Gimlet Gulch
from the novel The Years of Village Smith
Gimlet Gulch, Fiction by JWillis
I was eleven and it was summer in Hawaii. Because classes were out, we no longer had to wear the rubber go-aheads that barely satisfied the school requirement for shoes and we went everywhere barefoot. At least once a day we’d head down to our secret hideaway, Gimlet Gulch.
Gimlet Gulch was a long lush gash in the topography of Schofield Barracks, overgrown with vegetation, and it accidentally served to separate the colonels’ quarters from my elementary school, Hale Kula. The gulch was named for the 21st Infantry Battle Group, whose nickname was the Gimlets and who occupied the quadrangle two buildings down from the Trains’ quad, which was directly across from our own quarters. Our dads’ quarters, I mean.
When we army brats discussed the battle groups of the Tropic Lightning Division, their nicknames rolled off our tongues like our favorite major league baseball teams: the 27th Infantry Wolfhounds, the 35th Infantry Cacti, the 14thInfantry Golden Dragons, and the 21st Infantry Gimlets. Each unit barracked their soldiers in its own quadrangle on the post’s main street, Waianae Avenue, every bricked square a modern rendition of a walled medieval fortress. It had its own barber shop, canteen, and post exchange annex, and a regimental parade ground was enclosed by the bricked-in “quad.” Of course, there were gaps in the massive walls at the corners, through which vehicles could pass, but we boys were steeped in military history and saw the quads as the impregnable castles they resembled.
Each battle group fielded its own football team and we gave allegiance to our favorite. I was a Cacti supporter, but the black-and-gold Wolfhounds seemed to be perennial champions of the Tropic Lightning football league. They even had their own marching band, famous for halftime shows that featured a trumpeter stepping forward from the Wolfhound band to play a “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” solo like Perez Prado. The Division Trains had a team too, but, for some reason, DivArty and the Engineers didn’t field one. Maybe because they didn’t have a quad on Waianae Avenue, I wasn’t sure.
My friend, Pat Campbell, and I had just watched the cartoons they showed every Saturday morning at the Post Theater. We still had an hour to fill before we’d hit up the canteen at Trains quad for a dollar lunch of hamburger, french fries, and cherry coke, so we decided to run over to Gimlet Gulch and throw pebbles at passing MP cars, a favorite pastime. Traipsing through my neighborhood, we circumvented the Saturday DDT jeep that was one street down on Dawson Road. This was perfect: we could wait till the sprayer filled Waianae Avenue and the Gulch with DDT clouds, and nobody could see us throw our stones. We entered the Gulch at our secret entrance, not far from Pat’s house on Gorgas Road.
Pat’s father was on the Pentagon’s list to make general. I’d heard my parents talk about it. Their voices were tinged with jealousy, but their words were congratulatory. They knew I might repeat to Pat what they said because we boys shared everything.
We treated Gimlet Gulch as our personal clubhouse, but we were not the only people who used it for various clandestine purposes. It reeked of urine, and it was strewn with empty bottles of Nehi and Pabst Blue Ribbon. This time through, something new caught my eye. It was milky white and half-hidden under a thicket of the jungle vine that grew rampant in the gulch. It looked like a plastic glove for one finger. Some substance the same color as the glove glistened like fresh model airplane glue from the glove’s opening. When I bent to pick it up, Pat yelled, “Don’t!”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t touch it,” he said, his voice dying to a whisper. “It’s a rubber.”
“Yeah, I know it’s rubber.”
“No, not rubber, a rubber.”
“What are you talking about? What’s a rubber?”
Pat turned red. “You don’t know what a rubber is?”
I paused. Not to know something at our age meant you were admitting you were still a little kid. I learned my school subjects well, but I always seemed to be last in the loop to learn the good stuff. I had only found out about Santa Claus the previous school year, and I’d caught ungodly crap from more informed classmates for being so dumb. I had to be careful how I handled this.
“Well, I know what . . . it looks like, but, . . . no, I don’t know what a rubber is.” So much for being careful.
It turned out Pat wasn’t entirely sure what a rubber was either. “I heard my parents talking to my brother about using a rubber. I think you put it on when you have sex.”
“Put it on what?” I asked.
Pat looked at me funny. He didn’t say I was dumb, but his expression did. Then he sort of nodded his head downward toward his groin.
“Oh,” I said. “You put it on your dick?”
“I think so.”
We both looked at the milky white thing on the ground at our feet that seemed way too big for our dicks. It looked suitable for counting money maybe, or dealing cards. Now, however, Pat had given us a vague possibility of its real function, but comprehension was still as opaque as the object itself.
So you put this thing called a rubber on your dick before you have sex, we were thinking simultaneously. Ohhh! A light came on. Dimly. You put it on your dick to prevent something, probably something that prevents sex.
Neither Pat nor I had experienced even a nocturnal emission (at least neither of us had mentioned it, which meant we hadn’t), and our mothers had not yet given us that under-advertised best seller, The Miracle of Life, to peruse under the covers just before going to sleep. So at eleven we nursed a junior high notion of what sex was, which meant we knew our oscars went somewhere near a girl’s crotch, exactly where was a mystery and would remain a mystery until a girl decided to show us.
As we pondered girls and rubbers in silence, I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I was okay whispering and joking about sex as a vague concept, but talking seriously about sex? Nope. Way too awkward.
To avoid further conversation, I started picking up stones for the diurnal ritual of pelting the MP car. Pat followed suit. When we’d collected a handful that would be easy to toss but were not big enough to break a windshield, we moved to a concealed spot that commanded both the best view down Waianae Avenue and the best escape route back into the depths of the gulch. The DDT truck had apparently headed in the other direction because the air was clear.
We crouched in the heavy undergrowth, smooth pebbles in our sweaty hands, poised to bomb the first unsuspecting ’57 Chevvy to happen along. The MP cars were unmistakable: olive drab with “Military Police” etched in black within a white stripe that encircled the vehicle at its waist like a belt. If we were lucky, one of those CID Chevvies would pass. They thought if they removed the white stripe and the black markings from an MP car, the unmarked olive drab Chevvy would fool people, but we all knew the lack of markings meant CID. And then there were the fire brigade cars, olive drab all over except for the brilliant white roof. Any of those Chevvies was fair game.
Our technique was a plan worthy of Operation Overlord: lurk in the weeds of Gimlet Gulch, wait for an MP car to appear on Waianae Avenue near the Trains quadrangle, take purchase in the thick vegetation, release our pellets in a single heave when there was no chance we’d miss, and run like Japanese soldiers back into the bowels of the gulch, listening for the hail of sound that pebbles made when they struck car metal. We knew the drivers didn’t have time to chase us, and we believed that only we smaller kids could negotiate the thick Hawaiian undergrowth of the gulch anyway.
As we waited for a car, we pondered rubbers and girls’ crotches. Mostly, we wondered how that gooey white rubber finger-glove prevented anything. Distracted by thoughts of sex, we undermined our foolproof plan by committing two key errors: first, we didn’t spy the MP car until it was almost in front of us, so we were too exposed when we rushed the heave-ho of rocks; and second, when the Chevvy unexpectedly pulled up short of the spot we thought it would be, we hesitated in confusion as our stones hit pavement instead of car when we should have been skedaddling into the gulch. Our pregnant pause was costly.
A man sprang from the passenger side of the braked sedan and moved swiftly toward us. We turned too late to begin our escape, and he was on us like spilled glue, like whatever was in that rubber. He caught me before I could take two steps. Pat stopped running because if I got captured apparently he was supposed to be captured too.
“Gotcha!” the soldier said unnecessarily. I knew my rank insignia, so I recognized the guy was a private first class, one gold chevron over a gold rocker on each sleeve. He wore the gleaming white helmet liner of the MP’s, his combat boots were shined to a high gloss and strung with fancy white laces, and his khaki uniform was starched. The driver soon joined him. He was a corporal, two gold chevrons. The corporal took charge.
“Okay, boys, who’s the ringleader here?”
It made little sense for the boy whose arm was securely clamped in the grip of the PFC to claim to be anything. Besides, Pat was two months older than I was, so that made him the ringleader. I pointed at Pat. “He is.”
Pat stared at me, not sure if I was paying him a compliment or damning him to reform school.
“What are your names?” demanded the corporal. The black nameplate pinned to the flap of his shirt pocket said “Clark.”
“Vill,” I said.
“Patrick.” Apparently, Pat thought formal punishment was coming.
“No, your last names,” said Corporal Clark, suppressing a laugh.
“Smith,” I said.
“Campbell,” said Pat.
“Who’s your father?” said Clark.
“Colonel Smith,” I said.
“Colonel Campbell,” said Pat.
The corporal looked at the private, who looked back at him. The private’s grip on my arm relaxed.
“You’re Rooster Smith’s boy?” said Corporal Clark.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“And you’re Bull Campbell’s boy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pat.
“Jee-sus,” said Clark, shaking his head. “Pete, looks like we’ve apprehended the delinquent sons of the Division Chief of Staff and the Deputy Commander of the 25th Infantry Division Tropic Lightning.” Corporal Clark drew out the sentence, as if he needed time to think.
“Look here, boys,” he said, “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, but if a single rock hits my car again when I pass Gimlet Gulch I know whose quarters to visit, don’t I?”
“Yes, sir,” we said together. The soldiers started to leave.
Before I knew what I was saying, I blurted out, “Sir, can you tell us how to use a rubber?”
The men stopped in their tracks. They didn’t turn around. The boys heard a snort.
“No,” said Corporal Clark.
“Ask your mother,” said the PFC.