Carwood opens his eyes to the sound of birds chirping as mid morning light filters in through the thin curtains.
The first thing that floods his bleary mind is alarm at having slept this late. It takes a few seconds for him to remember that it’s his day off, and he has no obligation to be up at the crack of dawn. That former alarm is replaced with a sense of slight sheepishness. It’s rare that sleeps in, and certainly never until the sun is this high in the sky. He must have been exhausted the night before.
His last memory is sinking into bed, kissing George goodnight, and shutting his eyes. After that… well, he can’t remember being roused all night. George’s restless limbs usually wake him at least once, but he must have been so exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep and stayed that way.
Joe isn’t drunk, not even close to it. The first time they were in England the beer wasn’t bad, even if they did insist on serving it warm, but apparently the state of things has only gotten worse while they were in Normandy because since they’ve been back it’s been impossible to find beer that isn’t watered down.
Sober as he is he has no excuse for how he keeps bumping up against George’s side as they walk, but it also means that George has no reason to trip and send them both stumbling into an alleyway once they’re out of earshot of the pub. Joe gets himself steady easy enough, grabbing George’s jacket to balance him and pull him back to his feet.
As he straightens George’s lips glance across his, so swift that for a moment Joe thinks that the kiss might only have happened in his mind, before pulling back – eyes wide and dark and uncharacteristically serious.
A man could drown in eyes like that.
He has no control at all as he’s presses his own mouth to George’s. He’s pulled back in like he’s drawn by a magnet, by gravity, by forces huge and unstoppable and utterly unimportant. Joe tastes a mix of smoke and sickly sweet chocolate as George parts his lips and he’s never had a sweet tooth before but now there is nothing he wants more than to have that taste on his tongue forever.
“Malark, I’m sorry, but it’s Skip,” he said. “He’s dead. Penkala, too.”
I simply sat on the edge of a slit trench like a man who’d been out in the cold too long. Numb. My brain told my mouth to speak but it was like the words were frozen in place.
“How’d… it… happen?” I asked, my voice but a whisper.
“‘Bout a hundred yards down the line. A major shelling. Muck and Penkala were caught out in the open, then finally found a hole. George Luz had been scurrying around during the blitz, too. Muck and Penkala yelled for him to get in their foxhole.”
Roe paused. I kind of nodded, rocked forward and backward a bit. Put my hands over my face, fingers as numb from the cold as my brain from the news.
“Luz is down on the snow, snaking his way toward them, and
– boom
– direct hit on the foxhole. Shell found them as if it had eyes.”
I looked away, toward nothing. Thought of Faye Tanner back in Tonawanda.
I didn’t need to think on that one long; later, I’d hear that beyond a shredded sleeping bag and a few body parts, there wasn’t much to see. I shook my head sideways. That wasn’t Skip Muck back there in that foxhole. Skip Muck was sitting on the floor of the PX with me listening to the Mills Brothers sing “Paper Doll” on the jukebox. He was getting my food for me when my legs had given out on the march to Atlanta. He was swimming the damn Niagara River at night, a thought that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
I did neither.
“Thanks, Roe. I’m fine.”
He reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, pressing the cross of some broken rosary beads in my hand. “He’d want you to have it.”
YALL THIS IS SO GOOD IM ACTUALLT CRYING I KID YOU NOT TEARS ARE POURING DOWN MY FACE WHAT A BLESSING I LOVE GEORGE LUZ WHAT A BABE LOOK AT HIM SLAYING THE GAME I CAN TE
“I found the most well-liked guy in the platoon was George Luz, one of the Toccoa guys. He was the company comedian. He could imitate people, and he was always telling jokes. Good jokes, not like Bill Guarnere’s jokes! Luz was actually funny. He always told me I reminded him of a parish priest. He was a great soldier, all-around 100 percent great American. Serious when he had to be, but he kidded with everyone he liked. He knew who could take a joke and who couldn’t.”
– Edward “Babe” Heffron, Brothers in Battle: Best of Friends
lookashiny 