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Eugene borrows his father's car, the nice reliable pickup they take hunting in the fall, and gets over to the station in good time. It’s a cool spring day, and he's in a white buttoned shirt and pants he wore before the war. It all fits too loose, and he doesn’t have enough pockets.
That’s one of the strange things about civilian life; you don’t need to carry all your possessions around with you.
He keeps reaching for the Bible he kept in his breast pocket of his dungarees, but that’s gone, all the scribbles transcribed into the notebook he keeps in his desk drawer. Eugene thinks of the extra rounds he had in his pack’s side-pockets, and those are gone, too. He reaches for his rifle, sometimes, and his hands itch to clean it like a good Marine should. He gets painfully thirsty every time he looks for his canteen and can’t find it, thinking he’s back on Peleliu and curing in the sun.
He shakes the thoughts off, turns back to safer subjects. Like how all his clothes from back in high school hang off him like curtains, it feels like. His mother keeps sighing and calling for snacks every time he catches her eye.
There are a few people milling around the tracks, but nothing like the Friday a week past, when people were coming in and going off for the Easter holiday. The wedding of Mary Houston to Sidney Phillips is the event of the year in Mobile, but no one’s coming from out of town to attend.
Besides Snafu Shelton.
Hopefully.
It’s not exactly crowded, there probably aren’t two dozen people around, but Eugene feels crushed in anyhow. He hangs back to the far edge of the platform. Since coming home in February, he's not done very much to settle in; being around people leads to questions about his plans for the future, and he doesn't have any.
Eugene prays he won't run into Mrs Wilson from the bookstore, is all. He got a little terse the last time she mentioned that he should take her granddaughter out.
Right on time, a horn thunders over the town, sharply reminding Eugene of the long trips he took to California and back. He’s been across the country, seeing it flashing in the windows while that horn blared out. The engine rounds the bend in the tracks about a mile down, and Eugene’s heartbeat speeds up.
He prays. A little more calm and quiet, now that there aren’t any Jap bullets whizzing around past his nose, but steady and deep as ever. He prays that Snafu’s on this train like he said he would be. He prays he’ll get to introduce him around as his friend from the Corps, maybe tell some of the stories from over there. The milder ones that Eugene isn’t sure he remembers right. He’ll have to find some way of dressing up the image of Jay DeL’eau shitting himself.
It’ll be worth it if Snafu is just on this train.
The brick-red engine billows past with the smell of diesel and the screech of brakes, making everyone on the platform stir up and look in the windows slowing to a stop. Doors open and people start getting off, finding the loved ones waiting. Some impatient passengers try to get on as quick as they can. Eugene’s eyes are searching every face, sharp and focused, feeling like he’s back on watch in his foxhole. No way is Snafu infiltrating Mobile without Eugene knowing it.
Then, Snafu steps to the edge of a doorway one car over from Eugene’s place away from the platform. Eugene’s eyes go right on by him the first time he looks, because somehow he’s never imagined Snafu out of uniform. He's dressed nice enough for traveling, with a solid black shirt that’s even tucked into his belt. His denim pants have ash on them. Probably smoked the whole way here.
Eugene breathes out, slow and steady, taken by surprise by the swoop of his stomach. He knew he was missing Snafu, but not quite how much. Seeing him in the flesh is... Well, the things he’s meant to ask Snafu have been building up on his tongue all this time. The biggest one is about walking off like he did without a good-bye. He’s dying to hear what Snafu’ll come up with to answer that.
He waits for Snafu to step off the train.
And waits.
Eugene’s breath catches when he realizes that he’s not going to.
Snafu stands on the step of the train car, still in that doorway, one arm holding his olive drab seabag over his shoulder. Looking the kind of blank he got when he wished he was anywhere else. Trapped and hesitating, hitching his duffel like it's a mortar he has to carry. Frozen the way battle never managed to freeze him. Ready to run.
Eugene never thought about what he’d do when Snafu got here. It would be so much worse if he coaxed the man this far and then lost him again. He wonders if he's going to watch his friend take right off without a word – again – and if it’s too late to pray about it.
When the conductor wants to get back on the train, he makes a little impatient shooing gesture to get Snafu out of the doorway. Snafu fixes his eyes on those snappy, white-gloved hands, and a smile stretches across his cheeks. He stares down the conductor in his blue-and-brass-buttons coat just long enough for the train to inch forward, headed east, taking Snafu with it.
A noise tangles up in Eugene’s throat. What’s he going to do, shout at Snafu to get down from there? He knows what happens when you try to order the man around, and if he won’t get off in Mobile, Eugene can’t make him. He burns to call out anyway. Maybe that’s because he’s holding his breath.
The conductor shouts at Snafu – “Just let me up!” – and takes little hurried steps along the platform to keep up with the train. He’s not tall, and he’s not young; it’s cruel to make him grasp at the handles by the stairs.
Snafu grins and hops off onto the concrete, letting the conductor rush past to jump up in his place, huffing and puffing once he’s up. “Ask me nice next time!” Snafu shouts at the man; he gets a quick rude gesture and smiles even wider.
He grips his duffel and reaches into his jeans pocket for his smokes. One-handed isn't the easiest way to deal with a pack and lighter both, and he has some trouble. He gets his lighter open right when his duffel slips off his back, narrowly avoids spitting his cigarette out as his shoulders jolt. He notices the two old women near him who are scandalized by his behavior with the conductor. He turns their glares right back on them.
It’s nice to know some things never change.
Eugene sidles up from Snafu’s nine o’clock while the man has his head turned. He flicks his lighter, surprising Snafu just enough for it to show as he whips around. Their eyes meet over the flame, and it's the same as ever: if Snafu's thinking something, Eugene sure doesn't know about it.
Here they are, standing on a train platform in Mobile, eight months after V-J Day and halfway around the globe from where they served together.
Eugene holds the light a little further out, offering.
Snafu leans the tip of his cigarette into the flame and sways back into the slouch their COs kept trying to beat out of him. He takes a long drag and licks his lips, frowns through the smoke puffing out of his mouth. Watching Eugene, maybe trying to read his mind, too.
"Hey, Snaf," Eugene says, more gently than he planned. He knows he’s grinning from ear to ear, so glad to see him and so relieved that he got off that train. Eugene spent too long at first thinking done was done and he’d never see Snafu again, till he tracked down that address. And then it still didn’t seem like Snafu cared to accept his invitation.
“Let’s go,” Snafu says flatly, abruptly rejecting any hint of sentimentality. He snatches his duffel up from the ground and stalks out toward the street. He smokes more, a cloud of it rising above his head, and he calls, “You park around here, Sledgehammer?”
Those old ladies are still glaring at his back. Then one of them turns it on Eugene, blaming him by association. It’s nothing new, especially after Snafu’s adventures in China, so Eugene just shrugs at them and gets going.
Eugene catches up with Snafu with a few long strides, still grinning uncontrollably. The treatment doesn’t surprise or bother him much at all. He pulls ahead and points across the street. “It’s over here, the blue one. Can I get that?” There’s an undeniable bounce in his step. He’s on the balls of his feet in his uncomfortable shoes, pushing on the concrete, making sure it pushes back. His mind is playing tricks: he’s expecting the earth to shift away, like mud. He wants to be sure this is real.
“Think civilian life’s rotted my arms off or something?” Snafu demands, lugging his duffel and smoking with the ease of long practice. “Jesus. You’ve gone native. You’re a civilian now. You’ve probably done nothing but read your Bible and write your fucking notes since you got here. Couldn’t hold a round to save your life.”
Eugene shakes his head, accepting the usual riling up and not letting it penetrate. He could do a lot of things in the name of saving his life, for one thing. And he really hasn’t done much more than what Snafu says. “Spend some of my time as reinforcement for Sid. Planning a wedding seems to need a lot of input from the groom that the bride doesn’t have to listen to.” He gets around to the driver’s side, indicates the bed of the truck with a wave.
Snafu tosses his duffel in the back, wrenches the passenger door open on its rusting hinges. He sinks into the passenger seat slowly, eyes running over every detail of the truck; beaten-in and old, claw marks in the seats that remind Eugene of Deacon. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, smoke accompanying his words. “And here I thought you was the son of a doctor,” Snafu drawls, rolling his eyes and incredibly underwhelmed.
“It runs fine and it’ll play the radio,” Eugene protests, starting the truck. He doesn’t turn the radio on, though, doesn’t like the constant noise. He’d go his whole life with nothing in his ears but crickets and birdsong if they’d let him. He pulls away from the curb carefully, mindful that his years away didn’t improve his technique, and starts driving.
They cruise through Mobile, and Eugene points out the Post Office and the City Hall and, because they’re passing it anyway, the nice little house where his brother James lives with his wife and sons. He’s a little self conscious, glancing at Snafu as he stares out the window with all the white-paint-and-brick buildings going by. His hometown isn’t a small or sleepy place, but Eugene’s seen pictures of New Orleans. Must not come to much in the comparison.
Snafu smokes away and keeps his opinions to himself, and when the buildings thin out, Eugene can’t chatter on about them. It’s the two of them looking out different windows – Eugene conscientiously watching the road, Snafu hiding his face on the passenger’s side – and the spring-green fields of grass. There are trees planted in a neat line along the road, limbs twisting together and wild. A beautiful, peaceful scene.
Whenever Eugene bounces down this road, he thinks about the Civil War. The whole South was nearly burned to the ground, the way the older folks tell the stories. He imagines seeing his homeland torn up the way the Japs and Marines tore up Okinawa and... well.
For the first time in a while, Eugene wants to talk about the war. One glance over at Snafu kills that urge – he can’t to break the silence with that.
Instead, he asks, “I guess you didn’t bring your dress blues after all.”
“Sure I did,” Snafu tells the window, elbow on the door propping up his chin. “In my seabag.”
Eugene huffs out something that might be amusement or frustration, fingers grasping hard on the wheel. “In your… Snaf! They’re going to be wrinkled all to hell and back.”
“Got two days to straighten out on the hanger. That’s what gravity’s for.” Snafu turns to face forward and fishes out his squashed pack again, fingers dipping in to pinch out his lighter. “Ain’t like we’re gonna be in white gloves with fucking swords. Can’t do sword arches for an enlisted wedding, that’s against regs.”
“How on Earth do you know that?” Eugene asks incredulously, trying to stare at Snafu and drive straight at the same time. “And don’t light that,” he warns when Snafu takes a cigarette out next. “Father really is a doctor, and he says they’re bad for you. You don’t want to be smoking the first time you meet him.”
Snafu drops the hand with the cigarette to his knee and glares at him, honestly affronted as if Eugene said something about his mother. “I am ashamed to be near you, Eugene Sledge. You spend two months in the states and you quit smoking, too? What the fuck are you even talking about, smoking’s been good for you since Jesus was a corporal.”
“Never said I quit. Just don’t do it in front of my parents, alright?” They rumble over the old wood bridge. Nearly there. “Anyway, how’d you know about marriage regs? Mary wanted an arch and Sid had to do a fair amount of research to find out they couldn’t.”
“Because there was nothing to fucking read on Glouchester but the fucking manual the shitbag LT brought with him,” Snafu says with a shrug. He grudgingly puts his cigarette and lighter back in his pack, puts that in his pocket. “And even that turned to wood pulp and moss after a while, so there wasn’t nothing to read at all.” Needing something to do, he tangles his fingers up in his curly hair and leans on the door again, watching as the trees got closer together, blocked more of the sun. “Jesus. Are we there yet?”
“Yes,” Eugene tells him, right as they see the high white walls around the Sledge property. The driveway stretches ahead of them, still a fairly long way. The house is a series of red flashes through the Spanish moss dangling from all the oak trees. Eugene sneaks a few more looks over at Snafu, waiting for the verdict, just like when they started back in town.
Snafu’s fingers tighten in his hair, tug once or twice. He leans back and down in his seat, scowling. “Fuck,” comes just over the noise of the car’s engine.
“Don’t worry, my parents will love you,” Eugene assures him, though he knows no such thing. He turns the truck, comes to a stop right outside the front door. “It’ll be fine.”
Snafu’s expression goes even darker. “Fuck,” he swears again, and that’s all.
Eugene decides he can park the truck properly later; right now, he wants to make introductions. He hops out while Snafu gets stuck on the inside door handle that doesn’t work. He uses this advantage to haul Snafu’s seabag out of the bed of the truck, and makes a face at the sharp edge to Snafu’s stare once he’s got his feet on the ground. “If I don’t walk in there helping you, Mother will have my head,” he explains, even though he likes helping for its own sake. He knows Snafu will allow it with better grace this way.
Snafu’s head swivels all around, taking in the sprawling veranda and huge windows of the house. His hand makes for his jeans pocket, and Eugene just knows he’s going to light up, specifically because Eugene told him not to do it.
The front door opens and Father steps out on the veranda. He’s got his glasses and tweed jacket on, looking just as pleasant as he does with any patient in town. “Oh, I thought I heard you coming up the drive,” he says, and turns back to the door. “Mary Frank! Our guest has arrived.” Then he walks down the steps to the pebbled drive, not one for hurrying these days, and takes Snafu’s hand in both of his – ruining Snafu’s already-stalled planes to light up a smoke.
“Mr. Shelton,” Father intones solemnly, “allow me to welcome you to our home. Eugene’s told us only a little of what you did for him, and I’m – we’re deeply grateful.”
Snafu goes along with getting his hand shaken out of his elbow, eyes wide and wary. He looks like he’s been transported to a new planet, where people aren’t scared off by his staring and actually approach him first. He says, “Right.” And then, when he isn’t released, he adds, “Dr. Sledge, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. And this is Eugene’s mother,” Father lets him go to indicate his wife, standing in the doorway.
She always dresses for guests, with Father’s patients visiting all hours as they do, but today she’s made a little extra effort with her hair and cosmetics. She gives Snafu a thin smile, with a bit more of the healthy respect Father lacks; Snafu doesn’t clean up that nice. “Mr. Shelton,” she greets. (Eugene will never have the courage to tell her the nickname.)
Snafu smiles his unnatural making-an-effort social smile and takes a step closer to Mother. “Mrs. Sledge,” he returns, “you’re so kind letting me stay. I think it’ll be fine if you call me Merriell.”
“Alright, Merriell,” Mother says, with more sincerity. She’d been unsure about bringing a piece of Eugene’s life in the Pacific into their home. Over the last weeks, she’s made it clear that she wants to forget he was ever gone, and Eugene wishes he could oblige her, but – it just doesn’t work that way.
She’ll be fine, Eugene thinks, as long as Snafu can maintain this level of manners. Not that he actually wants Snafu talking to his mother the way he talks to most women.
“I’d offer you a snack after your traveling, but supper’s in about half an hour,” Mother goes on, her hands folded in front of her. “Would you like something before then? Tea, lemonade?”
“Lemonade sounds just fine, Mrs. Sledge,” Snafu tells her. As she goes back inside to call Laney, Snafu turns his head to look at Eugene. His smile is plastered on and false, but in a strange, melting moment, it turns into a private joke. It’s a comment about how hospitable Eugene’s mother is, and how Snafu’s managed to fool both parents into thinking he’s polite.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eugene sighs, pulling the sea bag up over his shoulder and trying not to smile back. He knocks it into Snafu’s shoulder on his way to the stairs and says, “I’ll show you your room and give you a tour, how’s that?”
He isn’t sure that Snafu’s following him until he hears floorboards creaking on the veranda behind him. “Just fine,” Snafu says. Quieter.
Eugene looks back over his unencumbered shoulder. He can’t turn around enough to see Snafu, keeping too near, but he can see Father still outside by the car, watching them with a strange sideways smile.