The Army Saga, Part 3
Note: This is an on-going entry for the next few days. I?ll try to detail what my experience was at 14 when I intern?d at an Army Recruiting Office in Morristown, TN. I hope it?s as interesting as I remember it.
After about 4 days or less, I had torn through a dozen boxes of pamphlets, promptly and studiously stamping them with bright red ink featuring the address of the recruiting office. After I could find no more, I hunted down the Sergeant Major when he was in the office and asked him what else I could do.
?What do you mean,? he said, ?go finish the pamphlets.?
?They?re done.?
?Well, we have some more boxes in the closet??
?I did those too.?
He looked at me with a little suspicion and what I thought was awe. ?Well, uh?that?s all we had for you to do.?
For the whole damn six weeks? ?Um, okay,? I said, smiling.
After a moment he said, ?You read any??
And such became my Summer Worker Program: Read as many books as possible, while answering the phone here and there. After awhile they even stopped me from doing that, because I had this horrible way of answering the phone.
?Summer Worker Erwin? I would rattle off. Not one soul ever understood what I was saying. There?s rules when putting two words that end with and begin with ?er?. You simply never put them together or you have to pronunciate so much it sounds awkward. Go ahead, try it. ?Summer Worker Erwin Speaking? may be the single worst phrase I?ve ever had the misfortune of repeating constantly.
Me and Benny, one of the recruiters there, had a penchant for bad jokes. We would tell the raunchiest we could think of, and when we ran out, we?d tell the same ones again to the recruiters who missed them the first time.
Benny would also detail some job hazards. ?Deceased are the worst,? he said, pointing to the little box next to the high school picture of some aspiring young male with the box checked. Each recruiter had a huge book of high school students they worked through, day after day. There were little checkboxes and lines drawn for text beside each person?s name. Attempt 1, Attempt 2, etc.
The worst, he explained, was calling up a mother or father and asking if their dead child would like to speak with an Army recruiter. Benny shook his head and rubbed his face. ?Door to door is even worse than that,? he said with finality, and went to get coffee. In my mind?s eye I saw him studiously holding an Army pamphlet on the doorstep of the greiving family. He told me later that some breakdown when you ask them, face to face, about the whereabouts of their dead children.
During my lunch breaks (which stretched into hours as weeks went by) I would walk in the mall and usually end up in the bookstore. It was comfortable and full of interesting books. I was trying my best to re-read The Stand (never did), IT (boring), and Needful Things (VERY boring), so I figured some new reading was necessary.
Then I found the joke books. And their inflated prices. Seven dollars for some fuckin jokes? I said to my broke self. That first paycheck seemed like a long way off.
Then I realized I was alone. In the bookstore. With no cameras. During the day no less, a time in which no one goes to the mall.
I looked at the book, its small size (about the size of my hand) and the size of my pockets. It?d slip right in, I thought. It?s just a stupid book, I reassured myself.
In the pocket it went, and my heart began to beat like a drum. I will admit it was thrilling, but absolutely terrifying.
It would take 3 more weeks before I was caught.
Oh, all that I know, there?s nothing here to run from,
And there, everybody here?s got somebody to lean on
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