BIVOUACKING FOR THE NIGHT, Ozzie Taylor and the other BEF men sank to their haunches along a corrugated tin wall in an abandoned skating rink where the Maryland National Guard had dropped them off after the long haul across Ohio and West Virginia. Having found a passable sleeping spot near a fire that raged in a greasy oil barrel for heat, Ozzie looked up and saw rattling above his head a rusted sign welcoming all to Skate Your Cares Away. Wishing it were just that easy, he leaned his oboe against a post and rested a gunnysack filled with sand under his head for a pillow. After whittling a point on the nub left from his pencil, he pulled out an old racing form from his rear pocket to add a new notation to the column of figures he’d been compiling.
Lincoln sidled up next to him to see what he was scribbling. “You planning on putting a sawbuck down on Burgoo King at the Belmont there, Oz?”
“Nah, I’m just keeping a record.”
“A record of what?”
“How far we’ve traveled. What’s your guess, Charlie?”
Lincoln removed his stovepipe to scratch his head. “A far piece. That’s about as close as I can come.”
“Three thousand miles in eighteen days. Who woulda thought that?”
Resting a few feet away, Mickey Dolan tossed an old board into the fire can. “Not Herbie Hoover, that’s for sure. How much more we got to go?”
The men turned to Alford for the answer to that question, now that Waters, as usual, had gone on ahead to scout the enemy territory.
“Little over a hundred miles before we cross into Washington.”
Lincoln stared into the darkness. “Are we just gonna walk on in to town?”
“Waters cut a deal with the Maryland governor,” Alford said. “The National Guard has agreed to drive us to the District. Once Dubya gives us the signal, we’ll haul ass up to the Hill and show those birds some real lobbying. You boys get yourselves shaved up in the morning. I figure we’ll be shading under the Washington Monument by day after tomorrow.”
The men traded sullen glances; now that the reality of their dream seemed within reach, a worried silence came over them.
Alford walked down the abandoned rink handing out cough drops. “Donation from the local drugstore. Keep your lungs in good working order. We got some hollering to do in the chambers of Congress.” After dispensing their substitute for hard candy, he lingered a few steps away, under a hole in the roof, and stared up at the clear sky.
Lincoln couldn’t sleep, so he sat back up. “Georgie, what are we gonna be facing in Washington?”
The men stopped crunching their cough drops long enough to hear the answer to the question that had been weighing on all their minds.
Usually Alford was upbeat, but on this night he sounded fatalistic. “The papers say the District commissioners gave the police chief an order to have us out of the city in forty-eight hours. This fella they hired is a shavetail. I guess we all know what that means.”
“New stripe always has to prove himself,” Angelo muttered. “Fresh meat in the trench itching to go over the top.”
Dolan nodded with a look of grim determination. “The police have cracked heads everywhere else. Don’t expect Washington to be much different.”
Alford kept staring up at the stars. “We’re going to the land of Uz.”
Lincoln craned his neck, trying to see what Alford was gawking at. “The land of what?”
“Uz was the place where Yahweh persecuted Job. You’ve read the biblical story of Job, haven’t you, Charlie?”
Lincoln wouldn’t look at him straight away. “I ain’t never had much formal learning.”
Alford tssked him for having neglected his education. “And you being a descendant of the Great Reader himself. You see, Job was an upstanding and righteous man, but God put him in a breadline anyway.”
“How come God did that?”
“That’s just what Job wondered. So, he went searching for God to demand an answer. And all of the rich folks in Uz told him he was being punished.” As Alford regaled the men with the biblical parable, he saw Dolan dip his head in private despair. He wondered what the big Irishman was distressed about, but he went on to finish his story. “After riding the rails for weeks, Job finally finds the Big Boss Upstairs.”
“What’d God tell him?” asked Ozzie.
Alford kicked at the cracked concrete floor. “God pointed to his big house in the sky and his fancy white robes and said, ‘Who the hell are you, you lowlife, to be questioning a man of authority such as Myself? So shut up!’”
Lincoln was appalled. “What’d Job do about that?”
“He just shut up like he was told and walked away.”
Angelo jumped to his feet. “You mean God didn’t have no reason to put Job through the wringer? He just did it for spite?”
“All according to the Good Book itself,” Alford confirmed. “God admitted that He was just playing a friendly game of poker with the Devil. Like them politicians in Washington have been using us as chips in their big Wall Street craps game.”
Angelo circled with his fists balled, looking for something to smash.
Hruska had been listening from the corner. “You always badmouthing this country, Alford. In Russia, Bolsheviks have us strung up by now.”
Alford snorted. “You’re quite the expert on what Bolsheviks do, Vilhelm.”
“I should be. I see them put bullet in my papa’s head.”
The men gathered around him to hear more.
“How did you get away?” Lincoln asked.
“My nana hid me in well. Then sent me here to America. Fifteen years ago. When I get Bonus, I send for her.” He coughed down the swell of emotion. “This is still the best country in world.”
Angelo was pacing faster now, his anger building. “The way I see it, that feller Job and all the rest of you just need some inside pull with the Man, like those Wall Street plutocrats pay to get!”
Alford gave up a cynical toot of a laugh. “And I suppose you’ve got some pull with the Man in the White House.”
“I just might.”
Lincoln came to his knees. “Who, Joey?”
“Colonel Patton.”
Ozzie rustled with surprise. “That stripe you saved in France?”
Angelo nodded with pride. “He told me that if I ever needed anything, just let him know. He’s a big shot in the cavalry now. He’ll help me get my Bonus.”
The other men brightened with that prospect, but Alford saw that Dolan remained somber. “What about it, Mickey? Everybody seems to have a plan except you. You got anybody waiting for you in Washington?”
Dolan glared at Alford, then picked up his blanket and walked to the other end of the rink to sleep alone.