He nodded and reached out to shake my hand. “I just got the word yesterday. Next week I have to review the floorplan documents and then I’ll place my first order.”
“That is simply tremendous. We’ll talk next week.” A few of the others looked at me curiously. “My company invested some money in Tusker’s business. I’m the point man.”
We were taking a break after the first round of crabs, and Tammy said, “I just have to ask, did you actually do all the stuff you said in your speech?” The rest of the crowd looked at me curiously.
“My speech?” It took me a second to recall. “You mean my valediction speech? Oh my God, I haven’t thought about that thing in ages! I was such an asshole with that thing. I figured everybody was going to boo me off the stage!”
Marilyn looked at me and asked, “You gave a speech?”
Ray laughed. “He was valedictorian. He had to give a speech.”
Marilyn looked at me accusingly. “You never told me you were valedictorian!”
“I’ve never told you a lot of stuff.”
“So I am finding out!”
I laughed at that, but then Tammy hopped up. “I’ve got a copy of it somewhere.” She scampered off.
“Good Lord! Somebody actually kept that damn thing?” I asked incredulously.
Randy nodded. “She had some stuff stored away, as did a few other people. She dug it out for the reunion.”
“I want to hear it,” said Marilyn.
“It was bad enough the first time around. I’m not sure I can stand it twice,” I replied.
“It was a pretty good speech,” countered Katie. “That’s not just me, either. I heard it from a few other people, too.”
“It made me change my major from pre-law to engineering,” added Ray.
I stared at my old friend. “You’re kidding me, right.”
“Nope. Pissed my old man off, too. I became a civil engineer. The pay might not be as good as a lawyer but it’s not bad, and I probably sleep better at night.”
Huh! I didn’t know what to say to that, and not sound like a total jerk.
Tammy returned in a couple of minutes with a plastic bag with a copy of the Baltimore Sun inside. “Did you know they printed your speech in the Sun?”
“It must have been a real slow news day,” I told her.
“Read it!” asked Marilyn.
“No!” I told her.
“Then I’ll read it,” said Tammy, and damned if she didn’t! She opened the bag and pulled out the yellowed newspaper and opened it to the page on the graduations, and read it out loud. I probably turned about five shades of red, as the others at the table listened and watched me.
After Tammy was done, Marilyn said, “Wow! That was great! You wrote that?”
“That’s me at my most pretentious!” I told her.
“No, that’s you! You’re all about taking control and responsibility. That sounded just like you!” she argued.
“So, tell us, did you do all that stuff?” asked Katie.
“What stuff?”
“At the end. You gave three different commitments. Did you do them?” she pressed. The others around the table also wanted to know.
“Uhhh…”
Not content to let it go, Tammy picked up the newspaper again and scanned through to the appropriate part. “Okay, here’s the first — … go to a school that teaches science and engineering… — you did that, right? Weren’t you going to school for math or something?”
Marilyn answered, “Doctor Buckman earned a doctorate in mathematics at 21.”
Around the table there was a buzz, including from the two real doctors, Katie and Mike.
Tammy nodded. “Okay, yes on that one. Next, where was it, oh here — … I will be a soldier… — Well?”
“Captain Buckman won the Bronze Star as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne,” said Marilyn.
The buzz got louder at that, and Marilyn got out her wallet picture of me getting the medal.
“Well, Doctor and Captain! We’re two for two! Now, for number three! — … my final commitment is that when the time comes, every April 15th, to pay my taxes, I will do so with a smile… — So? Do you pay your taxes with a smile?”
“I think I was reaching with that one!” I answered, laughing.
“What about the part before that, about making some money?” asked Randy.
I glanced at Marilyn and the Tusks, and shook my head. I didn’t want to get into that with these guys. Tusker sidestepped it a touch. “Okay, I am not going to go into details, but if you go out to the parking lot right now, there’s a brand new Mercedes 380 SL out there that I know for a fact he paid for in cash. Does that qualify?”
“Thanks a bunch, buddy!” I protested.
There were a few whistles at that. I just waved them off as best I could. Then I stood up. “I need some more crabs and beer. Who’s with me?”
The most curious event of the day occurred an hour or so later. I had been circulating around the room, meeting a few more people, and introducing Marilyn to them, and had returned to the table we had been sharing with Tusker and Tessa. Out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody approaching from my right. “Captain Buckman?” he asked tentatively.
The others eyed me curiously, and I swiveled my head. “Well, I used to be, but that seems a long time ago.” I looked at this new person. He was a large man, blond, crew cut, heavily muscled, wearing a pair of worn fatigue pants and a very tight camo pattern tee-shirt. For some reason he looked familiar, very familiar. I slowly stood up, now favoring my right knee, and turned to face him. “You look familiar…”
“Yes sir, I’m…”
Suddenly his speech pattern came back to me, along with the Texas accent. My eyes opened wide and my jaw dropped for a second. “Corporal Janos!?”
“Yes, sir, you remembered me.” He stuck his hand out and I reflexively shook it.
“Corporal Janos! I will be damned! What in the world are you doing here?”
“It’s sergeant now, sir, and I’m attending the reunion,” he told me.
“Well, good Lord, have a seat. Sergeant? Well deserved, very well deserved. I thought you were from Texas. What are you doing here?”
He nodded and grabbed a seat across from Marilyn and I. Tusker and Tessa were at our side, and watched all this curiously, and Katie and Tammy came up as well, standing and listening in. I introduced Marilyn again, and then named my friends, and said, “Well, don’t stop. What brought you here?”
“My wife. This is her reunion.”
“Your wife?! She went to Towson High, Class of ’73?”
“Yes, sir!”
“What was her name, then, I mean?”
“Jennifer Goodwin. Did you know her?” he asked.
I searched my memory in vain, but couldn’t come up with anything. Neither could those around me. “Sorry, Sergeant, but it was a big school. Maybe if I saw her…”
Janos promptly popped to his feet and let out a shrill whistle, heads turned and when he spotted his wife, he made the hand signals for ‘You’, ‘Me’, and ‘Regroup’. I noticed a woman working her way through the tables and come over. When she got closer, he said, “Jennie, this is Captain Buckman, he was with us in Honduras. I told you about that, right? He went to school here, too!”
I stood up to reach across the table and shake her hand. Her face looked marginally familiar, but not anything more than that. “It’s Mister Buckman, now. You were Class of ’73, also?”
She had a light alto tone. “Yes, but I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you either.”
“It was a big school. Don’t worry about it. Your husband saved my bacon in Honduras,” I told her.