Oh, Johnny: A Novel

Paperback

1
 
Johnny Wrigley thought he felt slight lurches and heard braking screeches, among other signs that it must be slowing down again. But after five days and four nights in the confining world of this slow, crowded troop train, he was beyond recognizing much of anything. All he knew for sure was that he was one of several hundred brand- new, gung ho United States marines on the way from South Carolina to California and then on to some island in the Pacific where he was going to kill Japs for America.
 
“Listen up!”
 
He and the fifty other marines in his railroad car went quiet and looked toward a tall, portly army sergeant at the south end of the car, the direction the train was moving—more or less.
 
“We’re in Kansas, the Sunflower State!” barked the sergeant.
 
All Johnny really knew about Kansas was that his baseball hero and center fielder role model, Pete Reiser, was playing for an army base semi- pro team called Fort Riley somewhere here in Kansas. Many of the pros were playing ball for the war effort.
 
“Feel welcome and be happy!” the sergeant said.
 
The marines’ word on the army sergeant was that he had been assigned to permanent troop train escort duty because he was too old and fat for combat. His voice was perfect for this kind of thing. It was pure bellow.
 
There were whistles, cheers, grunts, groans, and yeahs from the troops after the sergeant’s announcement.
 
Johnny didn’t know about the welcome part, but happy, yes, he was happy. At least, considering where he was and where he was going—and why. There was a kind of happy excitement from the special camaraderie of being a United States marine on a train going someplace far away with so many guys like him, all ready and eager to do whatever it took to win the war against an enemy of evil slant- eyed monsters.
 
Johnny was also happy because he was beginning to get the hang of how to chew tobacco—how to stand the awful taste, and the nastiness of spitting the juice out and away far enough to keep from getting it on himself or anyone else. He’d been working on it as best he could, mostly during stops and out open windows when the train slowed down. Since boarding the troop train, so far he’d bought two pouches of Red Man, the baseball players’ favorite. Almost all pro ballplayers chewed Red Man, Johnny knew from the sports pages. It went with batting and catching. Johnny Wrigley would chew Red Man when he became a pro ballplayer.
 
Baseball was the real happiness of Johnny’s life and future. The Class B Detroit Tigers farm club over at Shepstown, just seventeen miles east of his little western Maryland hometown of Lafayette, had told Johnny to come for a tryout the day he graduated from high school. Shepstown was a city of thirtytwo thousand, according to what they said in the 1940 census, compared to around twenty- five hundred in Lafayette.
 
Johnny was a center fielder with an aggressiveness and an arm so strong, said the Tigers’ scout, that he reminded the scout of Pete Reiser. That was the ultimate thing anybody could have said to Johnny. Pistol Pete, as they called him, was the star center fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The nickname came from his going after fly balls like a bullet fired by a pistol, sometimes so fast and ferociously that he banged into walls.
 
Kansas? As far as Johnny knew, Maryland, where he had lived all eighteen years of his life so far, didn’t even have a nickname. But here he was in the Sunflower State. Last night in Saint Louis it had been Missouri, the Show-Me State, as announced by the sergeant. Before that had come the Hoosier State of Indiana, and before that was Ohio, whose nickname Johnny couldn’t remember. All of the states went vaguely into Johnny’s mind as more entries on the list of exotic, unknown places he had been to for the first time ever since he’d ridden the Blue Ridge Motor Coaches bus into Baltimore to join the marines. Playing pro ball was not possible now because most minor leagues had or were going to shut down for the war.
 
“We’re about to make a stop at a place called Wichita,” said the sergeant. “You can get off the train, stretch your legs . . .”
 
His voice was drowned out by the roar of cheers.
 
“We’ll be here twenty- five, maybe thirty minutes . . .”
 
More cheers.
 
“Ladies will be present at train side . . .”
 
Whistles and hoots.
 
“. . . to hand out apples and cigarettes.”
 
More cheers.
 
“Watch your mouths, manners, and hands.”
 
There was a smattering of “Aye, ayes.”
 
“The MPs will be out there watching.”
 
Now there was no question the train was slowing down. Johnny, sitting in a window seat, looked out at what there was to see of Wichita, Kansas. The outskirts, at least.
 
There was a huge grain elevator as big as many office buildings in Baltimore, small but neat white houses, and blacktop roads with a few cars. It reminded him of the West Virginia panhandle not far from where he lived. He had a feeling you could see across Kansas all the way to California, it was so flat. Except for the mountains. The Rockies were out there in the West somewhere.
 
“You been laid yet?” asked the marine sitting next to him.
 
Johnny only shrugged, keeping his eyes on what he could see of Wichita, Kansas, his mouth chewing on a gob of Red Man.
 
He had exchanged only a few words with this guy since the guy had swapped seats so Johnny’s original seatmate could join a hearts game several rows back. All Johnny knew about the new kid was that his name was Darwin and he was from a town in Mississippi—not that far from New Orleans. There was no urgency to find out more. There were still days to go before they got to California—and beyond.
 
“No girl’s going to put her mouth on yours if it’s full of that god- awful tobacco crap,” said Darwin.
 
“Girls love ballplayers,” said Johnny with a lot more bravado than his experience warranted. “Chewing’s part of what they love.”
 
Darwin shook his head in a sign of disbelief. “Chew all you want, but what I’m saying is that this might be our last chance to get laid before some Jap blows us to smithereens,” said Darwin, who smiled and then gave a shrugging laugh. Most everyone from the recruiting office to boot camp who talked about dying did so with a shrugging laugh. Even Johnny.
 
Because of what Darwin had said, Johnny’s thoughts now were about how awful it would be to die without ever having gotten . . . well, you know, gone all the way with a girl.
 
Gotten laid. That was what Darwin had said. Johnny had heard it called that before, but he had never actually said it. He had no idea where the expression really came from except that you had to lie down to go all the way with a girl.