Harlan started laughing at that, too. “So what made you choose Artillery?”
“It was either learn how to rain death and destruction down on the godless hordes while defending our fair nation, or get stuck in the motor pool. I went with option one. I figure I can kill more people that way than with my driving. You?”
“Same thing.”
“You ever learn how to drive a standard?”
Harlan just laughed at that. Then things started to happen and we had to quit fucking off and pay attention. The rest of the morning went pretty much like Harlan had expected. Today was check-in day. We were called forward to a counter by a bunch of Spec 4s, had our orders and ID cards checked, assigned BOQ rooms, two to a room, and given a list of do’s and don’ts for the BOQ. Buckman comes before Buckminster, so I ended up asking for Harlan as my roommate. The Spec 4s consulted their sheets and shuffled some things and I had a roommate. Then we stood around until we were sent to a large lecture style classroom, where we were seated and our teachers and cadre lined the room. In front was a lectern and a light bird welcomed us and gave us some more rules and regs. After that we did some more paperwork, had our security clearances checked, and went to the Officer’s Club for lunch. A captain escorted us and gave us some more instruction on how the club worked, as well as other details on food and lodging. After lunch we were sent off to draw an absolutely outrageous load of textbooks, firing tables, and other essentials before being dismissed to sort things out at the BOQ. Harlan and I swapped room numbers at the Best Western so we could call each other and make dinner plans.
By mid-afternoon I was able to head back to the Best Western, where Marilyn and I loaded most of my gear into the Impala. It seemed pretty simple to get her onto the base, so we drove over and put my stuff in my room. Once we got to the BOQ, we found Harlan and his fiancée moving his stuff in as well, so we did the introductions. Anna Lee was much lighter skinned than Harlan, who was almost pitch black, but she had the same southern accent he did. She was tall and slim, and looked classy. We helped each other move, and then helped our fellow classmates get moved in. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the only guy with too much stuff to pack in our rooms, so I led a small convoy over to the storage lockers and allowed Harlan to share mine while some of the other guys rented one and split it up between themselves.
Dinner was at the Best Western at 1900. I wore civvies rather than a uniform, and was pleased to note that Harlan had changed also. My first question was to Anna Lee. “So how’d you ever meet this reprobate?”
Anna Lee and Harlan laughed. “We met at school,” she said. “I was walking across the quad and he ran into me!”
“She was wearing these shorts — oh my God! — and…” interrupted Harlan.
“Watch your mouth!” squawked Anna Lee, at which both Marilyn and I laughed. “No need to tell anybody that!”
I glanced at Anna Lee’s legs, which were pretty good, and nodded to Harlan and gave him a thumbs up. “No need to explain.” That earned me punches from both Marilyn and Anna Lee. I just turned to Marilyn. “You’d better behave or I’ll tell them the truth about how we met.”
As expected, Marilyn turned red and said, “Don’t you dare!” which made the others all the more curious.
I simply smiled at her and said, “You can tell them the romantic version, or my more truthful version.”
“You are an evil person,” Marilyn answered. She gave a somewhat limited romantic version, and the other two had me expand on it. The romantic version was the duel. Then Harlan asked for the true version, and I told how she had picked up the bartender at a party, which earned a few squawks from my fiancée. I just shrugged and said I was an officer and a gentleman.
“You may be an officer, but you are no gentleman!” argued Marilyn.
“Well, it was fifty-fifty odds.” I looked at my friend. “When’s the big day?”
“March 11,” announced Anna Lee. “I finish school in December and we’re getting married after that.”
“Good for you.”
Harlan continued, “It’s at the chapel at Ole Miss, in Oxford. You should come. I’m inviting you. Both of you. Come on down.” Anna Lee nodded in agreement.
I glanced at Marilyn, who gave me a shrug. “Fine by us. It all depends on where we end up, I suppose. If we can make it, we’ll be there. You’re invited to our wedding, too, but that’s next summer and we don’t have a date yet. Want to be one of my ushers?” I asked. “My college roommate is my best man, and you’ve been my army roommate for a couple of years. Why not?”
He laughed. “Love to. Are there going to be any other brothers at the wedding?” he asked.
I just grinned. “Oh, man, it’s going to be whiter than a Klan meeting!”
Harlan just laughed loudly at that, and Anna Lee giggled. Predictably, Marilyn was horrified at my statement. “I can’t believe you said that! You’re such a… a…”
I just shook my head at her. “I am many things, babe, but that ain’t one of them.” Harlan and his lady were looking at me in confusion. I turned to them and said, “Marilyn is convinced that since I am a Caucasian male born south of the Mason-Dixon Line, I am by birth and definition a racist, and that only Yankees have no prejudices.”
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Harlan humorously. “What kind of a Yankee?”
“A New York Yankee!”
“They’re the worst!” he laughed. He looked over at Marilyn and smiled. “You are aware that slavery was legal in New York until the 1820s, right?”
Marilyn looked like she had been slapped in the face with a dead fish. “No, that’s not true!”
The rest of us just smiled and nodded. “1827, I believe. They weren’t the last of the Yankee states, either. That was Connecticut, I think, and not for another twenty years or so, either,” I said. Marilyn looked at me and I said, “They teach this stuff in schools.”
Harlan looked at me and grinned. “So, how many slaves did your family own, Carl?”
“None, as far as I know. Wrong type of land for that anyway,” I answered.
It was his turn to look surprised. “Shit, man, I was just joking. You mean your family might have been slave-owners?”
I shrugged. “Well, we got here in the 1750s, and Maryland was a slave state, so I suppose it’s possible, but the land we owned wasn’t suitable for that sort of farming. I have never heard of any branch of the family that ever owned any slaves, but I suppose it is theoretically possible. Hampton House is near where I grew up and it was a plantation with slaves, but the farming we did wasn’t conducive to slavery.”
“I’m not following you.” Anna Lee looked at me curiously, too. Marilyn just couldn’t believe the entire conversation.
“There’s really only two crops that do well with slaves, cotton and tobacco, both of them high value and labor intensive. Most of the slaves at Hampton House worked in the barns and the main house. Nobody ever grew cotton or tobacco there, that’s for sure.” Harlan still looked confused, so he must not have that farmer gene in him. “Nobody’s ever grown cotton in Maryland that I ever heard of. I suppose you could do it, but the big crops were always sweet corn and tobacco. Lots of tobacco was grown, still is, in fact, but it’s all down in the southern part of the state, the flat and wet coastal piece. My family settled in the northern and western part of the state. It’s all rolling hills there. Prime for corn and cows, lousy for tobacco,” I told him.
“You learn something every day, I suppose,” commented Harlan. “It’s not just cotton and tobacco, though. In Mississippi they also raised rice and sugar, and both used slaves.”
I gave my friend a funny look. “Okay, rice I can understand, but sugar? They grew sugar down there?”