He wasn’t overjoyed about coming into town three and a half hours behind schedule, either. He wasn’t surprised, but he wasn’t overjoyed. He hoped Connie and his sons weren’t waiting for him on the platform. The boys would be bouncing off the walls if they’d had to sit around all that time.
When the train stopped, he jumped up, grabbed his duffel, and slung it over his shoulder. He almost clobbered another sailor. “Sorry, buddy,” he said. Then a sergeant almost clobbered him. He laughed. What went around came around, but not usually so soon.
There was a traffic jam at the door to the car. Everybody wanted to get out first. Eventually, the door opened and people squeezed out. Most of the passengers were soldiers and sailors coming home on leave. Screaming, weeping women rushed toward them.
“George!” That was redheaded Connie-she was there after all. She almost knocked him off his feet when she threw her arms around him.
“Hi, babe,” he said. Then he kissed her, and that took a lot of careful attention. He felt as if he stayed submerged longer than any submersible in the U.S. Navy. At last he came up for air, his heart pounding. He noticed his wife was there by herself. “Where are the kids?” he asked.
“My mother’s got ’em,” Connie answered. “I figured the train would be late, and I was right… What’s so funny?”
“You talk like Boston,” George said. “So do I, but I’m about the only guy on my ship who does. I’m not used to hearing it any more.”
“Well, you better get used to it pretty darn quick, on account of it’s how people talk around here,” Connie said. “What do you think of that?”
He hadn’t let go of her. “Your ma’s got the boys?” he said. His wife nodded. “At her place?” Connie nodded again. George squeezed. “In that case, I know exactly what I think.” He squeezed her again, tighter.
“Oh, you do, do you? And what’s that?” Connie pretended not to know.
“Let’s go back to the apartment. You’ll find out,” he said.
“Sailors.” She laughed. “Sure, let’s go. You won’t be fit to live with till we do.” Her mock-tough tone softened. “And I’ve missed you.”
“Missed you, too, babe,” George said, and it was true. He did his best to forget his occasional visits to whores. He told himself they didn’t really count. He didn’t do anything like that when he was at home. And his visits to pro stations must have worked; he’d passed every shortarm inspection. He wouldn’t be bringing Connie any unexpected presents. That was a relief.
When they got to the subway station, the ticket-seller wouldn’t take his nickel. “Free to men in uniform, sir,” she said. Before the war, everybody who worked in the subway system had been male. One more thing the pressure of fighting had changed.
“I hate these cars. They’re so crowded,” Connie said as the train rattled along. George nodded purely for politeness’ sake. It didn’t seem that bad to him. He’d got used to being packed tight with other people on fishing boats. The Navy pushed men together closer still. No subway car could faze him.
He dropped the duffel inside the front door to the apartment and looked around in amazement. The living room was so big! And the kitchen and the bedrooms lay beyond! And a bathroom just for the family, with a door that closed! “I swear to God, hon, the skipper on the Townsend doesn’t live half this good!” George said.
“I should hope not,” Connie said, and pulled her dress off over her head.
That wasn’t what George meant, but it wasn’t bad, either. He would have dragged her down on the floor and done the deed right there. Why not? With a carpet down, it was softer than the decks he’d been walking since going to sea. But, giggling, she twisted away and hurried back into the bedroom. He followed, standing at attention even while he walked.
A bed was better than even a carpeted floor. Afterwards, sated for the moment, George was willing to admit it. “Wow,” he said, lighting a cigarette and then running a hand along Connie’s sweet curves. “Why’d I go and join the Navy?”
“I asked you that when you went and did it,” Connie said. “See what you’ve been missing?”
“It’s good to be home, all right,” he said. “But the Army would’ve got me if I didn’t put on a sailor suit. If I could’ve gone on doing my job, that would’ve been different. But conscription would’ve nailed me. I’d rather be a sailor than a soldier any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.”
He wondered why. Putting to sea wasn’t safer than staying on dry land. He’d seen as much in the endless clashes with the Japanese over the Sandwich Islands. But he’d been going out to sea since he was in high school. He’d never gone through the middle of the USA till this train trip from the West Coast. He was doing what he was used to.
Connie poked him in the ribs. He jerked. “What was that for?” he asked.
“What do you do when you come into port when you’re halfway around the world from me?” his wife said. “Do you go looking for floozies, the way sailors do when they get into Boston?”
“Not me,” he lied solemnly. If he hadn’t expected that question, he couldn’t have handled it so well. “I’m a married guy, I am. I like being a married guy.” To show how much he liked it, he leaned over and started caressing her in earnest. He wasn’t ready for a second round as fast as he would have been a few years earlier, but he’d gone without for a long time. He didn’t have much trouble.
Smiling in the afterglow, Connie said, “I like the way you argue.”
“Me, too,” George said, and they both laughed. She wouldn’t have liked it so much-which was putting things mildly, with her redhead’s temper-if he’d told her the truth. He never felt like straying if she was anywhere close by. If they were thousands of miles apart, though, if he wasn’t going to see her for months…As long as he didn’t come down with the clap and pass it along, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And then he poked her the same way she’d poked him. She squeaked. “What about you?” he asked. “You looking at the handsome delivery guys and truck drivers while I’m gone?”
“That’s a laugh,” she answered. “These days, the delivery guys and truck drivers have white mustaches or hooks or wooden legs-either that or their voices aren’t done changing yet. Besides, if I was stupid enough to do something like that, you’d find out about it. Somebody would blab. Somebody always does. But you’re off in those places where nobody ever heard of you, so who knows what you could get away with if you wanted to?”
She was right. She was righter than she knew-and righter than he ever intended to let her find out. And she was right that word about straying wives did get back to husbands. A couple of men on the Townsend had got that kind of bad news from people in their home towns: either from relatives or from “friends” who couldn’t stand keeping their big mouths shut.
Connie teased him about going off the reservation, but she didn’t really push him, which could only mean she didn’t really think he was doing it. That left him relieved and embarrassed at the same time. She said, “Now that you’ve acted like a sailor who just got home, do you want to see your children?”
“Sure,” George. “Let’s see if they remember me.”
Patrick and Margaret McGillicuddy had a house not far from the Enos’ apartment. Connie’s father was a fisherman, too, and out to sea right now. He was well past fifty; they weren’t going to conscript him no matter what. Connie’s mother was a lot like her, even if she’d put on a little weight and her hair wasn’t so bright as it used to be. Margaret McGillicuddy didn’t take guff from anyone, even her grandsons. To George’s way of thinking, that made her a better grandma, not a worse one.
He missed his own mother-a sudden stab of longing he could never do anything about now. If only she’d never taken up with that worthless, drunken bum of a writer. He’d shot himself, too, not that that did George any good.