A Glibertarians Exclusive:  Marilee – Part III

Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec – September 1946

Coy woke up screaming.

He sat up in bed, sweat pouring from his face.  “Jesus,” he muttered.  “Jesus Christ.”

The nightmare was the same one, the same one he had two or three times a week, ever since that day on Okinawa the year before:

The line of Marines pushed up the slope.  Coy ran in the middle of the line, up the long, rocky slope, screaming as he went, just like the others.  The line broke up to go around some boulders, and that was where the Japs were waiting.  Shots rang out all up and down the line; grenades tossed by both sides burst, deafeningly.  Coy heard fragments whizz by, and then the crack of a rifle bullet just above his head.

The Japs attacked, screeching like devils.  One came right at Coy, his face a mask of hatred.  He had a long bayonet on his Arisaka rifle – it looked to Coy like it was ten feet long.  Coy watched, frozen for a moment, as the long, long, glittering steel came closer, closer.  At the last moment he swung his M1 and deflected the blow but lost the rifle as the bayonet stabbed not into this chest, but into his shoulder.  The Jap screamed something incomprehensible, and tried to draw the rifle back, to either shoot or make another stab. 

Coy fought back the burning, red-hot pain in his shoulder.  The M1 lay a few feet away, but he had another weapon:  His .45 in the holster at his hip.  He drew the pistol, saw the Jap’s eyes go wide at the realization, at the appearance of the weapon.  He tried to pull back, to bring the muzzle of the Arisaka to bear, but Coy pointed the .45 at him and fired and fired and fired, until the slide locked back.  The Jap’s bright black eyes went slowly dull as he slid away.  Coy went to his knees, then fell forward as the pain consumed him.  Somewhere, as from a great distance, he heard the shout: “Corpsman!  Corpsman!”

Then nothing.

“Fuck,” Coy muttered.

’32 Ford

He got up, went to the sink, splashed some water on his face.  One step to the left took him to the cheap room’s only window, which now looked out on to the first traces of dawn breaking over the little tourist-trap Quebec town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts.  For the last month, Coy had been working as a cook, just downstairs, in a little hotel on the Rue St. Lucie.  The hotel catered to summer tourists, and Coy was tired of listening to the guests, especially the Canadians, talking about the war.

“Fucking Canucks,” he muttered for the hundredth time.  “Fuckers all fought the Krauts.  They got no idea what a real nasty war is like.”

But the tourist season was ending.  Coy had been given his walking papers the day before, and told he had three days to clear out of the cheap little room.  Fortunately, that was easily done; he owned nothing but a few changes of clothes, his old Marine ruck, a toothbrush with a can of tooth powder, a bar of soap, a threadbare towel, and the Jap bayonet one of his buddies from the 1st Marines had grabbed for him after Coy was taken down off the rocky hill.  Despite a year of scrubbing, Coy fancied he could still see stains from his own blood on the blade.

His shoulder ached as he washed up and drank some water, all the breakfast he would have today.  The scar was still lurid red, but day by day it faded.

Coy dressed and packed quickly.  At least he had one thing going for him; in back of the hotel, he had his truck parked, a clean ‘32 Ford pickup in pretty good shape.  He had won the truck in a poker game at Camp Pendleton, just before his discharge.  By the time the clock in the cheap room reached seven, Coy was out the door and in the Ford, heading for the States.

As he drove down the highway towards Ottawa, Coy tried to decide what to do next.  He had little desire to find out what a northern winter was like, but he could hardly head back to Texas; not with a “Wanted” poster for him likely in every post office in the state.  He had experienced a taste of the snow and cold already before his wanderings took him as far as Quebec.

“So south, then,” he muttered to himself.

At least the pickup was running smoothly, the flathead V-8 ticking over without a miss.  Coy found he rather enjoyed tinkering with the old beast and had managed to keep it in top form.

“Thanks for betting it all on four nines, Gunnery Sergeant Ames,” Coy muttered.  A kings-high straight flush had won the truck and a hundred- and twenty-two-dollar pot, on a late night at the NCO Club at Pendleton, Coy playing one-handed with is wounded arm still in a sling.

“It’s a pretty good truck.  At least it’s a nice day for traveling.”  Of late Coy had fallen in the habit of talking to himself, probably as most of the time there was no one else to talk to.  The sun was well up now, the cab growing warm.  Coy cranked down the window to let the cool air in and hummed “Oh! What It Seemed to Be” as he drove.

The first of October found Coy in New Orleans, which was as close to Texas as he cared to go.  Down to his last fifty dollars and two packs of smokes, he had found a room in a cheap boarding house, but was kicked out after the third night, when he got drunk and brought a stripper back from a Bourbon Street dive to spend the night with him.  The nameless peeler was fun at the time, but as he always did in such instances, Coy’s enjoyment of the woman was tempered by the memory of Marilee.  They had only slept together in the back seat of that old Hudson, but somehow that still seemed more real to Coy than any assignation he had managed since.

On the morning after the spitting-mad landlady caught him trying to sneak the stripper out the back door of the boarding house, Coy tossed his ruck in the Ford and headed out to follow up a lead he had picked up in a bar.

“My cousin, he’s looking for a couple of guys to work on his fishing boat,” the anonymous whiskey-drinker had told Coy.  “Runs out of Delacroix.  Just south of the city.  Look for the Main Chance, that’s his boat.”

The road south led through swamps and forests, and as Coy drove the heat and humidity seemed to grow worse by the mile.  But at last, he came out into some open country, where a breeze coming in from the southwest made things a little more tolerable.  He found the docks just before lunchtime, and a quick walk up and down the waterfront found place he was looking for.  The tiny office perched on stilts above a dock with one weather-beaten old fishing boat tied up.  A sign on the office door proclaimed the name:  MAIN CHANCE FISHERIES.

Coy bounded up the wooden stairs and knocked on the door.

A big, florid man with his left sleeve tied up at the shoulder answered the door.  “What you want?” he demanded.

“Heard tell you were looking for help,” Coy said.  “Fella named Pete.  Didn’t get his last name.  Said you were his cousin.”

“Pete Main,” the big man agreed.  “I’m George Main.”

“Coy McAlester,” Coy said, and they shook hands.

“You ever fish before, McAlester?”

“Just in rivers and creeks when I was a kid.  Bream, catfish.”

“Ever been out on a boat before?”

“Troopships.  Bunch of them.”

George Main looked at Coy keenly.  “Which theater?”

“Pacific.  1st Marines.  Guadalcanal, New Britain, Peleliu, Okinawa.”

Main held up his right arm.  Coy saw the anchor and globe tattooed on Main’s right bicep.  “6th Marines,” he said.  “Lost this arm on Okinawa.”

Coy tapped his shoulder.  “I hear you.  Took a Jap bayonet through this shoulder.  Like to have died from sepsis.  Semper fi, brother.”

“Semper fi,” Main said.  “Well, I’d like someone who knew more about the trade, but things have been pretty slow since the war ended.  Most of the local boys are taking off for N’awlins or up north looking for factory jobs.  Reckon if your back and wind is still strong, you can learn the rest.  One thing I have to ask, though, hearin’ you talk and all…”  He had noted Coy’s East Texas accent.  “You got any problem working with nigras?  Got two of ‘em on the crew.  They’re good fellas, Henry and Joe, and they work hard.  Been with me over a year.”

“I got no issues with that.  If I ever would’a had any problems with any folks but Japs, war cured me of that.  And my back’s fine.  Wind, too.”

“Good, then.  If you can handle that, I’ll give you a shot.  Pay’s six bucks a day, plus three percent of our haul.  Food and coffee on the boat while you’re out.  Sound good?”

“Sure thing!  Place around here I can sleep?”

“Y’all can sleep on the boat, if’n you want.  She’s old and ornery but there’s bunks and a head.  Galley, too.  We’ll stay out couple-three weeks at a time, so we made sure she’s comfortable.”

“Can I leave my truck here in the parking lot while we’re out?”

“Sure.  Nobody gonna bother it here.  We’ve had thieves come around a time or two, but I sent ‘em off pretty quick.”  He pointed to the wall above his desk, where a short-barreled double shotgun hung.  “She’s loaded with scrap iron, rock salt and busted glass.  Couple boys come around one night, looking to get into my delivery truck.  Should’a heard ‘em yelp!”

“I bet,” Coy agreed.  “Well, gyrene, you got yourself a fisherman.  When do we go out?”

“Monday.”  It was Thursday; three days to kill.  “You fixed up ‘til then?”

“Sure.  Long as I can move into a bunk on the boat today.  I can eat until we pull out.  Got enough for that.”

“Good enough.”  They shook hands again.  “Be ready Monday morning, six o’clock sharp.  If you drink, don’t do it night before.  No booze on the boat, neither, although I’ll stand the crew a few beers when we get back – always do.  No smoking, either.  She’s got a gas engine, and I don’t want to get blowed up if some fumes get out.  Now, as for eatin’ – Helen’s Diner down the street does a pretty good breakfast and dinner, and they won’t take too big a chunk out of your wallet.”

“I’ll be more than ready.  OK if I toss my ruck in a bunk and go find that diner?”

“Sure.  Bunks on the starboard side – that’s the right side – those are Henry and Joe’s.  Bottom bunk to port is Micky’s, he’s an Irishman, wandered in here month before the war started, been with me ever since.  Ran the boat while I was gone.  He’s second in charge now.  So, you get top bunk to port.  Little cabin at the front is mine.  OK?”

“OK, Boss,” Coy said.

“Good.”  Main looked thoughtful for a moment.  “You any good with mechanical stuff?”

“Keeping my own truck running,” Coy replied.  “I’ve worked on cars, mostly my own, but some helpin’ other folks.”

“If you’re a decent hand with a wrench, you can spend tomorrow helping me get the boat in order.  Some damn thing or another always needs fixed after a trip, and the last one was a bitch.  Do that, I’ll pay you for tomorrow, then you get a weekend off to do whatever.  Monday, we head out.”

“Obliged.  I can always do with an honest day’s work.”

“I think we’ll get along, then.  Anyway, I got paperwork.  Go ahead and toss your stuff in the bunk, go get something to eat, whatever.  Be on the boat and ready to work at eight tomorrow – we ain’t taking the boat out until Monday and I don’t mind sleeping another hour or two.”

“I’ll be there.”

Come Monday, Coy stood on at the port rail of the Main Chance as the fishing chugged down towards the Gulf.  He watched the sun rising over the bayous as the boat moved down the channel.  George Main handled the boat deftly.  The Irishman Micky Foley bustled around the boat, doing this and that.  Henry and Joe turned out to be brothers, Henry and Joe Hopper, and they were now standing up near the bow, watching for junk in the water.  Now and then, one of them would call out, and Main would steer the Main Chance around a piece of floating driftwood or some other flotsam.

This ought to suit right well for a while, Coy told himself.  Good honest work.  Low profile.  Probably end up smelling like fish when I get back, but what the hell.  Money’s OK.  Wonder if there are any unattached gals in Delacroix?  Small town, likely to be someone.  Coy had found, in his wanderings, that there usually was someone.

But it wasn’t the same.

Even now, with the war better than a year over, there were plenty of women who would happily bed down with a returned veteran.  But it wasn’t the same, and on some level Coy knew it would never be the same.  With every girl, with every laugh, every smile, he was haunted by the image of red hair and flashing green eyes.

Wonder if I ever will get over her.  Probably not.

The spell was broken by a shout from Micky Foley.  “Ey, laddie!  New fella!  Don’ ye be jes’ standing aroond!  Come on an’ help me get these nets roolled oat!”

Time to go to work.  There were first impressions to make, and Coy wanted them to be good ones.

 

I had a job in the great north woods,

Working as a cook for a spell.

But I never did like it all that much,

And one day the ax just fell.

So I drifted down to New Orleans,

Where I lucky was to be employed,

Working for a while on a fishing boat,

Right outside of Delacroix.

But all the while I was alone,

The past was close behind,

I seen a lot of women,

But she never escaped my mind.

And I just grew,

Tangled up in blue.