Several years ago, whilst stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, not yet having met the lovely and talented and downright sexy Mrs. Hook, I used to do my laundry Saturday mornings at a Laundromat not far from my apartment. As a single soldier my thought process was along the lines of this… single women must also have to do laundry on Saturday mornings, therefore, what better place to meet an available woman? Right? I was sorely mistaken. As it turned out, my Saturday mornings were filled with just a bunch of guys washing their boxers without even the thought of using softener. After a few weeks of enduring the “boy’s laundry club”, I discovered a small local pub next door to the Laundromat.
I walked into the dimly lit bar for the first time, noticing that there was already a half dozen patrons though the hour was not quite noon. It was one of those pubs that had only a handful of tables, a long bar with at least a dozen bar stools, a large mirror covering the wall behind the bar, a jar of pickles, a jar of hard boiled eggs, bowls of peanuts and pretzels all placed throughout, and an attractive gal in her mid to late twenties tending to the bar, her dirty blonde hair tied in a pony tail, wearing tight blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt emblazoned with the Corona Cerveza insignia. The place smelled of stale beer and cigarettes.
Bellying up near the end of the wonderfully maintained mahogany bar, I replied, “Budweiser” to the bartender’s inquiry of “what can I getcha honey?” I recall being pleasantly surprised to discover that the long neck bottle of beer cost only a $1.25, the exact price for a load of laundry next door. I kept mostly to myself, killing the time it took for the wash cycle with a beer while watching ESPN on the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner. A small group of three older men and one woman sat together, side by side, about midway down the bar, talking about the news of the day, politics, sports, and NASCAR. Another gentleman was dropping money into an electronic gambling machine along the wall opposite the lavatory as if he were a high roller in Vegas. Occasionally, the attractive barkeep would stop by and see if he needed a refill on his Diet Coke.
“Can I getcha another honey?” she asked pulling the empty bottle from in front of me with her left hand, deftly dropping it into a bin under the bar while wiping the mahogany bar top with a towel in her right.
“Please. I’m gonna just run next door and put my clothes in the dryer, be right back,” I answered standing up, leaving enough cash on the bar to pay for the upcoming beer. When I returned, the cash was still there and the barkeep came right to me, pulling a longneck from an iced filled sink behind the bar, twisting the cap off, and setting it in front of me.
“Buck and a quarter honey,” she said taking exactly that from my small pile of money on the bar.
So went my Saturday morning laundry duties for a few weeks. Then one day, as I waited for my drying clothes to finish, in walked a man I made to be in his early to mid-sixties (as it turned out, he was 77 or 78, he wasn’t quite sure). He stood about six-feet tall, with broad shoulders, a tanned face, and a head of closely cropped white hair, with a high and tight cut. I hadn’t seen him before in my three or four visits to the Shamrock Pub, but the regular crowd all knew him well, welcoming Gus with handshakes and slaps on his back. Gus sat down next to me, a single barstool separating us, until he gave up his seat for a woman who joined the group several minutes after he had. He nodded a greeting as he moved to the barstool immediately to my right. I silently nodded a reply, at 32 I was the youngest one in there, the bartender Kate notwithstanding.
Gus caught my attention when he ordered a boiler maker. I recalled my grandfather drinking a boilermaker in the evenings when he came home from a hard day’s work at the newspaper. For those unfamiliar with a boilermaker, it’s an alcoholic beverage consisting of a glass of beer, and a shot of whiskey whereby the shot of whiskey is dropped into the glass of beer and is consumed in that manner. Not for the feint hearted I assure you.
I watched and listened as Gus engaged in conversation with the others, providing opinions on everything from Dale Gordon to Bill Clinton. At one point he turned to me and asked, “You in the service young man?”
“Army,” I replied, setting my empty beer bottle onto the circular O’Doul’s coaster in front of me. “Am I correct to guess that you’re a China Marine sir?” I asked in return.
“Gottdamn kid, don’t call me sir and what do you know about the China Marines?” he boomed.
Hesitating slightly, I answered somewhat feebly, “Not nearly as much as I should.”
I must’ve said something right because Gus called Kate over and instructed her in no uncertain terms to “fix us up here,” pointing at his empty beer glass and my empty bottle. Turning to me he asked, “You know what a boilermaker is kid?”
I nodded and told him a bit about my grandfather who at 14 years of age hopped on a steamer from Scotland to America and eventually found work mining coal in the mountains of Pennsylvania until he later moved to Connecticut finding work at the Hartford Courant newspaper.
“Make that two boilermakers Kate,” Gus commanded.
Gus asked me what I did in the Army and how long I’ve been serving and if I liked “soljur’n.” Then he asked me how I knew he was a China Marine.
“Lucky guess I suppose, but I noticed the tattoo on your forearm and had read about Soochow, the China Marine mascot (on his left forearm was a tattoo of a dog wearing Marine sergeant’s stripes looking tough in front of the USMC symbol with the words “Soochow” written below the image and “4th Marines” above). That and your high and tight hair cut.”
Slapping me on the back he bellowed, “gottdamn you Army guys are perceptive!”
Gus went on to explain that he was indeed a China Marine and had served in Shanghai from 1938 until 1941 when he and the rest of the 4th Marines moved to Corregidor. He regaled me with tales of life in Shanghai as an American Marine, sharing stories of how they made friends with other foreigners from Russia and India who found themselves expatriates in China.
I motioned to Kate to bring us another round not wanting to interrupt Gus.
He went on to tell me about how they deployed to Corregidor Island, Philippines and fought fiercely against the Japanese. Gus talked about friends that he had lost on that island and about running out of water, food, and ammunition. Then he skirted around their surrender and subsequent Bataan Death march following their capture. Speaking only generally of his time spent in a Japanese POW camp until “them gottdamned Army Rangers showed up to rescue our sorry asses.”
Needless to say, I was in awe of the man with whom I shared a couple of boilermakers. I couldn’t help but wonder where America found so many men like Gus and thanked God that we had.
I called a taxi to take me home and later called Kate asking if she wouldn’t mind stopping next door to the Laundromat to retrieve my clothes from the dryer and bring them by after she got off work.
Gus and I shared several boilermakers and stories over the ensuing weeks. Then one Saturday, Gus didn’t show up to the Shamrock Pub. I never saw him again, but am damn glad to have spent the little time that I had with this true American hero, this China Marine. Semper Fidelis Gus. Sgt Hook out.
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