Part 27 (1/2)

”Yeah, it's a great toast. Ben and Mary Anne helped me write it up. Those two are good with the words.”

”Did they write the whole thing?”

”The spirit behind the whole thing was mine. They just wrote the words.”

”Did they write all the words?”

”I did the polis.h.i.+ng.”

”Let's go, Bull. My G.o.d, that uniform's tight on you. You look like a package of pork sausage.”

”I'm the handsomest son of a b.i.t.c.h ever to serve in the United States Marine Corps.”

”Then, let's ride, handsome, or we'll be late for the birthday ball.”

They walked out the front door arm in arm, down the stairs, and to the driveway at the side of the house. Bull opened the door for his wife. As he walked to his door, Lillian turned to the tree where her children remained hidden, blew them a kiss, and gave them a victory sign with her gloved fingers. They heard her laugh again as the car pulled out of the driveway, and eased onto Eliot Street.

Only when the car was out of sight did the Meecham children open Mary Anne's window and clamber out of the branches into the house.

The mess hall, gracefully festooned with flowers, streamers, and brightly colored ribbons, pulsed with celebration as the pilots and their wives gathered for the 187th birthday of the Marine Corps. Arrangements of carnations and chrysanthemums sweetened the air, commingling with the perfume of the wives and the sweat of the first dancers, and made something in the vast room seem primal and libidinously manifest. Trellises wired with roses and ferns rose ten feet on the wall behind the head table; music filtered through the hall, light and airy, as the Marines gathered under the soft light to promenade their glittering wives before their peers. The hair of the wives was piled high about the room, eyelashes fluttered, and ice tinkled in full c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses. It was a night of myth and remembrance, a night of rustling gowns, long dances, and heavy drinking-a night of pride among the fiercest warriors on earth, who preened in their dress whites like birds of prey suddenly struck with the gift of bright plumage.

The women of the pilots, in long elegant dresses, clung to their husbands, guiding them around the room to make sure the proper courtesies were paid, to ensure that the fine obeisances and homages were proffered to those high ranking officers and their ladies who were in positions to make or break careers. Afterward, they returned to the long tables where each squadron sat beneath the squadron emblem, pouring drinks, laughing, the spirit of the evening inoculating them slowly.

Lillian stood at the center of a large group of 367 wives. She enjoyed her role as the confidante of young wives and the envy of the wives her own age. As she stood among them leading the conversation through small rhetorical hills, she looked around at ”her girls” and could put them in categories by signs she recognized. The daily golfers had dark, unseasonal tans and the hard casualness of women who had strolled the front nine too many times to curb the restlessness they felt when exiled to the small towns where the Marines built their bases. She saw women who smiled too much or drank too much and these were the women ordered to have a good time by their husbands. There were women who clung to her and laughed at her every joke, and administered to her every whim, and she knew that these were the ambitious women who were driving their husbands forward in the ranks. There were many others who could not be shuffled into convenient categories, but it was because they were skilled at hiding the signs of their satisfaction or their discontent. Whatever their story, these wives were appendages, roses climbing on the trellises. Their roles were decorative on this night and on all others; the glory was their husband's and their sustenance came from what nourishment they could derive from his reflection. In the room, the band played slow waltzes and streamers began to sag from the roof in scarlet, gold, and forest green parabolas, and Lillian talked gaily to the wives, her friends, her comrades, her rivals.

As she went to fetch her husband she found him talking to a group of four young pilots from 367. Like pilots everywhere they had escaped from their wives to talk about flying. Bull had reached a point of inarticulateness, and he was demonstrating a maneuver by using his hands as the aircraft. Sooner or later, pilots always resorted to their hands when discussing the mysteries and secrets of flight. Lillian went up to her husband and as soon as every eye was on her, she curtsied charmingly and asked him for the next dance.

Meanwhile, the Meecham children were honoring a secret tradition among themselves. This would be the third consecutive year they had held their own private celebration of the birth of the Corps. Like most ceremonies, its origins were simple but pomp and color were added each year. The rituals, conceived by Mary Anne, were being thickened, lengthened, and enriched.

Ben was emptying a bag of dog feces onto a large plate on the dining room table. Mary Anne, using a spatula from her mother's silver service, was shaping the feces into a remote semblance of a cake. Their noses wrinkling in disgust, yet enjoying their inclusion for the first time into this forbidden baccha.n.a.l, Karen and Matt watched each detail of the operation with the keenest interest. Fearing youthful tongues, Ben and Mary Anne had not allowed the other two to partic.i.p.ate in their b.a.s.t.a.r.dized version of the ball until this year.

”Do we have enough shoo-shoo?” Karen asked.

”We ought to,” Ben said. ”I got every piece I could find in this town.”

”What if Dad catches us?” Matt asked.

”How can he catch us? He won't be home until three or four this morning,” Mary Anne answered. ”Anyway, we're just celebrating the birth of the Corps same as him.”

”With a few variations,” Ben corrected. ”This is just our little way of saying thanks to the Corps for all it has done to us. You have the candles, Karen?”

”Yes, but I don't want to put them in that nasty cake.”

”If Dad catches us making fun of the Marine Corps, he'll make us eat that cake.”

”Quit worrying, will you?” Ben said. ”If that's the worst thing he'd do to us, I'd be glad to eat a piece.”

The table was immaculately set. The tablecloth was of Florentine lace used only on the most special occasions by their mother. Mary Anne laid out fine bone china and carefully placed the ornately embossed silverware beside the plates and wine crystal. Two candelabra burned with twelve new long stemmed candles. A strict adherence to form was the order of the night. The cake was the single obscenity in an atmosphere of rigorous decorum.

Dress for the night was a matter of taste. Ben wore a bathing suit, his father's flight jacket, frogman flippers, and an Indian headdress. Matt and Karen clad themselves with random selections from various summer and winter uniforms. They rolled up sleeves and pantlegs which were many sizes too large, and wore dress caps backward. Mary Anne put on pink tights, a fatigue jacket, field cap, and her father's jock strap which she stuffed with Kleenex. Then they regrouped in the dining room for the ceremony.

The children stood behind their chairs going rigid when Mary Anne said, ”Ten-hup.”

Ben went to the record player he had brought down from his parents' room, and put on the Marine Corps hymn. He then spoke. ”Good evening, fellow officers. Fellow wh.o.r.es for the Corps.”

”Good evening, sir.”

”We are gathered here tonight to pay homage to the United States Marine Corpse. As you know, the Marine Corpse is composed of the bravest fighting men who ever lived. The Corpse cannot be killed in battle. The Corpse cannot be denied their strategic objectives by any fighting force on earth. But what is not so well known and what we have come to celebrate tonight is the fact that the Marine Corpse is also the biggest collection of farts and a.s.sholes ever to gather together under one banner.”

”Hear ye, hear ye,” the others shouted, reading from the scripts Mary Anne had prepared.

”We will sing our version of the Marine Corpse HYMN. This version was written by Mary Anne Meecham, the charming daughter of that modest, self-effacing, painfully shy fighter pilot, Bull Meecham, that wonderful little man who calls himself 'The Great Santini.' Mary Anne, you sweet little thing, would you wiggle up here and lead these gyrenes in your version of the hymn?”

In an exaggerated southern accent, Mary Anne replied, ”Why, lawdy, I'd be pleased as sweet potato pie to lead you big strong handsome Marines in your big strong handsome hymn. All right now, all you strong handsome honey pies and you strong handsome sugar dumplings, ya'll sing along with me. Benjamin, will yo please start the record over for yo dahlin sister?”

”Why sho, sister sweet,” Ben said.

”Everybody together now, you heah? Let's sing.”

From the halls of Montezuma, To the hills of Tennessee, We're the biggest bunch of a.s.sholes, That the world will ever see.

First to beat our wives and children, Then to wipe their bodies clean, May the whole d.a.m.n Navy take a c.r.a.p On the United States Marines.

The officer in charge gave a sign and the doors to the mess hall were thrown open, as a band marched into the cleaned out center of the hall playing the ”Foreign Legion March.” They pa.s.sed by the officers and ladies of squadron 367 and marched to the far end of the hall, then coming back up the hall, instruments gleaming, the band broke out into the Marine Corps hymn as Bull stood at attention, the flow of history seizing him. Lillian, standing erect, felt the tears come as they always did when she saw strong men march and heard this song that lived in the center of her. The night would go on, the Mameluke sword would cut the cake, the general would speak, and tradition would be served. But for Bull and Lillian, it was the hymn that made this night a holy night for all time.

Chapter 20.

In his room, Ben packed his gym shoes and trunks into a blue zippered bag that had the Marine Corps seal stamped in white on the outside. From his top drawer he pulled two pairs of sweat socks rounded into uneven b.a.l.l.s, stepped back toward the door, and lofted both pairs of socks toward the open bag. He made one shot, missed the other, but retrieved the missed shot quickly, gave a head fake, pretended to dribble, went up with two defenders on him, and dunked the socks into the bag, then adjusted the zipper.

”It's over for you today, hotshot,” Mary Anne said, standing at the doorway.

”What do you mean?” Ben asked.

”First basketball practice. You become the golden boy today. Loved by all. Adored by every creep in the world. After a couple of games, I'll become known as Ben Meecham's sister. But the saddest thing of all, the really sad thing, Ben, is that there's some poor guy who's waking up this morning who thinks he's going to be first string, has planned on it for a whole year, and who doesn't even know you're alive.”

”I've got to make the team first,” Ben replied.

”False modesty is your worst fault, big brother. You've got to learn to enjoy bragging. I love to brag. I just don't have anything to brag about.”

At school that day Ben's mind wandered far from his studies and the voices of teachers. Mary Anne was right. Ben knew that the exile was almost over, that his term of loneliness would be shortened the first time he touched the ball in practice. Since the beginning of school, his every waking hour was directed toward that moment. In new schools, redemption came from his ability to go around anyone with a basketball. But he always worried about the first essential step: the making of the team. He worried most about his shooting, that his touch would desert him, that his fingers would stiffen, and that the coach's eye would fix on him every time he missed a shot. He had nightmares that he would take ten, twenty, or thirty jump shots in the first practice and not make a single one of them. He also feared the stupidity of coaches, especially high school coaches in the Deep South who usually regarded basketball as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, weak-kneed son who whined and piddled away the dark season between football and baseball. Anything could happen during a first practice. Tryouts were a time of fear for any boy.

Ben had awakened that morning, while it was still dark, with the b.u.t.terflies, the old, invisible protozoa of fear that invaded the stomach on the days of contests or of testing. In the morning dark, he had thought of what might go wrong, of why he might not make the team. The thought of being cut made him physically sick and the b.u.t.terflies moved within him with the burning wings of nausea. But no matter how he tried, he could not think of a reason why he should not make the team. For the past eight years on every day that it was possible, he had shot a hundred jump shots a day, made a hundred layups, and attempted a hundred foul shots. He had once dribbled a basketball lefthanded to and from school for an entire year because he had heard Bob Cousy say that a great guard must be able to dribble well with either hand. But the biggest reason he thought he would make the team was geographical. Ravenel, South Carolina, was so far removed from the proving grounds of American basketball that it seemed impossible to Ben that excellence could be found among the homegrown boys. His main concern was that some Marine kid from California or D.C. had slipped in and, like him, was biding his time until the first practice.