Free Paper Doll by Jim Shepard Page B

congratulated him on the netting arrangement. They sat at the water’s edge on huge driftwood twisted smooth into horror movie shapes and gutted the blues, the raspberry and clearish fish organs washing away in the rippling dark water. His father had popped a blue’s eye and it had floated a while in a strange blank way before sinking. His father had dipped the fish in some warm beer he’d carried in, and some corn meal, and they fried it over a fire they dug low in a sandy pit. His father had drunk quietly and consistently from a flask and Bryant could smell the rye on his breath. He remembered the rye and fish and saltwater smell. He remembered sleeping looking up through his netting and poles with all the mosquitoes locked out and the stars beyond.
    â€œPretty good, isn’t it?” Snowberry said. Bryant still had his diary open, though he’d been on one page for a good while. He nodded, and flipped around.
    He remembered the sound of the water and the little waves from the boats tied up in the bay. They could hear the boards and planks creaking a long way off. In the morning they were wet and the fog made the water disappear. He remembered the speckled metal cup with the big ACE stenciled cryptically on it, and the heat of the coffee with no milk through the cup to his hands. He remembered the stray dog that had snuffled around while the sun was still pink and low and everything was wet and cold and the dog’s nose snorting in the morning air. Its back leg was badly hurt and it nosed and sniffed them but wouldn’t let his father get near to help. “Poor son of a bitch,” his father had said, and he remembered thinking that the dog was going to die.
    That night the projector broke down. Bryant and Snowberry took a reel of Buck Privates from the can and unspooled part of it, holding an open-mouthed Lou Costello up to the light. On another reel they found June Allyson, in color besides.
    â€œThey must’ve mixed up the reels,” Bryant said. “Too bad the projector broke.”
    â€œSome of these guys wouldn’t’ve even blinked,” Snowberry said.
    They had remained in the darkened briefing room after everyone else had drifted away. Snowberry looked farther down the reel for more June Allyson, whom he called Prince Valiant. He was starting a good-sized tangle of celluloid at his feet. He crooned softly to himself.
    Poor Stormy, who’d arranged all of this, sent a tech sergeant off to Supply for a manual. They needed one, the projectionist had theorized, since it evidently wasn’t with the machine. Most of the men had already left in disgust or boredom. The lamp for the machine was still on and light flickered on the sheet hung as a screen. There was nothing to do.
    Lewis was sprawled between two folding chairs, flipping through something. Piacenti and Pissbag Martin were playing blackjack on a fifty-gallon drum labeled, mysteriously, USARC.
    Bryant straddled a chair and asked Lewis what he was reading.
    â€œGabriel’s pilot’s manual,” he said.
    The others looked up from the card game.
    â€œHe won’t miss it,” Lewis said off-handedly. “He only studies it twenty-three hours a day. This is his hour off.”
    â€œLemme see,” Snowberry said. “What’s it say?”
    â€œIt says you should get to know your crew,” Lewis said. “Their strengths and weaknesses.” Snowberry was making shadow animals with his fingers in front of the projector lens. “Listen to this: ‘Of all branches of the Service, the Air Corps must act with the least precedent, the least tradition.’”
    Snowberry looked over at him. “That’s not a pilot’s manual,” he said.
    Bryant looked closer. “It’s something called Bombs Away, ” he said.
    â€œIt’s a book Bean brought with him,” Lewis said. “The kind they give kids in school about the Army.” He continued