SLPAD - 36 - The Small Rain

[Michael Bailey]

Pre-air-conditioning barracks in the American South. Right away it appears
not to be a very pleasant place.

“The company area broiled”
- accurate, right? bake is the bottom heat & broil the top heat in an oven.
(Hey, I know my way around that box beneath the stove: I make some cookies
& brownies from time to time, and recently made a nice cornbread casserole
- haven’t broiled much of anything, maybe try that as an enrichment for the
story…)

“There was no one inside except an orderly leaning drowsy against the wall”

Is that a Hemingway influence, avoiding the adverbial form?


Nathan Levine is reading a magazine in bed.

Name-check:

 this might be meaningful, in the same way that in VL, Zoyd’s birth name
(Burton Wheeler, namesake of a Montana senator from 1923-47) might be
meaningful - ie, not immediately interpretable (-;

*Nathan Levine* (January 18, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American labor
lawyer and real estate attorney in Brooklyn, New York
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Brooklyn,_New_York>,
who, as attorney for his uncle, Whittaker Chambers, testified regarding his
uncle's "life preserver." This packet included papers (the "Baltimore
Documents") handwritten by Alger
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Alger_Hiss>Hiss
and Harry
Dexter White
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Harry_Dexter_White>,
as well as typewritten by the Hiss Family's Woodstock typewriter
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Alvah_Curtis_Roebuck>.
It also included microfilm, paraded to the public by U.S.
Representative Richard
M. Nixon
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Richard_M._Nixon>
 and HUAC <https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/HUAC>
investigator Robert E. Stripling
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Robert_E._Stripling>,
dubbed the "Pumpkin Papers
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Pumpkin_Papers>" by
the press, which helped lead to the U.S. Department of Justice
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/U.S._Department_of_Justice>
to
indict Hiss for perjury.



 The base is Fort Roach - well, there were a lot of Confederate soldiers
surnamed Roach from Louisiana -

https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1138/?name=_Roach&keyword=Louisiana


His nickname, “Lardass”, could be an indication of an antic tone - at
least, when I read it, I sort of prep for more shenanigans along that line.


“…a radio tuned to a rock ’n’ roll station in Leesville”

A real city in LA, about 3/8s of the way up to Shreveport from Lake Charles
- there’s a military base named Fort Polk South right near there in Google
Maps.

Video tour: (52 seconds)
https://www.elocallink.tv/m/v/player_m21.php?pid=w5waa6B3&fp=laleesv22_wel_iwd#c|laleesv22_econ_iwd

Got to give them points for showing a youngish white guy and a young black
guy playing tennis, though that clip ends with the black guy bobbling a
return.


It’s mid-July of 1957, and Levine’s lardaceous ass has been there for 13
months.


Specialist 3/C - not a lofty position

https://www.military-ranks.org/army/specialist-history


In 1955, the Army again changed its rank structure with respect to the
title given to soldiers of highly specialized knowledge of individual
responsibilities and tasks, establishing several grades of
specialist—Specialist Third Class, Specialist Second Class, Specialist
First Class, and Master Specialist—that eventually gave way to the single
rank of Specialist that holds today.

Several years later, in 1958, two more grades of specialist were added and
the existing four were reclassified, bringing the total to six, consisting
of: Specialist Four (formerly Specialist Third Class), Specialist Five
(formerly Specialist Second Class), Specialist Six (formerly Specialist
First Class), Specialist Seven (formerly Master Specialist), and the new
super-grade specialist ranks of Specialist Eight and Specialist Nine.