Chapter 11 #2
“Don’t you dare interrupt me when I’m speaking to you.” Petty looked down his nose at Ozzie. After chewing him out and calling him every vile word in the book, he ordered, “Report to mess hall duty for the rest of the weekend.”
Ozzie turned his back without a word, but the anger that brewed inside of him alchemized into a funk, a sweat that oozed from nearly every pore. After cleaning pots and scrubbing floors in the kitchen, Ozzie returned to his room. Morgan stood at the mirror, combing his hair.
“Looks like you had a rough day.”
“This is some bullshit. I didn’t come all the way here to mop floors. Punk-ass Sarge just wants to keep a brother underneath his foot.” Ozzie’s hands were dry from bleach, and the small of his back throbbed from bending over the bucket.
“Come on out with us tonight, Philips. Blow off some of that steam.”
“I need to brush up on my German.”
“That’s what Monday nights are for. Come on, it’s Friday night, Square Pants. And it’s blues night, which means we won’t have no trouble with them white boys. They’ll all be on the other side of town at one of those Billy clubs, listening to that country crap.”
They had just received their month’s pay. Ozzie had earned eighty dollars. He had wired thirty-five dollars to his mother and decided to live off ten dollars a week for the next month and put five dollars in the American Express for a rainy day.
“Sure.”
“Okay, we walk over at twenty-one hundred.”
The Federal Eagle Club was just east of the Benjamin Franklin Village, the new barracks still under construction.
According to Morgan, the club was known for good music and great bratwurst, and hospitably welcomed Negro soldiers on blues and jazz nights.
The best part was that it was located within walking distance of the barracks, since none of the men owned cars.
As they made their way to the entrance, Morgan passed out peppermints to Ozzie and the three others who had joined them. “Don’t want your foul breath offending the ladies,” he said, chuckling.
“Once I pull my harmonica out and play three notes, it’s all over, turkeys,” said a guy named Satchel. He was tall and reedy and never without his harmonica pressed against his front shirt pocket.
Inside, the lights were dimmed, and the sultry sounds of the blues immediately relaxed Ozzie.
Satchel clapped his hands together. “Philips, what’s your poison?”
Ozzie opened his mouth to say club soda, but the thought crossed his mind that a beer wouldn’t hurt him. After what he’d been through this week with his first sergeant and the mess hall, he deserved that much. He’d just stay away from the hard stuff.
Satchel brought over mugs of pils, a light golden beer that Ozzie had seen men drinking in Kitzingen. He tipped the glass to his lips and drank as the men exchanged gripes about work.
“I’m sick of these crackers thinking I work for them.”
“Didn’t they get the memo? Slavery is over.”
“And with Truman’s executive order to desegregate, you’d think these clowns would change.”
“Things ain’t changing. Least not for me. I had this one corporal-ass redneck ask me if I wouldn’t mind polishing his boots. I looked at him like he was crazy, then walked away like I didn’t even hear him.”
“What’s worse, they’ve taught the Germans to be afraid of us. They can’t stand to see us with these women. That’s why I’m about to get me one of these honeys tonight.” Satchel stood, patted his pocket for his harmonica, and walked toward two women sitting at the bar.
“The system is pure bullshit.”
“An abomination,” Ozzie offered.
“You always trying to kill us with those big words.”
“Right, you see why I told you he was like a damn professor. You know this fool wanted to stay in and practice his German tonight,” Morgan teased, and the men at the table roared.
“Okay, okay.” Ozzie toasted his mug to Morgan’s. “I’m here now. You were right. Glad you got me out.”
“You smell that perfume? That’s my cue.” One of the guys got up and the others followed, leaving Ozzie at the table alone. He drank while he watched Morgan show one of the German girls how to do the jitterbug.
A thin waitress dressed in a black short-sleeved dress walked by with a tray of shots.
Ozzie touched her arm. “Hey, I’ll take one.”
She spun around. “It is cheaper to buy the bottle.”
Ozzie didn’t like her tone. It reminded him of First Sergeant Petty talking down to him. In an instant, his good mood was gone. He’d had enough of white people telling him what to do.
“I didn’t ask you all of that,” he spat. “Mind your business and give me what I asked for.”
Ozzie knew he was taking out his frustration on this woman, but he couldn’t stop himself. The power felt good. He looked up into her face, ready to say more, but then he stopped. Those saucer-shaped eyes. They stared at each other. It was the woman to whom he had given the medicine in the village.
“You will regret it by the end of the night.” She turned, but he brushed her arm again.
“We’ve met. The medicine for your papa.”
She blinked. “You Americans are all the same,” she hissed, and then huffed off.
Ozzie threw back the shot of brown liquor.
He didn’t even know what was in the shot, but it felt good coating his chest. Once it had settled, he felt awful about his encounter with the woman.
He had treated her the way the white troops treated him, and she didn’t deserve that.
He got up to search for her, eventually spotting her at the side of the bar, restocking her drinks tray.
Ozzie had to squeeze between patrons to get to her.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I told you, it is cheaper by the bottle.” She drilled her gaze into him.
“Then give me the bottle and come have one with me, please.” He placed his hand to his heart.
She looked at him long and hard and then walked away. Ozzie found the toilet. When he returned, the waitress stood with the liquor and two shot glasses next to his table. She popped it, poured, and held her glass up to him. “Prost,” she said.
“Cheers,” he said, and then downed his.
While she gathered the glasses on the table, another girl nudged her, said something in German, and they walked away.
Maybe it was the effect of the alcohol, but Ozzie felt like the music was pulsing all through him. A shapely woman with rosy cheeks walked by him, and he patted her arm to dance. She smiled at him, and he let her lead him onto the floor. When Morgan saw Ozzie dancing, he gave him a thumbs-up.
Satchel bumped him. “Welcome to the party, my brother. The view is good from here.”
Ozzie pressed against the rosy-cheeked woman on the dance floor.
She was the first lady he had held since being deployed, and she smelled like he had imagined white girls did, kind of like strawberry shortcake.
They swayed. When the song ended, everyone clapped, and Ozzie was thinking about getting another shot from his bottle.
He moved through the crowd back to his table.
“What, I am good enough to drink with but not to dance?” the waitress said.
“I looked for you.”
“You did not look enough.”
He liked the direct way she spoke to him. No-nonsense, with her soft German accent.
“Want to dance now?”
“No,” she said, and then marched off. Although she was slim, she managed to have hips, and the way she swung them sent a spark pulsing inside him.
The next morning, Ozzie woke up with an awful hangover, but it was the most fun he’d had in the six weeks since arriving in Germany.
When the same guys mentioned they were going out that evening, Ozzie was in.
When he stepped into the Federal Eagle Club, he found himself scanning the room for the saucer-eyed waitress.
He didn’t see her. Fats Waller’s “Your Feet’s Too Big” was playing, and once again Ozzie felt right at home.
Morgan and Satchel wasted no time sidling up to two single women.
All the tables were full, so Ozzie leaned against the wall, scanning the crowd.
“You came back for seconds?” she asked. She wore her hair loose around her shoulders, and a little smile played on her face.
Had she been looking for him too? Without giving it a second thought, Ozzie took her hand and led her to the dance floor just as the music slowed down several beats.
She wore another simple dress open at the throat, and Ozzie thought that she had a lovely collarbone.
As his torso moved against hers, the sweet, fruity fragrance of her overpowered his senses.
“You do not even know my name.”
She was right. “Excuse my manners.” He leaned back so that he could see her eyes. “My name is Ozzie. And you?”
“Jelka.”
He pulled her back to him. “It’s nice to meet you, Jelka.”
“What kind of name is Ozzie?” Her “what” sounded like “vhat,” and once again he found her accent endearing.
“It’s a nickname.”
She looked up into his face, confused.
“A name that my friends and family call me. My real name is Osbourne. Most of the fellas in the army call me by my last name, Philips.”
“Osbourne.” She rolled it around in her mouth. “I like that better.”
“Are you working tonight?”
“No, it’s my night off. But I can still get you a cocktail.”
Ozzie had come with the thought that he wouldn’t drink, but the moment she offered, he got thirsty. Once the song ended, Jelka led him to two high chairs at the bar.
“Two shots of J?germeister,” she said to the girl tending bar.
Ozzie raised his glass to her and then downed it. She did the same. The music sped back up.
“Will you teach me how to do that dance?” Jelka tilted her chin.
“You want to learn the Lindy Hop?”
She nodded.
Ozzie was a good dancer, and after another shot, he spun Jelka to her feet and showed her the step. When she didn’t seem to get it, he grabbed her around the waist and moved her hips.
“Like this?” She smiled.
“You got it.”
As the night wore on, Ozzie had waved off other girls as Jelka produced more drinks and they burned holes in the dance floor. The bartender shouted, “Last call,” and Jelka leaned into Ozzie. “Osbourne, will you walk me home?”
Ozzie felt a warm sensation in his cheeks. He liked the way she said his name, and he dipped his head so she couldn’t see him blush. “Of course.”
He motioned to Satchel that he was going. Satchel pointed to him, signaling the universal You the man. Ozzie waved him off and held the door open for Jelka. The night air refreshed him as they strolled down the street.
“Do you like the moon?” she asked.
“How do you know?”
“You keep looking at it.”
“When I was a kid, I thought the moon was my protector,” Ozzie confessed, remembering long nights at his bedroom window watching it while he waited for his father to come home.
“I like the moon too. I pray to the moon.”
“I don’t pray.”
“You should.”
A gush of wind caught the collar of his drab coat, and Jelka stepped closer to him. Her trench was thin and didn’t seem adequate.
“You warm enough?” he asked her.
“No.”
“How can I get you warm?” He put his arm around her shoulders, and caressing her caused a familiar ache in his groin.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” She asked so directly that Ozzie stumbled, unaware that he had been lonely for a woman’s comfort until she asked.
Her delicate voice, her small fingers on his back, and her heady scent soothed him.
Ozzie was hungrier for affection than he had realized, and Jelka’s invitation turned a light on inside him.
He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he reached for the back of her head, brought her face to his, and kissed her slowly, threading his tongue into her warm mouth.
“Come with me.” She grabbed his hand and led him down one street after another. They finally reached a large three-story house at the end of the road with a candle burning in the window.
Leading him up the front stairs, she knocked lightly until a thick woman with her hair tied in a scarf appeared. Ozzie watched as they exchanged words in German.
“Come.” Jelka held his hand as the woman hobbled up the creaky stairs, down the dimly lit hall, and into a room on the left.
“Gute Nacht,” the woman bade them before closing the door quickly behind her.
The bedroom was small and musty. The bed looked as if they’d barely fit, but Ozzie’s insides were on fire. He reached for Jelka. She smashed her face against his, kissing him rough and deep.
“You are lonely. I can tell.” She unbuckled his trousers.
“How?” He ran his tongue over her collarbone like he had wanted to do all night.
“Because I see myself in you.”
Ozzie slipped her dress over her head and tossed it to the ground.
“Give it all to me.” She grabbed his face. “I am here to make it all better.”
They fell to the bed, and as Ozzie moved against her, Jelka grabbed his hips and pushed him to take her hard and fast.
Afterward, Jelka rolled from beneath him, breathing heavily. She opened her purse and pulled out a package of cigarettes. She lit one and offered it to him. Ozzie shook his head.
“First time with a German woman?” she said, puffing, her lips still stained a faint red from lipstick.
“What do you think?”
“So that is a yes.” She moved back toward him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Maybe I am your last, Osbourne.”
She took another puff, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand, and then trailed wet kisses down his stomach.