Into the Fray by Paul Stapleton

Into the Fray by Paul Stapleton

During my brief tenure bagging sand in the quarry, we would gather for lunch around Tia’s silver canteen truck, passing around magazines, their pages curled, a crew of misfits—ex-cons, alcoholics, college dropouts—everyone wolfing down Tia’s secret-recipe fried chicken except me. Our foreman was Big Larry, a supposed biker, who lived at home with his parents and drove around in a rusted Chevy, talking motorcycles and the gamesome women he screwed up on the railroad tracks. The real backbone of our crew was Rudy Edson, a Black vet in his thirties, who had seen action in Nam, a fact he said he could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt after Big Larry told him he was full of shit. Sure enough, one day Rudy produced a full-page photograph of himself in an old copy of Life magazine, immortal in his fatigues, a red bandana on his head, an M-16 slungfrom his shoulders, a young cocky Marine at ease in his manhood.

“Never serve your country because it won’t serve you,” Rudy admonished me. “Two hundred dollars a month is what you get for shrapnel up the ass and a plate up here.” He pointed to his bald skull. “Please, Chicken, don’t tell me you’re joining the USMC.”

But Rudy’s picture spoke louder than his words.

I had been schooled in the honor of what it meant to be a Marine by my grandmother. She had fascinated my imagination with stories of boot camp, fistfights in mess halls, sharpshooters, all-night marches. As a kid, I would visit her apartment, and she’d take out the photo album of my grandfather and I would admire the black and white photographs of the exotic places she would name for me—Quantico, Guantanamo Bay, Okinawa—my grandfather in his fatigues, cigarettes dangling from his lips, arms slung across the shoulders of his Marine Corps buddies. There was a photo album of my father, too, a youthful version of my dad kneeling in the wilderness in camouflage, one eye closed, the other fixed down the barrel of a rifle or gazing up into the tropical sky before a Quonset hut. My father had attained the rank of corporal, my grandfather was a cook. To me, they were heroes.

The Marine recruiter, a Sgt. Hussey, seemed very glad to meet me. I had just turned eighteen, which was good, he said, because it made any hassles with parental approval, guardianship, and what not, unnecessary. All I had to do was sign the dotted line to get the ball rolling. The sergeant seemed unconcerned about my failing out of college and kissing away a full scholarship, and somewhat proud of me, it seemed, for turning to the Marines.

“Listen, Chief, shit happens,” he assured me. “You’re making a good decision. Look at me. I’m twenty-five and I’ve seen the whole world. My buddies from high school are still running around town in sneakers.”

The sergeant’s patent leather shoes shone like mirrors. He looked sharp in his Marine Corps uniform, his tan shirt and blue pants with the red stripe down the sides, his hair cropped tight and shaven clean on both sides of his pink-white scalp.

I nodded along at his good sense.

“It sounds as if you’ve thought this shit through. College ain’t for everybody. Besides, if you still want to go to college someday, you can do it as a Marine.” He mentioned something about night classes at a community college near Camp Lejeune.

I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, and according to Sgt. Hussey, my scores were impressive.

“You ate them raw,” he told me. “You set some kind of record.” He placed his arm around my shoulder. “And you’re my recruit.”

I smiled awkwardly. I had always been good at standardized tests.

“How’d you do so good on the tool section?”

“My father.”

As a kid, my father would come home from a garage sale with a rusted object and say, “You know, I think we could put this thing to good use.” Of course, by we, he meant me, and soon enough, I’d be smoothing out piles of warped two-by-fours with a jack bench plane or rasping a tight door-socket with a round bastard file.

“My father taught me everything.”

“And now you’ll follow in his footsteps as a Marine,” Sgt. Hussey replied. “I’m taking you out. Steak dinner on me.”

& & &

During my lone semester in college, 220 U.S. Marines were killed in Beirut, Lebanon, the victims of a suicide bomber who barreled through their camp in a truck loaded down with two thousand pounds of explosives. The exact moment was Sunday, October 23rd, 1983, at 6:22 am. I was in Connecticut, with my new college girlfriend Gina Longobardi. She had brought me home to show off to her family, most of whom spent the weekend grilling in the backyard and flinging each other into a leaf-covered swimming pool. They were a family of landscapers, and Gina was the first Longobardi ever to attend college much less date a college man.

While the Marines were getting killed in Lebanon, the Longobardi’s were asleep in Connecticut—but not Gina and me. We were in the backyard hammock, shimmying up to each other while we searched the autumn stars, my right hand maneuvering to unhinge her wire-reinforced bra. Several times, she swatted my hand away, until finally, she pulled up her blouse, and pressing her lace-encased bosom against my boney chest, confessed that we were soulmates.

For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be in love.

The next morning, the Longobardi’s and I watched in horror at the footage on TV. I felt ashamed of myself. Those Marines had died while I was having the time of my life.

Back at school, I began to nurture a predilection for skipping class. I especially grew tired of my Honors Program seminar. We were a cadre of handpicked know-it-alls, most of us schooled in the art of kissing ass. We discussed concepts like Character is Fate, the professor, as always, luring us towards his beloved Existentialism.

All I could think about were those dead Marines. One day I piped up, “Was it character that got those Marines blown to death?”

“They made the choice to enlist, Mr. Farrell.”

It was the last time I attended his class.

I still visited the library but not for any schoolwork. Instead, I wandered the stacks like a monk, searching the dustiest books I could find, the kind with the pages still uncut, hoping to discover some ancient wisdom I could put my trust in.

I was soon dismissed from the school’s cross-country team when during our daily war huddle, I informed the coach and my fellow road warriors that “None of us, including you, Coach, know jack shit about war.”

One day, I saw a sign in the quad: Enter the Fray.

The unsanctioned university boxing club welcomed me with open arms. We had no skill but made up for it with enthusiasm. We were aficionados of trading blows to the head and diehards on the heavy bags, pounding away long after the gymnasium emptied out and our fellow undergraduates had slinked off to the library.

& & &

At the Route 49 Steakhouse, Sgt. Hussey downed one beer after the other as he informed me how great it was to be a Marine. He waxed eloquent about the many women he’d chased, the many breasts he’d squeezed, the many legs he’d plied on embassy duty overseas.

It was not what I expected to hear.

“That’s the gig you want,” Sgt. Hussey insisted. “Embassy duty. It’s the best. The maids, the secretaries, the daughters, hell, even the wives, they all want it from a U.S. Marine.” He shot up a stiff forearm topped by a fist. “And with ASVAB scores like yours, you’re a shoo-in for the embassies.”

After dinner, Sgt. Hussey asked his prize recruit if I wanted to accompany him to a little whorehouse off Route 34. As much as I had feigned interest in his embassy stories and the notion of my future exploits with the female members of the ambassador’s household, the idea of beginning my Marinehood that night, at that very moment, off Route 34, was more than daunting to a virgin like me who had yet to go through boot camp.

“You’ll love the place,” Sgt. Hussey assured me. “Totally untamed chocha.”

He recommended a certain Stardust.

“She’s mucho frisky,” he said. “And she’s got some mouth on her.”

Admittedly, during my final months in college, I’d sneak into my soulmate’s all-female dormitory almost nightly, Gina cracking open the side door with a rock, her secret invitation for a bedtime visit. We would squeeze ourselves into her lower bunk and commence to arousing in me an undying ache, and in Gina, an undying commitment to her hardened virginity, while her roommate Gretchen from Athole, Massachusetts, snored away above us. It was a Catholic university.

But a whorehouse was no college dorm.

& & &

Stardust stood up from the whorehouse sofa in a tank-top and shorts, seemingly bored, and without even looking, beckoned for me to follow with a lazy forefinger. She was short, maybe five foot three, and thin. Her mouth looked normal enough.

When we got to her room, I had no idea what to say, having never visited a whorehouse or spoken to a real live whore before. The room was spare. Pillows were scattered on the floor, and a red blanket was balled up on the mattress as if Stardust had forgotten to make her bed that day. There were mirrored tiles on the ceiling, but most were missing, a checkerboard of hardened adhesive. The room smelled of incense and something caustic like burnt rubber. The only light came from a bare bulb above a vanity with a belly sink. The shades were drawn.

Stardust turned to me and removing her tank top, tossed it on a pillow.

“You’re really pretty,” I said, much as I did the first time I had ever been alone with a girl—in the Zamboni garage at the skating rink.

“Don’t even start with that Stardust shit,” she replied. “My name is Lisa, Lisa with a y.”

 “Sgt. Hussey told me Stardust.”

“Hussey,” she said, “is an asshole.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised by her dislike for the sergeant.

“What do you mean what do I mean?” she responded. “Didn’t I make myself clear?” She raised an eyebrow in disdain.

“What’s wrong with the sergeant?”

“He treats people like shit, that’s what.”

“Oh,” I said, pretending to be satisfied by her answer.

I examined her presence as she removed the rest of her clothing: her arms, her legs, her purple painted toenails. As she lay down on the bed, it occurred to me that maybe it was more than just business between Lysa and the sergeant. Just the idea of it made me even more uncomfortable with the situation.

Lysa sensed my hesitation. “Are you going to get in the bed and fuck me, Dickhead, or just stand there thinking about it?” She poked her tongue into her cheek.

She was pretty, her skin brown, her hair long. She looked Puerto Rican. I guessed she was about my age, maybe a little older. She was no magazine centerfold. The make-up on her face was thick and pasty. Still, her presence, the reality of her flesh surpassed any pictures I had ever seen.

“Come on over here, Dickhead, and let’s see what I’m working with.”

I nodded sheepishly while I removed my pants. I had never heard a girl talk like this before. I had never heard anyone talk like this before.

 “Is that how you’re supposed to talk to me?”

“Guys like the way I talk,” she said. “I bank more coin than anyone in this house.”

But I had heard enough. “Can you at least not call me Dickhead?”

“Why not? Your dick is what you think with.” Lysa stared at me. As small as she was, I still found her intimidating. “Guys like you are all the same.”

Guys like me? I thought.

She lay back and said, “Okay, Dickhead? Let’s hurry up.”

I didn’t move.

Then she offered a smile. “How’s Sweetie work for you?”

“Anything else available?”

She laughed. “Very funny, Sweetie. But come on, let’s go.”

At this point, I was hardly feeling amorous. Nor were any of my body parts. I sat down on the bed and Lysa grabbed my crotch. I thought I noticed the shadow of a bruise beneath her makeup.

“You choke this chicken much?” she asked me.

“What?”

“It seems out of practice.”

I was not about to discuss my masturbation habits with Lysa.

She grabbed a roll-on bottle, pulled down my underwear, and smeared it around.

“Spearmint,” she informed me, “mouthwash, otherwise, I gag.”

From the bed, I could now see a picture I hadn’t noticed before, hanging above the door. It was a photograph of a Marine. He looked like Lysa, the way a brother would look. It had not occurred to me that a whore would have a family outside the whorehouse.

Without warning, Lysa lowered her head and began teasing me with her lips. I was not aroused at all.

With my limpness in her palm, she asked me, “Are you a fag or something?”

I was startled at the notion. It had never occurred to me.

“No, I’ve had girlfriends.”

“I bet you don’t have one now.”

Lysa kept trying, but nothing was happening. When I used to sneak into Gina’s room, it would happen instantly, the second I touched Gina’s nighty, and really, sooner than that.

It was becoming embarrassing. Trying to distract myself, I said to Lysa, “Who’s in the picture?”

“You writing a book?”

I shook my head no and said, “He looks like your brother, that’s all.”

“Why? Because he’s a spic?”

“No!” I said too emphatically.

Lysa sunk her head into my lap again.

“Who is he?” I persisted.

 She stopped and raised her face to mine. “Quit the interrogation,” she said. “He’s dead, okay? Leave it alone.” She bit her lip. Despite the sudden pain in her face, she was not about to cry in front of me.

I knew it was pathetic, but all I could think to say was, “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” she said. She pointed her finger at me as if I were the one to blame. Then she really surprised me.

“Slap me,” she said.

“What?”

“Slap me!”

I gazed into her eyes. They were hard and angry and bored.

“Go ahead.” She offered me her face. “It will get you hard.”

I considered this idea for a moment, the insanity of it.

But she was unflinching. She really meant it. I wondered how many times men had hit her. I wondered how many times Sgt. Hussey had hit her. I felt sick. I wasn’t slapping anyone.

“No way,” I said, “I’m not hitting you.”

“Suit yourself.”

I slid myself off the bed. “Look, I’m done.”

“Seems like you never got started.”

As I pulled on my pants, I said, “I really am sorry, Lysa.”

“You should be, Limp Dick. Now get the fuck out of here.”

Outside, Sgt. Hussey was waiting, smiling away, almost giddy. He placed his arm around me paternally and said, “Third-generation Marine.”

As we walked toward his car, I felt like punching him in the face.

& & &

It was early morning, still dark, the sun not even at the horizon, when Sgt. Hussey’s black Camaro pulled in front of our house. He jabbed two beeps as he always did. I gave my father a hug, kissed my mother, and headed out for my physical exam.

We had a long drive in front of us, a journey down the parkway and across the bridge, then through the city to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Another recruit was lying in the back seat.

“Reyes, this is Farrell,” Sgt. Hussey said as an introduction. “Farrell, this is Reyes. He’s shipping out today.”

Reyes was asleep, or dead, one or the other.

The car reeked of alcohol.

“I had him out all night,” the sergeant said.

It wasn’t hard to guess where.

“Stardust gave him a going-away present.”

For the rest of the ride, all I could think of was the whorehouse. And Lysa and her dead Marine. And Sgt. Hussey with Lysa. And now Reyes with Lysa.

It did not make for a pleasant ride.

We drove in silence into the tangles of the city, the traffic and the cables and cantilevered bridges, till we arrived at Fort Hamilton, a stone fortress that stood like a rock before the broad expanse of the harbor. It was a cold day, and the cold mist of the sea was blowing in from the Atlantic. Massive freighters floated slowly beneath the Verrazano Bridge surrounded by tugboats. After the physical, there would be a swearing-in ceremony. A photograph would be taken, compliments of the USMC, Sgt. Hussey said, a going-away present for my parents. Within the week, I would ship out to Parris Island.

Inside the fort, Sgt. Hussey was gladhanding everyone, even the soldiers on guard. He seemed to know everybody, and everybody seemed to know him, smiles on their faces, pats on the back, two hands on the handshakes. Sgt. Hussey sent Reyes off with another recruiter and led me around personally, introducing me as his “ASVAB Ace.” I got the distinct feeling my ASVAB scores were profiting the sergeant in some way.

The exam began in the mess hall where everyone was divided alphabetically into groups. Each group was told to sit together at one of the tables in the huge pavilion. My group consisted of Army and Navy recruits. I was the only Marine.

“Leatherneck, huh?” one of the Army recruits said to me, a Black kid about my age named Finley. I liked the way he said Leatherneck and that he said it in reference to me.

“It runs in the family,” I told him.

Finley nodded but it was the extent of our conversation.

No one else talked.

The day proceeded slowly, prosaically. It was all extremely monotonous.

“Life in the military,” someone muttered. “Get used to it.”

One line led to another, hours on end, blood tests, urine tests, hearing tests, eye tests, squats, sit-ups, push-ups, chin ups. By the end, I was worn out with boredom. There was one more line for an interview with the doctors. We were given pencils and told to fill out a medical questionnaire while we waited on the line. The questionnaire was several pages.

Have you ever had surgery? No.

Have you ever had cancer? No.

Mumps? No.

Hepatitis, rickets, scurvy? No, no, no.

When I reached the doctor’s table, a bald white man in a white medical jacket skimmed my forms with his baggy eyes, nodded his head, initialed the front of the questionnaire, and flipped through the pages. When he got to the final page, he asked, “What’s this?”

The question was about allergies. I had written fowl.

When I was young, strangely, I developed the allergy, a serious food allergy, which played itself out in hives, chills, anaphylaxis, deadly symptoms really, to something people always found funny.

Chicken.

How this happened, I didn’t know. No one in my family had this allergy or any other allergy for that matter. Most people, in fact, even doctors, were surprised to learn that anyone could even be allergic to chicken.

Shrimp? Yes.

Peanuts? Okay.

But chickens?

Such was fate. I figured the USMC would simply give me a dispensation. I could eat everything else.

At least that’s what I’d told myself as I wrote down fowl.

“What do you mean fowl?” the doctor asked me.

 “You know, chicken.”

“I know what fowl means, wise guy. What happens when you eat it?”

 I told him the symptoms.

“I see.”

There was a book on his desk, a thick reference manual the size of a dictionary. He pushed it open and began rifling through the pages until he finally found what he was looking for. He planted his finger decisively.

“Look,” he said. He was pointing at a long list of words, among them the word chicken.

“I want you to sign this.” He slid a form across his desk. “It’s a PPR.”

I looked at the form and then at him. “What’s a PPR?”

He glowered at me. “Read what it says.”

Permanently Physically Rejected.

Permanently physically rejected?

There was a ring to it. Say it three times fast and it had a kind of rhythm.

“I’m not signing that,” I protested, “no way.”

The doctor made a show of stretching his neck as if to assess the length of the line behind me. I turned around to look, too. The line was long.

“If you don’t sign, you can’t appeal the decision.”

This was probably a lie, but I was worn out and tired. I signed the PPR.

The doctor made a phone call and soon I was dismissed into the custody of two grim-faced soldiers who unceremoniously led me down a back staircase to an exit where Sgt. Hussey was somehow already waiting for me, equally grim-faced, holding my winter coat tightly in his hands.

He shoved the coat into my chest, and together we stepped into the disappearing twilight, the sergeant setting off at a brisk pace as if trying to escape me. I followed behind in silence. The sergeant’s car was parked at the end of the massive parking lot, which stretched in all directions the length of several football fields.

When we reached the car, Sgt. Hussey abruptly halted and pivoted to face me.

“Chicken?” he asked me, shaking his head in disbelief.

I nodded.

“Anyone ever tell you, Chief, that sometimes you need to keep your trap shut?”

I looked the sergeant in the eye, and the sergeant looked me straight back. Then I glanced at his car.

We were in the far reaches of the city, miles and miles from anywhere, much less home. I had a few dollars in my wallet, but nothing more than that. Never in my life had I walked the streets of Brooklyn, never gotten on the subway in Bay Ridge, never switched to the A-train at Penn Station, and never wandered the labyrinth of the Port Authority Bus Terminal until I found the right bus, the one that would take me home, having bummed the fare from my fellow passengers waiting on the platform, all too busy with the lives they had mustered to think twice about sparing a kid some change.

But there’s a first time for everything.

And a last.

The sergeant’s angry eyes were still fixed on me like a hawk.

“Did anyone ever tell you, Sarge,” I said, “not to get your jollies smacking people in the face?”

Sgt. Hussey smiled slightly. If my comment carried any import for him, he did not betray it at all. Instead, he punched me in the jaw.

But I had trained for such moments. My knees did not even shiver, much less buckle, and in return, without even thinking, I punched Sgt. Hussey right in the nose.

Blood spurted out immediately, but with a handkerchief, the sergeant adeptly staunched the flow. Then he swung himself into his Camaro as calmly as if he had just finished pumping gas. As he drove off, he lowered his window and yelled, “You would have made a good Marine, Farrell,” before jabbing his horn twice and speeding off. I stood alone, abandoned in the endless parking lot among the pigeons wandering in random circles on the asphalt.

With that, my days with the USMC were over. There would be no appeals to the medical review board. As I stepped past the gatehouse, more uncertain of my life than ever before, I waved the soldier inside a certain goodbye.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Paul Stapleton 2025