Settling Old Scores: BWWM Second Chance Romance (3 page)

Kevin
did have thoughts and feelings about the riot. The only words that
could describe the riot were the words tragedy, and disaster. It was
a tragedy for everyone involved, and a disaster as well. Burning the
commercial zone meant people were more inconvenienced when they
wanted or needed anything. The mostly small business owners on the
Avenue lost entire livelihoods.

They
had lived right where the rubber meets the road ever since WWII. They
were people chronically in the trenches, day in and day out. They put
long days and lots of sweat into making a living for themselves and
their families. Burning them out was like kicking your dog when
you’re mad at someone else. It didn’t make a lot of
sense; and it didn’t solve anything either.

5
.
Mr.
Sharpe

Kevin's
parents lived on the far end of things in a quiet residential
neighborhood, just off the Avenue. Some of the people that lived
there were the same hard working merchants that owned the little
shops that were burnt out. They felt bitch slapped by what had
happened. There was no way they would rebuild. If they weren't
wanted, they would go away. Kevin couldn't live around these people
and not feel their plight.

Kevin's
dad, like everyone else was a veteran. He never talked about the war,
not once, ever. Kevin knew his dad could speak German so well the
shopkeepers in the neighborhood that were German speaking practically
bowed to him when he went into their stores. They said he spoke the
German of a highly educated man, without a trace of an accent. He
knew that his dad had worked for military intelligence interviewing
captured German POWs.

He
also knew that his dad had seen an inordinate amount of blood on an
ongoing basis during the war. He worked initially as a field hospital
surgeon's assistant. When that job started to get to him, they put
him in as a POW interviewer. His dad had gone into the service at 160
lbs, and come out at 120. When a guy needed an x-ray, he just jumped
in beside the x-ray machine and held the soldier's broken bones in
position to get the best picture he could for the surgeon. Kevin came
to suspect that he was suffering from radiation poisoning, and that
was what caused him to lose weight. Years later, he died of prostate
cancer. Kevin thought that was related to the exposure. All the
gurneys and tables were all about prostate level high. Dad had tried
to go to medical school on the GI bill when he got out of the
service. By then, besides being sick, he had become a raging
alcoholic. He was quickly asked to leave the program. Kevin's next
door neighbor had a similar story.

His
name was Joe Sharpe and he spent at least 20 years in a bottle before
sobering up in the sixties. He did talk about his experiences,
though. One of which he visited with Kevin about at least a couple
times a year as Kevin grew up. He had been at Iwo Jima and shot a
Japanese soldier one morning right off a latrine he was sitting on.
Kevin got big eyes and chills every time Mr. Sharpe told the story.
Kevin knew enough about war stories to tell the real from the fake.
He knew this one was gospel truth from the way Mr. Sharpe told it. He
also knew that you couldn't have been on Iwo Jima and not seen enough
killing to kill you, too. According to the accounts he read, there
were 21,000 Japanese on this little island. There were 19000 of them
killed and only about 1000 taken prisoners.

That
Mr. Sharpe brought it up repeatedly meant that it always bothered
him. He always ended the story by telling Kevin the soldier was so
young that when he had him in his sights, he could see the soldier
was a boy not much older than 15 or 16, but he pulled the trigger
anyway.

Kevin
loved Mr. Sharpe. His own dad finally took the cure about the time
Kevin joined the Navy and left home, thanks to Mr. Sharpe. Kevin just
never had much of a relationship with his dad. Kevin's dad died just
before Kevin got his degree and license. Now, his mom who was a South
Carolina girl originally, lived in Hilton Head. That was why Kevin
sailed out of Savannah whenever he could. He could sit at the union
hall in Savannah during the day, and stay with his mom in the
evenings. Kevin always wondered if she ran away too after Dad died.
Maybe running away was a genetic thing.

Another
thanks Kevin owed Mr. Sharpe was for urging him on in math and
science, and being a surrogate Dad when he really needed one. Kevin
never told any of his friends Mr. Sharpe's story because he felt it
had been shared with him in confidence, and Kevin valued that trust.
One thing you could say about Kevin was that he was loyal in the
extreme, and blind to his friends’ faults. He never failed to
visit Mr. Sharpe when he came back to town to resume his studies. It
was Mr. Sharpe that had talked Kevin into going into the Navy instead
of the Marine Corps. In retrospect, this was a decision that Kevin
was eternally thankful to him for.

The
city, village, and neighborhood elders went to work getting everybody
settled down after the disturbance. Nobody wanted to call it a riot,
but that is what it was. Despite a lot of rhetoric, the Avenue was
never rebuilt as a commercial area. Like a long drawn out Greek
tragedy, things just degenerated into a sad, rapidly declining
status. Slowly, over the ensuing 10 years, the land was taken up
mostly for public housing.

Within
the week, Kevin quit the paper route. He was never the same after
that, either. He became more cynical, and pessimistic. That chip
implanted on his shoulder started to grow and fester, too. The
Vietnam war escalated. Sometimes, kids from classes ahead of his
would stop by the school to visit while they were rehabbing from
injuries in Vietnam. Some of the formerly healthy 18 year old boys
came back and pulled off shirts to reveal red ugly big scars. It was
sobering stuff to see. King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.
Maybe it was hormones, the era, or Kevin himself. Kevin was drifting.
His grades were nowhere close to what he was capable of, and he
didn't care much.

Patrica
helped him through the roughest patches. He felt a huge debt of
gratitude to her, and the same loyalty in this case proved to be a
vice, rather than a virtue. Or, so he thought when he finally gave up
on their relationship in 1973.

6.
Foxholes

A
lot of the old time paperboys used to carry a three cell flashlight
in their paper bags. In theory, it was supposed to help to find
addresses and see in the dark. You could even win one from the paper
if you sold enough new subscriptions. A lot of the boys used them as
weapons to fend off unfriendly dogs. The three cells from the paper
were cheap made in Japan flashlights. The correct way to grip it was
by choking down on the bulb part, and striking with the handle part.
Once, Kevin walloped a dog with one and had the batteries fly out of
the end of the flashlight. You don't want to be a one-hit wonder
around a Doberman, a big Shepherd, or a Rottweiler. People in the
neighborhoods along the Avenue didn't have little lap dogs for pets.

Kevin
switched to a weighted roller from an old typewriter for his weapon
of choice. The roller of a typewriter was a little heavier and much
better constructed; he never had it fail him. He sometimes used the
roller as his weapon of choice on older kids he got in scrapes with.
It never failed him then, either. It had the advantage of bruising
rather than causing stitches to the victim. Willie had showed him how
to use the roller, initially.

Then
there was the one time instead of taking the fight out of the guy, it
made the guy more fighting mad. Kevin ended up being the one with
stitches that time. He used to joke with Willie about "Overhand
with the Olivetti", "Upside with the Underwood", or
"Crowned with the Corona." Until that happened.

In
those days, there were kids up to age 21 going to high school. They
could actually get deferred from the draft if they were working
toward their high school diploma up to age 21. It seemed only fair,
as they were giving deferments to plenty of affluent white boys to go
to college at the time. There was a world of difference between a 16
year old boy and a 20, or almost 21 year old man. These guys used
their alpha male status to get 16-and 17 year old girls at school.
Sure, the girls were under age; but these guys went by the maturity
of the bodies and not age maturity. Kevin, sure as hell, wouldn't
back down from these guys if they got in his face. He would grip
whatever was handy and go after them.

One
time, he used a folding chair like a television pro wrestler would,
on a bigger, older guy. The guy called Pat a fucking bitch when she
ignored his efforts to charm her. That could have turned into a go to
jail offense for Kevin. It didn't help that the other guy was not the
same race, either. Kevin quickly became unwelcome with a lot of the
brothers he formerly ran the streets with. They left him alone after
that, too. Everyone seemed to know that Kelly kid might be crazier
than most.

Willie
and Kevin were on their way to becoming minor league thugs by then.
After that incident, a little racial divide grew between them; and
Kevin knew it wasn't a bad thing if it got him away from the path he
was proceeding on.

One
time after the divide started to develop, Kevin came upon Willie
having words out in a parking lot in the far corner of a liquor store
with someone Kevin had never seen before. The man pulled a knife on
Willie and looked like he knew how to use it. Willie pulled his
roller out of the sleeve of his winter jacket. He always wore a big
Navy Surplus Pea Coat in the winter.

Fearing
for Willie, Kevin charged the guy and tackled him. Willie destroyed
the guy with the roller when he and Kevin went down in a heap. "The
motherfucker beat my sister up," Willie said. Then they both
proceeded to beat the daylights out of this guy since he messed with
what both considered to be family. Later, Kevin showed Willie that he
was packing a 9mm when he tackled the guy; he could have shot him if
he wanted to because he was armed. Willie was the one with the bug
eyes that time.

Willie
probably told the other brothers that Kevin packed. After that, they
definitely left him alone having been duly warned that the crazy
Irish white boy also packed. Kevin knew that Willie still felt some
affection for him, and appreciated what he had done. They just
couldn't be seen in public together.

Willie
on the other hand, could get a grip on his roller, but not on his
roller coaster life. He quit school, kept on with the assaults.
Willie got the option of jail or the military once he landed in front
of a judge. Willie took the Marine Corps option and Kevin lost track
of him.

Kevin
seemed to come out of his funk during his junior year in high school.
All of a sudden, his grades came up. He surprised a hell of a lot of
the school counselors with his test scores too. They couldn't believe
the rough edged kid tested as well as he did. Regardless of tests,
Kevin wanted to get away from home. Just as he avoided his house by
running the streets, he wanted to avoid everything by going away. The
best option for him was to volunteer for the Navy.

Within
a week after he graduated, he left for boot camp. By January 1971, he
found himself off the coast of Vung Tau, Vietnam, on an old Liberty
ship loaded to the Plimsoll Mark with all kinds of bad shit. It had
been pressed into service as a munitions ship. They always loaded the
old buckets with the explosives right in front of the engine room
bulkheads. They didn't put them in the bow; just in case you struck
something. They didn't want to put them in the stern because an
explosion could mess up your steering equipment. If you got hit in
the mid-ship section, the whole ship was going down. It was an easy
decision in that the ship was at the end of its useful life anyway.

Kevin
never felt endangered despite the explosives literally right next to
his sorry ass. He was too stupid to know the risks. Once in a while,
someone would launch a mortar at the ships sitting in anchorage,
waiting to be unloaded. It was a little spooky especially if you were
in the engine room. You could feel the mortar, hear it, but not see
anything.

At
times like that, Kevin would look at the old steam pipes on the ship
and think about what a Lobster he would be if they burst open. They
were always under a minimum manning situation when in Vietnamese
waters. That meant that there was just the fireman and him down
there. In a case like that, each was responsible for the other. They
would look at each other full in the eyes. The unspoken belief was,
"We ain't leaving this engine room unless we leave it together."
The foxhole issue all over again.

7.
A Chance Encounter

Kevin
had woken up that morning in August 1977 to hear that Elvis Presley
had just died. He thought about all the good music Elvis created, and
bad movies. He rolled over and went back to sleep. It all just seemed
to be part of a long descent that just would not stop. He thought of
the saying summing up the history of the world. Something to the
effect that things started out bad and kept getting worse. Finally,
he dragged his butt out of bed and got moving. He had spent the last
several years sailing half the year and going to graduate school
during the other half. He had just about finished his MBA.