[An Uncle Charlie Story]

I don't know, if you good folks know of how Martha and I met. If 'n', you haven't, then stay with me, for I have a little story to tell.

Martha and I met in the city of Tokyo, Japan, not too long after our flyboys blew the hell out of Nagasaki. I was in the army and I was stationed there as a liaison for the news media and high muckey-mucks. Now, it is beyond my feeble ability to understand just WHY Uncle Sam thought I'd be good at associatin' with correspondents and big wigs, but there I was, anyway. Martha was working for Life magazine, back when the Luce's were runnin' things. She was a photo-journalist and was assigned to do stories on the reconstruction of Japan and it's burgeoning democracy. I was a motor vehicle driver, specializing in the transportation of VIPs and the big brass. I had a security clearance, so I knew when to keep my yap shut, which is probably why the army put me there.

One morning, as I was loungin' around with the boys in the motor pool, a playin' cards, a lookin' at the newest pin-ups and just shootin' the normal, everyday breeze; when the top sergeant of the whole shebang came out and busted up a dull day.

"Corporal Hill?" he asked in his off-hand way. It bothered me some, the way he looked at me, then glanced at his clip-board, as if he ain't never'd laid eyes on me before. Heck, he'd just got up to answer the gosh darned telephone and he'd a knowed me for goin' on six years. Well, I just plain ignored the insult, sat back in the metal folding chair, I was a sittin' in, flipped up the visor on my hat, folded my arms and gave him a wink.

"Yes, sergeant." I said, grinnin' ear-to-ear. "What can I do for you...sir?"

Well, I knew that that, "Sir" bit would get his attention and I wasn't wrong. He straightened up, looked around at all of us, as if he maybe was lookin' for somethin' to throw at me (and it could have been ol' Slim Beakins, for all I knew), and then he put a pencil to his lips, licked the danged thing, and I reckon he made a check mark on his paperwork.

"Corporal Hill." Ol' Sergeant Hank Adams announced, as if he was a gosh danged Senator or something, "You are assigned to drive..." He glanced at his clip-board. "To drive a Miss Martha Monrose." He tossed the clip-board down on the card table. "So, Mr. Lucky. Report to Mac's HQ, on the double."

The guys were al a winkin' and elbowin' each other somethin' fierce, like they had never heard a woman's name before and had some sort of itch. I reckon it was the "Miss" part that got 'em all excited like, you know. Anyways, I reached over and picked up the board and the orders clipped to them, then started studying 'em like they was some kinda complicated mathematical excercises. I reckon ol' Hank wasn't all that amused by me.

"Number 57!" He saidkinda loudly like . "Hop to it, soldier!" He pointed to a far bay. "You know where it is." I did, got up and went there.

Well, that turned out to be the luckiest day of my life, I'm a tellin' you right now.

Now this story ain't about how I met Martha, not at all. That will be for another time and place. Nope, this here story is about the way I felt when she went back to the States, and we thought we'd never see each other again.

That was the loneliest and most heart-full-of-pain day, that I ever did have.

We had said our good-byes, the night before, in only the way two young lovers could do.( I won't go into this, it's kind o' personal, and besides, if 'n' you don't know what I mean, then you'd better find out, 'cause you are sure as heck a missin' a good part of your education.)

I drove her out to Tama Field, watched her get in a 29 and watched her through blurry eyes, as she flew out of my life forever. (Or, so I thought then, but "then" was all that mattered to me.) We'd been good lovers for goin' on six months. She'd extended her trip by doin' any story that Life had her do. Yet, the day had come when all the avoidance schemes that we had concocted, just plum ran out. I had to get my composure for a few minutes. Heck, you can't drive when you can't see, right?

The drive back to HQ motor pool was a long and crazy one. It had snowed the night before and I was freezing, even with the top up and the heater at full tilt. I reckon, I must have been shakin' for another reason. Her eyes kept a poppin' up in front of me and it liked to choke me up pretty badly. The deep and great hole inside of me, where she once had fitted so perfectly, liked to have sucked me in, like a whoppin' boat suckin' whirlpool on the Mississip. It was agony. It was dreadful. It was all I could do to want to stay alive another day. I knew in the back of my mind, that I had duties to perform and I wasn't (nor am to this day), one to shirk my duty to others. But, let me tell you this; if a bomb had o' gone off right on top of me, I would have welcomed it like a kid at Christmas gleefully hugging Santa Claus. What made it worse, was; we'd been a havin' some personal difficulties. I'd asked her to marry me not long back, but she'd said, no.

(I won't go into this problem in detail, suffice it to say, she was a mite older than me and she, bein' a healthy and a college educated woman and all, with a good career a goin' and a future to look forward to; she thought that she should marry someone her own age, if she married at all. (I'm sure some of you good folks can understand this, can't you? The problem with it, I suppose, I reckon I mean. It never was no problem with me. Now, I have lived a right long time, let me tell you, and I ain't never goin' to figger out a woman's ways. My philosophy, if you can call it that, is: A woman is mysterious to a man's way of thinkin', but to ME, that makes for a more interesting relationship. Oh heck, when I was younger, like back then durin' the aftermath of the War, I tried and tried to understand the logic behind my Martha's ways of thinkin' and doin'. Now, I know it ain't no type of logic a man can really get his grip on. It is a woman's logic and should be left just at that. Don't try to figger it out, if 'n' your a man. Just let it be. Let it go and just love her. I reckon most of you have, at one time or another, said to yourself, "If only I knew then...", you know what I mean? That's wisdom incarnate.)

I finally made it back to HQ. The snow had let up some and the roads were passable (considerin' the way the Army Air Corps had tried to make it otherwise). It was a goin' on evenin' and the end of my shift, so I checked the Jeep into the pool, said hi/bye to Sergeant Gomez (who'd replaced ol' Hank; he'd retired), and went to the NCO club to get myself highly lubricated. I was a hopin' for, maybe, a couple of fights, a geisha later on and the MPs puttin' me all snuggled in bed. I didn't really give a hot damn what happened to me. I just did not care at all. I hurt so much and al I wanted was for the pain to just go away, and if 'n' it wouldn't, I'd drown and beat it to death.

The next mornin', I woke up in stockade, an MP, by the name of Billy Kimble, was bangin' on my foot with his billy club.

"Corporal Hill. Get up!"

I did and noticed I was a missin' a shoe. I ambled ver to the hole in the floor, scratchin' my hiney with one hand and rubbin' my head with the other. I heard the clank of the cell door, as Billy swung it open.

"Paper works done, Hill. Sergeant Gomez request your presence at oh nine-hundred."

I nodded, buttoned up, and let the nice MP usher me to the outside world.

I ain't a gonna go into the details of how much I hurt, where my bruises were, nor how much I swore never to get drunk again. No, that would just bore you to tears, I reckon. I will say this: after Sergeant Gomez dressed me up and down and threatened me with all the usual hell the army could give me, he gave me a letter. A letter from Martha.

In the letter, she said, that she'd reconsidered her rash attitude. She said that, she realized no man on earth could or would ever love her as I had or did. She said, that when my tour was up, I could come live with her or she with me, and it was my decision to make. She said, that she would always be mine and maybe I was the older one, after all.

That was the quickest hangover cure that I ever did have.

© 2008 C. M. Baker III