They’d been at it all day. Walking, swinging the detector, alternating between who would yell ‘here’ and who would dig. The yells came on fast and furious in the first couple of hours. As the day wore, the yells turned to grunts, some tired pointing, and increasing indifference to the dull ‘bahhhh’ on what felt like every bit of rust in Belgium.
The rust had once been something else, but having concluded that one German 88 shell burst would generate something like 100 pieces of iron, they’d collected more than enough and strained their late middle-aged backs in the process.
“Something’s here,” said Ron, sticking a small branch in the ground to mark the spot.
“What number?” came from Todd 20 yards away.
“It reads 23, 25, something like that.”
“Great and 4-8 inches, something like that?”
“6 inches it says, yeah, something like that.”
“More shrapnel. Forget it. Let’s head back.”
“Yeah, let’s. This place has probably been gone over already”
“Yeah.”
One of them yawned, and put his hand on his aching flexors. They’d been digging all day. Digging a lot. Replacing the soil in emptied holes was the metal detectorist’s code of honor – leave no trace – but took twice the effort. Lugging the heavy detector, constant bending, shoveling, and lack of bathroom facilities had left their impact.
It was Ron who gave it one more sweep, ready to put the thing over his shoulder and walk back to the car, when it sounded a crisp beep. He slowed down and heard the beep loud and clear. He went back and forth in a narrowing arc, and heard the consistent alert again and again, clearer as he focused on one small spot. Todd was already on his way over.
Ron used his boot to scrape away the duff on the surface, and hovered the detector getting a still louder beep beep beep as it got closer to the ground. “Well it ain’t shrapnel, that’s for sure.”
“Ain’t? Really? You went to Tufts for god’s sake.”
“Just saying,” as he pointed to the ground. “Dig Toddles.” The dirt was loose, mostly composting pine needles and leaves, and came away easily. A clink sound of metal on metal caught their attention and Todd put down the spade, digging with his fingers now, feeling for it and came away with a bullet, intact. “A bullet! Intact!” he yelled.
“Give it me!” said Ron, who tried to bend down but fell solidly on his knees with a moan. “30-08! It’s from an M1.”
“Careful, it’s live.”
“They won’t let us take it back, damn it. Can you pry the bullet part off?”
“Won’t budge. They really made these things!”
“I wonder who dropped it. And why? Man, that’s history!”
Todd looked over the shell, scraping off the dirt with his thumbnail. “Lookee! The primer’s been hit. It’s a dud! We can take it back.”
“Lemme see!”
Todd rose, brushing the dirt off his pants and gave Ron a hand helping lift him up. They debated. A soldier, gun jammed, pries out the bullet, reloads, and fights on, it seemed plausible. They speculated on his mood at that moment and looked down the forested hill towards the town of Foy, wondering if the soldier survived, what became of him. They had his bullet, a dud, had he sworn when it wouldn’t fire?
Todd picked up the detector, and moved to turn it off, when he heard another sharp “beep.” They looked at each other as he move it gently side to side triggering a repeated beep, beep beep, beep, sharper than with the bullet. They knelt again, Ron more carefully, one knee at a time, and scraped down further. “Oh my good god living Christ,” he said staring down. “Jesus, Jesus, oh my sweet Jesus.”
Lying in the dirt, a glint of silver, slightly bent, was a dog tag.
They were on what Ron Woodward called his ‘Back to the Front Tour, one of their many bucket list things, a present to themselves for their 65th birthdays. College roommates, best friends, doing a battlefield tour from Normandy to Bastogne with a tipsy stopover in Epardy (the champagne capital offered free tastings from a dozen makers!) and the wives had said “pass.”
“But you wanted to go to Europe!” argued Todd.
“I do, and will, and in style. But if you think I give a rat’s hindquarters about battlefields you are very much mistaken. Go, enjoy, get drunk, get laid for all I care. I’ll find a pottery course or visit Alice,” countered his wife, Gillian.
“Alice? In New Zealand? I’d like to go to New Zealand!”
“Perfect. Join me. Skip the battlefields.”
He didn’t, and she took two pottery courses. Ron’s wife, who cared less about pottery, stayed home and held a rolling pin theatrically over her shoulder when he entered the Uber, a Honda Fit, for the airport. “I choose the next trip,” Carla said, waving the rolling pin for emphasis. “So you two knuckleheads enjoy yourselves.”
Ron saluted with a broad smile and held up his foot to show off his paratrooper boot. Carla rolled her eyes, waved him off, and couldn’t believe her husband had spent $1,600 on a reenactor’s uniform. “Don’t think you look like a complete idiot,” she yelled as the taxi reared out their drive. “And suck in that gut, soldier.”
He threw her a kiss and thought about real soldiers leaving home during the war. For a second, maybe less than a second, he almost felt like it was that real, until the Uber driver, in a distinctly Indian, or maybe Pakistani, accent, asked, “It will be to Logan, Sir, yes?”
“No, Wellesley. We’re picking up my friend and then Logan.”
“Oh, yes. I have it. Pilgrim Road. Right away.”
“Small car you have,” Ron grumbled
The driver looked into the rearview mirror, ”Oh, yes sir. Indeed it is a small car.”
Todd was already standing in his driveway when the Uber turned in. He wheeled his bag over to the rear as Ron lowered the window to say, “We’re really doing this!” Todd turned to give him the thumbs up, stared into the car and turned his thumb down .
“No way. No. Uh huh. You are not wearing that on the plane.”
“Why not?”
“Because, one, you look like an idiot, two, they’ll probably pull you out as some nutcase, which you are, and three people will think I’m affiliated with you and I have a reputation to protect.”
“But you got your outfit, right?”
“In the bag, and I regret spending $1300 on it. Go in and change. Be quick.”
“$3100? It cost you $1300?”
“What? The uniform? Yeah, $1300.”
“And you got everything on the list? “
“Yeah, everything.”
“Christ, it cost me $1600.”
“Maybe they charged for extra large or something. Anyway, hurry up, okay.”
Struggling out of the car, Ron asked Todd if his gear was U.S. made.
“I don’t know. I just got it off the website, the one you told me about.”
“Can’t be domestic or surplus. Mine is. I can’t believe you’d buy U.S. army gear made overseas!”
“Get changed NOW, Private.”
“I’m a sergeant, see the stripes?”
Todd rolled his eyes, said something about ‘chutzpah’ and offered to buy a Medal of Honor off the website when they returned ending with an aggravated, “Now hurry! Sir!” to which Ron replied as he strained to get his olive drab duffle bag out of the trunk, “Sergeant. I work for a living.” “Oh god,” groaned Todd. “Oh god.”
Gillian helped Ron with his bag, “My this is heavy. Carrying ordinance Ron? Anyway I think you look adorable.”
The Uber driver stared at Ron as he went into Todd’s home. “Is he not too old to be in army, Sir?” “A second childhood,” said Todd. “He’s early for Halloween.”
Not too early. On their first day in Normandy, in the town of St Mere Eglies, they were having lunch with their guide in front of the church featuring the effigy of John Steele, the paratrooper who landed on the roof and spent hours dangling from the steeple, when several dozen people dressed up in WW2 uniforms, got out of a bus.
They were part of a large, organized tour, which rented out such uniforms to clients if they wanted. None of the locals in St Mere Egliese paid them the least attention; it had been a very popular tour for years.
“Hey, look at those guys,” said Ron. “They look great. Let’s go back to the hotel and get dressed.”
“They look foolish, Ron. I mean, honestly. I’m sorry I bought the damn costume.”
“Uniform. It’s a uniform. To honor the men who fought.”
“How come they’re all paratroopers? How come SHE’S a paratrooper? What about THAT guy?”
Their eyes turned to a woman with long blond curls spilling out from under a helmet, in an 82nd airborne outfit, with staff sergeant’s stripes on her arm who was talking with a master sergeant, a black guy with a white beard and Ray bans.
“I don’t recall women in the Airborne. Or black guys. It was a segregated army, remember.”
“It’s okay, they’re into it. At least we’re authentic.”
“AUTHENTIC? You’re 64 Ron. The only authentic aspect is the 85 extra pounds you’re carrying which, alas, the paratroopers could get rid of. And those guys outrank you.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“They’re not allowed in the cemetery; only real veterans can wear such uniforms. That’s where we’re going next,” announced their guide. “They don’t think reenactors are serious maybe or, maybe they don’t let guns in. I could be wrong but I don’t see them there.”
“Guns? They can get guns? I didn’t think of that!”
“In France, it’s difficult. They don’t have guns those men…and ladies. I just meant you are not permitted to have guns in the cemetery. Or drones. They don’t allow drones either. That’s a new ruling. I need to add that to my website.”
The dirt on the tag brushed off easily enough revealing the name “Samuel H. Kalish.” There was an O next to his name, his blood type. There was his serial number, “68540672.” And there was the code T-43, which neither Ron nor Todd understood. There was a name Morris Kalish at the bottom, and the town of Mattapan, Massachusetts, under that. An “H” signified that Samuel H. Kalish of Mattapan, Massachusetts was Jewish.
“Careful,” said Ron.
“For Christ’s sake, I’m being careful.”
“Well don’t scratch it.”
“Oh my god, it’s been underground for a hundred years. I’m not going to scratch it.”
“Let me see.”
Todd handed it over and Ron cusped it in two hands, as if it was a damaged butterfly he was trying to keep alive. He stared at it for a long while then handed it back with a ‘be careful’ and picked up the detector.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like you moron? There might be more here.”
Another loud beep occurred almost immediately and Ron went to his knees again, hard, but didn’t seem to notice. He pawed the dirt and came up with a second dog tag, attached to a rusty length of chain that fell apart as he pulled it from the ground. The tag was the twin of the other.
“It’s gotta to be a grave. An unmarked grave. Dig some more,” said Todd.
“A grave? They wouldn’t leave a GI. What makes you think it’s a grave?”
“See those notches in the tags? They’re there to jam one of them into the teeth of the guy. Then they take the other to notify his family. So if we have both, it means they never did that. Maybe in the heat of battle they just covered him up.”
“Or maybe the place was overrun by the Germans and when they saw the H on his tag they just left him! Or maybe the guys in his unit were, like, anti-semitic, and just left him in the foxhole.”
“Keep on digging. If we find his bones, we have to notify the Army. Poor bastard might have been missing in action and…”
“And his family never knew what happened!”
The pair continued to dig, down a few feet, alternating turns and found more rust, but no bones. Ron kept on hovering the metal detector over the spot and Todd would tell him that bones won’t register to which Ron said that he would have had buttons, ammo, his uniform, adding “you moron” but nothing beeped. They widened their field and got still more rust, a few pull tabs – “They didn’t have pull tabs back then, did they?” – and a smashed buckle they speculated had been shattered by a bullet. “Or shrapnel. Do you think that’s how he bought it?”
“I don’t know,” said Ron turning the mass in his hand, “I can’t imagine. Let’s go back to the museum. Someone there might help.”
“We can’t! This might be, like, illegal.”
“Well, let’s just say we found it.”
“Then they’ll take it. That’s not right.”
“Can they do that? I mean, we found it.”
“Damn the French, they’d do it just to spite us. They hate Americans.”
“We’re in Belgium. You really are a moron.”
“Oh, yeah. I think they like Americans.”
The pair of somewhat dirty, sweaty, tired, and retired men, were eyed warily by the matron who manned the ticket desk at the Bastogne War Museum, but after the 37 similarly aged men who had entered earlier that day in paratrooper uniforms she’d grown tolerant of the odd American. However, she had not grown tolerant of those who tried to get in for free. “14 Euros, please.”
“WHAT? That’s like $20 dollars! Isn’t this free? American Museums are free. Aren’t they Ron? I mean some may ask for a donation, but 14 Euros is a lot.”
“How old are you?”
Todd looked at the ticket information…”65! But I don’t look it, do I?”
“No? I think you look it. That will be 12 Euros.”
“Me too, I’m 65”
“24 Euros. Do you have a card? Identification please.”
They looked at each other, looked at the docent, put down 28 Euros and grumbled something about their passports being in the safe at their hotel. As she gave them their tickets with a look over the top of her half rimmed glasses and aquiline nose, they asked her if they might speak to a researcher. She directed them to a desk in the museum behind which sat a young man, with tattoos going up and down his arms, laughing to himself as he gazed into a computer that emitted the low moaning of “oooh, ahhs, and ohs.”
As they approached the young man, she picked up the phone to ask for the custodian to come and sweep up the dirt they trailed in, typed in “two seniors” into her registry and pocketed 4 euros.
The young man was startled and blanked out his screen before looking up with an embarrassed smile. They were his first visitors that day, that week, but then it was only Wednesday. “Oui? Can I ‘elp you?”
Ron explained they had a dog tag and wanted to know more about it, about the soldier. “Well, let me ‘ave a look. Where did you find this?”
Ron looked at Todd. Todd looked at Ron. Ron took back the tag.
“We found it. But you can’t take it from us. Can you?”
“That depends if it was found on public or private property.”
“We found it on a farm, private.”
“Ah, then it is the property of the Belgian government which runs this museum.”
“What, no wait, what if we found it on public land?”
“Ah, that is strictly prohibited and I’d have to contact the authorities. It would be considered stolen. You didn’t use a metal detector, I hope. Our laws are very specific on that issue.”
The pair started to sweat a bit, the drips streaking down their dirty, now guilty faces, and they shifted from foot to foot, slowly backing away, simultaneously considering a run for it.
“I am jesting,” said the young man. “This isn’t France, after all!”
They handed him the tag, and he looked it over, turning it this way and that, holding it to the light, feeling it’s edge. He had one eye closed as if he had a jeweler’s loop in the other. His tongue protruded as he focused.
“It’s authentic. See the notch? I guess Samuel Kalish was killed, but I’m not sure why they didn’t put that in his mouth, you know, between his teeth.”
The young man looked up, smiling again. “They didn’t do zat. Put the tag in zee mouth.”
“Sure they did. The notch…”
“Ah hah, that is what you would say is urban legend. One of many. The notch was not there to put into a soldier’s teeth. Non. The notch was not an aid to start the dog tag between the teeth when you kicked the tag into his mouth. People ask me zat though.”
“I always thought it done that way,” said Todd.
“Puhleez, can you imagine trying to get that between teeth? Barbaric. Even the Germans wouldn’t do that, unless maybe the man was alive, the bosches. The notch was NOT a prop used to keep the mouth open so a bloating body could expel gases until the grave registration recovered it. Non. The notch was also NOT used for nailing the tag to a coffin. Not that either.”
“Well then, what was it for?”
The young man leaned back, putting his hands behind his head with a still wider smile just as his computer perked up again. “Ooohs, ahs and ohs,” continued until he shifted to another website. “Moment,” he said. He got up, went off and returned with what looked like an old Dynamo label maker.
“This is an Addressograph Model 70 Medical Imprinter. It was designed for one purpose and one purpose only; to transfer the imprinted information on dog tags onto military paperwork. The notch allowed it to properly orient the tag for the imprinted transfer of information. The tag will only fit into the Addressograph Model 70 one way. Once seated, the Addressograph Model 70 can operate and the information transferred to paperwork much like old credit card receipt machines transferred embossed credit card information onto paper receipts. Voila!!”
“Wow.”
“I didn’t know that. I always thought….”
“No one does. It’s more romantic to think the notch as something to be shoved in the teeth, but it was purely practical.”
“Wow. How do you know all this?”
“I read a lot. Not many people come to the research desk. They want to see guns and uniforms. And the films. Those are very good, I must say.”
“Let’s go!!!” said Ron.
“See?” said the young man.
“Can you help us with the tag?”
The young man looked it over again speaking the name out loud – “Samuel Kalish, H for Hebrew. He was a Jew. Got a tetanus shot in 1943; T-43, that’s what it means.”
He went to typing on his keyboard. “Ah, interesting. 101st Airborne Division, 503rd regiment, company H. They were outside of Foy. You can still see foxholes in the forest there.”
Ron nodded as if just learning that. “Wow, we should go there, eh Todd?” Todd rolled his eyes, and whispered, “The Academy award for the worst supporting actor goes to this moron.”
The young man typed some more.
“He was at Normandy, and Arnhem. Born in 1923, December 11.” To himself he murmured, “Hmm, interesting, yes, that makes sense.”
“What’s interesting,” asked Ron.
“Sagittarius! Heroic, brave, smart, loyal, not appreciated by people, misunderstood often… I am also a Sagittarius.” He looked at the screen and went on.
“Wounded at Arnhem. Bronze star. Captured briefly here…right here.” He pointed out the window towards the forest where they had found the dogtag. “That area changed hands, as you say, several times.
“Released there too, it says….You know the Germans let go a lot prisoners when they retreated. They were in a hurry to get out. That probably happened to him. Or they killed them. You’ve heard of Malmedy? He left the Army in October of 1945. Lives in Marlboro – like the cigarette I smoke– Massachusetts.
They both shouted, “That’s near us!”
“Do you smoke? No, Americans don’t smoke much these days. Not like the Chinese. Maybe he’d like those tags back? You better hurry though. He’s, hmm, 95 years old. No green bananas for him.“
He printed out what he found on the Internet, along with references to H company, 101st. When Todd and Ron had finished touring the museum, he waved them over. “He’s on Facebook. “ Leaning over the screen they saw a blanched peach pit, with a sneer, thick glasses and a very few wisps of grey hear on a speckled, mostly bald, head. Under that were older photos, some ancient ones, a high school graduate in a tweed jacket and tie, the same fellow, only thinner, in uniform holding a Thomson .45 with two smiling GIs kneeling in front of jeep, a wedding photo, the same face with less hair holding babies, then with kids, then young adults, then older adults, then an older him with more kids, him with an old woman with the caption – “Maeve and me at our 58th” – and finally him in a wheel chair being helped by two young Hispanic-looking women in nurses aides outfits blowing dozens of candles out on a cake that read…”Happy 90th Sam!”
“What are you going to do?”
They looked at each and in one voice said they were going to return it.
At their hotel, they attempted to connect to the web. Ron whined that Trip Advisor had said there was great wifi and called to reception where a woman apologized and said it was down but quite good in the lobby. They took the elevator made by the Swiss firm Schindler causing Todd note, “Hey look! Schindler’s Lift!” “Moron,” was Ron’s response. “Me?” said Todd. “Look at you. Look at us!”
They peered at themselves in the mirrored elevator, seeing two paunchy guys wearing neat GI uniforms circa 1944…one with sergeant’s stripes.
The door opened on zero – “I don’t know why these guys call the first floor zero and the second floor the first.” – and walked out as two young women holding back smiles gave them wide berth and allowed them to exit. They heard laughter as the door closed. “I wonder what’s so funny,” said Ron. “Can’t imagine.” said Todd.
They found a table in the lobby, ordered two Belgian beers and opened Ron’s laptop to Facebook. There they typed in Sam Kalish. There weren’t many, one was a girl showing off a tattoo, another was an accountant in Cleveland. But one matched what the researcher had found. There was the photo of him blowing out candles in the last entry he made five years earlier.
“Do they keep you up on Facebook if you don’t, like, update?” asked Ron.
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Friend him. See what happens.”
Nothing did, not then, so several beers later they decided to go out for dinner, returned for more beers, and called it a night.
They didn’t hear anything the next day. Or the next. Or any time during the balance of their ‘back to the front’ vacation. They did show the tag to anyone, everyone, they met – waiters, shopkeepers, receptionists, clerks, the lady at the ticket counter at the airport and the Customs guy at Logan – a few were moved, some smiled politely, most just shrugged a “oh, how nice” and the friends didn’t even imagine the disinterest.
With retired time on their hands, Ron and Todd continued their search. Each day they looked for a Facebook message, got none, and called various assisted living facilities and nursing homes in and around Marlboro, Massachusetts. The operators couldn’t say if they had a Samuel Kalish, against the rules, and when pressed would transfer the line to an endless ringing concluding in a voicemail box. When they called back for that person, the operators would transfer them back to the same voicemail.
“It’s like an endless loop,” said Ron one day while sewing on a Staff Sergeant’s chevron to his uniform. “Ya think?” said Todd. They searched obituaries and death records, but no Sam Kalish showed. They’d added Todd’s phone number to their Facebook friend requests and those voicemails in the hopes someone would get back to them.
It was 4:27AM weeks after they returned when the phone rang — Todd knew that because he looked at time on his phone and wondered who would call at that hour. A robo call? An emergency? He was shaken by anger and fear.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” it was a gruff voice, shaky, a bit weak, but determined on the other end.
“Who IS THIS? Who the hell are you? Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s gotta be early because it’s dark outside and everyone in this morgue is either dead or sleeping. What time is it?”
“Four-twenty something. Who is this?”
“Sam Kalish. You’re looking for me.”
Todd stared at the phone as his now nervous wife roused to ask him who was on the line. “It’s him. The guy. Kalish!” She sat up, eyes now wide open.
“Are you the Samuel Kalish, the paratrooper? 101st airborne? Dropped on D-day?”
“Paratrooper? Really? I’m Sam Kalish, the actuary. I’m 94 years old and the last thing I dropped from was a toilet. I haven’t been a paratrooper in a while. And the name’s Callahan in this Stalag. It’s an Irish name you know.”
Todd shook his head at his wife. Callahan? Stalag? Had he gone senile? Did he think he was in a POW camp?
“They call me Callahan here in Our Lady of the Courageous Caucasian and I’m tired of correcting them. So what do you want me for? I owe you money? Because if I owe you money I’m hanging up. ”
“No, no you don’t owe me any money. Christ I owe you. I have something of yours.”
“Yeah? If it’s hemorrhoids you can keep ‘em.”
“No, it’s your dog tags. I found them. Near a foxhole, in Belgium.
There was silence for a change on Sam’s end.
“Mr. Kalish? Sam?”
“I’m here. I’m here. And I’ll be goddamned.”
“Mr. Kalish?”
“You found my tags. Jesus H. Christ. I haven’t thought about those since, well, since ever. Since I took ‘em off.”
“Took them off? You didn’t lose them?”
“No, I took ‘em off. Long story. How’d you get them?”
“Well, that’s also a long story.”
“Look kid, I’m 94 and don’t have time for long stories. I’m all ears….”
Todd heard voices at the other end of the line, then Sam’s, louder, angry and another ‘Goddamnit.’
“Look, it’s the fuzz, they’re telling me to be quiet. I’ll call you later.”
“Wait,” shouted Todd. “I can come to you. I’m in Wellesley.”
He came back, “St Patrick’s Manor. Framingham. Right next door. Sam Callahan will find me. Bring a bottle of single malt. And don’t show it to the guards. Trinken macht frei, ” and hung up.
Todd waited until 5:47 to call Ron. He had intended to wait until 7:30AM, a respectable hour for a weekend though neither man worked during the week, but old habits in Todd died hard like Ron’s sleeping in.
“What the hell Todd!?! What time is it?”
“He called me.”
“Who called you?”
“Kalish. Sam Kalish. He just called me.
Ron was wideawake. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
They stopped off a Kappy’s to buy a bottle of whiskey, debating over what type to get and how much to spend. They both agreed it should be a known brand, not the cheapest, but certainly not the most expensive which was running – was this possible they asked as they stared at the price tag? — $450.
“It’s very special,” said the sales clerk. “Smooth. It compares to a slightly smokey, peaty nectar, with a hint of peach and tropical fruits, but a syrup body redolent of a fine Islay malt.”
“They let you taste the good stuff, huh?” asked Ron
“Never touched it. I’m looking at the label,” said the clerk.
“Anything cheaper?”
“Langavullan won’t bankrupt you.”
“We’ll take it and we’ll need some proper glasses.”
$79 later, they transferred the bottle to a Whole Foods bag, covered that with the day’s Boston Globe, and set the GPS for St. Patrick’s which wasn’t more than 15 minutes away. They speculated about Sam Kalish, how he lost the tags, what he’d done over the years, what he’d be like now, in his 90s, and whether he was demented and confused. Or had a tale to tell. They didn’t have long to wait.
At reception they were told to sign in and register the guest, that’s what they called the old folks, they planned to see. “Sam Kalish,” Ron offered, “But some people call him Callahan I suppose.”
“And do you know this Mr. Callahan-Kalish? Are you family or something?”
The dour clerk looked over her half glasses, down her thin nose pointing poignantly at the pair as they looked down towards their shoes as if they’d been caught eating candy between meals. “Well, not personally, but we spoke to him today, this morning, and want to return this.” Todd held too tightly to the bag, as he fumbled for the dog tag. A clink as the glasses hit the bottle startled him, but the clerk didn’t seem to notice. “Wow,” she said. “Is this his? Where did you get it?”
They explained how they found it, found Sam, and how Sam called to find out why they were looking for him. “That’s really kind of you. I bet most people would keep it.”
“I bet most guys who had these are dead,” said Todd
“We don’t like to use that word here. Passed on, please.”
“Sure, of course. I bet most guys who had these are passed on,” he said.
“And are dead,” added Ron.
“I get the point. I’ll let him know you’re here. Room 207. Take that elevator,” she said pointing down a hallway. “And easy on the sauce. He’s not 90 anymore.”
They walked down the hall, passing one after another of grey bundles in wheel chairs, looking up at them with curiosity, confusion, an occasional smile or wave. A skeletal mummy with blue veins showing through her thin skin, reached up from her wheel chart to grab Ron’s arm with surprising speed and even more surprising strength and asked him who he was. “Ron, I’m Ron.” She pushed his arm away in anger or disappointment. “Not the boy I’m looking for.” And then she pulled away using her feet to propel her. There was a stale scent of urine in her wake.
“Christ,” said Ron. “For real,” said Todd pointing to a crucifix on the wall.
They waited in front of the elevator for a very long time, as wheel chairs, walkers and a couple, holding tightly to each other’s arms, gathered around. Each pressed the button at least three times. “Must be broken,” said Ron. “It’s always like this,” one voice said. “They make it slow,” said another, and then a chorus “To give us time to get on,” “And off,” “And save money the cheap Jew bastards,” from a cranky voice behind a walker.
“But this is a Catholic facility,” said Todd.
“That’s what they tell you,” said the voice.
A cane tapped Todd’s leg, and a well-dressed man whispered. “He’s got Alzheimers. And Turets. Ignore him.”
The elevator doors opened and let out a large group of people, similarly equipped, with an aide trying to usher them down the halls but unable to avoid chairs locking wheels, and a couple of people turning around, confused, to get back into the elevator. While another aide held the bumping elevator door open, people meandered in, each pressing the 2 button – there were only two floors – and off they were. Slowly.
“They make it go slow,” said a woman holding dearly to the rail walker.
“To save money!” said a now familiar voice.
“So we don’t get jostled, fall, and break a hip,” she came back, rather sharply.
The cranky voice said under his breath, “Save on electricity I’ll bet.”
Eventually the doors opened and Ron and Todd, being the last in, were happy to be the first out. Standing in front of them was a man, skinny, shrunken, with coke bottle thick lenses in his glasses, one spotted hand clutching a walker, and the other at his forehead in a salute. “You must be them. I’m him. Did you bring the whiskey? If you did, let’s head to my room. If you didn’t, turn around and get some. Take the stairs. They’re faster.”
Todd jiggled the Whole Foods bag to allow the clinking glasses speak for themselves Sam Kalish’s smirk widened into a smile and he twitched his eyebrows in a way that reminded Todd of an early Groucho Marx.
In the process of shimmying his walker around, Sam looked over his shoulder and waved his arm forward saying “Follow me.”. He moved quickly, or quicker than a 95 year old man pushing a walker, should. He lifted it, swung it forward and planted it solidly in front and repeated it as he marched down the hall. Another old man, spittle running down one corner of his mouth, walked on a collision course with Sam. The man stopped short, and took a step back as if about to plow ahead. Sam turned to Todd and Ron, who heard a slight cracking sounds from his back as he did so, and said, “Veer right, this guy won’t budge for love or money” and moved around him.
They came to room 207, with cut out letters spelling “Sam Kalish” crudely glued on a piece of construction paper outlined with bits of foil and stuck with what looked like pepper corns or rabbit pellets and the words, ‘We love grandpa” crayoned at the bottom. Sam tapped his finger on it. “My granddaughter did that when she was six and I was….,” he hesitated, scratched his head, and “Hell, when I was still alive.”
He pushed open the door to a small room, a studio, filled with faded pictures, many black and white, that smelled intensely of pine disinfectant. A cigarette was smoldering in an ashtray that had ‘Harry’s Bar Venice’ on it. Sam said, ‘Oh shit,’ and moved to put out the cigarette and wave away the smoke. “Don’t say a word about that,” he ordered as he lowered himself down into a lounge chair gesturing for Todd and Ron to sit on the couch. “Wait, one of you guys gets the ice. It’s in the fridge.”
“It’s an honor to be here, Mr. Kalish. Or is it Callahan? “
“Sam will do. And it’s Kalish. Callahan’s what the biddies call me when they don’t want to be reminded there’s a Jew here.”
“They’re anti-semitic? The nuns, the aides?” asked Todd.
“Probably. Isn’t everyone? Or maybe not. More like they’re just fitting me in. They do look at me funny when I want pork chops though. And even funnier when I eat one. But not bacon. That’s strange, isn’t it? I wished they’d serve pork chops more.”
“Because you like them, huh?” questioned Ron.
“No, because I like the look on their faces. OF COURSE I LIKE THEM. With apple sauce. Which one are you anyway?”
“Ron.”
“And I’m Todd,” said Todd, returning with several ice cubes in a glass. He splashed a small bit of the whiskey in and handed it over.
“I figured,” said Sam, looking up and flashing his overgrown eyebrows. He grabbed the glass, swirled the ice around with one shaky finger, put the finger in his mouth, holding it there for a while, and making a popping sound as he withdrew it with a satisfied, ah. He sipped the whiskey with closed eyes, breathed deeply, and finished it off in one gulp.
He jiggled the empty glass back and forth at the boys. “Todd, is it? Take this, empty the ice, put back one cube, a small one preferably, and refill. When you think you’ve refilled too much, fill it some more. Do that twice.” Todd dutifully obeyed.
When he had a decidedly large glass of whiskey in his hand, he relaxed, and sipped. And sipped. “Well, where are those tags I’ve been hearing about?”
Ron opened a folder bulging with papers — research they’d done — and pulled out a padded enveloped inside of which was a burgundy velvet jewelry box that has once held his wife’s earrings and passed it to Sam. Sam’s now steady hands put down the half empty glass and reached for the box, “Christ, did you get here in an armored car or something?” He ran his fingers over the velvet, admiring the streaks they made, before opening the box. When he finally opened it, he had a smirk on his face as he stared at the tags he was holding, turning them over and around again and again. “Well, I’ll be,” was all he said.
Ron and Todd looked at each other, moved by the unmoving old man. After a while Sam lifted himself from his chair brushing away Todd’s arm. “I can get up fine. It’s wiping my ass I have trouble with. Care to help in that department?”
“Do you need to, umm, go?”
“I’m kidding for crying out loud. Can’t a guy make a joke?”
He moved over to a desk, covered with papers, old AARPs, bills and ink stains from leaky pens. Opening the lowest drawer, he rummaged about and with a satisfied, ‘ah’ brought out an old envelope crumbling in his hands.
He reached in and took out another set of dog tags on a chain and handed them to Ron. “Gerard J. Callahan,” he read out loud, looking at Sam. “Who is he?”
Sam smirked again. “Me.”
“You?”
“Me. Or me for a while. It’s because of Gerry you found those tags. My tags I mean.”
Todd and Ron stared at each other, and each took a long sip of their whiskey.
“The dynamic duo look confused,” said Sam. “You refill me and I’ll tell you a story.”
“Gerry was a guy none of us knew, a guy off the repo-depot, a replacement, who didn’t know his ass from his elbow, poor kid. He’d only been with us for a few weeks. We didn’t pay too much attention to them, you know, because they usually didn’t last long and the rest of us, well, we’d been around too long. Cynics. I was a 21 year old cynic.
“Anywho, he came in with us, to Bastogne. We were on the edge, digging holes, and freezing our tuchuses off. I remember the cold more than the Germans. Gerry was, I don’t know, 18 maybe, and scared. We were all scared, but he was a kid. Lost, blubbering, asking all sorts of questions – where’s this, what’s that, when do we eat, how deep do I dig? – nothing wrong with that but it was annoying. I was maybe a bit nicer to him so one day he crawls into my foxhole and asks about his feet…”
“His feet?” asked Ron.
“His feet. They were blue and his toes were all split and he said he couldn’t feel them. Trench foot. His socks were soaked.”
“I swore at him, telling him he was an idiot. He started bawling, poor guy, and I felt bad so gave him my extra pair of socks, told him to keep his feet in my jacket – warm ‘em up – and then ran off to see if I couldn’t get other socks, maybe the medic. I do remember I told Gerry to give me his cigarettes so I could trade them for socks.
“So I jog around when, blam, we came under fire. Mostly it was artillery, but this was an attack…Panzers too. I ran back to the hole, jump in and Gerry was so scared he grabbed at me, yanking off my dog tags, and tried to get up when he got hit. There’s not much more to it. He was dead and Germans were coming on.
“Joe Philbrook saw it and jumped in the hole. Joe was the platoon leader. Good guy. The big C got him in, in, when Reagan was President. Sonofabitch was a two pack a day guy his whole life.
“Joe told me to lose my tags, and put on Callahan’s. ‘Why the hell for?’ I asked. ‘Because if they capture you you dumb-assed big nosed sheeny they’ll shoot you on the spot.’
“He didn’t wait. He took the kid’s tags, tossed them to me and that was that.
“Sure enough, five minutes later we’re overrun, ‘hande hoch’, SS too. They keep us standing, hands high, and rifle through out clothing taking mostly food and smokes and very nervous. They had fingers on the triggers and when Stan Kapica, he’d been hit in the leg, fell they killed him.
“This one guy, beautiful I remember, blond, blue eyed, hadn’t shaved yet…real Hitler Youth type…was shaking and came over to me. Looked me in the punam, points his gun at my gut and hisses ‘Jude’? I shook my head no, so he lifts the tags I had hanging out – just put them on you know – and he see’s the ‘C’, for Catholic and hits me in the gut with the barrel. He left me there, knocked the wind out of me, and I guess was satisfied. He punched out two other guys, Patozzi and O’Keefe so maybe he was a Protestant Nazi son of a bitch bastard.
“You got away. That’s what the record shows.”
“We all got away. They took our boots, we had better boots, and marched us down a road with just a couple of guards – rifles, bolt action things, no machine guns I remember that. These Belgians standing near the road threw snowballs at us. Turns out they were Germans. Volksdeutsche. Anyway, artillery came in. Ours or theirs, but you know how it goes. Everyone runs in all directions. Me and some guys went into a barn and when the shelling stops everyone else is gone. Or dead. I get some boots from one guy, an American, killed there. We headed back the way we came, run into our lines, and I’m home safe.
“Minus your dog tags.”
“Minus my dog tags.”
“Until today.”
“Until today. You can have ‘em.”
“We can?”
“One each. Share like good boys.”
Ron and Todd refused but Sam was insistent. He’d lived 70 years without them already. They asked about Callahan’s.
“That’s a story and a half. I gave them back to his sister, Maeve, pretty lady, looked like a skinny Maureen O’Hara – his parents had died, father from drink – but she’d gone crazy over losing her brother. Only two kids in an Irish family, go figure. When I showed her the tags, she got all excited, hugging me, crying, couldn’t let me go. Nope, she never let me go. She said Gerry had written her about what a good guy I was, watching out for him. Can you imagine that? I hardly knew the kid.”
“I wonder if she ever got over it. I mean, how she got on.”
“She managed. You do. No choice in the matter. Got married to a nice guy, great guy. Two kids. Had a good life. But Gerry was always in her head. And when her mind went…bang zoom, he came back. Who would have the heart to argue?”
Sam shook his head when there was a knock at the door. The woman who struggled at the elevator came in with a bag of cookies. “Drinking already?!? Have you even had lunch?” she admonished. “It’s drink that got Pop and now look at you. I brought those peanut butter cookies you love so much,” she said, putting down the tray. “Oh and don’t forget mass tomorrow.” And left the room.
“Did she ever get over it?” said Sam. “Yes. Me? Not so much.”