Gravel Soldiers

By Terry Iwanski

Terry Iwanski invites readers to witness a life unfiltered as he lays bare his soul, guiding them on a mesmerizing journey through the shadows of his youth and the storied streets of St. Paul Nebraska.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890913678

Terry Iwanski

Terry Iwanski, born in the 1950s, experienced a strict upbringing during the era of Elvis and Bob Dylan. As the 1960s progressed, his perspective expanded with the influence of Hendrix, drugs, and psychedelics. Steppenwolf's 'Born to Be Wild' resonated deeply with Terry, providing guidance.As he navigated the sex, hate, and violence of the time, he absorbed these internalized experiences, leading to his maturation and wisdom. Terry became a living embodiment of his past, a repository of memories that held irresistible allure. By revisiting these memories, he invites others to join him in cherishing these vivid recollections.

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Gravel Soldiers

Copyright © 2023 by Terry Iwanski

Published in the United States of America

ISBN Paperback: 979-8-89091-365-4

ISBN Hardback: 979-8-89091-366-1

ISBN eBook: 979-8-89091-367-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

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Interior design by Don De Guzman

CHAPTER 1

The Sun Was Slipping Down

Terry Iwanski as a young boy

Iwas looking for something. Somewhere on the road, in others, or within myself. Muffled echoes of the past pushed at my back. I walked on. The gravel grinding under my black Converse sneakers sounded as if a thousand little soldiers were marching with me; I was not alone.

The day was warm as I shuffled along. My mind drifted from the past to a future not to be seen or felt, and then to a history that was hard as nails, perhaps cruel. I didn’t know. I just moved on.

What did I know? I was ten years old. I had listened to others older than me, but what did they know? My head was aswirl with emotion, and I felt empty, hollow. I chose to go inward. I felt safe in there, as I walked on.

Wandering away from my parents’ house in St. Paul, Nebraska, was easy. There was not much to do at home, and it seemed no one really cared what I did or where I went anyway. I would often walk the railroad tracks or gravel roads to other small towns in the county. I would explore abandoned farmhouses for hours, looking for treasures and hidden things only little boys would enjoy, things like musty old newspapers and magazines, empty bottles, and canning jars.

On this day, when I went exploring, I found a storm shelter dug into the earth. I opened the long-forgotten wooden door, looked down the rotting steps. I was sure there must be something of value down in that darkness. As I went down, the light of the sun faded behind me, and I got a little scared. I had to be brave. There could be snakes that liked a cold, damp place away from the summer heat. And I was brave. And for all that, bravely, for just a few old fruit-filled canning jars—I walked down the stairs.

There were other places I could explore, though. Farther down the road as the afternoon shadow grew, I came across another abandoned farmhouse. This time I walked up the wooden steps that creaked my arrival, to the door, which stood ajar. The door squeaked an eerie welcome as I stepped in. I left the door open in case I needed to leave fast. I had entered the kitchen. In one corner hung a pair of filthy, old Union overalls. The kitchen table was old, too, and had just one chair left standing, covered in a thin coat of grease that must have come from the wood cooking stove. On the floor by the chair, I saw an old milk carton, with the top cut off, used as a spittoon for chewing tobacco. It was full, dry. In one corner, a cabinet with wood-rimmed glass doors stood at attention. In another room stood a bed sunken in the middle, and filthy; there wasn’t much else in this three-room house.

My thoughts went back to the kitchen cabinet. I pulled at the greasy wooden knob on the door. Inside were cans and jars filled with this and that. Behind those, I spotted some old round smokeless tobacco tins. When I picked one up, it felt heavy. Hmm. In my gut, I knew I’d found something extraordinary.

I could feel my heartbeat in my chest as I slowly twisted off the lid and found, to my joy, silver coins. They were Liberty Headquarters from the World War One era. The war to end all wars, I remembered my grandpa once called it. Brave soldiers who served in that war, who fought and gave their lives, could have handled these coins. And I spent these wartime-minted coins on Milky Way candy bars and Blackjack chewing gum. Did I think those soldiers who gave their health and lives for their liberty would forgive a ten-year-old boy for squandering their coins? The thought didn’t even enter my mind. I just left, thrilled with the find.

I had to head home now because it was getting dark fast. I was about five miles out, but I knew that if I followed the tracks, it would be somewhat shorter because it was a straight shot into town. And that way I couldn’t get lost, even in the dark. Nonetheless, as darkness fell, I started to get scared. The only light was from the stars, and the distant glow of a small beacon on top of the town’s water tower. It felt as if someone— or something’—was always at my back. I wasn’t brave, and I turned around more than a few times to see if anyone was following me.

Being alone, I walked fast, not trying to balance myself on the steel rails, but just walking between the tracks, inhaling the smell of the creosote-soaked railroad ties.

When I finally arrived home, I felt fear again, but of the worst kind. I never knew what to expect when I got there. But I had nowhere else to go, and it was dark now. I opened the back door to the porch, which led up the three steps to the kitchen door. I noticed a sliver of light under the door. I turned the knob and went in. I saw that there at the small table were settings for four, though one of these was rarely used, of course; and that was my mother’s.

She would never sit down and eat. She would only serve us. I would say, Sit down, Mom, and eat, but she would continue to bustle about the small kitchen, taking a bite now and then. If she sat down, it would be in the corner by the stove. She must have thought if she kept moving, she would be less of a target for my father’s wrath. He, the tyrant, sat at the head of the table and was the source of the fear that gripped the household. This fear hung heavy in the small kitchen.

The only other sound besides mom’s clattering of pots and pans was the movement of the hundred-plus-year-old grandfather clock that hung on the wall near the table. As its golden-colored pendulum swung back and forth, it would say, Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, as it watched the ongoing turmoil.

I sat down at the table across from my father, who was already eating. After just a minute or two, he stopped, looked at me and said, Eat all your food. Do you know how hard I had to work for that? I did not look up into his cold, steely gray eyes, nor answer his question. Because whatever I said, he would twist the words around and make me feel smaller than I already felt. I just picked at my food, hoping he would finish first.

I then looked to my left at my big sister, Kayla, who was fourteen years old. She ate without expression and in silence, head down. She had learned how to eat fast, clean her plate, and leave the kitchen, to avoid any confrontation with her father. He did finish before me and got up from the table, leaving mother and me alone. She took my leftovers, and, still standing, scraped them onto her plate to cover for me. No one in our house looked forward to mealtimes.

Luckily for me that night, which was the worst that happened at dinner. I was relieved. I thought he was going to yell at me for getting home late.

Kayla was smart, petite, and pretty. She did well in school, was a cheerleader and president of the ‘Pep’ club at St. Paul High School. We did not have much in common except for the shared fear of our father. Kayla and I spent little time together, but sometimes mom would make her take me along with her and her girlfriends on walks as far as the outskirts of town. We would pass the grain elevator, and then walk on to Jake’s Café for Cokes.

Whenever I had to walk with them, she’d make me walk behind them. I would have liked to walk with them instead, but I understood why she made me do that. She wanted her own private time, and I knew I was a bother to them, so I kept my distance. When she ignored me like this, it hurt my feelings some, but I wasn’t completely alone. I had my thoughts. And, after all, if I let myself fall far enough behind them, I had my private little army of gravel soldiers with me. That army kept in perfect step. They said, Crunch, crunch, crunch, but at that time, I didn’t understand they were trying to talk to me.

Kayla had her bedroom in the basement. The most loving grandparents one could ever have filled the rest of the basement apartment with comfort and love. Andy and Josephine, my mother’s parents lived there, and I spent much of my preschool years with them.

Andy was some up there in age, same as Gramma Josephine. He would tell me stories about monkeys that did naughty things like climb into trees, then hang down and annoy people. Where he got the stories from, I never found out; as far as I know, Andy never traveled more than a few miles from where he was born in another midwestern town.

Once, I said to him, When I grow up, I will put diamonds on your walls! It was my way of letting him know I loved him. Grandpa Andy smiled. I hadn’t learned any other way to express love. What was love? I didn’t even think about it, for I was just a little kid.

Grandpa Andy was a dapper dresser; he kept his appearance sharp and clean. One winter night, as I walked to church with Grandpa and Gramma, Grandpa wore his gray fedora hat and his long gray overcoat. His cuffed wool slacks touched the tops of his shiny black wingtip shoes. He carried a silver metal flashlight in one brown leather-gloved hand. He was afraid of tripping as they walked along in the dark. I held onto his other hand, which felt smooth and warm and safe.

I asked if I could carry the flashlight. Grandpa gave it to me, and I waved it around like the child I was--not shining it down upon the uneven concrete sidewalk. Grandpa tripped and fell. I felt my heart sink to the pit of my stomach, sick with guilt. Grandpa got up, brushed the snow from his hat, and walked on, not saying a word. I gave the flashlight back to him, and we continued on our way, now seeing the church lights in the distance until we arrived.

Before walking through the two large, ornate wooden doors of the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Grandpa and I removed our hats. Then we dipped our fingertips into the bowl of Holy Water, crossed ourselves and saying, In the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Ghost…

Gramma did not remove her hat, but she went through the same ritual. Then we passed through another set of double doors and entered the main chapel. It was big with many long oak pews, all of which had flip-down padded kneelers. We all had to genuflect and cross ourselves before sitting down.

Usually, when we went to mass, we sat towards the back, near the room provided for mothers with wailing babies. That room was separated from the rest of the church by glass walls. But those walls didn’t help much, and the babies’ cries would echo throughout the old church.

I didn’t understand the ‘goings-on’ of Mass because the priest spoke in Latin. The sermon was in English, and I could follow it if I focused, but for me that was a tough job. For the most part, I would sit and look at the backs of the people’s heads. I could see some of the men with fresh Sunday haircuts, which exposed the pale, untanned skin on their necks.

After Mass was over, we walked home. It was colder than before. What little light there was made the icy sidewalk more slippery. Tomorrow morning, the ice would glisten under the bright sun. Tonight, though, every step was treacherous. We slowed our pace, and I held my grandpa and Gramma’s hands. I felt sandwiched in between ‘safety’ and ‘love.’

CHAPTER 2

We would always get there before Father Figlerski.

From the ages of eleven to thirteen, I worked as an altar boy. It paid two dollars a week, and I got extra for weddings, but funerals were part of the job. I always thought I should have been paid extra for doing the job during a funeral, too, because people were always sad at funerals, which made it harder to be an altar boy.

Being an altar boy meant that I helped serve Mass with Father Anthony Figlerski, a stout man who was very kind. He had a dog, who was always with him in the rectory. I kinda felt sorry for her. She was old, slow, wire-haired, and stank like the cigars that Father Figlerski smoked.

Father Figlerski also had a maid, who, like him, lived in the rectory, a big brick two-story house next to the church. She would come in and out of the rectory and often argued with him. Not the violent kind, like my mom and dad, had often done, but sometimes their arguments go pretty loud. I remember thinking, didn’t priests have to be single? To me, it looked like Father Figlerski and the maid acted as if they were husband and wife.

In the early mornings, I would leave the house and meet my friend David who lived across the street from us. He was an altar boy like me, and we were the same age. Together we would walk the three blocks to St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church and enter through the rear door. We would always get there before Father Figlerski.

An old clothes closet housed the black and white cassocks for members of the clergy. David’s and mine were the smallest sizes, easy to find among the others. Like pretty much everything in the room behind the altar, they smelled of cigar smoke and incense. After we put on our cassocks, we always would have to wait for Father to come in. When he did, David and I took the two copper-and-wood candle lighters from the corner. They were long, the size of a fishing rod, with a wick and a bell-shaped cone to snuff the candles out. There was a box of wooden matches to light the wicks. On days when the matches ran out, Father would use his Zippo cigar lighter.

When Father told us, It’s time to start Mass, he, David, and I would walk out to the altar and light the candles. They were as big as fence posts and very ornate. Lighting the candles would signal to the parishioners that Mass was about to begin. David and I would then return to the sanctuary. Father was busy preparing himself for Mass. He put on a colorful and elaborately decorated silk robe with a big cross on the back. Then Father picked up a long sash, kissed it, and draped it over his shoulders. At last, he put on a small white silk skull cap that conveniently covered his bald spot.

Father then reached under his robe into his pants pocket and brought out a key. He unlocked a small cabinet that was on his dressing table, taking out a golden chalice while he whispered something in Latin. He covered the top of the chalice, which was a fancy wine cup, with a folded white cloth that had little embroidered gold crosses on each corner.

I asked David why the chalice was locked up? He said, The older altar boys told me that it was a sacrilege for anyone but the priest to touch. We didn’t know what a sacrilege was, but we concluded that if you touched it, you would die on the spot.

We then followed Father out as he carried the chalice and put it on the altar in front of the tabernacle. There were many prayers in Latin, and we altar boys were supposed to follow along or finish specific prayers. I only memorized the first few words of the Lord’s Prayer, Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…and then would mumble the rest. Only once Father turned and gave me a frown. I never did learn Latin

During the sermon which was in English, David and I sat to the side of the altar in huge, ornate wooden chairs. I was facing the sanctuary and saw Father’s dog walking out in front of the altar. The congregation gasped, and I got up to get her back where she’d come from. When I grabbed the dog’s collar and tried to pull her back into the sanctuary, the old dog bit me on the hand, drawing blood. That was a shock I hadn’t expected. I recovered fast, though, and gently coaxed her back. As I did, I heard a rumble of chuckles from the congregation. I still have that bite scar on my hand.

After the sermon was over, it was time for Holy Communion. Father opened the golden tabernacle door and removed the Holy Eucharist’s white wafers which represented the body of Christ and filled the chalice with wafers. Father handed me a gold-colored platter with a wooden handle. I would hold it under the chins of the faithful in case the wafer missed their outstretched tongues. At times my mind would wander along with my hand, and Father would gently guide my arm back in place with his elbow. After the wafers were given out, Father returned to the tabernacle with the chalice and would put back any left-over wafers. He then took the white embroidered cloth and wiped out the inside of the Chalice. That was my cue to bring out the red wine representing ‘the blood of Christ. The wine was in small clear glass containers with handles and spouts. Father poured the wine, took a drink, and wiped it dry with the white cloth, folding it and covering the top. Mass was over, and we returned to the sanctuary.

By the time I was thirteen I was getting tired of getting up in the early mornings to serve Mass. Also, I was started having doubts about the existence of God. As I hung up my cassock for the last time, I found myself alone in the sanctuary. Seeing the golden chalice was sitting upon Father’s dressing table, I walked over to it and decided to risk death. With my forefinger, I touched it. Nothing happened. Huh. Glad I had survived, I walked home alone, with two dollars in my pocket.

Soon after I quit the altar boy job, my hero Grandpa Andy’s health declined fast. I came home one day to find my mother and Dr. Hanish, the town doctor, beside his bed. As I stood by the open bedroom door, Grandpa let out a loud groan, then turned silent, which scared me because the only sounds I ever heard from him were the sounds of his gentle voice. When my mother came out of the bedroom, I asked her what was wrong. She said the doctor had to insert a tube into his penis so he could pee, and that hurt him. When she told me that it scared me. I couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for Grandpa to have made him groan.

The next day Dr. Hanish came again, and this time he said Grandpa needed to go to the hospital. My father drove him, Gramma, and my mother to St. Francis Hospital twenty-two miles away in Grand Island, Nebraska. They put him on the third floor with the window facing the street and sidewalk. For three days, my father drove Gramma, my mother, and me to visit him. But the nurses would not let me go into his room because, they said, I was too young. Or perhaps my parents wanted to protect me from such things.

On the evening of the third day, as I walked back and forth in front of the hospital, I looked up at his window on the third floor and saw a cloudy, yet transparent figure floats out of his window, hover above me, for a few seconds, then vanish into the night. Grandpa Andy had died. A few minutes later, my mother came out of the hospital and confirmed my thoughts. I would never hear the gentle voice of his again, only remember that groan. They buried him in his hometown of Spalding, Nebraska. Grandpa Andy was seventy-three years old.

Grandma was a widow now and spent more time with her flowers. But I could tell she wasn’t enjoying them as much as she had when Grandpa had been alive and well. Gramma was short and chubby, and kept her gray hair in a bun on top of her head. She dressed as the other older ladies would do, with a long dress that went all the way down to the top of the backs of her sensible shoes.

Sometimes in the early evenings, I would go downstairs and spend time with Gramma. We didn’t talk much, but I felt at ease with her. She made the best popcorn in the world in a heavy black cast iron skillet smeared with white lard. Sometimes I would scoop the popcorn in soft butter and eat it. Other times, I put a piece of it between my fingers, then dipped it into a glass of water to savor the taste another way. It was good even without salt.

I would watch their old black and white TV as Gramma prepared for bed. I would flip back and forth through the three channels. There was not much to watch at that hour, unless you liked ‘Lawrence Welk, or Perry Como, which I didn’t. Then at midnight, the TV stations would sign off with the flag waving in the sky accompanied by The Star-Spangled Banner." The screen would then turn to peppered snow.

It was time for bed, and I was bored with nothing to watch, and Gramma was asleep, so I turned off the lights and walked up the stairs to the kitchen door, which was the only way to my bedroom. Before I could open the door, I heard my mother scream. Scared, I opened that door, and I saw both my parents frozen in place. Mom was backed up against the sink, with her hands holding on to it, bracing herself. She looked terrified, and her face had an ugly bruise on it. This was not the first time I had seen that look; the bruise was not the first one I had seen on her. Uh-huh. Dad had done it again. I only hoped the terror was over for tonight.

Dad stood by the table with his fists clenched in front of him, his face contorted with hate and anger. I silently walked between them with my face down and went into my bedroom down the hall. But even when I was in my room with the door closed, I could tell that he had continued his onslaught. I could hear him throwing kitchen chairs around and see them through the crack in my wooden four-paneled door. I felt helpless and scared.

Then the banging around stopped, and I heard the toilet flush. I got into bed looking up at the ceiling. The door to my parents’ bedroom, which was next to mine, clicked shut, I closed my eyes and listened, afraid they might start fighting again. As the mumble of voices floated over my bed, I heard the rhythmic squeaking of bedsprings, which seemed to go on forever—too much for me to deal with, being only thirteen.

As I lay awake, I couldn’t help thinking that my dad’s anger and violence was my fault because I didn’t like hunting with him. Just the day before, pre-dawn, he came into my bedroom and shook me awake, saying, It’s time to go coyote hunting.

I said, I don’t want to go. I was frozen in fear, did not even blink. He ripped the sheets off me with his angry fist. I thought if I didn’t go, I would get the same beating as my mom did the night before. But I was brave. I stayed in my bed and waited ‘til I heard his truck start up and leave our gravel driveway. His anger hung in the air long after he left.

It wasn’t as if I never tried hunting with him. One day he took me prairie dog hunting out in a field. Dad and his friend Ivan had me lie on the ground with my Daisy BB gun pointed at the dog mound, waiting for a prairie dog to pop up. When one did, I shot it in the head. My dad smiled. I picked it up and put it in the trunk of the car so I could show my mother. Then, halfway home, we could hear the prairie dog crying in the trunk.

I said, What’s that? We stopped the car to investigate. Ivan got out, opened the trunk, took the prairie dog by its tail, and with the butt of his hunting knife, clubbed it repeatedly until it was silent and quite definitely dead. I said nothing while Ivan bludgeoned the critter over and over. I could only watch, horrified by his brutality and helplessness to stop him. I cried.

Another time, still trying to please my dad, I saw a stray cat in our backyard and shot it repeatedly with my BB gun, but it would just not die. So finally, I took the butt of the gun and clubbed it a bunch of times on its head. But the cat did not die there. It slunk off to die all by itself. This was the end of killing for me.

After that, my dad would try to get me up in the morning to go coyote hunting, but with a real gun, a 30 / 30 lever-action rifle. I would always say, No. I didn’t like killing animals, and every time hunting came up, I could feel the distance between us growing. I would never be the manly killer of prey, my dad wanted me to be.

I would continue to spend time down in the basement with my Gramma. I felt safe there. A few years later, mother and father put her into a nursing home. She was still in good health, so I wondered why my parents did it. Perhaps they