For What He Could Become Read online

  “What do you weigh, Wayne?”

  “I don’t know. Say, 325 pounds…on a good day.”

  “What’s a good day?”

  “When I’ve got a case of beer to drink.”

  “A case?”

  “You haven’t touched your beer,” Wayne gestured with his hand.

  “How do you hold twenty-four beers?”

  “It’s kind of like chain-smoking.” He smiled. “You drink one after the other until they’re all gone. Drink up.”

  Bill hesitated. He’d had no alcohol for more than a month. He was clean, sober, working—on top of life for a change. He might just taste the beer. Just put the beer to his lips and take a couple of swallows. They slipped down easily. He ran his tongue around inside his mouth savoring the cold fresh taste. The beer hit his stomach and spread throughout his chest, pushing the gentle warm feeling upward.

  God, how he’d missed that feeling.

  The door flung open and two guys dressed in dirty Levi’s, baseball hats, and Carhart jackets walked into the room. They took one look at the beer in Wayne’s hand and went straight to the refrigerator.

  “For crying out loud, Wayne, you drank half of it!”

  “And I’m just getting started.” Wayne waved his beer at Bill. “Want you to meet Bill Williams. He and I won World War II single-handed. This is Dan and the ugly one is Chuck.”

  Dan nodded a greeting. “You order anything yet?”

  “No,” Wayne said.

  Chuck went to the phone and ordered three large pizzas. He went out to the car and came back with two cases of beer.

  “Ante-up time, guys. Twenty-five dollars for the beer and pizza divided by four is….is $6.25 apiece.”

  “Bill’s my guest,” Wayne said.

  “Your share is $12.50, then.”

  Wayne pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his shirt pocket.

  “Ready for another?” he asked Bill.

  Bill’s bottle wasn’t empty. He felt slightly disconnected and woozy. Must be because I’m tired.

  “Yeah, I’ll have another.”

  “Guys,” Wayne said, “what would you say about Bill shacking up here a few days? He could sleep on the couch. He’s getting a job at a hotel plus he’s working for the Salvation Army corps.”

  “Okay by me,” Dan said.

  Chuck tipped his beer. “Me too.”

  “What would you say to $50 a month?” Wayne said.

  Bill nodded. “That’s fine.” His eyelids were slowing and he felt good all over. He didn’t want to move from the couch. By the time the pizza got there he was on his fourth beer.

  The Major eyed Bill as he walked into the chapel. “Good morning.”

  “Morning, Major,” Bill replied. “Can I get some coffee? Maybe a roll or some oatmeal to go with it?”

  “You don’t look too good,” the Major said, his head tipped back.

  “Ate something that didn’t agree with me. Didn’t sleep too well either.”

  “I see. Had breakfast?”

  “Kinda. Two pieces of cold pizza,” Bill said.

  “That’s not breakfast.”

  Bill patted his stomach. “Feels like concrete.”

  The Major poured two cups of coffee. Bill fixed a bowl of oatmeal.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” the Major said.

  “About what?”

  “About what I’m going to tell you about…that’s what.”

  “Thanks,” Bill said.

  “You’re welcome. I had a talk with Armand about a job for you at his hotel.” He’s offered four hours a night, all your meals and $10 a shift until you both see how it is working. If you both like it, he is prepared to give you longer hours and more pay.”

  “How long would that take?”

  The Major shook his head. “Don’t know. Depends on how you do.”

  He tucked his chin into his chest and sorted out his next words. It took him longer because he added a short prayer that what he was about to say would be received in the right way.

  “You’ve told me about your work on the riverboat and with the packer on the AlCan and the army. You’ve told me some stories about Arctic Village. What I don’t know is… what is Bill Williams’ plan for the rest of his life? What plans…what ideas…where is he going…and how is he going to get there?”

  He scratched his chin. “A reputable businessman is willing to take a chance on you and provide you with some of the basic needs of life. No more scrounging food at various charities. No more sleeping in basements, alleys, or wherever night finds you. We can get you suitable clothes to do your work and after a short time, you will be working forty hours a week, getting decent pay, and be a productive citizen. And…you can help me move others along that same path. Once others see you have made it back into the mainstream, they’ll be more motivated to try. This is your big chance Bill…and one for me too.”

  Bill’s stomach turned over. If it wasn’t Verda wanting him to find the gold or Carl telling him he couldn’t drive the dogs it was the major finding him a job. He let out his breath and sat for a moment in complete silence, complete resignation, complete understanding that there was a lot of life ahead of him and he did have a choice. The major was right. Right then, giving up drinking and cold pizza was not that difficult.

  “What do I need to do?” Bill said.

  The major beamed. “You’ll do it?”

  Bill nodded. “I hope your faith in me is justified.”

  “Great Glory in the morning.”

  “Is this a big deal for you?” Bill asked.

  Major Russell put his arm around Bill’s shoulder. “Bill, this is one of those days when God is in his heavens and all is right with the world.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Bill said.

  “Indeed it is.”

  Bill had his pants half on when Wayne opened the door and proceeded to the refrigerator with a case of beer hanging from his right hand.

  “New clothes?” he asked.

  “Stuff for the hotel work,” Bill said.

  “Want a beer?”

  “Naw…I’m headed to work,” Bill said.

  He tried on the shirts and finally put together a reasonable outfit.

  “Hey Wayne, how long do you think it will take me to walk to Fourth and C Street?”

  “If you were fast like me, take you fifteen minutes. You…maybe a half- hour.”

  “Did you always win the liar’s contest on the reservation?”

  “When I was sober.” He handed Bill a beer. “One of the five basic food groups.”

  Bill looked at the beer in Wayne’s giant hand. “Around here it sure is.”

  “If we were in California, returning our empties would be a major source of income. Too bad they don’t pay for them up here.”

  “You didn’t hear me. I said no.”

  “No?”

  “I’m going to work.”

  It took Bill thirty-five minutes to walk to the Lane Hotel. It was cold, but the snow that had dusted the streets earlier in the week was gone. He reported to the hotel manager, whose nametag identified him as “Rodney, Mgr.”

  “So you’re our new night clerk?” Rodney said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to ‘sir’ me. Please call me Rodney, everyone else does. Let me show you your duties and then if you have any questions I’ll try and answer them. Goodness knows it doesn’t take a college graduate to do this job.” When he led Bill behind the counter, he glanced at his clothes.

  “You look fine,” he said. “Are those clothes new?”

  Bill thought a second. “They are to me.”

  “Well, they look good on you. Clothes make the man, I always say.” Rodney took the better part of thirty minutes to explain everything to him. During that time the phone didn’t ring and nobody came into the lobby. It looked to Bill like he would have time on his hands.

  “I leave at ten and the other night clerk comes in at midnight, when you can leave,�
�� Rodney said. “If you need me, just push this button right here, which rings in my office, and I’ll come running out. You think you have everything? Good. Nice meeting you, Bill. Welcome to the Lane.”

  Wayne was alone and had a beer in his hand watching the Tonight Show when Bill got back to the apartment.

  Wayne looked up. “How’d it go?”

  “Okay. The manager’s a little weird.”

  Wayne grunted and returned to the show. Bill got ready for bed.

  “Want a beer?” Wayne asked.

  Bill pointed at the beer in Wayne’s hand. “That can’t be good for your diabetes.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Why do you keep drinking them then?”

  “I’m gonna die of something, just as well be diabetes as anything else. We could of been killed in Germany but we weren’t.”

  “You take anything for it?” Bill asked.

  “I’m supposed to give myself shots every day and check my blood sugar.”

  “I haven’t seen you do that.”

  “I don’t do it very often. It’s a pain in the ass to stick a needle in yourself all the time. I don’t notice any difference if I do or don’t. You want a beer or don’t ya?”

  Bill knew it wouldn’t be just one. “No thanks,” he said. “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”

  “Will the TV keep you awake?”

  “Did the German shelling keep me awake?”

  He tried to get comfortable on the couch, but sleep alluded him. It wasn’t the TV set, it was the thought of the beer he now wished he hadn’t turned down. And Wayne was making strange noises. His breathing was strange—shallow and wheezy. Bill got up and turned on the lamp. Wayne was asleep in the chair, his skin gray, the breath from his nose and mouth strained, pushed, like air coming out of a bicycle tire.

  Bill shook him. “You okay?”

  Wayne opened his eyes and nodded. Bill sat down on the couch, hands clenched, and watched him fall back to sleep. He stared at the back of Wayne’s head, his eyes following the rolls of fat bulging under his ears reaching down to touch his shoulders. Had it been that long ago they escaped the war and sat on the banks of the Rhine toasting VE day?

  Bill listened to his breathing, a raspy gargle followed by an intense effort to bring in air. Bill shook him by the shoulder.

  “You’re not looking good. I think I should call the doctor.”

  Wayne shook his head. “I’ll be all right. I’ve been here before.”

  “Well, holler if you need me.” He lay back down on the couch.

  At 3:30 Dan and Chuck came in with a woman they were holding up between them. Dan held her while Chuck opened the refrigerator door, took out three beers, and headed for the bedroom. Bill went over to Wayne’s chair.

  Wayne was ashen gray and wheezing—Bill felt his neck for a pulse. It seemed awfully slow. There was a medical kit on the table Bill hadn’t seen before. It contained a hypodermic needle, some vials and some cotton balls. He could see a small puncture in Wayne’s left arm.

  Bill didn’t know what time the girl was ushered out of the apartment, but he heard Chuck telling a taxi driver where to take her. At first light he checked on Wayne. His breaths were shallow and slow, and as far as Bill could tell, he hadn’t moved a muscle since 3:30 a.m.

  Dan and Chuck were in bed. Bill was too worried about Wayne to sleep, so he dressed and went out for a walk. The dawn air was brisk. In the trickle of traffic making its way into town a police car pulled up next to the sidewalk and stopped.

  “Hello, Bill,” Patrolman Pat said.

  “Hello yourself,” Bill said.

  “What are you doing out this early?”

  Bill shook his head. “Couldn’t sleep. Got a sick friend. You know Wayne Turner from the Corps?”

  “No.”

  “He and I were in the war together. He’s asleep in a chair, but something’s wrong with him and I don’t know whether to call the doctor or not.”

  “You want me to check on him?” Pat said.

  “Would you?”

  “Tell me where.”

  When they got to the apartment, Pat squeezed Wayne’s arm gently, then shook it. Wayne didn’t respond. Pat grabbed his hand and lifted the arm, then let it drop. It flopped and stayed loose. He lifted Wayne’s eyelid with his thumb but there was no response.

  “This man’s got a problem. Call 911.”

  Pat gave Bill a ride to the hospital. “I gotta finish my shift. I’ll be back around 8:30 and see how things are going.”

  A man in green scrubs came out into the waiting room and approached Bill.

  “I’m Dr. Bollack. Do you have any idea how much insulin Mr. Turner gave himself?”

  “No, I woke up and he was slumped in his chair.”

  “His sugar count is way off—below thirty—he’s in a coma. Right now it’s touch and go. We’re doing everything we can, but diabetic shock from too much insulin can be fatal. I’ll have someone come tell you if there’s any change.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Bill sat down. He thought not of the 350-pound Wayne, but the strong muscular Shoshone he’d met in basic training whose uniform and shoes didn’t fit. The soldier he’d escaped the Snow Eifel with. He should have he’d kept better tabs on him. After the war it seemed like they both were going to live forever.

  The clock read 8:00 a.m. Breakfast would be cooking at the corps, and Major Russell would be limbering up his fingers on the piano urging the early stages of arthritis out of them for the morning sing. He’d have his head tilted back, eyes partially closed as he reached for a note that was too high for that early in the morning. A prayer session in song; that’s how he’d explained it to Bill.

  How was he ever going to justify the major’s faith in him?

  Dr. Bollack came through the swinging doors, tired, depressed, his forehead wrapped in a frown and stood in front of him.

  There was no preamble. “We lost him,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

  Bill stammered. “What do you mean, lost him?”

  “He died.”

  Bill felt like he had been punched in the stomach. “But there was nothing wrong with him.”

  “His sugar count was terminally low. His heart stopped in the coma.”

  Heart stopped. That giant heart that had gotten them off the snowy ridges, across rivers, through towns, back to the Rhine—had stopped.

  He sat without moving. The doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m very sorry.” His green covered feet turned and slowly disappeared through the doorway.

  The click of boots brought his head up. He saw Patrolman Pat and the clock at the same time. It was 8:35 a.m. Pat juggled his body into the chair next to him.

  “He’s gone, Pat.”

  “I heard. I’m really sorry. Didn’t know you two had been friends so long.”

  “Didn’t seem like it. Seems like it was just yesterday.” Tears welled in his eyes as he turned and looked at Pat. “Were does the time go?”

  Pat turned his hat in his hands. “It goes while you’re living it.”

  Bill blinked his eyes. “I need to walk.”

  “You want a ride back to the apartment?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sure sorry about your friend.”

  Bill nodded. Seemed to him like he was always nodding. Like he’d been nodding since he was born. Agreeing with anything and everything that happened—good old Bill, you can always get a nod out of him. Pat was going home. Where was he going?

  He walked outside. The upper rims of the Chugach Mountains were etched in the early morning light. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket and walked toward the Corps. Maybe he could help out around the kitchen, sing a song with the major, catch a prayer that would mean something to him. The cold air made his eyes water and he blinked it away. He wanted to remember this day as long as he lived. At the Corps, Bill pitched in setting the morning tables. It was oatmeal and toast to settle down the anxiety that passed for normal
in the early morning of a fall day when the autumn sun still radiated enough warmth to let a street person survive in an alley where it shined for a few hours.

  Major Russell walked in and put a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “I’m very sad about Wayne. Pat phoned me.”

  Major Russell was struggling for his next words while Bill stood, napkins and flatware in his hands, feeling tears sting his eyes. He had cried at Coric’s death somewhere in Belgium in a ditch in the early morning. Now he cried for Wayne’s death, as senseless as Coric’s.

  “Would you like to have the funeral here?” Major Russell said.

  Bill nodded. He did not trust his voice.

  “I’ll make the arrangements.”

  Back at the apartment, he looked at the refrigerator and thought how it would feel to have a beer—a lot of beers.

  He decided against it. He’d lost the best friend he ever had today, and he wanted to be there for the occasion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Bill was fifteen minutes early for work. A low level of noise greeted him as he entered the hotel, and a quick glance confirmed that the restaurant was full. He saw Harvey Munn sitting at the bar drinking his usual Southern Comfort and Rumplemintz shooters. He checked in at the desk, then took a quick tour of the restaurant and bar.

  Glass in hand, Harvey looked him over. “You look down in the mouth,” he said.

  “Hello, Mr. Munn.” Armand had instructed him how to greet the regulars.

  Harvey polished off the drink and set his empty glass down with a satisfied smile.

  “Buy you a drink,” he said.

  “Thank you but I can’t drink on duty.”

  Harvey looked at the clock. “You don’t start for another ten minutes. Come on, have a drink with me. You ever tasted one of these shooters?”

  “No.”

  “Then join me. What do you want to celebrate today?”

  “We could drink to my friend,” Bill said.

  “Sure. Who’s that?”

  “Private Wayne Turner.”

  The bartender glanced around to see if Armand was in any of the booths, then set up another shooter glass and poured the mix.

  “To Private Wayne Turner,” Harvey said. “To his good health.”