"Jeez Hank, I'd cut off my finger too if Molly LaFollette would be my nurse," exclaims Thomas Biondi as they make their way along the train tracks to the Somerset County Courthouse five miles away.
"Hush Mr. Biondi," whispers Henry glancing around to see if anyone had heard. "She's just my fishing friend."
"That's what they all say, cuz," quips the twenty-five-year-old bricklayer from the tough West End. "I'd still like a naval engagement with her."
"I'll take navy, army, or air force," deflects Henry while snapping his head to fling mahogany locks out of his eyes. "So long as they send me somewhere over there."
"Fat chance with a hand like that, little buddy," begins the squat Italian man, but he's interrupted by shouting from a group of people carrying signs outside the gate of the Cott-A-Lap Company.
Henry and Tom Biondi cross the creek and are nearly out of sight of the chemical plant when Henry looks back over the shorter man's head.
"Hey, did you see those signs that said 'No Dyes in Somerville'? They don't even know how to spell, and why do they think they'd die, anyway?"
"Might be you who's the stunad, stunad. What say we forget about those colors and figure out how to get that red bandage past the physical."
_________
The unlikely pair were reporting to the draft board for the newly minted Selective Service. Two previous rounds had only taken unemployed men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, but the coming fall offensive against the Kaiser's troops entrenched along the Forest of the Argonne called for a more massive mobilization. All bachelors between eighteen and forty-five were required to report on September 12, 1918, which happened to be Henry's eighteenth birthday.
One consequence of the recent British naval blockade of German ports was a shortage of European dyes in North America. Clothing mills were clamoring for colors, and Cott-A-Lap was well positioned chemically to convert oil byproducts from the booming new automobile industry to aniline-based dyes. Not so ideally placed was the location of the plant along Peter Brook and beside a growing residential neighboring.
__________
"Donato Biondi of Bound Brook," growls a stern man in a crisp uniform dangling an empty pant leg behind the registration desk in the courthouse lobby.
"Good luck Tommy!" offers Henry, giving a vigorous shake with his right hand while keeping the left tucked deep into his pants pocket.
"That's the ticket," winks Tom before striding over to the desk and launching a salute that brings on a deeper scowl.
"You missed a checkbox," grunts the military man stuck behind a desk with a disability. "Native born, naturalized, of father's naturalization?"
"I wasn't there," quips Tom scratching his head and screwing his eyes, "but my guess is mom and pop did it naturally."
"Listen here, you dirty guinea," spits the now irate man leaping across the desk with his good leg, "it's no skin off my back to toss you in jail for draft dodging."
"All right, all right, sorry sarge. My parents came through Ellis Island when I was two."
"Army," he grunts, waving Tom past the desk to the physical examination line, "and good thing I won't be your drill sergeant."
"Henry Hanken of Bound Brook," he continues, shaking his head and hiding a slight smile, "and you'd better not be another wiseguy."
"No sir," Hank barks, standing at attention with his body turned slightly to the left hiding his now unbandaged hand behind his hip.
"At ease soldier!" commands the sergeant, pushing up on the desk with both hands to stand up and scan him from head to toe. "Any physical problems we should know about?"
"Not that I can see," Henry smiles, jamming both hands into his pockets before turning in a circle.
Halfway around his loop the draft official grabs a glass of water, downs it in one gulp, and tosses. Henry manages to grab the glass before it shatters onto his head or the floor.
"Sorry son, you'd need all ten fingers over there."
Henry's shoulders droop as he slowly shuffles toward the courthouse door.
"Hey Hank, I'll throw you a bone," calls Tom Biondi leaning out bare-chested from behind a screen where he's being examined. "I'll put in a good word for you at the new work site behind the Evergreens."
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