These Sorts of Things ~ KEVIN KURLYA

These Sorts of Things

KEVIN KURLYA

“Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until the second division returned from the Rhine in the summer of 1919” – Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home”

“The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918… The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.” – CDC, “1918 Pandemic”

Krebs noticed that the distant claps of thunder sounded a lot like the 10-inch guns. The overcast sky was growing increasingly dark and throwing a shadow over the miles of trenches on either side of him. After he glanced down the right and saw the 9th battalion hunched as they tugged off their helmets to pull on their rain slicks, Krebs turned on the damp, wooden fire step to point this out to Maury. The short man from Boston was mildly surprised when he realized that thunderclaps were mixed into the rolling artillery that was almost entirely coming from behind the friendly lines. He peaked his shock of red hair over the top of the paper that he was reading. “Hey Krebs, check this out,” he said as he shook out his newspaper and displayed page 2A to him. Krebs leaned in with his eyebrows slightly raised to read the article as Maury shook the paper out and angled it towards him. “Some Jerry doctor reckons that there are these little things called gurms that spread diseases.” Avery looked up from lighting his cigarette. His green eyes brightened as he removed his cupped hands and flicked a match into the dirt. Krebs knew that he had been a scholar before this. He hadn’t let the war take that away from him yet. Avery shook back his sandy hair and blew smoke into the air. “They’re pronounced ‘germs’ and yeah, they are responsible for that mess.” He waved his hand in the direction of the back lines. Nobody questioned what he was gesturing towards. The hospital tents had been packed for a week and hundreds of thousands of people–no, soldiers, Krebs thought–had been dying. A year ago, Krebs would have pursued this conversation. After all, he had talked about it in college with Dr. Kelly. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested now, he just didn’t see the point of it. Krebs remembered the last man who he had seen take an interest in something. The artillery sirens had sounded, and everyone had sprinted for niches in the sides of the trenches. Everyone except for one man. The noise had caused him to fumble with his wallet, and a picture had fallen out. Krebs hadn’t seen what the picture was of. He stumbled out of his seat and chased after that picture and in that split second that the man was exposed––there were just more important things to focus on. Maury stared at his boots for a moment and then looked up at each man’s face, his gaze finally falling upon something behind Krebs’s shoulder. Turning, he saw a man violently coughing as he was escorted by a medic with a gloved hand on his shoulder back from the front. Turning back to face the group, Krebs saw a morose look pass over Maury’s face. “This is scarier than when 67

the Krauts come over the top at us,” he said. He mindlessly placed his middle finger and thumb together and flicked a spider that had been trying to sneak by the group unnoticed. Avery frowned. For the first time, Mcgowan spoke up from a shadowed corner. He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes and sat forward on the firing step. He forced a single, mirthless chuckle and rested his forearms on his thighs. “At least they are upfront about trying to kill us.” Their dark laughter took on a gaseous form as it mixed into the dark cloud cover. Krebs hadn’t noticed that it had begun to rain. The precipitation was light for now; it made a gentle ping as it made contact with the brim of his helmet. Krebs sighed as he tugged out the weathered poncho from his bag. The rain was sure to pick up, but no matter. He had learned to ignore these sorts of things in the army. A private jogged up to the group of men from down the line. “Ha-Harold Krebs?” he stuttered as he surveyed the group. Krebs hadn’t been called by that name in a long time. The private was really only a boy; if he really was 18, then his birthday must have been only a month before he was shipped overseas. His eyes flitted around the circle until Krebs gave a curt nod. Breathing hard, the private handed a furled up piece of paper to him and quickly scurried away. His boots squelched in the rapidly softening ground and sent up debris into the air. “Watch it!” Mcgowan yelled after him, wiping flecks of mud out of his dark eyes. Eyebrows furrowed, Krebs opened the letter. He spread the slip of paper over his knees and huddled over it to keep off the tempestuous downpour. Krebs, I’m not doing too well. I’ve got the flu and I’m in the medical tents right now. I’m writing because I want to ask you to do something no man should ever have to do. Please tell my mother about me when you get back. Because you will get back. Peaks He suddenly found it much harder than before to look at the three men sitting around him. The low loops of his “g”s were the same as they were when they were just boys, when they had just been Harold and Charlie. Charlie was three streets over, and one June day the pair had raced past the town fountain to the baseball field before Charlie’s mother could tell them to sand and paint the old fence around the perennial beds. They didn’t touch their weathered leather gloves or the roughly sewn ball once. They sat in the open field, and Krebs asked Charlie, “Do you think we’re bad for not painting the fence?” “If you were bad you wouldn’t ask that.” Charlie grinned at him and grabbed a handful of grass and threw it at Krebs. They walked home. Charles Henry Peaks was the only person who had accompanied Krebs to war from his hometown, had graduated with him, and now Krebs wouldn’t accompany him back. How could he? Krebs was glad that the rain had picked up, for it disguised the slight watering of his eyes from his comrades. He had been the man who had signed his name under Harold’s bad handwriting at the little table run by the two men dressed in olive fatigues with a flourish, a death warrant. Krebs felt like dropping down on all fours and vomiting. In the low loops of Peaks’s “g”s, Krebs saw an empty baseball field, the grass wild and unkempt and the infield filled with dandelions. Something must have shown on his face, because Avery looked at him concernedly. “What’s wrong, Krebs?” Avery asked. Maury had noticed too. He leaned forward, cocked his head, and waited intently as Krebs stared at the pooling rust-colored water. Krebs opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He sat back and let the persistent downpour fall onto the paper spread across his lap. The ink began to run. Krebs heaved a breath. “Peaks is sick,” he said quietly. 68

“What was that?” Maury raised his voice, but Avery had heard. Krebs raised his voice a little and tried to keep the quavering out of it. “Somebody is sick.” Neither of the men knew Peaks. They were in different battalions, after all. “Somebody is sick? No shit, Krebs,” McGowan said. He and Maury guffawed, but Avery stayed silent. They were crows, they glided above no mans land and greedily feasted upon the woes of the fallen with joyous caws. A lump was forming in Krebs’s throat, and he felt something white hot course through his veins. Avery looked at Krebs and said, “He was your friend from your hometown, right?” Krebs tried to speak, but as he opened his mouth the words snagged in his throat like barbed wire. He closed his mouth, bowed his head, and nodded once. Maury noticed that he was not at all entertained by Mcgowan’s comment and pursed his lips in an attempt to not smile. But then he made eye contact with him and the pair sniggered. “Come on, Krebs,” Maury finally said. McGowan chimed in. “Yeah Krebs, it’s not like your mother was shot in front of you. It’s war, these things happen.” But Krebs didn’t know if he could feel this way about his mother’s death. This was different. “Guys, come on. Don’t jump down his throat, it’s his friend,” said Avery. “So what?” McGowan’s eyes flashed like the scope of a sniper. “I’ve had people get shot next to me, and you don’t hear me bitching about it.” The bullets he fired at Krebs tore through his skin, puncturing deep and began to ooze. It was raining harder now. “It’s not like you could have done anything about it,” said Maury matter of factly. McGowan spoke again, but it was in a softer tone than before. “Look, Krebs, we know better than anyone what you are going through. It’s hard.” Maury suddenly shifted in his seat. A cat was trying to take shelter in a nook near his feet. He kicked out, and his muddy boots made contact. “It’s the worst. But you have to move on.” Avery furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s not that easy to fucking forget about sombody.” “Nobody ever said it was.” McGowan pulled out a tarnished hip flask and took a sip. He winced, then continued. “You can’t live life in the past, Krebs. We’re soldiers, not playwrights.” Maury nodded. Avery looked at Krebs. “Do you wanna go and pick up our dinner rations?” Krebs looked at MaGowan who had leaned back into his corner and then back at Avery. He scrubbed his nose and cleared his throat. “I’m not that hungry now, let’s just go later.” Krebs fished around in his haversack, looking for his pack of cigarettes. He pulled it out, but it was empty. He looked back at Avery. “Can I have a smoke?” He bumped the pack softly against his leg and held it up to Krebs. His hand shook slightly as he stretched it out and drew one. Wordlessly, Maury struck a match, and held his hand up to shield the ember from the rhythm of water. Krebs inhaled deeply. Charlie and he had once stolen a pack from a gas station. When they had tried them for the first time, Charlie had coughed so much that he hadn’t dared to try it. Now, Krebs thought, as he brushed the tip of his nose with a forefinger that was loosely clutching the paper, it wasn’t that bad really.

Maury continued reading the article, “Anyways, this guy is saying that germs are little things that we can’t see, and they can go inside you and get you sick.” One gets used to these sorts of things in the army.