Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

After a time she whispered, “I’ve been thinking much the same. Brooklyn is an island. Islands dull the race after time. Maybe I should have told you, but I would say nothing, ever, at the risk of losing you, Dan.”

“Jaysus, now, isn’t that something.”

Siobhan pulled off her blouse and unhooked her bra. “Kiss them, Dan.”

He did as told and took her on his lap.

“There will be a better life for us. You remember the Romero kid over in the eyetalian street? He put his car up on blocks for the duration of the war. He was killed at Iwo.”

“I know.”

“My brother Pearse knows cars as well as Henry Ford, went and inspected it from bumper to bumper. It’s in perfect condition. Father Scan said if someone bought the car, it would help Romero’s old man get over his grieving. It’s a ‘41 DeSoto.”

“Forty-one! Aren’t we hoi polloi! Did you steal the money?”

They stopped for a little personal entanglement. It couldn’t get too serious in the middle of the day.

“Anyhow, I got the car for a pittance. Old man Romero wanted me to have it, his son being a fellow police officer and Marine. I, uh, paid seven hundred dollars for it.”

“Seven hundred dollars! Besides, I never heard of anyone driving across the country. Where would we sleep? Where would we eat? We could be attacked by Indians.”

“Let me explain, let me explain. I went to the AAA and, being a veteran, they gave me free maps and a book listing motels.”

“What the devil are motels?”

“Well, they’re not exactly hotels .. . they’re motor hotels.”

They digested it.

“Do they have toilets?”

“Yes, toilets and private showers, and we’re apt to run into one every hundred miles or so.”

“Are we coming back?” she whispered shakily.

“If we don’t find something better. But we’ll never know unless we try.”

“Are we fooling ourselves that there is something better than here?”

“From what I’ve seen, there is every chance.”

“How will we live?”

“I have a New York state bonus, plus severance pay from the Marines, and I’ve got disability compensation. I’ve been sending money home, which Dad deposited. Then, you know, gambling is not illegal in the Marine Corps, and I got this knack for poker.”

“Poker! You used to raid poker games!”

“And some dice.”

“You used to raid such games. You got a citation for it!”

“In the Corps it’s perfectly legal, so when you’re in the Marines you do as the Marines do.”

“How much dirty money did you take from them?”

“We have over nine thousand dollars in total, including the bonus and stuff like that. And don’t forget, I get two hundred a month from the government for my wound.”

Siobhan fumed a bit at the revelations.

“I’ve been too many places, Siobhan. I don’t want to be another Irish cop all my life.”

She snapped her brassiere shut and put on her top. “I suppose,” she said, “I can always find my way back to Brooklyn if I have to.”

FALL 1945

Their honeymoon became a sort of pioneer epic. Daniel O’Connell continued to wear his Marine Corps uniform with the “ruptured duck” over his breast pocket, and he speeded up his pace every time they walked past a men’s clothing store.

Siobhan O’Connell lost her newlywed nervousness. At the end of the day’s drive they either found a motel or the usual four-story brick hotel used by traveling salesmen, occupying a corner of the main cross streets of whatever town they were in. The similarity of rooms, the fishy-eyed desk clerks, and stuttering bell boys was striking. They were mid-range, six- to eight dollar-a-night rooms.

Siobhan usually waited in the car while Dan signed in at the registration desk. The fishy-eyed clerk guarded the gates to the kingdom like a true centurion. By the time they got to Cleveland, Mrs. Siobhan O’Connell opened her purse and slapped their marriage certificate on the desk.

They glowed each morning and even more so when the correct safe dates appeared on the calendar. Siobhan realized that there might be other channels of gratification during the abstention part, but she had a whole life ahead to work on it. For now, though, abstention was hell.

CHICAGO!

A married buddy, Cliff Romanowski, lived in Chicago. Cliff had lost an arm in the earlier battle of Tarawa. Beautiful reunion. Cliff’s wife, Corinne, was six months pregnant and all popped out. Good omen, Siobhan thought.

After a homemade dinner featuring Polish sausage, the four went out to paint the town. Dan mustered his bad leg into duty and did a sort of polka, which seemed to be the national dance of Chicago.

The wives were deliciously tolerant of their lads’ drinking and subsequent hell-raising. They all crashed with the daylight.

Next day, noticeably slowed, Dan took them to a Greek restaurant, the anxiety of their first meeting converted into nostalgia. At Cliff and Corinne’s apartment, they ended up sitting on the floor in a circle, propped up by pillows, and Siobhan’s toe trying to creep up inside Dan’s pant leg.

The Marine Corps. Reminiscence began with the sweat of a double-time hike, then drifted into their patented tomfoolery and sophomoric behavior. Beer busts were recalled with kindness.

“And me and O’Connell and Quinn hit the railroad station just as the

last liberty train was leaving. Everything was full, the seats, the

floor, the platform where you could sleep standing up. So the three of

us climbed into the overhead luggage rack, where there was already men

laying end to end. And an hour out of Wellington, the luggage rack

comes crashing down! The lights went out and I’ve got to tell you, I

felt a lot of Marine

I”

ass!

New Zealand had been a never-never land with the bursting scenery, Maoris, flocks on the skyline, colonial ways. Siobhan was tempted to ask about the New Zealand women but held her tongue. It was the night to let their men erupt.

Now came the war.

“.. . remember that little runt?”

“.. . yeah, Weasel from Arizona.”

“.. . nobody thought he’d hold up.”

“.. . great fighter.”

“.. . little Weasel.”

“.. . remember .. .”

“.. . geez, I forgot about that bout of malaria.” . remember .. . remember ... for God’s sake, remember me, Marine.

“I was in the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital near Frisco when you guys hit that beach at Saipan. I finally found a guy, remember Prentice in Intelligence?” Cliff asked.

“Yeah, sure do.”

“He told me what happened to you. All the casualties on the beach. But I think the worst was the day I heard about Justin Quinn,” Cliff recalled. “You don’t figure a Marine of his quality would catch a stray bullet.”

“He got hit because he had to deliver a message and there were no phone lines connected yet. It was his own bloody fault. He should have waited.”

Thump, the visit was wearily ended.

Dan and Siobhan and Cliff and Corinne would never forget it. After two devastating hangovers, the O’Connells packed the ‘41 DeSoto and pointed it toward the corn and wheat fields of the Great Plains.

Even though it cost a long-distance phone call, Siobhan always made certain there would be food and lodging at the end of the day. Ahead, they moved into an infinity of two-lane roads.

It was here that Siobhan learned to drive. When stopped for speeding, she became Everywoman, coyly explaining their newlywed status, and what with her husband home from the war .. .

“Never mind, lady, just slow down.”

They drove through Kansas City, then chose the E-Z Inne on the road out of town because it was offering half-price rooms for veterans. There were a lot of big trucks about and a steak house right next door.