IN THE BEGINNING
BY: DIANA M.
Chapter One
Sergeant Conrad Hauser relaxed on the porch with a frosty glass of beer. That
last class had been a rough one. He sighed as he thought of how the lives he had
changed over the past six months. The men he had made, and those he had broken.
He closed his eyes, and saw the disappointed faces of the men he had cut; bullied
into utter submission, and then sent away in the disgrace of failure. Then again,
Uncle Sam couldn’t afford weakness, not in special forces. Any normal man would
crumble under the pressure of the horrors of what could go on behind enemy lines.
Take the ‘Nam, for instance.
Near-dead troops sweating in bamboo tiger cages. Starved, beaten, baked in
the slimy heat that hung on you like a soggy sweater. Those that were lucky died
fast of their injuries. The others festered slowly away into madness. Sometimes,
the V.C. would torture the officers. Bamboo splinters under fingernails. Or
perhaps a slow skinning. He couldn’t leave them there..he had to go after them...
Free them all. Damn the C.O.. You can’t just leave good men to rot. Fifty men,
abandoned by whatever cause they thought they were fighting for. He could only
get thirty out. The others were already goners. He could never forget the gobbetts of
rotting flesh, both dead and alive, strewn around the interrogation room and in
cages. Faces twisted in fear and pain. Unable to even move and save
themselves..How could he have left them behind? How could he have...
The screen door slammed, and a black haired lighting bolt streaked onto the
porch, jolting him back to the present.
“Don’t tell her which way I went!” the lightning bolt flashed off towards the
barn, a casting a nervous look back towards the house as it went. It’s escape was
quickly followed by a loud screech from the kitchen.
“VINCENT!!!! Get back here this very instant!” the dark bolt made it to the barn and slipped inside to safety. “VINCENT! I’M SERIOUS! YOU JUST WAIT,
YOUNG MAN! YOUR FATHER WILL BE HOME SOON!!” The screen slammed
again. Conrad smiled to himself as his mother dropped, exasperated, into the deck
chair next to him. She sighed, “Sometimes I wonder about that boy. ”
“What’d he do this time?” Conrad took a slow sip of his beer, and savored
its rich hoppy flavor. Definitely worth the extra cash. The cheap American stuff
wasn’t worth the cans they sold it in.
“I was making his bed, and I found THESE under the mattress,” Conrad’s
mother dropped a stack of magazines on the table next to her. Each one had
a shot of a naked woman on the cover. The poses left nothing to the imagination.
“He walked in just as I pulled them out. I’ve never seen him move so fast.”
Conrad laughed, “Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting it,” he finished of the
last swig of beer and set the glass on the table next to the magazines. He picked one
off the top and thumbed through it, “He’s getting to be that age, you know. Girls,
girls, and more girls. It’s not exactly unnatural.”
“You were never this bad,” she waved vaguely at the magazines. Conrad
leaned back and put his feet up on the rail.
“Not that you found out, anyhow. Damn,” he stopped at a particularly
lurid centerfold, “They weren’t like this when I was his age.” His mother snatched
it from his hand.
“Please, leave me with some fantasy of a virtuous son,” she took the stack
and stood up, “I’d better get started on dinner, Jack should be home any minute
now.”
“Need any help?”
“No, you relax out here, its a beautiful evening.” She stooped and kissed
him on the top of his head, “It’s good to have you home, dear.”
“Mommy, I’m hungry. When’s dinner?” a high pitched whine drifted down
from an upstairs window.
“The more help I get from you girls, the sooner you eat.”
A different whine filtered down; an anguished, preteen lament, “Why US?
Vince is in trouble, get him.”
Conrad chuckled. “He’s out of range,” he called towards the window.
“Come on, girls, I’ll take care of your brother when I see him.”
“Not if he sees you first,” the first whine returned.
“How much TV does THAT one watch?” Conrad grinned at his mother.
“For her, any amount is too much.”
The front door slammed, “OK, troops, I’m home! Jane? What’s for dinner?”
“I swear, this family’s got a one track mind.” She rolled her eyes and
turned to go inside, calling as she went, “Jack, you’ll never believe what I
found in your son’s room!”
***************
Conrad pulled open the barn door and flipped on the lights. He inhaled
deeply, relishing the warm clean smell of fresh hay and alfalfa. Sometimes, on
base, he considered having a bale or two shipped to his quarters. Nothing calmed a
person down like the smell of a well stocked barn. He put the tray he was
carrying down on a shelf next to a ball of twine and looked up into the dusky loft.
“I brought you your dinner.”
A shadow peered over the edge.
“I’m not hungry.”
Conrad snorted, “Sure you’re not. I’ll just eat this myself. You know
how I love lasagna. Heck, I’ll even eat your dessert, too.”
The shadow leaned closer over the edge of the loft. “Is it cold?”
“No, I heated it up a bit. The cheese is just melting out between the pasta.
Damn, you’d better take my pitiful bait and come down, ‘cause I think I really might
be able to handle fourths of this stuff. I don’t get fed this way on base.”
The shadow slid back from the edge. A dark shape slid down the ladder at the
other end of the barn. Vincent slouched over and grabbed the plate off the shelf
and took a bite. He eagerly began to bolt down the slab of lasagna. There was hay
in his hair. Conrad leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Take your time,
don’t you kid?”
Vincent cleaned his plate, glugged down the soda without stopping, and
started in on the cake. He smiled up at his older brother, “Thanks,” he managed to
speak through a mouthful of chocolate and frosting.
“No problem. I wouldn’t go inside before Mom goes to bed, if I were you.”
“How mad is she?” Vincent wiped a blob of frosting off his mouth and
licked his fingers
“I wouldn’t say mad as much as shocked,” Conrad handed him a paper
napkin, “Mama’s don’t like to think of their little boys getting off on nudie books.”
“Most guys do.”
“Sure, but you don’t have to let her think about it. I mean, can you picture
Mom and Jack?”
Vincent gagged, “Ugh.”
“Um. Well, you being here is pretty good evidence . And Jennifer.
And Drew,” Conrad smiled as his brother winced.
“Don’t remind me.”
“Yeah, well. Look, Kid. I’m not telling you to stop thinking about sex, ‘cause
you couldn’t, even if you tried. How old are you now?”
“I’ll be fifteen next June,” Vincent puffed his chest out.
Conrad grinned. It was only August now, “Fifteen. Man, can’t wait, can
you?”
“I’m getting bigger.” Standing straight, Vincent could look Conrad right
in the chest. Last time Conrad was home, his brother had been three inches shorter,
and skinny as a rail.
“Yeah, you’ll shoot up pretty soon, I reckon.”
“I already shaved once, last month.”
“Well, there you go. Anyway, back on track...Like I said, sex is going to be
thought number one, pretty much from now on. Just, well, be a little more
discreet, will you?”
“What’d you mean?” Vincent belched unceremoniously.
“Well, for starters, under the mattress. C’mon! You’re practically begging
to get found out, especially since you refuse to make your own bed. If you aren’t
going to clean your own damn room, don’t hide stuff in there.”
“O.K. Einstein, where do you suggest?” Vincent’s lower jaw always stiffened
when he got angry. Conrad wondered to himself if he did the same thing.
“Look around you, squirt.”
“Oh, huh.”
“You’d better start locking doors, too. Mom always walks in when you
least expect her.”
“But there isn’t a lock on my room!”
“Well, don’t do anything in there you wouldn’t want her to see. Trust me,
you’ll feel like dying if she catches you. And what if Jen or, worse, Drew, comes
in on something?”
“Oh, man.” Vincent blushed, “Can we stop talking about this? I get the idea.”
“You’d better. I don’t want to get any calls in the future about my perverted
little brother whacking off in front of poor mother. You put her through enough as
it is.” Conrad stacked the now empty plates back on the tray. “Oh, yeah, another
thing. You start smoking, I’ll rip your lungs out before you can ruin ‘em yourself.”
“Where’d THAT come from?”
“Just want to cover all those brotherly bases while I’m at it,” Conrad felt
satisfied. Rarely did he have the chance to talk one on one with Vincent.
“Hey, Con.”
“What?”
“What’s it like?” Vincent ran his fingers through his hair, pushing out a
few blades of hay.
“Smoking?”
“No,” Vincent turned deep red, “Sex. With a girl. Is it really great?”
Conrad rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “That’s a pretty good description,”
he smiled down at the kid.
“I bet. Jessie Tompson says it’s a blast.”
Conrad raised his brows, “Jessie? He’s that kid I met last year?”
“Yeah, the guy from Florida. Says he had girls all the time down there,”
Vincent looked serious, “He says they go wild for those French ticklers.”
Conrad snorted, “Trust me, it’s on hundred per cent bull. Jessie Tompson
hasn’t done shit.”
Vincent looked out the barn door at the stars, “Yeah, I THOUGHT it was all
crap. Just didn’t want him to feel bad, you know?”
“Sure, Kid. Let him feel like a big man.” Conrad thumped his brother on
the back. It was odd to see the guy grow up.
“You think I can go in now?”
Conrad checked his watch. It was 10:00. “Slip up the kitchen stairs and go
to bed. I’ll distract them for you.”
“Ok, but I’m not really tired,” Vincent yawned.
“Right, you weren’t very hungry, either,” Conrad picked up the tray.
Vincent followed him out of the barn, sliding the door shut behind them. Together
they walked to the house.
They went quietly in to the kitchen, and Vincent slid softly up the stairs to
his room, praying not to wake up Jennifer and Drew. Conrad loaded the dirty
plates into the dishwasher, and threw the empty can away. He was putting the
tray back on top of the refrigerator when the hatch doors slid open and his
stepfather Jack looked in.
“You had a call, son. Someone from Benning, I think. Couldn’t recognize
the voice, though.”
“Its too late to call back east now. I’ll call tomorrow morning,” Conrad
washed his hands off and pushed through the swinging doors into the den. His
mother looked up from the her book.
“Did he eat?”
“Yeah, it was gone in under two minutes. Kid likes his food.”
She tried to look uninterested, “Did you talk about...things?”
“Uh-huh. Caught up a little,” Conrad dropped into an easy chair, “Told him
to keep stuff out of your way.” he smiled as his mother winced exactly the same as
Vincent had.
“I suppose that’s a step, isn’t it dear?”
Jack had hidden himself behind the paper. He grunted affirmatively. Conrad
picked up the sports section.
“Conrad, would you like something to drink? I believe I’ll warm up some
cocoa,” She put down her book and stretched.
“Urm.”
“Jack?”
“Mmm.”
Jane Falcone looked at her husband and son. She shook her head and
smiled to herself. It was good to have everyone together.
______________________________________________________
Continued in Chapter Two!
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