I’M NO PATRIOT

I’M 

NO PATRIOT 

I, John J. Bethlehem, am an American by birth, a flake by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination. I was born in Schneneckty, New York, “upstate”, we called it, at the family summer home, where all Bethelhem's are born. My father, Derald Schwab, was born in Texas, son of a Baptist preacher who became an engineer for General Electric and then moved up North, where he met my mother, Diane Bethlehem. She was born in Schneneckty, one of the many daughters—both legitimate or otherwise to one Samuel Bethlehem. The President and founder of Bethlehem Steel, the largest steel foundry in North America.

My grandmother said I was born a Hub wafer, sweet at first and growing sour as time passed. This nature pulled me to clowning and scurrying around with hooligans. 

One's youth is full of change; it starts the first time you steal and accelerates when—you get caught. It all shapes and bends your character. And since the main job of growing up is to develop a character, eventually, your naivety gets banished.

I felt the need to test the limits - all limits - until my knuckles were raw. Our crew tormented the neighborhood shops in Manhattan, that lonely place that holds all the dreams and all the fears of my youth.

My cheeks are blood-red from repeated blows, and my bottom lip starts to crack. I lick away the blood with my tongue after-each-slap. My face glows. 

A thrashing in our house is commonplace, and I even feel guilty this time. My mother is bursting with rage, even though her temper is always a hairpin away from eruption; tonight, she is laced with a particular brand of cognac, fury, and self-righteousness. "John J, you are the biggest degenerate our family has ever produced. Bethlehem Steel family in a scandal...oh, those Daily Herald reporters will be licking up catchy 4-inch headlines all night...your opportunities have been squandered…glad your father died before he could see what you’ve become—a nothing."

Earlier this evening, I tried to steal a car. To be fair, I did steal it but botched the getaway. I didn’t make it two fucking blocks, before slamming into a cyclist. Hell, I was so loaded that I could barely see. And to this day, I am not sure why I wanted to steal the car. An impulse overcame me, the kind that grabs the controls of your mind, and by the time you question it. You've already done it. 

Thankfully, I’m still feeling quite zonked, which helps to numb it all. My father used to wallop me pretty good when he was alive. And my mother has since pummeled me with everything from rolled-up newspapers to anything within reach. All I want to do is grab her wrist before another blow comes. But the courage to do such a thing I could never muster. So, I take it like a sheepish dog, and wait for her to grow tired.

Bra-ooh-GAA, Bra-ooh-GAA, Bra-ooh-GAA, the ship shoves off from Port Authority. I lean against the banister as the skyscrapers of Manhattan grow smaller. Those steel buildings that dot the skyline and shoot up towards the moon came from my grandfather's furnace. I never gave a shit before, but now as they grow smaller, I feel a twinge of nostalgia as if they now look different. So it goes. 

The autumn wind tugs at my coat, and I quickly light a cigarette. My thin tan coat does little to brace the wind or soothe my inner stiffness. I’d been writing a paper on James Joyce two days ago, almost comical - how life shifts so quickly. And now I’ve been banished to fight and probably die in somebody else's war. “Maybe it will—do ye some good,” was the last thing my mother said. 

I wonder what Joyce had been thinking - when he wrote - "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." This passage makes my knees knock together and turns my mouth to ash. The only thing I’d encountered, for the millionth time, was trouble.

Hell, I damn near killed someone yesterday. I feel around the bruises under my eyes and wince. I got off lucky, sure, perks of my family name. If I had been a regular schmuck, I would be rotting in the can somewhere, eating moldy soup, awaiting sentencing and then dropped off at Sing Sing for 5 to 10 years on a manslaughter conviction.

I fished for another cigarette. "Hey, mack - you're on the front page, looky here 'JOY RIDE TURNS SOUR BETHLEHEM STEEL CONNECTED?’, think your grandfather has blown a gasket?" I thump down the newspaper. "Gimme a cigarette, Mikey, and drop this shit - we're stuck on this coughing steamer for six weeks. And I’m leaving this fuck-up behind me." I snap a cigarette and duck out from the deck to check the chow situation; Mikey is hot on my tail.

II

We arrive in Paris with a sleepy disillusionment only dreamy-eyed American boys no older than 20 can have. “Young, dumb, and full of cum.” Mikey yelps as we meander between old buildings, older statues, and busy Parisians. The city smells of something pungent and lethal. While a sea of beautiful Frenchies zig and zag as far as the eye can see. The front lines are only 100 kilometers away. However, the atmosphere feels far removed from trenches, battle formations, and death. As if the city's magic pushes the horrors of War towards the backburner so pasty Parisians can carry on daily routines. But the fairy tale ended as a mud-covered truck carrying 30 wounded French soldiers puttered by. 

“Mikey, let's go find this “bureau de la légion étrangère française” and do the paperwork. It seems the meat grinder needs fresh offerings.”

The French Foreign Legion was an old scheme of getting those crazy enough to fight and die for French affairs a conduit to do so. I first learned of it sitting in Mr Langford’s history class, but I didn’t think much of it. And six years later - here I was -  in Paris, ready to join the Lafayette Escadrille and get me some goddamn wings. A couple of jack-offs aboard the steamer told us about a little cafe called "la petite rose" - those damn Iowa boys read about it in a travel guide. It was just south of the Eiffel Tower, so we needn't ask for directions; we just followed our feet. 

The bar smelt of old smoke and spilt champagne while our boots fought against a sticky floor. As fate would have it, the only chairs with no butts in them were facing a pale blonde and a devilishly cute black-haired lady. I noticed her eyes darting like a raven's, while her hair was darker than Onyx stones with a sheen of liquid satin. Those eyebrows danced, giving away every emotion. 

“Baise trou du cul” mixed with the sound of shattering glass. I’d accidentally bumped into - a french uniform; my sticky shoes twirled around to see an angry bouncing mustache and a uniform soaked in beer, “​​excuse moi excuse moi”, I muttered in a terrible French accent as I tried to fix the damage with a napkin “Stupid American”, he writhed. 

I flagged a bartender and ordered champagne, cigarettes, and glasses. While peeking to see if Mikey had boofed his way into conversation with the girls. They seemed to be in good spirits, or at least they had not shushed him away. I gave one bottle to the angry mustached uniform, and his frown turned upside down. “Good American”, as he patted my shoulder. 

My heartbeat quickened as I moved toward the table. Mikey had his target blushing and giggling as I tried to make eye-contact with the dark-haired woman while pouring us champagne. She smiled but seemed disinterested. We all lit cigarettes and sipped our champagne. I babbled on about signing the paperwork and forking over my passport. But quickly stopped my story, having realized no one was paying attention. I finished my champagne, trying to find some courage at the bottom of the glass. “Ya know, we joined the Lafayette Escadrille and will be taking a train East tomorrow for Aviation School. Damndest thing - learnin’ to fly - like a bird.”  She politely nodded and smiled.

III

I arrived at the barracks with my head tucked between my legs and a chip on my shoulder. The clock on the wall read 2 A.M. There were no bunks set up for us, so we found a couple of ragged blankets and hunkered down to sleep on the floor. THACK! The lights came on, and what sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil echoed throughout the room. WAKE UP! YOU LAZY BUMS! WAKE UP! I slowly became aware of a small bent-over man walking around the barracks, smacking a soup ladle against a metal bucket. I looked at the clock 3:30 A.M., thought this can’t be real and stuffed my head back underneath the blanket. I felt a gruff kick on my leg, and standing above me was the small man with the bucket and ladle. 

“Why you sleep on da floor?” he asked. 

“We arrived 2 hours ago; there were no bunks set up,” 

I replied. He laughed and continued to knock against his bucket, almost making a tune, but breaking the rhythm at the last second. 

That was my first encounter with Rindoshinorifu - or Rudy - which was his self adopted English name. He was tasked with all things personnel - and even at this early hour - was a ball buster. The first rule of Aviation School don’t count your chickens before they hatch. You see, Aviation school, in general, was something new and untested. Only a couple of thousand people had flown in a plane, and a whole passel had died. 

I remember reading a magazine article about people with a more religious bent who didn’t believe humans should be flying. “That if God almighty had wanted us to soar through the air like birds, he would have given us wings. And since he hadn’t, then those that took to the sky would be committing a great sin against the benevolent creator.” Bunch of malarkey, if you ask me, my family isn’t religious, but it doesn’t take a philosopher to realize that these country bumkins we're warping things a tad. 

I read a lot of science fiction as a kid; Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Rice they helped me dream of the future. One where we would be flying around in rocket ships, and the days of taking a boat to cross the Atlantic would have seemed obtuse. 

That is why I choose my exile here to learn how to fly. I knew that the next few months would be hard, and many lying in these barracks bunks would not graduate. But we didn’t think about it; we set our digs against the backstop and pretended that there would be no grievance held against us for using our wits and bravery to conquer the skies. I planned to be one of them, and if need be, I’d die trying. 

Every day we are tired, and our flight cohort has shrunk from 35 bright-eyed American despots to only 23. And we’re still two weeks away from getting our wings. The comandante speaks little English, and we speak very little French. He marches around like a born again Napoleon. I hate him. The first morning, after our 3:30 AM wake-up call, he had us stand at attention for almost an hour. All the while, he sat in a chair and sipped tea. When he had finished, we stood some more. 

Learn this, pull that lever, hop in that plane, judge the tailwind, and make a safe approach. It all made my head swim, but once you had gotten the plane into the air without killin’ yourself. It was pure bliss. I learned to do barrel rolls, and how to pull out of a steep dive; it was everything that I had dreamed flying could be and slightly more precarious than I hoped. 

The machine gun was mounted on the top of the fuselage, directly in front of the pilot. But that position placed the gun directly behind the propeller. The gun had to be designed to fire through the propeller without hitting it, which was not an easy task. An invention called the synchronization gear, restricted the machine gun to only fire in between the propellers. This gear malfunctioned on George Lucas’s fourth flight, and a bullet ricocheted off the propeller and killed George. So it goes. 

IV 

Paris, the smell of freshly baked bread, and the tang of champagne how it liquified my insides. Mikey swore, “one can live on only bread, butter, and wine,” he might be onto something. Our backpay had arrived an hour before our train left for Paris. We had lined up in front of the Commandant's cabin and demanded: “what four”. We had survived, and sure as shooting, there was some celebrating to be done and Franks to be spent. Our first hours of the 48-hour weekend pass were spent being loud and obnoxious. Someone said that it was tradition to place our bright shiny gold wings between our teeth, while chugging a pint of beer. No-one believed that it was a tradition, but we all agreed it should be attempted. And the winner could collect a pack of cigarettes from the losers. 

I decided to return to the "la petite rose", and see if I could find the dark-haired woman. I recruited Mikey, and we shoved off, stumbling and leaning to the left while following our feet.