|
The Archer affair; Sunshine the car - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 11/7/2011 1:45 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
If you hang around long enough in life, the human condition at large lends itself to countless priceless ironies. I met a guy in my Army unit in Germany named George Archer. As I recall, he hailed from out in one of the Virginias. Bear in mind the context of the military environment we all lived under. My roommate Dep, at the time was given the option of jail or the Army by a New York judge. In kind, Ol' Archer had been in the National Guard. The glitch came went George came up missing for a time. Uncle Sam punished him for his delinquent indiscretion by sentencing him to..., service in the Regular Army - kind of like fining someone more money for writing a bad check; you know, fining someone something they do not have in the first place. But I digress.
George or "Arch" as we called him was an amiable chap. He was about five-foot eight, not a big guy, but I would not like to ever have had to fight him. He had wavy blond hair and a rugged yet almost handsome face. I never saw him angry. He was infamous in our unit for having that famous poster of Farrah Fawcett on his room wall back at our base station. Once I made a snide comment about a bar-room brawler of a guy from our unit who was notorious for unapologetic bad behavior.
"Good riddance," I had said to our group regarding the brawler guy named Max that was such a hard ass. Max was shipping out.
Ol' Arch said in his Virginian accent, "Well Bob, wait now a second; I think I would have to have at least one beer with Ol' Max if I ever see him again."
That was Archer, he always gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Arch joined us on one of our weekend jaunts. We ended up down near the Bavarian mountains. There is a picture somewhere of a bunch of us camped out by a mountain lake some damn place in the foot hills. When the car broke down in the mountains on a narrow road on the edge of a thousand foot drop, George did not bat an eye. He just raised the hood and started to tinker - "Appalachian mechanic," Ol' Smitty said and laughed, "He can't fix anything unless its in the mountains."
Smitty nicknamed the little cobbled VW Bug "Sunshine." Once, in a drunken weekend in the Bavarian farmland, we took off down a dirt farm road; then I hopped into a harvested corn field at 75 miles an hour. A minute later, in the bumpy rubble, one of my hub caps passed the car. It is still in that field most likely.
Back in the urban setting in Nuremberg, one weekend one of my pals named Roache dropped a cigarette between the seats. The car started on fire. As we were trying to beat out the flames, two German Polizi pulled up. As they came to my car door, I opened it and a cloud of smoke billowed out. Smitty grabbed a couple beers from the back seat and poured them on the fire.
"Crazy Americans," one of the cops said as they got back in their patrol car and sped off. "Verrückt Amerikaner."
Archer's sentence among us rabble was for one year. That thought in itself should inspire an essay. Some judge thought so poorly of the American Armed Services, he deemed it appropriate punishment for a perp to be sentenced to living among, well..., American soldiers abroad.
Of course we had a party when it came time for Arch to go home. There was an Italian guy named Bono down the road from our barracks in Nuremberg that operated a Guest House (tavern). After a night of debauchery, the guest of honor found himself riding up in my sunroof. Like a gunner on top of a tank, Ol' George Archer rode in style as I sped up and down the late-night empty boulevard near our barracks. As I squealed into the barracks archway past the guard (who just shook his head) Archer's legs disappeared behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and McAmmis (who was a nudist from California, and should probably have his own story some day) was holding on to Archer's foot as he dangled over the side - his head bobbing off the coble stone driveway.
Long story short - George Archer went home with one hell of a knot on his head. I must invoke the cliche, "There but for the grace of god go I." I am thinking of countless legal cases where kids, (we were just kids in retrospect, except we carried machine guns unlike our civilian college counterparts back in America that carried books), I can think of countless examples of someone dying from falling off a car during a drunken foray.
"I'm sorry, Arch," I said to him as we shook hands the next day at the airfield.
"Don't worry a bit Bob," Archer said. Then he smiled and said like a Wall Street attorney, "Bob, I know you are a drunk and I crawled in to your car with no illusions. Nobody forced me at gun point to act like a fool. You take care Bob, it was a pleasure serving with you."
It was the last time I ever saw Ol' Arch. Another Army buddy of mine from West Virginia tried to find Archer after we all got out of the Army - to no avail - Arch disappeared back into his Appalachian Mountains.
George Archer, I hope you have had a good life in your beautiful mountains; and, I hope you do not think too ill of me now after all these years to reflect on that short time when we were all so young and invincible - I hope you do not get too mad at me each time you look in the mirror and see that damn scar on your forehead.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
