Read Online Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson - Free Book Online
Authors: Guy Johnson
Tags: Fiction
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both seated on their packs with their backs to the tree’s trunk. Professor rubbed some pine needles between his fingers and then smelled the essence. “For a moment back there at the truck I thought you might attack Slick.”
“It was close,” LeRoi admitted.
Professor was surprised. “You would have fought him over a word? Slick’s been with us since Fort Dodge.”
“
Nigger
ain’t just a word! It’s a way of thinkin’. They want you to think that the colored man is weak and lazy, and ain’t got no determination! It ain’t so and I ain’t gon’ play the part. I wants respect and I don’t mind fightin’ to keep it! I don’t plan on livin’ my life in them little cramped billets America has set aside for colored men! Despite all its prejudice the army taught me one good thing—how to fight—and I plan on usin’ everythin’ I learned when I get home!”
“That’s the problem all around: man is much better at killing than he is at understanding, better at killing than at living. History is written in the blood of those made invisible by the victors. As if killing was the measure of man.” Professor shook his head in disgust. He looked at his friend’s calm, undisturbed expression and realized that his words had blown past LeRoi like bits of debris carried on a strong wind, seen but not remembered, just patterns of light and shadow. “Aren’t you afraid of dying?” he asked.
LeRoi responded slowly, but kept his eyes probing the shadows of the surrounding forest. “I ain’t worried about it. Anyways, I figure I got some time befo’ my page gets filled in.”
“What do you mean, ‘Before your page gets filled in’?”
“Oh, just somethin’ a schoolteacher once told me. Don’t remember her exact words, but she said somethin’ like all of us starts life with a blank page and you die when yo’ page is filled up. Way she got it figured, everythin’ you do and everythin’ that happens to you is writ on that page.” LeRoi checked his watch. “Let’s move it.”
They hoisted their packs and backtracked around the outskirts of the logged clearing and followed a streambed down through a small valley. As they were climbing out of the valley, a break in the trees revealed the glint of railroad tracks winding through a distant pass below them. They knew that their destination was close. As they crested another ridge, they saw dark shapes moving in the darkness of the trees above the railroad tracks. A line of men emerged and marched single file down the slope toward the tracks.
Professor slumped down into the snow. “Holy shit! Are those Germans?”
LeRoi, with his binoculars focused on the distant men, smiled. “No. That’s the Three hundred Fifty-first! I can tell by the walk. Look.” He handed the binoculars to Professor. “Tell me if that ain’t Fat George Cunningham from the Second Platoon waddling his big ass down the hill?”
F R I D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 8, 1 9 1 7
It was 0700 before LeRoi’s team got the big Vickers set up to guard the pass from Kastledorf to Ribeauville. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees since the snow had stopped falling, which made assembling the big gun all the more difficult. If bare skin touched the larger metallic pieces, it immediately adhered to the frozen steel. Even the lubricant was gunky and resistant. LeRoi and Big Ed toiled in GI-issue woolen mittens, which limited their dexterity with the numerous screws and bolts, but the men’s persistence was eventually rewarded. The machine gun sat on a platform made of ammunition boxes in a recess that was dug out of a frozen earthen ridge of the mountain by pick and shovel. The recess was set among the trees and was not visible from the road below. The gun’s firing lanes covered the entrance to the near side of the bridge as well as the highway and adjacent checkpoint structure on the far-western span of Kastledorf Bridge.
The sky was cloudless and
“It was close,” LeRoi admitted.
Professor was surprised. “You would have fought him over a word? Slick’s been with us since Fort Dodge.”
“
Nigger
ain’t just a word! It’s a way of thinkin’. They want you to think that the colored man is weak and lazy, and ain’t got no determination! It ain’t so and I ain’t gon’ play the part. I wants respect and I don’t mind fightin’ to keep it! I don’t plan on livin’ my life in them little cramped billets America has set aside for colored men! Despite all its prejudice the army taught me one good thing—how to fight—and I plan on usin’ everythin’ I learned when I get home!”
“That’s the problem all around: man is much better at killing than he is at understanding, better at killing than at living. History is written in the blood of those made invisible by the victors. As if killing was the measure of man.” Professor shook his head in disgust. He looked at his friend’s calm, undisturbed expression and realized that his words had blown past LeRoi like bits of debris carried on a strong wind, seen but not remembered, just patterns of light and shadow. “Aren’t you afraid of dying?” he asked.
LeRoi responded slowly, but kept his eyes probing the shadows of the surrounding forest. “I ain’t worried about it. Anyways, I figure I got some time befo’ my page gets filled in.”
“What do you mean, ‘Before your page gets filled in’?”
“Oh, just somethin’ a schoolteacher once told me. Don’t remember her exact words, but she said somethin’ like all of us starts life with a blank page and you die when yo’ page is filled up. Way she got it figured, everythin’ you do and everythin’ that happens to you is writ on that page.” LeRoi checked his watch. “Let’s move it.”
They hoisted their packs and backtracked around the outskirts of the logged clearing and followed a streambed down through a small valley. As they were climbing out of the valley, a break in the trees revealed the glint of railroad tracks winding through a distant pass below them. They knew that their destination was close. As they crested another ridge, they saw dark shapes moving in the darkness of the trees above the railroad tracks. A line of men emerged and marched single file down the slope toward the tracks.
Professor slumped down into the snow. “Holy shit! Are those Germans?”
LeRoi, with his binoculars focused on the distant men, smiled. “No. That’s the Three hundred Fifty-first! I can tell by the walk. Look.” He handed the binoculars to Professor. “Tell me if that ain’t Fat George Cunningham from the Second Platoon waddling his big ass down the hill?”
F R I D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 8, 1 9 1 7
It was 0700 before LeRoi’s team got the big Vickers set up to guard the pass from Kastledorf to Ribeauville. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees since the snow had stopped falling, which made assembling the big gun all the more difficult. If bare skin touched the larger metallic pieces, it immediately adhered to the frozen steel. Even the lubricant was gunky and resistant. LeRoi and Big Ed toiled in GI-issue woolen mittens, which limited their dexterity with the numerous screws and bolts, but the men’s persistence was eventually rewarded. The machine gun sat on a platform made of ammunition boxes in a recess that was dug out of a frozen earthen ridge of the mountain by pick and shovel. The recess was set among the trees and was not visible from the road below. The gun’s firing lanes covered the entrance to the near side of the bridge as well as the highway and adjacent checkpoint structure on the far-western span of Kastledorf Bridge.
The sky was cloudless and
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