Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

Artie squeezed his eyes shut and forced down another slug of beer.

“Let me tell you ’bout England,” Bo said. “What they got over there, see, they got these country girls. Blond, rosy cheeks, bazooms on ’em like Howitzers, big, long legs, and ass—you never saw a beautiful sight till you saw one of those milky-white, firm big bottoms of an English country gal. And legs! A good English country gal makes Grable and them look like they’re standin’ on hatpins. I mean, these sweet English lassies are built for a man, and they appreciate a man. Roy, they got ways of showin’ their appreciation that you never heard tell of.”

“Country gals? I thought London was supposed to be the hot old town.”

“Stay away from it. Sure, there’s some of your sharpies there, but it’s all grab and gimme, hustle and bustle, wham-bam, thank-you-ma’am. That’s London. Gimme a hayloft out in one of them little ‘shires’ any day of the week.”

“Like they say, you been making hay, huh, Bo?”

“Making hay when the sun shines!”

“Well, there’s no hay to speak of out on the islands,” Roy said, “but there’s plenty of grass. And I don’t mean just to roll around on. You ever seen a gal wearin’ a grass skirt? The way it parts and moves back and forth when those legs come swishing out? It’s one of the seven wonders of the world, ole buddy. And there’s no grass at all on top o’ course, just the beautifullest boobs God ever gave to woman.”

“I guess, but hell, man, you’re talkin’ dark meat. If that’s what you favor, or is all to be had, I guess it’s okay, but—”

“Not ‘dark’ like you’re thinkin’ of, buddy. More like cocoa. Hot chocolate with a lotta milk in it. Creamy tan. And luscious.”

“No bull?”

“Swear to God. But that’s just the islands. A year ago, I got me a week of R’n’R in Pearl, and that is Heaven . I mean, the most luscious women in the world. Chinese, Native Hawaiian, mixes and strains of the best stuff made even better.”

“So whattya do, talk pidgin to ’em? ‘You gimme some nooky-nook,’ all that palaver?”

“Hell, not on Pearl. On Pearl you got a very educated class of girl, the nicest kind of girl in the world, right in your convent schools—and when school’s out, lookout, buster! There was this one, Marie—”

“Lemme tell you about this country gal called Nell—”

“I’ll match you Nell with my Liana from Pearl any day.”

“Liana? Thought you said Marie?”

“Hell, I had me Liana after Marie. Now listen to this—”

Artie lost track of the names and anatomies, the athletic exploits of wild hula girls of the islands and steamy English milkmaids. He kept forcing down the beer, not wanting to show how confused and surprised he was.

He had thought he was going to hear about the secrets of battle, the way it really feels to have a sneaky Jap come at you with a knife, the terror of a Messerschmitt diving at the turret of your B-17 while you hung there thousands of feet above the evil terrain of Germany. But that wasn’t what “War stories” were at all.

When Bo and Roy finished off their first beers from the pack and opened more, Artie glugged down the rest of his can and took a second one to keep right up with them.

“ Ice cubes!” Bo shouted. “You tryin’ to pull my chain, Garber? What the hell she do with any ice cubes at a time like that?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it, ole buddy.”

“Well, how? I mean, where? ”

The stories got so complicated that Artie didn’t really understand them, or even think he wanted to. He was glad when they finished off the six-pack and Bo had to go home for supper. Artie wanted a chance to talk to Roy alone. His head was buzzing, but he felt real good in a new kind of way, in spite of the pukey taste of the beer. He felt like he almost understood the answer to a puzzle, and if only he could fit a few jagged little pieces into place he would solve the whole thing.

When Bo left, Roy flopped down on his bed and lit a cigarette. Artie stood up and went to the window. The sun was going down and everything seemed suspended, lifted out of time.

“Say, Roy, I was just wondering,” Artie said.

“Yeah?”

“I guess if a guy is overseas, in Wartime, he gets to make out whenever he wants, even if he’s married, or got a girl back home?”

“Well, sure, I mean, in Wartime, you never know which day is your last, so you just try to do whatever you want and that you’d like to do, see? It’s like ‘live for the moment,’ ’cause that may be all you got.”

Artie nodded.

Roy took a big drag on his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Then he waved the hand with the cigarette and spoke in a funny, fake-English accent.

“Laugh, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die!”

“Sure,” Artie said. “I get that part.”

“What part don’t you ‘get’?”

“Well, what about the girls?”

“The girls back home, you mean?”

“No, I meant the girls overseas, that you guys do it with.”

“What about them?”

“Well, they’re not all whores or anything, I guess.”

“Hey, there are whores in every country of the world, always will be, peacetime and War. But one thing your old brother can say, with his head held up to any man: ‘I never paid for it.’”

“So the girls you did it with over there, they were really ‘nice girls’?”

“Damn right they were. Some of those native girls, they don’t really know too much, and o’ course if they are nice you want to give them a chocolate bar or something. Even the Christian girls, those educated ones like Marie from the convent school in Pearl? Well, they appreciate a gift if you got PX privileges, a nice pair of nylons, something a lady anywhere in the world would like, but it sure is nothing to do with whoring.”

“I don’t mean whoring. What I don’t get is, how can they be nice girls, if they do it with soldiers and all?”

“Hell, Artie, it’s Wartime for them, too. Their countries are being bombed and invaded, their own men are off fighting and dying in the war. There’s no tomorrow for them, either.”

“So it’s like in Wartime, people don’t have to obey the sex laws and stuff and everyone agrees it’s okay.”

“Pretty much, I guess, yeah.”

“And a nice girl whose guy has gone off to War and her country is at War and she does it with some other guy, she still is a nice girl?”

“Damn right! Now you take that Marie, in Pearl, the one from the convent school? Hell, I’d be proud to bring her right home here for supper. You sure are thinking this matter out, buddy.”

“I just want to make sure I get how it is,” Artie said.

Roy got up from the bed and took his shirt off. He went to his dresser and pulled out a can of talcum, shook some onto his hand and then slapped it under his armpits. He was getting ready to get dressed for supper, and Artie wanted to solve the puzzle before they went downstairs or he knew he’d lose the whole sense of it.

“Don’t break your brain, ole buddy,” Roy said. “Just ask the old Corporal here.”

Roy mashed the cigarette out in an ashtray on top of the dresser, then pulled a fresh shirt from the top drawer and started putting it on.

Artie walked across the room and back, wobbling a little bit, but feeling like he was almost floating. He felt he was right on the edge of some beautiful solution, if only he could gather in his mind the exact right words.

“Okay,” Artie said, straining his whole mind into one single focus of super concentration. “What if there’s this girl whose country is at war, and the guy she loves has to go off and fight far away, and while he’s gone, the girl makes out with another guy? If she still loves the soldier and wants to marry him when he comes back, is she a nice girl even though she made out with some other guy in Wartime?”