The Great Santini (9 page)

"Put on the brakes, Matt. You should have gone when we stopped for the train."

"I told you I didn't have to go then, Dad."

"Offer it up, son," Lillian suggested for the third time.

"You got to learn, Matt," Ben said," that Dad just doesn't allow his children to excrete when he's on a trip. It's a family law."

"I didn't think men went to the bathroom when I was a little girl," Karen added," because Dad never had to stop during a trip."

"Well be there in a minute," Lillian said. "Think about something else and it will help."

"Think about how your kidneys are gonna blow up soon, if you don't take a whizz pretty soon," Ben said.

"Quit the yappin' back there."

Before them in two symmetrical files of stores stood the center of town. It was a three block area with stores facing the street, the river visible in fragments of green through the alleyways that cut through to unseen parking lots by the water. Some of the stores were old with graceful eaves and cornices; others had been modernized or sterilized with plate glass windows and neon; still others were new. In one alleyway, a large black man had parked his mule and wagon and was lifting off bunches of flowers to sell to the morning shoppers who were beginning to appear at both ends of the runny street. The hard fragrance of the salt river and the marshes filled the car. It was a smell that all of them would remember as their first smell in Ravenel.

"The river is beautiful, Bull," Lillian said after a moment. "Look, it runs right behind the stores."

"This town is hicksville," said Mary Anne.

"Give it a chance, honey. You're always too quick to judge."

"I've given it a chance," Mary Anne retorted, "and this town is definitely hicksville."

"You could find a turd in a scoop of ice cream, Mary Anne," Colonel Meecham said.

"Where's the main part of town, Daddy?" Karen asked.

"You're in it, sportsfans."

"We better find a priest," Ben said. "I don't think Matt's going to make it."

"Matt's turning yellow, Dad," Mary Anne said. "You know, Matt, I think you look good yellow."

"Yeah, and you're gonna look good bloody," Matt shot back, though he was moaning in a rigidly held fetal position.

"Are we almost to the house, Bull?" Lillian asked.

"Almost," he answered. "Now I want all you hogs to look out the window and see if you can guess which house the Great Santini rented for his family."

"Since the Great Santini has the worst taste in the free world, this should be easy," his wife said pleasantly.

"Has the Great Santini ever let his family down?" shouted Colonel Meecham.

"Yes," the family shouted back, pleased by the spontaneous unanimity.

"You do not trust the Great Santini?" he asked with fake incredulity.

"No," the family screamed.

"Aha," he said," then it is up to Santini to prove to his doubting Thomas family that he is the tops when it comes to choosing a house for his family."

"Watch out for a place that looks like a pentagon," Mary Anne said.

"Or an airplane hangar," Ben offered.

"Look for the one you think it is," said Bull, smiling under his sunglasses.

"I hope it's soon, sugah. Matt is undergoing rigor mortis," Lillian cautioned.

They had entered a neighborhood of splendid quiet, hushed gardens, and columned houses. The houses were not as spectacular as those that lined River Street, but many of them were older and more tastefully understated. The river had curved around to the boundary of this neighborhood. Four large houses sat at the farthest extremity of this point of land, each of them overlooking the water. Each house was almost hidden by huge oak trees that hovered over them. On the far right was a large house that looked straight to the most oblique curve in the river. It was a house that needed painting, one that seemed to cry out for habitation and laughter beneath its roof. The other homes along the river were vigorously tended. This one was vacant.

Bull Meecham pulled into the driveway of the house. Matt leaped from the car and sprinted to the other side of the house, the laughter of his family following him. Then for a moment, Lillian and her children sat quietly, stunned by the size and majesty of the house.

"Bull, the last time you chose a house for the family," Lillian said," it was so small a family of fleas would have been cramped to distraction. But this . . . "She leaned over and kissed him on the neck. "It's beautiful, sugah."

"No," Bull said wistfully. "It's a southern mansion just like you always wanted to live in. It belongs to a man from Chicago who is gonna retire here in two years. He heard that the Chicity kid needed a house and he cut fifteen big ones off the monthly rent. He knew I was class and would take good care of the house. I probably reminded him of Rhett Butler."

As Lillian wandered about the empty rooms of the house carefully making mental notes about furniture placement and room arrangement, Colonel Meecham herded his children to the front porch for a morale check. Mary Anne and Karen sat on the fourth step leading up to the front door; directly behind them sat Ben and Matthew. With his hands placed behind his back, Bull paced in front of them, clearing his throat and gathering his thoughts for the traditional moving day speech. The sun was fully up now and the heat of the August day was beginning to assert itself with a blood-thickening power. Bull unzipped his flight jacket but did not take it off. In his right hand he carried a swagger stick which occasionally he slapped against his left palm, punctuation marks for the thoughts that crowded and strutted invisibly within him. Finally, he began to speak.

"At ease, hogs," he began. "I want you to listen and listen good. We have bivouacked all night and arrived at our destination, one Ravenel, South Carolina, at approximately 0800 hours, twenty minutes before your commanding officer had planned. Now I have listened to you hogs bellyache about moving to a new town ever since I arrived home from the Med cruise. This said bellyaching will end as of 0859 hours and will not affect the morale of this squadron henceforth. Do I make myself clear?"

His children nodded their agreement with expressionless eyes. The swagger stick slapped against Bull's hand in ten second intervals.

"Your C.O.'s philosophy has always been this: If a little shit comes into your life, pretend that it's milk chocolate. It just means that you have to bear down a little bit, reach way down there in that place where the guts reside, dig in, and say to yourselves, There's nothing that can keep me down. Nothing! If anyone gets in your way, you run him down. If anyone thinks they're better than you, you step all over him until he looks like the Graumann Chinese Theater. Now, I know it's rough to leave your friends and move every year. At least it would be rough for other kids. But you," he said, his eyes meeting the eyes of every child," you are different. You are Marine kids and can chew nails while other kids are sucking on cotton candy. Marine kids are so far ahead of other kids that it's criminal. Why? Because of discipline. You've had discipline. You may resent it now, but one day you're going to look back at your ol' Dad and say I owe it all to him. If he had kicked my butt a few more times no telling how far I could have gone in life. You hogs have one more advantage that I have not mentioned, but I will mention at this time. It gives you the edge over even Marine kids and that advantage is this: you are Meechams. Now a Meecham has got more goin' for him than any other animal I know. A Meecham is a thoroughbred, a winner all the way. A Meecham gets the best grades, wins the most awards, excels in sports, is the most popular, and is always found near the top no matter what endeavor he undertakes. A Meecham never gives up, never surrenders, never sticks his tail between his legs, never gets weepy, never gets his nose out of joint, and never, never, never, under any circumstance, loses sight of the fact that it is the Meecham family that he represents, whose honor he is upholding. I want you hogs to let this burg know you're here. I want these crackers to wake up and wonder what in the hell just blew into town. Now just one more thing: just because a Meecham has more raw talent than anyone else, that doesn't prevent him from thinkin' about the Man Upstairs every once in a while. Yes, I think you know who I mean. Don't be too proud to ask for his help. I've got this feeling when it comes to favorites with the Man Upstairs, the Meechams rank as high as anyone. Even I myself get down and pray to the Lord Creator every night because I realize that without him I am nothing. The order of the day is to help your mother police up the house. When I return from the base I want to see you hogs sweating blood. By nightfall, this camp should be in A number one order. Inspection order. Do you read me loud and clear?" Bull roared.

"Yes, sir," his children answered.

"Sergeant," Bull said to Ben," dismiss the troops."

Ben walked down to his father, saluted him sharply, about-faced and shouted," Dis-missed."

From the veranda above them, Lillian called down to her husband," When are you going to check in at the base, sugah?"

"Why don't I wait till Monday? I can help unpack boxes and supervise the hogs."

"Oh, no," said Mary Anne to herself, but her eyes blazed up to her mother in a silent entreaty.

"Our marriage can't survive your staying around here to help, Bull. No, you are banished from this house until late this afternoon. You remember what happened last time. Your fuse is too short on moving day. You check in and well take care of the movers."

Each child breathed easier when the colonel grunted his reluctant assent. It was always better when Colonel Meecham was exiled under edict from his harried wife and disappeared from the house on moving day, for long experience had taught them that the colonel's temper shortened considerably in the chaotic milieu of unopened boxes and pictureless walls. On the last three moves, Bull had swaggered among the movers shouting out commands as though they were laggard corporals in need of KP. He caused enough resentment on the last move to stir an eventual mutiny that led the head mover to ask him to leave the premises if he wanted his furniture anywhere other than on the front lawn. It is often difficult for military officers to grasp the fact that the civilian world does not hold them in shivering awe. Bull's family also remembered that Ben had been the victim of his father's frustration at the end of the three previous settling-in days, receiving backhands on two of those occasions, and a semi-strangling on the third. Wiser now, Ben had told his mother that he would disappear for the day if she did not devise a plan to keep the colonel out of the maelstrom of this ill-omened day. He was not offering his body as a human sacrifice again just because his father could not exist in the center of chaos.

"Let's face it, Mom," Ben had told her," Dad ain't exactly priestlike when we move into a new place."

At nine o'clock, Bull pulled a clean uniform from a clothes bag that hung in the car. He took the uniform directly to Ben and told him to prepare it for use by the sharpest Marine officer in the Corps. Ben took the uniform from his father, smoothed it with his hand, spread a blanket on the lawn, then laid the uniform reverently on top of the blanket. Then he pinned the ribbons, insignia of rank, and appropriate decorations onto his father's blouse. It was a ritual he could perform in his sleep, one for which his father had trained him from childhood.

"Are you going to wear your inspection shoes or your work shoes, Dad?" Ben asked.

"Use your noggin, sportsfans," Bull snapped. "I'm not gonna be waltzing through a field of shit flowers this morning. This is a pretty important meeting. Do you get it?"

"Aye, aye, sir. Inspection shoes it is," Ben said. He walked to the front seat of the car and lifted a pair of shoes whose toes were covered by white sweat socks from under the seat. Gingerly, Ben removed the socks. He stared deeply into the gloss on the shoes.

"You scratched these shoes badly, Dad, the last time you wore them. You got to be more careful with these babies."

"I don't have to be careful as long as I have you around to shine 'em up," his father retorted, not gruffly, but as a statement of irrefutable fact.

"What did you do without me when you were sailing around on that aircraft carrier last year?"

"I got hold of a real ambitious corporal," he replied.

Under some road maps in the glove compartment, Ben retrieved a rusty can of cordovan polish and a thin silken handkerchief spotted with dried circles of polish. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw his father lift the uniform off the blanket, inspect the angle and position of the silver leaves, eyeing the placement of ribbons, then grunting approval without acknowledging his son. There are some things you can never forget, Ben thought. Finding a shady place on the veranda, he leaned up against a column and began to shine his father's shoes. Even though he resented the way his father took this duty for granted, he derived a guarded satisfaction from his custodianship of his father's shoes. With him rested the basic responsibility for his father's military appearance. The shoes were Ben's greatest challenge and most enduring joy. Bull was hard on shoes. Some Marines could make a good spit shine last for a week, but Bull's shoes would look as if they had been on a forced march after only several days' wear. Ben loosened the top of the can of Kiwi with a dime, wrapped the handkerchief tightly around his middle finger, put some water into the top of the polish can, dabbed a small amount of polish on the rag, then in a circular motion lightly applied the polish to the shoe. It delighted him always to find the mirror in the shoe's face, to rediscover the dark reflection released as the finger thinned the polish on the hard, good-smelling leather. Touch was the thing, lightness in the finger, the sparing use of water, never spit, the thinness of the rag, and a stingy use of polish. Once a shoe had a good base, it was a simple matter to restore its brilliance when the shine faded. As his finger moved, Ben watched his face appear as if he were standing over a clear pool; his eyes stared into his darker eyes, reflected in the black waters of cordovan. Looking up, he could see his mother through the large curtainless windows inspecting a fine old mantelpiece in the living room. He had never seen her happier with a new house.