Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (5 page)

A man in his late 40s with arm muscles
bulging under his dirty t-shirt meets them in the office.
"Lieutenant, I have just the apartment for ya."

The man comes out from behind his desk. In
his right hand he holds a shotgun. Sharon recoils against
Robert.

The man looks at her, then grins. "I was just
goin’ out to hunt stray dogs."

Stay calm she tells herself.

They follow him up an outside staircase to a
furnished second-floor apartment with a minuscule living room,
dining area and kitchenette. An equally small bedroom and bathroom
complete the unit.

It's clean and neat. Sharon nods.

"Can I speak to you for a moment – in
private?" Robert asks her.

The man throws them a look and goes out onto
the balcony, his shotgun still slung down his side.

"There's no shower, only a bath," Robert
says. "I can't stand not having a shower."

"You'll just have to. I'm not about to give
up this decent apartment. Who knows what else we'll find?"

Robert goes out onto the balcony and Sharon
watches him shake the man's hand – the one not holding the shotgun.
"We'll move in tomorrow," Robert says.

"I figure you'll get together with your
neighbors," the man says, jerking a thumb to the apartment next
door.

Sharon wonders what he means as she watches
Robert follow him down the stairs. When the men get to the bottom
of the stairs, she leans over the railing, studying the other two
buildings, one on each side of her.

She is actually here and going to stay. She
takes a deep breath and steadies herself against the railing.

**

The next afternoon a knock on the apartment
door interrupts Sharon as she is unpacking their few kitchen
utensils, brought from her grandparents' apartment in Louisville
this morning. Robert stays in the bathroom putting away their
toiletries. She goes to the door and opens it to a tall woman with
dark hair and a wide smile.

"Yes?" Sharon says.

"I'm Anne Grossman and I live next door. I've
come to say hi and invite you over."

Grossman can be a Jewish name, but Sharon
doesn't expect to find many Jews down here. Is Anne Grossman
Jewish? And is that what the apartment owner meant about them
getting together with these neighbors?

"I'm Sharon Gold."

The woman smiles even wider. "My husband
Michael will be home soon. Why don't you and your husband come over
around 8? We can watch tv together."

Watch tv together? Is this army code for some
other activity or does this woman really mean it? In either case
Sharon wants to meet people.

"We'll do that. My husband's name is Robert,"
Sharon adds.

"We'll see you and Robert at 8 then."

As Sharon closes the door behind Anne, Robert
comes out of the bathroom. "Did I hear voices?"

"We've just been invited over at 8 this
evening by our next-door neighbors. They might be Jewish."

Robert smiles. "Don't bet on it. Anyway, come
on, let's go to the post. We just have time to get your dependent's
ID card before the office closes for the day."

She is about to officially become an
officer's wife.

**

They make tuna sandwiches for their first
dinner in their new apartment, having stopped by a grocery store on
Dixie Highway on the way back from the post. The army dependent ID
she got today can't be used at the army commissary until Robert
officially goes on active duty May 8th.

After dinner Robert says, "And just don't
blabber away. You have to be careful what you say, particularly
about Vietnam."

"What do you think I'm going to say? That I'm
against the war? That I don't want you to go there?"

He kisses her. "Just remember we're playing
by a different set of rules now. And since we're the new kids on
the block, we'd better keep our mouths shut."

She straightens her short skirt and checks
her blouse in the mirror. She has on a skirt because perhaps it is
incorrect to wear pants when making a social call. She hasn't put
on nylons with her sandals. Too hot.

A second after Sharon and Robert knock,
Michael Grossman opens the door and invites them in. Sharon
suspects that, even with the television blaring, these neighbors
can hear well enough through the thin walls to know when she and
Robert left their apartment. Now neither Anne nor Michael turns the
television off or the volume down.

Of medium height with dark hair and dark
eyes, Michael looks as if he could be Jewish. He gestures to the
television encased in its own mahogany cabinet.

"Isn't it a beauty?" Michael says. "Everyone
in the complex loves it."

The television flaunts a big screen –
probably the biggest she's ever seen.

"Did you bring it from home?" Robert
asks.

"Absolutely!" Anne says. "We told the army it
had to be shipped down here. We didn't care what else they shipped.
The television had to come."

Sharon stares at the television. She hates
watching the news from Vietnam roll across the screen: The helmeted
soldiers in their splotched fatigues carrying their dead and dying
comrades in litters, running for helicopters that just as likely
won't make it to a field hospital in time. The images followed by
the usual announcements: How many have died today in Vietnam. What
new battle has brought the death toll of Americans even higher.

How can these people want to see the battle
scenes on such a large screen, making the figures even more
lifelike? Are they really that removed from reality?

She glances at Robert and remembers his
warning. She says, "We didn't ship anything. We didn't know the
army would ship anything for us."

Anne and Michael stare at them as if they are
children. "Of course they have to ship some things. Didn't you find
out what you were entitled to?"

Sharon and Robert look at each other, then
back at their hosts. They say no in unison. Their hosts' facial
expressions clearly say what they think of such imbecilic
behavior.

"You're Jewish, aren't you?" Anne says. When
they don't answer immediately, she goes on, "Michael is Jewish, I'm
Catholic."

What can possibly be a courteous response to
this admission? Sharon doesn't approve of "mixed marriages." Her
parents always told her and Howard that they had to socialize with
and marry Jews. What shall she say now to Anne? Michael saves her
from replying.

He turns to Robert and says, "I'm working on
a medical discharge. I have some pulled tendons in my right knee –
I figure if I play this right, I can get out of the army now."

Not have to go to Vietnam is what he means,
Sharon knows. She watches Robert's face. His expression doesn't
change and he says nothing.

Michael now turns to Sharon, "What's your
favorite at this time of night?"

It takes a moment to realize he means
television program.

Two hours later Sharon and Robert lay naked
under the sheets, having survived watching Anne and Michael’s
favorite television programs.

"Robert, shhh. They can probably hear every
sound through the wall."

The bed creaks, and the headboard pushes up
against the wall – only thin plasterboard separates them from the
headboard of Anne and Michael's mirror-image bed next door.

"One more state we've done it in," Robert
says.

His hands tiptoe across her breasts. She
forgets about the neighbors – and their giant television.

“
Play the game according to the rules and do not
try to change them.”
Mrs. Lieutenant
booklet

Kim unpacks the black-and-white photo in its
battered metal frame, placing it on the small table next to the bed
in the furnished apartment. The uneven table legs cause the picture
to slant to one side, making the man standing against the wooden
frame house seem shorter than the woman next to him, her hand
resting on his arm.

The first time Jim saw the picture he offered
to buy her a new frame. Kim refused, saying she liked the old
frame. She lied. She hated the poor frame, hated the thought that
this was all that she had. Yet she can't give up any part of the
only thing she'd ever been given as a young child just for
herself.

Jim comes into the room with a carrying case.
He takes the gun from the case and places it in the nightstand
drawer. "We're all set now," he says.

Kim slides Squeaky in his cage into the
closet, leaving the door open a crack for air. Best to keep Squeaky
out of Jim's sight. He sometimes accuses her of paying more
attention to the pet rat than to him.

Then she avoids Jim’s eyes and instead speaks
to the photo. "Why can't we get a phone?"

Jim sits down on the bed and pulls her to
him. "Honey, we've been through this already. It's only for a few
weeks and we can save the money. Who are we going to call except my
parents and your sister? And we can call them from a pay phone
every Sunday."

She says nothing. They were lucky to get this
apartment – nicer than the student housing apartment they had. This
is the first one they saw up here, and they took it
immediately.

"Can I take the car to the store? I need some
more things."

"Just come right back."

Kim takes her purse off the bed and leaves
the apartment. She wasn't sure Jim would let her go by herself. He
might have thought she didn't yet know her way around. When they
had first married and lived in student housing, he worried she'd
get lost on campus. He drove her almost everywhere she wanted to go
rather than let her walk or take the bus.

Now she noses the Ford into a place alongside
an old Chevy in front of the little store up the road from the
apartment. She'll get some ingredients to make sugar cookies. This
should please Jim.

Two clerks stand behind a counter covered
with items for sale. A man in olive green fatigues and combat boots
faces the two clerks.

"Where can I find the baking items?" she asks
the older of the two clerks. He points to the far corner along the
street side of the store.

The soldier turns toward her. "Honey, I could
sure help you find the sugar."

Kim ignores him as she walks toward the
baking goods shelf with the soldier trailing behind her.

"Hey, honey," he says, "I'm talking to
you."

She takes a small bag of flour and a box of
sugar off the shelf along with a can of baking powder. She has
salt, vanilla and butter at the apartment.

Although he has said nothing more, Kim can
hear the man’s footsteps behind her as she returns to the
counter.

The older clerk is no longer there. She hands
her packages to the younger man. He smiles at her. There is
something not quite right about his eyes and the way he moves sort
of slow. When he asks her if this is all, his voice sounds
slurred.

The soldier bumps against her. "Excuse me,
mam," he says. "I'm just trying to be friendly." His breath smells
of beer.

She doesn't answer. The clerk says, "She
don't want to be bothered. Go away." He makes shooing motions with
his hands.

"No one tells me to go away!"

"Go away. Go away," the clerk says.

Kim stuffs her hand into her purse to find
some money and leave. But the soldier runs out the front door. She
now counts out the exact amount, smiles at the clerk, and says
“thank you.” At that moment something explodes behind her!

She jumps, then swivels towards the bang. The
soldier stands in the doorway, a rifle in his hands. He whirls and
runs out. Kim turns back toward the counter as the clerk moans and
slumps over. A circle of red slowly balloons across the counter,
mixing with the candy and gum lined up in neat rows.

She screams and screams! From somewhere the
older clerk appears. He looks at her, then at the other clerk. Then
he screams too. "Jesus Christ! He killed Marvin!"

Kim sinks down onto the floor and rocks back
and forth on her knees. The older clerk explains, "Marvin was
harmless – just a bit touched in the head. He didn't mean nothing."
She keeps rocking.

The clerk says, "I have to call the MPs. It
won't be that hard to find the guy. His name was on his fatigues.
You'll just have to wait to give a statement, then you can go
home."

"No, no!" She jumps up and runs out the door,
clutching the grocery bag to her chest. She drives off as the
balloon of blood spreads itself farther and farther in front of her
eyes.

She can't believe what has happened. It is
like a movie, or maybe the news on television. What will she tell
Jim? He'll be able to tell she's upset, that something has
happened. He'll think the worst if she says nothing.

She'll tell him ... the truth, someone shot
the clerk. She won't tell him why, won't say the soldier had been
pestering her, the clerk had tried to protect her, that she's
responsible for his death.

She parks the car in front of their apartment
and bends her head over the steering wheel.

The first stabs of a migraine jab above her
eyes.

**

She must go in. She has sat here too long.
Jim could come out of the apartment any minute looking for her.

She opens the apartment door and puts the
grocery bag down on the table. "What took so long?" Jim says.

Then he must notice her tear-streaked face
because he flings himself off the couch. "Did someone mess with
you? Who did it? I'll kill him." He turns towards the bedroom where
the gun is as she screams, "No, no! Sit down and I'll tell
you!"

She clasps her hands together. "The clerk at
the store was killed by a soldier. The soldier just shot the
clerk."

"While you were there?"

She nods, staring at her hands.