 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
PROLOGUE:
NICE AND EASY
DAY
THREE: DONUTS The Big Guy is mad about something. "Staff Sergeant on deck!" Everyone scrambles out of their bunks, three quarters asleep, at attention by their lockers. "WHO THE HELL BROUGHT THIS INTO MY BARRACKS!?!" He's got it on a desk chair with rollers, pushing it down the line, making sure everyone gets a good look. "You want some donuts? No? How about you, Food? You're a hungry guy, you must want a nice jelly donut..." One by one he offers us a tasty snack. All politely decline. Marc, a toy salesman from New Rochelle, had smuggled in a large box of Dunkin' Donuts and left it out for the whole barracks; a thoughtful gesture, however one that was increasingly looking like it was going to be a source of unending misery for all. We all stood at Attention pressed against our lockers, no one dared bat an eyelash. "I GOT ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD! IF I DON'T FIND OUT WHO BROUGHT THESE DONUTS INTO MY BARRACKS SOON YOU'RE ALL GOING TO — " Someone cracked. Panicked. "Staff Sergeant! I believe those donuts belong to Cadet Fi — " Another voice, one of the young punks, interrupted; "If they belong to one of us, they belong to all of us!" Silence. A long pause. The Big Guy glares. Then, quietly, he speaks; "I like that. DID YOU ALL HEAR WHAT HE JUST SAID? IF THEY BELONG TO ONE THEY BELONG TO ALL!" Then, he was gone. We stood there, unsure of what we were supposed to do now. Something had just happened, but no one was quite sure what it all meant. BAM BAM BAM! "LET'S GO! LET'S GO!" No time to think about it now, no time to figure it out. We're on the move. "No running on the stairs!," says Pyle. "Ah, shaddup!" says Dan from Queens. Morning formation — something's up. The Big Guy, The Snake, and The Screamer are checking the logs, conferring, whispering. We look around out of the corners of our eyes, trying to figure out what's going on. We're just starting to figure out who's who — that skinny fellow over there is "Lockerman," all razor-sharp angles with an amazingly neat locker. I heard that guy with no nametag speak once since we got here — is he Jamaican? West Indian? "Wolfman" already blew out his voice shouting cadence. We're starting to recognize each other, figure each other out. Slowly, it hits us: Someone's missing. Throughout the day word filters around; a couple of people — young punks at that — didn't cut it. They bugged out, went over the wall, escaped, fled in the dead of night — like Papillon...The Great Escape. All right, they probably just got on a bus and went home. The point is, this was too hard and they left. Who would be next? There were a few candidates — that nervous fellow who couldn't get anything right, too nervous to think straight. A couple of the older guys, calm and cool mentally, but could their feet make it through the week? Bunking next to Dr. Scholl had its disadvantages; I'd seen more sore, blistered, bandaged, and bloodied feet in three days then I'd seen in my entire life. We marched, we stood at Attention, we marched some more. Yelling, marching, push-ups — marching, push-ups, yelling. Did I mention marching? The ranks and the chain of command crammed into our heads. More marching. "Nervous" is having a rough time — when The Big Guy yells at him, he can't even remember his own name. He's in the wrong unit — standing with Alpha when he should be in Bravo. He can't get his general orders straight. He can't stay in step; "YOU'RE MARCHING LIKE YOU'RE IN DISNEYLAND!" screams The Screamer. He gets something wrong for the umpteenth time — did he file to the left when he was supposed to go right? We're all doing push ups because of him. The poor guy — this just makes him more nervous. Nervous in the service. He's sure the Big Guy hates him. Now he's convinced we all hate him too. Jeff from Shrub Oaks (picture an Italian L'il Abner) sidles up to Nervous and whispers in his ear. "Next time The Big Guy yells at you, just think of him standing there in his underwear." Nervous nods nervously. Lee from the Bronx is not having an easy time of it either. He's a couple of pounds overweight so all this marching in the hot sun is taking it's toll. He's an intelligent fellow, so he's having no problem learning what he needs to learn with one amazingly consistent exception: he just can't stop calling The Big Guy "sir". "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?! YOU DIDN'T CALL ME "SIR" AGAIN, DID YOU?" Right on cue, Lee from The Bronx snaps to Attention and before he can stop himself he belts out a big, healthy; "NO, SIR!" "ONE, STAFF SERGEANT! TWO, STAFF SERGEANT...." To make matters worse, with his head virtually shaved, Lee from the Bronx bears an uncanny resemblance to the character actor Jackie Coogan. This does not go unnoticed by The Big Guy, who promptly dubs him — "FESTER! DID YOU JUST CALL ME "SIR" AGAIN?!?!" "NO,SIR!" All heads drop and shake, dumbfounded. "I MEAN, STAFF SERG-" One Staff Sergeant, two Staff Sergeant.... The temperature hit 100 today. In the barracks, minutes before lights out, Michael from Tuckahoe is getting his feet bandaged up by Dr. Scholl. He's a nice guy, probably about 50, I can tell by his feet this is not easy for him — he's got to be suffering, but you wouldn't know it by the look on his face. "You know," he takes a drag off his cigarette and grins, "these are the best days of a man's life — when you're old enough to know what the hell you're doing and still young enough to enjoy it." EDITOR'S NOTE: Part I of Dave Konig's New York Guard training can be found here. Part II here. Part IV of his series on his summer training will appear on Wednesday. — Comedian Dave Konig starred on Broadway in Grease! and won a New York Emmy as the co-host of Subway Q&A. He just completed his first novel Good Luck Mr. Gorsky. He is also an NRO contributor. |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
