I Remember Bernard - short story

It is too early to know or say anything about the "Democratic election" in Iraq. Be prepared for anything. In the meanwhile here is another short story to pass the time.




A standard snooker table is twelve feet long and exactly six feet one and one half inches wide, the same size as an English billiards table. There are six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each of the long side rails. The game is played with 22 balls, l5 of which are solid red. There is a white cue ball, a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 ball. The object of the game is to pocket a red ball, then a numbered ball, then a red ball, numbered ball, and so on.
I mention snooker only because it was while watching it that I first saw Bernard. You could not help but notice him. He was a player more interested in style than performance. He had an unusual stance and positioned himself very precisely before each shot. Once in position his derriere was level with his head so he could sight directly along his cue. It was hard not to watch Bernard for he approached the game with such unusual grace and elegance, moving around the table like a panther, chalking his cue with meticulous care, carefully studying the position of the balls. When satisfied, he assumed his idiosyncratic position. For anyone else this elaborate routine would have seemed an obvious affectation. For Bernard it was natural. He was fastidious and careful about everything.
I envied Bernard as only an underweight fourteen year old with glasses and braces can envy. He was everything I wanted to be: a star in three different sports, handsome, six feet tall with broad shoulders and muscular biceps, an attractive smile, and a personality that attracted everyone, especially girls. Bernard was eighteen and just graduating from High School. It was the Spring following the declaration of war.
In our little town snooker was a fad for Bernard's generation. He and his classmates played it daily in our local pool hall after school and on weekends. Of course we weren't supposed go beyond the "No Minors Allowed" sign that hung on the partition which separated the pool room from the rest of the establishment. Indeed, we weren't supposed to go past the small ice cream counter and into the bar which led into the pool room. But it was a small town. Everyone knew we hung out there. It was a convenient way to keep us out of trouble, idle hands being the devil's workshop and all. From the high chairs that surrounded the various tables we watched the older boys and men and strove to grow up and be men ourselves.
Although the war was far from our parochial community it was a reality we lived with nonetheless. We learned about Hitler and Tojo, dive bombers and blitzkriegs, depth bombs and commandos, Bataan and Corregidor, and other places and things we would otherwise never have heard of. We traded ration stamps and collected paper and tinfoil and scrap metal and rubber and even kitchen grease, all for the "war effort." Occasionally someone received a letter from relatives in England or Holland or even Germany and we came to see how fortunate we were to be Americans. A slender young man crooned and tugged at his bow tie while hordes of girls screamed and swooned. We listened to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Stan Kenton and jitterbugged and went to proms and life went on pretty much as it always had. The snooker games became less frequent as Bernard's generation began to scatter.
Bernard found a steady girlfriend. We saw the two of them occasionally walking hand in hand oblivious to anyone or anything. They were forever engaged in long and serious conversations and seldom laughed. It was odd for lovers, I guess, but it fit the prevailing ethos. Bernard no longer came to the pool room and eventually disappearaed from my thoughts entirely.
The war, which at first had not gone well, began to change for the better. The German Afrika Korps was eliminated, Sicily was invaded and the fascist government fell. The Russians, after their incredible suffering, finally began to push the German forces back to the west. When Normandy Beach was successfully occupied and the allied presence firmly established again on European soil we began to believe that perhaps the long and dreadful conflict would end someday after all. Then the Allied forces invaded the Philippines, the Japanese Navy was defeated, Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell after some of the bloodiest battles in history, and the war ended more suddenly and dramatically than anyone expected with the dropping of the first atomic bombs.
Earl Bryan, the first of Bernard's generation to return from the war, told of how when he landed at Normandy he immediately jettisoned his backpack to insure his mobility. Rex Lambert recounted matter-of-factly how his tank battalion had orders to run over women and children rather than stop or slow their advance. Ivan Eastman reported how some of his buddies collected the ears of Japanese soldiers. My cousin, William, who as a child had cried when seeing kittens being drowned, reported with pride how he had shot "gooks" as fast as he could.
The euphoria of victory began to disappear. People settled back pretty much into their pre-war roles and began to produce children at an accelerated rate. We watched in horrified fascination as the Nuremberg trials began to reveal depths of bestiality and depravity not previously recorded by "civilized" nations, even in war.
A few of the veterans, including Max Moore who had returned minus his left arm, began to play snooker again. Max played by resting his cue on the crease in his hat and in fact played rather well. It was while watching him play that my thoughts turned to Bernard for the first time in years. I wondered what had happened to him, where he was, what he might be doing. And then, what should have been always obvious suddenly became so. Bernard was never going to return.