Chapter Text
July, 1946
As soon as Leckie stepped out of the train station into the Alabama sunshine, he saw a familiar face.
“Hey—” he blurted out, but to his irritation, no name followed.
He recognized the young man who had just passed him, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember his name. It was Sid’s friend. Sid’s friend… fuck. Leckie hefted his bag and tried to jog after the redhead, but the streets were crowded and the other man was walking with purpose.
“Hey!” he called again, but he didn’t look up. God, what was his name? Friend from Mobile—he remembered Sid reading letters from him—he hadn’t been able to join the Corps at first but he joined them on Pavuvu... liked books and the Bible…
Leckie wondered for a moment if the man would at least pause if he started calling out military ranks, but he couldn’t think straight. It had been a long train ride, and it was a hot day, he was sweating, and people kept getting in his way.
“Hey, Scarlett O’Hara!” he shouted with a tinge of desperation, and finally the man slowed down and looked over his shoulder.
So did at least a third of the people on the street, and most of them were probably thinking not-too-flattering things about his mental state, but Leckie ignored them, because the redhead had made eye contact and he saw the flash of recognition on his face. He turned around and started walking towards Leckie. He paused about a foot away and the crowd flowed around them like a river around rocks.
“Hey, Lucky,” he said in a hesitant voice.
“Hey, Scarlett,” Leckie grinned. He held out his hand triumphantly, and the other man huffed as he shook it.
“Sledge,” he corrected. “Eugene Sledge.”
“Close enough. Good to see you came through okay.”
“Yeah,” Sledge said without smiling. “Didn’t see you much. When did you get out?”
“Off the line? Second day on Peleliu; I’ve got some impressive scars if you’re ever interested, spent a couple months in the hospital. You?”
“Whole run. Duration on the line and six in China.” Sledge shifted his weight and looked around them. “You here for the wedding?”
“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”
“No, no.” Sledge looked embarrassed at being caught out. He held up a book, a short and sturdy black-bound volume. “I was just going to the library to return this, that’s all. Nothing important.”
Leckie reached out and plucked the book from his hand, tilting it to read the name printed along the spine.
“Hemingway,” he said, his voice warm with approval even though he was more or less neutral on the subject of Hemingway. “What’d you think?”
“Not bad,” Sledge shrugged. “Not my favorite, either. I don’t think I’ll need to deprive the people of Alabama for any longer than I already have.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Leckie offered.
He swung his sea bag over his shoulder and stepped back into the flow of people on the sidewalk. Sledge hesitated, huddled by the brick wall of the nearest building for another moment, in a jacket that bagged at the elbows and seemed to swallow him. Leckie felt a powerful urge to scoop him up and pull him into the sunlight, like a little quivering big-pawed puppy found on the street, even though he obviously preferred to be alone.
“Are you sure?” Sledge asked hesitantly. “You don’t need to—I don’t know—check into a hotel or something? Is Sid expecting you?”
“Nope, I came down early,” Leckie said. He offered no explanation, and immediately launched into conversation in the hopes Sledge wouldn’t ask for one. “I’d rather tail after you. The first thing I like to do in any new town is find a book and a drink, and it takes a local to point me in the right direction. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Sledge said, and once he had resigned himself to the company he really did seem to mean it.
They started down the street together. Leckie tipped his head back and enjoyed the play of the sun on his face. It was a long train ride from Jersey to Alabama, and he’d been seated next to a grouchy octogenarian who had kept the shade pulled down for most of it. It was nice to be in the light again, even though the stuffiness of the train had given away now to sweltering humidity. He pushed his curls back with one hand and thought of Pavuvu with something approaching fondness.
“Jee-zus,” he exhaled. “It always this hot down here?”
“First time this far south, Yankee?” Sledge asked, the corner of his mouth curving up.
“I’ve been to the South Pacific,” Leckie reminded him. “In this country, you mean? Well, I made it all the way down to Parris Island once. Miserable place. Wouldn’t recommend it. Terrible food.”
“Well hey, compared to what came later…”
“You’ve got a point there.”
They exchanged a commiserating glance.
“It’s less than a mile’s walk, just down this way, so you don’t have long to suffer. And there’s a nice little bar just tucked around the corner, too, if you get too thirsty on the walk.” Sledge leaned his head back, too, perhaps hoping to catch a breeze, but the air was sticky and heavy, and he sighed. “It is a bit hotter than usual,” he admitted. “I was out by the bay just now. Nice wind out there.”
“Yeah? How’s your sea view out here? Back home all we’ve got is the Hackensack River, which… well, it just sort of lies there, and any breeze you get off it isn’t worth sticking your face in.”
They continued with such idle chatter as they walked, comparing cities. Sledge was fond of Mobile—he occasionally pointed out interesting vistas or prominent buildings as they walked—and while Leckie was less fond of Rutherford, he had enough regional pride that they could engage in a spirited but harmless reprisal of the last century’s great war.
When they reached the library, Sledge returned his book and made polite conversation with the librarian on the desk; evidently he was a regular. The librarian, upon being told that Leckie was something of a librarian himself, wouldn’t let them leave until they had checked out a book each, and Leckie walked away with a copy of The Black Rose that he had no intention of reading before the weekend was over.
“If I forget to return this, you’re paying the fine,” he said, waving the book threateningly at Sledge.
“Fine,” Sledge shrugged. “Then you’re paying for our drinks.”
“Hm?”
“You said you wanted to find a bar and a library, didn’t you? Well, I’m nothing if not a good host. Like I said, there’s a good one just around the corner here.”
“Oh. Hey, thanks.”
He must have sounded surprised, because Sledge looked up and raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Nothing, just—we don’t really know each other. I accosted you on the street,” Leckie chuckled.
“What else have I got to do with myself? Besides, you’re a friend of Sid’s. You know, until this whole war broke out, Sid didn’t have a single friend who wasn’t a friend of mine, too. Shame to let that change, huh?”
“Well, when you put it like that.” Leckie glanced at him. “You guys have known each other for a long time, huh?” he said thoughtfully.
“Best friends since third grade. Hated each other in second grade, but don’t bring that up in front of him—bad blood,” he said with mock solemnity, and Leckie laughed.
“Sure, I’ll keep that in mind. Is this it?”
“Yep.”
The bar was discreetly tucked away on the end of the street, with curtains shading the windows. A jangle of bells rang in chorus when Sledge opened the door.
It was a classy place; everywhere Leckie looked he saw polished mahogany and brass finishings. Sledge gestured at a low table with two empty green armchairs looming over it, and Leckie set down his bag before they stepped up to the bar and leaned against it to catch the attention of the bartender.
“Afternoon, Eugene,” the man said with a cheerful nod. He was a portly gentleman, with enough gray hair at his temples to be called distinguished. “How’s the family doing?”
“They’re okay, Mr. Johnson, thank you.”
“You remind your father he’s got a free beer with his name on it, won’t you? Haven’t seen him down here in a long time.”
“I will.” The bartender’s gaze wandered over to Leckie, and Sledge gestured towards him. “This is my friend Bob Leckie, Mr. Johnson. He just rolled into town for Sid’s wedding—he and Sid served together, a bit before my time.”
“Well then it’s good to meet you, young man,” Johnson said, extending a beefy hand. Leckie shook.
“Likewise. It’s quite a place you’ve got here.”
“Best bar in town,” Sledge assured him, and Johnson waved his hand.
“I do my best,” he said modestly, but Leckie could tell they were acting out a familiar ritual, and he smiled to himself. “What can I get you boys?”
“Well, like Sledge said, I’m a new arrival in your neck of the woods,” Leckie said, surveying the line of bottles behind the counter. “And I’ve been taunted by Southerners enough for my various choices in life, so rather than risk more mockery I think I’ll leave it up to the dealer to make sure I end up with the best Alabama’s got to offer.”
“Oh ho, that’s an answer a man likes to hear,” Johnson chuckled. He wagged a warning finger. “But if I pour something in your glass and you pull a face at me, you’re out on your ear, I promise you that.”
“Mr. Johnson, if the Japanese Imperial Army and the US Marine Corps together can’t come up with a liquor I won’t drink, I doubt you can.”
This produced another round of chuckling, and Johnson turned around and picked up a bottle of Old Crow. He poured a glass for Leckie, extolling the virtues of the product, and waited until Leckie had taken a sip and declared his admiration before turning to Sledge.
“And what’ll you have, Eugene?”
“The same, thanks.”
“You know, the first time you came in here askin’ for a whisky I almost fell right over,” Johnson said as he poured, shaking his head. “I was sitting right here in this bar the night you were born. Of course I wasn’t selling alcohol back then,” he said to Leckie virtuously. “This was back in, what was it, ’23? It was a cigar club during the dry years. The doctor bought a whole mess of cigars off me. He looked like he needed a stiff one, too, after all you put your poor mama through, a tiny little fellow demanding to come into the world a whole month before your time.”
Sledge had apparently heard this story before and was doing his best to not roll his eyes, so Leckie stepped in.
“I’ve got plenty of questions,” he grinned. “But for Sledge’s sake I’ll stick to just two for now—first, what’s your brand of cigars, and second, what are your feelings on the United States Army?”
“My son-in-law was in the Army.”
“Ah. So maybe I shouldn’t say…”
“My son-in-law’s a sumbitch, you talk away.”
Leckie told the story of his raid on the Army’s stash at Guadalcanal to uproarious laughter from both men; when he got to the part about Larson’s theft of the crate of Johnnie Walker Red, Sledge tilted his head.
“You know, that might’ve been responsible for my very first legal sip of whisky,” he said thoughtfully.
“First sip of whisky, you mean?” Johnson said with faux sternness.
“Yessir, of course sir. I turned 21 during my service,” he explained to Leckie. “On V-J Day I was sitting around with some of my buddies, and an officer comes up and offers us a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. Might have been a bottle that got passed around from that.”
“Could be,” Leckie shrugged. “’Course, ’42 to ’45, that’s a long time for an officer to resist his gluttonous instincts.”
“True. Besides, I don’t think my lieutenant was on Guadalcanal. He was a replacement after my first CO was killed.”
Leckie could tell without having to ask that Sledge had liked his CO, and all three men were silent for a moment. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, or a gloomy one—just a moment’s recognition that they had gotten more out of the Marine Corps than good stories.
The silence was broken by Johnson placing two more heavy-bottomed glasses in front of them, and producing a bottle of Johnnie Walker from beneath the bar.
“Finish those up, boys,” he said, nodding at their dwindling glasses of Old Crow. “This round’s on me.”
They thanked him profusely and threw back the last of the first round, and took their new glasses back to the table.
“If you can’t get a free round out of Johnson every time you come in, then your mama didn’t raise you with any manners at all,” Sledge said as they sat down.
He had taken a pipe out of his pocket and was chewing absently at the end of it, and momentarily forgot his drink to focus on filling the bowl. Leckie watched him for a moment, and fished a cigarette out of his own pocket; Sledge lit his pipe and offered him the lighter. Ritual complete, they sat back in the plush armchairs and let the soothing scent and taste of tobacco mingle with the whisky.
“Seems like a good man,” Leckie commented.
“Mm.”
Sledge took a sip from his glass. The corner of his mouth twisted, and he held the liquid in his mouth for a moment, savoring it; Leckie could see the moment he swallowed, and he sighed as the alcohol went down. Leckie looked down at his own drink and cleared his throat.
“So what brings you down early?” Sledge asked.
“I was hoping to be more drunk when we got to that part of the conversation,” Leckie grimaced.
“It’s three in the afternoon on a weekday, Leckie—this is as drunk as I’m planning on getting.”
“All right, all right.” He took another sip and pondered his approach for a moment. “Have you ever been in love?”
Sledge seemed to retreat even further into the armchair, and a cautious look stole over his face.
“Why, have you?”
“Ah,” Leckie said with a wry grin. “That is the question. A month ago I would have told you yes, absolutely, but…” He sighed. “There was this girl. I, uh—I’d been sweet on her for a long time. She lived across the street. I thought about her a lot when I was in the Pacific, and then when I got home I asked her out. We dated for a while. She recently she informed me that I was… not as in love with her as I thought I was.”
“Well, who’s she to say?” Sledge said, his eyebrows knotting.
“See, that’s what I thought, but her argument was—strong.” He ruffled his hair and stretched out his legs. “I don’t know. Apparently I have this habit of picking out people I should be in love with and building them up to be something they’re not. Getting attached to the idea of the relationship instead of the relationship itself. I didn’t believe her until I realized that described every relationship I’d ever had. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Hmm.” Sledge sipped from his whisky. “And that was enough to send you down to Alabama?”
“Realizing that I’m incapable of distinguishing between love and wishful thinking, and possibly of feeling legitimate love altogether? Yeah, that drove me to Alabama.”
The other man snorted.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, the other side’s not all it’s cracked up to be, neither.”
“The other side being?”
“Falling in love all the time,” Sledge said casually, rolling his glass around on the rim. “Every day of the week and twice on Sundays, and never really falling out of love with any of them, so everything gets…” He heaved a sigh. “Mixed up. Screwed up and jumbled together. And never ever falling for anyone who could love you back, of course.”
Leckie considered this.
“Show off.”
“You want to trade?”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“I believe it was Socrates who said that if every man in the world were to gather in one place, and bring all their burdens to divide up equally amongst themselves, each one would happily go away bearing only his own.”
“Amen.”
They tapped their glasses, and Leckie took a slow sip. He had tried not to think about Vera at all on the train ride. It had been a week since she broke it off, and he figured that a week should be long enough for him to at least get through a day without thinking about her. Especially when he wasn’t in New Jersey. He still didn’t know what exactly had driven him to call up the train station and change his ticket, whether it was his mother’s disappointed looks, his father’s half-hearted “well, buck up, son”s, or simply the damned view out of his bedroom window. Her front porch separated from his sight by nothing but a gauzy curtain that wasn’t even up to the job.
“It’s not only because she ditched me,” he said abruptly. He wanted to make Sledge understand; he didn’t know Vera, didn’t know anything of the situation, so he might be persuaded to look at it the right way. “She was my… I’m not overly fond of my hometown. Or my family. But when you’re over there, if you don’t have something, you’re just—you need…”
“A touchstone,” Sledge suggested.
“Exactly. Vera was—she was everything that was good about home. I used to write all these letters to her, just to—clear my head. And then I got home and everything was… everyone wanted to act like nothing had changed, but for me it seemed like everything had. Everything except her. And now—I don’t know.” The story was beginning to sound pathetic. Leckie swallowed past the lump in his throat and tried to inject some cheerfulness in his voice. “What was yours? Your touchstone, I mean, if you had one?”
For a moment Sledge didn’t respond; he seemed lost in thought. Then he came to a decision. He took a book out of his pants pocket and handed it across the table.
Leckie’s eyes widened in surprise; he recognized it immediately as the small copy of the New Testament Sledge had had with him on Pavuvu, and he was shocked that it had survived. The cover was cracked in several places, and the edges of the pages were swollen and distorted by moisture. All of the gold leaf had flaked off the title, leaving only faint indentations, and as Leckie began to flip through, he spotted smears of dirt and rust-brown blood. There were loose sheets of paper stuck between the pages, too, and here and there he found pencil notes—tallies and charts on blank pages, sentences scribbled in the margins.
“You carried this the whole time?”
“Mmhm.” Sledge watched Leckie’s hands as he continued to peruse the book, but he didn’t look inclined to snatch it back. “Gotta admit, there were times I thought about getting rid of it, but… by that time I’d made too many notes, and I didn’t want to lose those.”
“And you’re still keeping it on you.”
“Thought it might come in handy if anyone back home tried to take a shot at me,” Sledge said breezily. “Teddy Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt that way.”
“It was a speech, folded up small. And he kept it in his breast pocket, which is a more useful place if you’re worried about assassins.”
“Protecting the femoral artery,” Sledge grinned, patting his leg. Leckie snorted.
“Sure.” He paused in his reading. “You’re missing a page here.”
“Am I?” Sledge leaned forward.
“Romans, chapter 1.”
For a moment, he thought he saw Sledge’s eyes widen, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Well, not surprised. Accidents happen, especially in a war zone.”
He held out his hand. Leckie looked down at the open book again, curious. There was a groove in the next five or six pages of the book, and several had a jagged edge near the top where the paper had begun to tear away from the binding. It didn’t look like an accident. If he had to guess, he would have said that someone had deliberately tried to tear out a section, before calming down and tearing out a single sheet instead. He could tell there was only one page missing from the scrap left at the bottom.
But Leckie saw no reason to argue for his theory. There was only so much you could tell from some indentations in a book, and in any case it was none of his business. He handed the bible back.
“Well, it’ll serve you better than a broad, I think we can agree on that.”
“I’d say so.” Sledge raised his glass in a toast, and Leckie returned it. There was a comfortable silence for a minute, and then Sledge sighed. “God, I can’t believe Sid’s getting married.”
“Me neither,” Leckie chuckled. “Took the kid our whole month in Melbourne to seal the deal with his Aussie girlfriend, and turns out he’s the first of all of us to get hitched. Jesus Christ.”
“How d’you think I feel? I only got back in February, and right away Sid’s telling me he’s getting married! And to Mary Houston, no less.”
“What about this Mary Houston?” Leckie asked curiously. He knew little about her except for a few vague, adoring passages in the three letters he’d gotten from Sid since he got back. He was curious—Sid was the kind of kid who tended to look at people through rose-colored glasses, and he thought he’d detected a hint of bitterness in Sledge’s voice. He squinted at the other man for a moment, and in a grave voice asked, “Are you in love with her?”
Sledge snorted.
“No,” he said in a dryly matter-of-fact tone. He glanced up and grinned. “No more than any other man in Mobile, Alabama, at least. Everyone’s a little in love with Mary. She’s a great girl. But it’s a little like coming home and finding out your buddy’s getting married to Betty Grable.”
“I get it,” Leckie chuckled. “How’s Mobile been treating you since you got back?” he asked, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Hm?”
“Aside from the, you know, endless heartache. Any notable ladies in tow?”
“No,” Sledge repeated shortly, with a grin on his face that made Leckie think of a twist of lemon.
“Come on,” he wheedled. “I’ll forgo the notable ladies requirement in favor of a really good story. I gave you one of mine.”
Sledge was about to take a sip from his glass, but he paused and his brow creased. His movements, when he took a sip and set the glass down, were careful, measured.
“A story with ladies of little note, or a story with notable non-ladies?”
He spoke in a breezy voice, like the words were banter that barely mattered, but at the end of his sentence his eyes flickered up and examined Leckie’s face, and Leckie paused to consider the implications of his own question. In the back of his mind, something slid into place, and he froze for a moment, keenly aware of Sledge waiting for a response. To cover his confusion, he gulped his whisky and cleared his throat.
“Whichever you like,” he said flippantly. The corner of his mouth tilted up in a hesitant smile, and Sledge seemed satisfied, at least for the moment. He shrugged.
“Either way, I can’t think of anything for now. But I’ll get back to you some other time.” He swirled his glass again and knocked back the last few drops of whisky, and stood. “I think that’s all for me, Leckie. You’ll be at the dinner tomorrow, won’t you? And the wedding, of course.”
“Of course,” Leckie confirmed. “You won’t be getting rid of me too quick.”
“Good,” Sledge smiled. “Have you already booked a hotel?”
“Yes.”
He produced a slip of paper with the address written down; Sledge assured him that it was a decent establishment, and not too far from their current location, and that he could easily catch a cab from that location to the Phillips’ house without paying too steep a fee. They said their goodbyes, to each other and from Sledge to Johnson, and then the young man left, bible in his pocket and library book in his hand. Leckie remained where he was for a moment, staring at nothing, then drained his glass and looked up towards the bar.
“How about another round?” he asked, and the old bartender was happy to oblige.
An hour later, a bellhop was showing Leckie into his room. Leckie tipped him and fell back on the bed with a sigh. It was good to be alone for a few minutes. Good to actually stretch his legs and relax his muscles. He had intended to unpack, find a map of Mobile, and wander for a few more hours, but now that he was in bed he found himself very reluctant to move. Maybe he would get through a few chapters of The Black Rose after all.
As he rolled over to reach for his bag, though, his eye was caught by the stark red cover of the Bible on the bedside table. Leckie considered it for a moment, and then gave into his curiosity and picked it up, flicking through the pages until he reached the first chapter of Romans. It was the usual diatribe, I serve in my spirit the gospel, it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believeth, etc—nothing, in his opinion, that could provoke strong emotions. He was about to set it down again when his eye drifted to the last two verses on the page, and he paused.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men engaged with men in shameful acts, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.
His eyes lingered on those verses for a long moment, and then he closed the book with a definitive snap.