Ellen was Goose’s wife. They ain’t never done live in matrimony, as they jumped the broom only days before Goose shipped out to the steamy greens. Ellen done come up in the family fashion, so they got married with a hurry and a hoop-dee-hoo. Now Goose returned to the joyness of meeting his newborned son Moses and to the sadness of Ellen admitting she been turning tricks to pay the bills. Army don’t pay diddly.
Goose did more shouting than he cared to admit, and he blistered and kicked up purple, raring and pitching, then he punched a hole in the wall and regretted letting his son see that and afrearing from it, and nothing Goose could do would make him stop crying. He said no wife of his gonna go and sell her God-given ladyness to any pecker-toter with dollars and a stiffy, cuz what was the point of being a man if you can’t keep your little lady from hooking it? But he done got drafted to the other side of the ever-blesséd world, so what was he sposedta do about it? Can’t do squat! Goose screamed like a river at a dam, til Ellen begged him to stop or the neighbors gonna call the sheriff, and Goose wanna ram his noggin into the wall until something somewhere broke.
The whatnots rising in him, Goose only regained hisself when he saw Vietnameys watching him like sentries from the woods behind the trailer. That turned out to be an illusion, but it got Goose calm as a clam, sending Ellen and Moses inside. Then he felt hisself a fool when he reckoned t’was just some shadowy tree swaying in the breeze, and he pretended ain’t nothing happen. He don’t want Ellen to think he couldn’t cope or Moses to think his pops was fearful.
So he steeled up for the woman and the boy. They got needs, and a rock don’t. He ain’t think twice about giving Ellen the cash-money from the robbery. “Don’t spend it all at oncet,” he said.
And he felt bad that he felt good about leaving. He gotsta skedaddle while the heat was on. And he gotsta go less he lose control of his fists again. That boy ain’t a wall, and the lady ain’t a soldier.
She nodded, and she whispered, “Thank you…”. She kissed Goose upon the cheek. That felt good. Damn good. Something about tenderness from a lady reassures a man he is alright and cures a touchous soul. Her lips wouldn’t tremble so soft-like if he was a monster. Ellen wouldn’t kiss a john the way she kissed Goose. He ain’t tell her not to whore it out no more cuz it was implied from the hole in the wall and cuz he ain’t want her to lie and say she would quit off when she really wouldn’t.
what was the point of being a man if you can’t keep your little lady from hooking it?
And he felt bad that he felt good about leaving. He gotsta skedaddle while the heat was on. And he gotsta go less he lose control of his fists again. That boy ain’t a wall, and the lady ain’t a soldier.
