Chapter Text
Fighting's out of style - fun's where the fear is.
- Joel RobinsonBut where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year
- Dionysus of Odessa, in translationDo not trust quotes in front of books.
- Mark Twain
Dedicated to my maternal grandparents: you would have hated this.
In a hotel bathroom stood a twenty-three year old Medal of Honor recipient. John Egbert looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize himself.[1] This was a normal situation for him. What was not normal was the attractive young reporter lady in the adjourning bedroom, naked and waiting for him to come out.
He was again struck by the feeling there was something he meant to do. It didn’t have anything to do with hygiene or his bodily needs. Just a vague feeling he wanted to change something. Something about his appearance? Did he want to be taller, shorter, more muscles, less muscles? Did he want to be tough like Spencer Tracy or pretty like Montgomery Clift? He was already quite tall at six foot one. Though he normally was a bit chubby his time in the army had put muscle on him and beside which he didn’t care about his weight before he lost it. He did not mind his wide hips or narrow shoulders or strangely delicate hands. His black hair looked just right. It was a little unfortunate he had to wear glasses but he was not self-conscious about that. It was an absolute blank what he wanted to look like. Whenever he went into haberdasheries he just went with what the salesman or lady offered him. It was a relief to go into the Army and just be given clothes to wear with no decision. Why then did he feel when he looked in the mirror he was looking at something disappointing despite not being disappointed by anything in particular?
This is stupid, came a voice in his head. Men do not standing around looking in mirrors and bemoaning their looks. Not when there was a hot tomato cooling off in the other room. He was a Medal of Honor recipient for Christsake, he could handle losing his virginity finally. Well, wimp, what are you going to do? Advance or a8sound?
John Egbert advanced. He undressed except for his boxers and walked into the hotel bedroom where the lady reporter, a Miss Hazel Filbert, was filling her nails. She had auburn hair and until a few minutes ago was wearing a plaid suit.
“Finally, you’re done! I swear I have never waiting for a man for so long!” Hazel said when noticed him come back in, “Come on, show me your Medal of Honor!”
“I’m not getting that until tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
“I mean your penis.”
“Oh.”
He sighed and fished it out of his boxers.
“Why the sigh when it looks like that?” she asked, transfixed at the sight.
John Egbert did not say anything back. He moved to the bed like a sleepwalker, for he almost was one. Miss Hazel Filbert would never know that, instead of sleeping with someone who had experience, she slept with someone who had not even kissed the girl he considered his one true love, the kind stranger Miss Jade Harley. John Egbert had been conditioned to be a sex machine by a power unknown to either of them, with methods they could not have guessed, and this magic worked excellently. Out of all the sex Miss Hazel Filbert had in her life, this was the third best.
Earlier that September day John Egbert had arrived Detroit from San Francisco after serving his time in Korea. He might have gone straight to Washington DC if he was not told he was supposed to visit Motor City to see the family of a dead comrade, Private Bobby Durgas. He and Corporal Whelan had been killed in the patrol that would give John Egbert his Medal of Honor. John Egbert had not been close to any of his fellow men except Captain Dave Strider and he wasn’t even that close to Dave. Everyone said men at arms developed a close camaraderie but that hadn’t been the case for Sergeant Egbert. He did feel sad for the dead men but not as sad as he should have been. The deaths did not feel real to him. He knew logically what happened was Whealan and Durgas had been killed by enemy mortar fire in a way that completely 100% destroyed them and he knew he should have more gritty gruesome memories from two human beings[2] exploding in front of him as he was helpless to watch but he didn’t. The two were just there and then they were gone. Still, it was up to him to give at Durgas’ family his condolences or at least fake it.
At the Detroit airport, John met with Miss Hazel Filbert of the Time magazine along a staff reporter, a boy who seemed as young as Bobby Durgas. He only seemed to care about the light levels and never anything else. He took a few pictures of John.
“Before we go on to our destination, I’d like to ask you some questions,” said Miss Hazel.
“Um, okay,” said John.
“What is is like being a Medal of Honor winner?”
John groaned. “It’s recipient. If you get a Medal of Honor you’re called a ‘recipient’. Didn’t you go to school for journalism? I did and they taught me all that boring stuff over and over.”
“Okay, what is it like being a Medal of Honor recipient?”
He shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Ummm…how would I even know yet, I haven’t gotten the damn thing yet?”
“True. Let’s get in the car.”
“Didn’t you have plural questions?”
“Do you want to answer more question?”
“Not really.”
John and the photographer got it Miss Hazel’s rented car and went to Durgas’. It was a greasy Greek diner, closed off for this occasion and not something the upper-class Egbert would go to normally. John Egbert tried to dig into his Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, since as we all know that is the same as Greek,[3] but his stepmother had sanded off every Jewish edge on him. He could not even remember what they called that Jewish age of passage. Mr. and Mrs. Durgas came out to greet him. Mr. Durgas was a big hairy man and his wife a thin angular woman and to John Egbert they looked like vaudeville stereotypes. John Egbert gave this Greek American man an American flag and he cried though it had been over a year since they heard the terrible news. The photographer took a picture of the moment.
The fivesome went into the restaurant that looked like it hadn’t been properly cleaned since their busboy went to war and found a booth. Miss Hazel and John sat on one side, the Durgas’ on another, and the photographer crouched on the floor. The Durgas’ went on about how their boy was too young to join the Army but despite it all they were glad he did since he served his country. John Egbert agreed with them. The moment was ruined the door to the back flipped open and instead of a cowboy came a fifteen year old bobbysoxer in black pigtails looking pissed at them.
“BECAUSE MY BROTHER DIED,” she started, “I have to work this crummy restaurant when I want to become an airline stewardess and marry a millionaire! His sacrifice made my life a sacrifice!”
Mrs. Durgas yelled, “Zoey! No!”
John said, “I agree with what Zoey said.”
“You agree to that?”
Mr. Durgas added, “Agreeing to our juvenile delinquent daughter’s tantrum?”
“Um, well,” John said, “You know who is dying to get into the cemetery?”
“Who?” asked Mrs. Durgas.
“Everyone!”
The immigrant mother didn’t laugh. “Why is everyone dying?”
Miss Hazel said, “Sergeant Egbert is just telling a joke to lighten the mood.”
“How can I laugh when my only son is dead?”
Zoey yelled, “Yeah, you think you’re some kind of comedian?”
Miss Hazel said, “He is sorry for telling the joke, everyone.”
John was actually thinking he’d like to be a comedian but he nodded yes. He still thought it was a good joke.
“I accept your apology,” Mrs. Durgas said, “I know you saved many other mother’s sons.”
John shrugged. “I guess.”
“Hey!” asked Miss Hazel, “What’s everyone’s birth sign? People like reading about that.”
Everyone including the silent photographer and the outraged bobbysoxer gave their birth signs. It was John’s turn now and despite knowing it he usually pretended not to. His mother was into astrology but what she said about it sounded different
“Whatever April 13 is.”
“Ah, Aries! The sign of the Ram! You are a passionate, motivated, and confident leader!”
“Huh, I guess so.”
Miss Hazel managed to move the conversation along before eventually drying out. John admitted despite her first missteps perhaps she was a good journalist. A better journalist than he would be, anyway. So maybe his mother’s favorite publication wasn’t all bad. The photographer took enough photographs for twenty lead articles before leaving. John received one last heartfelt thank you from the Durgas that he received with apathy before he joined Miss Hazel in the car.
“What’s your hotel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“It’s funny, I am staying at Room 413 at Detroit Statler Hotel, all by myself.”
An earlier Egbert would have just gone “yeah funny coincidence!” and leave it there but he guessed The War had changed him.
“I can keep you company,” he said though it did not sound like him.
And that’s how he happened to spend the night at Room 413 of the Detroit Statler Hotel.
John Egbert was woken out of whatever dreams he had after losing his virginity by a knock on the door. He put on his boxers and checked to see two US Army soldiers.
“Sergeant John Egbert, we have been ordered to escort you to your flight,” said the higher ranked one.
“How do you even find me here?”
"We have our ways."
"Why should I go with you? I have my own flight later."
"It was considered unacceptable you fly commerical and you must come in time for the parade."
"Parade? Arggh."
John sighed and turned to Miss Hazel, who was walking up.
"What's going on?" she asked.
“The Batterwitch strikes again,” he said.
“Who??” she asked.
“My stepmother. CEO of an eponymous bakery, you know the name.”
"Oh, her."
The officers allowed John to shower and dress in his uniform and he left with them, not giving Hazel a kiss good bye. A few hours later, he arrived at the airport now unfortunately named after Ronald Reagan. He came out to a big brass band and many American flags as he walked down the stairs. Another reporter came up into John’s face.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like Superman,” said John, “Actually like Clark Kent. Wow, I need to see ‘Superman and the Mole Men’ before it leaves theaters. Have you seen it?”
“Um…”
Then came rushing the two people in this world he unfortunately had to call his parents: Mr. and Mrs. Sam “Colonel Sassacre” Crocker. The Mr. of the two was moving from the House to the Senate and that campaign was reaching the finish line as the 1952 elections were only two months away. He was wearing his normal white seersucker suit and party hat. She had on a red dress suit with a purple blouse with her ever-present “two-fish” silver brooch and her strawberry blonde hair was in a tight coif. The two put their arms around John.
Mrs. Crocker said to the crowd, “Shell-o! Shell-o! I’m glad you’re all here for Sassacre’s boy!”
Her husband said, “Yes, everyone, my boy is a hero who went the extra mile and I tell the people of the great state of California that I too will go the extra mile for them as senator.” He then blew a party favor.
John Egbert rolled his eyes as the reporters focused on Colonel Sassacre.
Mrs. Crocker said quietly to John, “This is no wave to treat your mother and father.”
“You aren’t my real mother and father.”
“You glub that every time we meet.”
“Only since that awful day in 1942 when my dad was buried, I find you were just some stranger he married, and you were marrying this washed-up hack.”
“You used to love Colonel Sassacre and Critter George.[4]”
John said pompously. “My tastes matured.”
“You just mentioned a fucking superhero movie.”
“Anyway it’s a Ship of Theseus situation.”
“What Communist screenwriter is glubbing aboat the Ship of Theseus problem now?”
Eventually, everyone got into their respective automobiles. John had to share one with his family and somehow his mother could make a stretch limo cramped. Even though she was five foot eight, two inches shorter than her husband, somehow she seemed taller.
Congressman Crocker asked John, “Do you think Truman will wear a warm color tie or cool?”
“Don’t answer,” said Mrs. Crocker.
“Warm?” answered John.
“I bet you five dollars it will be cool.”
Mrs. Crocker said to her husband, “I can just give you five clams if you need it.”
“That’s no fun,” he pouted.
“Anyway,” she said turning to her son, “You have not told me what your post-army career will be. I have some job opportunities lined up for you.”
“You can cancel them,” John said, “I am going to be the personal assistant of Bro Strider.”
“The puppet man!” Mr. Crocker yelled.
“Shut up,” Mrs. Crocker said to him before turning to her son, “The ventriloquist! You went to four years of journalism school to be a gopher for a ventriloquist?!”
John said, “His comedy can be politically and philosophically complex, often citing the works of Nietzsche and Freud.”
“His act is pretending his carved piece of wood is speaking and not him and I can’t see how that gimmick works over the radio.”
Mr. Crocker said, “I hear he’s terrible at keeping his mouth from moving.”
John actually did find Bro Strider’s work to be pretentious but he was offered the job when Bro congratulated him on saving his younger brother’s life and John’s other prospects were letting his mother pick a job where she could be his real boss. John would rather clean Lil Cal’s litterbox or whatever he was expected to do than be under his mother’s thumb. Still, it was time for a witty retort.
“I took the job because we have two things in common: we both have a Medal of Honor and we both hate you.”
Mrs. Crocker said, “You have more in common with his puppet Lil Cal.”
“At least Lil Cal is beloved to millions,” John snapped back.
“Aww, you can do a betta comeback than that.”
“You aren’t getting one.”
He turned to look out the window, ignoring the certain look in her eyes. He did not know how right she was about him being like Lil Cal.
After what Mrs. Crocker said was only a small parade, the family arrived at the street behind the White House as the sun was an hour from setting. Mr. Crocker looked wistfully at Lafayette Square and Mrs. Crocker pulled him away.
“You aren’t going there again,” she whispered to him.
"Just looking, my mint julep," he replied.
The trio walked to the Rose Garden and saw Harry S Truman with his entourage.
"Aw, damn, he is wearing a blue tie," Mr. Crocker said dejectedly.
"Who cares," whispered Mrs. Crocker to her husband, "He's a lame duck. He'll be out of here soon."
Mr. Crocker whispered back, “I hope he remembers his carpetbag.”
“He shorely forgot the China.”
They giggled to themselves.
John Egbert turned to Harry Truman and had different thoughts. For most of his life Franklin D. Roosevelt had been his president. Then FDR died and his new replacement vice president was president and World War 2 wasn’t even over yet. John Egbert felt equally thrust into something new and unfamiliar. If only he could go over there and hug the president and give him a little kiss. Wait, why did he want to kiss President Harry S Truman?
John Egbert was distracted from his homoerotic thoughts of the president by the appearance of his former commanding officer. Captain Strider casually walked in like he was too cool even for this. He was only five foot seven and often seemed too skinny to be in the army yet he had a certain physical presence to him that women loved and men admitted reluctantly to loving. He was handsome in a rat way. Though a southern Italian he had blond hair. John Egbert watched Dave from afar as he answered a reporter’s questions.
“Captain David Strider, may I get a word?”
“It’s Dave, like on my birth certificate, and yes.”
“So, you are the brother of not only of the famed entertainer but also the World War 2 Medal of Honor recipient Roderick “Bro” Strider, how does it feel to be rescued by the Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant John Egbert?”
Dave Strider made eye contact with John Egbert briefly. Strider’s trendy aviator shades masked the look in his red eyes.[5] He turned back to the reporter.
“It was cool.”
“Cool? Isn’t that the new word people use these days?”
“Yeah, it’s a Jazz and Negros thing. It was cool. That’s what you say when this exact unlikely situation happens and it happens a lot in Jazz nightclubs for some reason.”
Then some reporters came and bothered John Egbert and John lost track of Dave. Eventually, the president’s press secretary pulled John Egbert aside and explained how the ceremony would work. Meanwhile, his mother and stepfather finagled the crowd. The time came for the ceremony and John Egbert did what he was told. At times he looked at the audience to see what his commanding officer’s reaction was. He only caught Captain Strider leaving the ceremony early. The medal was put around his neck and it felt like the heaviest thing in the world. When the time came for a photo with the president, John’s so-called family materialized, and decaptchalogued[6] a banner over his head that said “SASSACRE’S BOY”, which got on John’s nerves for multiple reasons.
All this fuss, over an incident that felt to John Egbert to be just like a particularly vivid dream. An incident that happened over a year ago in the Korean War.
[1]If I went being misgendered and deadnamed until my third or forth act so can June.
[2]And they were human beings.
[3]Well, both groups do have outsiders insisting they own the ancient civilizations.
[4]Colonel Sassacre and Critter George (also known as Congresscritter George) were a comedy duo active 1931 to 1938. The original premise is Colonel Sassacre wants to run for office, but as an ex-Confederate in the Reconstruction he must use his ex-slave George as a proxy. Critter George was an African-American character but his actor was Jorge Sanchez Panza, a Mexican of 1/8 African heritage. Panza retired in 1938 to run a winery in Sonora and then later went into politics himself.
[5]Not that this and any other color was unusual in this universe.
[6]Remember sylladices? They're a thing here.