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Order this writing in the collection book Revealing All Your Dirty Little Secrets available for only $1995 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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Major Obstacle
Sam Martin
“Hey, Mick! Wanna go to the Club Saturday night? Might be some girls there!”
“Sure. I bet they are.”
“Are what?”
“Some girls there.” I hope she’s there.
He couldn’t get over how his best friend and barracks mate, Buddy, had parked his 1955 Chevy on the previous Saturday night when they’d gone to the USO Club downtown. Buddy had turned the car’s wheels inward. Outside the car, Mick stopped briefly.
“Keeps the car from rollin’ straight down the hill!” Buddy smiled.
“Won’t it still roll down crooked?”
Buddy, a little bit older, and a lot more experienced, warned,
“Now don’t you go fallin’ in love tonight!”
But he couldn’t help it. He saw her. She looked as young as him, but she acted older. From behind the food table, she had asked,
“May I offer you something?”
She had smiled to the top of her teeth. Her eyes had smiled, too, but from their black depth. Her nose was neither short nor long, neither broad nor narrow. Her hair was long and black and lustrous. Her brown hands looked soft enough to hold, her smooth brown face seemed covered with unclaimed kisses. For a few moments, Mick left the ugly world and resided, without thought, without feeling, without movement, in a heaven-here. He didn’t see her again that night. She must have left early.
This night, he bypassed the tables, and headed directly for the dance floor. She glided up to his left side, and asked,
“Would you like to dance?”
“I have two left feet.”
“And one right one?”
As they moved into the music, he caught a glimpse of her figure, but holding her revealed its true lushness. As the rhythm swung her away from him, he couldn’t fill his eyes enough, nor could he fold her back into his arms soon enough.
At the end of the evening, she offered him a ride back to the Base, and as they passed through the gate, the A. P. saluted, and said something.
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Good Evening, Sir.’”
“Are you...an officer?”
“No, my husband is. He’s a Major, a Navigator in 124’s.”
“Where is he?”
She smiled. “In Alaska. On a one-year TDY.”
“Oh.” He suddenly remembered to ask about the delicious smell he’d noticed in her car. He elevated his inquiry to the formal level:
“What is that lovely aroma?”
She laughed. “Dates.” she said.
“What?”
“Dates I prepared for the food table at the Club. I put in sugar and spice and everything nice.”
“’Meanwhile, back at the oasis, the A-rabs were eating their dates.’”
“Don’t say that. My mother was Arabic. She showed me how to prepare the dates.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Michael Wayne McMickle. They call me Mick. But I don’t like it.”
“I don’t blame you. I’ll call you Michael. Or Wayne-o.”
“What?”
“Bueno is a Spanish word. My father was Mexican. That’s where my husband found me—down on the Mexico border, working at the snack bar in the Airfield coffee shop. He plucked me out of poverty.”
Mick didn’t respond, so, to redeem his feelings, she added,
“I know why you don’t like ‘Mick;’ they called me ‘Spick.’”
“Who did?”
“The other officers’ wives.”
“You heard them?”
“I overheard them.”
As he was exiting her car, he said,
“May I call you?”
“No. I’ll call you.”
A few days later, as he sat talking to a pilot taking a routine training flight, the Sergeant said,
“I’ll take over, Airman. You got a call.”
He handed the earphones to the Sergeant, then walked back to the desk, sat down, and picked up the phone.
“Airman McMickle. Sir.”
A sultry voice asked,
“Would you like a date?”
“I said, ‘would you like a date?’”
“What?”
“Oh. Yeah. I sure would.”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up at six. Okay?”
“Yes. Okay. Bye.”
That evening, they went to her house.
She took his hand and led him past the piano to the bedroom, stopping to retrieve something from a bowl atop the piano.
“Here.” she said, coming so close they almost touched, and inserting something sweet and spicy between his lips.
“Now,” she said, “feed me one.”
In the bedroom, she stood facing away from him and took off her blouse. Then she turned toward him and wriggled out of her skirt. She was wearing only a bra and panties and a garter belt holding up sheer stockings. She kicked off two shoes in two directions, then removed her bra in one quick motion.
“My God-ess!”
She smiled both sweetly and wickedly. Then she sat on the bed and slowly rolled down her stockings from one cocked leg at a time.
Mick rushed forward and jumped on her, and they fell together on the bed.
Afterward, Mick asked,
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Edwina. But they call me Eddy.”
“Why?”
“It’s short for ‘whirlpool’.”
The next time they met, she said,
“Let’s go to a motel. It’ll be fun.”
So they did. Mick paid the $5.00 (plus tax), and they fell onto the bed, and onto each other. The second time around, Mike flew solo. She excused herself,
“I was filled full, I mean fulfilled, the first time.”
Then she laughed, but Mike didn’t get the joke.
Late one afternoon, she picked him up and drove straight to the park, then started climbing over the seat.
“It’s still light out!”
“You work better in the dark?”
Of course, a policeman came, and ordered them to move along, but after he left, she insisted they finish.
Just as she drove through the gate, she exclaimed,
“Oh, Mick! Do you love it?” (She almost said “me.”)
At the barracks, he said,
“He’s too old for you!”
“And I’m too old for you.”
“But I love you!”
“And I love you.” she said quietly. “But I love him, too. So I have to choose.”
“Don’t.”
“He rescued me. He’s returning tomorrow.”
Mick blurted out, “I’ll always love you!” and ran crying from the car, like a teenage girl.
The next morning, Mick saw her standing at the perimeter fence, watching a C-124 taxi up. He ran outside and grabbed her arm, but she pulled away and pushed through the gate past the A. P. Mick ran after her, and grabbed her arm again, but this time, when she jerked away from him, he stumbled, and fell under the moving wheel.
