ashes, brown to brown. I even dream in brown. The only thing not brown in Saverne is greed, which tints the eyes and fingertips a vibrant glossy hue of green.
Crossing the brown dirt road, I’m debating in my own mind whether to low-ball Collins or give him a fair offer and make him think I’m doing him a favor; but when I reach the middle of the dirt road, somebody yells: “Toby, lookout!”
From the corner of my eye, I see an olive green Army truck racing toward me at breakneck speed, plowing a tantrum of brown dust into the air. The dust looks startled for a moment, as if it has just been awakened from a nap. I leap out of the way, spinning a pirouette in my new black boots and giving Davidson a thank you slug in the shoulder for the warning. “You gotta be more careful, Toby,” he says. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
“Me, killed? No way,” I tell him. “Not by no goddamned truck anyway. It’ll take a French maid to do me in.”
Davidson guards the entrance to a brown tent that was once olive green. Dirt blown from the road piles into drifts against the canvas, re-creating in miniature the blowing and drifting snow in the mountain passes to the south that make the Alps impenetrable at this time of year. Early winter cuts crisp and cold over the peaks and down into the French valleys, pruning the wounded and the diseased from the battlefield and encampments, the villages and cities. A mountaineer lucky enough to reach the summit of the Alps would see war on the horizon in all directions.
The tent is warmed by a well-stocked wood stove and insulated with boxes of medical supplies stacked from floor to ceiling with dusty red crosses painted on their sides. Each box is worth two hundred dollars on the black market, making the tent into a bank vault. They form an aisle through to a desk at the center and a kerosene lantern producing a thin drizzle of light; behind the desk sits a lean, powerful looking black man. His left chest bears the name Collins, and his shoulder the stripes of a corporal. We are of equal rank. He crushes the cigarette he’s been smoking and lights another without offering me one. The white smoke from his cigarette fears the dust and latches onto his head and neck like a small child among strangers.
“Scuttlebutt says Patton’s crossing the Rhine near Ludwigshafen,” I say. “Two Divisions are moving up from southern Italy to join the party. Price of boots and gloves just tripled.”
Collins’ mouth curls. “Where are they?” he asks.
“Keeping warm in a chateau.”
“Don’t be playin’ no games wit’ me, Bowles,” he says, speaking like he just escaped from a plantation. “I ain’t got no time for it now.”
My stomach churns a sour broth of hash and coffee up into the back of my throat.
I’m finally gonna get a piece of the action
, I keep telling myself. Just a piece of what everyone else has.
I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to stay home and work on cars; that’s all I ever wanted. I got a right to a little comfort, and I’ll be damned if any nigger from Kentucky is gonna get more than me.
They assigned me to the quartermaster after I played up an asthma attack during basic. It wasn’t that bad, and I wasn’t that good of an actor, but who was I to argue?
“Somebody’s got to keep guys like you happy and it might as well be me, right Collins?” I tell him. “What do you want, I got it all: uniforms, tents, food, booze, utensils, tools, radios, movies, office supplies, sundries.” It’s all true. In the quartermaster, I’m a walking department store and everybody’s my best friend. As soon as the bees figure out where the clover is, they swarm and rub themselves all over to get it. Officers, GI’s, locals—they’re nicer to me than to the docs who cure their syphilis. They shake my hand and talk to me about me: Where’d I come from? Got a girl? Sure, good lookin’ guy like you’s got a girl. Ten of ‘em, and pretty, too, I bet.
Crossing the brown dirt road, I’m debating in my own mind whether to low-ball Collins or give him a fair offer and make him think I’m doing him a favor; but when I reach the middle of the dirt road, somebody yells: “Toby, lookout!”
From the corner of my eye, I see an olive green Army truck racing toward me at breakneck speed, plowing a tantrum of brown dust into the air. The dust looks startled for a moment, as if it has just been awakened from a nap. I leap out of the way, spinning a pirouette in my new black boots and giving Davidson a thank you slug in the shoulder for the warning. “You gotta be more careful, Toby,” he says. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
“Me, killed? No way,” I tell him. “Not by no goddamned truck anyway. It’ll take a French maid to do me in.”
Davidson guards the entrance to a brown tent that was once olive green. Dirt blown from the road piles into drifts against the canvas, re-creating in miniature the blowing and drifting snow in the mountain passes to the south that make the Alps impenetrable at this time of year. Early winter cuts crisp and cold over the peaks and down into the French valleys, pruning the wounded and the diseased from the battlefield and encampments, the villages and cities. A mountaineer lucky enough to reach the summit of the Alps would see war on the horizon in all directions.
The tent is warmed by a well-stocked wood stove and insulated with boxes of medical supplies stacked from floor to ceiling with dusty red crosses painted on their sides. Each box is worth two hundred dollars on the black market, making the tent into a bank vault. They form an aisle through to a desk at the center and a kerosene lantern producing a thin drizzle of light; behind the desk sits a lean, powerful looking black man. His left chest bears the name Collins, and his shoulder the stripes of a corporal. We are of equal rank. He crushes the cigarette he’s been smoking and lights another without offering me one. The white smoke from his cigarette fears the dust and latches onto his head and neck like a small child among strangers.
“Scuttlebutt says Patton’s crossing the Rhine near Ludwigshafen,” I say. “Two Divisions are moving up from southern Italy to join the party. Price of boots and gloves just tripled.”
Collins’ mouth curls. “Where are they?” he asks.
“Keeping warm in a chateau.”
“Don’t be playin’ no games wit’ me, Bowles,” he says, speaking like he just escaped from a plantation. “I ain’t got no time for it now.”
My stomach churns a sour broth of hash and coffee up into the back of my throat.
I’m finally gonna get a piece of the action
, I keep telling myself. Just a piece of what everyone else has.
I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to stay home and work on cars; that’s all I ever wanted. I got a right to a little comfort, and I’ll be damned if any nigger from Kentucky is gonna get more than me.
They assigned me to the quartermaster after I played up an asthma attack during basic. It wasn’t that bad, and I wasn’t that good of an actor, but who was I to argue?
“Somebody’s got to keep guys like you happy and it might as well be me, right Collins?” I tell him. “What do you want, I got it all: uniforms, tents, food, booze, utensils, tools, radios, movies, office supplies, sundries.” It’s all true. In the quartermaster, I’m a walking department store and everybody’s my best friend. As soon as the bees figure out where the clover is, they swarm and rub themselves all over to get it. Officers, GI’s, locals—they’re nicer to me than to the docs who cure their syphilis. They shake my hand and talk to me about me: Where’d I come from? Got a girl? Sure, good lookin’ guy like you’s got a girl. Ten of ‘em, and pretty, too, I bet.
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