Scout’s Honor: Chapter 19

Poker

The sun flickered behind gray clouds billowing across the winter sky. Gulls swirled above Camp Pendleton in search of scraps. Two hundred fifty fresh Marines sat in an open amphitheater, shivering, huddling against the Pacific’s wet wind, listening to yet another instructor. 

With a prosthesis below the knee, the lieutenant stood awkwardly in front of the rapt boys, embroidering on his lecture notes. Behind him stood his assistant, a black corporal clasping a flame thrower, its scuba tanks on his back. The corporal pointed the hissing weapon away from the grunts, toward the scorched hillside. The flamethrower fascinated the boys far more than guns, perhaps because fire was a primeval fear while bullets took learning to respect.

“Finally, gentlemen, if your CO suspects Charlie’s in a tunnel, do you want to do the recon or ask Corporal Henderson here for a light?” The lieutenant, a platoon commander whose combat tour ended on the surgeon’s table after two weeks in the field, enjoyed dressing up his presentation with this flourish. On his cue, the somber corporal blasted a whooshing jet of fire toward the hillside—even the boys in the last row felt they were too close to a bonfire, the blast sucking their breath away. The corporal shut it off, and the grinning lieutenant let a moment pass as the acrid, ugly smell hung in the air. 

After elaborating on the weapon’s tactical uses, the lieutenant scratched out safety rules on his chalkboard as the Marines murmured among themselves. “That sucker is bad,” Harris the clown whispered, fingering the barrel of his M-14. “Feature the brothers with that badass back in the hood.” Harris, Shoer, Austen, and a handful from 198 had been consigned to the infantry and were now grunts, completing their training with Staging Battalion at Pendleton. Like so many spare parts, they would be rotated into the field to the rifle companies that were depleted daily by casualties. 

“I’m getting me one of those.” 

Shoer glanced back at Austen, who was staring at his boots, ignoring the idle chatter and the chalkboard. He shook his head and turned back to the instructor. 

The company double-timed it back to the grinder, the boys warming themselves against the chill. Some replayed the fire show in their minds, while others brooded over more pressing business—Saturday night’s liberty—whether to settle for beers and the remote chance of luck at a bar in nearby Oceanside or venture down to San Diego or Tijuana. A few gentler souls pined after Disneyland, a long bus ride away.

“Let’s saddle up, Aus, the bus is pulling out at 1800,” Shoer said, eager for his night out, hoping to meet a girl, any girl. “You got to get ready. Out of the rack.” 

“I’m skipping it, Parse.” 

“Bro, you promised you’d go, you haven’t been off base since we got here. Let me tell you something, you don’t want the guys thinking you’re any weirder.”

“Yeah,” said Austen after a moment’s reflection, at a loss for words. He knew the squad thought him strange, an oddball, perhaps even a little slow, for he almost never spoke. But Austen lived in terror of saying something, anything, that would tip his identity. He had no gift for mendacity and knew that if he started opening up, creating a history, he would trip himself up with contradictory details and misremembered lies in short order. With no better solution than silence, he’d had to bury his charm, his banter and sense of humor—his very self—along with the cocaine in that forgotten bomb shelter. 

“What’s that?” asked Shoer, pointing to a book on Austen’s bunk. “Sure as hell don’t look like porno.”

“Yeah, no one’s going to steal it,” answered Austen, chuckling, handing it to his friend.

“Principles of Real Estate Investing? Man, you are killing me. Absolutely killing me. And what the hell’s that?” demanded Shoer, reaching for a torn newspaper article that had lain beneath the book. 

“Nothing,” cried Austen, snatching the article away, balling it into his fist. It was a piece from the Tribune, a follow-up on the infamous cocaine cop killings. As ritualistic as daily prayer, Austen had read the local papers whenever he’d had a chance and had found this article the day before. According to the newspaper, the police were calling off the search for Edward Kawadsky, presuming him the victim of foul play. Warier than ever, Austen couldn’t let himself believe it; he knew it had to be a ruse. But he so ached to step off base, to catch even a glimpse of Jonnie. She was only forty-five minutes away. He longed to see her, to hear her throaty cigarette laughs, her wicked remarks, and even her scandalous gossip. Her beauty. If only he could see her sweep into the coffee shop once more, with her grand gestures, kind words for the hungry, and salacious patter for the worldly—a queen with her adoring court. If only he could let her know he was alive. Despite their last moments together, Austen knew she was more than passing fond of him, would mourn him for years, and sadly reminisce over her favorite boy until her dying day. If he could just explain how he’d been trapped, Jonnie would listen, she would understand. She would find him guilty of nothing more than teenage stupidity, of intending to smuggle a couple pounds of harmless pot. Unlike that asshole priest, she would judge him neither criminal nor sinner. She would say there’s nothing to forgive. Austen broke off this reverie—one he’d had dozens of times since returning to California—with the certain knowledge that Jonnie had never kept a secret in her life and that fugitives were invariably caught when they went home. “It’s nothing. I’m going to play poker.”

“Who’s left who will still play with you? Least the brothers are smart enough to party with their money instead of throwing it away on you. What the hell you doing with all those Benjamins anyway?”

“I told you ten times already… I’m saving up to buy a house, to get into real estate.”

“What good’s money if something happens in Nam?” 

Austen scratched his crewcut, wondering what to say. Vietnam held no fear for him, in part because he considered himself already dead, on an extended stay of execution until he was caught, in part—incongruously—because he’d survived his first shoot-out. “You want it if something happens to me?”

“Shit, no. I’m going to Harvard, remember? Don’t need your damn money. What I need is you to come hang out with me.”

“We can go to the beach tomorrow. OK?” Austen smiled, his big, gap-toothed smile, the one Shoer cherished because he had yet to see anyone else favored with it. 

“Later, man. I give up.” Shoer strode toward the far end of the squad bay and joined the milling grunts with pocket money and unbridled optimism. 

Once they departed, Austen stashed the book in his footlocker, shredded the article, and picked up a letter he had been writing. He wrote:

“Dear Mrs. Shoer: The oatmeal cookies were great, all the guys said so. Parson was happy to hear everybody talk about what a good cook you are. Me too. And thanks for the green t-shirts. I guess Parse told you what the NCOs said about white t-shirts making us sitting ducks in Nam and the Corps being crazy not to issue us green ones. You would laugh if you saw the platoon dyeing their undershirts in trash cans. But don’t worry about us over there. We’ll be careful, we’ll take care of each other. Thanks again for the Bible. Well, I’ve got to go now. Goodbye. Your friend, Richard. P. S. How’s Mr. Shoer doing on his boat?” 

Later, the only sober one in the game, Austen played to win, folding often, shrugging off the jibes of cowardice hurled his way, seldom bluffing, and chasing pots less often, lying in wait when he held a winner, keeping the others in with low bets until the final round, never showing his cards unless someone paid to see them. 

Austen and Shoer walked along Pendleton’s beach in t-shirts and rolled up utility trousers, enjoying the last few hours of their liberty on a gentle winter afternoon. They wore their boots like necklaces, tied together and slung around their necks. Both young men carried a beer, with more in their pockets. Austen wore clip-on, dark plastic lenses over his steel-frame glasses, while Shoer’s aviator sunglasses cost a month’s salary. They ambled in a zig-zag pattern, along the wet, packed sand until their feet were too chilled and then above the tide line, drinking fast, bumping into one another like circus clowns. 

“You ought to drink more, son,” declared Shoer. “Loosens you up. How many beers you got left?”

“Two,” replied Austen.

“Hey, let me ask you something,” said Shoer, a grin blossoming. “Serious. You think I’m getting too tan out here?”

“What?” Austen hesitated, studying his friend’s complexion. Speechless, he shook his head awkwardly. “I don’t know…”

Shoer crooked his forefinger like a fishhook and popped his cheek. “Hooked your ass, you big, dumb tuna.” He stepped nearer Austen, snuck a leg behind him, sprawling his lanky friend onto the sand. “Surprise is the key to Semper Fi’s success, boy.”

“And the Corps never retreats.” He whipped a leg across Shoer’s ankles, knocking him down. 

They stood and dusted themselves, laughing, Austen watching the waves from the corner of his eye. “Outside,” he murmured to himself as a decent wave formed. The ocean was blue-green, sparkling, glittering in the wan sunlight. Shoer picked up a flat rock, cocked it between his thumb and forefinger to skip, then let it slip away. “How come you never went off base, Aus? Don’t bullshit me.” 

“Why don’t you have a New Jersey accent like DeMatteo?” Expecting it for weeks, Austen still had no answer, nothing that would wash. He couldn’t lie to his only friend.

“That answer-a-question-with-a-question routine is some tired bullshit,” said Shoer. “What’s off base that’s scaring you? Something going on here.”

“That’s classified information, private.” 

Shoer dropped his head to the side, then laughed. “OK. OK by me. I understand, classified information, chain of command. No hard feelings. Shake?” He thrust out a hand. As Austen reached forward, Shoer grabbed his arm and judo-flipped him over his shoulder. Austen landed on his back on the wet sand, laughing as the sea water soaked him. He yanked out a beer, shook it, shouted incoming and popped the can toward Shoer, spewing him with beer. Shoer retaliated, emptying a can on his head.

“Cease fire. We have to maintain fire discipline, private. We’re down to our last round.”

“You’re right. Can’t surrender our ammo to the enemy. Chug it.” 

As drunk as they were sandy, the boys trudged back to the enlisted men’s club, the old Victorian where Austen had spent his liberties working at poker. As they mounted the club’s worn steps, Shoer asked a couple departing privates for the time. The pair glanced at the boys, smirked at each other, and continued on their way.

“Fucking college boy reservists. Assholes,” Shoer snapped, the pair pretending not to hear. The college graduates, who had joined the reserves to avoid the draft, were years older than the Nam-bound grunts. The two groups had little trouble recognizing one another.

“It’s no big deal, Parse.”

“That should be us. We should be in after college, as lieutenants.”

“We’re lucky to be grunts,” said Austen. “Remember what Top said about Charlie shooting lieutenants as fast as the Corps puts the bars on them.”

“The assholes don’t have to treat us like shit.”

“Forget it. In twenty years, we can say we won the war while those jerks were clerks at the PX.” 

“Yeah, except we’ll be working for those jerks.”

“No, we won’t. We won’t.” Flushed with the happy beer, Austen was sanguine about his future, his past set aside for the moment. “We’re both going to make it. I know it.”

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