There was a little town of about two thousand named Bennetville only about five miles from the separation center in Ohio. It looked quiet and clean. I registered into the only hotel. Even with my baggage, they made me hand over a week in advance. That little town was used to the army. They must have learned the hard way.
Then I took a train down into the city. After four hours I had a meager wardrobe. I put one suit on and stuffed the monkey suit into a trash basket outside the dressing room. I held the little gold button with the eagle on it in my hand for a while and looked down at it. I wasn’t being bitter. I wasn’t being the hot novelist’s idea of the cynical soldier. I just didn’t want to wear the damn thing. I knew that they’d see the button and tie it up with the little limp and the missing fingers and the deep scar across my face. I didn’t want to be a professional veteran. I tossed it into the trash can after the suit.
Then I hunted around in the used-car lots. I finally found a little ’40 Plymouth convertible with a decent motor. I paid them their thousand and got it licensed. I got back to my hotel room in Bennetville by midnight. I was tired, but I felt like a civilian. I tossed out the rest of the brown clothes and went to bed. I didn’t dream.
In the morning I placed a person-to-person call to Dan Christoff in Youngstown, Ohio. I sat and drank my breakfast coffee and felt the chill butterflies of excitement as I waited for the call to go through.
The phone rang and I picked it up. “Mr. Garry? This is the operator. Mr. Daniel Christoff isn’t at that number, and they don’t expect him back. What do you wish me to do?”
“Let me talk to his wife, Dorothy Christoff.”
I waited a few seconds, and then the operator came on again. She sounded a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garry, but Mrs. Christoff doesn’t wish to speak to you.”
“What the hell do you mean? This isn’t a collect call.”
“I know, sir, but she refuses to take the call.”
“Okay, cancel it.” I slammed the phone down onto the cradle. I jumped up and paced the room. I drew a cigarette down until it scorched my fingers. I threw it out the window with a full arm swing. I couldn’t understand it. It sounded as though Dan and Dorothy had broken up. That didn’t make sense. They were made for each other. I remembered her as a tall, fair girl with dusky red hair and a face with a warm pallor like old ivory, gray-green eyes, and a quick wide grin like a boy’s. It didn’t make sense. We had always liked each other. I threw the stuff I’d need into the new bag I’d bought and went down to the desk. I gave them another week’s rent and got into the car. I took the little automobile by the nape of the neck and yanked it out of town. It screamed in protest on the corners. It didn’t make sense, for her to refuse to talk to me.
I drove two hundred miles before I cooled off. I had to keep the speed down, because, if I felt one of those blank spells coming on, I’d only have a few seconds to stop the car. I carefully went over every possible answer I could think of. None of them seemed to make any sense. It wasn’t fair to me. I wanted to see her, and I wanted a look at Dan’s kid. He’d been three when we left. Billy Christoff. Round and grave and sturdy.
I didn’t stop for lunch. It was quarter after four when I rolled up in front of the small bungalow on the shaded street where Dan and I had thrown the party the week before we left for the Coast. I remembered the house as being larger. The paint had been whiter. The lawn had looked greener. A chill rain was falling as I walked to the steps and went up onto the porch.
I leaned on the bell and waited. After about thirty seconds, she opened the door. Her eyes widened a little when she saw me.
“I thought you’d come here, Howard, but I didn’t want you to. I didn’t expect you so soon. I suppose I better ask you in.” She turned and walked ahead of me. She was as slim as ever but not as straight, somehow. I wanted to ask all sorts of questions, but I realized that it would be more comfortable for her if I let her handle it her own way.
She led me into the familiar living room. The furniture had been changed around, but the walls and windows were the same. There was a large picture of Dan on the mantel. He wasn’t in uniform.
When she sat on the couch, the light from the windows fell harshly across her face. It shocked me. Her face had been thin. It looked gaunt. There was no life in her eyes. There were new lines across her neck, and puffy shadows under her eyes. She sat and examined her fingernails for a few seconds. Then she looked up at me.
“Dan’s dead, you know.”
I hadn’t known. I hadn’t even considered it. The guy had always seemed so indestructible. So durable, as though he and his pipe would be around forever. I glanced up at his picture and then I looked down at the pattern in the rug. I took out a cigarette and carefully examined the little pattern of brown grains of tobacco. The white paper had a small wrinkle near the end where the label was. I took out a packet of matches: WORT’S GARAGE. BODY AND FENDER WORK. Red and white and yellow. I struck one of the green-tipped matches on the scarred scratching surface and lit the cigarette. I drew the smoke deep into my lungs and exhaled it in a long gray column toward the far wall. It broke up in the still air. Dan was dead. You’re a long time dead. What did friend Hemingway say? When you laugh, laugh like hell — you’re a long time dead. Something like that. Dan dead. Alliteration. Both one-syllable words.
I had it under control. I looked over at her. Her eyes were still dead.
“Are you positive, Dorothy? Certain?”
“His body was recovered a few days later. Washed up on the beach.”
“Combat?”
“No. Not even line of duty, according to the army. They marked it NLD. I suppose that means not line of duty. They were going to punish him for it if he hadn’t been drowned by accident.”
“That doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“I’ll get you the letter.” She stood up with a sigh and walked out of the room. I sat and waited. She was back in a few moments and handed it to me. Long stained envelope. Many times read. I opened it and pulled out the letter.
Dear Mrs. Christoff:
This is something not normally done, I believe, but I feel that you should have some information regarding the unfortunate death of your husband. You will undoubtedly ask other people who were with him at the time, and I feel that it is better for you to have a clear report from someone in authority, rather than a garbled account.
Your husband was placed in temporary command of the crew of a Quartermaster Crash Boat which was berthed in Colombo Harbor, Ceylon. He didn’t have the knowledge to command the boat at sea, and it was only a temporary arrangement pending the arrival of a replacement for the original captain of the boat.
He not only took it to sea one night, exceeding his verbal instructions, but he took as passengers two civilians from Colombo. They ran into a monsoon squall, and he was washed overboard and drowned. His body was recovered and properly identified before burial.
Had he not been drowned, he would undoubtedly have faced courts-martial on his return to shore, as his breach of security regulations alone would have been sufficient to break him to his original officer rank. The combination of offenses might well have resulted in a dishonorable discharge from the army.
His death was rated NLD by the theater commander, and as such you will not receive one half of a year’s base pay and allowances.
Please understand that it is a most unpleasant task for me to write this type of letter to you. Your husband had a superior rating as an officer up until the time of this incident. I thought you should like to know the facts in this matter.