A Warehouse of Death. Adult Drama. Of Life in a Retirement Home. (standard:drama, 7480 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 27 2020	Views/Reads: 1425/993	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In his 80s, Steve moves into a nursing home. The story switches back and forth as he reminisces about his past life on a farm, in the army during WWII, and the present. He goes out with a bang, not a whimper.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

field and nobody even notice." 

"Yes, Dad," Jeff interrupted. "It's your time to quit. We've found a
nice retirement home for you. A place where you'll be comfortable and 
can lie back, secure. Your insurance and Social Security will pay for 
it." 

"My heart's okay. Doc Evert says so." 

"But your blood pressure's far too high, not to mention arthritis and
diabetes. Here it is, October, and you still haven't planted half your 
acreage." 

"I'll get to it. It's that new tractor. New isn't always better. I
ought'a take it back. Too damned complicated. Once I master the damned 
thing, I'll catch up." He shook his head. "Just takes time, like with 
anything. Takes time." 

"You haven't got that time, Dad. Face it. You're old and worn out," from
Jeff. 

"We'll all get that way sometime, Daddy." 

"I'm not dead yet. I've got a few good years left." 

"It's time, Daddy. Time to retire. Time to enjoy what time you have
left." 

"You've lost money the last few years, Dad. Why keep fighting the devil,
when you can lie back and enjoy the fruits of your labor?" 

This time he'd been convinced by the others. He couldn't, as hard as he
tried, refute their arguments. It would have been foolish not to admit 
they were right, and Steve was no fool. 

It was becoming impossible for him to keep the house clean, much less
take care of the few animals. I suppose it is better to shut the 
business down, he thought. He would miss old Spike, his dog, and 
faithful Homer the retired plow horse. Well, like Homer, I guess it's 
my time, he admitted to himself, to be put out to pasture.... 

*** 

To Steve, being used to long periods of isolation, the occasion of his
incarceration looked like a convention. Half of his large family 
accompanied him to the Old Folks Home. The large reception area, the 
farmer noticed, didn't have that hospital smell, more the sweet odor of 
hand-lotion he'd used at work. 

Pretty young girls in starched pale-green uniforms hurried back and
forth, some seen standing outside in the fresh air, smoking cigarettes. 


Steve wondered when he'd next smell fresh air? Air coming off
freshly-plowed earth? The odor of hay stacked in the upper reaches of 
his barn. HIS barn, the hay put there by HIS own efforts. 

He really wished for a smoke. He really did. Did he remember to bring
his pipe and tobacco? Would he even be allowed to enjoy a comfortable 
bowl, legs propped up after a hard day's labor? Or would he have to sit 
out in the rain and cold for such a simple pleasure...? 

"Mary's got you signed in, Daddy," Emily said, bringing him back to
reality by grabbing an arm. "Let's us go check out your room. Number 
221, the nurse said." 

Steve resisted being forced into a wheelchair. 

"It's house rules. One the insurance company insists on for admission,"
a nurse told him. "But only until you get to your room." 

"I can still walk, damn it, Jeff," he blustered, head held back steeply
to look at his grinning son. It all felt so strange, surreal. At well 
over six-feet, it was the first time he could remember when he had ever 
had to look up at the kid. "You got all my stuff here? Don't lose 
nothing, now." 

"We got it, Daddy. Don't worry." 

They walked, all except Steve, down a long polished hallway to a room
near the end and a door exactly like all the others. As he was pushed 
along, Steve glanced curiously into each room they passed. Briefly, he 
wondered where all those old people had come from -- before realizing 
he looked just the same to them. 

Where had that young man gone? The one who fought over in Germany in the
Big One? What happened to the boy who plowed fields with a wooden 
plow-handle held under his chin -- leather traces clasped in tiny hands 
while directing huge plow-horses in making a straight furrow? Whatever 
happened to the boy who had his first drunk on his daddy's hard cider 
while hiding in the barn, then tried to ride the goat, getting a broken 
leg for his trouble? 

That one! The one who proudly told his mother about having his first sex
with a neighbor girl and was locked in his room for days afterwards, 
hearing his mother crying in hers? 

Now he was nothing but another old man in a warehouse full of them, all
waiting for alternating trips to a hospital and back ... until the day 
they didn't come back. 

"Get the hell out of my way. You hear me?" Steve grabbed the wheels on
his chair with slightly arthritic hands and charged ahead, leaving the 
others to stand and stare at each other. 

*** 

Steve stayed in his room for a week, coming out only to eat. He would
wait until mealtime was almost over, go to the lunchroom, fill his tray 
and take it to a table. Then he'd make a sandwich. If it were only 
soup, he'd dump it into a disposable cup, returning to his room to eat 
alone. Although there was no lock on it, his door stayed closed. As 
part of the rebellion, Steve avoided taking his medicine. When a nurse 
or aide came in he would be as unsociable as possible, trying to 
discourage them from coming back. 

The man didn't realize that his rejection was normal; that many
residents do the same thing at first. The staff and others were used to 
the process and waited him out. Many of the other residents, 
remembering going through the same process, simply waited. 

While back at the farm, Steve had found that he felt more alert without
certain medications. He'd grown used to picking and choosing which to 
take according to how he felt at the moment. Here, they did the 
choosing, always all the doctor ordered. 

Sure, he drifted off sometimes but when he did he found it easier to
hold on to ever-more valuable memories. Not recent ones, but those of 
long-gone and better times. Given a choice, he preferred the past. 

They were memories of his own parents and the kinship of a large farm
family -- four generations living under one roof. Of a time when he had 
energy, and enough to spare. He wished he had saved some of that energy 
for the present, when he needed it. He also had the bad ones, such as 
about Mike and Jerry in the war.... 

*** 

"Damn it, Steve. That was close. They don't have any respect for this
uniform," Mike bitched, trying to crouch lower in a shared foxhole. 
"None at all. Why don't you go over there and trade Jerry's .50cal for 
some .30 for us? You could throw in that useless .45 while you're at 
it." 

They were huddled in a foxhole in the Grünewald forest outside
Nuremberg, shells from German 88mms whistling overhead, through, and 
over thick trees, toward the tank park. Random explosions came from an 
ammo dump -- hit two days before -- where shells were still cooking off 
from the heat. No one had been able to put the fire out. Not amid fresh 
cannon fire. 

"No thanks, but I'll keep the pistol. You're jealous ‘cause you don't
have one." Steve lay, legs stretched out on a poncho, back against an 
earthen wall while trying to get a little sleep with all the noise 
keeping him awake. He'd long ago gotten used to creepy-crawlers running 
across his face. 

Mike drew his head back from the rim of the foxhole. It was dangerous to
look out toward the enemy but necessary for peace of mind. Jerry, Mike, 
and Steve took turns watching, afraid that if they didn't the Krauts 
would sneak up on their hole. 

The three had plenty of ammo, but not the right kind. Jerry had been the
third-man on a three-man .50cal team, the other two being killed 
earlier. He was still carrying belts of machine gun ammo across his 
chest, but they needed more 30.06 for M1 rifles and rounds for Steve's 
extra .45 pistol. They hoped they had enough to keep up an intermiten 
fire at the enemy. Spraying the countryside didn't hit anything but 
might keep the enemy's heads down, and them from crawling up to the 
hole to toss a potatomasher grenade in. 

About that time, a head appeared over the rim behind them. Jerry and
Mike spun around, hearts beating fast, and raised their weapons. It was 
Edwards, another GI. He scowled and dropped a canvas package in then, 
without a word, disappeared again -- not wanting to be exposed for 
small talk. 

The bundle fell on Steve's chest, jerking him back to full-consciousness
and causing a "Whoof" to explode from his lungs. 

"Mo-ther-fuck-er!" Steve yelped, sitting up to claw at leather straps. 

"What the fuck is it?" Mike asked, leaning over while Jerry raised his
rifle and fired three un-aimed shots at the enemy. "Ammo, I hope?" 

"Na. Mail and more C-rats," Steve passed them out. "And a box of D-cells
for your flashlights. Anyone have any flashlights?" 

The others shook their heads. 

They heard a whistle blast three times. It was from the new second
Louie, the idiot's idea of a code. None of them remembered what it 
meant until Steve, still sitting, put the empty canvas bag over his 
head and lit a match next to his face to read a scribbled note giving 
the codes. 

"It means get ready. We're supposed to attack when we hear two then
one," he reminded the others. "All that whistling does is get the 
Krauts on their toes to expect us," Steve complained. Nevertheless, 
they gathered up their gear and got ready. That was the worst part -- 
half-standing, muscles bunched up ... and waiting. Once the charge 
started, they wouldn't have time to be frightened. They'd be too busy 
trying to stay alive -- and killing. 

The signal came. Not wanting to be too anxious, the three waited until
they could hear running and the clanking of gear going past their hole 
before scrambling up and joining the charge. 

Nobody wanted to be in front. 

The air abruptly filled with the buzzing of bullets from small arms,
overriding a duller booming from the direction of the ammo dump. The 
staccato ripping of Nazi machine guns rose higher in both volume and 
intensity as Allied troops advanced toward dug-in enemy positions. 

Steve felt a tug on his shirt as a bullet clipped the cloth and kept on
going. Not taking time to shoot back, he put all his effort into 
running. Running through a hail of hot lead toward Jerry, already a few 
yards ahead on his left, with Mike crouched and advancing on the other 
side of Jerry. Steve could see other dark shapes staggering around him 
as he stumbled across uneven sometimes slippery ground, with an 
occasional flash as one man or another fired un-aimed rounds at enemy 
positions ahead of them. 

Steve saw Jerry break stride and fall end over end into a slumped pile
of flesh. With no time to stop, Steve slowed down enough to see his 
buddy rising to his feet. Maybe he just slipped in the mud or stumbled 
over one of the many logs, loose legs, and piles of refuse? 

Seeing flashes directly ahead of him, Steve stopped for a moment,
panting with exertion. He fired aimed shots at the flashes then, 
attaining a second wind, resumed his mad dash. Although frightened out 
of his wits, he couldn't let his buddies down. The smell of crap and 
fear was almost palpable around him as he saw Jerry drop into an unseen 
enemy shell hole. 

By the time Steve got to his friend, it was over, as a figure in a
German helmet pulled a bayonet out of Jerry's chest. As the man turned, 
Steve emptied the last three rounds in his magazine into the man, 
dropping the German soldier in his tracks. There was a loud metallic 
"ping" as the breach of his M1 stood open, empty. 

Jumping into the hole, Steve paused to shove another eight round "strip
clip" into his weapon, the hot chamber burning his fingers. Jamming the 
cartridges into the magazine with his thumb, he brought the rifle to 
bear over the opposite rim -- all in one practiced motion. He could see 
a half-dozen individual battles going on in the dark. Uniform colors 
were impossible to make out. Steve couldn't tell friend from foe. 

The whoosh of a parachuting flare brought a bizarre blinding-white light
to the horrible scene, illuminating a picture straight out of hell; a 
bloody portrait of useless carnage. The battleground resembled a lunar 
landscape, dotted with human remains. It was interspersed with small, 
extremely vital, contests between gray and green-clad adversaries 
locked in individual combat. 

Steve braced himself on a sandbagged shelf and fired single shots as
fast as he could aim, aware the flare wouldn't last long. He noticed 
Mike standing near the hole, bending over and choking a German soldier. 
As Steve watched, Mike suddenly straightened with a jerk, then fell 
over, even as the flare fizzled out. 

Steve also remembered the retreat, back to where they had started from,
half his remaining platoon dying from shots in the back. The attack had 
been only one useless episode in an endless war.... 

No. All his memories weren't good ones. As he lay back in the metal
hospital-type bed, alone in his room, the old farmer tried to dredge up 
something nice to counter the last, coming up with.... 

*** 

"You didn't say if you like the potato salad?" Lois, his wife, jibed as
they sat under a young elm tree at the edge of the field, eating a 
picnic lunch. "I used my very own spices, from my very own garden," she 
reminded him, reaching over for another beef and homemade cheese 
sandwich. 

They were sitting under the tree, Dobbin a dozen yards away, the
plow-horse temporarily relieved of traces and chomping his own 
grass-based lunch. The sweet smell of recently turned earth swept over 
the scene, even as helpful sunlight aided in drying sweaty clothing. 
Both helped in lulling stiffness from Steve's muscular body. 

Lois had surprised Steve with an entire meal for them both, rather than
only sandwiches for him. It was easy to forget dirty sweaty hands and 
clothing and imagine them sitting in Appleby Park while courting. 

"It's wonderful, dear," he replied, gulping lemonade from a glass
tumbler, feeling the chilled liquid drip down a filthy chin. 

It was a hot muggy overcast day in Illinois. It would have been a good
time to sit on the front porch, watching the sun go down from a 
slowly-moving squeaking porch-swing. Maybe they would do that later, 
but for now it was still beautiful with a breeze rustling the oilcloth, 
keeping flies and skeeters out of their food. The breeze also stirred 
Lois's long dark hair, blowing it to one side and across her lovely 
face as she turned her head. 

He didn't want to go back to work, but knew he had to. A farmer doesn't
have an option to quit in the middle of the day. Especially not with a 
horse to take care of when he's through. 

Still, he had a little time, and Dobbin wouldn't mind any. Steve rose
and went over to sit beside his wife, putting an arm around her and 
removing the sandwich from her hand as he sat closer. 

Turning her head toward him, an errant gust stirring soft strands,
blowing across her face once more, the only obstruction between 
questing lips. He kissed her through the strands, neither noticing as 
the two of them drifted down to the grass alongside open food 
containers. Both his hands being occupied, it was Lois who unbuttoned 
his fly, taking charge of preparations for a more active lunch.... 

"Time for your medication, Mr. Ross." 

Steve hadn't noticed the nurse's aide come into his room. For her part,
the youngster, "Doris," according to a name tag, saw a large wrinkled 
sunburned white-haired man sitting on a red-plastic padded chair that 
came with the room. He was staring into space with tears slowly running 
down both cheeks. 

Steve could see she was patronizing him. She'd probably tell the doctor
he was losing it and they'd up his medication, keeping him even 
groggier. As senseless as in that long-ago military nuthouse in 
Germany. He'd been lucky to get out of THERE alive. That memory alone 
brought a sudden flash of a huge barracks room, beds arranged in 
endless rows, containing screaming and moaning men. They were, mostly 
anyway, complete in body though not in mind. 

He managed to suppress the memory of his cracking up after that long-ago
attack and losing his buddies. Anyway, they'd eventually released him 
into civilian life. 

As it was, the damned pills were making him sleep his life away. 

"Here you are, sir. Open up now. I have to watch." She handed him a
small paper cup containing his medication. 

Steve was ready. While Doris had been checking the container, he'd
turned his head and pretended to rub his face, dropping a couple of 
M&Ms into his mouth to transfer to his right cheek. Now, he upended the 
paper cup, shoving the pills into his left cheek and replacing them 
with the candy -- which he swallowed. Doris saw his prominent Adam's 
Apple bob. 

"That's right. It wasn't so bad now, was it? Thank you, Steven. You
don't give me trouble like some of the guests." 

As she turned to fluff his pillow, Steve ejected damp dissolving pills
into his hand. The hell with them. After she left, they went down the 
toilet. 

"You coming out for supper, Steven? We have a gentleman who says he
knows you." 

"Who would that be? I didn't see anyone I know in this damned place?" 

"Well, you know, you haven't been out there to even look. You really
should, you know?" She grinned at him as if he were a kid being 
chastised. Children weren't taught as well as they used to be, Steve 
thought. In his day, she would have shown more respect for his age. 

"Yeah, I might," Steve replied. "Who the hell you say it was again?" 

"Mr. Thompson, Sam Thompson. He says he knew you as a child." 

"Don't know him. That was one hell of a long time ago." 

"Well, he told me he used to play with you. Something about a rope in a
haymow." 

Delving back into long-forgotten memories, Steve dredged one up. 

"I remember him now, he's the guy who busted out my front tooth. But he
had a good-looking sister, as I recall." 

"Her name Mary? There's a woman named Mary who comes to see him about
once a week." 

"Could be. I don't recall her name." Steve struggled to picture them as
kids. There was something about a blond girl with long hair and even 
longer legs who wouldn't have much to do with him. "Sometimes I have a 
little trouble remembering." 

As Doris left, the sight of her leaving -- from the rear -- reminded
Steve of.... 

A teasing rear view of a thirteen-year-old girl with long yellow hair
down to a shapely butt. He remembered that rear as just starting to 
spread with puberty, walking away from him as an eleven-year-old boy. 
He was at the stage where he was beginning to appreciate such things. 

Mary had finished collecting eggs from the henhouse and was carrying
them in a yellow wicker basket lined with newspapers. At the time, a 
two-year difference in their ages was seen as a huge social gap -- 
virtually insurmountable. Although he had tried to kiss her while 
playing, on several occasions, she treated him as a young kid. The girl 
used to play all their games, wrestling included, with Steve and her 
brother Sammy. 

Then one day her mother had called her in for a private talk, leaving
Steve and Sammy wondering what they, or Mary, had done wrong. Ever 
since then, Mary stayed away from the more violent intimate playing, 
and right when Steve had started to enjoy it, too. Enjoyed rubbing her 
between the legs and nuzzling tiny breasts. After that private talk, 
she seemed to prefer acting like an, ugh, lady. 

"You can't catch me, Steeeeeevy," he heard Sammy call from the ladder to
a haymow in the barn, and they were off running. No time for fickle 
women. Sammy wanted to play Tarzan with ropes hanging from a huge 
pulley used for hauling bundles of hay into the upper stories of the 
barn. The rope extended down both sides of the pulley and was tied at 
the bottom end. They raced up ladders to the top floor of the 
structure, where Sammy swung out on the rope and made his way down, 
hand over hand. 

Steve followed, the rope still swinging from his friend's weight. When
Sammy reached the bottom, he stood on solid ground and laughed while 
tugging the rope back and forth, causing Steve, two stories above him, 
to swing wildly. Steve lost his grip and slid down too rapidly, burning 
his hands as he tried to slow himself. The friction pain made him let 
go and he fell on his face. 

When Steve climbed back to his feet, he could feel a sharp pain in his
mouth. A front teeth was missing. After that, for the next few years, 
Mary would use its absence as yet another excuse not to date him. 

"I can't be seen with a toothless idiot like you," she would say,
laughing in his face. Of course Steve blamed her brother, not her.... 

Curious, Steve did leave his room a little early for a change. It wasn't
as though there was a lot of action around the place. He was surprised 
that when he first come out to sit alone at a Formica table in the day 
room, nobody came over to talk or ask questions. He'd expected a crowd. 
Oh, a few did greet him later, but not right away, to introduce 
themselves and shake hands. 

Steve stopped the girl, Doris, when she passed him. 

"Where's this Sam guy? I haven't seen him." 

"I think he's in a room with his sister right now, Mr. Ross. They should
be out pretty quick. You want me to tell them you're waiting?" 

"Hell no. I'm not waiting for them, just sitting here is all. I'll find
me a book." 

He saw a bookcase on the other side of the room and went across to look
it over. 

While he waited, Steve saw a flurry of activity down one of the
hallways. Nurses and aides hurried toward some central point. He 
stopped a man who was crossing near his table. 

"What the hell's going on down there?" Steve asked. 

The man shrugged. "Mrs. Peters died, probably. It happens all the time.
Nothing to get excited about," the man told him, disinterested. "That's 
why we're here, to wait until we die. A warehouse of death is all this 
is." 

The man walked away toward his own room. It got Steve to thinking. 

"I don't want to die like that, a useless chunk of meat," he muttered to
himself while watching a gurney containing something beneath a white 
sheet being pushed  down the hallway past mostly uninterested 
residents, and to the front foyer. A woman he presumed to be a doctor 
followed, writing in a notebook. The picture caused him to shudder. 

"No. I have to do something before that happens to me. Being hauled away
like garbage with nobody even noticing," he muttered under his breath. 

He was broken out of his introspection by a voice from behind him. 

"Hey, Steve? Good to see you after all'a these years." 

It was a small fat man with a fringe of white hair. A woman about their
age, fat and leaning on a walker, stood next to him, grinning with a 
toothless mouth. Na, that can't be Sammy and pretty blond Mary? Steve 
thought -- but it was. 

"Sammy? Is that you? You sure have changed." Steve forced himself to
smile back. "And Mary looks the same yet, still beautiful," he lied. 

They sat and talked for over a half-hour. Sammy had done little in life,
working in a local factory for forty or so years while Mary had already 
gone through four marriages and six kids. Steve was glad when Sammy 
walked his sister to the door. He left quickly, in case Sammy wanted to 
come back to him. 

Feeling his eyes tearing and mind a little fuzzy, Steve went to his room
to think. What the hell had happened? Where the hell had the real Steve 
Ross gone to? He would look in a mirror on the few days he shaved, only 
to see a grizzled stranger. While at home on the farm, he had never 
noticed, but certainly did here -- in this warehouse of death. 

*** 

As time drifted by -- all too quickly -- Steve's short-term memory
drifted. At dinner time, he couldn't remember what he'd had for lunch. 
One day, he could have sworn it was army C-rations, even having an 
aftertaste of canned ham and lima beans. More and more often, he 
couldn't remember who he had talked to the day before. The man gave up 
on remembering dates, a calender on his wall gathering dust. One day 
was the same as another. He only noticed Sundays because of the church 
services which he attended. 

Steve had never been particularly religious in the past, but loosely
figured it better to hedge his bets now that he was getting close to 
those Pearly Gates. Death was a favorite topic of conversation at the 
Home. It seemed all too often that he would find one of his new 
acquaintances suddenly missing. 

In defense of his sanity, Steve adopted the same attitude as in wartime.
When someone was missing ... forget them. Don't even ask what happened. 
If they were still alive, he would see them later. If not ... he didn't 
want to know. 

One anonymous visitor to another resident reminded him of a redheaded
soldier from the war. It happened soon after Mike and Jerry were 
killed.... 

*** 

After that attack Steve made corporal. For some reason, the lieutenant
insisted on using him to train new replacements, recruits straight from 
basic training in the States. 

Steve hated the job, preferring to lie in a one-man foxhole he dug
himself, alone with his thoughts. 

"Please, sir," he almost begged, "I can't be responsible for them. I'm
jinxed already. They'll only die if they stay near me." 

"Look, Ross. We all have to do our part. You have those corporal
stripes, now use them. You can't fight this war by yourself and they 
need the help of an experienced soldier." 

A progression began. At first reluctant, Steve eventually tried, really
tried, to salve their fears while hiding his own and to help them 
survive. It did no good. During the next two attacks, he lost four of 
those young kids – one a large stupid redhead. They never seemed to 
live long enough to learn to survive. The saying was that if you lived 
through the first year of combat you were good for the duration. It 
took that long to learn the tricks and develop survival instincts. 

Conversations among themselves didn't help much, reminding him of the
safety of what seemed another world, one where you didn't worry about 
snipers, land mines, and artillery. The quiet of sitting on his porch 
in the evening, watching the sun go down with Lois. Holding hands, 
sweet dreams and slow fulfilling sex. 

He'd be trying to tell them how to survive while they'd interrupt with
memories of high school and casual dating, ignoring vital advice then 
go their own way ... only to die. A few days later, he would be issued 
more replacements, continuing the useless process. 

There came the day that he, himself, sensed the uselessness, the
futility, of fighting for a set of political lies. Hell, he realized, 
he knew several Germans in his own army. They being the same as him, 
with the same thoughts, dreams, and hopes, it must be the same way with 
Nazis. Wasn't it? Weren't they living people like his German buddies? 
What god-given right did he have to kill them? 

He refused to leave his hole for anything. Anything at all. Instead of
going to a dug latrine, he crapped in a corner of his foxhole, burying 
it within the mud. He refused to go to meals, to talk to anyone. 
Eventually, he didn't even bother to take off his trousers, crapping in 
them. What was the use? Why live? Why even try? 

When Steve stayed in his hole, huddled in a fetal position as the enemy
attacked, crying out loud enough to hear two foxholes on either side of 
his, the battalion Chaplin intervened. 

Steve Ross was sent to the rear, shell shocked, where he stayed for the
rest of WWII. The mental hospital helped, kinda. Eventually he stopped 
shaking and could handle a spoon to feed himself. 

After that, he lived. Lived in a personal hell, eventually coming out of
a paranoid funk.... 

*** 

Whenever his lucidity improved -- which wasn't anywhere as often as when
he had first arrived -- he could sense himself becoming older. He'd 
realize changes, none of them good, none reversable. 

Steve still tried to avoid the medication that made him groggy. He
wanted to stay alert to enjoy memories dredged up of long-bygone days 
-- days when he was young and full of adventure and hope. Why should he 
contrast the past with the present? As in the war, sometimes it was 
better to live within memories and screw the present. 

In time, his old friend Sammy was missing and the man's sister became a
resident. Steve preferred to stay away from her; even while she sought 
him out as her own anchor to the past. He would rather remember her as 
a teenager and, by avoiding her, could easily do so. 

One of Mary's grandchildren reminded Steve of a woman he'd met in the
Sicily invasion. She'd been a short brunette looking somewhat like his 
wife, which was the reason he picked her out of a crowd of prostituting 
women still starving from the Nazi occupation.... 

Riding on the back of a deuce-and-a-half supply truck, Steve caught her
eye. For long seconds, the two stared at each other as though linked by 
an invisible cable. To him, it was as though looking into a dark blue 
endless void. As the truck inched along within a crowd of refugees, she 
smiled, licked cracked lips, motioned to him, turned and slunk away. 

Steve was off that truck in a flash. The hell with duty. Grabbing his
rifle and the rope-handle of a wooden supply crate he'd been sitting 
on, he ignored cries of two other soldiers and jumped down to run after 
her. 

She was surprised as he accosted her, yelling “Senora. Senora, stop.” 

She did stop, turning to smile once more. Silently, arm and arm, they
proceeded to a small shack among a multitude of others, lined up for a 
block or so along both sides of a dirt street. 

Steve knew enough by then to recognize a whore street, individual cribs
with sliding doors for loose women to work from. She let go of him long 
enough to talk to a small unshaven man standing nearby. 

“Ten dollar, American?” the man asked. 

Steve had enough presence to shake his head. If he'd paid that amount,
she'd only receive a fraction, the rest going to the pimp or owner of 
the building. “One dollar, hundred Lira?” 

Once paid, the man smiled, sliding back a crib door for them to enter. 

The room turned out to be very dirty, smelling of cabbage and sweat. It
contained a German army cot, a blanket, a dresser, and a lone wooden 
chair. No electricity or running water. 

Gabriella knew little English, and Steve damned little Italian, forcing
them to communicate in bits of German amid moans and groans of a more 
natural language. A dozen times during a day and a night, there were 
knocks on the door, it then sliding back for Steve or Gabriella to hand 
out another dollar bill. He left her the crate of Spam, minus what 
they'd eaten during breaks. 

Steve almost lost his corporal stripe over that incident, though he
thought it worth the risk. It had been such a long time between 
releases.... 

*** 

As time at the Home passed, he couldn't recall the names of relatives --
not often, only occasionally -- but he learned to fake it when they 
came to visit. It was easy. He simply sat, nodding occasionally, and 
let them talk while lost in his own memories. They never seemed to 
notice, most coming in for only a few minutes and, even then, glancing 
down at watches out of the corner of their eyes. For Steve, present 
time and memories became difficult to sort out. 

"We still have the farm, Daddy. It's up for sale but nobody wants to pay
our price, for now anyways," Jeff offered during a visit. 

"Who's living there now?" Steve asked, mildly curious. 

"Well ... no one right now. Cousin Tammy and her family might later." 

"That's nice. My stuff still there in case I decide to go back there to
live?" 

"Sure. Nobody's packed anything up. Emily took a little furniture. Hers
was worn out, but it's mostly the way you left it." His son -- what's 
his name, Jeff? -- laughed. 

Steve could tell. Nobody thought he would ever go back. Maybe he would
fool them? He could still walk without one of them damned walkers -- 
although his legs were sometimes pretty stiff in the mornings. He'd 
have to massage them for a while before getting out of bed. 

*** 

Then came the day when he actually did it. 

In a daze, thinking the street outside the Home was one he remembered
from his youth, Steve wandered out of the facility while wondering why 
the effort wore him out so much. After all, he recalled walking that 
same route almost every week on the way to Simon Good's general store. 

Eventually, with the help of several kind motorists amid drifting in and
out of lucidity, he found his way back to the farm. 

*** 

Steve woke in a strange bed. Well not that strange, he thought --
somehow familiar. 

"Where the hell did this thing come from?" he exclaimed to himself,
remembering he'd gone to bed on an army cot the night before. He 
noticed he was alone. "And what the hell happened to Mike? Him and 
Jerry were here ... last I noticed." 

He pulled himself out of the strange but familiar bed, looking around
for his uniform and M1 rifle. They had to be around there somewhere. 
All he found were civilian clothes. He struggled to put them on. At 
least they fit. Steve felt so weak, and stiff. Was he wounded? He felt 
himself over, noticing a heavy growth of beard, which was normal. In 
combat, Steve rarely shaved. Only when ordered to by an officer. 

Not finding his rifle, he grabbed a heavy butcher knife from the kitchen
and staggered around trying to figure out where he was. It was both 
familiar, in that he seemed to know where to find things like that 
kitchen and the knife, but still strange to find them in the middle of 
Germany. 

And where is young Mary? He could swear he had seen her recently, nice
ass swinging. 

"I'm kinda confused. What happened?" he asked himself while looking
around, puzzled by the location. "Now I'm even talking to myself. Did 
those fucking Nazi's give me drugs? I feel like I haven't slept for 
days. 

"When have I slept? I can't remember the last time. Was it outside
Frankfurt? Guess it's alright as long as I don't answer myself." He 
giggled while loading a .30-30 rifle he had also known where to find in 
a familiar closet. 

Grabbing a shotgun, an over-and-under, and stuffing his pockets with
shotgun shells and .30-30 cartridges, he shuffled tiredly, on shaky 
legs, back to the war. 

"No fucking warehouse for me," Steve told himself, not even knowing
where the thought came from. 

He somehow made it down a set of steep steps from the front porch of a
farmhouse. Standing in sunlight beaming onto an overgrown lawn, Steve 
looked around. It must be France, he finally decided, remembering a 
series of battles at such farms while there. Anyway, the ambiance was 
right. Steve recalled how he had been trapped in a cellar there once 
with no water, having to drink nothing but wine for days. Oh, how the 
other guys had kidded him about it later. 

"Where can I make a stand? The Nazi's have to be around here ...
somewhere," he realized. 

Steve thought for a minute, gasping to get his breath. Seeing a large
elm tree at the edge of an unplowed field about fifty-yards away, he 
ran toward it -- or tried his best. His legs seemed stiff and he had to 
rest several times, leaning on the grounded shotgun. For some reason, 
one he couldn't fathom, the smell of the bare earth seemed to mix him 
up ... both familiar and strange. 

Bending down and picking up a handful of dirt -- fingering and smelling
it -- Steve could tell the clay content and how long ago it had been 
plowed, also that it needed more water before planting. Now, where did 
he learn all that, he wondered? Oh, yes, he'd been raised on a farm 
like this one. Funny, but exactly like this one? 

Shaking his head to clear it, he continued toward the treeline, trying
to search with somehow weakened vision – as though through a fine mist 
-- for any hidden enemy. 

Just like Daniel Boone, Steve thought, remembering to yell out, "Mike,
Jerry! Where the hell are you guys? Come on and stop playing games, 
Sammy." Who the hell is Sammy? he wondered, and where the hell are the 
Boche Bastards? 

Finally making it to the elm tree, Steve had to collapse. He couldn't
walk another step. That damned medicine, he decided. What medicine? 

Seeing activity around the house, Steve fired the shotgun to alert Mike
and Jerry that trouble was coming. He didn't know where they were, but 
hoped they were close enough to hear. He could use some help. 

Then he saw the Germans, for some reason wearing blue uniforms to
further confuse him. 

"Hey, Ross. Come on, we won't hurt you," one of the Nazis called, trying
to fake him out by using English. Steve knew all about those tricks, 
and who the hell was "Ross"? He hadn't felt so much excitement since 
the day -- who was it? Mike? -- was killed? No it couldn't be Mike, 
he's around here ... someplace. 

"At least my eyes are still good," Steve Ross told himself, getting the
proper sight picture on his rifle and squeezing the trigger as he had 
been taught by Sergeant Robinson in Basic Training. He fired and 
watched a blue-suited Nazi crumble to the ground.. 

"Got you, you bastard," Steve gasped weakly, rifle heavy in shaking
hands. 

Looking around, he could see Mike, Jerry, and Sammy lying next to him.
What's Sammy doing here? Here in Germany? he thought. No time to wonder 
now. Gotta kill the enemy. I'll show them I'm not a coward. That the 
nuthouse was wrong. I can still kill Nazies. 

He could see Lois and the child, Mary, sitting at a picnic layout,
watching the fight. 

It seemed like old times to hear the crack of firearms and the thud of
bullets on the tree beside him, splinters stinging his cheek. 

Steve felt a sudden, sharp, pain in his side. He knew he was lost, as
the rifle dropped from nerveless fingers. Steve, a sudden weakness 
coming over him, lowered his head to the ground. 

No warehouse for me, was his last thought, as tired eyes closed on a
mental picture of Lois smiling and eating a sandwich while holding out 
an arm and hand -- motioning him to join her. Mary also grinned, one 
arm holding out a glass of cool, cool, lemona-- 

A policeman strolled over, watchful eyes on the old man lying
half-behind an elm tree, rifle stretched out in front of him. 

"What got into that old coot, anyway?" he asked a companion. 

"Escaped from a loony bin'er somethin', the sergeant said. Anyway, a
mental case." 

"Well." The first shook his head, sadly. "He got George in the leg with
that rifle, but won't be bothering anyone else." 

"One more useless old bastard bites the dust." 

The End.


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