Stories
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
I remember the night the frat house next door had a long line of rush contenders seeking to join the fraternity. Even after dark they stood in the street light with hopeful polished faces. But mostly the problem with that place was the people downstairs, a couple of old husband/wife drunks that for sport called each other ugly names all the day and night, and we could hear them thru the floor ventilator, even to the point we would yell down at them to shut up ! Then they called us ugly names. So MaryJ went to the land lady and we moved again.
MaryJ fell in love with me she said in a down-town basement Irish bar, perhaps with checker cloth table wraps, as I recited an O Henry story, "The Gift of the Magi", the one where Della cuts her hair for money to buy a Christmas gift of a platinum pocket watch fob chain for Jim's watch, but Jim had pawned his watch to buy beautiful and expensive combs for her long knee length hair now gone. Fell in love with me not for the story, but for the way I told the story, and was it I - that was un-tearfully maudlin.
Technically I was not suppose to be living off post. I was E3 and E4 and only E5 and above were allowed to live off post unless one was married. But I changed my clothes in my room every day, kept my bunk with a tight blanket and my blackboard tidy, ready for inspection at any moment, when the Major might show people thru, inspections when everyone was at work so we didn't notice them.
(5 of 16)
Next Page
