“Like what?” I asked.
Turcotte smiled, wiped at his lips. “Those of us who made it during the Pacific, we cheered when the A-bombs got dropped, you know? There was no debate, no shit talk about morality, about hitting those two cities. War and morality? Please. Shit, we had already turned Tokyo and its residents into cinders. All we knew was that we were going to live. We weren’t going to get wounded, shot, burnt, or have our balls blown off trying to invade the Home Islands. The war ended and I came back here to Tyler. I started lobstering again, dumped my uniform in a trunk, and the nightmares faded away. Then those shit-ass North Koreans started a war in ’50.” A pause. “Assholes. You know why? Because just when we were settling back into civilian life, lots of us were being called up again. To go back to our old duty. And most of us … shit, earlier, we didn’t mind going out to the Pacific. It was our job. Our duty. Goddamn Japs had started it. But Korea? Shit, who cares about Korea? But some of us lucked out. The ones that came here. Hah.”
Mia and Gwen were quiet, so I stepped in. “How did you luck out?”
He grinned. “Me and the other fellas, we had been around. We knew the Navy, knew how their minds worked. And we played the system. And why not? All of us were vets, and we weren’t so eager to go back to sea, or to that frozen Korea place, fight the freakin’ Chinese. Nope. So our job was to delay, delay, delay. And that’s what we did. Ask for training, take leave time, get sick here and there, do this, do that … and before you know it, we was here, getting trained on stuff we already knew. Oh, damn, it was sweet duty.”
“How sweet?” I asked.
He laughed again. “Real damn sweet. In fact, by the time we got here, the fighting had died down, the armistice talks were going on. Most of us stopped going to class over at the old artillery station. Stayed here, got drunk, got suntanned, had lots and lots of parties. And the cellar …”
The second time he had mentioned the cellar. “And what was in the cellar?”
“You don’t know?”
“Only thing down there is dirt and an oil furnace.”
“Well, there was no oil furnace back then,” he said, grinning. “But the dirt was there, a good place to sop up the drinks and piss and vomit when things got out of hand. A bar in the corner that served all the time, day and night. And once the little girls in the area knew what was going on here, man, it was pure pleasure.”
Mia’s face flushed, and I remembered what her aunt had said earlier: Each generation thinks they invented sex, drugs, and drink, and each generation is wrong.
“What did you give them, then?” I asked.
“Mmm,” he said. “You know.”
I smiled at him, trying to put him at some sort of ease. “I think I know, but why don’t you tell me?”
“Uh, the usual,” Turcotte said, glancing a bit nervously at Mia and her aunt. “Most of those girls had never tasted beer before. Rum. The trick with the rum and Coke was to put just enough rum in the Coke to give the sweetie a nice little buzz, but not enough so she could taste it.”
“Other things, too?” I asked. “Marijuana, maybe? Other stuff?”
He grinned shyly, nodded his head. “It was party central back then. I mean, most of us, we skipped classes—with the war over, what were they going to do, send us to Korea? Even the instructors let up on us. We had rock and roll on the hi-fi, a barbecue pit out back, dancing, drinking, smoking, lots of fun stuff.”
Mia still looked one part horrified, one part amused. I’m sure her generation was like my generation, thinking they had invented it all, had sampled it all, and for the very first time in human history.
“But didn’t—I mean, didn’t you have inspections every now and then?” I asked.
“Sure, but I mean, c’mon. Most of the officers were in the reserves, just like us. And they weren’t going to go out of their way to give us shit. I mean, there were a couple of hard cases, but we always got tipped off that they were coming. Hell, we never got caught.”
Turcotte swiveled on the couch. “Hey, Gwen, how come I never saw you stop by? You were a fine piece back in the day.”
She gave him a not-so-gentle slap to the leg. “I’ll have you know that many men still consider me fine, no matter what day it is.”
Turcotte grinned but wouldn’t let it go. “Still, you would have learned a lot back then, right here. Gotten a real fine education.”
Gwen smiled sweetly, put her hand on his upper leg, and leaned in. “Bobby Turcotte, if you don’t turn around and answer Mr. Cole’s questions, straight and true, then Mia and I are going to trot up that driveway and leave you behind, and then you’ll be late going back to your room and tapioca pudding. So what’s it going to be?”
His red face turned even redder. “Ah, just joshing around, Gwen, that’s all. You don’t need to take offense. Okay. What else do you want to know, Mr. Cole?”
“When did all this happy time end?”
“Well, it happened around August of that year, when things were really hopping. Seems like this cop—can’t remember what town he was from—”
“North Tyler,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s right, North Tyler. Well, he heard his niece was sampling the fun times down here. Betty, Bambi, something like that. Jesus. She had this flaming red hair, light freckles. She had hooked up with this big sailor, a guy named Mahoney—”
Gwen interrupted. “Focus, Bobby, focus.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, this North Tyler cop tries to come down and pick up his
