…onliest trouble with great patriots is we ain’t got none…
Monroe D. Underwood
It was eleven peeyem at Wallace’s.
The Sox had just finished losing to Cleveland 10-1.
I had just wiped out my ninth beer.
One per inning.
I am very good at arithmetic.
Wallace turned off the television set.
He brought me a beer.
Wallace was a big guy.
He was sixty or so.
He had faded red hair.
What there was of it.
He had a sagging belly and saddle-brown eyes and no teeth and flat feet and a perpetual hangover and an excellent business.
Wallace operated the average-guy sort of gin mill.
Twenty stools and six booths.
No pool table.
No pinball machines.
Friendly middle-aged neighborhood traffic.
When the ball game went off so did the television.
Wallace detested soap operas and quiz shows.
He couldn’t tolerate situation comedies and police stuff.
Old movies bored him and new ones disturbed him.
Commercials drove him crazy.
Wallace’s opinion of television was wrapped up in one nasty little word.
Wallace put his elbows on the bar.
He sighed.
He said I am going to sell this firetrap and move to Georgia.
He said I am going to buy a cotton gin.
He said I keep getting these awful Chicago headaches.
He said it’s the air pollution and them Sox.
He said them Sox is destroying me.
Old Dad Underwood spoke up.
Speaking up was Old Dad Underwood’s greatest fault.
He said them Sox is only a couple years away.
Wallace said from what?
Old Dad Underwood said well right about now it looks like bankruptcy.
Wallace looked at me.
He shook his head.
He said if your girl friend wasn’t coming through the door I’d kill him on the spot.
Betsy approached with her slightly pigeon-toed panther walk.
She popped onto the stool next to mine.
She said hi Philo.
She winked at Wallace.
Wallace blushed and spilled a glass of beer.
Betsy fished a pack of Kools out of a handbag almost the size of a medicine ball.
She lit up and blew a few smoke rings.
One inside the other.
Betsy is very good at smoke rings.
She said I was in the neighborhood.
I said you still are.
Betsy said so what’s happening?
I shrugged.
I said oh not a hell of a lot.
I said except I am going to move in with you.
Betsy turned slowly on her barstool.
She gave me a very sober look.
She said Chance let us not go around making jokes about matters that are not matters to go around making jokes about.
I said it’s true.
I said I got to live with you for awhile.
I said it has to do with a big investigation I am conducting.
I said it is top-drawer stuff.
I said living with you will be sort of a cover.
I said nothing more than that you understand.
Betsy said oh?
She put her cigarette out.
She lit another.
She was trembling just a bit.
She said now Philo I have tidings for you.
She said big investigation or no big investigation there is one thing you damn well better know before you move in with me.
I said never mind.
I said I already know.
I said I’ll never get out.
Betsy said my love you may go to the head of the class.
I shrugged.
I finished my beer.
I ordered a shot of Sunnybrook.
I drank a toast to freedom.
I ordered another and drank a toast to my country.
Then I toasted George Washington and General Black Jack Pershing and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Stonewall Jackson.
I toasted Dick Tracy and Babe Ruth and Ulysses S. Grant and Bela Lugosi.
Not necessarily in that order.
I toasted Horatio Alger and John Dillinger.
I said gimme another drink.
I said I think I forgot Ethan Allen.
Betsy called Wallace over.
She said had he been drinking when he got here?
Wallace nodded.
Betsy said and how many have you served him?
Wallace said well if he gets one for Ethan Allen it will be maybe twenty.
Betsy said oh-oh.
She said we got big trouble.
She said that much always shifts him into a patriotic gear.
I said let’s have one for good old Ethan Allen.
Betsy said I have to get him home somehow.
She said time is of the essence.
She said he’s about due to give us The Pledge of Allegiance.
She said have you ever heard him do “Hats Off the Flag Is Passing By”?
Wallace blanched.
I said how about one for Ethan Allen?
Wallace said I better have Old Dad Underwood watch the joint.
He said I’ll drive over to your place and give you a hand.
Betsy said surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life.
I said just one more for Ethan Allen.
They stuffed me into Betsy’s car.
I said Ethan Allen isn’t going to like this.
Betsy got in and started the engine.
I said hold it.
I said this operation is hereby declared suspended.
I said what about my automobile?
Betsy said we’ll get it later.
I said my Alte Kameraden tape is in there.
Betsy said stick your head out of the window.
She said you don’t look well.
I said be not deceived.
I said I am at the top of my game.
On the way to Betsy’s I sang “America the Beautiful.”
Several times.
Betsy said Chance it’s spacious skies not skacious pies.
I said Betsy who is singing this song me or you?
Wallace and Betsy dragged me up the stairs.
I said I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.
I said shoot if you must this old gray head but spare your country’s flag you rotten bastards.
I said Lafayette we are here so get your blooming ass in gear.
I said damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.
They dumped me onto the bed.
Wallace said he’s really gung ho tonight.
Betsy said what did I tell you?
She said next comes the close-order drill business.
She said hut two three four to the rear march hut two three four.
She said like that.
Wallace said my God.
He said can you get his clothes off?
Betsy said thus far it has never presented a particularly difficult problem.
Wallace said good-night.
I said hut two three four.
I said unfettered I shall rise and fly into the freedom of blue sky.*
Betsy said don’t you bet on it baby.
* Admiral Yogo Takashita’s poem reprinted courtesy of Kamikaze Veterans’ Digest.
Its remaining lines are:
And there on eager pinion soar
O’er cloud and rainbow evermore;
With Rising Sun to light my way
I’ll bomb Pearl Harbor twice a day.