John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Junior hoping no one will see him writing again, already the butt of jokes, the bearer of nicknames. If Royal hadn’t been there, Chickamauga would have been the end of him — the heat, the veterans’ insults, the grueling days of mindless drilling. It was a mistake to have come in as a private. A man with his background and education, with his standards of conduct — but there are no colored lieutenants and the war would not wait. Junior writing, holding pen hand aside to keep his sweat from dripping on the letter, as Little Earl naps sprawled beside him and the others steel themselves to face another meal—

The food has been an adventure. Hardtack is universally reviled and taken, if necessary, broken in pieces mixed with stew or canned tomatoes. It resembles nothing I have seen before, certainly nothing edible. A good deal of humor is spent imagining its proper employment (our Navy is said to be caulking the more ancient wooden vessels with their version of it, known as sea biscuit). “Bacon” is seen at nearly every meal and is another source of bitterness and objurgation, large blocks of sowbelly meant to serve as fresh meat for our diet. Of the tinned variety the less said the better, and though foraging is officially condemned the practice here is rampant. Yesterday I saw a man pay 5 cents for a single egg.

Junior paid the nickel and was later shamed to learn Private Cooper sold the rest of his clutch for two cents each. The poundcake Jessie mentioned in her letter was purloined somewhere in transit, not a crumb of it left, and the prices in Ybor shoot up between every visit. Junior, who was nauseated the first time he managed to finish a plate of sowbelly and half-cooked beans, who suffers the same dysentery his tentmates do but in silence and disgust, who has never been so filthy in his life and imagines all manner of crawly things breeding beneath the sour-smelling wool of his uniform—

I have had little time to reflect on what Fate may hold in store for me. My comrades do not speak of it, and from all appearances give little heed to the gravity of our situation. I am confident, though, that when the time for action arises, the men of the 25th will comport themselves as champions of liberty and fulfill without hesitation whatever duties shall fall upon their shoulders.

Junior thinks of little else. They are not slated to leave with the first wave, no, but he is confident the call will come, Company L into the breach, and then—

A wound, grave enough to be carried from the field but that will slowly heal, leaving a scar visible but not disfiguring — acceptable. A bullet to the head, neither seen nor heard — if the highest price is to be payed, that would be the best. The veterans have their stories, skirmishes in Indian territory or on the border, men with parts of themselves shot away, maimed, suffering agonies before they die, the veterans tell it with little emotion and some of it must be true. Or worse, to go home untried, untested, never to face an angry shot, left on the beach as others sail to glory. The privations, the insult, are only bearable if they lead to a moment in arms, under the flag, caught in a desperate fight. If we risk that for them, Junior thinks, Junior believes with all his soul, how can they deny us the rest?

Our bugler is warning of the evening mess and I must close. Please send my love to Mother and Jessie. I shall write them separately as time permits. I ask that you share the general observations enclosed with Manly at the Record , whom I have promised a correspondence. There are other Wilmington men here besides myself and Royal Scott, but none of a literary bent. I will make you proud.

Your son,

Aaron

Junior considers his boots for a long moment, then grimaces and struggles to pull the first one on. Little Earl sits up, sand stuck on his face, looking bewildered.

“Chow?”

“That’s right.”

The private frowns, trying to dredge something from his memory. “When was it they give us biscuits and butter?”

“Chickamauga,” says Junior, starting on the other boot, “the first week.”

Little Earl shakes his head. “Shouldn’t ought to play with a man like that.”

Tampa is a fever dream. Tampa is for sale.

Coop and the boys wait at the trolley stop, resisting temptation. Gasoline torches light the area and vendors at the various wood-and-cardboard stands shout out their attractions. Oranges are sold at one, imported from California since this year’s killing frost, while others have soap and cocoanuts and local souvenirs and lemons and writing paper and sandwiches and there is a forty-foot-long ice-cream-and-soda-fountain counter at which prohibited items may also be purchased if the Provost Guard is either absent or willing to settle for a share. A crap game proceeds at one end of the counter.

“We leave that one alone,” says Coop, “unless we way behind by the time we get back here.”

“That be sometime tomorrow,” grins Willie Mills.

“Don’t you worry none. Ice cream might be run out, but them craps still be rollin day or night.”

There is a new building, a two-story barnlike structure slapped together with raw pine, that sits just across from the trolley tracks.

“Pompton Stiles from B Company won hisself a pile in there playing chuck-aluck,” says Willie.

“Yeah, and then he lost the whole thing on the roulette.” Coop lets his hand rest on his pistol grip, a dozen white volunteers arriving and standing in a group to wait. “I stick with them bones. Bones always treat me right.”

A barefoot little black boy comes by, selling polished conch shells. Nobody wants to buy but he lingers, staring at the men. Coop pulls the Colt out of its holster, offers it.

“You want to hold this here?”

The little boy stares, awestruck, at the heavy weapon. “Naw suh.” He shoots a glance toward the white soldiers, who are studiously looking in another direction. “They lets you ca’y that?”

“They insist on it,” says Too Tall, who claims to have been a preacher once in Alabama. “Soldier aint a soldier less he’s armed and ready for action. What if a boatload of them limejuicers land here in Tampa tonight, commence to attack the population? We might not have time to run back and get our rifles.”

The boy nods, wide-eyed.

“Someday, if these crackers don’t run you down first, maybe you be a soldier too,” says Coop.

“Yeah?”

“Hell,” says Willie Mills, “they take Coop here, they take about any old body.”

They are laughing when the electric trolley arrives. Only a few passengers get off, mostly more vendors arriving for the nightly festivities, but there is a crowd of soldiers squeezing onto the two cars. The conductor scowls and stares hard out at the carnival booths, and Coop finds himself pressed tight against a short, nervous corporal from the Ohio Vols.

“Anybody seen that Jim Crow on board?” Coop calls out, grinning, just before the bell and the first lurch of motion.

“Naw,” answers Too Tall from the other end of the car. “He aint been invited.”

Tampa is a fever dream. Tampa is a dream of Hell.

The song ends and Little Earl feels the Spirit move within him. Earlier it was the stew and one of the sweats he’s been having, the ones that come even when they’re not running you over the sand, but this is different, tingling out through his whole body and urging him to stand and shout no matter what the white folks think.

Moody, the famous Moody of Chicago, steps to the podium on the plank stage at the front. He is a stocky man, with a patriarch’s beard and a deep, booming voice that fills the great tent without strain — it impresses Little Earl that the evangelist is only talk ing with them, man to man, though there are women scattered in the rows. There are at least five hundred souls gathered under the canvas, with many uniformed soldiers among them, whites taking up some three-quarters of the space and the blacks crowded behind a rope to the left.