The Newspaper

For my father.

The Newspaper

"Hey, you! I shoot moochers!"

Shopkeeper Andy was simply sick and tired of people taking advantage. After twenty-three years of business in the same corner news shop in New York City, he'd finally had enough. But he wasn't crazy enough to shoot anyone for being a mooch; which for some reason, hadn't prevented him from more than suggesting that he might.

The object of Andy's threat, the only other person in the shop at that moment, was facing the opposite wall. It was raining and blowing outside, big droplets splatting and pattering against plate glass windows. All Andy could see was that the guy was wearing a black hooded raincoat with the hood still up. He had been looking over the display of daily newspapers and had picked one of them up, and had apparently begun reading the front page. The perhaps-patron folded the newspaper in half and placed it under his left arm, put his right hand into the pocket of his raincoat, and slowly began to turn around.

Suddenly Andy regretted having said anything at all. The guy he'd just threatened without really intending to, could be anybody. To some people, you would never dare to say such a thing.

The face Andy now beheld revealed nothing to make him feel any safer. Although he was obviously an elderly man, his square jaw and taut, firm expression likely indicated a very negative reaction. He began to walk toward Andy. Andy struggled to form an apology, but couldn't seem to get it out. As he reached the counter, the sullen old man stopped, and gazed squarely into the shopkeeper's eyes.

Andy wondered about the right hand in the pocket. Did the old man have a weapon? Was he about to be killed? The older man was half a head shorter than he. Then, as Andy stared back, his fear was suddenly, completely, inexplicably gone. Neither man had moved, even slightly.

Then, during the heavy silence that hung between them like a curtain, a brilliant flash from the perimeter of his vision, a silent explosion in his mind, and Andy's conscious self was no more. Now, he was somewhere – and someone – else. Someone quite young.

Hot country air through a wooden-framed window. Short pants. Small hands, trying to complete a sentence on a piece of tablet paper with an ink-stained steel-tipped pen. The pressure placed on the pen is perhaps too heavy, and it leaves a blot of ink where two of the letters should have been.

“Too much ink! Don't dip the pen so deeply into the inkwell!”

The voice comes from behind him. A stern schoolmaster had been watching over his shoulder. Pick up the rag, wipe the tip, dip it again, but this time, not so deep. The schoolmaster moves slowly by, watching the next pupil.

The school day ends. The boy is now walking home along a dusty dirt road. There was no time to play kick-the-can with his schoolmates, there is work to be done as soon as he gets home. Milking cows, pitching hay, hard work. School was a necessary break in his young working life.

“Get that done! Supper'll be ready soon!”

The equally stern voice from his father, a respected and somewhat feared figure. Bowing heads to allow him to say grace for the family. It takes a while.

A sumptuous meal with his large family, homemade bread, baked dried corn, roasted beef, minced pie, milk. Farm families are the lucky ones these days. They eat regularly.

Now, a young man, working in the fields. Hard work, hot work. Shirtless, muscular, sweat pouring from his face, chest and back. Evening comes. Waiting for his turn in the bath. Water hand-pumped and hand-carried from the cistern, two persons will alternately bathe in one tubful. The family gathers around the big floor-model radio in the living room. Battery-powered. KDKA, Pittsburgh.

The nation is at war.

Enlistment. The Army physical, the old bus bumping over mile after mile of dark roads and then highways, and then, basic training. A change of priorities. You're in the Army now, you're not behind the plow. You'll never get rich, by diggin' a ditch...

It's still all about respect for your superiors. Always has been. For you, it's not that much of a change. Already know how to fight. But now, you're a soldier. You have a new carbine and a fine combat knife, handmade by a private citizen, a patriotic benefactor from someplace in the countryside of New York. Not everyone gets one of these.

Crowds of men who are, just like you? No, everybody is different. Really, really different. There's every kind of person in the country here. Tall men, short men. Tough men, some not so tough, gamblers, schmoozers, strait-laced and boozers. All of them are waiting in the hot sun to board a quickly-constructed, under-powered, already-rusting troop ship. No one seems to know where it will be headed. Some say France; perhaps their superiors don't know yet. They'll be in there like sardines.

A squadron of training aircraft roars overhead. Soon they'll be piloting fighters. Now maybe they're the lucky ones.

Maybe not.

It's an overcast day. So many men and not nearly as many as they, to see them off.

Months at sea. Rolling, pitching, landlubbers without sea legs and stomachs to match. Surely they can't land in this thing and go right into combat.

They don't. The ship docks, there's a general din and plenty of arguing, and where's the fighting? Not here. More combat training first, so you won't stand up in front of a machine-gunner's nest. Or at least so you know, someone's out there waiting for you. He, and thousands more like him, are well-armed. The men you have come to fight are already battle-hardened soldiers.

Then, you are. Little food, precious ammunition, watch your back because they can come from anywhere. Then it comes, and you fall. Everybody falls. Most will never get back up. A stint in an army hospital and back to the front lines.

Eventually, it’s over. It’s finally and at last, over, your rucksack says “New Caledonia” wherever the hell that is. There is no PTSD, nobody’s ever heard of that. You just, get over it.

Then home, and work, and a family of your own. Good times, bad times, raising a passle of rowdy boys and a girl. The farm is gone, you make your daily bread at the mill.

And, who are you? A newspaper salesman?

Can you keep a civil tongue in your head?

I thought not.

Here.

The brightness dissolves back to his own reality, and shopkeeper Andy stares, wide-eyed at the old man whose life he’s just lived, in about ten seconds. Was it longer? Perhaps. Andy sees new people in the store. Maybe…

The old man has just produced the price of the paper from his wallet and laid it on the counter, and is now making his way to the front door. Andy tries to say “Wait” but he can’t.

He simply, can’t.

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