“Fuck the troops!”
“Get to the game!”
The long procession of soldiers and their families took a solemn path past the dugouts and along the warning track as the majority of the stadium kept to a dull hum. Joe and Tom, having taken the train, were tired of waiting.
“I mean, what the fuck is this?”
“It’s Memorial Day.”
“I know it’s Memorial Day. I remember the troops. I remember them every day because of the news when another dumbass gets his head blown off. But this is a baseball game! This is important. Would they take all those soldiers and parade them around a church?”
“They might.”
“No they wouldn’t.”
“This is America. Church and Baseball and Soldiers. I’m surprised they don’t have young virginal women walking up and down the aisles selling apple pie.”
“They got the T-shirt girls.”
“They ain’t virgins.”
“Who wants to fuck a virgin anyway?”
A black man in uniform trudged up and down the stairs with what looked like a large fire extinguisher on his back. According to the signs draped around his body, he was selling margaritas, which he dispensed from a long hose connected to his extinguisher.
“Margaritas?”
“We’ve come a long way . . . How much are they?”
“It says $6.75 on the tank.”
No one said anything, but they already knew that the beer cost three quarters less, so they let the man walk by.
“It’s probably watered down anyway.”
“Yknow they’re selling this Sharp’s for $4.50.”
“It’s non-alcoholic.”
“Well fuck it.”
“Did you get any?”
“I didn’t trust it. I figured I’d ask about it later.”
“They’ll screw you over any way they can.”
After the national anthem, the loudspeaker announced the arrival of a spokesperson for A Million Thanks.
“What is this?”
“A Million Thanks.”
“For who?”
“The troops.”
“Fuck the troops!”
“Get to the game!”
A father with three small children stepped into the seats above them. As the father told the children as calmly as he could to sit down and be quiet, the frumpy but presentable woman representing A Million Thanks announced that her goal was to send a million thank-you letters to the troops overseas. As part of the effort, she encouraged the people in the stands to fill out the cards they had been given when they entered. They could hand them in at the table behind home plate, where they’d then be sent to the “brave soldiers fighting every day for our freedom.”
“So that’s what these are.”
“Dammit.”
“What?”
“There are kids behind us. No more fun.”
“Fuck em. They’ll learn the way I did. When I was a kid, I went to a baseball game and there were these two guys who were swearing the whole goddamn game. One father complained (not mine, you better believe he wouldn’t complain) and the guy turned around and told him to fuck off, it was a baseball game, he needed his freedom.”
“He needed his freedom?”
“That’s what he said . . . security wouldn’t have cared if he was sitting down and swearing, but now he was standing up, so they came and took him away. When the guy was gone, his friend turned around to the father and said, ‘Looks like I got a free beer.’ These kids should be so lucky . . .”
“I’m not up to it yet.”
“We have time.”
“Look at her over there.”
“Who?”
“To the left, same row, first seat past the aisle.”
“She ain’t that good looking. Kinda gangly. With a horse-face. And she’s drinking bottled water, the bitch. Did you see that mother walking by with her kid? I think she’s down in those first few rows. Mama . . . every now and then, having a kid fills out a woman’s ass in just the right way.”
“That’s not what I meant. Do you see what she’s doing?”
“Shit . . . she’s writing on those thank-you cards. She’s almost got the damn thing filled up.”
“It’s small handwriting too. She’s got herself a little short story.”
“Christ, I wanna write one.” He dug around underneath his seat, running his hands through the empty beer bottles, nacho cheese, pretzel salt, and discarded napkins until he found the card the ticket lady had given him on the way in. “I need a pen. Do you have a pen?”
“Why would I have a pen?”
“Miss! Miss, can I borrow your pen!”
She finished up her message and handed it over. “You inspired me. I want to write something for the troops.” Tom made sure he was firmly seated, then he took a breath and began to write.
Dear soldier:
Dear soldier who jerks off in a bathroom stall while two stalls down some other soldier is trying to take a shit:
How is your wife and family?
I am very thankful that you give up your time and your well-being to defend my freedom. My brother is in the marines. He’s an American hero. He knows he’s a hero because his wife gets lonely and tries to suck my dick. I turn her down of course. “Cmon,” she says. “Let me suck your dick. My husband’s a fucking idiot who joined the marines but that doesn’t mean you have to turn me down.” But she is quite a woman. I would hate to leave my wife and child to shoot some hapless fuckups in a godforsaken foreign land, and that’s why I’m thankful that you do it for me.
I say a prayer for all the American heroes.
“You don’t have a wife and child.”
“They don’t know that.”
“Christ, you got small handwriting, I could never fit that in.”
“What’s the score?”
“It’s 4 to 2, we’re up, don’t worry about it, this team doesn’t know which end of the bat they’re supposed to hold. Give me that pen.”
“It’s not your pen.”
“It’s not yours, either.” Joe gave a stray look to the woman with the bottled water. “She don’t care. And if she does, she won’t say shit.” He began to write his message in big, scrawling letters, reading it aloud as he did. “Dear Defender of Freedom,” he yelled. “If you hadn’t decided to be a target for the latest bomb-wielding asshole who hates America, Congress would institute a draft and I would be forced to go. So thank you for your noble gift to me.” He stopped to look at it. “It’s not good enough.”
“It’ll do.”
“Where are we supposed to hand these in?”
“Behind home plate.”
“There’s a gift shop over there. I can get a hat.”
“They charge a lot for these hats.”
“It fits well.”
“It’s adjustable in the back.”
“While you were shopping, one of the T-shirt girls stopped by.”
“How do you know it was a T-shirt girl?”
“She was dressed like a slut. I mean, she had the uniform that the rest of them wear. Those black short-shorts and white tank-top. She was leaning on the rail and shoving her ass in my face and waving it back and forth. It was awful. I couldn’t decide whether to rape her on the spot or throw her off the balcony.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do a thing. I couldn’t decide.”
“You pussy.”
“I was trying to keep things calm so you could buy your fucking hat.”
“All you gotta do is walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, I don’t have any money right now, but the second I get home I’ll buy you a limo.’ And she’ll suck your dick on the spot.”
“Well it’s too late now . . . Maybe I could get one of those war widows.”
“Where are we supposed to hand those cards in anyway?”
“I can see the booth over there.”
“They got three people over there. It looks like they want you to fill it out in front of them.”
“They don’t want assholes like us handing in our cards. Can you imagine the people they got screening those cards before the troops get them?”
“Do you think we could get a few more?”
“Why?”
“I don’t like mine.”
“The second we ask them for more cards, they’ll know we’re up to something. Just put your card in the box and we’ll get some more from the people around us.”
“That sounds all right.”
“Now just make sure the woman behind the table doesn’t see your face or else she might recognize you later.”
They walked back to their seats. The gift shop had for some reason given Joe a plastic bag for his hat, so as they walked back to their seats, Joe wore his hat on his head and Tom went to each beer vendor along the way and bought bottles to stash in the bag. It was only the fifth inning, but liquor sales were going to shut down at the end of the seventh. They had decided to stock up, and when they got back to their seats, they carefully stored beers underneath their seats and spent an inning buying more from the men walking up and down the stairs with cases of beer strapped to their chests. They finally stopped when they came across a man who sang to his customers to get larger tips:
Two Lites,
Two Lites,
This couple wants two lites.
I have your tasty beer
Over here.
“Did he call us a couple?”
“Did you see the score?”
“What score?”
“Over there. It’s 11 to 4. We’re down.”
“How the fuck did that happen?”
“I don’t know. I was buying a hat.”
“I was staring at the T-shirt girl’s ass.”
“I hate this fucking country. Hold on.” He went to a different section and began asking people for their thank-you cards. “Excuse me, sir, do you have that card they gave you for the troops? A Million Thanks? My friend and I lost ours and we wanted to write a message for them.” After another inning, he had a small pile ready, enough to keep them busy for the rest of the game.
“So there are supposed to be a million thanks?”
“That’s what she said.”
“We don’t have a million troops over there. It can’t be more than two hundred thousand.”
“You’re not counting the reservists.”
“Who would want to thank a reservist? You might feel sorry for them for getting themselves into this mess when they thought they wouldn’t have to do shit, but I don’t know why you’d want to thank them.”
“The cards have got to go somewhere. Besides, they probably throw a lot out because they’re no good.”
“I bet they all go in the dumpster. There are either too many or few. If there are too many, the soldiers start getting doubles and triples they don’t care about, and if there are too few, then not enough soldiers get them, and I don’t know why anyone would want to risk doing either. Can you imagine what it must be like to get one of these? Some naïve stateside prick telling you how much he appreciates you getting your ass blown off when he couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like? These cards aren’t for them. They’re for us. Like a funeral. To make us feel better for getting our young men killed. Fuck the troops. They should stop being soldiers. Then I’ll thank them.”
“What the hell are they singing? ‘God Bless America’?”
“It’s the seventh-inning stretch.”
“Shit. You’re supposed to sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’! You people should know better!”
“They’re doing it for the troops.”
“Fuck the troops!”
“Fuck the troops!”
“Get on with the game!”
“Get on with the game!”
Dear soldier
I bet all you wanted was a little bit of money and a way to pay for college. Maybe, if you were good enough, you could make a career out of this, but now you don’t give a shit about a career or college. By now you just want out. Maybe the President will send you home, maybe you’ll get shot and die in the street. Either way, you’ll be out, and I hope for your sake that you get out.
Dear soldier
You were a patriotic good old boy who wanted to do good by his country in a time of need. Now you don’t know where the fuck are you and are telling yourself that at least the Vietnamese women put out. Over here, they catch you with one of their women and they cut your dick off, if not worse. I only wish you the best.
Dear soldier
I am a thirteen-year-old boy and every time I hear about what you’re doing over there I realize how much I hate America. My father is a professor and he says that you are nothing but the tools of capitalist hate-mongers. I agree.
Dear soldier
My name is Brooke Skye and I have my own website, brookskye.com. I’ve been nineteen for the past five years, and I know that’s the kind of shit you like. I hope you enjoy my site, cuz I know you’re not getting any of that over there.
When they ran out of things to say, they scrawled basic, filthy messages and images on the remaining cards. They barely noticed that the game had ended, but that didn’t keep them from criticizing the fans who had left early. They made their way back behind home plate and dropped off their cards in the box supplied for the occasion. Joe looked nervous. “A group in our row had to duck out early because of a medical emergency, but they asked us to drop off their cards. I know it looks kinda funny, but – ”
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Tom said. “This is for the troops.” They stumbled out of the stadium with the rest of the drunken fans and poured onto the train, where the crowds of joyful delinquents rubbed up against the people who were trying to get where they needed to go. The fans yelled for no reason and played grab-ass while the regular commuters gave them dirty looks. Tom and Joe swayed back and forth, occasionally yelling, but mostly listening to the noise of the people and the train.
“Do you think some of those cards will get through?”
“I don’t care.”
“Well what if they do?”
“They can’t track us down.”
“What will the troops think?” Tom smiled.
Joe smiled back. “Fuck the troops.”
A large man just a few inches away turned around. “What did you say?”
“I was just saying . . . ysee, it was a running joke . . . we were at the baseball game and – ”
“Yeah well my brother is in the army and he is a fucking hero and I don’t want anyone badmouthing the troops. Not while I can help it.”
“Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong. He’s a hero,” Joe said.
Tom joined in. “An American hero.”
“We were just getting carried away. We’re sorry. We can get careless every now and then.”
They spent a few minutes calming the guy down until he finally turned around again. He got off the train a few stops later. Joe and Tom watched him go. They stood patiently until the train pulled away.
“Fucking asshole.”
“Fuck the troops.”