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“Do you want me to walk you back?” Reuven asked. “I know things have quieted down some, but still-” He waited to see what she would say. Last time, she’d turned him down, and she’d got back without trouble.
She thought it over. “All right,” she said at last. “Thanks.”
The night was cool, heading toward chilly. Next to no one was on the streets, for which Reuven was heartily glad. Talking about being a protector was one thing, actually having to do the job something else again. When they got to the dorm-about a fifteen-minute walk from the Russie house-Reuven put his arms around Jane and again waited to see what would happen. She moved toward him instead of away. They kissed for a long time. Then, looking back over her shoulder, she went inside.
Reuven didn’t remember a single step he took all the way home.
Glen Johnson walked into the bar at the Kitty Hawk officers’ club and said, “Scotch over ice, Julius.”
“Yes, suh, Lieutenant Colonel,” said the colored man behind the bar. He was about Johnson’s age, or maybe a few years older, and walked with a limp. He built the drink with casual skill-not that there was anything fancy about scotch on the rocks-and slid it across the polished bar to Johnson. He plied a rag to get rid of the little wet trail the glass left, and contrived to make a couple of quarters disappear as if they’d never been there.
“Mud in your eye,” Johnson said, and sipped the drink. He reached into his pocket, pulled out an FDR half dollar, and set it on the bar by his glass. “Go on, Julius-have one on me. Have a real one, not the phony drinks bartenders usually take. I’m wise to those tricks, I am.”
Julius looked at the big silver coin. He held out his white-jacketed arm to Johnson. “You got to give it a twist.” Chuckling, the Marine pilot did. The barkeep let out a mock yelp for mercy, and Johnson released him. He scooped up the half dollar, then made himself a bourbon and water. “Much obliged, suh.”
“You deserve it,” Johnson said. “Why the hell not? Besides”-he looked around the otherwise empty bar-“I don’t much feel like drinking by my lonesome.”
“You got troubles, suh?” Julius raised the drink-by its color, not a very strong one-to his lips. The liquid in the glass went down hardly at all. No doubt he had practice at nursing a drink all night long. A bartender who drank too much of what he dispensed wouldn’t last long in the business. One who asked sympathetic questions, on the other hand…
“Troubles?” Johnson said thoughtfully. “You know a man without ’em? Christ on His cross, Julius, do you know a Lizard without ’em?”
“Don’t know any man without troubles, no, suh,” the Negro said. “Lizards? I found out more’n I ever wanted to about Lizards during the fighting, and that there’s the God’s truth.” He took another small sip from his bourbon and water, then stared down into the glass, as if wondering whether to go on.
Johnson started to ask him what was on his mind. A glance at Julius told him that, if he ever wanted to find out, he had better keep his mouth shut. He took a few salted peanuts from the bowl on the bar and munched on those instead. Maybe a bartender needed to talk to somebody every once in a while, too.
At last, still not looking up from the glass in front of him, Julius quietly asked, “I ever tell you before, Lieutenant Colonel, that I was born and raised in Florida?”
“No, as a matter of fact, you never did,” Johnson said. If he’d let it go at that, he never would have found out anything more. But, as he put together Julius’ color, his age, his limp, and now his place of birth… The pilot’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean to tell me you were one of those-?” He stopped in some confusion. He didn’t know how to say it, not in a way that wouldn’t put the bartender’s back up.
“One o’ those colored boys that fought for the Lizards? Is that what you was gonna say, suh?” Julius asked.
“Well, yeah.” Johnson knocked back his drink. He laid more money on the bar. “Give me another one of those, would you? Christ, how did you end up doing something like that? I mean, I know your unit mutinied against the scaly bastards, but how did you get sucked in in the first place?”
“I was hungry,” Julius answered simply. “Everybody was hungry back then, you know-colored folks worse’n most, I reckon, an’ the fighting killed all my livestock and knocked my farm all to hell. So when the Lizards came around an’ promised they’d feed everybody who joined up good, I went.”
The pilot raised his glass. “That wasn’t the only thing they promised you, was it? The way I remember, they promised black men a chance to take it out on whites, too.” He grimaced. “I hate to say it, but that wasn’t the stupidest thing they ever did.”
Julius studied him. Here in North Carolina, things were still anything but easy for Negroes in spite of Martin Luther King and his preaching. Johnson saw him weighing how much he could say. After a long, long silence, the barman said, “Well, I’d be lyin’ if I told you there wasn’t some who wanted that. Like you said, suh, the Lizards sort of knew what they was doin’ there. But most o’ the fellas who signed up did it on account of their bellies was rubbin’ up against their backbones, same as me.”
He chuckled, looking back across a good many years. “They had this one drill sergeant, Lieutenant Colonel, he scare the shell off a snappin’ turtle. Lord, was that man mean! But he was a good sergeant, I reckon. He’d been in the Army in the First World War, so he knew what he was doin’. An’ anybody who wasn’t more scared o’ him than whoever we was gonna fight was a natural-born damn fool.”
“I’ve known drill sergeants like that,” Johnson said. “I have indeed. But was this fellow for the Lizards, or was he just in it for three squares a day like you?”
“I truly don’t know, on account of nobody ever had the nerve to find out,” Julius answered. “When the Lizards reckoned we was ready, they took some o’ their soldiers out of the line they was holdin’ against the U.S. Army and put us in. First time we went into action-Lord! You should have seen how fast we threw down them guns an’ threw up our hands.”
“All of you?” Johnson asked.
The bartender hesitated again. Johnson didn’t suppose he could blame him. He wouldn’t have wanted to admit anything that brought his race discredit, either. “Hell, it don’t matter none now,” Julius said, more than half to himself. He looked over at Johnson. “No, not all of us, God damn it. Like I said, some o’ those boys flat hated white folks, hated ’em worse’n they hated the Lizards. What they said was, the Lizards was honest-to them, everybody was a nigger. And they fought. They fought like sons of bitches. Don’t reckon there’s one of ’em came out of that battle alive. So what do you think of that, Lieutenant Colonel?”
Johnson shrugged. “It was a long time ago, and they’re all dead, like you say, so it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference what I think. Was that when you got wounded?”
“Noticed I ain’t so spry, did you?” Julius said. “Yeah, I was tryin’ to surrender and this damnfool kid-he couldn’t have been seventeen, even-shot me on account of he reckoned I was foolin’. Hurt like hell.”
“Oh, yes,” Johnson said. “It’s not a picnic out there, is it? And the crazy thing is, the politicians who send the soldiers out have fought in wars themselves, or a lot of them have. But they go ahead and give the orders that send out the kids every single time.”
“Sort of different with the Lizards,” Julius observed. “We didn’t have no choice when they went and hit us, and I don’t reckon their Emperor ever did any fighting hisself. From what folks say, the Lizards hadn’t done no fighting for a hell of a long time before they decided to come on over here and take away what’s ours.”
“That’s what I’ve heard, too,” Johnson agreed. “It’s what the Lizards say themselves, as a matter of fact. I don’t swear it’s true, mind you, but I don’t think they’d lie about something like that, something where it’s not to their advantage to lie, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, suh, I do.” The bartender nodded. “From what
I seen of ’em, they don’t lie as much as people any which way. Oh, they will-don’t get me wrong, they will-but they’re a little more honest than just plain people, I reckon. Don’t suppose that did ’em a whole lot o’ good when they come up against the likes of us.”
“We’re a sinful lot, all right,” Johnson said, and Julius nodded. The pilot went on, “Good thing we are, too. We tricked the Lizards as often as we beat ’em fair and square-more often than we beat ’em fair and square, I shouldn’t wonder.” He pointed to the black man. “That’s what your unit did, or most of them, anyway.”
“Yeah, most of ’em.” Julius took another small sip from the drink Johnson had bought him. “Some o’ those boys, they didn’t care how the Lizards treated them, long as they treated white folks the same way.”
Johnson thought it was a good time to finish his own drink. Negroes still didn’t get treated like white men in the United States. He said the most he could say: “It’s better than it used to be.” He didn’t know that from his own experience before the war; up till then, he’d seen only a handful of Negroes. He waited to see how the bartender would respond.
Julius chose his words with care; Johnson got the idea that Julius always chose his words with care. “Yeah, it’s better than it used to be,” the bartender said at last. “But it ain’t as good as it ought to be, you don’t mind my sayin’ so. Doctor King say that, too, an’ he’s right.”
