Leon Uris: A God In Ruins

Farther along, they rushed up to a third floor to break up a marital. In the old days, Dan had been an arbitrator, along with the parish priest. Consultation fees, a cup of tea and a slice of pie. Jesus, Kofski, don’t just burst in with your baton swinging!

A final cuff was made when they nailed a kid heisting hubcaps. Kofski shook the kid real hard and wanted to take him back to the station. Dan had to read quickly whether this boy was too far into the street scene or could still be salvaged. He opted to take the boy to his mother and dad.

This chase incident made Dan aware of his limited mobility. Kofski had to run the kid down, and it wasn’t easy.

In the Corps, he’d been thrown in with all kinds of guys, Texans, farmers, and those wild lads from L.A. He’d only heard of such people and never believed he would live to see them. Won’t the nation change at the end of the war? As they left “the walk,” Dan wondered if his beat wasn’t really the perimeter of a walled graveyard.

He sank into a mood of Irish maudlin. The pending mayhem of a large Irish wedding shaped up. A yard filled with clucking hens writing invitations, pinning up, pinning down. A band and step dancers and a tenor and a poet were hired, and even the mayor might make it.

As the kitchen calendar was X’d, Dan entombed himself in his tiny room, awaiting his only respite, the daily visit from Father Scan Logan, his forthcoming brother-in-law.

“Looks like you’ve had enough of the women, Dan.”

tet t Egh.

“Well, marriage is the one moment in life that a girl can make a kill. It’s bound to test your patience. But some fine news! Permission to use the big cathedral came from the cardinal of Brooklyn himself. I’ve waited for near on three years and have never performed a marriage ceremony. I wanted you and my beloved sister Siobhan to be my first.”

Dan said it must have cost him a fortune in fees.

“Never to mind. You don’t wear this collar to make money. You appear to be having normal prenuptial jitters.”

“No doubts, Scan. I love Siobhan fiercely.”

“Almost as much as you love the Marine Corps,” the priest retorted.

“It’s so damned hard to let go!” Dan cried.

“I’m counseling veterans a good part of the day. Lots of lads are stumbling around. It was for most of you the first taste of life beyond Brooklyn, and no matter what happens, the war will always remain the big event of your life.”

“It passed through my mind to reenlist.”

“One of the chaplains from the Sixth Marines was with me at a retreat a few months ago. He told me that your battalion lost four commanders in the first day.”

“Saipan was a shit kicker. So were Guadalcanal and Tarawa. The worst foxhole is the one you happen to be in when the shit hits the fan.”

“Did you find something along the way?”

“Yeah, right in the beginning. On the train on the way to boot camp in San Diego. In Buffalo there was another train of recruits. To join them we had to walk through the station to their platform. The station in Buffalo was scary, high and icy and silent, a walk to the unknown. When the two trains merged they were so full, some recruits were sleeping on the floor. I ended up in a lower bunk with another guy. That’s the way fighting for space had been back home.

“Later in the trip we slowed down at the tip of daylight. I had the window position that night and rolled the shade up. Outside was a huge green lawn before a beautiful, newly painted station. Douglass, Kansas. Beyond, I could see nice houses, like Mickey Rooney lived in when he played Andy Hardy.”

“Weren’t you trying to deceive yourself, Dan? Pretending there are perfect places outside Brooklyn? If you knocked on any door in this Kansas place, you’d find Brooklyn once removed.”

“Well, what have I got here? There are still five of us in our home on top of each other trying to ace each other out of the bathroom. My parents are arguing. Everyday ordinary conversation is argumentative. Some fifteen-year-old niece is knocked up, someone is stitched up from a fight, and the friggin’ bed is lumpy.”

“It sounds like you’ve been making a plan for a long time.”

“I want to see Douglass, Kansas, and a lot of the places my men came from.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but you’ll not drive far enough to escape trouble. The virgin you saw at dawn may now show you some pimples on her ass in the midday sun.”

Dan became excited. “After Douglass, Kansas, we’ll head for Colorado and visit the parents of the one great friend of my life, Justin Quinn. It drives me, Scan. I can’t rest until I see Justin’s mom and dad and let them know what a powerful Marine their son was. Justin Quinn was the man among us, winning any broad with a glance, winning the division rodeo. Ah, the fucking fool, trying to win the battle of Saipan by himself. Maybe after that I’ll concentrate on settling down. I’m too restless now.”

“Well, you should be. Your war has been taken away from you. When do you plan to go?”

“After the wedding.”

“Does Siobhan know?”

“Ah, Jaysus, I can’t face the tears now.”

“Has it occurred to you that she might not want to go? She’s very tribal.”

“Yes, but I have to take the chance.”

The bachelor’s stag party was but three nights away. There would be nearly a hundred cops boozing and relatives all the way from Jersey and just maybe one of those weasly guys with an 8mm projector and dirty films.

Siobhan was picking up puzzling vibrations from Dan at a rapid rate. Did he truly want to marry? Was it coming back from a war too emptied out? He spoke little of vicious battles or malaria or dengue fever. From a strange, secret place he’d mutter the name of one of the boys in his platoon. Except for Justin Quinn. He’d talk about Justin.

“Two more days and I’ve got you,” Siobhan said. “I understand the boys will have a couple of strippers at your stag party. Just remember, you’re an officer of the law.”

“Ah, geez, Siobhan, the captain himself is sending them.”

“How does Mrs. Jane O’Connell sound?” she asked. “Or should I continue to use Siobhan?”

“You use Mrs. Daniel Timothy O’Connell. If it was good enough for the liberator of Ireland, it’s good enough for the likes of us.”

“Oh, thank you, milord, but I’ll be using my own Christian name.”

“Look at what the war went and done,” Dan retorted. “All you ladies got liberated to work in the defense factories. That doesn’t give you the right to throw your husband’s fine name out with the garbage.”

It was wonderful. Dan knew new ways of defusing his woman. The official engagement had many advantages. He could touch her breasts any time he wished. Every damned time, she liked it! She’d put her hand atop his to make him stay awhile. Having petted her into a weak state, he sprang forth.

“I’ve got something of great consequence to tell you,” he blurted.

“We’re not going to get married!”

“Of course we’re going to get married. Sunday we’re getting married.

I’m addressing you on a matter after the wedding.”

“We are still going to Niagara Falls, aren’t we, Dan?”

“Definitely, but not by train,” he croaked.

“I’m not walking!”

“Will you let me get a word in edgewise!” She became silent. He paced. All of his airtight arguments disappeared in a dim puff. “Well,” he managed, “I was of a mind that when we leave Niagara Falls, we continue directly to San Francisco.”

“Sacred Heart! I may faint!”

“Siobhan, I tried to hint to you in my letters. I’ve met too many men from too many places not to realize that this is a great land and life could be wondrous in a way that it never could be here.”