Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

recited a passage from the first letter of Paul to Timothy, and then after wheezing and coughing and sputtering into a Kleenex, she went back on the offensive.
    “There has to be a way to find out who reads this sort of trash. We need an organization of Christian librarians to keep an eye on people for their own sake—for the sake of their souls.”
    Wolverine stood up to excuse himself.
    “Listen, Ma, I got to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
    “Sure—go on. Do whatever you want. Walk out on your mother, just like you did before. Go on. Your father—God preserve him!—is still in the operating room, but you can’t sit still long enough to find out if he’s dead or alive. You have to be on your way. Back to your disgraceful ways—sinning, and drinking strong drink, and Heaven knows what else! Someday—someday you’ll wake with your internal soul lost forever, and you’ll cry out to Jesus. But it’ll be too late. Go on! Walk out on your dying mother—I’ll pray the Lord to forgive you!”
    “Ma! I only said I was going to the bathroom!” Wolverine had protested, but it did no good. His mother had opened her Bible and was reading to herself, her lips moving and her finger tracing the words, and she refused to acknowledge her prodigal son.
    That was the last time Wolverine saw his mother. Six months later, a few weeks past his eighteenth birthday, with the help of his company commander and the Catholic battalion chaplain—both of whom were sick and tired of having to respond to postcard inquiries about the moral health of his companions—Wolverine petitioned the Judge Advocate General for a change of name. He got the name change he wanted and in the process won a twenty-dollar bet from his first sergeant, who had doubted the Army would approve a name like “Wolverine.” From then on, Wolverine always said that he came from the logging country, where men were men, and sissies who couldn’t take the work and ran off for the soft life of an Airborne soldier were unwelcome to return. It was a good lie, a classy lie. And since Wolverine always told it with a grin, for the most part people believed it.
    But there was still no running away from the past, still no escaping the eye of the Lord and the undying concern of his vigilant Christian librarians.
    “Sweet Jesus, let’s make us a deal,” Wolverine said as he sat down on his bunk in the team leaders’ tent and lit another cigarette with his survival-pack lighter.
    “You keep your propaganda out of my mail call, and I’ll promise that if I die with a weapon in my hand I won’t blindside you when I get to Heaven!”

Chapter FOUR
    W OLVERINE WAS NOT THE least bit embarrassed the next day, when he came thundering into the team tent, hollering for Mopar and Marvel to get their gear together and meet him down by the chopper pad in an hour, ready to pull a five-day radio relay on Firebase Alexine. Only the day before, he’d promised to kiss ass all the way up the chain of command to LBJ himself—if that’s what it would take to get them out in the field where they belonged. But with Gonzales still on R&R and the team already understrength to begin with, Pappy Stagg was as high up as he had to go, and another dull stint of radio relay was the best mission he could get his new team.
    Mopar and Marvel grumbled and bitched as they got their gear together and trooped on down to the chopper pad, but by the time they climbed aboard the helicopter that would take them to Alexine, their attitudes had improved considerably, and they seemed glad to get away from the compound for a while—even if they were only going to dull and muddy Firebase Alexine.
    “I know what you’re both thinking—I promised you better than this,” Wolverine allowed when they were finally set up in the radio bunker on Alexine and could lay back, drinking C-ration coffee and waiting for first light, when Team Two-One’s mission—and their own in support of it—was scheduled