Chapter 10: Are you a playboy or just plain lazy?”
“Laurel, how are you? Remember the soldier who rode home with you on the bus?” he asked with a southwestern drawl. “Of course I remember you, JB! How could I forget you? It isn’t every day that I sit on a soldier’s lap on the bus.”
“Are you saying that you sit on soldiers’ laps in places other than on buses?” he asked jokingly.
“All the time,” I laughed. “What’s in the bag….having a party back at camp?”
“Just two quarts of beer to keep me company tonight. Look Laurel, I’m sorry I didn’t call as I promised….I think your phone number got lost in the laundry. I promised to take you to dinner for sharing your seat with me, so.…how about joining me at the diner? I hate to eat alone.”
And so, we had dinner at the diner. We ate, drank coffee and talked for three hours. That evening I learned a lot about J. B. Bruce. His hobby had been racing motorcycles, until the year he had a serious accident at Daytona Beach. Casually, he told me he had a metal plate in his head to keep his brains from falling out. That seemed to be a serious physical disability and I wondered how he ever got into the army, when the military was rejecting men for such minor things as wearing glasses.
His family had oil wells in West Texas, but he lived in Dallas. He had a degree in geology and sometimes worked in the oil fields, but still couldn’t resist the temptation to follow the motorcycle racing circuit around the country.
“Are you a playboy or just plain lazy?” I asked.
He grinned. “A little of both…”
We left the diner and he walked me home, carrying with him the two quarts of beer.
“I hope you don’t expect me to drink beer with you….I hate the taste.”
“Tastes good to me,” he grinned. “I won’t feel bad if you don’t drink.”
In about an hour, he had finished the two quarts of beer and left to catch the truck back to camp. As he was leaving, I watched him walk down the street. I thought, “He should be staggering,” but he walked straight in a military stride, leading me to believe he had been drinking beer for a very long time. I hoped he wasn’t an alcoholic.
My mother joined me out on the porch. She seemed interested in the “new” soldier.
“He’s just a friend. I met him on the bus a couple of weeks ago.”
“Why don’t you invite him over for dinner some evening?” She suggested.
I had absolutely no intent of making this friendship a family affair.
more tomorrow… one of our favorite bands was playing at the pier
