James Wilhelm -- If I Loved You
I was in the Army with a bunch of guys from Cicero, Illinois, the home of the famous gangster Al Capone. He was their hero. About twenty-five of them from an Army Reserve unit in Cicero had all signed up for their six months active duty at the same time. They made up three squads of the second platoon of Company C. The fourth squad was made up of young men like me, just kids, really, from elsewhere in the Midwest.
I was eighteen years old, right off the farm, and as naive as it’s possible to be. These guys were wild, violent and often drunk. They fought anybody and each other for the slightest reason. They were loud, profane, disrespectful and thoughtless. It was a real culture shock.
We had in the fourth squad a kid from Kansas who, I have to admit, was a little different. He was a preacher’s kid. He gave thanks openly in the mess hall before meals, and he knelt beside his bunk to say his nightly prayers. In that environment such small things are all it takes to make you the subject of ridicule and harassment.
Hi name was John Wesley Wilson, and he wasn’t a very good looking guy, to put it bluntly. He had jet black hair coiled tightly to his head, and a thick beard. He shaved every morning, but by evening his face was dark and shadowy again. He never had much to say, and never retaliated when the Cicero bunch short-sheeted him, or put shaving cream in his shoes, or messed up his footlocker.
He had one saving grace. He was a great harmonica player. He’d lie on his bunk at night after lights out and play softly -- religious songs, Broadway show tunes and pop songs of the day. He could play anything.
The unofficial leader of the Cicero bunch was a good-looking, smart-ass guy named Ken Kadrna. Almost every night during the harmonica serenade you could hear his voice rise out of the darkness. “Play ‘If I Loved You’” and John Wesley Wilson would play it, slow and gentle and heartfelt.
One evening after a long, hot, tiring day, after retreat, after evening mess, after cleaning our rifles and stowing our gear, things were settling down for the night, guys were getting their gear ready for the next day, taking showers and getting ready for bed. Casually, as if with little forethought or intent, Ken Kadrna yelled, “Hey, Wilson! You take a shower?”
Francis Eft, sitting on his bunk, looked up from shinning his shoes and said, “I do’n tink so.”
Morris Einspar was applying Brasso to his belt buckle. “Hell, no he dn’t. I can smell ‘im from here.”
Then there arose a general chorus from among the Cicero bunch that, indeed, John Wesley Walker had not showered, that he was stinking dirty, and, in fact, he rarely showered and was stinking up the whole barracks.
The absurdity of the charges would have been laughable were it not for the mean edge to the accusing voices. His bunk was right across the aisle from mine. He had taken a shower, and was routinely as clean and hygienic as anyone in the barracks. If anyone had wanted to confirm his denial they would have felt his wet hair, or examined the damp towel that hung outside his locker. But no one was really interested in doing that, and John Wesley Wilson said not a word.
I’m not making excuses for the behavior of the Cicero bunch, or justifying their behavior when I say that basic training is not easy. It’s filled with tension. It’s frustrating, exhausting, and often frightening. Without a fair amount of self-discipline it’s easy to say or do things you wouldn’t usually do, and for which you’re almost immediately sorry.
Most of the guys in the platoon from the farms and small towns of Kansas, Missouri and Illinois had learned to control those baser instincts. Tolerance and self-discipline on the part of John Wesley Wilson, who bore the additional burden of being a preacher’s son, had been forged into a nearly impenetrable shield of stoicism.
The Cicero bunch, on the other hand, had learned no such discipline. Wild and impulsive, they were inclined to say and do whatever popped into their heads. The idea of evaluating the possible consequences of their actions before taking them seemed to be an alien concept.
Robbie Galic was a little guy, not more than five-six, with a baby face and a high pitched voice. He was a smart-ass who probably would have had the shit kicked out of him a dozen times if he hadn’t been one of the Cicero bunch. Although they fought each other at the slightest provocation, they always rallied around and defended each other.
“Hey, I been watchin’ dis jag-off all evening,” Galick yelled in his little boy voice. “He dn’t take no fuckin’ shower.”
Emory Tvrdik, the biggest and toughest of the Cicero bunch, walked over and slugged John Wesley on the shoulder. “You dn’t take no shower, did ya, asshole?”
“Yes, I did,” John Wesley answered quietly, without moving from the edge of his bunk. He seemed to be waiting for the inevitable.
George Zatko yelled, “Let’s give him a shower!”
“Fuck that,” Kadrna said. “How about a party… a little GI party?”
For those who don’t know, a GI party is when a group decides to beat the hell out of someone in a way that it can’t be pinned on any individual. They throw a GI blanket over the victim so he doesn’t know who’s attacking him and then flail away at him until they lose interest.
The Cicero bunch decided that was exactly what John Wesley Wilson needed in order to learn a valuable lesson about taking a shower on a regular basis. Kadrna supplied the blanket, and Tvrdik and Galik got it over his head. It probably didn’t last more than two minutes, but a dozen guys pummeling you for two minutes is plenty long enough.
Finally, when there was no further movement under the blanket the guys began to drift back to their bunks. The second floor of C Company barracks, third and fourth squads, was quiet.
After a few minutes I walked across the aisle and knelt beside John Wesley and removed the blanket. I’m no hero. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d thought they might give me some of the same treatment for befriending him.
But I could sense that whatever evil and mindless impulses had driven them to such a pointless and cowardly act had been exorcised, at least for the moment.
John Wesley’s nose was bleeding. He had cuts on both cheeks, and one eye was already starting to turn black. Later we learned he had two cracked ribs. I helped him rise, and he stood silently for a moment or two, holding on to the upper bunk for support. His face was expressionless, his eyes vacant. He said not a word.
Finally, he began to walk haltingly toward the stairs. He went down to the latrine...to wash off the blood I suppose...and to reconcile himself to yet another injustice that had been visited on him.
He was still in the latrine at “lights out”, 2230 hours. I heard him come back, and I could just make out his figure in the dark as he hung up his towel and crawled into his bunk.
Then an amazing thing happened, something I have never forgotten to this day. From his bunk came the sweet, sad notes of his harmonica. He played “Blue Moon” and “Where or When”, and then out of the darkness, as if nothing at all had happened, came the voice of Ken Kadrna. “Play ‘If I loved you.’”
And John Wesley Wilson played it...so beautifully it brought tears to my eyes. DSS
James Wilhelm of Peoria, IL., writes that he retired after 31 years in the business world, and is now a "general bon vivant and renaissance man." This is his first work of fiction to be published.
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