Memories In Ink

Chapter Seven: Atlantic City

The morning sun made its way through the expired night sky as we climbed aboard the bus. Six days had gone by already, I was surely hoping the rest of my time in the armed forces would as well. Garry trailed close behind me, huffing and puffing in the morning humidity. The springs on the chassis of the bus squeaked and popped as we loaded onto it. I worked my way towards the back of the bus and eased down into the cold, hard seat. Garry followed close behind. He took a deep breath as he sat down next to me, cursing under his breath. "What's wrong?" I asked while pulling out a cigarette. Garry shook his head. "These sorry pricks put me in the army, I wanted Air Force!" I chuckled while the soft silhouette of smoke eased out of my nostrils. "Oh now it ain't that bad Garry." Garry scoffed as he too pulled out a cigarette. "Yeah it is. I studied them airplanes all throughout school. Was always fascinated by them." He said. I took another puff. "Yeah they are in fact some marvel of science." I replied while the morning sun made it past the trees and began to fill the bus with sunlight. Once everyone was on board, roll was called once again.
Sergeant Fayette cleared his throat. "Alright ladies listen up! I'm gonna call roll, and you best damn answer!" The sun rise was beautiful, I often wondered if Sarah was watching the same one on my side of the world. "VonDyke!" I raised my hand and shouted: "Here!" "Outstanding! Much fucking better than last time private!" The sergeant said in a smart tone. Once the roll was called, the bus roared to life and we started our journey, from boys to men.
We arrived at the train station an hour later, our bus parked in one spot, the other bus parked further down from us. The driver stood up. "Alright ladies! You're to get on this here train, and take it to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Is that understood?!" We all as a group rang out: "Sir yes sir!" The sergeant clapped. "Absolutely out fucking standing! Now get your ass off my bus!" We exited the bus like a heard of cattle walking through a freshly opened gate. The train station was absolutely beautiful, I had never seen anything like it, nor had Garry. As we walked through the beautiful marble building, Garry's head was locked up upon the chandeliers. The sounds of footsteps, ringing phones, and whistles in the background filled the room. We were all led to the train out in the yard.
As we boarded the train, there were new faces I'd never seen, as well as faces I didn't care to see any longer. But they were my brothers. This train ride was gonna be lengthy, I needed to ration out my cigarettes appropriately to keep me sane. I made my way to a seat in the train, as did Garry. Once all the men were loaded up, the whistle sounded, and the train took off into the morning air.
The first few hours weren't as bad, but after a while, we all got restless, like a bunch of teenagers. We began singing cadences to help substitute the restfulness about us. It was going to be a total of 17 hours on the train. Garry eased into a deep sleep as the train continued on into the afternoon, evening, and night. I smoked cigarette after cigarette trying to stay awake.
The train jolted to hard a stop, squealing it's wheels and emitting sparks down below waking me. I must have fallen asleep at some point into the night. I looked out to window to see a large sign that read: "Atlantic City BTC" Garry and I grabbed our belongings and made our way out of the train car. The crisp, cool morning air rushed into our noses, as we weren't used to this northern climate quite yet. My amazement was soon brought to an end as a 6'5" drill sergeant came marching over. He looked to be early 50s, had a long nose and small ears. His forehead was wrinkled with age, and his teeth were almost non existent. He stood at attention as he waited for the rest of the bus to get off.
We all stood in a line, as we were used to by now. The drill sergeant slowly walked down the line. "Well I'll be damned! You men might actually make decent soldiers! Unlike the last group I had!" He stopped at the center of the line, and turned to face us. "My name, is Sergeant Faust. I will be your senior drill instructor!" He began to walk along the line as he continued talking. "I can be your friend, and I can be your enemy! If you do as I say, as I say it, this will be the best 14 weeks of your life for some of you, others it will be a living depiction of hell!" As he continued speaking, one of the privates sneezed. The sergeant turned his head fast. "Who the hell was that?! Is someone here allergic to the truth? You will not get sick on me! You will learn to be tough. You will work in the rain, in the storms, and earthquakes!" Sergeant Faust slowly made his way down to me. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest as the tower of a man approached me, blocking the sunlight from my eyes. His breath smelt that of cigarettes and cheese. He looked down at me, trying to get me to crack. "What would your name be private?!" He yelled. I didn't stutter once. "Sir, VonDyke, sir!" The sergeant got inches closer to my face as he continued yelling "That's a mighty fancy name! I'll bet your family drives a whole fleet of Cadillacs son! Where are you from?" "Sir, Arkansas, sir!" I replied. The sergeant looked at me fierce. "A godamn Razorback! Do you watch football?!" He asked. "Sir, yes, sir!" "Well that's mighty good!" He yelled. "From now on your name ain't VanDick! It's Sooie! Do you understand me boy?!" I kept standing at attention. "Sir yes sir!" "Good!" He yelled. The sergeant scoffed and paced the other direction. "The first place you girls will report to, is the armory to grab your rifle. Your rifle will mean more to you than life itself! Your rifle will be your lady, so you take care of her, and she'll take care of you!" He said while pointing to the armory. "You ladies March to the armory on the double! Let's go!"
We all marched in order to the armory and were given our rifles, and our clothes later on. The first day was full of pushups, marching, and physical activity. The sun beamed down on us hard and heavy like a blanket. What we thought was moderate heat, turned to blistering heat. We were so hot we didn't think about being hot, they had us run in full gear carrying cans of water on our backs. Needless to say, by the time I went to bed that evening, my muscles were taught to tolerate the pain.
The sound of a trash can being rattled abruptly ended my slumber. We all stood at attention by our footlockers as sergeant Faust made his rounds. As he stepped slowly along the floor, he came to Garry's bunk, and noticed it was poorly made. The sergeant immediately passed Garry and flipped his mattress completely off of the bed while screaming. "Goddammit Heinz! Corners should be 45 degrees! Not 50 you lazy incompetent fuck head!" Garry still stood at attention, as the room was completely silent. The only thing breaking the absence of sound were the birds chirping outside of the barracks. Garry stood at attention with a disgruntled look on his face. Sergeant Faust slowly walked backwards to see his expression. The absence of sound was immediately interrupted by the sergeant once again screaming. "Is that an attitude I see there? We do not have any attitude problems in my barracks, or in my unit. Do you understand me Heinz!?" Garry's face returned to his neutral expression. "Sir, yes, sir!" Garry replied. Sergeant Faust backed away from Garry to look at all of us, in the dimly lit barracks. "You all are a team. You will all act as a team. When one man is punished, all of you are punished. This is so we know we're one body. All of you drop down and give me 100!" The sound of hands slapping the floor filled the room as we all got into position. "Ready? Exercise!" Screamed the sergeant. We all began counting while doing the push-ups. The cold hard floor felt good on the palms of my hands. As we continued, I noticed a smaller young man, about 5'8" struggling to keep the rhythm of the push-ups. I later learned his name was George, George Aldridge. Sergeant Faust trotted over to George, passing other cadets doing what they were instructed to do. "What is your problem ears!?" Sergeant Faust called him ears, because he had two big ears on his head, but didn't have a lick of listening capabilities. "Do I need to show you how to do some godamn push-ups soldier?" He screamed. George replied: "Sir, no, sir!" "Well then keep up with the rhythm, Ears! Don't let it happen again!" He screamed once more. "Sir, yes, sir!" George replied.
The afternoon sun beat hard and heavy onto the sand, letting out blistering amounts of heat into our boots. After the morning exercise was done, we went to the shooting range, a good sized sand pit with wood targets set up in an ordered fashion. As we all stood in line, Sergeant Faust walked up to a table. "Here you will find rounds for your M1s. You will fire the rifle and hit all of the targets. You will be graded by accuracy of shot on each target. The targets will be deployed one at a time. Good luck!" He said as he checked his watch. They had 5 men at a time for the course. Garry was about as good at shooting, as we was at flirting. The sun had began to set as I was called upon for my round. I walked up, wading my way through a sea of people. I reached out in front of me, and picked up my rifle. I inserted the clip and closed the receiver. Sergeant Faust had clicked the watch. "Go, go, go private!" He screamed. The gun let out an abrupt bang as I squeezed the trigger. After one, my adrenaline kicked in, I knocked down every single target, the smell of gun powder and ejected shells filled the air. I put my rifle down beside the table, and stepped back awaiting my results. "Holy shit, Sooie! You got all 19 targets in only a matter of 25 seconds! That's a new record!" I smiled with joy as I nodded and walked to my spot in line. The ocean waves danced in the sunset as sounds of M1s erupting filled the air, echoed off hills, trees, and anything around.
          Later that evening, I was pilfering through my things while toking on a cigarette. The barracks was filled with echos from all of the men talking. Talking about women, cars, sports, anything a man normally talks about. I put my bag down, and climbed up onto my bunk. I lay there, playing with my lighter, opening the top and closing it, emitting a slight metallic clank into the room. "Sooie!" I jolted up as the drill sergeant was approaching me with moderate speed. "Sir, yes, sir!" I asked as I rushed down and stood at attention. Sergeant Faust motioned me to sit back down. "At ease soldier, I'm here to give you a letter from home." I thanked him as he handed me the letter. I popped it open and slid it out of the yellow envelope.  The crisp, new paper felt good in my hands as I read: "Dear, Everett, It's been a tough week without you, I'm already feeling pain that I can not express. Momma misses you quite often too, she invites me over to dinner to keep her company every now and again, and I sure know Max misses you, he keeps looking for you around the house. Everything is still the same in our corner of the world. Work is hard now, since it's where we first met, but I'm trying to make it along. I've been getting sick every morning lately, I'm not too sure why. I send all my love and care to you. Yours truly, Sarah."
          I eased the letter down onto my chest as I tried hard to hide my emotions. I looked over to my left, to see George, and another kid named Elton playing cards on the bed. I distantly toned in to their conversation, trying to get my mind off of things. Elton was a broad shouldered kid who helped in his dads hay field growing up. He often talked about his home state of Tennessee, Memphis, to be exact. Elton was shuffling the cards in his hands while he toked on his cigarette. George looked up at him. "You catch the back side of that female officer this morning?" George asked while twirling a cigarette in his right hand. Elton chuckled as he dealt out the cards. "No, can't say I did George. I got more important things to worry about than some woman."  He said as he dealt out the cards. George replied while putting the cigarette in his mouth. "Yeah I figured you didn't like women too much." Elton slammed the deck onto the bed and looked at George in a stern matter. George, who was in the process of lighting a cigarette, let the match burn out as he was given a threatening look. "I didn't mean nothing by it!" George stuttered. The two began to get into it a little, at first exchanging a few harsh words here and there. The tension began to rise when Elton decided to insult George, telling him he was gonna "rip off his big ears so he couldn't fly away when he jumped him."  George was a tame kid, until you mentioned his big ears.
          I tuned the men out as I was more than entertained. The barracks had a dim, dark look about them at night. The kind of atmosphere that greatly induced feelings of dread and unrest. I shook my head and climbed down to my footlocker. I opened it up and retrieved my notebook and pen, climbing back up into bed. While i toned the two jug heads out beside me, I began to write to Sarah. Before I began, I grabbed a cigarette and lit it, giving it a good puff while emitting smoke into the barracks. "Dear, Sarah. I hope all is well with you. The time I've spent without you has been far enough already. Garry is here in the same unit as me, and he's actually starting to gain my respect, being the only one I truly know here. Some of these guys are from all over, Yankees, rednecks, you name it. Mississippi wasn't much different from home, but New Jersey sure is. I promise to watch the sunset every evening as I'm sure you do too. I love you, say hi to mother for me. Your love, Everett. I put down my pen and sat up. I closed the notebook and laid my head down. As I drifted off to sleep, all of the voices in the room turned into Sarah's voice.