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Friday, March 29, 2024

I gulp a frosty mug of Pabst, wink at Gerry and ask, "Hey Hank, when are you going to start serving blacks in here?"

Mueller's steel eyes glare at Gerry and me. He sneers then spits out a robotic response.

"As soon as I find someone stupid enough to eat them."

I give Gerry my "holy shit" look.

Less than three miles from Charleston Air Base, Mueller's is run, and owned, by two German racists, Hank and Jim. They won't serve blacks and don't like whites.

It's 1968 in South Carolina, yet nobody has heard of the Orangeburg Massacre.

n n n

"Why not come to Jacksonville this weekend?"

Gerry's smile invites larceny. "My pal Waldo and me will take you to a joint that makes the best Singapore slings in Florida."

Blessed with teeth like Chiclets, premature-gray hair, and a tall athletic build, Gerry wows the chicks, but I'm not bottom feeding. I hang out with him because he drinks like a dying man.

"I don't know, Gerry," I say. "I'm strapped."

"Don't be a pussy," he fires back. "Crash and eat at my house. You only need booze money."

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"Besides," he adds, "my sister's a piece of ass"

"You're using your sister for bait?"

"She'll like you man. Take her to the movies. See how it plays out."

n n n

Asleep on the couch at Gerry's house, I hear a rumbling in the kitchen. I open one eye and spy Gerry's drunken old man pissing into the refrigerator.

I eat out the entire weekend.

n n n

The next night finds Gerry, Waldo and I sitting on stools in the promised oasis. We're pounding Singapore slings. Within two hours, it's painfully obvious I'm out of my league. I can't keep pace and am fading fast.

When closing hour rolls around, I'm useless protoplasm that Gerry pours into Waldo's car.

For the second straight night, rumbling startles me out of a coma-like sleep.

"This one's alive. He's moving."

A bright light hits my eyes. I try to make sense of that last sentence. My jaw feels as if Joe Frazier knocked me out. I regain my senses and spit out crumpled enamel like so many bits of sand.

I see only the car's roof. My head rests on the seat and my knees on the floor.

An oak tree mushrooms from the car's hood. The car's fenders embrace the tree. To my left sits a mangled steering wheel, and the windshield has disappeared.

Don't move. Piece it together, what the hell happened? What did Waldo say before you passed out?

"You'll like this baby. I got it for a song. Let me show you what it can do."

Tossed through the missing windshield like two duffel bags, Gerry and Waldo are dead. Veins that pumped gin and blood hours before are now wrapped in body bags and lifted into an ambulance.

I start to feel each limb: delicately, slowly, hazily. My arms are fine. My legs are fine. No leaks. No sign of blood.

I look at the paramedic examining my chest, then the E.M.S. bus.

How can this be? My two friends are dead, and except for broken enamel, I'm unscathed.

n n n

My drunkenness saved my life. When my chin hit the dashboard, my teeth absorbed the full-force of the crash. Miraculously, I was knocked cold.

"Fifteen years on the job, I never saw anyone walk away from a wreck that bad," the state trooper said.

n n n

My disease won't nourish mourning. Gerry got a bad break, the luck of the draw.

After his death, I resume gambling, drinking and drugging.

In 1966, Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood" depicted two murderers hitchhiking. They're determined to kill the next Good Samaritan who picks them up.

The book's grizzly murders haunt my psyche the way "Jaws" haunts future generations. One night after a bad bout with booze at Mueller's, I hitchhike the short ride back to base.

It's well past 2 a.m., but cars still stop along this short strip for servicemen. So despite the rain, and imagined menace, I decide to "thumb it."

A pick-up truck pulls over. I leap into the passenger seat.

"Thanks a lot man," I tell the driver. "I really appreciate you stopping."

I size up my benefactor through bleary eyes and note the hands on the steering wheel look like canned hams. The driver doesn't acknowledge my presence. He slowly accelerates back onto the main drag.

"I was only out there a couple of minutes when you came along. I'm just going up the road to the air base," I say.

Still the taciturn driver stares straight ahead.

"I've been in Charleston almost two years, but I'm from N.Y. originally. You from around here?"

Still nothing, he just stares into the night's deluge. The blackness smothers the deserted road.

I begin to feel antsy.

Most people pick up hitchhikers for company. They break up the monotony of a long trip, or, in my case, help out someone in a jackpot. This guy's different. He's mute. He hasn't turned his head or taken his two giant mitts off the wheel.

F**k him. I combat silence with silence. It's no skin off my ass. At least I'm out of the rain. Soon, I'll be back in the barracks. I resign myself to silence.

The stillness doesn't last.

"You really didn't learn a thing from that accident in Jacksonville. Did you?" the stranger says.

What the f**k!?! What did he say? Did I hear this guy right? I gotta be f*****g drunk. He couldn't have said that."

"Excuse me? What did you say?"

The driver turns, his face stolid. He says nothing. Bug-eyed, he stares through me, not at me.

My heart races, I'm terrified. I'm just a kid. I turn away.

The windshield wiper's cadence beats time with my heart's palpitations. I calculate.

If I jump out of a car moving 55 mph, can I survive? When I hit the ground, will I be all right to run?

The storm worsens. The road ahead appears as sleek as a seal's back. Momentarily, the stranger focuses on the curves of the road.

Less than a mile from the base, I start to shake and sniffle.

Finally the truck slows and comes to a halt outside the entrance to the base The driver turns again, stares then waits a month before he chants one bone-chilling sentence.

"Nice night for a murder."

I spring the handle on the door and bolt. I don't offer him a " thanks" or a "f**k you." I never hear the truck accelerate. I don't look back.

Nice night for a murder? Was he playing a game? What was that stuff about Jacksonville? How did he know?

Good or bad, my mania forbids lingering. My brain hops like a frog on speed. I reflect on both incidents but refute mystical explanations.

He said Jacksonville taught me nothing. He was right, but I'll learn.

Unfortunately, my new professors speak Vietnamese and wear black pajamas.

Bill O'Connor is a Vietnam veteran, former Bronx firefighter and pub and restaurant owner. O'Connor is currently a journalism major at UF and a standup comic. The irreverent and acerbic O'Connor performs free standup around Gainesville.

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