Dancing in the Movies

Little Bear

little Bear 3 LITTLE BEAR Joey Malone found Pfc Owens under a transport truck. "You getting overtime?" Joey said. Owens scooted out on his back. He held a black radiator hose in his hand. "They said it needed a new radiator. Look here." He bent the rubber hose to expose a crack. "I been lying under there a halfhour thinking how stupid the army is." He stood, skinny and black, threw the hose in a metal barrel, blew into his cupped hands. "Colder than Bejesus," he said. Joey nodded. He looked out over the support unit and beyond it to the gray Korean landscape. When Joey had first joined the unit, the pointy canvas tents and six-wheel trucks, the single-axle trailers and barking officers had reminded him of the circus that came to Michigan City in the spring, setting up in a field near the prison. Now, he could see only trucks, trailers, and temporary quarters. Joey stuck his hands inside his jacket, under his arms. "Sergeant Anderson said I'm ready." Owens stomped his feet to fight the cold. ''I'm staying," he said. Joey and Owens were the last of Master Sergeant Anderson 's training detail, organized to make men who had performed badly in combat ready to return. Owens, they had discovered , was a good mechanic, so good he would stay with the support unit indefinitely. He had tried to teach Joey, telling him to picture the engine running, the pistons shooting in and out like the legs of chorus girls they'd seen in a camp movie. Joey couldn't see it. His head was too full of army regulations and meaningless numbers, images of Indiana and a great blank fear of dying. He would have to return to combat. "I have to report to him in an hour,"Joey said. "He wants to talk to me." "That's lousy,Joey. I'd take combat over that" Owenspulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and inhaled deeply. "Luckily, I don't have to do neither. You, on the other hand ..." Owens chuckled. 4 DANCING IN THE MOVIES Joey laughed with him. "I, on the other hand, get screwed coming and going." Owens laughed, spitting out his cigarette. "That's the looks of it." He picked the white butt off the ground and blew on it. The end glowed orange. He twisted dirt off the lip end. "My last cigarette," he said, looked it over again, and tossed it back to the dirt. "This very earth is swarming with bacterias, I bet." He wiped the tips of his fingers against his chest. "Probably a thousand on your shirt alone." He pointed atJoey. A circle of dirt marked Joey's chest like a target. He wiped and slapped at the dirt. Sergeant Anderson had had him shooting at burning barrels from a ditch as part of his training. "It's like I slid into home," Joey said. "Always slide feet first." Owens took two steps, slid into the rear tire of the transport truck. "Feet first." He kicked the tire. "I stole fourteen bases once. In one game." Joey had been a second baseman in high school, then a shortstop in Okinawa. "There was something I wanted to talk about,"Joey said. "Really, something I want to tell you about." "Michigan City?" Owens said. He was from Brawley, CaliforniajJoey from Michigan City, Indiana. They took turns telling about home. "Let's get out of the cold." They crawled into the cab of the truck. "I've been having dreams about thiS," Joey said. "It was when I was a kid." His words fogged the windshield. ''Yeah?'' Owens said. He blew into his hands again, clapped against his shoulders, rubbed his arms. "I was ten," Joey said. "My brother was six." "My brother's six," Owens said, glad to have a connection to the story. "Nineteen forty-three, I remember that," Joey said. Eight years ago, walking to his friend's house on a street without lights, a night without a moon, Joey had tried to avoid the puddles. His little brother sloshed through them. What's the point of wearing rubbers if you don't have any fun? his brother, Dave, said. Galoshes, Joey said, call them galoshes. 5 LITTLE BEAR His brother shrugged, said, Not what Mom calls them. Joey shook his head. Trust me, he said. Shelling sounded in the distance...