Next Phase #7: Peeling’n’Popping

July 27 Through August 3, 1950

Camp McCoy

Sparta, Wisconsin

Mitchell and Norman looked at each other, the mountain of potatoes and, finally, Skorupski.

“All of ’em?” they both asked incredulously.

“Yeah! Bet your ass, all of ’em! An’ you’d better get your asses in gear ’cause,” glancing at his watch, “it’s 0637 an’ we gotta have them spuds cookin’ in a couple’a hours.” Turning away, Skorupski looked back. “Oh, yeah! An’ be sure to dig the fuckin’ eyes out! I hate spuds full’a fuckin’ eyes.”

                                                        ***

Their faces, necks and arms were sunburned and covered with smears and blotches of white potato starch from where they’d swatted at flies and mosquitoes. The heat of the July sun radiating through the pants, shirts and fatigue hats they wore, they would have moved to the shade, but there was no shade. Their hands and fingers were nicked in a dozen places from the unwieldy potato peelers and, at the same time, stiff from starch and wrinkled from water. Their backs, shoulders and legs ached from sitting hunched on the low wooden milk crates and…

“Damn it!” Standing, Norman pulled a sliver from the seat of his pants. “This thing’s killing my ass!”

They sat angled towards each other with the tub to their front and the potatoes to their rear. As neither boy wanted to look at the remaining pile, they’d reach blindly for a potato, peel it, dig the eyes out, toss it into the tub, rinse their hands, swat at a fly, scratch a mosquito bite, and reach for another potato.

“Shit,” Mitchell moaned, “how much more we gotta do?”

“I don’t wanna look.”

Poking his head through the door, “Hey, you!” Skorupski yelled, “Get some’a them spuds in here, on the double!”

Standing, painfully straightening their backs, each grasping a handle, tilting the tub, pouring most of the water out, the boys carried the near-filled tub into the steamy kitchen.

“Dump ’em here!”

The potatoes spilled into the double sink, “Hey, you’n’you!” Skorupski called on two other men, “Quarter ’em!” to cut the potatoes into quarters. “You, two!” pointing at Norman and Mitchell. “Back outside!”

Going back outside, “Oh, shit!” they couldn’t help but see the remaining potato pile. “Oh, shit!” they moaned in unison. “Oh, fuck!”

                                                       ***

1115: The mess crew had lunch.

1145: The first of the troops stormed through the door.

                                                         ***

After the last soldier left the mess hall and the last of the after-lunch duties were performed, “You two,” crooking his finger again, Skorupski pointed to the door, “Follow me!” and walked outside. “Seein’ as you two shit-heads…” he said, smiling, “done such a great job this mornin’, I just naturally figured that you’d just love to do it again.”

Both thinking, You son-of-a-bitch! each said, “Oh, no!” 

Because the mountain of potatoes that had so laboriously, so slowly, diminished that morning had, once again, sprung from the bare earth.

                                                           ***                                                                                                                                                      1505   1505 (3:05 p.m.)

Standing, Mitchell stretched, and…

Pop!

“Huh?” Norman looked up. “What the hell was that?”

Looking at his left wrist, flexing it again…

Pop!

Doing the same with his right wrist…

Pop!

“What the hell you doin’?”

“Don’t know, Normie. Every time I do this…” leaning closer, he flexed first the right… pop… then… pop… his left wrist and his bones made a popping sound. “Maybe it’s because of the way I’ve been holdin’ the peeler’n’potatoes.”

Sitting in the torrid sun, feeling hatred for Skorupski, his entire body had been tensed and for the past two hours he’d held both the peeler and potatoes tightly, and he’d also held his jaw clenched and now, feeling the tension, opening his mouth, Mitchell moved his lower jaw to the right… pop… and to the left… pop.

“Jesus, Mitchie, you sound kind’a like popcorn. Does it hurt?”

“Actually, no,” popping again, “it doesn’t hurt at all.”

If he didn’t do it, possibly it would have gone away. But the more he popped the more he was compelled to pop and when he didn’t pop he felt a kind of tension in his wrists and jaw. By the time he finally went to bed that night, humming Yankee Doodle, discovering a new talent, Mitchell was able to accompany himself with his bones.