[fic] the pacific - snapshots
Title: Snapshots
Fandom The Pacific
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,170
Characters/Pairing: Sledge/Snafu
Summary: A collection of outside perspectives on the Sledge/Snafu relationship extending from the end of All These Roads to the end of Eugene's undergraduate career.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters--they are based off of the actors' portrayals of characters in HBO's The Pacific, not the real people themselves.
Author's Note: Seriously, fandom is taking over my brain forever. Special thanks to thoracopagus just because.
roadverse master post
Shelton still showed up earlier than anybody else at the factory. Even though Hammel should have gotten used to this particular fact out of sheer repetition, it had always made him a little uneasy to see the boy sitting there on the front steps, smoking a cigarette lazily into the brightening dawn. It wasn’t that Shelton really bothered him-persay-but he preferred the man out back with the rest of the boys in the lumberyard, always out of sight and generally out of mind. He preferred to think of Shelton as a name on a paycheck he needed to sign every two weeks and not this man with pale eyes, staring up at him with a half dead air of insolence drawn about him.
Sometimes, Hammel thought, sometimes he swore that the boy was all simmering violence underneath that placid face, sharp derision behind the occasional smirk and he didn’t care for it at all. Sometimes he would remember that the boy was a veteran-had been a marine once. But he never really talked about it-so Hammel concluded that naturally he couldn’t have done that much for the war if he had nothing to say about it. Hell, Hammel had done his part for the war too, buying all of those war bonds so that people like Shelton could have rifles on their backs, boots on their feet.
This particular morning, the heat had started early, a humid breeze of hot air dragging through the city, trying to chase the cool shade away from long alleyways. Shelton had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and he had an ever persistent cigarette between his lips, looking steadily down the street though his eyes had an unfocused look, like he wasn’t exactly seeing anything worth noting.
“Good morning,” Hammel said in what he hoped was a mostly amiable tone of voice, keys jingling as he drew them out of his pocket. Shelton blinked at him and rose to his feet, breathing out smoke as he drew the cigarette out from his mouth.
“Mr. Hammel,” Shelton said-and Hammel’s brow wrinkled briefly in confusion. Shelton never really spoke to him this early on in the morning-usually just stood around and made him feel uncomfortable until he left for the yard and Hammel could forget all about him except the dull whine of the table saw in the background. He turned his head and fixed the boy with something like a nervous stare.
“Was wondering if I could take Friday off,” Shelton said, pale eyes meeting his own easily. Maybe it was his imagination but Hammel swore that he could see the veiled disrespect there, barely hidden in the set expression.
Hammel pushed open the door, “You took two Fridays off last month. I’m not paying you to take days off, Shelton.”
Shelton slowly touched his head as if he was about to straighten out into a lazy salute or something but thought better of it. The boy was strange sometimes and Hammel didn’t know what to make of him. His eyes never left Hammel’s face and his voice was slow, like he was surprised at Hammel’s outburst, “I can put in overtime next Saturday if it means that much to you.” And then belatedly (Hammel swore that Shelton was mocking him), “Sir.”
Hammel frowned and considered saying no for a moment. Instead he stepped into the tiny office and said brusquely, “Just make sure you get your hours in.”
~
He didn’t know that she was standing just beyond the edge of the doorway, watching him.
If he knew, he would have surely turned around, maybe had the compunction to look vaguely embarrassed at being caught. But even though he didn’t have his back entirely turned towards her, he seemed to be entirely engrossed in what he was doing now: which was snooping through her son’s desk.
It didn’t seem like he was looking for anything in particular-lazily flipping through a notebook that Mary recognized as one of Eugene’s field sketchbooks. He seemed to be looking at all of the pictures: plants and common finches left half finished and abandoned in favor of rarer, more interesting species. Once in a while he’d lift a finger to the page, retracing a stray mark and this strange look would come over his face, like he was trying to imagine Eugene in the woods. Like he was trying to see the way that Eugene’s pencil might slip on the page as he caught sight of something else in the dappled shadow, hair a coppery halo in the sunlight.
When he put the notebook back down, his eyes flickered over the table again. There were half completed assignments, diagrams of avian anatomy, of the plant reproductive system, tables of classification and defining characteristics. He picked them up too, eyes scanning far too easily over the slanted writing that Mary even had trouble reading. There was something about the way that Eugene ran all of his letters together when he was excited, his e’s barely a swipe on the page, diminished between overbearing consonants.
But this man-this man standing in her son’s room and looking at her son’s coursework, this man with an unreadable expression and slight upturn of his lips like he was smiling subconsciously-he seemed to have no problem reading Eugene’s words at all.
It was one thing to have doubts and suspicions-it was one thing to desperately want to ignore, it was one thing to pretend that this was just a phase, that it would all pass in time. But this-this stranger under her roof who had done nothing but smile politely in their presence, who answered all of their questions without hesitation, but told stories haltingly, like he was trying to use the correct words-this stranger wore Eugene’s familiarity like an old coat, produced smiles from Eugene’s face like a magician palming coins.
Maybe Eugene was writing to a girl he had met, she had told herself.
Maybe Eugene was keeping up with all of his old war buddies, she had told herself.
Eugene wasn’t ready for a serious relationship-she had told herself-he’d take more of an interest in settling down when he was better.
He set the papers back down where he had found them, smoothing his palm over the back of the skewed chair, against the crisp fabric of a perfectly tailored dress shirt. Mary watched him look out of the window in front of the desk, across the sprawling estate, and his thumb moved in absent circles at the juncture of the shirt where the flipped collar met shoulder. Her eyes fixated on that-the movement so minute that she wasn’t sure he was even aware that he was doing it.
There was a stifled sharp exhale at the door. Snafu whirled around, his expression no longer distant but wary. Couldn’t take the reflexes out of a marine.
There was nobody there.
~
He was in her class, two rows to the left and three seats up. She didn’t know if he even knew who she was (though being one of the few female students, it was hard not to notice her), but she was hugely aware of who he was: the Sledges’ younger son, who had never been as obnoxious or as loud as that friend of his Sidney Phillips in high school. He had enlisted the moment he graduated and maybe Jeanne hadn’t known who he was then, but she sure knew who he was now, with his perpetual calmness and silent competence. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as the insufferable Michael Neuss who didn’t let anybody else answer the professor’s questions, but she was pretty sure he was getting decent grades in Taxonomy anyways.
He was also in her dissection lab. And her statistics class.
There were probably hundreds of men at API taking advantage of the GI bill. She knew she was fairly pretty-her sister had taught her how to put on a touch of makeup to soften out the edges, how to pick dresses that flattered her figure. If she couldn’t have had her pick amongst all of the men, she could have at least had her pick amongst a majority of them.
But there was something about Eugene Sledge, something in his quiet nature that drew her to him, something about his straightened shoulders and half smiles, the dark intensity in his eyes. It didn’t hurt that the Sledges were a prominent family, well regarded by virtually everyone in the community.
It took her an entire month and a good week or two of her sister’s teasing to work up her courage to ask him for help in Taxonomy. Whether or not she actually needed it was an entirely different story. But he had smiled at her in that unassuming manner and Thursday afternoons after statistics were spent in the library sitting side by side, books spread out in front of them. His voice was low as he spoke, and a strange sort of comfort settled around her every time she looked at him and saw his eyes brightened with passion for this subject, the gestures with his hands, tapping at pictures and charts and diagrams.
She should have known better-should have been expecting it. After all, men like Eugene Sledge didn’t come along very often and he had never tried to impress her, not like all of those other foolish boys with their stilted attempts at machismo. She should have seen it coming.
She had slung her bag onto her shoulder one day and pressed her hands onto the back of her chair, watching him gather his books together. It was a blurt more than anything else-brazen words that shouldn’t have passed her lips in the first place, “Come have coffee with me.”
Eugene paused with one book half in the bag. His jaw tensed momentarily and then he turned towards her, a truly apologetic expression on his face, “Look Jeanne-I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”
Her stomach sank and the tentative smile on her face slipped. She turned her eyes down for a moment, trying to hide the disappointment and to school her expression into something less open-maybe a smile, maybe she could play it off like she had known all the while.
He was watching her carefully-god, he was too observant for her to hide anything anyway and they didn’t even know each other-how stupid was this entire situation? He put a hand on her shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed and he really did sound sorry, “Jeanne, you’re a nice girl and everything-”
“It’s okay,” she smiled at him and maybe she really did mean it, “I should have known. I’m never fast enough to catch men like you, am I?”
He smiled back uncertainly, lifting his hand. It hovered uncertainly for a moment before he dropped it at his side.
“I just thought-” she started, in attempt to justify herself, “I mean, I’ve never seen you around with a girl, so, I just thought.”
“She, um-” Eugene swallowed almost nervously and the smile no longer reached his eyes, “She doesn’t live in Mobile.” A pause, and then very softly, “I met her during the war.”
She stared for a moment-she knew he had been, everyone knew how both the Sledge boys had served admirably in the war, but whereas Edward didn’t mind speaking about his experiences too much, Eugene had never said anything at all. The younger boy had always been quieter.
She shifted slightly and her voice was quiet as she replied, “My sister was in a long distance relationship. She’s not a bad person but she ended up having an affair. It always gets lonely.” She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say with her words-maybe it was a last resort attempt. But his eyes stayed steady on her face and his expression didn’t change at all. She felt a pool of shame coil in her stomach at his unwavering stare-why did she think it was proper to insinuate anything?
There was a stretch of silence and then she cleared her throat and offered another tentative smile, “You must love her a lot.”
A strange look passed over his face and he didn’t answer for a moment. But then he smiled, understated and thoughtful and he said:
“Yeah. I do.”
~
Abby was no longer allowed to see Eugene any more.
There was no explicit rule about it-nobody had ever taken her aside and told her that she shouldn’t see him. She technically still saw him around her sister’s home once in a while, standing at the edge of the yard and playing with the Phillips’ dogs or sitting in the parlor deep in a low conversation with her brother-in-law-but she no longer talked to him like she had before.
She wasn’t sure what had caused the change. All she knew was that one day, she had heard Eugene’s voice in the hall and she had smiled brightly and wiped her hands on her apron-had started towards the hall only to have her sister grab her by the back of her elbow and pull her back. She had looked confusedly at Mary but Mary just had her lips pressed in a firm line, her expression rapidly darkening.
And she wasn’t blind-even though she was apparently not allowed to interact with Eugene himself, she could see that her sister’s attitude toward him each time she saw him had changed considerably. She used to joke with him, used to welcome him into their house with a beaming smile and generous hospitality. Now, her smiles were strained as she welcomed him into their home and there was an ugliness that set her jaw when she knew he wasn’t looking, a certain sadness in her expression when she looked at Abby.
Abby wasn’t stupid-she was well aware of why she had been pushed towards Eugene in the first place. She knew that Mary had been hoping-that Sid had been hoping that maybe one day Eugene would amass the courage to ask if maybe she’d like to go steady.
But that hadn’t happened and Mary was upset and Abby was no longer allowed to speak to Eugene-which only really meant one thing: Eugene had found a girlfriend elsewhere.
It was strange because none of the girls down at the church (and they were such a gossipy lot) had ever mentioned a girl going steady with Eugene Sledge. Considering Eugene was something like a coveted catch, Abby was sure that she would have at least heard a mention of it. But she had always been taught to keep her head out of such things and that gossiping was unbefitting.
She had no choice but to keep her head down and bite her lip and pretend that she wasn’t disappointed, that she hadn’t been looking forward to it at all.
~
It had been a while since he had been called Burgin on a regular basis and even longer since he had been called Burgie. Florence called him Romus, the boys at work called him boss and sometimes his sister called him Rommy with a mean smile and a fond look.
He hadn’t really meant to drop by but there was an extra evening between his afternoon arrival by train and the business conference that would start sharp at nine’o’clock tomorrow morning. He hadn’t really thought much about it but he had asked Sledge for Snafu’s address a long time ago to maybe pen letters that he never actually did write. It didn’t take much effort at all, really, to hail a cab and to read off the address in a strange sort of voice like he didn’t really know what he was doing but it felt right anyway so he flowed with it.
He had stepped around the trash that somebody had left in the hall, shoes crinkling the damp paper of cigarette stubs that somebody kept throwing over the railing as careless afterthoughts. He had knocked on the door twice before it swung open and Snafu was standing there, blinking at him in a moment of speechlessness before he was smiling and saying, “Burgie-what’re you doing here?”
Burgin grinned back, blue eyes bright with good humor, slouched shoulders and hands casually tucked into the pockets of his pants and he said, “I’m in New Orleans for a conference-thought I’d drop by.”
Snafu stepped aside and waved him out of the hall and into the apartment, still that smile on his face and Burgin was glad he came, really glad he decided to drop by after all. He couldn’t help but glance around the place, eyes sweeping over the hole in the wall, the dilapidated bookshelf-
“Didn’t know you read Kipling,” Burgin commented idly as he turned on his heels to face Snafu who was taking a small stack of newspapers off a chair for Burgin. Snafu glanced up, met Burgin’s eyes and maybe he interpreted the statement as didn’t know you read at all or something because for a moment there was something unreadable crossing his expression and a very decided pause before he spoke.
“Sure I do.”
Burgin smile turned a little puzzled because it was the way that he said it-he didn’t spend months watching a man’s back without having picked up on the little things. And the way that Snafu had said it, a little bit too casually-the touch of irony-maybe there was something strange there, something unspoken, something hidden behind heavily hooded eyes. Except the moment passed and Snafu was holding out a cigarette. Burgin hadn’t smoked in nearly a year because Florence didn’t like the taste of cigarette smoke but he didn’t even hesitate, taking the cigarette from Snafu now.
Snafu lit a match and lit Burgin’s cigarette for him before lighting his own. He gestured at the table, clearly indicating for Burgin to sit. Burgin did, taking in a long inhale of the cigarette and not realizing just how much he missed the damn things. Snafu watched him silently, and Burgin didn’t really feel the need to fill the silence, found that he was sort of comfortable, just sitting here in this cramped apartment, smoking a cigarette and staring contemplatively at the array of papers spread out across Snafu’s table, empty cartons of cigarettes and the ends of stampbooks.
“You keep in contact with anyone?” Burgin asked and it wasn’t really as if he was offended or anything, looking at a half empty sheet of five cent stamps. He picked it up, studying the tiny pictures of Mount Rushmore with a modicum of interest. Snafu watched him, smoke drifting lazily and the silence stretching for a few more moments.
“Sledge,” Snafu answered. He shifted, leaning forward onto his elbows, eyes trained on the stamps in Burgin’s hands. “Nobody else.”
Smoking was just muscle memory retained from too many months on a tiny island: tap the ashes away into the dirty mug and bring it back to his lips. Burgin thought about the last time that he had written to Sledge, talking about Florence and their marriage and would he like to come up and would he happen to have an address for Snafu so he could send out a wedding invitation. Sledge had written back with a neatly penciled address and an apologetic note about final exams along with a genuine congratulations.
(He had never expected Snafu to reply to the invitation he sent and Snafu never did.)
“How is he?” Burgin asked.
Snafu blew out a cloud of smoke. He stared at the stamps hard for another minute and the he was licking his lips almost like he was nervous and he was meeting Burgin’s eyes calmly.
“Dunno,” He dropped the spent cigarette into the mug, “You’ll have to ask him.”
~
Edward knocked on the Phillips’s front door. His tie was loosened, first button of his shirt undone, and there were a few stray hairs out of place-all signs of a particularly tiring day at the bank. It wasn’t nearly as tiring as Edward was used to during the war perhaps-but it was triply as tedious, a neverending avalanche of loan applications and managerial paperwork chasing him from day to day.
Mary answered the door herself and beamed when she saw who it was. Edward offered her a bright smile of his own as he was ushered into the house and into the parlor where a maid asked him very courteously if he would prefer tea or coffee and if he would please wait for a moment so that she could fetch Mr. Phillips.
It wasn’t long before Sidney entered the room-a spot of mechanic’s grease at the back of his elbow and smiling broadly as he extended a freshly washed hand towards Edward, “Good to see you, Edward. How’s work at the bank?”
“Tedious,” Edward replied with a slightly self deprecating smile, “Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, Sid.”
“Oh-” Sid waved his hand, “All of the Sledges are welcome to drop by any time unannounced.”
Edward’s smile widened briefly before he set the coffee that the maid had given him aside, “I was hoping that maybe we could discuss my brother.”
It was almost startling, really, how quickly Sidney’s demeanor shifted from relaxed to alert, a sort of sharpness edging his mildly interested expression. His voice was a little careful as he spoke, eyes locked onto Edward’s face, “What about Eugene?”
“I was hoping,” Edward said-and maybe his voice was a little careful too, “I was hoping that maybe you could tell me a little bit more about his friend. Snafu.”
There was a long heavy pause. Edward looked down at his coffee, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and steeped his fingers. The silence was just as telling as words might have been and Edward shut his eyes briefly, drawing in a long calming breath through his nostrils. He didn’t need to look up to know that Sidney’s mouth was set in a grim line, that he had suspected just as much as Edward had, that this was a topic that neither of them really wanted to treat with anything besides disbelief, much less broach in a conversation.
But Edward-Edward had to know.
“He was a good marine,” Sid said, “A little unorthodox but he was a good marine.”
“What I want to know,” Edward said, a hard edge to his voice, eyes narrowed, “Is whether or not he’s going to get my little brother hurt.”
Sid didn’t say anything for a long moment. Edward waited patiently, eyes on Sid’s face, his jaw tensing as he watched thoughts chase each other across Sid’s face, how his frown turned deeper and deeper with every passing second and Edward knew what the answer was even before Sid chose to speak.
“I don’t know,” Sid finally said, looking up at Edward.
Edward’s own expression was grim.
~
There was a man who walked into the store almost every other day. Around five o’clock in the evening, the tiny bell above the door jingled to announce his arrival. Shoulders slouched and a vaguely surly expression on his face, the man made only very brief eye contact with Roger as he bought his items and left again.
They were nearly the same every time.
One stamp. One envelope. A pack of cigarettes.
Occasionally he bought a pencil. Sometimes he bought a new razor and once in a while he would buy a new bar of soap.
Roger liked to make small talk with his customers-especially the ones that he saw regularly. But the one and only time he had attempted conversation with this man, he had stared at Roger blankly and Roger had been left backtracking into a mumble and then a, “forget it,” until he knew to keep the stamp and envelope and cigarettes out on the counter and his mouth shut.
Sometimes he was little curious though. Sometimes he wondered who this man was, why he never spoke except in sullen stares. Maybe he had served in the war-maybe he was one of those who had seen one too many of his buddies get shot by Germans and now he was all quiet. Maybe his old sweetheart had upped and left him for someone new while he was away on some tropical island in the Far East killing Japs.
Most times-though-most times Roger didn’t care that much. The man walked in, bought his stamp, envelope, and cigarette and left.
And the day went on.
~
Sid wasn’t much for gossip once-disliked it but didn’t really have any strong feelings about the subject. He never really paid attention to the town rumor mill until Mary’s older sister got caught in the fray. Word around town was that Cynthia’s husband had been caught cheating on her with a wild girl from Texas. Word around town was that Cynthia was heartbroken and unsure of what to do with their three year old son and the child on the way.
Now, Sid hated gossip-hated the way that women would quiet as he and Mary passed by in the streets, like somebody had goddamn died or something. It wasn’t their life, it wasn’t their business and they certainly didn’t have any right to talk about it or speculate like merciless harpies.
Cynthia had moved in with them for the time being, taking the guest room with her son.
“Just for a week or so,” Sid told Eugene as he leaned down to scratch one of their many basset hounds behind her ears. She wagged her tail happily, snuffing into his palm. “Just until she figures out what she’s going to do again. Mary’s parents have enough on their plate already, with Abby getting engaged and all.”
Eugene had his hands in his pockets, looking at the beagle that was sniffing around his ankle. There was no change in his quiet expression but the line of his shoulders belied a certain sort of tension. It was to be expected, Sid supposed, considering that neither of the Philips had really mentioned Abby to Eugene since they stopped running into each other.
“Mary wants to put her to work around the house to get her mind off of it, but I don’t know. I said we should give her some time to herself,” Sid straightened up and the hound wandered away with the beagle bounding after her, yapping excitedly all the while.
“I’d put her to work,” Eugene advised, “It’s not good to leave her alone to think about it all the time.”
Sid turned his eyes from the dogs to look at Eugene, a wry smile crossing his face, “Taking Mary’s side there, Gene?”
Eugene lifted an eyebrow, “Just because you don’t have common sense, Sid-”
Sid laughed and the dogs looped around the edge of the field, running back with their tongues lolling. Eugene bent down this time to pat the beagle.
“It’s just-” Sid said, looking at Eugene’s face, “-I don’t understand what kind of man would do that. Why anybody would marry a woman and then cheat on her. Why anyone would be in any sort of relationship and decide to be unfaithful.”
And maybe this was one of the instances where his carefully chosen words were as close as he was going to come to just saying it outright. It was as close as Sid was going to admitting that he knew and he was uncomfortable with the idea but that he was still talking to Eugene anyway, still going to be his friend.
If Eugene ever noticed, his expression never changed to reflect it. Sometimes Sid wondered if his delicate sidestepping was lost on the other man-but Eugene wasn’t stupid. And maybe Eugene wasn’t stupid enough to acknowledge it either and Sid wasn’t sure if it was because he was ashamed or because this was serious-too serious for him to subject to a society of bigotry and hatred.
If they all kept their mouths shut, Eugene was a bachelor and maybe he would stay that way forever and twenty years down the road, the women at church would sigh and say what a waste of a fine man and nobody would ever know any better.
“I could never forgive anyone who did that,” Sid concluded.
Eugene’s eyes were a little distant as he looked at Sid and maybe he was stepping into a different year, a different place. He didn’t answer immediately, just let the silence drag a little too long and Sid was slowly dawning with recognition because he suddenly wanted to step forward and grab Eugene by the arm and say Gene, tell me you didn’t but it was almost terrifying the savage thought that followed, the one that wasn’t surprised at all, that said a little meanly maybe he deserved it, he doesn’t deserve Eugene.
“I could,” Eugene replied and he stopped there, letting the subject drop without another word of explanation.
It wasn’t until much later, when Mary’s head was pillowed against his shoulder and he was idly stroking the soft skin of her side and listening to her breathe-it wasn’t until much later that he realized. How many other times had Eugene forgiven the man? How many more trespasses would it take before Eugene gave up on him?
Maybe he was a little daunted-because he couldn’t do what Eugene had done and continued to do every day. Maybe he was a little terrified-because in the face of that, Eugene was bound to make bad decisions and a misstep could literally tear him apart.
He had no choice but to trust that Eugene knew what he was doing. As long as Sid kept his mouth shut and his head down, he’d be playing his part.
~
Deborah found his address by asking around-she knew all the good places to dig for information around this part of town and she knew that he had to have come back since the war was over and all. She knew that Edith had died-maybe from pneumonia or something, back in ’44 when he hadn’t been around to take her to the hospital and maybe he hated himself a little for it, Deborah didn’t know because he had always been a little fucker when he was a teenager, and spent weeks at a time in juvenile hall and making her older sister tear her hair out with frustration.
She barely remembered the kid really, except this smudge of a mouth that opened wide and spilled all sort of obscenities and a glimmer of eyes behind the faintly smug expression that only teenagers could have. But she didn’t really need to remember him to know that he was family and goddamn she was sure that family looked out for each other in times of need and Jesus Christ she was in need right now. Barry had taken all the money that she had been trying to save for her rent and her fucking landlord didn’t give a shit about getting fucked over by pimps or the fact that she was fucking dying for a goddamned hit and it had been almost three days since Barry had fucking cut her off and slapped her in the face saying you better fucking shape up because I fucking own you woman.
Kitty wasn’t talking to her because she wasn’t allowed and Cherry stopped giving her the time of day three months ago when she stole her client and rent was already two weeks overdue and she didn’t have any fucking cash so she was down to her last resort. They didn’t share a last name and maybe Deborah hadn’t been the best at looking after him while Edith was away at work but fuck, they shared some blood and maybe that was enough.
She hoped it was enough.
The building that he lived in wasn’t so great but it was better than Deborah was doing right now and honestly she couldn’t give more of a shit if he lived on the fucking waterfront in one of those houses that she had always wanted to live in as a girl or here, in some run-down place with leaking pipes and paper thin walls. She just needed some money, just enough for another hit and her rent and maybe she’d think about food later.
When she knocked on the door, it wasn’t her nephew who answered the door but some other guy and she stared at him balefully with her kohl rimmed eyes and she breathed out a sigh of anger and she was going to turn and mutter never mind when Merriell stepped into view behind this strange man and he sounded surprised when he said, “Deborah?”
Deborah looked at Merriell and then she looked at the man who was backing away from the frame and damn didn’t he look out of place with his neatly pressed shirt and his expensive watch and goddamn privileged air and her lips cracked into a hysterical grin as she took him in, all of him in, and she turned to Merriell, not bothering to hide her appreciative tone, “Damn boy, you turning tricks too? Sorry to be interruptin’.”
Merriell stared at her blankly for a moment but it wasn’t really because there was a slow anger burning in the tension of his shoulders, in the hard stare of his eyes and oh-she didn’t mean to remind him. Never thought that he’d ever get into this business though-thought that maybe she’d at least hear about it or something during her rounds but she knew better than anyone that the fucking queer businessmen kept their secrets hidden better than anyone else.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice tight.
“Look,” Deborah said, “I just need some money. My boss, he fucking took all of my money without warning and I don’t have nothing else. If I don’t get my rent in by the end of today, I’m gonna be out on the streets.”
Merriell’s lips curled a little derisively and maybe Deborah was expecting him to say something scathing back-but the other man, he was looking at Merriell’s face and catching his eye and Merriell just glanced at him once before he was looking back at Deborah.
“Look Merriell,” she was begging a little because she wasn’t above that and, “I wouldn’t have come to you if it wasn’t goddamn last resort, you know that. Have a little pity on your aunt for Chrissake.”
Merriell didn’t budge. Deborah stood in the doorway, looking at him and then the man who was still just standing there, like he belonged in this damn place, not uncomfortable at all watching this exchange and she was struck by how irritated she was that the damn rich boy could fucking listen to her beg her worthless nephew for a couple of bucks like it was a fucking entertaining show. She was thinking about turning to him, turning to him and snapping that it wasn’t a fucking play this wasn’t a fucking fancy theater-
And then he was reaching into the pocket of his pants and Merriell’s eyes swung from her face to fixate on the movement and his voice was quiet and hard as he said, “Gene, don’t.”
“Why?” the man-Gene-said, “She’s your family.”
Merriell didn’t say anything after that, just looked at Gene hard like he was trying to figure something out. Gene was looking at Deborah, and pulling bills out of his wallet and that was when Deborah realized that her nephew was a goddamn homosexual.
It wasn’t in her place to judge though and the stranger was fucking handing her thirty dollars-fucking thirty dollars-based solely on the fact that she might have meant something to Merriell at one point in time. She wasn’t in the business for any sort of goddamn romance but Jesus Christ-even if she could never respect it, there was something there, something overwhelming there and maybe she hadn’t yet given up on the dreams of finding her own overwhelming thing.
She took the money, folded it up and shoved it into her bra. Merriell was looking at her again, lips downturned with his arms across his chest. Gene was looking at her too, closing his wallet back up with a hard set to his jaw, dark eyes all seriousness and she was suddenly jealous, jealous of her nephew for landing a man this kind and generous. Her fucking nephew with his ugly sneer and heavily hooded eyes, slow stupid words-with this man in his neatly pressed clothes and giving people money like it was goddamn nothing. How the fuck had he fucking done it?
“Thank you,” Deborah said sincerely, backing out of the door, “Thank you.”
Gene’s expression didn’t change and neither did Merriell’s. She paused only a moment.
“You take care of him,” she told Gene-because even if she was jealous and resentful of her nephew, they still had the same blood running through their veins.
And then she was down the hall and gone.
~
Eugene may not have been the most brilliant student he had ever taught, but he was certainly one of the most competent. Maybe it came with his years in the Marines. The boys who came back to learn courtesy of the GI Bill always seemed more appreciative than the boys who wandered straight into college from four years of high school and a privileged background. Maybe they had learned to appreciate life a little more, the opportunities that they were given now they had made it past the end of the war. He respected them, admired them for what they had done for their country.
It was nearly the end of the term when Eugene Sledge knocked on his office door, hovering a little uncertainly like he wasn’t entirely sure what it was that he was doing there. He set the papers aside and smiled, gesturing for the man to come in.
Eugene took a seat in front of his chair, looked determinedly at him and said, “Professor Carson, I’d like to go to graduate school.”
Carson had been hoping but he hadn’t been expecting for something like this to happen. Men like Eugene-men who had seen the war-they always seemed to be impatient to settle down, to start their life of mediocrity with a beautiful wife and two children as soon as possible, like life was going to slip away from them if they didn’t hold onto it tightly enough. It didn’t matter what talent they had for the sciences-extra schooling meant less time spent in their picture perfect lives.
He regarded Eugene for a moment. “What were you thinking about studying?”
“Zoology. Ornithology, mostly,” Eugene said and the way he answered so quckly-it sounded like he had been thinking about this for a long time, “Conservation sciences if I can.”
“Well,” Carson steepled his fingers, forehead furrowing as he thought, “The University of Alabama has a good biology department.”
“Sir, I was hoping-” Eugene replied, “-I was hoping you could give me advice about colleges in other states.”
Carson raised both of his eyebrows but he didn’t miss a beat, “If you’re at all interested in doing conservation science, you might want to consider the proximity of the college to ecosystems you might be interested in studying. There are a great number of conservation efforts out west you might be interested in. I know that California has several projects and most all of the universities there are well regarded.”
Eugene was chewing on the inside of his lower lip and not saying anything, just looking at Carson like he wasn’t really seeing him, like he was looking through him. Maybe not California.
“If you’re not looking to move that far away,” Carson suggested, “Why don’t you look at University of Florida? They’re close to the Everglades and they have several excellent ornithology professors.”
Something shifted in Eugene’s eyes-something that made him draw into focus and actually look at Carson like he was seriously considering the prospect.
Carson smiled encouragingly, “Have you ever been to Florida?”
Eugene was silent for a moment and his eyes were slipping back out of focus, now fixed on a spot just above Carson’s left shoulder. Carson felt a little uncomfortable, like he was intruding on a private conversation that Eugene was having with himself. He shuffled a stack of papers around on his desk and cleared his throat.
“I think I’ll apply there,” Eugene said, snapping back into himself with a ready smile, “Thanks, Professor Carson.”
~
Lily had been working for the Sledges ever since she had turned sixteen and her mama had pulled her out of school because her papa got into a bad accident and couldn’t work for a couple of months. The Sledges had been kind enough to take her on so she could supplement her mama’s pay so they wouldn’t go hungry or have to go live out on the streets.
She had started small-peeling vegetables in the kitchen and helping the cook. She had moved up along the years, learning how to make the beds exactly how Mrs. Sledge liked it with the corners tucked in, how tea was always served with the handles to the right and the spoon to the left, how she always needed to collect Dr. Sledge’s stethoscope from wherever he had left it at the end of the day and return it to his desk so that he didn’t have to spend thirty minutes searching for it the next morning. She hated that she blushed whenever Edward addressed her and gave Eugene and Sid extra cookies like a secret between the three of them whenever Sid came to visit around teatime.
She had spent months fantasizing about the day that Edward would start a conversation with her in the context of wanting to become her friend and maybe go from her friend to becoming something more. She was foolish, she knew, but she hadn’t given up the hope that maybe someday he’d look up and see her for her instead of the maid that she knew she was. She hadn’t given up that hope until he had gotten married and she had to close the chapter of that life with a sad sort of nostalgia.
She hadn’t even realized that she had taken all of those hopes and transferred them to Eugene until it was already too late.
It was the summer before Eugene started his second year of college. His friend-Mr. Shelton-was visiting and Lily was making her way through all of the rooms on her normal cleaning routine and about to enter Eugene’s room when she froze.
Even though the door wide open, she knew that she was intruding in on something that she shouldn’t have seen in the first place. Eugene had his eyes closed and his forehead pressed into the crook of Shelton’s neck, both hands drawn around his slim hips and there was no mistaking this kind of embrace-meant for a lover rather than a close friend.
To Lily’s credit, she didn’t make a single noise and managed to step hurriedly behind the door. Maybe she was a little bit curious to hear what they had to say but her heart was hammering in her throat and she knew that what she was doing was spying and that it was wrong.
“Okay,” Eugene was saying softly, “Okay.” Lily thought that maybe she had dropped in on the tail end of an argument. A moment later, she found herself blinking away tears that she didn’t know she was crying and what was this?-why was she crying?
She didn’t need to look into the room to know that they were kissing, Eugene’s hand was probably threaded through Shelton’s curly hair and he was probably gently pressing against him without any urgency like they had the rest of their lives to do this. She didn’t even want to look into the room-not with this strange sort of seizing in her chest and oh god this was stupid, so stupid. What would her mama think, seeing her cry over feelings that she didn’t even know she had-over some foolish thought dreamt up by a sixteen year old with her head perpetually in the clouds?
She hastily wiped at her eyes and gathered up the duster and the teatowel. She needed to compose herself, to finish her job because she was in this household as a maid and nothing more.
It didn’t stop her from running into them sometimes, in various states of undress in completely inappropriate places. Shelton would have something like a slick smirk on his face and Eugene would look a little harried but there was no mistaking the fondness in his eyes. She’d close the door as quietly as she could and it wasn’t long before it didn’t hurt at all-it wasn’t long before she realized that she was actually happy for Eugene because he was so obviously in love.
Sometimes she’d catch the way that Shelton looked at Eugene when he thought that nobody was looking-something a little like awe, a little like fear-like he wasn’t exactly sure how he came here, like he wasn’t exactly sure how long he was going to stay. And sometimes she caught it the other way around, the way that Eugene’s eyes lingered a little too long, the way that the corners of his lips softened whenever he was relaxed in Shelton’s company.
They never touched in public. Outside of the Sledge estate, they were just two war buddies, bland smiles and stoic expressions. Maybe in another life, they could have been actors.
Lily learned how to adapt. Whenever Shelton visited, she was ready for a weekend of Mrs. Sledge snapping out orders in that passive smiling way of hers, like she had to pass on her frustration to the household staff lest she explode. Whenever Shelton visited, she made up the guest room but she also left an extra pillow on Eugene’s bed.
And the small tilt of a smile Eugene gave her sometimes when he passed her in the hallways-maybe he couldn’t say thank you out loud for something that she wasn’t even supposed to know to do-but it was a sign to show that he appreciated and it was enough.
~
Sunday evening meant that Eugene was taking the car back to Mobile.
Sunday morning was for slow morning sex-the kind where Eugene woke up already arching up into Snafu’s fist, into the heat of his mouth and Snafu would grin real slow around his cock. Sunday morning was for breathing quietly into the side of Snafu’s neck and maybe catching another hour or two of sleep until it was closer to noon. Lunch on Sunday was usually whatever was left over from the night before and they only had so long to eat it before Eugene generally decided that he was more interested in having sex.
It was on a Sunday afternoon with the sunlight filtering strong through the open window when Eugene said, “I think I’m going to graduate school.”
Snafu was looking at the way that the sunlight turned Eugene’s hair into a blaze of copper-red, the way that the air inside his apartment was little hazy from all of the stale cigarette smoke. Maybe he was listening, Eugene didn’t know.
“I applied for University of Florida.”
Snafu’s glanced at his face but he didn’t say anything. But he had tensed up somewhat and his expression had become a little duller and Eugene didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was thinking already-everything that he had spent the last four years trying to beat out of Snafu. But Snafu was nothing if not a stubborn creature of habit and he still thought, that even after all this time-
“So what do you say?” Eugene asked, keeping his voice light, “Will you move to Florida with me?”
Snafu’s eyes flickered like he wasn’t sure if Eugene was actually talking to him despite the fact that he was the only other one in the room.
The choice of Florida wasn’t lost on him. After all, it was where everything had started-wasn’t it appropriate that it was also where everything would end? Maybe Eugene had only picked it because it was a good school, maybe he hadn’t been thinking about them at all-but Snafu was.
“Okay,” Snafu replied.
It was the simplest decision he had made in a long time.
Fandom The Pacific
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,170
Characters/Pairing: Sledge/Snafu
Summary: A collection of outside perspectives on the Sledge/Snafu relationship extending from the end of All These Roads to the end of Eugene's undergraduate career.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters--they are based off of the actors' portrayals of characters in HBO's The Pacific, not the real people themselves.
Author's Note: Seriously, fandom is taking over my brain forever. Special thanks to thoracopagus just because.
roadverse master post
Shelton still showed up earlier than anybody else at the factory. Even though Hammel should have gotten used to this particular fact out of sheer repetition, it had always made him a little uneasy to see the boy sitting there on the front steps, smoking a cigarette lazily into the brightening dawn. It wasn’t that Shelton really bothered him-persay-but he preferred the man out back with the rest of the boys in the lumberyard, always out of sight and generally out of mind. He preferred to think of Shelton as a name on a paycheck he needed to sign every two weeks and not this man with pale eyes, staring up at him with a half dead air of insolence drawn about him.
Sometimes, Hammel thought, sometimes he swore that the boy was all simmering violence underneath that placid face, sharp derision behind the occasional smirk and he didn’t care for it at all. Sometimes he would remember that the boy was a veteran-had been a marine once. But he never really talked about it-so Hammel concluded that naturally he couldn’t have done that much for the war if he had nothing to say about it. Hell, Hammel had done his part for the war too, buying all of those war bonds so that people like Shelton could have rifles on their backs, boots on their feet.
This particular morning, the heat had started early, a humid breeze of hot air dragging through the city, trying to chase the cool shade away from long alleyways. Shelton had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and he had an ever persistent cigarette between his lips, looking steadily down the street though his eyes had an unfocused look, like he wasn’t exactly seeing anything worth noting.
“Good morning,” Hammel said in what he hoped was a mostly amiable tone of voice, keys jingling as he drew them out of his pocket. Shelton blinked at him and rose to his feet, breathing out smoke as he drew the cigarette out from his mouth.
“Mr. Hammel,” Shelton said-and Hammel’s brow wrinkled briefly in confusion. Shelton never really spoke to him this early on in the morning-usually just stood around and made him feel uncomfortable until he left for the yard and Hammel could forget all about him except the dull whine of the table saw in the background. He turned his head and fixed the boy with something like a nervous stare.
“Was wondering if I could take Friday off,” Shelton said, pale eyes meeting his own easily. Maybe it was his imagination but Hammel swore that he could see the veiled disrespect there, barely hidden in the set expression.
Hammel pushed open the door, “You took two Fridays off last month. I’m not paying you to take days off, Shelton.”
Shelton slowly touched his head as if he was about to straighten out into a lazy salute or something but thought better of it. The boy was strange sometimes and Hammel didn’t know what to make of him. His eyes never left Hammel’s face and his voice was slow, like he was surprised at Hammel’s outburst, “I can put in overtime next Saturday if it means that much to you.” And then belatedly (Hammel swore that Shelton was mocking him), “Sir.”
Hammel frowned and considered saying no for a moment. Instead he stepped into the tiny office and said brusquely, “Just make sure you get your hours in.”
~
He didn’t know that she was standing just beyond the edge of the doorway, watching him.
If he knew, he would have surely turned around, maybe had the compunction to look vaguely embarrassed at being caught. But even though he didn’t have his back entirely turned towards her, he seemed to be entirely engrossed in what he was doing now: which was snooping through her son’s desk.
It didn’t seem like he was looking for anything in particular-lazily flipping through a notebook that Mary recognized as one of Eugene’s field sketchbooks. He seemed to be looking at all of the pictures: plants and common finches left half finished and abandoned in favor of rarer, more interesting species. Once in a while he’d lift a finger to the page, retracing a stray mark and this strange look would come over his face, like he was trying to imagine Eugene in the woods. Like he was trying to see the way that Eugene’s pencil might slip on the page as he caught sight of something else in the dappled shadow, hair a coppery halo in the sunlight.
When he put the notebook back down, his eyes flickered over the table again. There were half completed assignments, diagrams of avian anatomy, of the plant reproductive system, tables of classification and defining characteristics. He picked them up too, eyes scanning far too easily over the slanted writing that Mary even had trouble reading. There was something about the way that Eugene ran all of his letters together when he was excited, his e’s barely a swipe on the page, diminished between overbearing consonants.
But this man-this man standing in her son’s room and looking at her son’s coursework, this man with an unreadable expression and slight upturn of his lips like he was smiling subconsciously-he seemed to have no problem reading Eugene’s words at all.
It was one thing to have doubts and suspicions-it was one thing to desperately want to ignore, it was one thing to pretend that this was just a phase, that it would all pass in time. But this-this stranger under her roof who had done nothing but smile politely in their presence, who answered all of their questions without hesitation, but told stories haltingly, like he was trying to use the correct words-this stranger wore Eugene’s familiarity like an old coat, produced smiles from Eugene’s face like a magician palming coins.
Maybe Eugene was writing to a girl he had met, she had told herself.
Maybe Eugene was keeping up with all of his old war buddies, she had told herself.
Eugene wasn’t ready for a serious relationship-she had told herself-he’d take more of an interest in settling down when he was better.
He set the papers back down where he had found them, smoothing his palm over the back of the skewed chair, against the crisp fabric of a perfectly tailored dress shirt. Mary watched him look out of the window in front of the desk, across the sprawling estate, and his thumb moved in absent circles at the juncture of the shirt where the flipped collar met shoulder. Her eyes fixated on that-the movement so minute that she wasn’t sure he was even aware that he was doing it.
There was a stifled sharp exhale at the door. Snafu whirled around, his expression no longer distant but wary. Couldn’t take the reflexes out of a marine.
There was nobody there.
~
He was in her class, two rows to the left and three seats up. She didn’t know if he even knew who she was (though being one of the few female students, it was hard not to notice her), but she was hugely aware of who he was: the Sledges’ younger son, who had never been as obnoxious or as loud as that friend of his Sidney Phillips in high school. He had enlisted the moment he graduated and maybe Jeanne hadn’t known who he was then, but she sure knew who he was now, with his perpetual calmness and silent competence. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as the insufferable Michael Neuss who didn’t let anybody else answer the professor’s questions, but she was pretty sure he was getting decent grades in Taxonomy anyways.
He was also in her dissection lab. And her statistics class.
There were probably hundreds of men at API taking advantage of the GI bill. She knew she was fairly pretty-her sister had taught her how to put on a touch of makeup to soften out the edges, how to pick dresses that flattered her figure. If she couldn’t have had her pick amongst all of the men, she could have at least had her pick amongst a majority of them.
But there was something about Eugene Sledge, something in his quiet nature that drew her to him, something about his straightened shoulders and half smiles, the dark intensity in his eyes. It didn’t hurt that the Sledges were a prominent family, well regarded by virtually everyone in the community.
It took her an entire month and a good week or two of her sister’s teasing to work up her courage to ask him for help in Taxonomy. Whether or not she actually needed it was an entirely different story. But he had smiled at her in that unassuming manner and Thursday afternoons after statistics were spent in the library sitting side by side, books spread out in front of them. His voice was low as he spoke, and a strange sort of comfort settled around her every time she looked at him and saw his eyes brightened with passion for this subject, the gestures with his hands, tapping at pictures and charts and diagrams.
She should have known better-should have been expecting it. After all, men like Eugene Sledge didn’t come along very often and he had never tried to impress her, not like all of those other foolish boys with their stilted attempts at machismo. She should have seen it coming.
She had slung her bag onto her shoulder one day and pressed her hands onto the back of her chair, watching him gather his books together. It was a blurt more than anything else-brazen words that shouldn’t have passed her lips in the first place, “Come have coffee with me.”
Eugene paused with one book half in the bag. His jaw tensed momentarily and then he turned towards her, a truly apologetic expression on his face, “Look Jeanne-I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”
Her stomach sank and the tentative smile on her face slipped. She turned her eyes down for a moment, trying to hide the disappointment and to school her expression into something less open-maybe a smile, maybe she could play it off like she had known all the while.
He was watching her carefully-god, he was too observant for her to hide anything anyway and they didn’t even know each other-how stupid was this entire situation? He put a hand on her shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed and he really did sound sorry, “Jeanne, you’re a nice girl and everything-”
“It’s okay,” she smiled at him and maybe she really did mean it, “I should have known. I’m never fast enough to catch men like you, am I?”
He smiled back uncertainly, lifting his hand. It hovered uncertainly for a moment before he dropped it at his side.
“I just thought-” she started, in attempt to justify herself, “I mean, I’ve never seen you around with a girl, so, I just thought.”
“She, um-” Eugene swallowed almost nervously and the smile no longer reached his eyes, “She doesn’t live in Mobile.” A pause, and then very softly, “I met her during the war.”
She stared for a moment-she knew he had been, everyone knew how both the Sledge boys had served admirably in the war, but whereas Edward didn’t mind speaking about his experiences too much, Eugene had never said anything at all. The younger boy had always been quieter.
She shifted slightly and her voice was quiet as she replied, “My sister was in a long distance relationship. She’s not a bad person but she ended up having an affair. It always gets lonely.” She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say with her words-maybe it was a last resort attempt. But his eyes stayed steady on her face and his expression didn’t change at all. She felt a pool of shame coil in her stomach at his unwavering stare-why did she think it was proper to insinuate anything?
There was a stretch of silence and then she cleared her throat and offered another tentative smile, “You must love her a lot.”
A strange look passed over his face and he didn’t answer for a moment. But then he smiled, understated and thoughtful and he said:
“Yeah. I do.”
~
Abby was no longer allowed to see Eugene any more.
There was no explicit rule about it-nobody had ever taken her aside and told her that she shouldn’t see him. She technically still saw him around her sister’s home once in a while, standing at the edge of the yard and playing with the Phillips’ dogs or sitting in the parlor deep in a low conversation with her brother-in-law-but she no longer talked to him like she had before.
She wasn’t sure what had caused the change. All she knew was that one day, she had heard Eugene’s voice in the hall and she had smiled brightly and wiped her hands on her apron-had started towards the hall only to have her sister grab her by the back of her elbow and pull her back. She had looked confusedly at Mary but Mary just had her lips pressed in a firm line, her expression rapidly darkening.
And she wasn’t blind-even though she was apparently not allowed to interact with Eugene himself, she could see that her sister’s attitude toward him each time she saw him had changed considerably. She used to joke with him, used to welcome him into their house with a beaming smile and generous hospitality. Now, her smiles were strained as she welcomed him into their home and there was an ugliness that set her jaw when she knew he wasn’t looking, a certain sadness in her expression when she looked at Abby.
Abby wasn’t stupid-she was well aware of why she had been pushed towards Eugene in the first place. She knew that Mary had been hoping-that Sid had been hoping that maybe one day Eugene would amass the courage to ask if maybe she’d like to go steady.
But that hadn’t happened and Mary was upset and Abby was no longer allowed to speak to Eugene-which only really meant one thing: Eugene had found a girlfriend elsewhere.
It was strange because none of the girls down at the church (and they were such a gossipy lot) had ever mentioned a girl going steady with Eugene Sledge. Considering Eugene was something like a coveted catch, Abby was sure that she would have at least heard a mention of it. But she had always been taught to keep her head out of such things and that gossiping was unbefitting.
She had no choice but to keep her head down and bite her lip and pretend that she wasn’t disappointed, that she hadn’t been looking forward to it at all.
~
It had been a while since he had been called Burgin on a regular basis and even longer since he had been called Burgie. Florence called him Romus, the boys at work called him boss and sometimes his sister called him Rommy with a mean smile and a fond look.
He hadn’t really meant to drop by but there was an extra evening between his afternoon arrival by train and the business conference that would start sharp at nine’o’clock tomorrow morning. He hadn’t really thought much about it but he had asked Sledge for Snafu’s address a long time ago to maybe pen letters that he never actually did write. It didn’t take much effort at all, really, to hail a cab and to read off the address in a strange sort of voice like he didn’t really know what he was doing but it felt right anyway so he flowed with it.
He had stepped around the trash that somebody had left in the hall, shoes crinkling the damp paper of cigarette stubs that somebody kept throwing over the railing as careless afterthoughts. He had knocked on the door twice before it swung open and Snafu was standing there, blinking at him in a moment of speechlessness before he was smiling and saying, “Burgie-what’re you doing here?”
Burgin grinned back, blue eyes bright with good humor, slouched shoulders and hands casually tucked into the pockets of his pants and he said, “I’m in New Orleans for a conference-thought I’d drop by.”
Snafu stepped aside and waved him out of the hall and into the apartment, still that smile on his face and Burgin was glad he came, really glad he decided to drop by after all. He couldn’t help but glance around the place, eyes sweeping over the hole in the wall, the dilapidated bookshelf-
“Didn’t know you read Kipling,” Burgin commented idly as he turned on his heels to face Snafu who was taking a small stack of newspapers off a chair for Burgin. Snafu glanced up, met Burgin’s eyes and maybe he interpreted the statement as didn’t know you read at all or something because for a moment there was something unreadable crossing his expression and a very decided pause before he spoke.
“Sure I do.”
Burgin smile turned a little puzzled because it was the way that he said it-he didn’t spend months watching a man’s back without having picked up on the little things. And the way that Snafu had said it, a little bit too casually-the touch of irony-maybe there was something strange there, something unspoken, something hidden behind heavily hooded eyes. Except the moment passed and Snafu was holding out a cigarette. Burgin hadn’t smoked in nearly a year because Florence didn’t like the taste of cigarette smoke but he didn’t even hesitate, taking the cigarette from Snafu now.
Snafu lit a match and lit Burgin’s cigarette for him before lighting his own. He gestured at the table, clearly indicating for Burgin to sit. Burgin did, taking in a long inhale of the cigarette and not realizing just how much he missed the damn things. Snafu watched him silently, and Burgin didn’t really feel the need to fill the silence, found that he was sort of comfortable, just sitting here in this cramped apartment, smoking a cigarette and staring contemplatively at the array of papers spread out across Snafu’s table, empty cartons of cigarettes and the ends of stampbooks.
“You keep in contact with anyone?” Burgin asked and it wasn’t really as if he was offended or anything, looking at a half empty sheet of five cent stamps. He picked it up, studying the tiny pictures of Mount Rushmore with a modicum of interest. Snafu watched him, smoke drifting lazily and the silence stretching for a few more moments.
“Sledge,” Snafu answered. He shifted, leaning forward onto his elbows, eyes trained on the stamps in Burgin’s hands. “Nobody else.”
Smoking was just muscle memory retained from too many months on a tiny island: tap the ashes away into the dirty mug and bring it back to his lips. Burgin thought about the last time that he had written to Sledge, talking about Florence and their marriage and would he like to come up and would he happen to have an address for Snafu so he could send out a wedding invitation. Sledge had written back with a neatly penciled address and an apologetic note about final exams along with a genuine congratulations.
(He had never expected Snafu to reply to the invitation he sent and Snafu never did.)
“How is he?” Burgin asked.
Snafu blew out a cloud of smoke. He stared at the stamps hard for another minute and the he was licking his lips almost like he was nervous and he was meeting Burgin’s eyes calmly.
“Dunno,” He dropped the spent cigarette into the mug, “You’ll have to ask him.”
~
Edward knocked on the Phillips’s front door. His tie was loosened, first button of his shirt undone, and there were a few stray hairs out of place-all signs of a particularly tiring day at the bank. It wasn’t nearly as tiring as Edward was used to during the war perhaps-but it was triply as tedious, a neverending avalanche of loan applications and managerial paperwork chasing him from day to day.
Mary answered the door herself and beamed when she saw who it was. Edward offered her a bright smile of his own as he was ushered into the house and into the parlor where a maid asked him very courteously if he would prefer tea or coffee and if he would please wait for a moment so that she could fetch Mr. Phillips.
It wasn’t long before Sidney entered the room-a spot of mechanic’s grease at the back of his elbow and smiling broadly as he extended a freshly washed hand towards Edward, “Good to see you, Edward. How’s work at the bank?”
“Tedious,” Edward replied with a slightly self deprecating smile, “Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, Sid.”
“Oh-” Sid waved his hand, “All of the Sledges are welcome to drop by any time unannounced.”
Edward’s smile widened briefly before he set the coffee that the maid had given him aside, “I was hoping that maybe we could discuss my brother.”
It was almost startling, really, how quickly Sidney’s demeanor shifted from relaxed to alert, a sort of sharpness edging his mildly interested expression. His voice was a little careful as he spoke, eyes locked onto Edward’s face, “What about Eugene?”
“I was hoping,” Edward said-and maybe his voice was a little careful too, “I was hoping that maybe you could tell me a little bit more about his friend. Snafu.”
There was a long heavy pause. Edward looked down at his coffee, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and steeped his fingers. The silence was just as telling as words might have been and Edward shut his eyes briefly, drawing in a long calming breath through his nostrils. He didn’t need to look up to know that Sidney’s mouth was set in a grim line, that he had suspected just as much as Edward had, that this was a topic that neither of them really wanted to treat with anything besides disbelief, much less broach in a conversation.
But Edward-Edward had to know.
“He was a good marine,” Sid said, “A little unorthodox but he was a good marine.”
“What I want to know,” Edward said, a hard edge to his voice, eyes narrowed, “Is whether or not he’s going to get my little brother hurt.”
Sid didn’t say anything for a long moment. Edward waited patiently, eyes on Sid’s face, his jaw tensing as he watched thoughts chase each other across Sid’s face, how his frown turned deeper and deeper with every passing second and Edward knew what the answer was even before Sid chose to speak.
“I don’t know,” Sid finally said, looking up at Edward.
Edward’s own expression was grim.
~
There was a man who walked into the store almost every other day. Around five o’clock in the evening, the tiny bell above the door jingled to announce his arrival. Shoulders slouched and a vaguely surly expression on his face, the man made only very brief eye contact with Roger as he bought his items and left again.
They were nearly the same every time.
One stamp. One envelope. A pack of cigarettes.
Occasionally he bought a pencil. Sometimes he bought a new razor and once in a while he would buy a new bar of soap.
Roger liked to make small talk with his customers-especially the ones that he saw regularly. But the one and only time he had attempted conversation with this man, he had stared at Roger blankly and Roger had been left backtracking into a mumble and then a, “forget it,” until he knew to keep the stamp and envelope and cigarettes out on the counter and his mouth shut.
Sometimes he was little curious though. Sometimes he wondered who this man was, why he never spoke except in sullen stares. Maybe he had served in the war-maybe he was one of those who had seen one too many of his buddies get shot by Germans and now he was all quiet. Maybe his old sweetheart had upped and left him for someone new while he was away on some tropical island in the Far East killing Japs.
Most times-though-most times Roger didn’t care that much. The man walked in, bought his stamp, envelope, and cigarette and left.
And the day went on.
~
Sid wasn’t much for gossip once-disliked it but didn’t really have any strong feelings about the subject. He never really paid attention to the town rumor mill until Mary’s older sister got caught in the fray. Word around town was that Cynthia’s husband had been caught cheating on her with a wild girl from Texas. Word around town was that Cynthia was heartbroken and unsure of what to do with their three year old son and the child on the way.
Now, Sid hated gossip-hated the way that women would quiet as he and Mary passed by in the streets, like somebody had goddamn died or something. It wasn’t their life, it wasn’t their business and they certainly didn’t have any right to talk about it or speculate like merciless harpies.
Cynthia had moved in with them for the time being, taking the guest room with her son.
“Just for a week or so,” Sid told Eugene as he leaned down to scratch one of their many basset hounds behind her ears. She wagged her tail happily, snuffing into his palm. “Just until she figures out what she’s going to do again. Mary’s parents have enough on their plate already, with Abby getting engaged and all.”
Eugene had his hands in his pockets, looking at the beagle that was sniffing around his ankle. There was no change in his quiet expression but the line of his shoulders belied a certain sort of tension. It was to be expected, Sid supposed, considering that neither of the Philips had really mentioned Abby to Eugene since they stopped running into each other.
“Mary wants to put her to work around the house to get her mind off of it, but I don’t know. I said we should give her some time to herself,” Sid straightened up and the hound wandered away with the beagle bounding after her, yapping excitedly all the while.
“I’d put her to work,” Eugene advised, “It’s not good to leave her alone to think about it all the time.”
Sid turned his eyes from the dogs to look at Eugene, a wry smile crossing his face, “Taking Mary’s side there, Gene?”
Eugene lifted an eyebrow, “Just because you don’t have common sense, Sid-”
Sid laughed and the dogs looped around the edge of the field, running back with their tongues lolling. Eugene bent down this time to pat the beagle.
“It’s just-” Sid said, looking at Eugene’s face, “-I don’t understand what kind of man would do that. Why anybody would marry a woman and then cheat on her. Why anyone would be in any sort of relationship and decide to be unfaithful.”
And maybe this was one of the instances where his carefully chosen words were as close as he was going to come to just saying it outright. It was as close as Sid was going to admitting that he knew and he was uncomfortable with the idea but that he was still talking to Eugene anyway, still going to be his friend.
If Eugene ever noticed, his expression never changed to reflect it. Sometimes Sid wondered if his delicate sidestepping was lost on the other man-but Eugene wasn’t stupid. And maybe Eugene wasn’t stupid enough to acknowledge it either and Sid wasn’t sure if it was because he was ashamed or because this was serious-too serious for him to subject to a society of bigotry and hatred.
If they all kept their mouths shut, Eugene was a bachelor and maybe he would stay that way forever and twenty years down the road, the women at church would sigh and say what a waste of a fine man and nobody would ever know any better.
“I could never forgive anyone who did that,” Sid concluded.
Eugene’s eyes were a little distant as he looked at Sid and maybe he was stepping into a different year, a different place. He didn’t answer immediately, just let the silence drag a little too long and Sid was slowly dawning with recognition because he suddenly wanted to step forward and grab Eugene by the arm and say Gene, tell me you didn’t but it was almost terrifying the savage thought that followed, the one that wasn’t surprised at all, that said a little meanly maybe he deserved it, he doesn’t deserve Eugene.
“I could,” Eugene replied and he stopped there, letting the subject drop without another word of explanation.
It wasn’t until much later, when Mary’s head was pillowed against his shoulder and he was idly stroking the soft skin of her side and listening to her breathe-it wasn’t until much later that he realized. How many other times had Eugene forgiven the man? How many more trespasses would it take before Eugene gave up on him?
Maybe he was a little daunted-because he couldn’t do what Eugene had done and continued to do every day. Maybe he was a little terrified-because in the face of that, Eugene was bound to make bad decisions and a misstep could literally tear him apart.
He had no choice but to trust that Eugene knew what he was doing. As long as Sid kept his mouth shut and his head down, he’d be playing his part.
~
Deborah found his address by asking around-she knew all the good places to dig for information around this part of town and she knew that he had to have come back since the war was over and all. She knew that Edith had died-maybe from pneumonia or something, back in ’44 when he hadn’t been around to take her to the hospital and maybe he hated himself a little for it, Deborah didn’t know because he had always been a little fucker when he was a teenager, and spent weeks at a time in juvenile hall and making her older sister tear her hair out with frustration.
She barely remembered the kid really, except this smudge of a mouth that opened wide and spilled all sort of obscenities and a glimmer of eyes behind the faintly smug expression that only teenagers could have. But she didn’t really need to remember him to know that he was family and goddamn she was sure that family looked out for each other in times of need and Jesus Christ she was in need right now. Barry had taken all the money that she had been trying to save for her rent and her fucking landlord didn’t give a shit about getting fucked over by pimps or the fact that she was fucking dying for a goddamned hit and it had been almost three days since Barry had fucking cut her off and slapped her in the face saying you better fucking shape up because I fucking own you woman.
Kitty wasn’t talking to her because she wasn’t allowed and Cherry stopped giving her the time of day three months ago when she stole her client and rent was already two weeks overdue and she didn’t have any fucking cash so she was down to her last resort. They didn’t share a last name and maybe Deborah hadn’t been the best at looking after him while Edith was away at work but fuck, they shared some blood and maybe that was enough.
She hoped it was enough.
The building that he lived in wasn’t so great but it was better than Deborah was doing right now and honestly she couldn’t give more of a shit if he lived on the fucking waterfront in one of those houses that she had always wanted to live in as a girl or here, in some run-down place with leaking pipes and paper thin walls. She just needed some money, just enough for another hit and her rent and maybe she’d think about food later.
When she knocked on the door, it wasn’t her nephew who answered the door but some other guy and she stared at him balefully with her kohl rimmed eyes and she breathed out a sigh of anger and she was going to turn and mutter never mind when Merriell stepped into view behind this strange man and he sounded surprised when he said, “Deborah?”
Deborah looked at Merriell and then she looked at the man who was backing away from the frame and damn didn’t he look out of place with his neatly pressed shirt and his expensive watch and goddamn privileged air and her lips cracked into a hysterical grin as she took him in, all of him in, and she turned to Merriell, not bothering to hide her appreciative tone, “Damn boy, you turning tricks too? Sorry to be interruptin’.”
Merriell stared at her blankly for a moment but it wasn’t really because there was a slow anger burning in the tension of his shoulders, in the hard stare of his eyes and oh-she didn’t mean to remind him. Never thought that he’d ever get into this business though-thought that maybe she’d at least hear about it or something during her rounds but she knew better than anyone that the fucking queer businessmen kept their secrets hidden better than anyone else.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice tight.
“Look,” Deborah said, “I just need some money. My boss, he fucking took all of my money without warning and I don’t have nothing else. If I don’t get my rent in by the end of today, I’m gonna be out on the streets.”
Merriell’s lips curled a little derisively and maybe Deborah was expecting him to say something scathing back-but the other man, he was looking at Merriell’s face and catching his eye and Merriell just glanced at him once before he was looking back at Deborah.
“Look Merriell,” she was begging a little because she wasn’t above that and, “I wouldn’t have come to you if it wasn’t goddamn last resort, you know that. Have a little pity on your aunt for Chrissake.”
Merriell didn’t budge. Deborah stood in the doorway, looking at him and then the man who was still just standing there, like he belonged in this damn place, not uncomfortable at all watching this exchange and she was struck by how irritated she was that the damn rich boy could fucking listen to her beg her worthless nephew for a couple of bucks like it was a fucking entertaining show. She was thinking about turning to him, turning to him and snapping that it wasn’t a fucking play this wasn’t a fucking fancy theater-
And then he was reaching into the pocket of his pants and Merriell’s eyes swung from her face to fixate on the movement and his voice was quiet and hard as he said, “Gene, don’t.”
“Why?” the man-Gene-said, “She’s your family.”
Merriell didn’t say anything after that, just looked at Gene hard like he was trying to figure something out. Gene was looking at Deborah, and pulling bills out of his wallet and that was when Deborah realized that her nephew was a goddamn homosexual.
It wasn’t in her place to judge though and the stranger was fucking handing her thirty dollars-fucking thirty dollars-based solely on the fact that she might have meant something to Merriell at one point in time. She wasn’t in the business for any sort of goddamn romance but Jesus Christ-even if she could never respect it, there was something there, something overwhelming there and maybe she hadn’t yet given up on the dreams of finding her own overwhelming thing.
She took the money, folded it up and shoved it into her bra. Merriell was looking at her again, lips downturned with his arms across his chest. Gene was looking at her too, closing his wallet back up with a hard set to his jaw, dark eyes all seriousness and she was suddenly jealous, jealous of her nephew for landing a man this kind and generous. Her fucking nephew with his ugly sneer and heavily hooded eyes, slow stupid words-with this man in his neatly pressed clothes and giving people money like it was goddamn nothing. How the fuck had he fucking done it?
“Thank you,” Deborah said sincerely, backing out of the door, “Thank you.”
Gene’s expression didn’t change and neither did Merriell’s. She paused only a moment.
“You take care of him,” she told Gene-because even if she was jealous and resentful of her nephew, they still had the same blood running through their veins.
And then she was down the hall and gone.
~
Eugene may not have been the most brilliant student he had ever taught, but he was certainly one of the most competent. Maybe it came with his years in the Marines. The boys who came back to learn courtesy of the GI Bill always seemed more appreciative than the boys who wandered straight into college from four years of high school and a privileged background. Maybe they had learned to appreciate life a little more, the opportunities that they were given now they had made it past the end of the war. He respected them, admired them for what they had done for their country.
It was nearly the end of the term when Eugene Sledge knocked on his office door, hovering a little uncertainly like he wasn’t entirely sure what it was that he was doing there. He set the papers aside and smiled, gesturing for the man to come in.
Eugene took a seat in front of his chair, looked determinedly at him and said, “Professor Carson, I’d like to go to graduate school.”
Carson had been hoping but he hadn’t been expecting for something like this to happen. Men like Eugene-men who had seen the war-they always seemed to be impatient to settle down, to start their life of mediocrity with a beautiful wife and two children as soon as possible, like life was going to slip away from them if they didn’t hold onto it tightly enough. It didn’t matter what talent they had for the sciences-extra schooling meant less time spent in their picture perfect lives.
He regarded Eugene for a moment. “What were you thinking about studying?”
“Zoology. Ornithology, mostly,” Eugene said and the way he answered so quckly-it sounded like he had been thinking about this for a long time, “Conservation sciences if I can.”
“Well,” Carson steepled his fingers, forehead furrowing as he thought, “The University of Alabama has a good biology department.”
“Sir, I was hoping-” Eugene replied, “-I was hoping you could give me advice about colleges in other states.”
Carson raised both of his eyebrows but he didn’t miss a beat, “If you’re at all interested in doing conservation science, you might want to consider the proximity of the college to ecosystems you might be interested in studying. There are a great number of conservation efforts out west you might be interested in. I know that California has several projects and most all of the universities there are well regarded.”
Eugene was chewing on the inside of his lower lip and not saying anything, just looking at Carson like he wasn’t really seeing him, like he was looking through him. Maybe not California.
“If you’re not looking to move that far away,” Carson suggested, “Why don’t you look at University of Florida? They’re close to the Everglades and they have several excellent ornithology professors.”
Something shifted in Eugene’s eyes-something that made him draw into focus and actually look at Carson like he was seriously considering the prospect.
Carson smiled encouragingly, “Have you ever been to Florida?”
Eugene was silent for a moment and his eyes were slipping back out of focus, now fixed on a spot just above Carson’s left shoulder. Carson felt a little uncomfortable, like he was intruding on a private conversation that Eugene was having with himself. He shuffled a stack of papers around on his desk and cleared his throat.
“I think I’ll apply there,” Eugene said, snapping back into himself with a ready smile, “Thanks, Professor Carson.”
~
Lily had been working for the Sledges ever since she had turned sixteen and her mama had pulled her out of school because her papa got into a bad accident and couldn’t work for a couple of months. The Sledges had been kind enough to take her on so she could supplement her mama’s pay so they wouldn’t go hungry or have to go live out on the streets.
She had started small-peeling vegetables in the kitchen and helping the cook. She had moved up along the years, learning how to make the beds exactly how Mrs. Sledge liked it with the corners tucked in, how tea was always served with the handles to the right and the spoon to the left, how she always needed to collect Dr. Sledge’s stethoscope from wherever he had left it at the end of the day and return it to his desk so that he didn’t have to spend thirty minutes searching for it the next morning. She hated that she blushed whenever Edward addressed her and gave Eugene and Sid extra cookies like a secret between the three of them whenever Sid came to visit around teatime.
She had spent months fantasizing about the day that Edward would start a conversation with her in the context of wanting to become her friend and maybe go from her friend to becoming something more. She was foolish, she knew, but she hadn’t given up the hope that maybe someday he’d look up and see her for her instead of the maid that she knew she was. She hadn’t given up that hope until he had gotten married and she had to close the chapter of that life with a sad sort of nostalgia.
She hadn’t even realized that she had taken all of those hopes and transferred them to Eugene until it was already too late.
It was the summer before Eugene started his second year of college. His friend-Mr. Shelton-was visiting and Lily was making her way through all of the rooms on her normal cleaning routine and about to enter Eugene’s room when she froze.
Even though the door wide open, she knew that she was intruding in on something that she shouldn’t have seen in the first place. Eugene had his eyes closed and his forehead pressed into the crook of Shelton’s neck, both hands drawn around his slim hips and there was no mistaking this kind of embrace-meant for a lover rather than a close friend.
To Lily’s credit, she didn’t make a single noise and managed to step hurriedly behind the door. Maybe she was a little bit curious to hear what they had to say but her heart was hammering in her throat and she knew that what she was doing was spying and that it was wrong.
“Okay,” Eugene was saying softly, “Okay.” Lily thought that maybe she had dropped in on the tail end of an argument. A moment later, she found herself blinking away tears that she didn’t know she was crying and what was this?-why was she crying?
She didn’t need to look into the room to know that they were kissing, Eugene’s hand was probably threaded through Shelton’s curly hair and he was probably gently pressing against him without any urgency like they had the rest of their lives to do this. She didn’t even want to look into the room-not with this strange sort of seizing in her chest and oh god this was stupid, so stupid. What would her mama think, seeing her cry over feelings that she didn’t even know she had-over some foolish thought dreamt up by a sixteen year old with her head perpetually in the clouds?
She hastily wiped at her eyes and gathered up the duster and the teatowel. She needed to compose herself, to finish her job because she was in this household as a maid and nothing more.
It didn’t stop her from running into them sometimes, in various states of undress in completely inappropriate places. Shelton would have something like a slick smirk on his face and Eugene would look a little harried but there was no mistaking the fondness in his eyes. She’d close the door as quietly as she could and it wasn’t long before it didn’t hurt at all-it wasn’t long before she realized that she was actually happy for Eugene because he was so obviously in love.
Sometimes she’d catch the way that Shelton looked at Eugene when he thought that nobody was looking-something a little like awe, a little like fear-like he wasn’t exactly sure how he came here, like he wasn’t exactly sure how long he was going to stay. And sometimes she caught it the other way around, the way that Eugene’s eyes lingered a little too long, the way that the corners of his lips softened whenever he was relaxed in Shelton’s company.
They never touched in public. Outside of the Sledge estate, they were just two war buddies, bland smiles and stoic expressions. Maybe in another life, they could have been actors.
Lily learned how to adapt. Whenever Shelton visited, she was ready for a weekend of Mrs. Sledge snapping out orders in that passive smiling way of hers, like she had to pass on her frustration to the household staff lest she explode. Whenever Shelton visited, she made up the guest room but she also left an extra pillow on Eugene’s bed.
And the small tilt of a smile Eugene gave her sometimes when he passed her in the hallways-maybe he couldn’t say thank you out loud for something that she wasn’t even supposed to know to do-but it was a sign to show that he appreciated and it was enough.
~
Sunday evening meant that Eugene was taking the car back to Mobile.
Sunday morning was for slow morning sex-the kind where Eugene woke up already arching up into Snafu’s fist, into the heat of his mouth and Snafu would grin real slow around his cock. Sunday morning was for breathing quietly into the side of Snafu’s neck and maybe catching another hour or two of sleep until it was closer to noon. Lunch on Sunday was usually whatever was left over from the night before and they only had so long to eat it before Eugene generally decided that he was more interested in having sex.
It was on a Sunday afternoon with the sunlight filtering strong through the open window when Eugene said, “I think I’m going to graduate school.”
Snafu was looking at the way that the sunlight turned Eugene’s hair into a blaze of copper-red, the way that the air inside his apartment was little hazy from all of the stale cigarette smoke. Maybe he was listening, Eugene didn’t know.
“I applied for University of Florida.”
Snafu’s glanced at his face but he didn’t say anything. But he had tensed up somewhat and his expression had become a little duller and Eugene didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was thinking already-everything that he had spent the last four years trying to beat out of Snafu. But Snafu was nothing if not a stubborn creature of habit and he still thought, that even after all this time-
“So what do you say?” Eugene asked, keeping his voice light, “Will you move to Florida with me?”
Snafu’s eyes flickered like he wasn’t sure if Eugene was actually talking to him despite the fact that he was the only other one in the room.
The choice of Florida wasn’t lost on him. After all, it was where everything had started-wasn’t it appropriate that it was also where everything would end? Maybe Eugene had only picked it because it was a good school, maybe he hadn’t been thinking about them at all-but Snafu was.
“Okay,” Snafu replied.
It was the simplest decision he had made in a long time.