By Tim Hawkins
We both take note of the man-boys throughout the diner with their baseball caps perched frontward or backward, not one bothering to hang his lid on the coat rack or place it on an empty seat.
The look of puzzled distaste creeps onto the old man’s face like five o’clock shadow. Even today, in the heat of summer, he dresses formally in a coat and tie. His silver-knobbed cane leans elegantly against the side of the booth where we finish our lunch.
He had recently remarked on the sloppy attire of the few remaining young congregants at his church. Most of the lunch patrons slouch in tank tops, running shorts, or cut-off jeans, their dirty feet dangling a flip-flop or perched up on the banquette. If he could see well enough to notice, he would comment.
“Your grandmother had written me a 57-page letter,” he says, his gnarled fingers struggling to open a creamer.
He is a slow and deliberate eater, and has finally finished his biscuits and gravy. I fight the urge to seize the creamer from his trembling hands and tear it open with a decisive stroke.
He is opening up a little about his service in the 258th Field Artillery Battalion, with whom he fought across Europe in the Battle of the Bulge, and I don’t want to distract him or deter him from continuing.
I’d been raised on some amusing anecdotes of his military service:
How, as a sergeant, he had been the self-appointed company scavenger, how he could set off into a French village with a carton of cigarettes and a bar of chocolate and come back with a chicken, a sack of potatoes, or a bottle of brandy to share with his men to round out their C-Rations. How one night he had saved the brandy for himself, gotten drunk, and fallen into a trench latrine.
How he had cleaned up playing poker on the troop ship headed stateside, and how some bastard had stolen his winnings, his Swiss watch, and the German luger from his footlocker.
Lately, though, he has begun confiding darker stories lacking punchlines. Last week, at lunch, he told me in a very quiet voice about what it was like to liberate a major Dachau sub-camp. Today he’s telling me another story I’ve never heard.
“She spent 20 pages telling me about your dad and another 20 telling me about her job in the hosiery mill,” he says. “I had just got to the part about my brother when a German plane flew out of a cloud bank and started strafing our position.”
His captain and two other soldiers were killed in their foxholes. Grandpa and a companion saved themselves by diving between the tracks of the unit’s M5 high-speed tractor. When they emerged, they were both bleeding profusely from largely superficial shrapnel wounds but were otherwise intact.
“The other guy, he put in right away for a Purple Heart,” he says.
“How about you?” I ask him.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t feel right about it.”
I knew he deserved one. For years following the war, every so often while shaving, a thin sliver of shrapnel would work its way out of his face. He would drop it into a jar he kept on his nightstand.
“All that metal there was in my face and my neck and chest,” he said, showing me the jar when I was a boy. “That’s the only souvenir I have from the war.”
He didn’t feel right about a medal because he was wounded just as he read the news from his wife that his 21-year-old brother had been killed by a Japanese sniper on Iwo Jima.
I had heard about Uncle Carroll and his gregarious likeability and mischievousness, but I never knew my grandfather had found out about his younger brother’s death in this way.
I look around the diner. It is August 2008, the height of the Great Recession. The harried, balding manager scurries around helping two haggard waitresses and the middle-aged busboy; all probably downsized from something else.
Grandma is just up the road at Potter Hills. She could no more write a 57-page letter than she could tell you the year or recognize either one of us. We have just come from a visit, during which she insisted we were there to kidnap her.
I think about that young wife back home in North Carolina, struggling to convey such awful news. And I think about that slim and chiseled soldier, and that lonely, far-away death on an outcropping of rock.
When I was a boy, I thought of my great uncle as another old man from long ago. Now I know he was just a boy, far from home. Far away from everything he knew, far away from groceries and diners and families.
Are we both wondering, “What was the point of it all?”
I don’t know, but meanwhile, the busboy cleans as fast as he can to accommodate the line at the door.
He scoops the empty plates from the table next to ours, gives it a wipe with his rag, and trips as he heads back toward the kitchen. The bus tub lands next to us with a shattering roar.
“Incoming!!!” yells one of the man-boys out from under his baseball cap.
“Holy shit, what a retard,” says his pal, laughing himself silly.
Grandpa slaps a $20 on the table, slowly picks up his cane, raps it loudly against the linoleum floor, and stands to face them.
“You don’t know what real incoming sounds like,” he says to the first. “And you,” he says, turning to the second one. “You watch your mouth and show a little respect. That man is trying to earn a living.”
“Let’s get out of here, bud.”
I help this man gather his things and hold his arm as he walks with dignity toward the door. Neither of us bothers to look back. Nobody else bothers to say a thing.
I found it somewhat meandering and overlong, and half way through I was reading the words but with my mind elsewhere.
I think it would probably appeal more to those with an interest in military history.
I fear this says more about your ability to concentrate than it does about the author’s intent. If you didn’t understand that this story was about generational relationships, aging and the fragility of humanity … not the Battle of the Bulge … you need to get out more. I am amazed at the ignorance our modern educational system seems to churn out in droves. No critical thinking skills, only literal thought and no ability to empathize or show a grain of humanity.
I couldn’t get up much empathy for either/any of the characters. The snippets of memories would’ve been better if they linked somehow; falling into a ditch, falling in the diner; falling bombs, perhaps; flip-flops falling off naked feet – I’m reaching now.
The shrapnel in the jar didn’t have a proper place in the story, somehow – shame. It was enough to hang a good piece on.
Lots of loose wires, no electricity.
I’d still like to read something else you’ve written. Submit more. Give us a chance to see what you can really do. The seed was there.
Thanks for letting me read it.
Later.
I really like this story. My uncle and my father both served in world war two. I was reminded of many campfire stories as kids about the funny stories of life in the service. Then as adults at a diner watching these same men with tears describe being shot while shooting at airplanes and losing friends who are foerever 17. The story is about character. This generation doesnt understand the idea of giving without recognition. Its the personal act of giving that matters. Loved it.
I think this little snippet in time is wonderful!! I loved how the characters unfolded and we learned about them. The regalness, softness and toughness of the WW vet and the loving administration of the grandson. Very touching.
I really enjoyed this short story, I love how detailed and heartwarming the story turned out to be. I liked it a lot.
What I love about this story is the way it perfectly captures the fractured nature or trying to spend real time with elderly people. What they have to say is so necessary – for their peace, and because you realise too late how precious it is. A wonderful portrait. I’m so sick of reading formuleic pieces that do nothing to enbody the meaning via form, and this lucid, measured piece has that in spades. I had a student accompany me to work the other day, who turned up in a tank top and trainers, bra showing… an elderly lady and her daughter were waiting for the cardiologist next door. I asked the student if she perhaps had a t-shirt. Mother and daughter were both impeccably turned out, despite the heat. The old lady, both hands resting on her handbag, caught my eye and gave me an eye roll that Merkel would have been proud of! Love the way you’ve captured the insult to propriety that grates the older generation, and the way that dignity is not only something personal, but societal. Gorgeous short story.
I love the feeling this gave me of being with an elderly relative telling a story I’ve heard a million times and then realizing there is something new in what he is saying and it’s timeless.
I really like the imagery and the exchange between the grandfather and grandson. I can feel the respect and attention the grandson gives to the old man, even though he doesn’t say much, and even though he’s probably heard these war stories before. I can feel it in his silence. Perhaps these stories take on a different meaning for him each time he hears them. Perhaps their significance increases as he grows older and gains more perspective on life, and realizes that his grandpa wasn’t just a war hero or some larger-than-life figure, but was instead a young man trying to stay alive in difficult circumstances. Maybe not so different from the busboy. Different place. Different time. Different circumstances. Same noble pursuit.
Generational friction is, ironically enough, timeless.
Ditto Marianne Edwards.
My grandpa served in WWI and my father in WWII (both in the Army), and much more recently, my son served in the US Marines.
I can see, from the comments above, that some folks are not connecting with this at all. Okay, it’s a blessing to live in what’s (mostly) peacetime, and the conflicts we do have are far away, with no draft to worry about.
As for me, I can relate to this deeply, and thanks to Tim H for writing it.
Heh, maybe in a few decades, and (God forbid) there’s a big war with China or somebody, the folks commenting here will have switched places, in a sense, with the old veteran in the story.
Truly enjoyed this story Tim..,,proud to know you !
Excellent story. Full of detailed images and truths about life, without being preachy or overbearing.
Well done.
This one appears to have generated much more than the usual anodyne “Nice story” comments. I judge it one of the better reads in an outlet that is drifting toward publishing that all seem too similar and too light.
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Great piece of flash fiction. A nice moment in time between a younger man and a man who has lived a long life. I thought the stilting nature of the piece fit well with the awkwardness that can come about between two men of a certain age who love one another. I also liked how the narrator’s mind raced between the past, present and anecdotal memories from his lunch guest. Not every situation between two men has to be My Dinner with Andre. For you wet behind the ears millennials … it’s a movie you should watch … but won’t. I actually think this piece could be even more developed and richer than it is. I’d like to know more about this man, this place and these difficult times in American history. I really enjoyed this piece.