Mr. K and the Wagons

So, this is an excerpt (a rough, rough excerpt) from some stories that I have been writing down about a man named Mr. K that I used to visit with at a nursing home. He was quirky and funny and a little dirty. I wrote letters and visited him for three years. Thought I would share a little with "you" whoever "you" are. Just a warning, the story is true (acc. to Mr. K) and it is sort of gross. So. There you go.

I walked in to the nursing home that morning with two cups of coffee from a shop nearby. One was for Mr. K. He was always complaining about the coffee and how bad it was in the nursing home. I also thought maybe if he was holding something he wouldn't try to put his hand on my leg. But, as I walked in the front door it occurred to me that he could barely hold a cup, let alone sip something hot without it being dangerous. "Nice" I said out loud. He never ate or drank anything while I was visiting. My coming often overlapped with meals and not once... I sighed dryly. "What was I thinking?", I mumbled . Well, I certainly wasn't going to flaunt my ability to hold something. I dumped both coffees in the trash outside his door and shoved my hands into my pockets. "Hey Mr. K. It's pretty chilly out today."

"Hello friend" he said. He always called me friend now. I don't think he remembered my name. I noticed his hair had been cut and his nails trimmed. I looked closer and realized a better description would be, he had been buzzed. The sparse hair on his head was the same length as his facial hair and eyebrows. Even his sprouting ear hair was the same height as the rest. With the evening light shining in behind him, he looked like he had a silver halo from his shoulders up...

...I had looked forward to hearing any stories from the war, but I didn't feel right asking him about it. When he finally pulled out his scrapbook from Germany, I sat close and tried to listen carefully....

..He pointed out a picture of a man. "This is Henry. He ran the wagons with me" Mr. K launched into the story.

"Back then they still had trucks with those wooden parts on the back. We had some of them new ones, metal ones, but mostly just wood. That is what we used to collect the bodies from the field. After a skirmish or battle we would drive out there and load up the wagons. Pile 'em in. Sometimes we couldn't get out there for a couple of days, you know? The rats would've gotten to them by then. It was the craziest thing. They would go for the eyes first. Noses, ears, fingers were next. One time we found a fella, he was pretty tore up. Anyway, we found his arm about 20 yards away, no lie. Those rats had dragged his arm off.... " He looked at me. I tried to look stone faced. My stomach was a tight knot, but I didn't want to give him any reason to stop. I wondered where this was going. Mr. K laughed. "Henry said if we could train them rats they would win the war for us. They could have carried the enemy off piecemeal. One day we were loading the trucks. We had to go a little ways and we found an old, uh, cold storage locker. You know one of them big things they used to hang sides of beef in before they was sold." I had no idea what he was talking about but I nodded, urging him to continue. "Well, Henry and I broke in, found it full of beef. Just hanging there, Nazi cows waiting for us men." He laughed at his little joke. "We drove back to the staging area and dumped those bodies as fast as we could. We couldn't do much about the maggots."

"Maggots." I said
"Weeeelll, the wagons were wooden you know. All those putrefied bodies, blood, guts, it really attracted them maggots. We could never really get 'em all out. The wagons would never get very clean. And that day we didn't even try. We high-tailed it back to the locker and loaded us a wagon full of beef. It may have had our guts all over it but by damn it we took that meat and ate ever last bit." He laughed. By this time I was realizing that my definition of a war story and Mr. K's definition of a war story were, different.
"You ate it. Oh, wow."
"You betcha, well, we scraped off the outside, but. after nothing but K rations for so long, it was good to have honest to goodness meat in our bellies. Them guys was so excited to have all that beef too." He paused

"Sometime, I'll have to tell you about the girls over there" he winked.

"Gross, Mr. K".
I felt a little strange, I looked at him. His eyes were off of me, he was looking at (his roommate). He had a little boy quality about him today and even though I couldn't understand why, I felt a little let down. I looked at him again and saw something else. A sagging. I realized these memories were ones that he didn't want to talk about, not because they were painful, but because he knew I wanted him to be a hero, to have the stories of a hero. I sat there in my own immaturity, embarrassed. Then words started tumbling out.
"Mr. K, I bet you sure did a lot to boost every one's mood. I can't believe you loaded all those heavy sides of beef. It's a wonder no one else thought of going in there..."

He looked at me.

There was something else in his eyes now.

It made me uncomfortable.

He leaned close to me, and breathed, "I wish I was twenty years younger."

"Yeah.. Okay, Mr. K, I gotta go"