Chapter 2
CHUCK HUZAK, QUARTERMASTER SECOND, USN, had a stool next to the television set in O'Leary's. His favorite program, the commercial showing Miss Rheingold At The Beach, was on. Miss Rheingold, an impossibly happy young girl, was romping along the sands with a young man. Suddenly, the young man reached for her. She broke and ran off, with the young man in hot pursuit, his desire obvious.
He was going to rape Miss Rheingold, by God!! !
The scene quickly changed to more innocuous seaside frivolity and ended with Miss Rheingold, still irrepressibly happy, leading the other actors in song over a beach fire, obviously still a virgin. When the camera switched back to the latest losing effort of the Mets, Chuck turned his cynical face back to his beer.
Somehow the girl in the commercials kept reminding him of Kathy, the girl he'd loved when he was going to college. They both had the same youthful vitality, the same joy in being alive and young and female.
Seven years! It was hard to believe that it was so long since he'd first met Kathy. September, 'fifty five and he was twenty-two, the same age as Eddie, the kid he was supposed to meet. Recently he'd been harking back to those years frequently.
God, but he'd been excited at the idea of going to college that freshman year! Nothing to do but go to a few classes each day and pick up that long, green government check for a hundred and ten every month. Not much, but it paid your eating bills and left you enough for a couple of beer drunks every month.
What the hell else do you need?
Women? That was the best part of the deal. You didn't need to be holding heavy to operate, not if you had a good line; and that was what Chuck had always had, a good line. Those two years at Davis had been the best, the happiest of his life.
Hell, he'd even gotten a little bit of education.
He could still remember the first time he'd seen Kathy. It was in his first class in sociology and he was sitting in the back row with a few of the other vets, scuttle-butting, when Kathy walked in. All the talking died away like a movie when the sound projector stops.
Not quite eighteen, she had a gorgeous body: tall, long-legged and curved like an artist's dream. Soft, blonde hair underneath the silly little beany they made the freshman wear, unless they were vets, framed a heart-shaped face with laughing eyes and smiling lips. Fine, firm breasts that pressed against her white blouse, making the fabric tug out from where it was tucked in at her narrow waist. Wide woman's hips and buttocks filling every cubic inch of her blue bermudas.
More than her physical appearance, superb as it was, her personality captured your attention. Just by walking into the class-room she changed the whole atmosphere, brightening it until it wasn't merely a ramshackle room in the temporary Quonset huts of a still-being-built jerkwater college, but an arena dedicated to Youth and Beauty with capital letters.
Smiling, she looked around the room and her light blue eyes caught his for a second, making him catch his breath. When she sat down two seats in front of him, he knew that he had to have that girl.
The professor must have said something during that hour, but you couldn't prove it by Chuck. All he could remember was the back of her head and the soft line of her shoulders. Although he never cut a class in the course, he'd have flunked it if he hadn't put in an extra three hours of study every week. He couldn't even remember the professor's name or what he looked like.
A healthy girl, Kathy naturally appreciated all this male attention. But Chuck could see that she was more amused than excited by all the jockeying for position that went on around her. Deciding to play it cool, Chuck kept his attentions to her on an intellectual plane, talking to her of school matters when he could find her alone.
Kathy had a good mind and, rarity of rarities, had gone to college primarily to get an education. She appreciated having somebody talk to her as if she was something beside a walking pin-up. When he mentioned that he was having trouble in sociology, she volunteered to help him out.
Oh, those maddening, frustrating, wonderful nights in his apartment, studying with Kathy!
Kathy was charming, Kathy was friendly, Kathy was intelligent, Kathy was there, every beautiful inch of her, right within his arm's reach, but-
Kathy was not putting out.
Oh, they would neck a little occasionally. But as soon as he evidenced more urgent desires she would break it off, smile apologetically and go back to her dormitory. The funny part of it was that he didn't really resent that. It wasn't that she was a tease, it was just that she didn't seem to know how she affected him. Besides she'd leveled with him from the start, didn't lead him on to expect more than he was getting.
Which still didn't make him any the happier.
Chuck figured that after being exposed to the more worldly atmosphere of college her small-town moral code would be forgotten. But it didn't seem to work that way. When things got too rough he would date a more pliant, if less attractive, girl than Kathy. But he always ended up going back to her.
His first year at school went that way. However when he returned after the summer vacation he determined to make good making Kathy. Of course he wasn't the only one with this desire. Almost every male, along with the small contingent of lesbians at Davis, had the same high hopes.
By this time the held had narrowed down to only two contenders, Chuck and a hulking but good-looking football player. Most of the same admirers of Kathy were frightened off by the huge young man who enjoyed a well-earned reputation for being very rough both on and off the held. But Chuck was too far-gone to give a damn, made himself the third member of a very dangerous triangle.
They alternated dating Kathy for several weeks. In spite of the foot ban players hints and threats, Chuck began feeling that he was getting some place with her. Any woman, no matter how civilized she is, gets a kick out of knowing that two men are ready to tight for her. Finally the athlete grew impatient and did a very foolish thing. He beat the hell out of Chuck. It happened in an alley in back of the bar where the students hung out. Both of them were pretty well loaded so no permanent damage was done to Chuck, although both his eyes were swollen shut by the time the on-lookers pulled his opponent off him.
When Kathy found out she dropped the football player flat, having too much pride in herself to be nothing but a trophy for the man with the strongest right hand. Besides the big lout was starting to bore her with interminable accounts of his muscular exploits. It was also growing harder to resist Chuck's growing demands. Gradually, she became aware that her body had made a decision and soon, soon, she would have to give herself to Chuck.
Somewhat disgruntled, the football played tried to waylay him again. But Chuck had taken to carrying his old switch-blade knife, a souvenir of his juvenile delinquent days on Chicago's South Side. By slashing the shiny blade just inches short from the groin, he'd shown the other that (a) he knew how to use a knife and, (b) he was ready to use it if he had to.
Chuck was let alone after that.
The first snow of the year had blanketed the area the night it finally happened. The cold November wind whistled and made the windows shake in Chuck's apartment. He and Kathy were alone, the other vet who shared the rent with him having discreetly decided to nurse some beers in town that night.
They had been making desultory attempts at studying after eating supper but they finally gave up on the books and put them away. Without any words being spoken, Chuck knew that she was going to give in to him before the night was over. Heart beating like someone going into a brothel for the first time, he brought out the half gallon of cheap wine they'd bought the week before and put it on the table in front of the couch.
"Chuck, I don't have to go back to the dorm tonight," she said, turning the tumbler-full of wine slowly in her hands.
"How come, Kathy? I thought they were pretty strict on all-nighters," he answered, excitement welling up in him. Tonight, tonight, it was going to be tonight!
"I told them I was going to spend the night over at Professor Strang's house, baby-sitting with his kids. Strang said he'd tell them I was over there if they checked."
"I I wish you'd told me, I would have warned Joe to stay out in some hotel tonight," he said, awkwardly. Damn it, that wasn't the way he wanted to talk to her, not now! Her large, thoughtful eyes were watching him, waiting for him to say something, but all he could do was take a nervous gulp of his wine. With a shock, he saw that his hands were trembling violently. Damn it!
"Maybe we'd better forget it, Chuck."
"No, no, don't say that! It's just that I'm well, we've been going together so long, I'm a little nervous. I've . . . I've never been in love like this. You're different than any of the girls I've known before."
"I'm sorry I made you wait so long. But I had to make sure that you were the right one."
"Oh, God, Kathy," he said, letting his glass fall unheeded to the floor and bringing her strong, healthy body to him as he kissed her firm, sweet lips and breathed in the fragrance of her fine, blonde hair. Leaning her back against the arm-rest, he slid his hand underneath her blouse and fondled her magnificent, bra-covered breasts.
"Wait, wait, let me help you," she whispered excitedly, pulling the blouse over her head and unsnapping the bra. The two half-melons of rose-tipped milk-white flesh formed perfect spheres except at the nipples where they hooked up and out.
"Oh, Kathy, Kathy, they're beautiful, so beautiful!"
"Take them, Chuck, take them," she said, cupping them in her hands and letting her eyes half close.
Hands holding her smooth-fleshed back, he kissed each ruby tip in turn, first lightly then longer and harder, caressing the soft buds with his tongue until they grew hard and stiff while she writhed against the couch.
"Oh, Chuck, Chuck, it's wonderful! I shouldn't have kept you off for so long," she breathed.
Bringing his face to hers, he kissed her lips again, stroking her pliant torso. Running his tongue between her lips, he met hers for an electric moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity and embraced her, pressing her nude upper body closer to his, trying to make her one with him.
Moving away from her, he started taking off his shirt with feverishly fumbling hands, his mind empty of all save his mounting need of her ripe, young body. He was pulling off his undershirt when she, practical as most women are at such a moment, put her hand on his arm.
"Don't you thing you'd better lock the door or something in case Joe comes back?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess we'd better. I'll leave him a note or something so he doesn't come back. I'll do it later," he said, holding her soft shoulders and pulling her toward him again.
"I think you'd better do it now," she laughed, fending him off.
"OK, OK, I'll do it," he said. "Look, why don't you wait for me in the bed-room?"
"All right, Chuck," she said, rising and pulling down the zipper of her skirt. Giving a little wriggle, she sent it slipping down over her hips where it fell to the floor in a swirl of cloth. Naked save for her pink panties and ankle-length socks, she bent to the floor with an easy, fluid motion, picked up the skirt and laid it on the coffee table.
"God, Kathy, you sure aren't making it easy for me to leave," he said, stepping closer to her.
"I just want to make sure you don't take too long."
"To hell with Joe, he won't be back until the bars shut," he said, running his hand down her supple back and letting it come to rest on her rayon-covered buttocks.
"I think we'd better not take the chance. I don't feel like having him come bursting in here when we're you know, at the wrong time."
She blushed when she said that, every last inch of visible creamy white skin turning pink. He knew then that, in spite of her easy talk, she was nervous and a little scared. Somehow, that made him even more anxious to have her in bed with him where he could comfort her and calm those virgin fears.
"All right, Kathy. I'll be back in a shake of a lamb's tail," he said, squeezing her tail at the same time.
There was a pencil and paper in the kitchen; he broke the point of the pencil twice before he was able to find a ball-point pen. With it he scribbled, "Joe, GO AWAY!!!" Underlining it three times, he put it along with five dollars he had been saving for food money into an envelope and went down the stairs to the outside door at the ground level.
The cold November wind shocked him when it hit his bare chest. But he ignored it, along with surprised stare of a bundled-up passerby, and pasted the envelope to the door. Closing it, he locked it, bolted it and jammed an umbrella stand under the doorknob, just in case. The five he had put in the envelope for Joe's hotel room meant that he would be eating beans and spaghetti until the next check came. But food was far from his mind as he climbed up the steps two at a time.
At the landing he paused long enough to slip out of his shoes and take off his khakis. He thought it might be best to leave on his shorts, just in case she suddenly developed a case of cold feet; for his desire was prominent enough to shake up any bed-shy virgin. The door to the bedroom was open and he walked to it on stiff legs, every muscle taut with aching need of her.
Still in her panties, she was standing at the side of the bed facing away from him, arms shielding her breasts and head bent down. In the weak light from the living room he could see her shoulders shaking. Walking up behind her, he put his hands on her arms and brought his mouth to her averted face.
"Kathy, Kathy, it's me. Turn around."
"Oh, Chuck, it's no good."
"Why? What's the matter," he said, feeling her tremble against him with her whole body.
"I'm chicken, Chuck. I can't go through with it."
"Sure you can. You're a little nervous, but that's natural. Everything'll be all right."
"No, I'm a dud, a phony. It was one thing to talk about it in the other room, plan for it the way I did, and even take off my clothes with you watching me. But when I saw the bed I I just seemed to freeze up inside."
"It'll be OK, don't worry," he said softly, caressing her silken-smooth skin.
"What what are you going to do?" she asked in a small voice.
"Nothing, Kathy. Nothing except wait for you to come around. You're starting to already. See, you've stopped trembling."
A wise Frenchman once made a typical French remark that went something like this: "Love is nothing except the contact between epidermis." Chuck was simply applying this bit of Gallic wisdom to the situation at hand. Take a young man and a young woman, mutually attracted to each other, place them together in such a way that their bare skin is touching, and, within a short time the expected result will occur.
Naturally Chuck didn't reason it out quite as cold-bloodedly as all that. In matters involving near-naked young ladies, he preferred letting his instinct take over. His instinct told him that Kathy's nervousness was a temporary thing, and the worse thing he could do to her would be to leave.
Not that it was possible for him to do so.
Gradually his caressing hands, soft, manly voice and tender kisses had their effect. Kathy began enjoying them, even enjoy her consciousness of Chuck's manhood as he pressed against her. It seemedlikely that she would enjoy it more if she turned around.
She did and she did.
Plastered together from knees to lips, only the fabric of the shorts and panties separated them. To remedy the situation, he hooked his thumbs into her panties and pulled them down to her knees. Grasping both buttocks, he kneaded the soft, yet springy flesh until she twisted her hips, making her belly rub against his. The nipples of her breasts were firm and hard on his chest
It was time, he thought, for the Main Event.
Lifting her up the way he was holding her, he brought her to the bed and lowered her to it. Her eyes were half closed with only a sliver of white showing beneath the lids. He sent streams of kisses running from her mouth down her neck and over and up the pointed mounds of her breasts, while she twisted in pleasure.
Then down the gently curved swelling of her nearly flat stomach, down the soft, tender thighs and up again for a fleeting instant that made her gasp and the muscles of her inner leg suddenly quiver into life. "Oh, Chuck!"
Joining her on the bed, he put his one arm under her head, turning it to him and with the other resumed his exploration of her aroused body. Putting his rambling fingers between her thighs he squeezed making her gasp.
"Oh, oh Chuck, I'm ready!"
"So am I, Baby, so am I."
Then he was up and over Kathy, a wild new Kathy he had never known, hard and hurting but both joying in the pain because of what it meant. All barriers fell before their furious need of each other and he felt himself racing to a furious, short conclusion. He tried to hold back but he couldn't; caught in a torrent of gushing sensuality, he grabbed her tightly around the torso and gave vent to his too-long postponed need.
A sick emptiness welled up in him and he thought he had failed her, failed her when she had needed him most; but he hadn't, for his body was still alive.
With renewed zeal he thrust forth ardently while she moaned and jerked her head from side to side with each movement. Legs spread wide, nails scratching and clawing at him, she met each heaving motion. Loins meshed together, joined in frenzied lust and love, locked together in ever-increasing waves of frantic desire through the whole spectrum of fleshy sensations, they welded themselves together.
Her moist, sweating skin was slippery and smooth, her inarticulate cries muted in his ears as he triumphantly drove on to full possession of her, again and again until he felt her belly throb convulsively and he was part of her, his arms straining around her chest, the salty taste of her taut neck on his tongue and her damp, blonde hair sticking to his forehead.
For a long moment they met, hearts beating wild as if they were trying to break out of their rib-cages. Then the bed stopped creaking and they lay quietly.
"Kathy, Kathy, I love you," he said, hunching himself on his elbows, her calm face framed between his arms.
"I I didn't think it would be like this. It was wonderful!"
"I knew it would be this way, I knew it from the first time I saw you."
"I was a fool, a damn fool to make you wait so long! We should have done it long ago. It's just that it seemed so wrong to me, before. It can't be wrong, though, can it? Nothing that feels so good can be wrong."
"That's right, Kathy."
"When I think how silly I acted before! Tell me, Chuck, what would you have done if I'd decided to go back to the dorm just before we got in bed?"
"I I don't know."
"Would you have made me do it? Would you have raped me?"
"I guess so, Kathy. At that stage of the game, well, I'd have had to take you."
"Good, I'm glad to hear you say that."
Later, still naked, they went into the living room and listened to some records. He couldn't keep his eyes off her gorgeous body. Filling the bath-tub half full with warm water, they got into it, she stretched out on her back over him, her breasts breaking through the brimming surface of the water like twin islands, her ankles resting on the curved white porcelain edge of the tub.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, massaging her thighs underneath the water.
"No, not now."
"That's good. You smell nice when you're wet, you know? Wet blondes have always been my weakness."
"I'll have to remember that," she laughed. Outside the black window they could hear snowflakes hitting against the pane as the wind grew stronger. "Poor Joe. What a miserable time to chase him out of his own apartment. Do you think he'll mind?"
"Who, Joe? He'll be OK, I gave him five for a hotel room. You don't have to worry about him talking to anybody about us, either. Joe knows when to keep his mouth shut."
"I don't care, let him talk if he wants to. I want the whole world to know about us."
"Well, we'd better play it cool for awhile. That Strang is the guy I don't get. How come you went to him for your alibi?"
"Well, he just seemed to be the only one in the faculty who'd do anything like that. He's a sarcastic man, but something like what we're doing appeals to his sense of humor or something because it's against the school rules."
"Maybe I'll drop in and see that guy tomorrow. The hell with him now. You know, your breasts look great from this angle."
"I've noticed that you've been eyeing them," she giggled.
"You have, have you? Well, I can't do much the way we are now, you know."
"What do you suggest?"
"Reach down and pull out the plug and we'll let out a little water. Then we'll change positions and we'll see what happens."
"Sounds like fun."
It was, although they made such big waves that the floor was flooded by the time they were through. They stayed up until three, playing Joe's phonograph and talking and making love again. Joe came in around eleven; Kathy put on one of Chuck's bathrobes and fixed them all a breakfast of ham and eggs. Then they dressed and walked the three blocks to school hand in hand, his chest swelling with pride at having such a beautiful woman.
After dropping Kathy off at her class, he walked over to Professor Strang's office. Strang was one of the mavericks who occasionally show up on even the best-regulated faculty. With his brilliant mind, caustic tongue and jeering attitude towards the entire universe, he was the most admired, most disliked and most feared professor at the college.
"Well, well, here is the young hero. Toothsome wench, wasn't she?" he asked, leaning his limber, lanky frame back in his chair and regarding Chuck with his usual mocking smile.
"I thought so," Chuck replied, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match into the ash tray on Strang's desk. "Why'd you do it?"
"You mean concocting that story for the administration? A number of reasons. One of them was that I felt I would be remiss in my duties as an educator if I had let such a succulent morsel as Kathy go through Davis with her virginity intact. Experience, in spite of what those learned fools, my colleagues, say, is still an excellent teacher. I'd hoped to give her the benefit of my personal attention, you know, but foolish young thing that she is, she preferred a young lout like you for the initial event."
"So you had the yen for her yourself. I kind of figured that. I still don't see why you did it. You never seemed to like me that much. You could get into trouble if this ever comes out, you know."
"On the contrary, Mr. Huzak, I've always had the highest regard for you. You're one of the few students here who has any glimmering of intelligence. However you are also a hopeless romantic. There's only one way to cure a romantic and that's by giving him what he wants. Tell me, do you two plan to get married?"
"Yes, we do."
"The typical romantic response. The girl is beautiful, enjoyable in bed and seemingly pleasant in personality. Therefore, why not secure her to you for all time? Unfortunately, the bloom soon wears off the rose, so to speak. Then the romantic turns into an unhappy, but wise man."
"Such as yourself?"
"Precisely."
"No, I don't think it's going to work out that way. Thanks for the help, anyway," Chuck replied, leaving the office.
The next several months were a riot of frantic coupling every chance Kathy and Chuck had. She was a woman transformed after that first night. Several times a night, once even between classes when they had a free hour, they would hurry to the apartment, oblivious to the looks of the neighbors and climb up the steps, shedding clothing on the way to the bedroom.
Chuck could see that Joe was getting annoyed. It wasn't doing him any good to know that Chuck was getting his. Kathy didn't make things any easier by bitching all the time about how sloppy the place was. The apartment was the most convenient place, though, since he damn well couldn't afford motel rates on one-ten a month.
She was anxious to get married as soon as possible but he didn't see how they would manage it. The only income he had was from the Bill and she was determined to get a degree herself. The idea of her parents supporting her while she went to school after they got married didn't appeal to him. Finally they decided to set the date late in June. He would try to pull his marks up enough so he would be able to hit the school for a loan. When they graduated he would be up to his neck in debt, but there didn't seem to be any way to avoid that.
By the time the spring semester had started, most of the school was aware that they were close to living with each other. But nobody in the administration bothered them. Joe finally got disgusted with feeling like an intruder in his own pad and moved out. Chuck had a hell of a time paying the full rent by himself, but Kathy was overjoyed at the prospect of having a house for herself.
In a few days she had the house so clean it looked like a different establishment. Everything was in its place and clean. Chuck felt as if he were living in some kind of model apartment. If he forgot himself by dashing cigarette ashes onto the rug, or left his dirty laundry piled up in a corner the way he used to, she would raise holy hell.
They were together almost constantly from their morning classes until eight thirty, when she would catch the bus back to the dorm. They ate all then-meals, which she insisted on cooking, in the apartment. Chuck began thinking back with nostalgia to the food he'd eaten in the Navy. After supper they would usually repair to the bedroom for an hour's now-routine sex.
Finished, they would go back in the living room and hit the books until it was time for her to leave. Chuck began to notice that he was looking forward to putting her on the bus and then taking his carefully-hoarded thirty cents to a bar, where he would nurse two beers as long as possible.
The honeymoon was over, and he wasn't even married yet!
In April, right around bock-beer time and just after the trout season opened, things came to a head. April, the month poets love to sing about when bare trees burst into green leaves and laughing young girls are merrily tumbled in fragrant meadows. April, when Chuck Huzak began thinking that maybe Professor Strang was right after all.
The argument started over Chuck's major. A degree in English Literature is almost useless unless you plan to teach, and it isn't worth a hell of lot then, either. Chuck knew that, but he didn't particularly give a damn. Completely devoid of ambition, he planned to hold various jobs of an undistinguished nature in different parts of the country, moving on when things got too boring. like all English Lit majors, he had a hankering to try writing someday, but he had too much sense to think he could make a living that way.
Kathy wasn't too enthused over his proposed gypsy-like existence. like all women, she saw education in domestic terms. A man went to college to get a degree so he could get a good job. A good job was one that was steady, secure and fairly well-paying. With the money the man made from his job he supported a wife, two point five children, a mortgage on a house in the suburbs and the payments on a late-model car. If the guy wasn't lazy eventually he would get a bigger house, a bigger car and a coronary.
Chuck was willing enough to switch to something slightly more practical such as Political Science or even sociology, but she was set on him going all the way to business administration. And he just couldn't buy that. They had a good, loud argument which ended with her calling him a selfish, immature GI ass. He countered with "selfish, spoiled, bourgeois brat." She answered this by breaking into tears. He finished it by walking out.
The monthly check had come in a few days before so he enjoyed the rare sensation of money in his pocket. Through streets bright with early spring sun and children's laughter he walked a straight course to the nearest bar, the usual gambit of American men after an argument with their women.
The nearest bar was an elaborate place called the "Dubonnet", pronounced with final't' by local inhabitants, a place much too expensive for college students. Hell, he thought, he still had ninety bucks in his pocket. Of course after he paid the rent and bought some groceries, he'd be broke again. But he'd worry about that when the time came.
The frozen-faced bartender condescended to sell him a bottle of bock for double its usual price, but it tasted so good he felt no regrets. There were several button-down types sitting near him having an argument over who was the most fouled-up. They were all under thirty and half-shot.
The first one pointed out that not only had his wife gained thirty five pounds since he married her, she had recently gone on a screwy diet of hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese and was insisting that he join her in it.
The second replied that the first didn't know what trouble was. For five years he had been worming his way up, hoping to latch on to the head cost analyst's job; and only yesterday he'd found out that the boss' son, who had majored in cost analyzing, was due to graduate in June.
The last one topped them all. Not only was his mother-in-law living with them permanently now, not only had his car developed rust spots three months after he bought it, but his lawn was coming up ninety percent crab-grass.
Chuck drank two more bottles of bock as he listened to their talk. In a few years, the way things were going, he'd be in the same boat with these clowns. Apparently they wearied of telling each other about their troubles for they lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Then they started in on a new topic.
Old service stories.
Now the competition was to find out who'd thrown the wildest and longest drunks, laid the most girls, gotten into the toughest fights and served at the most miserable stations. As the lies grew thicker and the laughs louder, their eyes became sadder and sadder as if they could visualize how they would eventually wind up.
Middle-aged men drearily repeating the same old stories over and over again.
They didn't realize it yet, Chuck thought, but the years they'd spent in the service were probably the happiest that they would ever know. Even the ones who'd seen action at least had something real, something worth-while to fear.
What did they have to fear now? Their bosses? The payments on their cars? Their neighbors? Their wives?
Ordering another beer, he drank it slowly and watched them get more and more sloppy-drunk. They were drunk enough now to speak their minds and they cursed their jobs, their homes and their wives. When he finished his beer Chuck got up, walked out and caught a bus to the nearby city.
It was five o'clock and they were getting ready to close the post office. The chief who was in charge of recruiting was getting ready to lock up when Chuck came in and signed up for four years. He stayed at a hotel for a week while his papers were going through the proper channels, was sent to New York for his physical and finally sworn in. That was five years ago and he hadn't seen Kathy since, although Joe had written him that she stayed in school and graduated after he left.