The Dispatcher

I could swear that my secretary, Miss Minihan, addressed my boss as Colonel Carter this morning. And did I hear him say to her, "Thank you, Corporal?" Having just assumed my new job as quality-control manager, I don't wish to seem too inquisitive.

Our firm is only indirectly involved in defense work, which makes me even more puzzled. Yesterday, for example, I overheard a conversation between two elderly mechanics in the shop. It went:

"Old man's on the warpath again."

"Eatin' ass like it was steak."

"You know how it is. With the I.G. on his back."

"They don't frighten me. Goddamn brass. They'd strangle in their own snot if it wasn't for us."

At first I assumed the conversation was some kind of shop jargon. But now I am not so certain. What further disturbed me was that shortly after this conversation, Mr. Carter came to the assembly line to talk to these men. I could not hear the conversation, but a peculiar stiffness in the attitudes of the mechanics, a movement of their right arms, was evident.

Later I passed Carter in the corridor. He nodded at me and I suddenly felt my right arm moving toward my right temple, fingers extended and joined.

Carter smiled. "Go ahead, Dugan," he said. "It's all right, if you want to, even though we don't insist on it."

I pulled my arm back to my side, feeling embarrassed and confused, and I hurried to my office. Miss Minihan had a batch of invoices for me to check. I went about my work, trying to make some sense out of the strange work habits here. In the midst of the invoices, I saw a sheet of legal-size paper, headed:

Table of OrganizationUnited Apertures, Inc.

I called my secretary. "Miss Minihan, what is this?" I asked.

"Oh, that. The administrative chart."

"But it says Table of Organization. That is an Army expression. It is referred to as a T/O, and that's exactly what this paper is."

"Golly, I never thought of it that way." She giggled.

When she left, I searched for my name. I was listed under Headquarters and Headquarters Company with the rank of first lieutenant.

Dazed, I wandered about the plant for a few minutes and entered a halfhidden men's room on a fire-stair landing. As I approached the urinal, a sign over it greeted me:

Please Do Not Throw Cigar ButtsIn HereIt Makes Them Soggy andHard to Light

I knew at once that I was involved in neither a joke nor a dream nor a corporate fancy. They had gotten me back in.

• • •

My present circumstances recall a series of curious incidents in which I was involved some years ago, beginning with the appearance of the dispatcher at my home.

After my discharge from military service, I was living with my parents in an old Spanish-style house in West Los Angeles. I had spent four years in the Army, including overseas duty, and was discharged with the rank of sergeant. Now I had returned to my studies in business administration at the University of California at Los Angeles. I note here that I was never a perpetual griper or a guardhouse lawyer. While I was not delighted with serving in the Army, I accepted it as a duty.

One spring morning, I was unable to locate the keys of the old Ford I drove to classes. We were a family of comfortable means and had three cars: my old Ford, a new Mercury driven by my father, an accountant for one of the film studios, and my mother's Nash. (We did not think ourselves in any way unusual, because there was virtually no public transportation to be had.) Having searched the house and the car for the keys, I went to the small room above our garage to look for them.

As I opened the screen door, I saw a man sleeping on the day bed. He was in an Army uniform. An overstuffed duffel bag was on the floor alongside him. On it was stenciled:

Esposito Salvatore asn 32694853

My assumption was that he had been hitchhiking in the area (men were still being discharged and transferred) and he had wandered in to catch a night's sleep. I shook him firmly but gently.

"OK, Mac, let's hit it," I said. "Grab your socks."

The sleeper stirred. His eyes opened and he studied me irritably. "Jesus, I just got to sleep." He muttered something about "doing a frigging day's work without sleep," yawned enormously and sat up in bed. As he scratched himself, stretched and broke wind, I studied him.

Esposito was a squat, dark man in his early 20s. His features were blunt--the eyes hooded and suspicious, the mouth pouting. Black stubble covered his chin; he needed a haircut.

"Get a good night's sleep?" I asked.

"Lousy. Couldn' find da mess hall. You da CQ?"

"You're a little confused, soldier. This is a private house. I don't mind you catching some shut-eye, but don't you think you should have asked first?"

Esposito got up and stretched. His o.d. shirt came loose from his o.d. trousers. An o.d. undershirt peeked through the gap. "Ain't no terlet paper in da latrine. And dere better be a PX around, or I'll raise hell. I may be oney a lousy corporal, but I got rights."

Was he unbalanced? Some poor dope ready for a Section Eight discharge? I decided to be firm. "Esposito, you'd better get out of here. My father's got a bad temper and he won't like the idea. I'm a former enlisted man myself, so I don't mind. But you'd better clear out."

"I ain't goin' nowhere. I been transferred here."

"That's impossible. A soldier can't be transferred to a private home."

"Ya'll shit, too, if y'eat reg'lar."

With that, he dragged the duffel bag to the bed, undid the cord and groped in its guts. Out came a wool-knit cap, half of a messtin, a cardboard stationery folder and some dirty socks. Then he located a single wrinkled sheet of mimeographed paper, which he thrust at me. "Dat's your copy, pal. File it or it'll be your ass."

I read it swiftly.

Holabird Ordnance DepotHolabird, Maryland

Corporal Esposito Salvatore ASN 32694853 (NMI) Casual Detachment, 1145 Labor Supvn Co., Holabird Ordnance Depot, Holabird, Md., is transferred in rank and grade to 1125 Hampton Drive, West Los Angeles, California.

Cpl. Esposito will on arrival at new post assume duties of Dispatcher, Army Classification 562, and be responsible for dispatch of all vehicles, wheeled, tracked and half-tracked, at said installation.

No change of rank or pay involved. EM to draw six dollars per diem. Transfer at request and convenience of M. A. C. E., Washington, D. C.

Having at one time served as a battalion clerk, I realized that the orders were either the real thing or a perfect forgery. The language, the phrasing, the format were perfect.

As I puzzled over the sheet, Corporal Esposito seated himself at a table in the corner of the room. On it he placed a yellow pad and a few slips of carbon paper. These were trip tickets, standard Army forms for the use of a vehicle. Behind his ear he stuck a red pencil stub. He put his feet on the table and began to read a ragged copy of Captain Marval comics.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" I protested.

"Look, Mac, I got a job to do, you got a job to do," he said thickly. His sullen eyes darted up from the comic book. "Anya you people wanna vehicle, you come see me foist for a trip ticket. No trip ticket, no vehicle."

At that moment I understood that Esposito was no lunatic, no practical joke, no error. He was real. He was the essential dispatcher. I knew his type--surly, slovenly, wary, a petty dictator, a wielder of power and influence. He wore exactly what you'd expect: a stained old-fashioned field jacket, the corporal's chevrons sloppily sewn to the sleeve; a sweat-marked overseas cap pushed back on his coarse black hair.

I wasn't ready to challenge him. I returned to the house and found my father eating his Bran Flakes and scowling at the Los Angeles Times. I told him about the intruder. My father, the late Francis James Dugan, was a short-tempered, choleric man. His reaction was what I expected.

"What are you worried about?" he asked. "I'll throw the bum out."

Esposito was smoking a foul cigar when we entered. He flicked ashes on the floor and called out: "Could use a coupla butt cans here!"

My father flew across the room and yanked the dispatcher from his chair by the lapels of his field jacket. "Beat it, you bum. Pack your bag and get out, or I'll throw you out."

Salvatore wriggled loose and backed against a wall. He did not seem frightened, merely annoyed at my father's obtuseness. Like all true dispatchers, Esposito had a snarling equanimity that never turned into genuine hate or permitted true fear.

"Hey, Mac," he appealed to me, "straighten yer old man out. Dis ain't my idea. Fa Chrissake, I'm here on orders, orders. Ya can't disobey orders. You seen 'em ya'self."

I took my father to the porch outside the study. "Pop, why start a fight? We'll call the police and let them handle it, OK?"

He agreed reluctantly and went back to the house. Suddenly I remembered my class at UCLA. I re-entered the spare room to look for my keys. Esposito studied me narrowly. "Lookin' for somethin', soljer?"

"Car keys."

He patted the pocket of his jacket. "Right here, Mac."

"Give them to me."

He took the keys out and jangled them tantalizingly. "Foist ya gotta ask for a trip ticket."

"Good God, this is lunacy. Give me those keys, Esposito."

"Oh, yeah?" he asked. His eyes were slits. "Who's aut'orizin' dis trip, anyway?"

"Captain Dugan of battalion public relations," I said glibly. "In the line of duty."

"Whyna hell dincha say so at foist?" He began to scrawl on the yellow pad. "Boy, you guys who go around keepin' secrets from da dispatcher. Jeez." He then ripped the carbon copy and thrust it at me, with the keys. As I reached for them, he wickedly pulled his hand back. "Keep da ticket inna glove compartment and toin it in with the keys when ya get back."

I sat through my morning classes, hearing nothing, and got home before noon. My father had not gone to work. He was impatiently awaiting a call from Washington. He filled me in on what had happened. The local police had refused to throw Esposito out, after looking at his mimeographed orders. A call to the Ninth Service Command at Fort Douglas was even less helpful. They said the incident would have to be explained by the War Department in Washington.

"I asked them what the hell M. A. C. E. was, but they didn't know." He frowned. "I'll get to the bottom of this."

"Pop, I hate to tell you this, but I think that guy is real. He's a dispatcher and he's been assigned here."

The phone rang and I listened on the kitchen extension.

"Department of Defense?" asked my father.

A woman's nasal voice responded. "Who is calling?"

"This is Francis James Dugan of West Los Angeles, California. There's a goddamn soldier assigned to my house. I want him thrown out, but nobody'll take the responsibility. Let me talk to an outfit called M. A. C. E."

"I'm sorry, but no calls are permitted to that branch."

"The hell you say. I'm a taxpayer and a member of the American Legion. There's something in the Constitution about billeting soldiers in private homes."

"You will be reimbursed for the man's subsistence."

"I don't want to be. I want him out. And what does M. A. C. E. stand for?"

"I am sorry, I cannot help you, Mr. Dugan."

"Goddamn it, you'll hear from me again! Or my Congressman!"

But my father never carried out his threat. He worked long hours at the studio. My mother, a timid, retiring woman, had no stomach for conflict. As for myself, I was now convinced that Esposito was legally, actually and indisputably our dispatcher.

At first he was persistent in his efforts to make us accept his yellow trip tickets. He demanded the keys. When we refused, he removed the rotors from the engines (an old dispatcher's ruse). When we ourselves kept keys and rotors, he locked the steering wheels. He was frantic about his mission. Soon all three of us began to accommodate him, accepting his yellow chits and returning the keys.

So he lingered, taking his meals in the spare room (he dutifully gave my mother six dollars a day), reading comic books, presumably happy in his work. But he became lax. The keys were left in the cars; he did not demand trip tickets. I confronted him one day. He was sacked out on the day bed.

"Goofing off, Sal?"

"What's it to you?"

"As one enlisted man to another, Salvatore, I'd say you are gold-bricking. Isn't anyone checking up on you?"

He looked around warily. "S'posed to be an officer come around. But he ain't showed yet. You don't rat on me, I'll let yez drive a car all ya want."

"You got a deal, Sal." He could be managed.

The Sunday after his arrival, I drove out to the valley community of Sandoval to watch an old Army friend, Eddie Chavez, play sand-lot baseball. My parents had gone to La Jolla for the weekend. Esposito had been absent since noon Saturday. No doubt he had written himself a 36-hour pass.

I arrived at Sandoval just as the game was about to begin, found a seat in the rickety grandstand--there could not have been more than 200 people present--and waved to Eddie Chavez. He was at home plate discussing ground rules with the umpire and the captain of the visiting team, the Lock City Lions.

As Eddie was about to lead the Sandoval Giants into the field, three men in Army suntans appeared, walking from the third-base line to home plate. From my seat in back of third base, I could see their rank clearly: a captain bearing a manila envelope and two sweating sergeants, each porting huge barracks bags.

"Just a minute!" the captain called.

"There'll be a change in procedure today!" The umpire, Eddie and the Lock City captain stared at him. The captain extracted a sheet of mimeo paper from his envelope and gave it to the umpire.

A crowd of ballplayers gathered around and I heard expressions such as "What the hell?" "Who's this guy?" "Where do they git off?"

The captain addressed the crowd with a bullhorn. "By order of the Defense Department, I am authorized to supervise this game. The first event will be a three-legged relay. Teams line up at home plate."

I jumped from my seat and raced to home plate. The argument was raging.

"Hey, Frank!" Eddie called. "This guy says he has the right to run the game today! You was a battalion clerk. Look at his papers."

I did. Again I saw the reference to M. A. C. E. and the formal language. The captain's name was Pulsifer. It seemed an appropriate name for a physical-training officer.

"All right, all right, we haven't got all day. Get those enlisted men lined up," Captain Pulsifer cried. "Sergeant, tie their legs together."

The ballplayers lined up in a column of twos. The sergeants bustled among them, joining them, left leg of one to right leg of another, for the three-legged race.

"I'm sure we'll all enjoy this!" Captain Pulsifer shouted.

He blew his whistle--a bronze whistle on a plaited red-and-yellow lanyard, a whistle only a P. T. officer would carry--and the three-legged race began. It was a dry, hot day, and the stumbling, cursing players kicked up great clouds of dust as they hopped off to the centerfield flagpole.

"Faster, faster!" shouted Captain Pulsifer. "The winning team gets to bat last!"

"They do not!" I cried, trotting alongside the captain. "The home team bats last! You can't just change the rules like that!"

"Who says I can't?" he asked icily. "The Army can do anything it wants."

I could think of no response to this, but it hardly mattered, because the players refused to go on with the mad game. The crowd was booing, hissing. Pop bottles were thrown. But the captain was not through yet. Somehow--with threats, promises, frequent wavings of his orders, he got the teams to play short contests of underleg basketball relay, swat-the-baron and club-snatch. However, the games lasted only a few moments before the players stopped and began to yell again. How often I had played these same lunatic games during basic training!

"Play ball, goddamn it!" the umpire shouted. "Chavez, git yer team in the field. Lock City at bat! And you, you jerk, git lost!"

Captain Pulsifer walked off the field. But as the Lock City lead-off man stepped to the plate, the officer ordered one of his sergeants to bring a duffel bag forward. From it the captain took an olive-drab contraption--a gas mask.

"By order of the authority invested in me by the Defense Department, this game can proceed only under these conditions--batter, pitcher, catcher and umpire are to wear gas masks at all times." He then attempted to affix the mask to the batter's head. The lead-off man recoiled, the captain came after him and then the ballplayer swung his bat at the officer. The sergeants leaped to help their superior--the blow had missed by a hair--and the fans swarmed onto the field.

Eddie Chavez, the umpire and I tried to calm people down. For a moment it looked as if the crowd was ready to pull the P. T. O. and his men to pieces. As it was, they merely gave them a bum's rush across the diamond and dumped them into a weapons carrier that had been parked near the left-field foul line.

"You personnel haven't heard the last of this!" I heard Captain Pulsifer mutter through bruised lips. And they drove off. The game resumed. Most of the people around me seemed to think that the whole think was a dumb practical joke.

I went home feeling dizzy from too much sun and queasy with uncertainties. That night I had a terrifying dream (one that has been recurring since I took my new job) and I woke up shivering. In this dream, I am back in Service and I am a permanent latrine orderly. I protest that I have had two years of college and have been a model soldier, but I am nonetheless kept on latrine duty because I am a "troublemaker." The latrine occupies all five stories of a tall building, an endless vitreous enamel nightmare, never ending urinals, toilet bowls, sinks, a latrine so huge that it spills out into the street, crosses a road and deposits its gleaming receptacles in private homes, stores, factories. It generates and reproduces itself. It is dotted with signs reading: Blokes with short horns stand close, the next man may have holes in his shoes; or, flies spread disease, keep yours buttoned; or, we aim to please, you aim, too, please; or, please do not throw cigar butts in the urinal, it makes them soggy and hard to light.

I did not feel well enough to attend classes on Monday. Lingering over my coffee, I tried to piece together Salvatore Esposito, the baseball game and the mysterious initials M. A. C. E.

My mother came in from the living room--I had heard the vacuum humming--and began to mop the kitchen floor.

"Where's Serena?" I asked. It was Monday, and Serena Hastings, a Negro (continued on page 76) Dispatcher (continued from page 64) lady from Watts, came every Monday to give the house a cleaning.

"She called to say she can't get here," my mother replied. "If it were anyone but Serena, I'd say they'd made the story up. Something about soldiers stopping her bus and making everyone get off."

"What?"

My mother continued mopping. Nothing ever rattled her. Her mind always seemed to be elsewhere, probably in Des Moines, where she was born and raised and where all of her family still lived.

"It sounded so silly, I really didn't pay attention, and at first I thought it was as if Serena had got drunk, or a little disturbed. But knowing Serena..."

"What, exactly, did she say, Mother?"

My mother paused and rested on her mop. "Well, she was on the Central Avenue bus, and it was filled, mostly with day workers like herself, and in downtown L. A. it was stopped by a soldier. He was armed and Serena knew he was an MP, because her brother was once an MP, and an officer got on and announced that the bus was being taken over for the day. He apologized and everything, but everyone had to get off."

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing. A bunch of officers got on and the bus drove off in a different direction. They put a sign or something on it--officers' club or something like that. Serena gave up and took a taxi home. You know how infrequently buses run. I can't blame the poor girl."

"But didn't anyone protest?"

"I didn't ask. Frank, could you please take these bottles into the garage?"

As I went on this errand, I began to feel faint. I decided to visit Dr. Cyril Mandelbaum, our family physician. I had not been to Dr. Mandelbaum's since my discharge. His pink-stucco house on a patched green plot off Pico Boulevard looked no better than before the War. An elderly nurse let me in and I settled into a sagging chair with a copy of the Los Angeles Times. There were five other people in the waiting room--a white-haired woman with a boy of about eight, a young Negro couple and a husky young man in denim work clothes.

"Dr. Mandelbaum has been delayed at the hospital," the nurse told us, "but I expect him any minute."

I paged through the Times, my vision blurred, my head throbbing. On the sports page, a small item drew my attention.

Fun and games at Sandoval

A special program of unusual athletic contests highlighted yesterday's Inland League baseball game in which the Sandoval Giants defeated the Lock City Lions, 4--3.

Members of both squads volunteered for the amusing games, which included a three-legged race, underleg basketball relay and swat-the-baron. Sandoval was declared winner of the special pregame competition by Capta n A. M. Pulsifer, United States Army, who supervised the program.

"This is the first of several such fitness programs," said Captain Pulsifer, "and we're delighted with the public acceptance. Fans and players both had a wonderful time."

I must have looked like an idiot to the other patients, shaking my head and muttering. "No, no," I mumbled, "it wasn't that way at all." How had this fiction gotten into print? Why hadn't they reported the near riot I had seen?

The newspaper slipped from my lap and I covered my eyes.

In a minute or so, the office doors opened and out stepped not Dr. Cyril Mandelbaum but two men in Army uniforms. One was a dapper first lieutenant with a yellow mustache and the caduceus on his starched collar. The other, a fat, ruddy man, was a master sergeant. Dr. Mandelbaum's perplexed nurse was trailing them.

"But can't you wait until Dr. Mandelbaum gets here?" she asked. "This must be a mistake."

"Prepare the infirmary for sick call," the officer snapped.

"But Dr. Mandelbaum should----"

"No time. I'm under orders to take this installation over until further notice. Don't stand there, nurse." He barked at the sergeant. "Figler, tell the enlisted men to line up."

"Do they all have appointments with Dr. Mandelbaum?" she asked.

He waved a mimeographed sheet at her. "Government orders!"

I got up from my seat. "You're from M. A. C. E., aren't you?" I asked weakly.

"What business is that of yours?"

"I know a little bit about them. I was curious."

His yellow mustache quivered. "Figler, get that man's name, rank and serial number."

"Sir, I'm not sure he's in Service." Figler seemed a little confused. I guessed that these new assignments were so strange that even the personnel ordered to carry them out were puzzled, from time to time. "And the infirmary's ready anyway, sir. May we start sick call?"

"Very well. Tell them to line up outside. We'll do this as fast as possible."

The lieutenant then marched into Dr. Mandelbaum's office and sat at his desk. Figler followed him in, but emerged immediately, brushing by the astounded nurse. He carried a large glass beaker containing a half-dozen thermometers. Dumbly we lined up at the office door--the woman and the boy, the two Negroes, the man in work clothes and myself. With a speed and deftness that recalled to me every sick call I had ever attended, Figler flew down the line and jammed thermometers into our mouths. He had one left over, so he put two in my mouth. No sooner were they in than he raced back to the head of the line and yanked them out. Obviously, it had been impossible for a reading to register in so short a time, but that did not bother him. In any case, he barely glanced at the thermometers, putting them back into the beaker, which he gave to the nurse.

"Sir!" Figler called to the officer. "Every one of these people is fit for duty. Not a sick one in the lot. We've had trouble with this outfit before."

The rugged man in denims looked appealingly to me. "What'n hell is this? Who are these jokers?"

"I'm not sure. But they're not joking."

The medical officer barely heard Figler. He was ripping pages from Dr. Mandelbaum's calendar, juggling paper clips, furiously dialing numbers and then hanging up. "Damn it, don't stand there all day! Come in! Wipe your feet before you do!"

Figler ushered the old woman and the boy to the desk. They stood there frightened. The lieutenant barked: "Well?"

"I ain't the patient," she said. "It's my grandson, Rollie. He gets dizzy and vomits."

The officer shook his head and gave her a small pillbox. "Take two of these every four hours and drink plenty of liquids! Next!"

"But I ain't sick," the woman pleaded. "It's Rollie."

"We are under no obligation to treat children of enlisted personnel. This is not an overseas installation."

"It isn't any kind of installation!" I shouted.

"Pipe down, soljer," Sergeant Figler said. "The lootenant's had about enough of you. We know your type. You wanna come on sick call, you keep yer mouth shut."

"This isn't sick call!" I protested.

"That's right," said the husky man. "Where's Doc Mandelbaum?"

"Yeah, wheah the real doctah?" the young Negro man asked.

"What's your outfit, soljer?" Figler asked the Negro. "Labor battalion? One of them troublemakers?"

"Labah battalion?" He grabbed his wife's arm. "Let's git outa heah. I din't come for no sick call." They left quickly. The white-haired woman and the little boy followed them out.

"This is terrible!" the nurse wailed. "You're driving away all of Dr. Mandelbaum's patients!" (continued on page 170) Dispatcher (continued from page 76)

"How do you think I feel?" the medical officer shouted. "I gave up a forty-thousand-dollar-a-year practice in Newark for this crap! Next!"

The big man in denim walked to the desk. He was rubbing his fists.

"What's your problem?" the officer asked.

"None of ya friggin' business," the man said. "I done doody already. Five years combat engineers. Where's Mandelbaum? What'd you jerks do wit' him?"

Figler moved toward him. "Watch yer language, soljer."

"You call me soljer oncet more, yer ass'll be suckin' wind."

"I'll handle this, Figler." The medical officer got up. His mustache bristled.

"All right, you, what's your outfit?"

"I ain't tellin' you nothin'. Pill roller."

"You'll regret this," the officer said. He was trembling.

"Chancre mechanic."

"Figler----"

"Clap surgeon. Go run a pro station."

Seething, the officer began dialing, "I'll throw the book at you!" he yelled. "You'll be up for a general court-martial!

Hello, hello--get me the military police!"

The rugged man yanked the phone from his hand and shoved the officer roughly. Sergeant Figler hurled himself at the man's back. Then the rear door of the office opened and Dr. Mandelbaum walked in. At that time, the doctor was in his 60s, but he was still as strong and as fit as when he was on the USC wrestling team.

"What the hell is this?" Dr. Mandelbaum shouted. His weeping nurse tried to explain.

The lieutenant retreated to a corner of the room. The big man, seeing Dr. Mandelbaum, stopped his lunge at the officer.

"Now, then, Mandelbaum," the medical officer snapped, "we've a file on you. This mission will help all of us, including you, yourself. We are here in the national interest. That man threatened me and I'm having him brought up on charges of insubordination!" He was slightly hysterical. He was not carrying out his assignment as well as my dispatcher had.

"What are you talking about?" Dr. Mandelbaum yelled. "Who are you to bust into my office and abuse my patients? That's Al Zawatzkis. He's been my patient for years. I delivered him. He's never welshed on a bill in his life."

"Then you are prejudiced in his favor," the officer said. "I'll see to it that you don't testify at his court-martial!"

He began dialing again. "I want the military police, and if you can't get them, I'll talk to the Defense Department, office called M. A. C. E.----"

Dr. Mandelbaum grabbed him by his shoulder straps and shook him as if he were a rag doll. The lieutenant screamed for help. Figler tried to pry Doc Mandelbaum loose, but big Zawatzkis thundered at him. It was no contest. He plucked Sergeant Figler from Doc and threw him against a filing cabinet. While Figler lay there stunned, Zawatzkis tried to untangle the two physicians. I have to give credit to the Army officer; he was tenacious and brave. He clung to Mandelbaum, wheezing and hissing and protesting that we were all traitors, but he was no match for Zawatzkis. The medical officer sprawled on the X-ray table, then got a second wind and came at Zawatzkis, who smashed a jug of green soap over his head.

The lieutenant hit the floor. The jug broke clean. The medic wasn't cut, merely bruised and coated with the viscous fluid. "Get him out," Doc Mandelbaum said. I gave Zawatzkis a hand. We picked up the semiconscious officer and carted him out.

"He slipped!" I said loudly. "I saw it! He slipped on the floor!"

Dr. Mandelbaum helped Sergeant Figler to his feet and escorted him to the front door. "Be a nice boy, not a schlemiel," he was saying to him. "What is all this nonsense? Go get a job instead of being a bum in the Army all your life." The three of us--Doc, Zawatzkis and myself--stood on the sidewalk as Figler, crying softly, drove off in the jeep with his superior. Then we went into the office, where Doc took care of us in his usual considerate manner.

That evening at the dinner table, I kept my thoughts to myself. Esposito dropped down to pick up his dinner, greeted us sullenly and retreated to his sanctuary. We rarely saw him anymore. He had long stopped bothering us for car keys or trip tickets.

"I wish that tramp would go," my father said. It was exactly one week that Salvatore had been with us. "And I wish I knew why he's here."

"He doesn't bother anyone," my mother said. "And he is never behind with the six dollars a day."

"Who needs it?" my father grumbled.

"He keeps the room clean," my mother said defensively. "His personal appearance isn't much, but the bed is always made."

"Bed," my father said. "Did you tell Frank what happened at the hotel in La Jolla yesterday?"

"You mean the tennis match?"

"No, no. That business with the beds. You know, what we saw when we were going down to the pool."

"What happened?" I asked.

My father stirred his coffee. "It was either a practical joke or else they were rehearsing for a movie or something. Maybe a publicity gimmick for a movie. That old hotel has been used a lot for locations."

"Francis, you asked the manager that and he said no."

"Yeah. But if it wasn't a movie stunt, what was it?"

My father shook his head.

"But what, exactly, happened?" I asked.

"Your mother and I were on our way down to the pool, when we passed this room with the door open. There was a lot of yelling going on and I peeked in. There were five people in the room--a young couple, a chambermaid and this Army officer and a sergeant. One with all those stripes up and down."

"First sergeant," I said. My hands were sweaty; a stone was growing in my stomach.

"This captain kept yelling that he was gigging--whatever that is--gigging the two guests because the beds weren't made with hospital corners."

"It was very strange," my mother said. "Like a silly motion picture, as Daddy says."

"This sergeant tried bouncing a dime off the bedspread a few times, but it wouldn't bounce, and this got the captain sore. He also had white gloves on and I saw him run his finger through the closet shelves."

"Didn't the guests object?" I asked.

"They were scared," said my father. "I think they were honeymooners and figured somebody was kidding them. The guy kept saying the chambermaid had made the bed and the officer kept shouting, 'We want results, not excuses, in this man's Army!' Probably be a funny story in the papers about it."

I wondered, would it be a funny story like the lying account of the baseball game at Sandoval? How would they handle inspection? As a cheerful course in modern hotelkeeping?

The last incident in this sequence of events--that is, the last up to my current listing on a Table of Organization as a first lieutenant--took place the next day.

Unhearing, I sat through morning classes and decided to spend the afternoon in the library. In the interests of economy, I had been driving home for lunch (we live a few minutes from the Westwood campus), but on this day I went to the school cafeteria. I arrived a moment after it had reopened for lunch and was greeted by an odd tableau.

The five colored ladies who manned the counter were clearly upset. They were huddled away from the steaming food vats. The manager, a Mr. Sammartino, as I recall, was in front of the counter, gesticulating and appealing to----Need I go on?

Looming behind the great aluminum bins of tuna-fish timbale, chicken and noodles, breaded veal cutlet and eggplant parmesan was one of the fattest men I have ever seen. He wore a filthy, sweat-stained fatigue suit with sergeant's stripes stenciled on the sleeves. On his head was a green fatigue cap, the brim upturned and stenciled with the name Texas. He brandished two enormous tools--a devil's fork and an ogre's ladle--and he sweat gallons into the food. A nauseating and disgusting figure, he was incontestably a mess sergeant. I needed no mimeographed orders to tell me so.

"Come and git it, fo' I throw it to the pigs!" he bellowed. "Yeah, hot today, hot today!"

He had an underling, a short, hairy man in dirty fatigues, who bustled through the kitchen doors, lugging a steaming pot of some appalling pink stew.

"Lady wit' a baby!" yelled the small man. "Hot stuff comin' through!"

"That's mah boy!" the mess sergeant beamed. "Li'l ole Hemsley. Hemsley a good ole boy. Look lak Hemsley brewed himself a mess of good ole S.O.S.! Shit on a shingle! Wahoo! Give us a ole rebel yell, Hemsley."

Hemsley obliged. The air shivered with the sound. The Negro ladies retreated even farther back. One, a bespectacled woman of great dignity, appealed to Mr. Sammartino.

"If this a fraternity prank, Mr. S.," she said, "it gone far enough. The girls is fed up."

The manager paced feverishly. "But they said they had orders! They gave me this!" Mr. Sammartino waved a mimeographed sheet of paper. By now a queue of hungry students had formed in back of me. Most of them were amused by the insanity behind the steam table, assuming, as did the woman, that it was some form of undergraduate humor.

The mess sergeant stirred his pink S.O.S., stabbed at a gray sparerib, sniffed the okra soup. "Ole Hemsley. He a good ole boy. Hemsley, y'all got some grits back there, so's we can show the Yankees how rebels eat?"

"I wouldn't be for knowin', but I'll look."

"Well, be for lookin'."

Hemsley vanished into the kitchen, clanging empty pots. I took a clean tray and started down the line, as if drawn to some rendezvous with fate. The colored girls shrank away. The huge sergeant seemed to fill up all the space behind the counter.

He eyed me with contempt. "Y'all got an early chow pass?"

"Y-yes," I stammered. "Company and company headquarters. What's for chow, Sarge?"

A grin widened his pulpy face. He was in control. He had me. "Fly shit 'n' brown pepper."

"That's OK," I said hoarsely. "So long as it ain't the same as what we had yesterday."

Chuckling, he began to load up my tray. A glop of mashed potatoes landed in the middle. Two slices of bread hit next and were promptly buried beneath the horrid S.O.S. A brownish mixture of vegetables was hurled, spattering the empty spaces of the tray. Several wilted leaves of lettuce were inserted in the brown ooze; a rubbery veal cutlet came to rest in the S.O.S. There remained but two square inches of inviolate mashed potatoes. The sergeant grinned at the tray. "Looks like we kinda missed a spot, right, buddy boy?" I said nothing. I knew what was coming. He ladled out a yellow cling peach, swimming in syrup like the inside of a roc's egg. Leaning over the counter, he deftly set the peach half in the midst of the potatoes, drowning everything else in the sweet juice.

"Now you all set," he beamed.

The blood roared to my skull. I breathed deeply, glanced at the wailing manager and lifted the tray high, as if sacrificing it to a god unknown. Then I hurled it at the fat sergeant. He took the blow--stunned, soaked, steaming--a great abstract work of food. I fled to cheers and laughter.

Upon returning home, I went to the spare room. Corporal Salvatore Esposito was sacked out, reading Famous Funnies.

"Get going, Salvatore," I said. "I am throwing you out."

"I don't go unless ya got orders for me."

"No, no, you must leave. And you tell your superiors you were thrown out, that we didn't want you and shouldn't have let you stay. The only reason you stayed so long was because of a delay in policy."

He sat up in bed. "I ain't goin' and you know it."

I walked to my father's golf bag and pulled out the driver. "Pack, soldier. I could handle you without this, but I want to make sure you leave in a hurry." I whipped the air a few times.

He struggled out of bed, a stumpy troll in droopy khaki drawers and socks. "Jeez. Din't think you was dat kind of guy." He dressed hastily, slung the bag over his shoulder and asked if he could make a telephone call. I permitted him to. He dialed swiftly, identified himself and asked that a jeep meet him at the corner, on Olympic Boulevard. I gave him his trip tickets, the carbon papers and the pencil, which he had carelessly left on the table. I wanted all traces of him obliterated. We walked to the street corner. Salvatore squatted on his sack.

"Who sent you here, Salvatore?" I asked.

"I dunno. I git assigned, I go."

"What is M. A. C. E.?"

"I dunno. All I know is someone's gonna get chewed out for throwin' me out." He glowered at me, but it was a meaningless glower, one for the record. "It'll be your ass, Dugan, not mine."

An open jeep, driven by a young second lieutenant, pulled up to us. "Spasita?" he asked.

"Dat's me." Salvatore didn't salute. He tossed his bag in the rear of the jeep and climbed in.

"Orders come through, Spasita. You transferred."

"They did not!" I shouted. "He was not transferred! I threw him out! Why was he sent to me, anyway? I never wanted him!"

The shavetail studied me innocently. "Beats me, mistah. We git orders and folla them."

"All set, Spasita?" He gunned the engine.

"Just a minute," I said. "I demand an explanation. What does M. A. C. E. mean?"

"Never heard of it." And the jeep drove off.

"Remember what I said, Salvatore!" I shouted after them. "I threw you out! You tell them!"

Did I imagine it? Or did my dark dispatcher turn and answer my hysterical request with a nod of his head, a wink?

• • •

Today I sit in my air-conditioned office and think about my new job. Who decided I was first lieutenant? I have discharge papers at home showing that I was released from military service "for the convenience of the Government" some years ago. When was I commissioned? By whose authority?

I stopped Carter at the water cooler late this afternoon. My arm did not rise in salute, but he gauged the confusion on my face.

"I saw the T/O," I said. "Am I to call you Mr. or Colonel?"

"It doesn't matter, Dugan," he said pleasantly. "One way or the other. We don't stand on ceremony in this outfit."

"But what are we?"

He smiled. "Little bit of everything, you might say. You'll get used to it."

We walked down the corridor together. I glanced at his shoes--highly polished mahogany-brown officer's pumps with a strap instead of laces. They say to me: PX.

"Colonel, did you ever hear of an outfit called M. A. C. E.? Just after the War?"

"M. A. C. E.? Yes, I remember it. It was obsoleted a long time ago. We tried it out briefly. A pilot project, a really primitive one. We were just sort of fiddling around in those days."

"What did the letters stand for?"

"Military and Civilian Enterprises. Nothing mysterious about it."

"It was abandoned?"

"Naturally. We've got more sophisticated systems today. Data programing, circuitry. The whole operation is computerized. I must say, somebody in Washington is doing a marvelous job. M. A. C. E.! My goodness, I haven't thought about that old one-horse operation in years!"

He entered his office. I could hear people snapping to attention inside.

My nylon shirt is drenched; my knees are water. How did it happen? How in heaven's name did I get here? I curse Corporal Salvatore Esposito, my late dispatcher. He never told them that I threw him out. I am certain of that.