A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [5]
Dan said it must have cost him a fortune in fees.
“Never to mind. You don’t wear this collar to make money. You appear to be having normal prenuptial jitters.”
“No doubts, Sean. I love Siobhan fiercely.”
“Almost as much as you love the Marine Corps,” the priest retorted.
“It’s so damned hard to let go!” Dan cried.
“I’m counseling veterans a good part of the day. Lots of lads are stumbling around. It was for most of you the first taste of life beyond Brooklyn, and no matter what happens, the war will always remain the big event of your life.”
“It passed through my mind to reenlist.”
“One of the chaplains from the Sixth Marines was with me at a retreat a few months ago. He told me that your battalion lost four commanders in the first day.”
“Saipan was a shit kicker. So were Guadalcanal and Tarawa. The worst foxhole is the one you happen to be in when the shit hits the fan.”
“Did you find something along the way?”
“Yeah, right in the beginning. On the train on the way to boot camp in San Diego. In Buffalo there was another train of recruits. To join them we had to walk through the station to their platform. The station in Buffalo was scary, high and icy and silent, a walk to the unknown. When the two trains merged they were so full, some recruits were sleeping on the floor. I ended up in a lower bunk with another guy. That’s the way fighting for space had been back home.
“Later in the trip we slowed down at the tip of daylight. I had the window position that night and rolled the shade up. Outside was a huge green lawn before a beautiful, newly painted station. Douglass, Kansas. Beyond, I could see nice houses, like Mickey Rooney lived in when he played Andy Hardy.”
“Weren’t you trying to deceive yourself, Dan? Pretending there are perfect places outside Brooklyn? If you knocked on any door in this Kansas place, you’d find Brooklyn once removed.”
“Well, what have I got here? There are still five of us in our home on top of each other trying to ace each other out of the bathroom. My parents are arguing. Everyday ordinary conversation is argumentative. Some fifteen-year-old niece is knocked up, someone is stitched up from a fight, and the friggin’ bed is lumpy.”
“It sounds like you’ve been making a plan for a long time.”
“I want to see Douglass, Kansas, and a lot of the places my men came from.”
“That’s not a bad idea, but you’ll not drive far enough to escape trouble. The virgin you saw at dawn may now show you some pimples on her ass in the midday sun.”
Dan became excited. “After Douglass, Kansas, we’ll head for Colorado and visit the parents of the one great friend of my life, Justin Quinn. It drives me, Sean. I can’t rest until I see Justin’s mom and dad and let them know what a powerful Marine their son was. Justin Quinn was the man among us, winning any broad with a glance, winning the division rodeo. Ah, the fucking fool, trying to win the battle of Saipan by himself. Maybe after that I’ll concentrate on settling down. I’m too restless now.”
“Well, you should be. Your war has been taken away from you. When do you plan to go?”
“After the wedding.”
“Does Siobhan know?”
“Ah, Jaysus, I can’t face the tears now.”
“Has it occurred to you that she might not want to go? She’s very tribal.”
“Yes, but I have to take the chance.”
The bachelor’s stag party was but three nights away. There would be nearly a hundred cops boozing and relatives all the way from Jersey and just maybe one of those weasly guys with an 8mm projector and dirty films.
Siobhan was picking up puzzling vibrations from Dan at a rapid rate. Did he truly want to marry? Was it coming back from a war too emptied out? He spoke little of vicious battles or malaria or dengue fever. From a strange, secret place he’d mutter the name of one of the boys in his platoon. Except