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The Morale Builder by Bernard Holtzman
Al had always
prided himself on being what he considered a good host. Consequently, with the outbreak
of the war and the influx of most of his friends to the Army and Navy, he had decided that
the best way for him to serve his country on the home front, besides buying War Bonds and
serving as an Air Raid Warden, would be to play the good host to any and all of those friends
whenever they were on furlough in the city. This, he felt, was the least he could do to
show his gratitude to the armed forces, which had rejected him because of stomach ulcers
aggravated by too much hard liquor.
Now,
as he stood in the doorway of his apartment, shaking the hand of the grinning, khaki-draped
figure before him, he was happy in his self-appointed role. “Stan,
you old son of a gun!” he said. “It’s great to see you again. Boy, how
you’ve changed! Got a suntan and everything! Come on in and have a drink. My wife
sure will be glad to see you. She’ll be here right away. She’s getting dressed.”
He paused to catch his breath and then turned his head toward the bedroom past the foyer,
and yelled, “Rose! He’s here—Stan! Hurry up!” Then Stan, closing
the door behind him and laying his garrison cap on the foyer table, followed Al into the
living room, where he sat down on one of the scruffy, green-upholstered chairs. “Were we surprised
when you called!” Al said, then asked, “How does it feel to be back in the good
old U.S.A., kid?” without looking at Stan. He had taken a bottle of scotch from the
cabinet next to Stan’s chair and was pouring drinks excitedly into two tumblers on
the glass-topped table before him as he talked, spilling some of the liquor on the table. Stan stretched out his legs on the rug at his feet and
then crossed them comfortably. “It’s good to be back.” He smiled, finally,
showing his white, even teeth. It’s so good that I wanted to kiss the ground when
I walked off that gangplank.” “Let’s
drink to that good old American ground,” Al said,
with a sudden burst of inspiration. He handed one of the tumblers to Stan and drained his
own quickly. Then he sat down on the chair opposite Stan’s. Stan sipped his drink
slowly. “You can’t get stuff like this in Oran,” he said when he had
finished and had placed his glass on the table. “But that’s the least of your
worries over there. Be grateful for what you have here, Al. For one thing, I saw filth
there that you wouldn’t believe—” He checked himself suddenly. “Sorry,”
he said. “I didn’t mean to give you a lecture.” “That’s all right,
Stan,” Al replied. “I know how it must have been. I saw newsreels.” He tried
hard to inject a tone of sympathy into his voice. Then, for the first time, he noticed
two things about his guest that he felt he should have noticed immediately, as a matter
of patriotic interest. There was a gold star on Stan’s brown-and-green-striped European
Theatre of Operations ribbon that he wore over the left breast pocket of his jacket, and
farther down, at the bottom of the right sleeve, there was a single wound stripe. “You never told me about this and this in your
letters,” Al said, pointing to the star and the stripe in quick succession. “How’d
it happen you were hurt?” Stan
glanced down at the twin reminders of the section he had seen in North Africa. “The
Signal Corps gets around,” he answered. “The star is for being at a town called
Maknassy in Tunisia, and the wound stripe is for being careless. I stopped a little piece
of German shrapnel with my right arm. You know, I didn’t tell my folks about it either
until I got back two weeks ago. Didn’t want to worry them over a little scar.” “You got back two weeks ago?” Al asked.
“Why’n’t you call me sooner?” “Couldn’t.
We were holed up in a camp near where we landed all
that time. We couldn’t even write.” “Say,”
Al began again, after a moment of stillness, “Let’s see that wound of yours.
Did it hurt very much?” He strained forward in his chair. “It’s nothing—nothing at all.”
Stan waved him away. “Ah, come on,”
Al said. “Let a poor 4F get a look at what he’s missing, huh?” He went over to
Stan’s chair, pushed his right coat-sleeve back and unbuttoned and rolled back the
shirtsleeve. In his haste to examine the soldier’s forearm, he failed to see the
expression of disgust that had crossed Stan’s face at this remark. Finally, his curiosity
satisfied, he sat down again and lit a cigar that he had drawn from the humidor lying on
the stand next to his chair. Puffing on it, he felt amiable and patriotic now for having
given a boost to Stan’s morale by showing such a personal interest in him. “Rose is certainly taking a long time getting
dressed,” Stan said, breaking the lull in the conversation. “I sure would like
to see her before I leave.” “Why?
You ain’t in any hurry, are you, Stan?”
He flicked the ash from his cigar toward the ashtray that rested on the arm of his chair
in what was intended as a gesture of nonchalance. The ash missed the tray and spread its
particles on the rug. “Rose’ll clean it up,” he said carelessly. “But
say, you ain’t got another appointment, have you?” “I’m afraid I have,” Stan replied, unable
to conceal the tone of happy relief in his voice. “The wife ought to be ready any minute now,” Al countered.
“Here, have a cigar.” He took one from the humidor and held it out to Stan. “No, thanks. I don’t smoke ‘em. Too
strong.” Al put the cigar
back in the humidor. He hadn’t noticed that the bit of cellophane peeping out from
under the flap of the left breast pocket of Stan’s jacket was the end of a cigar
covering. “Tell me, Stan,”
Al resumed, “What kind of a place is this Mc—McCarthy—that town in Africa? Did
you kill any Nazis or Guineas?” He smirked, imagining he was smiling. “Maknassy,”
Stan corrected, rising from the chair and glancing at his wristwatch. “Hell of a
dirty place.” He strode over to the foyer table and picked up his garrison cap. Then
he turned to shake Al’s hand. “I’m sorry I
can’t stay to see Rose. Got a date downtown in a half hour. I’ll have to hurry
to make it. Give my regards to Rose and thanks for the drink.” “I’m sorry, too, Stan.
It was great seeing you. Well, have a good time and don’t do anything I
wouldn’t do.”
Stan jammed his cap on his head and fled toward the door, pulling it shut behind
him. Al swept up the ashes he had spilled and dumped them into the ashtray hurriedly as
he heard his wife’s approaching footsteps. He would probably have a hard time
explaining to her the reason for his being unable to keep Stan from leaving
before she had dressed, but he smiled to himself in spite of this. He had helped to cheer up a friend.
Bernard Holtzman was a writer of short stories
and essays dealing with societal mores and enjoyed puns. He was a loving husband and father-to-be.
Bernard passed away at the age of 34.
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