski, don’t just burst in with your baton swinging!
A final cuff was made when they nailed a kid heisting hubcaps. Kofski shook the kid real hard and wanted to take him back to the station. Dan had to read quickly whether this boy was too far into the street scene or could still be salvaged. He opted to take the boy to his mother and dad.
This chase incident made Dan aware of his limited mobility. Kofski had to run the kid down, and it wasn’t easy.
In the Corps, he’d been thrown in with all kinds of guys, Texans, farmers, and those wild lads from L.A. He’d only heard of such people and never believed he would live to see them. Won’t the nation change at the end of the war? As they left “the walk,” Dan wondered if his beat wasn’t really the perimeter of a walled graveyard.
He sank into a mood of Irish maudlin. The pending mayhem of a large Irish wedding shaped up. A yard filled with clucking hens writing invitations, pinning up, pinning down. A band and step dancers and a tenor and a poet were hired, and even the mayor might make it.
As the kitchen calendar was X’d, Dan entombed himself in his tiny room, awaiting his only respite, the daily visit from Father Sean Logan, his forthcoming brother-in-law.
“Looks like you’ve had enough of the women, Dan.”
“Egh.”
“Well, marriage is the one moment in life that a girl can make a kill.