Rumpott was able to stop the conversation and start the thinking. Before I could blink, he smacked my left shoulder with his huge right hand and said, “I need coffee and conversation with my four friends sitting at yon table. Come along, Thanet. You are about to meet four great Marines. They are all family men who are about to deploy to Afghanistan in thirty days. Tonight, we shall give them a grand pre-sendoff.”
Jack, Mike, Pete, and Mason shook my hand. Each had a grip that damn nearly made me yelp with pain. Later, I actually put my hand under the table and flexed each of my fingers while checking for pulverized bones. Happily, they all seemed to be in working order.
They decided we should sing military songs. I said I didn’t know the words. They looked at me and said, “You will sing.”
We sang, with the help of a large part of the audience that had gathered around us,
Anchors Aweigh, Ballad of the Green Berets, The Caissons Go Rolling Along, The Marines Hymn, and Off We Go In to the Wild Blue Yonder
. You know, we sounded pretty good.
Mike, raised by grandparents who were born in Ireland, naturally wanted to sing
Danny Boy
for us that is a beautiful, but sad song and always got tears from me. I wasn’t the only one. I saw tears on the faces of the small crowd that had gathered around us and also ones that remained at their tables.
Mike’s singing voice was outstanding—an exact duplicate of Dennis Day, the tenor from the 1940’s and ‘50’s that was so popular. Our audience hummed ever so softly. Men held hands with their ladies. They hugged one another and no one talked. Paskanouto moved rhythmically to Mike’s, singing from table to table, filling cups with coffee.
I looked at the four Marines. Their faces were glowing with energy and the toughness it takes to be a member of the military. I glanced upward at the ceiling and silently asked
you know who
to watch over them, to see that they wouldn’t become battle statistics but to bring them home safely to their families.
Mike finished. The crowd cheered as they wiped their eyes.
“We shook hands, wished one another well, and we left
Paskanouto’s
. I went home.
It was late, I wasn’t sleepy. I needed rye.
I was sitting on my couch-bed and finishing a third shot when a voice told me I wasn’t alone.
“It just occurred to me, Blake. I’ve got no way to pay you for your services.”
“That’s okay, Richard, quite a few of my clients tell me the same thing. In fact, that’s exactly how I got my new gun. And by the way, I’ve got that little one your wife was packing. I intend to keep it.”
“Good for you. So how can I thank you? You saved Medea.”
“Yeah, the kid is going to be all right. She’s with people that will help her go on. You don’t owe me anything, Richard. You died fighting for this country, and for a bum like me. I owe you.”
“You’re quite a guy, Blake.”
“I’ve been called that, along with other things not too complimentary.”
“Be careful, Blake. Live a long life. I’ve got to go now. I hear a bugle in the distance and that means I have to answer the muster call with the others. Soldiers from the American Revolution and to all the wars we’ve had are gathering to stand duty, to guard this country.”
“Do you know when it will end, Richard—when there will finally be peace on Earth? Is there somebody, where you’re at, that might know, and they’ve told you?”
“No. If there is, I haven’t met him, yet. Not even the Prussian Soldier who helped train our Revolutionary Army,
Baron von Friedrich Wilhelm Steuben
, knows. Blake, starting with the American Revolution the United States has been in constant wars, and that is just horribly mind boggling. It leads me to believe that peace will only happen when there are no more humans on this planet. Now, isn’t that my pleasant thought for the day? I’ll keep trying to get through to my wife, to where she can hear me. So it’s goodbye, for now, Blake. Who knows, I might check up on you, once in a while, and help you with your detective work. How does that sound to you?”
“I’ll look forward to it. Believe me, most of the time, I need help. So, until we meet again, so long, Richard.”
I worked hard at finishing what was left in the rye bottle. I looked at the only picture I have of Dru and mumbled at it.
“I love you, Dru. I don’t want anybody to take your place. Once in a lifetime, a man will meet the one lady he wants to walk through life with. You were that lady.”
I finished the rye. Before I passed out, I heard a voice whispering, “I love you, Thanet.” I answered back, “I love you, Dru.”
And how was your Memorial Day?
About the Author
During the Korean War Wayne Greenough served on the Aircraft Carrier, CVA 37. In civilian life he lived next door to a Pearl Harbor Survivor. When the man passed on he was given a military burial. The bugler played taps and Wayne Greenough wept.