Chapter Two Cigarettes Taste Like Hell

I turned 21 on Pearl Harbor Day. December 7, 1941. Up til then we weren't too worried about Hitler. Hell, my home town, Fremont, Nebraska is mostly Germs. I joined the army the next day. No big deal. I had nothing going except selling tobacco to slaughterhouse workers over in Omaha.They like the chaw. Weren't allowed to light up in the pig bleeding areas.

Everybody just called me "Hoagie", like the sandwich. It came from my last name of Hoganson. Willard Hoganson, PFC reporting to Fort Hood, Texas for training as a combat rifleman. I was a darn good shot from hunting geese out around Lake Lamb.

I'd never been further than Omaha, just thirty miles, so going to Texas was purty exciting. So was the shooting with brand new army M14's. The fellas liked my midwest twang and my nickname Hoagie. A bunch of us got a two-day pass and headed into Abilene.

We went to a dancehall and right off I spotted a purty lil gal with a sweet face and killer legs. That's the combo that always gits me: nice face/naughty-lookin' pins.

Her name was Mary Dwyer, a college student bout ready to graduate and become a school teacher like her ma. We hit it off and she invited me over next time I was in town. So I went and met her dad LSD. That's what they all called em. His name was Larry. She had two sisters, both lookers as well. I started thinkin' I could jest work ma way through the

Three Sisters. Kindy like a play by Checkov or one o' them Ruskies.

Her sister Helen was going with Dag Norwood, a big dumb jock Oakie. Next thing ya know they upped and hitched it.

She was pregnant twenty minutes later and the next year she had the kid. A boy named Rama Lama. They just called him Denny though.

Dumb like a tree stump ol Dag dumped her right after cuz he met a prettier one out in Carolina. Mary, the one I was dating got the most pissed I ever saw her in 50 years of marriage.

The kid was supposed to be smart or sumpem. I dunno. How do you tell a young little boy is bright or not? He ate a pack of LSD's Camels when nobody was a lookin'. Call that clever?

I figgered he was some kind of bastard or something with no pa. Hell, Dag even told me he named his child with the new Mrs. Dagwood the same as Helen's boy: Wayne Denzil Norwood Jr.. It was sorta like Rama Lama did'nt even exist at all.

Well I married Mary and brought her back to Fremont. Not long after here comes the whole fam: LSD, May (the grandma), Betty, Helen and Denny. They wanted to get a new start after the war cuz Larry had been working at Fort Hood and that dried up.

They got a ramshackle old house across a ball field from my folks. Visited about ten times a day. Larry was gettin' up there, 55 I think, and he couldn't find work. He was a typical lazy Irish bullshitter who liked to sit around all morning drinking coffee and smoking Camels. One time I was over there and he had poor lil Denny in the kitchen, smoke as thick as ground fog, givin' him coffee with milk and sugar in it, feedin' him fried bacon and tellin' em about some column he had in the noosepaper back in his home town, Greenfield, Ohio. The column had a name...."Hot Today, Chilly Tamale". Irish jackoffs, they're all the same. LSD loved Denny. He had the girls, no son.

Another time I caught up to Denny in the hard scrabble front yard. He was staring off into space like some mental case.

"Hiya doin' Ram?"

"Can...can...the world outside..the..outer area...above the sky...does it go on and on...or...or..is there a brick wall there..."

Yeah, there was a brick alright. Between his ears. Smart my ass. The kid was wierd.

Helen got a job at KFGT, the local radio station. She wrote the commercials. Pretty quick she's got Rama all fixed up with the governor of Nebraska, Val Peterson as his "son" on a father and son banquet deal. Peterson had no children. Lotta peep holes I knew figgered he was queer. Bastard democrat governor and a mostly bastard wierd kid. It made the papers.

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(CUNT 11/25/05)

The kid loved sports. Loved sports. Had umpteen baseball cards. Found another kid's shoes at Milama Grade School, got a one dollar reward and bought a box of college football cards. His grandpa, old Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 25, got him in little league. No, really little. I mean the boys were 6,7. I had to go to a game once cuz my own kid, Jimmy, was playing too. Denny was in centerfield. Some child way too big for age 7, a farmer boy, looped into a pitch and hit a fly toward right-center. The right fielder didn't move a muscle. He was either Irish lazy and dumb, or he just didn't see the ball come off the bat. But Rama Lama was over fast and made a nice catch. He even knew enough to double off a runner who probably didn't know there was only one out. Or maybe Irish.

Speaking of double, the damn thing was a double-header. What the fuck. Here they are, little kids for christsake. They have to go two? That meant I had to stay for the whole damn second game. Shit. I needed a drink. It was almost 3p.m.

Afterwards, they took all the boys over to Vishnu Municipal Pool. That Denny. He could swim good too. My kid, lil Jimmy was still learning. But Ra was up and down the length of the pool. By that time Helen showed up from the radio station and she made him swim more lapse. He had no father so I guess she was trying like hell to be a ma and a pa to the little showoff bastard. Actually, his grandma, old May was the mother. She watched him all day while Hell worked. And LSD was like a good dad. So the boy had no excuse to turn out the way he did. Great artist.

Kiss my ass. My daughter Anne went to Grinnell College on a full ride in pie anner. That's real art.

I guess I shoulda thrown the ball around with Denny once or twice. But I didn't even have time for my kids. So why should I waste it on him just because Dag was an irresponsible oakie? Fuck that. Fuck the whole fucking Norwood/Dwyer part of the fam.

Sports finally caught up with Denny though. Busted his arm playing sandlot football. Har har. Triple compound fracture. I laughed under my breath. My wife Mary was decent so I had to keep a lid on my real feelings.

Right after that, Helen got an offer from a big station outta Omaha. Its a wonder she got anything, really. She pulled a lotta weak deals if you ask me. Frinstance, she had Rama Lama on the air when he was about five. Give me a break. I tune in to the only station in Fremont and listen to that? "Bozo the Clown Around the World" with horseshit inserts from a wierd brat?

Anyway, Ms. Hot Shot Norwood went to work in Omaha and the whole tribe of tripe brains went along. Sure. She was the breadwinner. Wouldn't you?

I knew plenty of countrified folks who were too nice to say they were glad they went. Rama Scrama too.