Scottish Royality

By Roger Dean Kisner

I was sixteen years old when I completed my Army basic training in November of 1961. I was stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and decided to take my leave in Jacksonville, Florida, where I had been raised in a orphanage, before being sent to Fort Wainwright, located in Fairbanks Alaska.

As I arrived at the Trailways bus station in Jacksonville, I noted many unsavory types standing around on the street, which was not unusual to me. Some of them I had seen hundreds of times because I had lived on these same streets for several years before being placed into the Army by a juvenile court order. I guess I came back to the streets of Jacksonville to show everyone that I had finally become somebody. I threw my duffle bag over my shoulder and started walking towards Forsythe Street.

As I had no family, I decided to see if I could find someone who I knew from the times when I had lived on the street. As I continued to walk the two miles, or so, to Forsythe Street, I felt very uncomfortable because Jacksonville was strictly a "Navy" town. As I would walk pass the sailors they would give me the evil eye.

About that time, several sailors walking behind me started making comments about my uniform and how they could discard a certain "Army boy" if he did not pick up his pace and get out of their way. So I quickly turned into a coffeeshop and ordered a bottle of soda.

After I was sure they had gone, I decided to go back outside--where they were nowhere to be found. As I continued to walk toward town, I decided to stop in a Army/Navy surplus store. I emerged about a half an hour later decorated with almost every medal known to mankind (!!), not to mention my white spats and my white pistol belt. With the decor, I was one sharp looking dude! When I finally reached Forsythe Street, I was walking by the Florida Theatre when I noticed those same three Navy guys giving this dwarf guy, on a mechanics board, a hard time. They had pushed him off the sidewalk and were laughing at him. As I passed I could see the little man had no legs and his hands did not have many fingers so that what was there was calloused from pushing himself around by his bare hands.

I had seen him many times long ago... when I lived on the streets, but I had never spoken to him because he looked too scary to me. This time, I just could not get up enough nerve to say anything to the sailors so I just walked on by. The further I got from them the more I hurt inside.

Finally I could not take it anymore, so I turned around and headed back. When I arrived, the sailors were already crossing the street. I noticed that they had jammed a single dollar bill in the dwarf's mouth. As I stood before him, looking down, I did not know what to say. I reached into the street to get his mechanics' rolling chair and helped him get back on it. I told him that I would buy him something to eat if he was hungry.

He told me that he was, so I took out my wallet and handed him a 20-dollar bill. That was a lot of money for me because I only made $68 a month in Army pay. A few steps after I turned to leave, he yelled at me to stop.

I did a smart about-face whence to my surprise he asked me if he could buy me dinner. Hungry by now, I walked while he rolled down the street to the Krystal hamburger stand where we ordered enough hamburgers for each of us. We talked for about an hour and I told him that I did not have a mother or a father and that I had been raised in an orphanage on the Southside. He also told me that he did not have any parents and that he had lived in an institution for about ten years.

After we had eaten our meal I paid for his hamburgers so that he could save his $20 I earlier gave him. He pleaded with me to wait awhile as he went to get something he said was important. About 30 minutes later and I was aching to go my way, he finally showed up to hand me a large envelope and thereafter asked me not to open it until he was gone. I shook his deformed hand and then watched as he rolled himself, with his bare malformed hands, back down the street towards the Florida Theatre. I folded the envelope and stuck it in my backpocket and left the restaurant.

As I stepped out into the street, there they were... the same three burley-looking sailors, who immediately started shoving me around and finally pushed me against the glass window. Several military policemen drove up and asked what was going on. The three sailors just walked away laughing. The MPs got out of their vehicle, walked around me several times and then one of them asked me, "Just what damn service are you in?"

"The French Foreign Legion," yelled one of the three sailors, as they laughed and continued walking off.

I was handcuffed, for no reason, and taken to the Naval Air Station at Mayport. Several hours later I was told that my leave had been cancelled and I was immediately taken to the Jacksonville International Airport where I was deposited aboard a flight to Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

As I sat in my airline seat I happened to remember the envelope that the little guy had given me. When I pulled it out and opened it, I found ten $100-bills, a note and a page from a magazine. The note read: "I said I would take YOU out to dinner." On the dirty old wrinkled magazine page was a large picture of a man and a woman standing next to a fancy six horse drawn carriage. Behind them stood what I presumed is a castle. The headline read "Scottish Royalty Dies, Deformed Infant Found and Placed in Institution."

At the bottom of the magazine page was written, "A large steak would be nice, my friend."

Stories from The Life and Times of Author, Roger Dean Kiser - http://www.rogerdeankiser.com.

back top