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Mary and James Hanna are writers who live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mary C. Hanna
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James E. Hanna
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The Wall (part 4)
continued from part three
When the bucket brigade had formed I helped pass the dripping
waste cans towards the inferno. These efforts seemed inconsequential since
more extinguishers were on the way, but my labor ceased only when I noticed
you at last, your hand still gripping the steamy blanket as you leaned
coughing over the stoop railing. You were humble when I scolded you, embarrassed
by your belated response to my cries, and you thanked me for my superior
foresight.
Can you see what your blindness has made me do to you -- even with your eyebrows singed, your hands pimpled with welts, your lungs scorched, retching? But your maladies did not excuse you the formation either -- after the fire was out -- when the bugle sounded everyone out onto the drive. Along with the rest of us you came for four hours of rifle manual in the cold night while Hickory Face kept popping out of the guard shack every now and then to tell us what idiots we all were for protecting the fire bug. Suspects were taken to the guard room, one or two at a time, and held for long minutes of questioning before being sent back out. Everyone was to be spoken for.
And meanwhile, under the dim lamplight, our rifles went Clap! Clap| Clap! responding to sharp commands issued in little puffs of smokey breath. "Right shoul-der harms!... Left shoul-der harms!... Po-o-rt harms!" This diminished our shivering but not the slow numbing of our feet. I broke count twice, letting my rifle clatter on the pavement, so I would be made to run laps around the drill field.
Finally, when the officer staff grew restless, names were picked out randomly from the roster and called out at one-minute intervals; then the same questions, voiced by Childers, our fox-faced commander, would illicit the same stiff replies.
"Gillespie!"
"Yes, Suh!"
"Did you set the fire?"
"No, Suh!"
"Do you know who did?"
"No, Suh!"
"Wippleman!"
"Suh!"
"Did you set the fire?"
"No, Suh!"
"Can you tell us who did?"
"No, Suh!"
And finally my name.
"Hemmings!"
"Participating, Suh!"
"Smart, Hemmings. That'll cost you another lap. Do you know who set the fire?"
"No idea, Suh!"
"Double-time it, Hemmings, if that's all you're good for. And don't step on your pecker again tonight."
Grateful, I circled the field yet again, my rifle held high above my head, but I would have appreciated the jog even more had I known it would be my last concession from Childers. It would only be a matter of weeks, in fact, till he and four other officers would be indicted and then expelled for gang-banging Theresa Scrud. This shoddy adventure, announced to us at chapel assembly the morning after the indictments were served, impressed me as a rather typical operational overkill since Theresa, a local girl of loose associations, was renowned for giving hand jobs to cadets in the town movie theater. This incident, however, had not yet become news the evening of the fire formation, so we answered to Childers throughout the night, disclaiming ourselves of a stealthier mischief as he put us through our paces.
Half the roster by three a.m. The names, by then, were harder to hear, muffled by the low tones of complaining cadets and the angry thumps with which we walloped the stocks of our rifles. Our ears, unprotected by our slim field caps, grew brittle in the cold and our fingers, though gloved, became tingly and remote. We stood as though shackled, awaiting the dawn, and looked forward to our turn in the guard shack where we knew it would be warm.
We were mustered in together, you and I. It seemed strange at that moment to be walking between guards or to be walking at all since the ground felt foreign beneath my feet. Our rifles were taken from us at the door of the shack. New rules, we were told.
As we stepped within the shack, the weary brown wrinkles of the Commandant appeared to perk up. I was welcomed by a rather wolfish leer as the old man leaned back in his chair -- You again! -- and the detective sitting beside him quickly depressed a button on the tape recorder. The Commandant did speak gently, however, sensing perhaps some limits to my depravity, and he seemed to be savoring a small charity as he circled our names on the roster.
"Rite of passage, boys, a mere rite of passage. Tell us the truth, simple and pure, and just maybe I'll scratch two more clowns off the suspect list."
Through tobacco stained fingers, the tips touching piously like the steeple of a church, he addressed his next question to me alone.
"Now just where were you, son, when all this began?"
I shuffled my feet, prolonging the moment, as I had been saving my answer for a long time.
"Rescuing Max," I finally replied.
The leer survived the relaxing wrinkles, but only briefly as the Commandant lowered his chair to the floor.
And you smiled too quickly when I spoke; I'm sure you must have, although I was watching the Commandant and could not see your face. Because afterwards, when the formation finally broke up, you were made to share the first fire watch with me. To make sure I didn't fall asleep, he said.