I’m longing for my old self, but I think he’s long gone.

See, I did things…and I’m afraid my golden time won’t come again.

I’m sorry this is such a jumble of thoughts. I feel like I’m emerging from a long nightmare and it’s hard to think in a straight line sometimes. I don’t trust the peace. I think all us boys are still braced for the madness to begin again. Bewildered that it doesn’t. Our brains don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do now either. I’ll just be glad to go home. I don’t know anything anymore, either, but I do know I’ll be happy to see you again.

I’m all right and I’m glad you wrote. We’ll see each other soon. We’ll talk and we’ll see.

Write again. If I’m demobbed ahead of your letter, well, it will just have to follow me home. But write again and tell me about your boy. If you have any new, funny, untranslatable words, tell me those too.

Always,

Nyck

September 1945

Trade Secrets

AX380CJ NEW YORK 35/34 4 1519

KENNET FISKARE=

32897544 AMMERU =

WHAT IN THE NAME OF HILDURS BRASSIERE IS IN THIS BOX STOP TOOK ME AND 2 FRIENDS TO LIFT UPSTAIRS STOP PAPS ASKS IS IT GOLD STOP SAY YES

YR BROTHER EE FISKARE JR

Kennet and O’Hara arrived in New York City on the Queen Mary. The gangplanks lowered, and nearly fifteen thousand troops swarmed Manhattan. After the long slog from Austria to France and the crowded, noisy, raucous and sleepless voyage, Kennet wanted nothing more than to escape the throng and hop the next train to Clayton. But O’Hara coolly took in the teeming streets, the skyscrapers, the ebullient energy and crackling current of action, and said he’d be sticking around. He wanted to visit Jock’s family in Brooklyn and return one or two personal effects he’d been holding since Cham. Tell them about the day Jock died. Give what comfort he could. And then explore the city a little.

“Be careful,” Kennet said.

A wry grin lifted a corner of O’Hara’s mouth. “Jesus, Fish, I’m not going to knock on the Fragiacomos’ door, introduce myself and say their son was a hell of a foxhole fuck.”

Kennet laughed. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“A fellow can dream.”

“Anyway, I meant be careful in the city.”

“I know what you meant. I’m a big boy and not much scares me anymore.”

“Sorry.”

O’Hara shrugged. “It’s not like I do this on purpose. If there was a button to press to make me like girls, I’d smash that thing with my fist yesterday.”

Kennet hesitated. “Have you ever been with a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”