Soldier Hill — Chapter 3
Coming of age fiction honoring sacrifice
3.
Eddie started the career day with Karl, his mother’s live-in boyfriend. Karl managed the dock of a dairy depot, walking around the place with a clipboard and ballpoint pen.
Karl remained on his feet, bossing around the dockworkers. Those guys had to fill the orders and pile them on dolly crates. Once the stock was pulled, they pushed the carts to the edge of the loading area.
The dock had a thick stripe painted on the lip like a goal line, feet outside the bay doors. Karl bitched over the union strings in the contract. The workers weren’t to load or unload, and Karl thought it bad for business, making the customers do all this extra work. A good point, but Eddie wasn’t surprised.
Most of the men on the shift looked bolted up with lazybones. The rest seemed high, bummed out, or half asleep. They all pushed the carts the same way in here, with their sweet-ass time.
Karl never tried acting like Eddie’s father unless he was horny and out to impress Eddie’s mother. Karl would often rib Eddie from time to time about not playing sports. Karl was a big-time athlete back in the day and thought Eddie should pick a sport and try out.
Eddie liked watching baseball and football but didn’t feel much like playing anymore. Eddie was a good baseball player, but that was in Little League. Back when Pop-Pop was alive, and they could play catch and go to the batting cages.
Once Pop-Pop died, Eddie slipped into a funk. His grades started dropping off and he stopped caring about frivolous things like youth sports and baseball cards.
Eddie felt betrayed. Life had taken his best friend and failed to replace him. Eddie held the belief that life had backstabbed him.
Eddie took to Karl mainly for his mother’s sake. Eddie’s mom was a good woman who deserved some kind of break. Eddie, an only child, didn’t like what his father had done to his mother, running the deadbeat scam. Eddie never felt like the victim, since he never really cared for his father in the first place.
All he remembered was a loudmouth who got drunk all the time and could never hold down a job. A real one anyway. That guy would bounce and graduate from dead-end job to no-future job, often working weekends and overnight shifts. Sleeping during the day, and spending all his money on booze, the racetrack, and topless dancers. A slacker himself, and Eddie hated himself for taking after that part of his father instead of the hard-working man who Pop-Pop was.
Eddie was very young when his father left for good. Bombed as usual when the cops came, while Eddie and his mom were ditched high and dry. Eddie’s final memory of his father was a grown man in handcuffs being led away by the police. Looking over his shoulder and snapping at his mother like a rabid dog and blaming her and Eddie for his loser life.
Eddie and his single mother lost the house over his father’s antics called unemployment, alcoholism, and gambling. A real scammer and con man. If not for Gam and Pop-Pop, Eddie and his mom would have ended up in a homeless shelter. They moved in for a year while his mom got on her feet. That’s when Eddie became extra tight with Pop-Pop. Pop-Pop was a real man. A friend, a father figure, and a mentor.
At least Karl seemed to treat his mom a little bit better. To Karl’s credit, much better. Still, Eddie would never go to Karl for advice, news, or help with a problem. Eddie didn’t think his life was any of Karl’s business.
Eddie kept to the program and moored to Karl’s side, hoping the day would burn. He didn’t want loverboy getting the idea this career day was a male bonding session.
Eddie hovered on the goal line when Joe, the local milkman, pulled in. Eddie knew Joe from his paper route. Joe seemed nice and friendlier than most of Eddie’s other customers.
Joe drove an old-fashioned milk truck zapped in from the 1950s. The machine, called a Divco, short for Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company, sported large, loping fenders and iron wheels. Joe was the only guy that had one and kept it in good shape.
Eddie and Joe said their hellos, and Joe quickly loaded up. His crate was all milk. Rows of bottles filled the shell of his machine.
The truck gobbled up his order, and Joe launched the Divco. His good ole milk wagon snarled from the depot. It might have been ancient, but it was really cool. Once Joe dissolved around the tree line, Karl stepped up to Eddie watching Joe slip out of sight.
“How do you know Joe?” Karl asked.
“He’s on my paper route,” Eddie said.
“I want you to stay away from him.”
“I can’t avoid Joe — he’s on my paper route,” Eddie said.
“I don’t want you ever going into his house.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the deal?” Eddie asked.
“He’s a sick man.”
People said that about Joe all the time. Grown-ups especially. If he was so bad, why did he have a local business? He seemed okay to Eddie. More than okay. Friendly too, but never in a creepy way. What’s the deal about a guy who wants to mind his own affairs? Heck, he never meddled into anybody else’s, making it a square ride, Eddie thought.
At twelve noon, the lunch whistle blew as a food truck pulled into the lot of the depot. So much for going out to the Huck Finn Diner for a double with cheese and a side order of shoestring fries. Karl made it clear this was work-study, not a field trip.
Eddie grumbled over Karl’s conniving with Mr. Leonard. He got in line before the vendor and his rig, what the dairy workers called a “roach coach”. Eddie picked out a wrapped sandwich, a pint of chocolate milk, and followed Karl to his office.
After lunch, Karl wanted to teach Eddie how to work a high-low jack and a forklift. Most of the dairy orders were filled before noon, with some supermarket trucks pulling in to load up for places like A&P, Pathmark, and Shop-Rite.
That’s when it dawned on Eddie that Leonard wanted to stick the boys in a work-study program, sooner than later. If Eddie and Dave refused to pick a trade and transfer to Maple Tech, he’d end up here. Not just junior and senior years, but long after high school as well. Eddie might have been a loafer, but knew darn well he had more brains than settling for a warehouse job. A lifetime sentence in this place was too much for Eddie to fathom. He told himself to get cracking on finding things out, like that music inside him, before Leonard has his way and it’s too late.
When the bell sounded to end lunch break, Karl took Eddie to the rear of the depot to learn how to operate a forklift. Eddie was actually looking forward to it. One thing Eddie remembered from helping out Pop-Pop at his job, was to learn as much as you can and work hard. Even if it’s not your dream job, that’s no excuse to get lazy. Then it’s a waste of time and money for everyone.
In the rear of the depot and out of eyesight from the dockworkers, Karl first showed Eddie how to use a high-low jack. Easy enough. It worked on hydraulics, with a handle. Karl showed Eddie how to slide the tongs beneath the pallets, pump down on the handle to lift the crates. Then you’d pull the jack, and the contraption would do all the work. Eddie couldn’t believe it. The stuff on the pallets looked like they weighed a ton, and the high-low turned them into a pile of feathers.
The wheels on the high-low seemed to hover as Eddie guided the jack around the depot. Once Eddie found the new spot, he slowed the momentum, and the jack stopped right where he needed it to. Eddie then squeezed the lever inside the handle, and oula, the jack would rest the pallet.
Eddie was too young to legally operate the forklift, but since Karl was the foreman and no higher-ups around to tell him differently, he let Eddie drive around. What the heck? The kid labored hard all morning, and Karl wanted to give him something fun to do, rather than work, chores, and more work on top of that.
And what a blast Eddie enjoyed! It wasn’t all burning rubber and zipping around the vast rear of the warehouse. Karl wanted Eddie to learn and be productive. Karl needed a bunch of things moved, and Eddie obliged. Transporting dairy and pallets all over the depot. Eddie quickly got the hang of the forklift, where his age and maturity never got in the way.
Eddie couldn’t wait to share these things with Dave. You’re not the only big shot, buddy. With that, Eddie wondered how Dave’s career day turned out. Dave’s dad was a contractor who went from job site to job site, making sure the guys weren’t putting too much water in the cement and that kind of stuff.
Pretty routine for Dave, since he often tooled around with his dad. They were pretty close and even taught Dave how to drive his pickup and flatbed trucks. Dave would often buzz around parking lots and obscure job parcels while pops read blueprints.
That was Dave’s dad for you. He always rode the boys for being a bunch of pansies. An ex-Marine who fought in the Korean War, Dave’s dad survived the Chosin Reservoir, one of the harshest battles in the history of the Marine Corps. If it were up to Dave’s dad, he’d order the Pentagon to turn the high school into a military academy. Something crazy, like a local boot camp, to rinse the boys of this town into men.
After the work-study gig, Dave and Eddie reported to a trailer outside the high school. Meathead called in the Air Force to round up the rejects. The boys made the afternoon cut, stuck in the final session. Outside the recruiters, Eddie didn’t spot one combat soldier or a potential pilot in this Maple Valley clan. The leftovers were a bunch of misfits from high school purgatory.
Stoners, derelicts, and harmless larks bandied about. Who me, college?, and Take your high school experience, and blow it out your ass, man.
Eddie and Dave took a seat directly in front of Clem Dinardo, the school bully. Clem always picked on the weaklings that couldn’t or wouldn’t dare fight back. Eddie and Clem never got along, and he’s the type of punk Eddie always detested. Their riff started during a snowball fight in middle school when Eddie popped Clem in the grill with a fastball from hell. A lucky shot and stroke of one-upmanship Clem never got over. Since that day, the bad vibes between the two remained.
Eddie sparked an urge to mess with Clem, and turned in his chair to face that knucklehead, “Wouldn’t it be somethin’ Clemster, if we ended up in the same jet?’’ Eddie asked.
“Shut up Eddie, will ya?” Clem responded.
“What’s up boss? Don’t you wanna be my wingman?” Eddie asked Clem. Clem’s eyes began to bulge, and Eddie knew the jughead wished he could slug Eddie in the chops. Not with the recruiters, this nearby, and Eddie knew it.
“You jerk. They’re not gonna let you fly a fighter plane,” Clem said. Half the trailer laughed along on that one. Eddie did too, knowing he got under Clem’s skin.
The Air Force guys got down to business as if a check just cleared. They gave the gallery a brief intro, cut the lights, and ran a film projector.
“Wouldn’t you love to soar like the eagles?” The narrator asked as a jet blasted off a carrier deck. The pilot cranked mach speed, zigzagging the sky. Between the power anthem soundtrack and acrobatic swirls of the aircraft, the Air Force movie looked more like a rock video on MTV than a recruiting tool.
Batons waved at fighter wings twisting airborne. That shot flipped to another guiding them in. A helicopter hovered over the ocean to fetch astronauts in a splash-down, as fighter jets flew in formation protecting Air Force One. More shots, jump cuts, and split-screens, as cadets enjoyed mess hall camaraderie, medal ceremonies, and shaking hands with the President.
The narrator blabbed on about pride, careers, and further education. Each one was inter-cut with a smiling, over-achieving airman. Close-ups of cadets talking about their training, experience, and how ditching the lark was the best route they ever carved.
Eddie and Dave looked right through the fun and frolics of this sales pitch. The nerve of the military, turning war into horseplay. Going around the country, shaking high school boys from the bushes and feeding them such garbage. Producing these demo reels and pushing them like drugs to numb the truth. Sure, military life might be warm and fuzzy during peacetime, but once the fighting starts, it’s certainly not this peachy. Talk about another grownup’s scam!
The session broke up, and the recruiters cracked open a guest book. Eddie and Dave sneaked through the crowd and headed back to the high school. As they walked, Eddie stared into the construction. Not much had taken place since the tape job. The area remained boxed up, with a strand of ribbon on Billy’s maple tree. The agenda more concerned with the gym area, opposite the tree and tablet.
“I don’t know why this school can’t leave us alone. I’m really gettin’ tired of this bullshit,” Dave said.
“You see the kids in there? The burn-outs. They put us with the burn-outs! They’re not Air Force material.” Eddie said, knowing full well those moogs wouldn’t qualify to park cars at the officers’ club.
This stuff didn’t trick the boys. Another day for the C-P kids to learn, and take one more step towards the computer lab, while Eddie and Dave slipped further behind, and right where the school wanted them.