Chapter 11

Near the end of June Sammy came home on the streetcar from Georgetown, enjoying the smells of late spring and the sideways glances of young girls in their long skirts and bright blouses. Hail the conquering hero, he thought to himself and he smiled. He, along with a number of other freshly-made civilians, had arrived in Washington by way of the crowded Pullman cars from Fort Meade.

Sammy had a hotdog with onions and an orange soda at a small newsstand at the station, bought an ice cream from a street vendor and then hopped aboard the outbound trolley with a destination sign that said Rockville, sat back enjoying the feel of his recently issued cotton uniform, paid his nickel and studied the buildings he knew so well. He could not recall feeling as thoroughly relaxed and satisfied. Even the smells and sounds were familiar and welcoming. And for the first time in what seemed like years, he had gone a whole days with a "shirt reading" or talk of body lice. He leaned out the window and gawked at the girls, waving when one noticed him.

A lot more automobiles seemed to be on the road, he noticed, and the motorman had to clang his bell to warn them off the tracks in Tenleytown. When the streetcar moved into Maryland and onto the single-track part of the line, Sammy became more attentive and moved to a window seat on the other side of the car and raised the glass. A few new houses had appeared in Bethesda including several narrow twins, and the old store looked rather run down compared to Wilson's place near the dilapidated tollhouse. Dark red wheelbarrows and a stack of shiny kerosene cans stood in front of that general store's front porch.

The car clattered over the railroad bridge and turned left by Mr. Tuckerman's white real estate office and then paused on the siding to let the inbound trolley go through, its electric motors chugging patiently. Sammy noted that the blacksmith was still in business on the corner but behind his run-down shed stood the new Masonic temple and library.

The woods closed in on them after they left the old road in Alta Vista, an area that made Sammy remember the Fergusons and wonder what had happened to pretty little Nancy. They went cross-country then, the car gently swaying and its speed increasing as it crossed the trestle and neared the transformer. Sammy stepped down at the stop behind his family's farm, and took a deep breath. The world smelled very good to him.

Standing in the open-sided shelter his father had built, he buttoned up his tight-fitting collar, adjusted one of his leg wrappings that had gotten loose, brushed at his wrinkled coattails and set his overseas cap at a wicked angle, right down on his eyebrow. He had no bag, only the clothes he was wearing and seventy-eight cents. He had lost almost everything else in crap games on board the slow-moving troopship, a former cattle boat called the Artemis, at Fort Meade and on the train to D.C., a real run of bad luck.

Whistling "K-k-Katy," he went down the dusty lane, past the old privy with its morning glories and trumpet vines and the whitewashed sheds, past the smoke house and the new well's pumphouse and stepped onto his own back porch. He shivered. Everything looked exactly the same, even the woodpile with the bossy mockingbird perched on it. Sammy swallowed and felt a sour lump in his throat and exhaled, almost a sigh. Then he heard a cry from within and his mother slammed open the screened door and ran into his arms, crying, "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy" and nearly knocking him down.

She kissed his face and hugged him tight, aware of the smell of his clothes and body, and behind her came his father, a bit more stooped, his mustache tobacco and whisky stained as usual. He shook his son's hand and stared into his face, his sunken eyes crinkled to narrow slits. "Y'look good, boy, b'dman, y'look just fine." Sammy was surprised how gnarled his father's hand had become, the bones feeling loosely joined, the thick veins pulsing.

After enjoying a glass of water, assuring them he was all right four or five times, they let him rest, and he stripped off his clothes and lay on his iron bed in the back room and looked at the mottled ceiling, wondering if the big tank in the attic had started to leak. He wore only his army drawers, the string undone; his uniform lay on the floor beside his chair. They had all been deloused, over in Brittany and then again on the ship coming across and down in Newport News, but he still itched between his legs. Fingers touching his scrotum, he sank into oblivion.

"Sammy," called his mother from the foot of the stairs, "supper's on."

He shook his head, surprised that he had been napping, rolled out, slapped his feet on the familiar floor and opened the door of his room. "Ma," he called loudly, "where'd you put my clothes?"

She came up the stairs slowly, glanced at him as he stood barefoot in the knit underdrawers that hung halfway to his bony knees and smiled. "Don't you look fine," she said. "Still skinny as a rail." In his room she pulled open the bottom drawer of the old dresser. "I threw away some things, gave away others."

'Thank you," he said, rummaging in the drawer and finding some work pants, darned socks and a pressed shirt. "I'll be right down."

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming?" his father asked as they ate smoked ham, candied yams and fresh-baked biscuits.

"You have a phone now?" Sammy said with a lilt to his voice. He lifted an eyebrow in his mother's direction and kept his face from grinning.

His father glared at him and then smiled, showing a missing tooth.

"We've enjoyed your letters," his mother said. "I've read every one of them ten times."

"You know the Pike boy, the one they called Hill, he didn't make it?" Sammy said, forking another piece of ham to his plate and reaching for the pickle relish. "Died after the fighting was over. Flu they said; I think it was the flu." In his mind he pushed away the thought of VD.

"We heard," said his mother. "And the flu was here, too. Rockville 'specially, real bad for a while."

"What are your plans?" asked Seth Williams, studying his son's ruddy face. He decided that he looked different around the eyes, a bit drawn as if the skin had thinned, sand papered.

"Go back to printing, I suppose, if Mr. Birch will have me." He slowed down, aware that he was eating much faster than his parents were. I'm home, he pondered, I wonder why, how I got here, why I'm not in a grave or hospital. He felt a cough rising and swallowed it back. His stomach rumbled.

"Thought you might go back to school, business school maybe, Ben Franklin's, you know? Didn't you take a course of two?" his father said. "We might be able to help some."

Sammy nodded. "Reckon I'll do some visiting first. We still have a riding horse?"

"You walked right by her coming in," said his mother. "Did you notice that the corn was up?"

Sammy shook his head and looked at his plate. "I've been writing to Millie too." He resisted his impatience and felt his penis quiver.