W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

"Month or so ago," McCoy said.

"Better dough, I guess?" Dutch asked.

"Yeah, but they make you buy your own meals," McCoy said.

"You didn't say what you're doing in town?"

"Just passing through," McCoy said.

"But you will come by the house? Anne-Marie would be real disappointed if you didn't."

"Just for a minute," McCoy said. "She there?"

"Where else would she be on a miserable fucking night like this?" Dutch asked. Then he remembered his manners. "Sorry, honey," he said to Ernie. "My old lady says I got mouth like a sewer."

Ernie smiled and shook her head, accepting the apology.

She had placed Dutch. His old lady, Anne-Marie, was Ken McCoy's sister. Dutch was Ken's brother-in-law.

"Gimme a minute," Dutch said, "to lock up the cash, and then you can follow me to the house."

Anne- Marie and Dutch Schulter and their two small children lived in a row house on North Elm Street, not far from the service station. There were seven brick houses in the row, each fronted with a wooden porch. The one in front of Dutch's house sagged under his and McCoy's and Ernie's weight as they stood there while Anne-Marie came to the door.

She had one child in her arms when she opened the door, and another-with soiled diapers-was hanging on to her skirt. It looked at them with wide and somehow frightened eyes. Anne-Marie was fat, and she had lost some teeth, and she was wearing a dirty man's sweater over her dress, and her feet were in house slippers.

She was not being taken home by Ken McCoy to be shown off, Ernie Sage realized sadly, in the hope that his family would be pleased with his girl. Ken had brought her here to show her his family, sure that she would be shocked and disgusted.

Dutch went quickly into the kitchen and returned with a quart of beer.

Ernie reached for McCoy's hand, but he jerked it away.

To Dutch's embarrassment, Anne-Marie began a litany of complaints about how hard it was to make ends meet with what he could bring home from the service station. And her reaction to Ken's promotion to officer status, Ernie saw, was that it meant for her a possible source of further revenue.

In due course, Anne-Marie invited them to have something to eat-coupled with the caveat that she didn't know what was in the icebox and the implied suggestion that Ken should take them all out for dinner.

"Maybe you'd get to see Pop, if we went out to the Inn," Anne-Marie said.

"What makes you think I'd want to see Pop?" McCoy replied. "No, we gotta go. It's still snowing; they may close the roads."

"Where are you going?" Anne-Marie asked.

"Harrisburg," McCoy said. "Ernie's got to catch a train in Harrisburg."

"Going back to Philly'd be closer," Dutch said.

"Yeah, but I got to go to Harrisburg," McCoy said. He looked at Ernie, for the first time meeting her eyes. "You about ready?"

She smiled and nodded.

When they were back in the LaSalle and headed for Harrisburg, McCoy said, "A long way from Rocky Fields Farm, isn't it?"

A mental image of herself with McCoy in the bed in what her mother called the "Blue Guest Room" of Rocky Fields Farm came into Ernie's mind. The Blue Guest Room was actually an apartment, with a bedroom and sitting room about as large as Anne-Marie and Dutch Schulter's entire house.

And it didn't smell of soiled diapers and cabbage and stale beer.

"When you're trying to sell something, you should use all your arguments," Ernie said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" McCoy asked, confused.

"You asked your sister why she thought you would want to see Pop," Ernie said. "What did that mean?"

"We don't get along," McCoy said, after hesitating.

"Why not?" Ernie asked.

"Does it matter?" McCoy asked.

"Everything you do matters to me," Ernie said.

"My father is a mean sonofabitch," McCoy said. "Leave it at that."

"What about your mother?" Ernie asked.

"She's dead," McCoy said. "I thought I told you that."

"You didn't tell me what she was like," Ernie said.

"She was all right," McCoy said. "Browbeat by the Old Man is all."

"And I know about Brother Tom," Ernie said. "After he was fired by Bethlehem Steel for beating up his foreman, he joined the Marines. Is that all of the skeletons in your closet, or are we on our way to another horror show?"

There was a moment's silence, and then he chuckled. "Anyone ever tell you you're one tough lady?"

"You didn't really think I was going to say how much I liked your sister, did you?"

"I don't know," he said.

"I didn't like her," Ernie said. "There's no excuse for being dirty or having dirty children."

"That the only reason you didn't like her?"

"She was hinting that you should give her money," Ernie said. "She doesn't really like you. She just would like to use you."

"Yeah, she's always been that way," McCoy said. "I guess she gets it from Pop."

"Daughters take after their fathers," Ernie said. "I take after mine. And I think you should know that my father always gets what he goes after."

"Meaning?"

"That we're in luck. Our daughter will take after you."

There was a long moment before McCoy replied. "Ernie, I can't marry you," he said.

"There's a touch of finality to that I don't like at all," Ernie said. "What is it, another skeleton?"

"What?"

She blurted what had popped into her mind: "A wife you forgot to mention?"

He chuckled. "Christ, no," he said.

"Then what?" she asked, as a wave of relief swept through her.

"You've got a job," he said. "A career in advertising. You're going places there. What about that?"

"I'd rather be with you. You know that. And you also know that when it comes down to it, I need you more than I need a career in advertising… And besides, I don't think that's what is bothering you either."

"There's a war on," McCoy said. "I'm going to be in it. It wouldn't be right to marry you."

"That's not it," Ernie said surely.

"No," he said.

"I don't give a damn about your family," Ernie said.

"That's not it, either," he said.

"Then what? What's the reason you are so evasive?"

"I can't tell you," he said. "It's got to do with the Corps."

"What's it got to do with the Corps?" she persisted.

"I can't tell you," he said.

Now, she decided, he's telling the truth.

"Military secret?" she asked.

"Something like that," he said.

"What, Ken?"

"Goddamnit, I told you I can't tell you!" he snapped. "Jesus, Ernie! If I could tell you I would!"

"Okay," she said, finally. "So don't tell me. But for God's sake, at least between here and Harrisburg, at least can I be your girl?"

McCoy reached across the seat and took her hand. She slid across the seat, put his arm around her shoulders, and leaned close against him.

"And when we get to Harrisburg, instead of just putting me on the train, can I be your mistress for one more night?"

"Jesus!" he said. The way he said it, she knew he meant yes.

"I'm not hard to please," Ernie said. "I'll be happy with whatever I can have, whenever I can have it."

(Three)

Room 402

The Penn- Harris Hotel

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

0815 Hours, 9 January 1942

Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, was so startled when Miss Ernestine Sage joined him behind the white cotton shower curtain that he slipped and nearly fell down.

"I hope that means you're not used to this sort of thing," Ernie said.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he said.

"I woke up the moment you ever so carefully slipped out of bed," Ernie said. "It took me a little time to work up my courage to join you."

"Oh, Jesus, Ernie, I love you," McCoy said.

"That's good," she said, and then stepped closer to him, wrapped her arms around him, and put her head against his chest. His arms tightened around her, and he kissed the top of her head. She felt his heartbeat against her ear, and then he grew erect.