The kind sergent

Juanita, she always loves to drag me to the movies, look to see all those war movies. There are always some very handsome guys who happen to be hit by bullets, and the location of the bullet is always very understanding, not hitting the face or something, and then they always talk about not being able to die for half a day, and must urge their comrades to help them convey their love to the girl back home before they can, and this girl usually has a serious misunderstanding with the dying soldier at the beginning of the movie, and this misunderstanding is about what the girl should wear to the school dance. Either you have to give the slow and handsome guy a lot of time to pass on the important documents he took from the enemy general to his comrades, or he has to explain well before he dies what this whole film is really about. In the meantime, there are a lot of very handsome guys, that is, those of his comrades, who have a lot of time to see this most handsome guy die. There is nothing to see next, anyway, there is a guy who happens to have a military horn on hand, and then takes his precious time to blow his funeral horn. The next picture is the dead guy's old home, the crowd may be up to a million people, including the mayor and the dead guy's parents and his girl, if you're lucky, the president will also come, anyway, everyone around the guy's coffin, speech, handing out medals, all dressed in mourning clothes look better than normal people dressed up to go to a party.

Juanita, she loves to see this. I told her it was really classy to see them die like that; then she got mad and said she'd never go to the movies with me again; then the next week we went to see it again, the exact same movie, but this time with the location of the war changed from Guadalcanal to Dutch Harbor.

Juanita, who went back to her mother's house in San Antonio yesterday to show her mother the measles of our children - fortunately, otherwise her mother would have had to visit us with a big bag. But as she was about to leave, I told her the Burke story. I wish I hadn't. Juanita, she's no ordinary girl. If she saw a dead rat lying in the street, she would clench her little fist and slam it on you as if you had crushed it to death. So I kind of regret telling her the Burke story, more or less. I originally just thought that so she wouldn't ask me to take her to see those war movies all day long in the future. But I still regret telling her. Juanita, she's no ordinary girl. Never - never - never marry an average girl. You can buy the average girl a few beers and maybe have some light fantasies about them again, but never marry them. Wait for the kind of woman who will clench her little fist and slam it on you when she sees a dead rat on the street.

If I were to tell you the Burke story, I'd have to start a long, long time ago and explain something you don't understand, more or less. First of all, you're not the one I've been married to for twelve years, and secondly you didn't know Burke from the beginning.

You see, I was in the military.

Not true. One more time.

You often hear guys who enlist in the army complain about army life and how they wish they could get away from it all and go back home, wish they could eat good meals again and sleep in a comfortable bed again or something. They didn't mean any harm, but it was uncomfortable to listen to. The food wasn't bad and there was nothing wrong with the beds. When I first came to the army, I hadn't eaten for three days, and the place I slept before - never mind, that doesn't matter.

I've met more good people in the Army than I knew before I joined the Army combined. Also, I've seen a lot of big scenes in the Army. I've been married for twelve years, and if I could make a dollar every time I talked to my wife Juanita about some big game I'd be rich. I know she'd say, "This is so exciting to me, Philly." Juanita, every time you talk to her about any big scene, she gets a little excited. Don't marry a woman who doesn't get excited when she hears you talk about big scenes.

I started joining the Army about four years after the end of World War I. They registered my age on my service record as eighteen, but I was only sixteen.

I met Burke the first day I went in. He was young, almost twenty-five, twenty-six, but he was the kind of guy who never made people look young. He was a real ugly guy, and a real ugly guy never looks young or old. Burke had thick black hair that grew on his head like steel wool from a brushing pot. His shoulders were kind of crooked and short, and then his head was too big to put on it. And then there were his eyes, which were exactly like Barney Google's. (Translation: Barney Google is the main character of the popular American comic strip BarneyGoogleandSnuffySmith in the first half of the 20th century, a short man with big eyes.) But the most devastating thing is his voice. A voice like Burke's can't be found anywhere else in the world. Listen up: his voice is in two keys. It's like whistling a strange whistle. I guess it's no wonder he's not much of a talker.

But Burke is a man who gets things done. Look at this guy, oddly ugly, voice still in two keys, head on his shoulders too big, eyes like Barney Google - you see, this is the guy who can do things. I also know a lot of beautiful men who can do something in a pinch, but none of them can do the big things I'm talking about. Generally speaking, pretty boys don't work as hard at doing things if their hair isn't combed, or if no girl has approached them lately, or if none of them look at him at least occasionally. But the real ugly man, dare to face the dismal life, do anything can be a person to persevere to the end. And if a person can stick to himself when others are not paying attention, he can make some really great things. In addition to Burke, I know only one person in my life who can do what I call great things, and that person is also an ugly man. He was a homeless man I met in a van, short, big ears, and had pneumonia. He helped me escape the misfortune of being beaten up by two gorilla-looking hooligans when I was thirteen, and you know what, he did it entirely by talking, I mean, by cursing. He's like Burke, but not as good as Burke. Because part of the reason he's so good is because he's dying of pneumonia. And Burke was just so good when he was healthy.

Maybe you'll think at first that what Burke did for me was no big deal. But maybe you too were once sixteen years old, like me at the time, sitting on an army bed in my long underwear with no one I knew, scared half to death by the big guys wandering around the barracks floor to shave and look like tough guys. They had the look of real tough guys, no need to pretend at all. I'm not going to lie, they're all really tough guys. They're pretty much all the hard kind without having to talk. I've seen scars on them, including what grenades there are, what sulfur mustard gas, so many that if a scar could be exchanged for 50 cents they'd be rich. They were Captain Titch Pennington's old wartime men, they were all regulars, they weren't going to fall apart after the war, and they had fought in every shitty war in France.

So there I was, sixteen years old, sitting on my bed in my long underwear with my eyes crying out because I didn't know anything, and all these big guys were still walking around on the barracks floor, just talking about themselves and being comfortable with foul language. So I just sat there in my long underwear and cried from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. It's not like the big guys didn't try to get me to stop crying. They tried. But like I said, there are not many people in the world who can do things.

Burke was a sergeant at the time, and in those days a sergeant of something only talked to a sergeant of something. I mean, except for Burke. Because then Burke came over to the bed where I was sitting and lectured my head off - but quietly - and then he stood next to me for almost a quarter of an hour, just looking at me like that, not saying a word. Then he walked away for a bit and came back. I occasionally looked up and saw him thinking, "This should be the ugliest face I've ever seen in my life. Even in uniform Burke can not see where, not to mention that when I first saw him, he was wearing a bizarre bathrobe bought from some store, I think this kind of bathrobe in the army also Burke such people are willing to wear.

Burke just stood next to me for a long time. Then, almost suddenly, he pulled something out of the creepy bathrobe and threw it on my bed. The object jingled and felt like it was filled with money, and I don't know what it was. The object was wrapped in a handkerchief and was about the size of a child's fist.

I looked at the thing, and then looked up at Burke.

"Unwrap the thing and see." Burke said.

So I unwrapped the handkerchief. Inside was a bunch of medals, all tied up with ribbons. One of the bundles was full of the best medals. I mean, the best of the best.

"Put them on." Burke said in his creepy voice.

"What for?" I asked.

"Just put them on," Burke said, "You know what these are, right?"

A medallion came loose, so I held it in my hand. Well, I knew what it was.

That's the best medal, yes.

"Sure," I said, "I recognize this. I used to know a guy who had one of these, he was a cop in Seattle. He used to bring me food."

Then I scanned through all of Burke's medals. Most of them I'd seen at some guy somewhere.

"They're all yours?" I asked.

"Yes," Burke said, "What's your name, little brother?"

"Philly," I said, "Philly Pence."

"My name is Burke," he said, "Put these medals on, Philly."

"Just wear them on your underwear?" I asked.

"Yes." Burke said.

So I did. I untied Burke's bundle of medals and put them all on my GI underwear one by one, as if I had been ordered to do so. This big-eyed, weird-voiced Google guy told me to do it, so I put them all on - right at my chest, and some right below. I was so stupid that I didn't even know I had to wear them on the left side of my chest. I put them all on right in the center of my chest. Then I looked down at them and I remember leaving a pea-sized childish tear just on one of Burke's medals. I looked up at Burke, afraid he would be angry about it, but he just looked at me. Burke is really a man who can do great things.

Once I had all of Burke's medals on my chest, I moved to the side of the bed and then fiddled so hard that my body all swayed and jingled Burke's medals like - like church bells. I've never felt so good. Then I glanced up at Burke.

"Have you ever seen Charlie Chaplin?" Burke asked.

"I've heard of him," I said, "He's in movies."

"Yeah." Burke said. Then he said, "Get dressed. Drape the coat over the medallion."

"Just drape it right over the medallion?" I asked.

Burke said, "Yes. Drape it right over it."

I got up from the bed and started looking for my pants, the medallion still jingling. But then I said to Burke, "I don't have a note to go out. The guy at the lodge said he wouldn't sign out notes for a few days."

Burke said, "Get dressed, man."

So I got dressed, and Burke got dressed. Then he went into the company office and came out almost two minutes later with a note with my name on it. Then we went downtown together, and the medals jingling under my coat gave me a sense of bullying and giddiness. You know what I mean?

I want Burke to be happy, too. He doesn't talk much. You'll never guess what he's thinking. Most of the time, I call him "Mr. Burke". I didn't even know it was the rule to call him Sergeant. But looking back, most of the time I didn't seem to call him anything. That's what happens when you think a guy is really good - you don't call him anything, like you don't feel like you should make it seem like you know him well.

Burke took me to a restaurant. I gobbled up a huge meal, all paid for by Burke. He didn't eat much of his own food.

I said to him, "You didn't even eat much."

"I'm not hungry." Burke said. Then he said, "I keep thinking about a girl."

"What girl?" I asked.

"A girl I know here," Burke said, "with red hair. Doesn't sway much when she walks. Just kind of walks straight and upright."

He was speaking rather nonsensically for a sixteen-year-old.

"She just got married not too long ago." Burke said. Then added, "I met her first."

I had no interest in the subject. So I kept my head down and ate furiously.

After we ate - or rather, after I ate - we went to see a movie. It was a Charlie Chaplin movie, just like Burke had said.

The lights were on inside the theater when we went in, and as we were walking down the aisle Burke said "hello" to someone. The other person was a red-haired girl who said "hello" back to Burke, and there was a man in civilian clothes sitting next to her. Then Burke and I went and sat down somewhere else. I asked him if that was the red-haired girl he was talking about when we were eating. Burke nodded, and then the movie started.

I kept shifting around in my seat during the movie so that others could hear the medals jingling. Burke did not finish the movie and left. Halfway through Chaplin's movie, Burke and I said, "Little brother, you stay here and watch. I'm going out first."

When I came out after the movie, I said to Burke, "What's the matter, Mr. Burke? Don't you like Charlie Chaplin?" Chaplin made my stomach hurt with laughter.

Burke said, "Chaplin is okay. It's just that I don't like watching funny little guys getting chased by a bunch of big guys all the time. And don't ever fall in love with a girl. Ever."

Then Burke and I walked back to the barracks. No one knew what sad things Burke was thinking about that night on the way back, all I cared about was whether Burke would get those medals back soon. Now I often think, at that time I can not be so ignorant how good it would be, how to say a few words of comfort to him. I wish I could have told him that he was much, much better than that redheaded girl "he met first". I don't necessarily say that, but I have to say something anyway. Holy shit. A great guy like Burke, and I mean a great guy for life, only 20 or 30 people know how great he really is, and of those 20 or 30 I bet none of them ever even hinted to him that he was a great guy. And there were always no women who liked him. There might be one or two not-so-great women who would like him, but the kind of woman who doesn't sway much when she walks, the kind of woman who walks straight, would never look at him. Like that kind of woman, the kind of woman Burke really likes, just for his ugly male face and weird voice, no idea about him. Shit.

Back at the barracks, Burke said to me, "Little brother, you still want to keep the medal, right?"

"Yeah." I said, "Is that okay?"

"Sure." Burke said, "You can keep it as long as you want."

"Don't you need it?" I asked.

Burke said, "It doesn't look that good on me. Good night, little brother." Then he went back inside.

I was such a little kid then. I wore those Burke medals on my military underwear for three weeks. I wore them every morning when I washed my face and brushed my teeth. And the tough veterans didn't make fun of me. They didn't know why Burke gave me the medal, and more than half of these veterans had fought with Burke in France. But as long as Burke was happy to give me the medal to wear on my military underwear, they were fine with it. So no one made fun of me.

I didn't take them off until the day I had to give them back to Burke. That was the day he became a staff sergeant. He was sitting alone in the company office - he was always alone - and it was almost 8:30 in the evening. I went over to him and laid the medals on his desk. I tied them all up and wrapped them in a handkerchief, just as he had done the day he put them on my bed.

But Burke didn't look up. He had a pair of children's crayons on his desk, and he was drawing a redheaded girl. Burke the man could draw really well.

"I don't need them anymore." I said to him, "Thanks."

"All right, little brother." Burke said. Then he picked up the crayons again to draw. He was drawing the girl's hair. He let the medals sit there.

I was about to leave when Burke called me back. "Wait, little brother." But he didn't stop drawing.

I went back to his desk.

"Tell me," Burke said, "tell me if I'm wrong. That day when you were lying in bed crying-"

"I wasn't crying." I said. (What childishness.)

"Okay. When you were lying in bed laughing that day, didn't you wish you were lying on a wagon train that stopped in a small town and the doors opened and the sun was in your face?"

"Something like that." I said. "How do you know that?"

"Little brother, I wasn't born into West Point and came out right into the Army." Burke said.

I didn't know what West Point was, so I just watched him draw the girl.

"That's a pretty good drawing of her, isn't it?" I said.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Burke said. Then he said, "Good night. Little brother."

Once again I was ready to go when Burke called after me, "You're getting transferred out of here tomorrow, little brother. I'm going to transfer you to the Air Force. You'll make something of yourself."

"Thanks." I said.

As I walked out the door Burke gave me a few last words of advice, "Be a grown-up and don't cut anyone's neck later." That's what he said.

I left that unit at 10:00 the next morning and I haven't seen Burke since. I just didn't meet him again over the years. I didn't know how I was going to write a letter back then. I mean, I rarely wrote anything at that time. And even if I did know how to write a letter, Burke wasn't the kind of guy you wanted to write to. He was too big. At least for me, he was too big.

If I hadn't gotten a letter from Frankie Miklos, I never would have known that Burke himself had transferred to the Air Force. Frankie was at Pearl Harbor at the time. He wrote a letter to me. He wanted to tell me about some guy with a weird voice, a masterful guy who had served nine years, or so Frankie said. His name was Burke.

Burke is dead now. He died at Pearl Harbor. Only he didn't die quite the same way as most people. Burke got himself killed. Frankie watched Burke get himself killed, and here's what Frankie wrote to me.

The Jap heavy fighters came straight down to the ground and dropped explosives on us right over the barracks. The light fighters just kept strafing us. It was impossible to stay in the barracks, and Frankie said that the guys who weren't shooting heavy guns were all running in a Z-shaped line to find shelter. Frankie added that it was too hard to avoid the Japanese Zeros. They seemed to hit the guys who were running in a Z-shaped route. And then the explosives were dropping all over the place, and it really messed us up.

Frankie and Burke and the other guy found a safe place after all. Frankie said he and Burke were in there for about ten minutes or so, and then three more guys came running in.

One of them told us what he had just seen. He saw three enlisted men, all cooks who hadn't long reported to the mess hall, lock themselves in the big refrigerator in the mess hall, thinking that would make them safe.

Frankie said the guy just said that, Burke immediately got up and gave the guy about 30 slaps, asking him if he was out of his mind to let those guys stay in the refrigerator. Burke said there is no safety, like this lock themselves in it, even if not directly hit by the bomb, the vibration alone is enough to kill the three soldiers.

After that, Burke ran out to save the guys regardless. Frankie said he wanted Burke not to go, but Burke also gave him several big slaps.

Burke eventually rescued the guys, but he was hit by a Zero on the way, and when he finally opened the refrigerator door and told the guys to get out of it, he collapsed forever. Frankie said Burke was shot through four holes in his body, one after the other, and it should have been a series of hits. Frankie said Burke's jaw was knocked off.

He was alone when he died, he didn't leave any messages to bring to any girls or anything, our country didn't send any big fancy funeral for him, and there weren't any dudes to blow any funeral horns for him.

All Burke had was Juanita's tears, and Juanita cried as she listened to me finish reading Frankie's letter, and let me tell her what I knew again. Juanita she was no ordinary girl. Brother, never - never - never marry an ordinary girl. Find a girl who will cry for Burke if you have to.