Chapter 16: Springtime

March to May, 2002

Mom was not at all amused by my thinking. All through dinner, which Kelly and I nuked in the microwave to warm up, she badgered me about why I was joining the Army. I pretty much gave her the same reasons as I gave my girlfriend. Dad mostly just sat there and listened. He insisted that they had to meet Sergeant Donaldson, and that I was not doing anything until after I got out of school. Eventually I could escape, and I took Kelly out and we went over to the mall, to do some window-shopping and talk some more in the food court. She wasn’t happy either, but she was calming down more than my mother.

Monday, my grandfather pulled me into his office over at the feed mill when I got there after school. “What’s this I hear about you joining the Army?” he asked.

“Mom call you?” I asked.

“Your father, but it’s the same thing. So, talk to me. All I got was that you don’t want to work here.”

I grimaced at that. Grandpa was a great guy and treated us all great. He was sort of quiet, at least around other people, but was much more open with family. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s ... I mean ... I love you, Grandpa, but I don’t want to keep pushing a broom the rest of my life!”

“Well, who the hell says you have to?” he barked. “Grim, this is just something for you to do after school and make a few bucks and do the odd jobs that any business needs done. If you were working for me for real, do you think I’d waste you doing that?” I gave him a surprised look at that. I had never really thought about that. He kept going. “Your father and your Uncle Dave both worked here running the idiot stick, too! You see them doing that now?”

Again, that made me think. Dad had gone to college and become an engineer. Uncle Dave had also gone to college, but he was now running the feed mill.

“What did Uncle Dave do here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Mostly what you’re doing. Idiot stick and go-fer, at least in high school and college breaks. Once he got out of college, I hired him full time and put him in sales. I told him he had to make it in sales before I would ever allow him to do anything else. I wasn’t putting some rookie in charge of guys who had twenty years’ experience on him. He worked his way up.”

“Huh,” I mumbled.

“We’re a family operation, Grim, but we have to pull our weight around here. I told you that when you started. Your brother will be next, and Dave’s boys. I don’t know if any of you will be the third generation running this place, but I’ll be long gone by then, anyway.”

“I don’t know what to say, Grandpa.”

“Just think about it. I don’t know if you’ll be in sales. Probably in the production side, on the line. It won’t be minimum wage, either. We mostly pay more than minimum-wage. We pay what people are worth, so make sure you’re worth more,” he said.

I nodded. I was being sent off to my broom. I stood and went to the door but stopped and turned. “What was the Army like, Grandpa?”

He looked at me for a second and said, “Mostly a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, just in green clothes. Listen, don’t be listening to those idiots in Washington about how we’re beating those jackasses over in the Middle East. Ain’t a one of them worth a shit. We’re in a war. You join the Army, sooner or later somebody’s going to send you somewhere nasty, and you’ll get reminded of that in a hurry! You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” I headed off to work.

I had asked Kelly to not say anything to anybody about my joining the Army, so at least I didn’t catch any crap from my buddies. Even on the football team, most of my friends were planning to go to college, even if it was just M-Triple-C or Matucket State. Some of them I knew were smart. Bo and Brax were going to fancy schools like Kelly would go to. I just kept my mouth shut and mumbled about waiting to see how I did on my SAT’s. Those I took a couple of weeks after my birthday, and we had to wait six weeks to find out how dumb we were. I was not hopeful.

In the meantime, I called Sergeant Donaldson and made an appointment to see him after school, and then called the mill and said I had to be out that day. I drove over that afternoon after school and talked to him some more.

“Welcome back, Graham. I gather you’re still interested. Have you talked to your family about this yet?” he asked.

I gave a wry smile. “You could say that. When you called, I was in the kitchen with my family. They gave me the third degree afterwards.”

“How did they feel about you enlisting?”

“Not overly happy with the idea. Mom is very much against it. My dad will go along with it, but Mom really wants me to go to college, any college,” I admitted.

“That’s nothing new, Graham.”

“My parents want to talk to you about this.”

He nodded. “That’s quite common. This is a big choice to make. They have your best interests in mind. I often meet with families to explain the process and the benefits you can get from the service. She’ll probably be interested in learning about how the Army can help pay for you to go to college.”

“Really? They do that?”

He smiled. “Whether you’re in the service or afterwards, you can earn money to go towards a college education. Let me show you a few things.” With that he pulled out a few brochures on Army training and educational benefits and went over them with me. He said that when he met my folks, he would tell them as well. “This is real stuff, Graham. When I joined the Army, I was your age and right out of high school, just like you will be, and I got a Bachelor’s degree part-time at nights, and the Army paid for a lot of it. Even if you don’t make a career out of it, you’ll qualify for benefits under the GI Bill.”

That sounded pretty good to me. I hadn’t gotten my SAT scores back, but I doubted I was going to be in line for any scholarships. Then Sergeant Donaldson asked me about the SATs, and I told him I had taken them, but didn’t know the results. He told me that the recruiting center would be conducting a pre-ASVAB test soon to get an idea of what we might be able to do. Also, they would do a pre-fitness training camp, to see about making sure we were in shape before we reported for basic training.

“You look like you’re in pretty good shape already, Graham. Do you do anything special? Work out or anything?” he asked.

I had to smile at that. “I’m left outside linebacker for the Matucket Pioneers, so I am constantly running and lifting weights. Off-season I work at the feed mill over in West Springs, and part of that is lifting hundred-pound bags of feed.”

That surprised him. “You’re on the Goon Squad?”

I smiled at our nickname. “Yes, sir.”

“You guys almost took it last year! What are the odds for this year?” he asked.

“Better. Most of us last year were juniors. We’re all bigger and more experienced now. I think we can go all the way!” I answered proudly.

“Huh! I’ll keep an eye out for you this season. My kids are at Joseph Wheeler, but maybe we can come to a home game or two. And the feed mill, is that Reaper and Sons? I’ve been by there a few times.”

I nodded at this. “Yeah, that’s my grandfather. My father never went into the business, but my Uncle Dave mostly runs it now. I work there after school when the football season ends. You want to stay in shape, try stacking pallets of feed all day long in the summer sun!”

“I believe you. Well, keep working out and running. No matter how good a shape you think you’re in, you’ll need to get tougher and stronger for basic training. It’s very physical, which I think you’ll like.”

I nodded at that. I liked to stay in shape. Back when I got hammered by Candy Pants and his buddies, I hadn’t lost because I was small and weak, but because I was outnumbered four-to-one and needed to stay in the fight to give Kelly the time to run. If it had just been me and Randy Holden, I’d have cleaned his clock in a hurry!

We finished with Sergeant Donaldson giving me a schedule of events at the recruiting center I should be participating in and plans to make an appointment to meet my folks before the end of junior year.

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me. No matter what happened with Kelly and me, we were going to be separated for a long time while she went to some fancy school. We might see each other at holidays or vacations, but that might be it. Maybe I could spend some time in the Army and figure out what I wanted to do afterwards. That part simply baffled me. What did I want to do? I mean, I couldn’t say that I wanted to be an engineer and build things like Dad could or go into medicine like Mom and help sick people. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do, and so far, nothing I had run across in school sounded like something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Dad had told me that he had wanted to build things since he was a kid, and Mom said she knew she wanted to be a nurse since she was in middle school. Me? I just wanted to play football, but that wasn’t going to last much longer. Maybe I could figure it out in the Army. Maybe they had something I liked and could do. Maybe the Army could train me to do something out in the real world afterwards.

The timing was such that it might work. If Kelly and I actually were able to make a long-term go of things, and she was off in college for a bunch of years, then I needed to do something during that time. They had something called the Four-Four plan, where you signed up for four years of training and active duty, and then you did another four years of inactive reserve. You were out at that point, though if there was an emergency, like the Martians were invading, they could call me up for the rest of my four-year term. Either way, after eight years, I didn’t have to stay. I could stay in all eight years, though, and then re-enlist and go career, but I didn’t see that happening. I’d be fucking ancient by then, twenty-six.

Regardless, this was still the only thing I had come up with that held any sort of interest for me at all, and no matter how much Mom screamed, once I was eighteen and graduated from Matucket High, she couldn’t stop me.

My SAT scores came back and weren’t any sort of surprise. I got 1050 out of 1600, which was close to average. I wasn’t going to win any scholarships, that was for sure. Compare that score to Bo Effner, who nailed a 1550 or Brax Hughes, who got 1520. Those guys were going to any college they wanted. On the other hand, my pre-ASVAB test down at the recruitment center said that I was qualified for any number of jobs in the service. I guess the Army liked average guys.

By the end of May, Sergeant Donaldson had come out to the house and met my parents. Mom still wasn’t happy with me, but she did agree that any sort of college education, even going through the Army, would be better than none. Dad didn’t say much, but he listened closely. His comments were to go with the Four-Four plan, just in case I decided I had made the huge fucking mistake that Mom thought it was. The other option was a Six-Two plan, same deal, six years of active service followed by two years of inactive reserve. That was more for a career soldier. Grandpa agreed with him, but he still didn’t say much about what he did in the Army. I don’t think he liked it all that much, or maybe it was just boring. He repeated that there was an awful lot of hurry-up-and-wait, and lots of silly rules that didn’t make a lot of sense. Even Kelly got over her mad, sort of. I think she realized that with a 1050 I wasn’t going to Harvard or any other school that she’d be attending.

The weekend before prom, Sergeant Donaldson had me come down to the recruitment center Saturday morning, for a mini-boot camp. Basically, everybody who was looking to enlist was invited for some physical testing. We had to do a bunch of basic calisthenics, not just anybody going into the Army, but also the other guys. We had a couple of sailors, a couple of Marine wannabes, somebody for the Coast Guard, and a pair of flyboys for the Air Force. While most of the services had different standards, everybody got tested on a bunch of things. We had to run a mile and get timed, and they timed how fast we could do sit-ups or push-ups or pull-ups, that sort of thing. You had to do a certain minimum number of things in a maximum amount of time to get into basic training. You fail that, you don’t make it in, no matter how gung-ho you are.

For instance, you had to be able to run a mile in no more than eight-and-a-half minutes, and I did mine in a minute less, without pushing myself. Likewise, we had to do seventeen sit-ups in a minute and thirteen push-ups in the same amount of time. I was in pretty good shape. Coach Summers had the entire team working out hard, and he didn’t let us slack off in the off-season and Grandpa had me humping bags of feed down at the mill. I nailed every test with room to spare. I have to say, though, I was in the minority. We had a few real butterballs there with us, and several others who would need to shape up or they were history.

Sergeant Donaldson and the other recruiters had a real simple solution to this problem. Every Saturday, from the weekend after prom until the day we were inducted, we had fat camp. We were to show up and work out. We would be weighed, and the goals were strict. Some of these guys had to lose forty pounds or more, and I knew they wouldn’t be able to make it. I would get a pass during training and football season, but after that I had to participate as well.

Most of the people there were guys, but not all. There were more women than I thought there would be, and I don’t think they were in any better shape than the guys. Most of us were about my age, juniors or seniors at Matucket or East Matucket, but a few were at M-Triple-C or Matucket State. I noticed that most of the kids going into the services and who were still in high school were from Matucket. East Matucket was a wealthier suburb, and most of those kids were going to college with their parents paying for it. At Matucket we had a lot of kids who were looking at the service to pay for college. My family wasn’t poor, and I could have gotten help from them, but we had a lot of kids at Matucket who didn’t have parents who could help.

As soon as Sergeant Donaldson let us go, I had to get home to get ready for tonight. It was the Saturday before prom, which meant it was time for the Spring Dance. I was a junior, so I was attending both. At least I didn’t need to rent a tux for the Spring Dance. Between the two weekends I would be coughing up the cash for two nights at a nice restaurant, two pair of tickets, a tux, and a corsage for the prom. It was going to be expensive. At least I wasn’t Bo Effner, who was currently dating a junior over at East Matucket. They held their dances and formals on Fridays, so he had been to their Spring Dance last night and would be at ours tonight, and next weekend he would be attending two proms. That would cost him a fortune! It was amazing what guys will spend to get laid.

The worst part, at least for me, was that for the first time in a year I was on a double date, and it was with my little brother, no less! He was a freshman, so he was attending. Mom and Dad balked at ferrying him around. If I was driving, I could drive him, too. They were dumping Bobbie Joe on Grandpa and Grandma for the night and going out on a date night of their own.

I would be wearing a new dark charcoal gray suit that Kelly and my mother had picked out for me. Dad’s comment the first time he saw it was, “The color’s good. You can wear it to either a wedding or a funeral. Sometimes they’re the same thing.” Mom threw a dishcloth at him when she heard that.

In any case, tonight I had the charcoal suit and Jack had khakis and a blue blazer. First stop was the O’Connor house, where we picked up Kelly. She wore a strapless green cocktail dress that fit her like a second skin, with matching shoes. I made the appropriate whistles and comments, and then escorted her to the Sienna. She knew it was a double date, which had earned me quite a few laughs from her. Jack got kicked to the back of the minivan and we went to pick up his girlfriend, Janice Balkowski. She was wearing a very pretty, blue knee-length dress, but it was more cute than hot. Kelly was hot, not cute. I drove with Kelly up front, and Jack and Janice sat behind us.

Janice was Jack’s latest girlfriend. He had broken up with Marty Halifax in January, an action that had both Dad and me wondering as to Jack’s sanity and mental competence. What was worse, dating your coach’s daughter or breaking up with your coach’s daughter? He’d better hope to make it to the varsity team next year! Since then, Jack had dated several of the other JV cheerleaders. Janice was the latest. Yeah, I knew that’s what cheerleaders were for, but one of these days they were going to gather in a group and burn him at the stake!

We were going to Mort’s, a steak house over in East Matucket. I just hoped I wasn’t recognized as one of the guys who had demolished their football team last year. Matucket High had an undefeated season and only been stopped in the second round of the post-season. East Matucket High had ended up losing a total of eight games. It was their worst showing in fifteen years! I whispered that the chefs were probably mixing cyanide in my plate right now.

“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if they do,” she promised.

I grinned at her. “Remember when we were little, and you made me kiss your boo-boo?”

She laughed. “I do! I told Mom afterwards and she swatted my bottom! Daddy just laughed and said something in Gaelic.”

“Well, if I get a boo-boo, will you kiss it and make it better?”

“We’ll have to see on that one! I have a sneaky suspicion where you’re going to get a sudden pain!”

I tried to look innocent, but I don’t think it succeeded. Jack and Janice laughed, but I don’t think they understood what Kelly and I were talking about. Or maybe they did. Kids grew up so fast these days, not like when I was young.

The dance was very pleasant, and towards the end Kelly and I gathered up Jack and Janice and took them home. We dropped Janice off first, and then I drove home and kicked Jack out. Kelly and I kept going. It was May, and while the days were getting pleasantly warm, it was still too cool that night to spend it under the stars up at the lake. We ended up in the back of the Sienna for a bit. We still had to be cool around the O’Connor household. It was one thing to sneak in a quickie or two after school down in the family room, but no way was her mother going to let us get all romantic down there after a date, not while she was upstairs! Kelly promised she was trying to figure something out for after the prom but wasn’t real clear on what that might be. Maybe she could get her mother out of the house. It was late when I got home, and Jack was already asleep, still dressed.

For the prom, I rented a black tux, with a black shirt, and a black vest without a cummerbund. I tried it on twice beforehand, and it was a good thing I did. The first time they had the wrong size jacket, and the second time they had the wrong size pants. It didn’t matter what I wore, though, because after everybody got a look at Kelly, I was off to the trash heap! Kelly wore a long red dress with several layers of something transparent below her waist, each of which hung at a different angle. At least each layer was mostly see-through, but when you got them together it was mostly opaque. Above the waist it was something else, a bustier (Kelly had to teach me what that meant) that was mostly backless and pushed her boobs up with the most amazing display of cleavage! I took one look at her and started snorting and pawing at the ground! She seemed quite pleased with the effect it had on me.

Kelly had decided that as nice as we looked, we deserved to drive around in something more suitable. I parked the mom-bomb at her place, and Kelly tossed me the keys to her Miata. I had to push the seat all the way to the back, and drop it as low as possible to fit in, but it was much nicer. When she first handed me her keys, I had looked at her curiously. As nice a car as it was, there was no back seat for us to fool around in afterwards. “Trust me,” she replied.