Deception (2)

I was depressed, no doubt about it. I lost my job. There was a real possibility that I might go to Vietnam. My mother considered me a dead beat and wanted me out. I had to tell her, of course. I waited for the right moment, just after supper. She hadn't started drinking, yet. I think she anticipated the news, though.

"Why didn't you stay at work, today?" she asked, before I could say anything. She pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and opened it. She threw the opener on the table. "Get you one," she said and sat across from me. Surprised, I accepted her offer, opened a beer, and took a long drink.

"How did you know I didn't spend all day at work?" 

"Rowena saw you go into Joe's, and she told Lois. Lois told me when she came by to drop off some wild ducks for me to pluck. She was supposed to clean them for Franklin Hebert, but her arthritis was acting up, and she let me do them. Franklin paid me seventy-five cents a duck. He had over ten of them."

I knew she would go on forever if I didn't stop her.

"I lost my job, Mom."

She took a long drink from her beer.

"What are you going to do?"

"I guess I'll move out, but I don't have anywhere to go right now. Could I stay just a few days longer?"

She considered it, but after a few moments of silence, she shook her head.

"No, I don't think so."

"But I've got nowhere to go."

She didn't even blink an eye.

"You should have thought of that before you lost your job."

"It was an accident, Mom."

"Son, I love you," she said, and grabbed another beer out of the refrigerator. She motioned me to get another if I wanted. "But you're a lot like your daddy. If I don't force you to do something, you'll stay, and live off me forever." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She was throwing me out on the street. "I can't support the both of us. You can spend the night, but tomorrow I want you to find someplace else to stay."

"I haven't got any place to go."

"I'm sorry, son. But that's the way it is." She stood up and walked out on the front porch. The slap of the screen door seemed final. "I'm going over to Rowena," she said through the screen. "Help yourself to the beer in the ice box." She left.

The free beer was poor consolation, but it would do, so I grabbed another from the refrigerator and plopped down on my bed. I felt like a lost puppy, friendless and unloved. I felt the hot tears come to my eyes. I considered suicide, but I was afraid that it would help everybody but me, and to be honest, I was not a great fan of pain, so I got up off my bed and packed my suitcase. Once I stuffed it as full as I could, I sat down in the only chair in my room, a rough wooden one that my father had made from two by fours, and watched the daylight slowly fade through my windows. Sometime after dark, I heard my mother come in. She was drunk. I could tell by how she walked, slow and hesitant. She opened the refrigerator, and I heard her open a can of beer.

I sat in my dark room, stared at the outline of my packed suitcase, and watched the occasional headlights from the traffic on the road outside bounce across my bedroom wall. I could hear the cars well before I saw their headlights—big trucks whined, pick-ups hummed, and cars whistled. Their headlights made eerie patterns on my room's bare wall, bounced to the ceiling, and disappeared across the room. I loved to pretend that each vehicle was an adventure. This one or that one would slow, turn into my driveway, its headlights would illuminate my room, someone would jump out, and invite me to go with him on some wild new adventure, fishing off the coast of Maine, surfing the beaches of California, or just cruising the highways of America. Of course, it never happened, no matter how much I wished it.

I knew that there was only one choice left opened to me. I had to get away from Serpentville. I had to move, and since I was broke, unemployed, and untrained, my only choice was to join the service. Uncle Ham's size twelve shoes were hard to fill, but I didn't seem to have much of a choice. I couldn't join the army, or the marines—these people were going to Vietnam. I didn't know much about the coast guard. That left the navy and the air force, and I was not a great fan of flying.

The next morning, I stood on the Ellisonville black top with my thumb in the air. Franklin Hebert stopped and dropped me in front of the Ellisonville courthouse steps, suitcase in hand, ready to talk to the navy recruiter. His office sat on the first floor behind a glass door with United States Navy Recruiter stenciled in bold black letters over the navy seal, an anchor wrapped in rope. I walked into a cool, air-conditioned office with three uncomfortable-looking plastic and chrome chairs sitting before a laminated oak coffee table covered with magazines and pamphlets. A man dressed in a khaki uniform covered with stripes, stars, medals, and colorful bars sat behind a desk across the room. I was sure he must have served in both World Wars, Korea, and was straight out of Vietnam. Only, he was too young-looking for any of those, except Vietnam. He had short dark hair, thick bushy brows, thin lips, and a friendly smile.

"Hello," he said in a surprisingly sweet voice. "My name is Chief Davis. Can I help you?" He stood and walked around the desk and gave me a powerful handshake.

"I'd like to enlist, sir." I threw the sir in there for good measure.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, I am."

"Good. Let's see," he said and walked around the desk again. He pulled out a handful of papers. "I just need you to fill these forms for me. And after you've done that, perhaps you wouldn't mind taking a small test."

I took the paper stack from him and sat down at the small table.

The thoroughness and personal nature of the questions surprised me. I understood that the navy needed certain information from me, but they wanted to know everything: Did I have hemorrhoids? No. Did I ever have an encounter with someone of my own sex? No. Did I belong to any communist organization? No. Was I a criminal? No. Did I have ingrown toenails? No. Did my mother, father, uncle, aunt, or any relatives of mine ever belong to a communist organization or have an encounter with a member of their own sex? No. No. Not that I knew of, anyway. Was I, or any member of my immediate family, ever committed to a mental institution? No. We probably needed to be. Did anybody ever answer yes to any of these questions? They had to be a trick. Anybody who answered yes to any of them would be too stupid for the United States Navy.

I handed the recruiter the completed forms, and he, in turn, handed me the examination. He looked at his watch and told me to begin. It was by far the easiest test I'd ever taken. My mother could have passed it, and she never went past the sixth grade in school.

"Finished," I said, standing. He looked at me as if nobody in his right mind could finish it that quickly.

"Let me grade it, and if your score is high enough, we'll talk. Please sit here for a minute." He pointed to one of the plastic chairs. I watched him while I pretended to read a current copy of Stars and Stripes. He placed the answer sheet over the examination. As I watched, I began to doubt myself. That examination could not have been that easy. It was another trick. They wanted me to think it was easy, and just as I was berating myself for playing the part of a fool, the recruiter flung his glasses on the desk top, cleared his voice, and boomed a clear, resonant, "Good. Very good."

"Yes sir?"

"Very good, Mr. Fontenot. One hundred per cent correct. We don't get too many of those in here."

"You don't?"

"No, we don't. You've done very well indeed." He plucked an imaginary hair from his sleeve. Now what you need is a physical."

"I've already had a physical by the draft board, sir."

"Good. What are you classified?"

"1-A."

"Good. We can get a copy of the physical from your draft board." He wrote something down on one of the forms. "Well, you're old enough, so you don't need consent. If you sign this form, we'll make a sailor out of you."

I surveyed the paper he handed me. It had me down for a four-year enlistment.

"Sir, I'd like to join for two years if it's possible?"

"Your only choice is four, Fontenot."

I considered it for a minute, but I knew I would sign up. Four years in the navy had to be better than two years in Vietnam.

"Okay."

"Good. Four years it is, and I'll guarantee you one of your top three choices for school. Sign the form."

I did. 

"Good. There'll be a three-month wait, and then you'll go New Orleans for a mini-physical and then on to boot camp for your initial training."

"A three-month wait? I'm kind of ready to go now."

"I'm afraid that isn't possible. If for some reason an opening appears before your 120-day waiting period, I'll contact you. Good day."

"Somewhere between the "Sign here" and "Good day" the recruiter had lost his friendly easy-going attitude. Now, he was the voice of authority. He was superior to me. I stood on the top step outside the courthouse and reflected on what I had done. I had joined the navy. That was bad enough, but now, I had 120 days with no place to stay, unless I went crawling back to my mother, and I was not ready to do that—not yet, anyway.