This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 70 (Wed., Apr. 26, Thurs., Apr. 27)

Gordon and Ju-Long tried halfheartedly to talk Gerry and me out of driving the Mustang to Indianapolis. But we insisted, mainly because we didn't care if soldiers on training status were allowed to have cars on post or not. We had both had our fill of rules and rednecks. Anyway, the entire stretch was mostly on Interstate 70 or US Highway 40 and it wouldn't take us more than two days, even if I had to do all the driving. And it would give us wheels.

After the experiences of being stranded at Fort Dix and Fort Knox, I had no intention of being without transportation. For a New Yorker, and in particular for anyone from Manhattan, which Gerry and I basically were, any place without sufficient public transportation wasn't somewhere we would even consider visiting of our own volition without a car. And we both assumed that Lawrence, Indiana was one such place.

Heading West at 0800 hours on Wednesday, April 26th, we made good time on the freeway stretches, since we could do seventy with no problem. The parts, which were still US Highway 40 were a little trickier, because they were two-lane and not as straight as the interstate.

A little ways after Wheeling and the West Virginia - Ohio border, just outside of Cambridge, we saw the appropriately, eye-friendly, green-and-white sign, indicating the turnoff to Canton, Ohio. I blurted out a laugh, remembering the silly Bronxonian woman in rhinestone-studded glasses at my draft board, who asked me why I didn't study Cantonese in Canton rather than France, when I was applying for permission to leave the country. And when I told her that I'd be more than glad to, if she'd give me official permission to go there. Of course, she hadn't realized that the Canton where I could have actually studied Cantonese, was, in fact, in Red China.

Gerry wanted to know what was funny. When I related the story, he went limp from laughing.

Thirty miles later, we were in close proximity to Zanesville, Ohio. It was already dinnertime, and we stopped at a motel, directly on Highway 40. Of course, as most every post-war motel, it had two floors with access from a veranda upstairs and from the parking lot on the ground floor. It's large sign boasted free ice, pay TV and a swimming pool, all three of which were totally uninteresting to Gerry and me.

Before we checked in, I asked if they had military discounts. They did, and Gerry and I presented our IDs. The desk clerk put the room in Gerry's name. Apparently, Benton-Ju-Long Loughery put her into cultural overload, making Gerhard Helmstedter easier. Nonetheless, the price of twenty five dollars a night for the two of us was okay.

We called Gordon and Ju-Long from the pay phone off the parking lot to let them know where we were. They'd never heard of Zanesville, neither had we. But we had a map, and they didn't.

"So, what's it like?" Ju-Long wanted to know.

"There's nothing here." was my honest assessment.

Ju-Long pressed me. "Well, describe what you can see from the phone booth."

"A two-lane highway, a two-storey motel, a parking lot, the Mustang, a residential trailer with a white propane tank and plowed fields." I reported truthfully. Silence ensued. And since the connection was crap, the call was short and cheap.

Luckily, we'd purchased two cases of Birch Beer, our alternative to Ginger Ale, before we left home, knowing that it was unheard of outside the New York area, along with a big brown bag of delicious sandwiches and some chips from that Italian deli up on Hylan Boulevard.

"Pastrami, gouda and honey mustard on a sandwich-sized bread roll, or Parma ham, mozzarella, tomato and basil stuffed into a bread pocket?" Gerry was, once again, giving me the choice.

"You choose, mein Schatz. I'm just too fucking tired." I threw myself back onto the first of the two double beds.

He handed me one of the sandwiches without telling me which one, and I ate it in a ravenous stupor. I had no idea, what I was eating. All I remembered the next morning was that it had been delicious.

Also the next morning, I was undressed and was being spooned by Gerry. He opened his eyes and kissed my neck. I wasn't unsure of where I was, but I was unsure of how I'd lost my clothes. "How did I get naked?"

"I undressed you." He grunted and got his wicked grin while sticking his morning wood into my crack.

"All by yourself?" I amazed at how strong he must have become after basic.

"No," He giggled. "with the help of two truck drivers and a circus clown."

***

Back on the road, we needed gas and breakfast. We were in the town of West Jefferson, Ohio, when I spotted an old Phillips 66 filling station, the kind with the black and orange signs in the shape of a highway marker. And I couldn't believe the price. Ethyl was forty cents a gallon, as opposed to seventy five cents at home.

"Gotta gas war going on?" I asked the attendant, after I told him to fill it up with ethyl and got out of the car. Gerry got out and went off to the restroom.

"Naw," He squatted, to reveal a nice bubble butt, to glance at my dark blue and yellow number plate, located below the bumper. "that's our normal price." He went to the front to wash the windshield, as the locked spigot pumped by itself. "Things more expensive, back in New York?"

"Yeah, almost double." Over the purr of the orange gas pump, the mellow sounds of the Beatles' Penny Lane, floated out of the white stucco station with only slight radio-static interference.

"That so?" The attendant returned to the back of the car. "Where ya headed?"

"Fort Harrison, Indiana." I watched my guy cross the oil-stained concrete slabs between the small stucco building and the car, side-stepping the soft, black tar, which filled the cracks. My cock twitched.

"You guys Army?" The attendant replaced the spigot onto the lever on the side of the pump, and I nodded. "That's six dollars and seventy five cents." He led the way into the white stucco office, and I handed him a twenty. "That's a mighty pretty post, yer headed for."

"How so?" I flipped through the maps, which were on display in a wire rack, since we needed one for Indiana. I placed it on the counter, which brought my bill up to seven dollars even.

"It was built back before the first World War and is a real quiet place." He handed me the change. "It's where the Army finance center is. Never been there, though. But seen plenty a postcards."

"Uh huh." I picked up the map and my keys off the counter. I took a deep breath of one of my favorite smells: gasoline mixed with motor oil and the rubber of new tires and fan belts with just a hint of stale cigarette smoke and fresh perspiration coming off the attendant. "Know a good place around here to get some breakfast?"

"Sure 'nuff." He grinned. "Aunt Gertie has a café," He motioned west along Highway 40. "just after the traffic lights up yonder on yer right."

"Is she your aunt?" I wondered with only passing interest.

"Naw, everybody calls her that." He winked and wished us a safe journey.

***

When we walked into Aunt Gertie's café, the people, sitting in the booths and at the long counter, went silent and gave us an inquisitive look, smiled, and nodded. Then, they returned to what they'd been doing. In New York, we would have left had the whole place looked at us like that. Here, they smiled and went on with their business.

A very healthy looking lady in her mid fifties, approached our table in the first booth, next to the door. "Did Jonny up at the fillin' station send yer?" I told her that he had, and Gerry nodded. "That'll get yer twenty percent off on everythin' yer have, today."

Now, as New Yorkers, this had never happened to either of us before. Most of the eating out that I'd done had been in Chinatown, were you got lower prices for being able to read the Chinese menu, or at chains like Howard Johnson's, Schrafft's, or the Automat, where there were never discounts . And I'd always imagined that across Canal from Chinatown in Little Italy, sort of the same rule applied to paesani, but not to someone off the street, who just happened by.

And I couldn't tell if the smells from the kitchen were really that remarkably enticing, or if it was because I was so famished. Then Aunt Gertie brought the menus, which was one page under clear plastic, in a leatherette pouch, with faux-brass corners. At the top of each was proudly written that everything listed was homegrown and home cooked. I decided on the Highway 40 truckers' breakfast for seventy five cents. Gerry took the same. And we each ordered a bottle of milk, just like in grade school.

When she brought the milk, there was a light yellow layer at the top of the bottle. "Sorry, Ma'am, but is there something wrong with the milk?"

She looked at us kindly with just a hint of sympathy because we were obviously big-city dullards. "Heavens, no." She chuckled. "That's the cream." When Gerry and I still looked as if we hadn't understood, she took the bottles, one at a time. "You have to shake up the cream." Then, she proceeded to remove the tin-foil caps, chuckling and probably assuming that we were too stupid to do even that. And she would have been right. Her eyes sparkled as she poured the two half-pints into glasses for us.

Once I saw Gerry's eyes light up, I couldn't wait to try it. And it was delicious. Had I put some sugar, vanilla and nutmeg into it, it would have tasted like a very good milkshake. Gerry looked far away. "Is everything all right, mein Schatz?"

I had seen that Aunt Gertie was bringing us our hot biscuits, but hadn't thought anything of it, until she looked surprised, then shocked, then bemused. "Sprechen Sie deutsch?"

Of course, the first thing that crossed my mind was that she'd understood what I'd said. The second thing that crossed my mind was that I hadn't. The third thing that crossed my mind was to deny everything. So, I shook my head, denying that I spoke any German at all and pointed at Gerry.

Gerry, of course, was giving her his deer-in-the-headlights look, then burst out laughing. "Ja, ja, ich komme aus der Nähe von Hameln, bin aber nicht der Rattenfänger." he informed her with one of his standard answers, that even I could understand, that he came from near the town of Hamelin but wasn't the Pied Piper. She set the biscuits and creamery butter down and hugged him.

"Where are you from?" I asked her, more or less to free Gerry from her clutches.

"From just outside of Dublin." She said over her shoulder, as she went to the orders counter to get our breakfasts.

"You're Irish?" My face must have been beyond dumbfounded, since she laughed wholeheartedly.

"Oh, gracious me, no." She burst out laughing again. "Dublin, Ohio. We're Amish."

***

We chatted with Aunt Gertie during breakfast, mostly in English but mixed with quite a bit of German. At some point, Gerry had told her in German about how I was French and he was German and about our misadventure with Canada, since we were already in the Army. As soon as most of the breakfast crowd was gone she called her sister and brother-in-law out of the kitchen.

All three of them got excited about Gertie's idea of hiding us from the military. Of course, I'd have to learn Pennsylvania Dutch, and Gerry and I would have to become Mennonites, but they were sure that the community elders would be all for it.

Not wanting to turn down outright this magnanimous and genuinely heartfelt offer, since it would be tantamount to throwing their hospitality back into their faces, but knowing quite well that Gerry and I would never be accepted because of being Queer atheists, I naively asked: "Just how many Amish of Chinese descent do you actually have in Dublin?"

At first, they all looked at one another. And I think that it was the brother-in-law, who first started laughing.