It was a hot, gritty night. The kind you experience only on the high desert. The long, flat highway rolled-out ahead as would a path through a mountain meadow. Except that here the peaks were rising towers of mist, the valley, sand, wind-blown off the desert floor across which the blue/gray Navy hearse was forced to crawl at snail-speed. A cloud enshrouded full moon did little to help either, unless you’re one of those strange souls for whom the spooky factor gets high marks. Under normal conditions it was just over an hour from the port of Long Beach to Point Mugu NAS but tonight, tonight they’d be lucky to get back much before midnight. Well the driver, a navy corpsman, would get back, Lt. Erickson was scheduled to accompany the body of the Marine in back all the way to Canton, Ohio. From the scuttlebutt the corpsman passed along there wasn’t much left of the dead guy but a Marine was a Marine, no matter he’d fallen in battle over 40 years ago. And a Marine officer, even a recently commissioned mustang, is clear in his duty; pick up the decedent’s remains at the port of debarkation and accompany them to the home of record for release to the next of kin.
On his lap Lt. Erickson held a brown envelope containing the personal effects of the decedent. It was almost flat; a few Vietnamese coins, a set of dog tags on a badly rusted chain, and a second less tarnished chain that held the only really personal property, an old fashioned high school graduation ring. Despite protocol the lieutenant had peeked into the envelope before they left Long Beach. As a result he found himself wondering for perhaps the hundredth time how a Marine lance corporal had come by such a trinket and why he’d kept it on a gold chain around his neck in a war zone, through the rigors of combat. It was pretty obvious the damn old thing wasn’t of any particular intrinsic value. The plating had worn-off every raised surface leaving the numerals 1-9-6-4 and the word S-E-N-I-O-R highlighted in reverse relief against a dirty, gilt background.
“Must have meant something to Cpl. Snyder,” the Lt. muttered under his breath. But not quite softly enough.
“Sir?” the driver asked eagerly, though his traveling companion was unsure if the corpsman was curious or simply wanted to strike up a conversation. It’d been quiet for most of the trip, Lt. Erickson preferred it that way and ignored the query, just shaking his head idly.
~~~~~~~~~
The landing lights of the regional airport in Canton, Ohio were a welcome sight to Lt. Erickson when the Navy C-130 dropped below the cloud cover. Chicago, O’Hare it wasn’t but Sam Erickson badly needed to make a piss call and some hot chow would be nice, too. Perhaps even a change of skivvies and some fresh class A’s. Sometimes this officer shit got old he thought longing for the days of duty in BDU's and the unpretentiousness of the base EM club. So as soon as the casket was deplaned and placed safely inside the unimpressive air terminal he went in search of the head, someplace to grab some breakfast, and a place to change. He hadn’t eaten an actual meal since yesterday noon, before he left Pendleton, and though Canton didn’t offer too much in the way of amenities this early, he was sure he’d find someplace.
When he did it definitely wasn’t much. One of those shiny metal places that look like a 50's travel trailer, designed inside with chrome and Naugahyde the shabby diner resembled an old fashioned railroad car. But at this time of day it was the only place open and the unshaven Marine didn’t particularly want ambiance. And he didn’t get it, what he did get was dingy counters and fly specked fluorescent lights, a salmon and turquoise color scheme straight out of 1956. Sam Erickson didn't care, they had coffee, he could smell it wafting above the rank odor of stale fryer grease and a general air of neglect and disuse. Then there was the requisite small town waitress, this one, no longer young, was the epitome of the victim-hood wrought by hard living. And although sitting on a counter stool until Sam’s entry into her sanctum, the woman seemed stooped and bent even beyond life’s not insignificant ability to prematurely bring the ravages of age to a woman. Her nerve endings seemed to have been cauterized by time, sadness was hard-wired into gray/green eyes that were notable only because they held-out no hope, only pain. No matter. She was Sam’s sole link to the contents of the coffee urn and despite his initial aversion Sam's interest was piqued.
The filthy, yellowed menu with 1970’s prices should have been Sam’s first clue. His eggs were limp, half cooked pools of salty slime, his toast seemed to have endured the ravages of a great flood, and not of butter. But the coffee was hot and strong, which was a blessing as the home fried potatoes tasted like and had the consistency of saw dust. Still, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the awful meal was the enforced company of the crone that served Sam with his fare. It took the lieutenant awhile but finally he came to the realization that contrary to his first impression the woman’s troubled eyes weren’t simply reflections of anguish as much as they were the opaque mirrors of disappointment and it’s handmaiden, discouragement. The waitress had a kind voice, though, and her abject apologies for the food’s shortcomings seemed to have no end.