Serpentine, Volume 3, Number 2, Spring 1999

Kindness for a Contender

by Jimmy Carl Harris

        It’s going to be a double Irish morning. Eloise comes on-stage wearing her favorite chiffon, the one she declares would photograph well in black and white. She seines around our living room, dragging her net through the detritus of two lives, ensnaring the flotsam and jetsam of fifty-some-odd years -- an enameled box half-full of pebbles from the old home place, a tiny bust of our first Irish Catholic president, a pink glass clock ten years in need of a battery. She considers them, each in their turn, seeking signs from her muse, I guess, then returns them to their appointed places when they disappoint her. She collapses across the daybed -- she insists on calling it a divan, another of her ways of putting on airs -- flutters her fingertips at me, and sighs a response to my observation that the fucking network has moved the Notre Dame game to a later time. "Must you always be vulgar, Casey? It’s so common."

       She’s asking for it and I’m in the mood to deliver. "You’re being redundant. ‘Vulgar’ means ‘common’. That’s why it was called the Vulgate Bible. That didn’t mean it was a bible full of people saying ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that.’ It was a bible in the common vernacular of the Church -- Latin, in those days."

       "Oh, thank you, dear. I’m sure I’ve always needed to know that."

       Here comes Blanche. Pretty soon, she’ll deliver her favorite line, the one about depending on the kindness of strangers. God-damn, I like movies, too, over the years I must’ve seen a thousand, but do we have to live in one? Why the hell doesn’t she change her name to DuBois and move to New Orleans?

       "It must be wonderful to be so well-educated. My poor daddy wanted me to go to the university, but then he lost everything in real estate and took his life. Without him to show me the way, I’ve come to depend --" She takes a step back and places her fingertips lightly on her bosom when I interrupt her.

       "I’m not a stranger, Eloise. He was my daddy, too, for God’s sake."

       "Why, of course you’re not, dear, and of course he was. I only meant to say, even though we live under the same roof and all, sometimes I feel I must look afar to find --"

       I interrupt again, because I know this is going to go on, and on, and on. "I’m going out for a while." I pull on my drinking sweatshirt, the faded green one. "Here." I toss the remote control onto her divan as I head for the door.

       "I think I’ll just read, television is so vulgar. Just look at how it causes you to curse. Bring home a nice story for me."

       Finnigan’s is just down the street from our house in the non-gentry backwater of Azalea Springs. Although our collection of frame bungalows, bars, and pay-before-you-pump filling stations is only two blocks off the gulf, it’s far enough from the gulf breeze to permit mosquitoes’ breeding and far enough from the beach-front to afford shelter to assorted denizens of limited means and little consequence. The fine folks in the elegant manors that range for miles along the shoreline scarcely know we’re here, even though they depend on us to haul their trash and sling their hash and, in my case, to educate those that, because they are found to be lacking in some way, do not matriculate at the university.

       Like I said, this is definitely a double Irish morning. I regularly seek refuge in Finnigan’s because it looks and smells like a bar -- no ferns, no air freshener, none of the gee-gaw crap of the beach-front lounges tucked in among the reproductions of Tara. I don’t need my Irish whiskey dispensed in faux crystal, and I find it comforting that the guy on the next barstool has mud on his brogans and is smoking an unfiltered Camel.

       Actually, the name of the joint is Finnigan Bar, without the possessive; I guess the new owner is still struggling with the language. The recently repainted green and gold marquee -- the place used to be called Joe’s Bar and Grill, so help me God -- fails to reveal that the place is now owned and operated by a boat family who determined that this neighborhood offered a better market for an Irish pub than for a Saigon bistro. Good business people, these slopes. Started out working on fishing boats. No problem; they were willing to work hard for low pay and, because the government decided it was all our fault they lost their country and therefore let them in, they were legal, not like the Central Americans with the INS always snooping around. Pretty soon, they started buying the fishing boats. No bank money, they loaned each other the gold they smuggled in from Southeast Asia. Now, their kind own half the neighborhood and they’ve learned to understand our points of pride and profit accordingly.

       "Double shot of Bushmills, Harp back."

       "Early today, professor."

       "I had to escape before Blanche got to her kindness of strangers scene." I refuse to explain; we have a right to talk over these people’s heads. It’s our duty to protect our culture, to remind them that they are strangers among us. They wouldn’t even be here if we hadn’t fought their fucking war for them.

       "Ha! Are you Stanley? I did not know you are Polish."

       "Fucking-A. Lot’s of Polacks named O’Rourke." Smart-ass. Probably been going to night school, they’re always trying to improve themselves. They say his daughter was just admitted to West Point, for God’s sake. I can just see it now: I’m walking down the battalion street somewhere, and here comes little miss suckee-fuckee, except that -- surprise! -- she’s a god-damned butter bar Lieutenant and I have to salute her. "Hey, that’s the Fighting Irish! Turn the TV up."

       Adequately fortified with booze and getting bored, now that Notre Dame has a three touchdown lead over Illinois -- who the hell came up with Fighting Illini, probably one of those over-age cheerleader alumni types being clever -- I decide to invade the precinct of my betters and take a stroll along the beach. It’s a blustery day, perfect for my brand of anger.

       I could have been a contender. Brando played that part, too. Without Brando, that large majority of American movie-goers who’ve never been anywhere near Broadway might never have been exposed to The Method. I think I’ll try that theory on Eloise, watch her struggle to hold up her end of the conversation, watch her pout when she fails. Better not try it on Trung, fucking smart-ass probably learned about method acting in his fucking night school.

       But, I could have been a contender. Not just a late starter who had to grind his way through night courses on a dozen army bases, nine years for a bachelor’s and five more for a master’s. Not just a worn-out cavalry trooper trying to fit into a doctoral program at a second-rate university, already by then fifteen or twenty years older than most of the professors. Not just a hack English teacher in a Mississippi trade school that decided to restyle itself a community college. A real contender long since up for tenure and full professor at -- why not? -- Notre Dame. Not just a morning drinker still raising his baby sister at sixty, a real contender with a trophy Mercedes. No, a trophy sports utility vehicle and a gorgeous trophy wife, a blonde. No, dark-haired, under-stated, more sophisticated, better suited to the faculty club. A real contender, not a retread with damn near thirty years of Army in him, too much enlisted trash attitude, too much Irish whiskey and too little sauvignon blanc, not enough reading and writing books.

       She is bent at the waist, bouncing her knuckles off the packed sand. I tell myself there is something familiar about her, maybe the determination evident in the way she is pumping through her stretching exercises, maybe the flounce of her short blonde hair, maybe the hint of a nice ass inside her floppy sweatpants. No, bullshit, that’s a bunch of malarkey, she’s just a twenty-something stranger on the beach, with no interest in being kind to a drunken voyeur. Just because you’re getting old, Casey, is no excuse for being pathetic.

       She looks sideways and recognition opens a face made pink by weather and exertion. She straightens up, feet apart, hands on hips, taller than I expected. "Doctor O’Rourke?"

       I take a deep breath, the kind that hopefully lifts your gut up toward your chest. "Yes." I successfully resist the urge to add the stilted "I am he." This is just some beach bimbo, not the Notre Dame tenure committee.

       "I thought so. I sure never thought of you as the beach type."

       Well, maybe she’s not a total stranger, but she thinks I’m too old and boring to be on the beach. Maybe stilted will be useful until I know where this is going. "No, I’m sure you didn’t."

       She smiles away my attempt at rude caution. I think I detect something, maybe just friendliness, but maybe a hint of invitation. "I’m Blanche Butts. Maybe you remember my hokey name, everybody laughed at it the first day of class. I’m in your remedial English, the eight AM section."

       Good God, a blonde beach bunny named Blanche! Is this irony, or punishment, or what? What the hell, at least she alliterates, and she’s kind of cute, in a common sort of way. Might as well let my double Irish courage run its course. "Yes, of course. Miss Butts." I’ve never made an effort to remember students’ names, especially eight AM remedials who will soon wash out, anyway. But, I don’t see how admitting that will serve my purpose, whatever that proves to be. "Do you come to the beach, often?"

       "I jog down here. Trying to drop a pound or two." She pushes a hip toward me and slaps it. "Don’t want to live up to my name. Want to join me?"

       I know better, it’s been several decades since I was a Drill Sergeant, but she’s so blonde, so bouncy, so much an un-Blanche Blanche. Within a hundred yards, I taste the whiskey coming up. I huff a weak request to walk for a while; she generously co-opts my need for respite. "Good idea. I’m really getting out of shape. I live right over there."

       Wondering why she wants me to know that, I look in the direction she’s pointing. I know the beach-front apartments that have replaced some of the mansions are too pricey for most of my students, but maybe this one is better off than her K-mart sweats and scuffed running shoes suggest. Maybe she’s preparing to establish her class superiority. Maybe that’s her BMW in the parking lot. Maybe she’s a contender.

       "Actually, I work there. I help take care of the place, and they give me an apartment instead of paying me."

       "Good deal." So, she’s not some spoiled brat with more pocket money than my paycheck. We have being common in common, and that makes her more approachable.

       "Want some coffee?"

       I feel a rush of recklessness. Don’t think about it, just say yes. Don’t worry about age; younger women are naturally drawn to mature men, everybody knows that. Sure, she’s my student, but she’s also an adult; what we choose to do is nobody’s business but ours. Get down off the stilts. Be a contender. "Sounds good."

       She leads me through her living room, explaining that none of her furniture matches because it was given to her by people moving out. She seats me at the kitchen table and serves me. Not only is the coffee several hours old, it’s the disgusting kind with herbs and spices masking an inferior bean. Nevertheless, I slurp it and make little sounds of pleasure. Although she strikes me as being a talker, the kind that babble on and on about their petty issues, she falls silent, so I attempt the standard teacher-to-student gambit. "So, what are you majoring in?"

       She crosses her arms across her chest, each hand gripping the opposite arm, pulling her shoulders down. She leans toward me and, almost whispering, exposes herself. "Please don’t laugh. I know I’m in remedial English, and everything, but I want to be a teacher." Her eyes mist a little.

       She’s unsure of herself. Her sweet vulnerability is my opportunity to take control. I feel the blessing of tumescence stirring against my thigh. "No, I find that laudable. Elementary?" I can see her being good with little kids and, besides, elementary is a less demanding curriculum.

       "Everybody says I’d be good with little kids, and elementary is supposed to be easier, but I want to teach in a college. Like you."

       Like me. Careful, I tell myself as I endure a long sip of coffee. Don’t say something cynical and spoil this little tête-à-tête. Don’t reveal how unlikely it is that a girl janitor who’s taking remedial English will someday be a professor. Like me. "Good. Set your sights high. Of course, you’ll need to go to graduate school." Does she even know what graduate school is?

       "Somebody told me that. I need, like, ten years of college to be a professor. Do you think I can handle it?"

       No, but that’s beside the point. If I mix candor with encouragement, I can keep this going without exactly lying to her. "Well, it won’t be easy. But, it’s a one-step-at-a-time process." Then, I have a brilliant idea. "Why don’t you let me work with you after class?"

       She unfolds her arms and scoots to the edge of her chair; her eyes flash, the mist replaced by a thoroughly appealing luster. "Oh, would you? I know you’re busy, but I sure would appreciate that."

       Good move. Now, I need to interject more of myself into the conversation, to help establish a greater atmosphere of intimacy. "I’m busy with my writing, of course, but I can always find time for a good student." Especially one that I want to fuck.

       "Writing? Like, a book?"

       "Yes, like that. A short story, actually, but it could be a part of a book." My God, she’s actually wide-eyed! Take the plunge, she’s not an editor, she’s Blanche of the beach. "It’s about some of my experiences in Viet Nam. One night, when we were setting an ambush, a tiger got into our lines."

       "A real, honest-to-God tiger?"

       Another good move; tigers are sexy. "A real, honest-to-God tiger, stripes and all. The story still needs a lot of work, it’s really just an outline, but I think it could get published."

       "Of course it will. Wow! You’re my very first author!"

       She abruptly stands and removes her sweatshirt. Her sleeveless tee-shirt, still slightly damp with perspiration, clings to two happy little breasts with nipples that beg for my attention -- that’s a signal, she’s getting aroused, too, I’m sure of it. I reject the notion of removing my own sweatshirt, just yet -- too much flab around the middle, not enough muscle on the upper arms.

       My mind races about, looking for a way to move from inane chatter to having sex, to handle this the way a real contender would. While she rinses her coffee cup, I consume her with my eyes, the tidy structure of her body, the carefree tousle of her hair, her glowing vigor. What a magnificent little trophy, and blonde is quite all right. I want her on top, gloriously naked, her head thrown back, moaning, warm and wet. It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can still rise to the occasion with sweet little Miss Blanche to inspire me.

       "Well, I need to get busy with the sand blower. If I don’t keep it off the sidewalks, they track it into the carpets. Thanks for listening."

       "I’ve really enjoyed talking with you." Don’t let this slip away. She invited you here, she’s impressed by your writing, she flirted a little by taking off her sweatshirt, she’s full of gratitude because you offered to help her. She’s open to more than tutoring, but she’s waiting for her first author to make the next move. Be a contender. Go for it. "Maybe we could do something, together?" I pray for some not-too-subtle acknowledgment of sexual tension, some response laden with coy innuendo, some readiness for joining in an intrigue. If there truly is a just God, he will deliver her unto me.

       "Sure! We have class tomorrow, remember? The structure of the paragraph? Maybe you could help me some, maybe in the library, if that’s OK." I feel my face flushing, it’s muscles twisting a silly grin into a grimace, but I don’t think she notices. "I meant -- yes, of course. See you in class, Blanche." "Yes, sir. And, thank you again. I still have a lot to learn, and it helps to talk to someone who’s been there and done that." She walks me to the door. "Thanks for offering to help me." She cups my elbow in her hand, the way you do when you want to bestow a parting intimacy on someone without delaying that someone’s departure. "You’re my favorite teacher! Bye."

       I head back into my neighborhood, reviewing all the bold things a real contender would’ve said and done. I could’ve found some way to comment on her attractiveness, insinuating that she’s a very sexually desirable young woman. I could’ve cleverly worked into the conversation that interesting little dinner theater in Biloxi, then observed that it would be more fun together, let’s make a plan. At her door, I could’ve looked into her eyes, put my hands on her hips, and kissed her -- on the cheek, of course, but more than a peck, lingering, an opportunity for her to respond. I’m just warming to the full possibilities of that response, still keeping disappointment more or less at bay, when I reach Finnigan Bar.

       Trung arches his eyebrows when I reclaim my barstool. Usually, once I’ve had my bait of booze, I go home and stay there. "The usual?"

       "Yes. No. You got any decent coffee?" My response surprises me even more than it surprises Trung. Maybe Blanche has cast a spell over me, a mood better maintained by caffeine than by alcohol. Or, maybe one episode of getting drunk and very nearly making a fool of myself is enough for today.

       "Sure." He visibly relaxes, probably glad he’s not going to have a problem drunk on his hands. He brings me a steaming mug -- it’s not much fresher than Blanches’ brew but, at least, it’s Community. I know it is, because Trung keeps the red bag of Dark Roast on display -- maybe he’s trying to tell his customers that, since he serves the best coffee, we should assume that he never dilutes his name brand booze with well brands. Whatever. He goes back to washing glasses.

       "You go to night school?" The question is well outside the bar conversation parameters of sports and weather. Trung’s eyebrows go up again -- twice in five minutes I’ve surprised him and, this time, I’ve invaded his privacy.

       He decides, I suppose, to humor a steady customer. "Not any more. I took classes to get ready for the citizenship test, but that was several years ago." He narrows his eyes a bit and looks more directly at me. "You are wondering how I know about Tennessee Williams? When she was in high school, I went to my daughter’s plays. Her senior year, she was Stella." He pauses, but thinking about his daughter’s success must have emboldened him. "Pretty good, I think, a Viet Namese playing Stella in Azalea Springs, Mississippi. She was a cheerleader, too."

       "Pretty good." My earlier thoughts about Trung and his daughter begin to bother me, and I want to change the subject. I point toward a framed military-style certificate on the wall behind him; I cannot remember enough Viet Namese to read it. "You in the war?"

       "You bet. Spad driver. 518th, Flying Dragons. We flew out of Bien Hoa."

       I realize that the certificate has pilot’s wings above the several lines of print. "No shit? You were a Skyraider pilot?" I remember the A-1 Skyraiders -- they were jokingly called Spads, prop-driven left-overs from the Korean War -- swooping in at tree-top level, the heads of the diminutive Viet Namese pilots barely visible above the rim of their cockpits. "You were pretty good." I leave unspoken that VNAF pilots were among the few members of the Viet Namese military whose competence and courage were acknowledged by the Americans.

       "How about you?"

       "First of the Seventh, the GarryOwens."

       "Ia Drang? 1965?"

       "God-damn right!" The pieces fall into place. "Some VNAF A-1s flew air support for us. Came in right over our heads, dropped napalm right in front of our position, broke up an attack, probably saved us from being over-run. Was that you?"

       Trung shrugs. "Maybe so. I remember how you stood and fought. I told my CO, ‘Those Americans, I am glad they are on our side.’ Ia Drang; is that where you got your Purple Heart?"

       "Yeah; the first one, anyway. How’d you know about that?"

       "You came in with the pin in your suit lapel -- a funeral, I think you said."

       "I had to bury a buddy, that day. That’s one of the few times I wore it since the war. Most people don’t know what it stands for, and I got tired of explaining it to fucking draft-dodgers."

       Trung nods in the solemn way of a soldier who knows about old buddies and old medals. He doesn’t ask how I got my Purple Heart; it’s the protocol among veterans that you don’t ask, you wait to be told. Some want to talk about it, some don’t.

       "It was no big deal, just some shrapnel." I point at some barely visible scars on my left wrist. "Left my wrist kind of numb, though."

       Trung runs his thumb along a crease extending from his right ear almost to the point of his jaw. "AK-47. Flying close air support is like that; you can get hit with small arms fire."

       "I know what you mean. One time, on a hot LZ, I saw a VC toss a grenade right up into a huey. Blew it all to hell and gone." Trung doesn’t respond to my anecdote, but I don’t want the conversation to end. "We never talked about this before."

       "I am an American businessman now, and you are an American professor. Once, we were soldiers. Now, our war is ancient history." He turns his back to me and begins checking the content levels of the bottles on the shelf beneath his pilot’s commission. He is standing very straight.

       The conversation is over. Each now knows about the other’s scars, the ones he can see and some that he cannot see. I silently apologize to Trung’s back for thinking his daughter -- I don’t even know her name, we’re still strangers in most ways -- is the same as those sad little creatures that traded their ao dais for miniskirts, earning their rice any way they could in a world I helped to destroy. I apologize for hating him because he had the gumption and the energy to make it in my world. Tired of apologizing, I thank him for his kindness, for being a brother in arms who remembers and understands. Once, we were soldiers. I finish my coffee in one gulp, stand, toss a dollar onto the bar, snap a salute to Trung’s back, and leave.

       I take a somewhat circuitous route home because I’m not quite ready for Eloise. I try to continue imagining exotic conclusions to my afternoon coffee with Blanche, but sharing old truths with one stranger must have rendered me incapable of spinning new fantasies about another. Face it. Blanche of the beach has no interest in having me ram my anger into her. She’s not offering to serve as my trophy, blonde or otherwise. Blanche Butts is a stranger to the whiskey-soaked bitterness that turned me into that particular kind of fool who tries to act superior because he knows he’s not.

       But what this kind stranger did do was, she rescued me from a likely afternoon of stumbling down the beach, screaming profanities at the seagulls. Instead, and only through her grace, it became an afternoon of pleasure, not carnal pleasure deceitfully taken but spiritual pleasure in good faith given. By trusting me with her dream, she encouraged me to resurrect my own. By making something good of my evil intent, she opened the way for answering to the high callings of teacher and student.

       "I could hear you coming up the street. You were whistling that Irish-sounding tune from that John Wayne movie, the one about the cavalry. You must have had a pleasant outing, because I can’t remember you whistling for a long time. Did you have an adventure?"

       Yes, I got angry, and I got drunk, and I exchanged dreams with a charming stranger, and I exchanged memories with a brave stranger, and I got sober, and I learned that you’re a contender only if others think you are. All in all, a remarkable afternoon, and I don’t need to launch into an exposition on John Ford’s cavalry trilogy -- enough is enough. "Nothing special, except that I was twice blessed with the kindness of strangers. Why don’t you put on a pretty dress, maybe that one I brought you from Germany? There’s a dinner theater over in Biloxi you’d like; I’ll call for reservations."

Jimmy Carl Harris was born on 21 June 1940 and spent his early childhood years on a forty-acres-and-a-mule farm in North Alabama.  After World War Two, his family moved to Birmingham when his father took a job in a steel mill.  Following a couple of highly unfocused years at the University of Alabama, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.  He emerged from the Marine Corps nearly thirty years later, a Sergeant Major with decorations from two wars and two degrees from Chapman College, a liberal arts institution in California.  He returned to the University of Alabama to earn a Doctor of Education degree in 1994.  During three years as an Assistant Professor of Critical Thinking at Southeastern Louisiana University, he authored and co-authored several articles in professional journals.  In 1998, he finally settled in Birmingham with his wife, Mae, and began writing fiction in earnest.

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