Vincent & The Doctor -- Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"The French were happy to see the first ships arrive with the Americans. The American Expeditionary Force, as we were coined by politicians, were sent over to clean up this Kraut mess. I wanna say it was around July 3rd when I was dropped off. I remember someone wishing me a happy independence day. The days are blurry. After spending a couple weeks at sea, I was a mess. Sick as a dog and smelled just as bad. The doc cleared me for duty even though my guts were twisting and I was still spending more time on the commode, than off. They were moving us around a bunch too. Thousands of our guys were coming off the boats every day so they were shuffling us around like a bad card game. But it wasn't all bad, we had a few breaks and a couple days after I got there I was drinking a beer and shootin' dice with some guys from B company. I ain't had a beer in almost 2 years back in the states."
"I lost about forty bucks to this Alabama boy before someone sees him swappin' dice. I jumped over guys tryin' to get a piece of that skrawny farm boy and more importantly, my forty bucks back. One of his buddies pulls out a blade and starts swipin' the air around me."
"Git back 'fore I cut you up boy", he drawls.
"In two steps I take his knife away and break his nose. I had the skinny kid in my hands when two other southern boys grab me and drag me down. I'm clockin' these boys left and right. Pretty sure I broke one guys jaw. One of them nailed me good in the gut, knocked the wind out of me and my stomach started turning again. They all got sprayed with my lunch. Now I was Rolling around on the ground getting the shit kicked out of me. I think one of those Assholes broke one of my ribs. That's when this big dago comes out of nowhere swingin' a bar stool. Ha, there was rednecks droppin' everywhere like some kinda dime novel hero. I wasn't complaining though. He walks over to me afterwards, lends his hand to help me up and tosses me a wad of green. We then make a break for it before we get into any trouble. He tells me his name is Chuck, Chuck Huxley. I never did figure out why a big Italian boy had a name like Huxley. Didn't matter. I got more than my money back and made a pal. Of course I didn't know then that one day he was gonna shoot me."