Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [17]
Gideon didn’t talk much about his overseas duty. Over a period of time I got to know that he had had seven recurrences of malaria from Guadalcanal and had apparently taken some shrapnel in the shoulder. It wasn’t a bad wound, but a buddy of his at the hospital told me he kept it secret for two or three days until it became infected by the jungle atmosphere and was considered serious enough to earn him a Purple Heart. Later, on Tarawa, he caught dengue fever, a terribly painful disease in which all the joints in the body—knuckles, knees, toes, backbone—swell up.
Then there was something about his asthma. All told, he was just a plain worn-out warrior in need of a long healing period.
I arranged a party of girlfriends to go to the Oak Knoll Hospital to see his play. To my surprise, it was a terribly funny show, acted with skill and abandon. Loved the plot. A Marine detachment was shot into outer space, where they formed a colony on a distant planet. After several centuries the colony lost contact and they were eventually forgotten. Life was eternal out there. Every day for hundreds of years, the Marines woke up to reveille, did close-order drill, were spit and polish, and held inspections. They were rediscovered and returned to Earth. The last act, in which they discover sex with women, was hilarious. But after looking over the world, they opted to be returned to outer space and do close-order drill forever.
I don’t know why I kept dating this guy. He was a bit of a blowhard. Most Marines have a problem with modesty. I think I was also enchanted with being able to go out with enlisted men and finding out they weren’t all hairy apes. After I saw Gideon’s play, I began to wonder. What is it drawing me to him?
I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places,
That this heart of mine embraces,
All day through ...
I hope there is still slow dancing when Roxanne and Penelope start dating. Their old mom can teach them the yins and yangs of it. A good part of my slow-dancing career had been in the arms of some ambitious young officer trying to zap the Admiral’s daughter. A lot of random clutching, sweating and, oh shit, here comes his erection.
But on the other hand, comrades, slow dancing can run a very close second to you know what. PFC Zadok really knew his way around the back alleys and gutter fighting and on a dance floor. He held you firmly but fairly, his antennae alert to pick up the faintest signal. After I decided I liked the way we fit, and stopped fighting it, I’d just wrap myself around him, feel his cheek, breathe hard, and sway like there was only one of us moving for two.
He knew a restaurant, within his means, over the bay in San Francisco. El Globo on Broadway, in the Italian North Beach section. It was actually a Portuguese bar with rooms over the top for visiting seamen. Behind the bar were a half-dozen booths in a room that served a family-style dinner for ninety-nine cents with wine.
We were getting quieter and quieter every time, just holding hands and looking at each other through the candle’s flame.
“How’s all this going to go down with the Admiral? Me being an enlisted man. And a Marine?”
“The Admiral and I are not that close. I don’t know. He had a ship shot out from under him at Midway. He’s seen too many of his own boys die and too many Marines scraped up from the beach. He’s lost a lot of his bigotry.”
“You want to keep on seeing me?”
I was about to say, “I’m not ready.” That’s what I’d always said before: “I could really go for you, buddy, but I’m not ready. Paris and all that.” I didn’t answer him.
“You want to hear a real deal breaker?” Gideon asked.
“Shoot.”
“I’m a Jew.”
I don’t know what he had to go through to say that, but a strange moment arrived between us. Suddenly it wasn’t fun and games any longer. I made a smart-assed remark like, “I thought you were some kind of weirdo.”
Gideon looked into the bar where a serious arm-wrestling contest was going on. “There’s our dinner and gas money. Lend