easily have left the medals in Luxor, that he had brought them deliberately to bug his father, and silently wished that his father might try to understand him. “We don’t any of us wear them,” Landers said angrily, “at the hospital. This is the only thing we wear.” His father glared at the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, and wanted to know why that meant so much. He began to expostulate in his lawyer’s courtroom voice. Landers’ mother stood wringing her hands. Landers silenced him with an authoritative wave of his hand. His father wasn’t used to that, either. Then his father broke out a bottle for a celebratory drink, and Landers began to drink.
A little later in the evening he had his first major fight with his father, when he refused to make a date to come down to the American Legion and tell the boys from World War I about his experiences. His father refused to take no for an answer. Landers flatly refused to go. By then Landers was drinking almost nonstop. So much his father complained about it. But Landers did not stop, or even slow down. Instead, he drank more.
It was easy enough to drink. Later on, when he escaped from the big house on West Main and limped the two blocks to the Elks Club, everybody there wanted to buy him a drink. Landers started by accepting half of the offers, but quickly progressed to accepting all of them. Everybody he met everywhere in town wanted to buy him a drink. It would begin early in the day, depending on when he got up, at one of the poolrooms or bars on the square, and progress through the afternoon and evening until late at night Landers would stumble home from the Elks Club or bum a ride in from the Country Club and fall into bed and sleep till noon the next day. Dimly, he slowly became aware that everyone was afraid of him, for some reason, but by then had usually progressed far enough in his drinking that he would forget or ignore it. He saw little of his family. His sister did not come home.
On one of these earlier evenings Landers was asked to make a speech at the Elks Club. It had become a local custom to give each new batch of departing draftees a free farewell dinner at the Elks Grille, and the local Chamber of Commerce secretary, who organized the dinners, on the spur of the moment had the bright idea of inviting Landers to talk to them. This was undoubtedly a mistake but the secretary, who was also the newshawk for the local paper, was noted for making gaffes. Landers, who was sitting alone in the club bar and grille, drinking quietly and minding his own business when the secretary came over and slid into his booth, thought about it awhile and then said sure he’d be glad to talk to them. They were having one of the local ministers, the secretary explained, to talk to them about religious responsibilities; and the principal of the high school to talk about social responsibilities; and the football coach to talk about patriotic responsibilities. He thought it would be nice if Landers, who had been over there, could talk to them about a soldier’s responsibilities. “Sure, that’s a great idea,” Landers said.
The draftees were just coming in and Landers looked over at them. There were twenty of them. Landers had been to school with some of them. All of them but one were poor boys whose fathers were farmers or plant workers and too poor to be members and, unless they had played varsity football or basketball, they had probably never seen the inside of the club, and so were suitably dazzled by their surroundings. This, too, offended Landers’ social conscience. He nodded at the secretary.
While the draftees ate their farewell dinner, Landers drank more and prepared his speech on a soldier’s responsibilities.
Landers was to follow the coach. The secretary introduced him, with a highly laudatory introduction, mentioning that though he did not wear them Sgt Landers had the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Craftily, when he stepped up on the little orchestra stand in the corner, Landers got hold of the microphone so they couldn’t shut him up. Even so, he had decided he had better make it short. He began by saying he had listened to the other speeches with interest, but that he was not sure just how much