miniatures of British soldiers in the full-dress uniforms of historic regiments – the kind of collector’s items that might have cost a hundred dollars apiece. “Hey, Jesus, Tom,” he said. “Where’d you get these?”
“Oh, I made ‘em,” Nelson said. “It’s easy. You start with an ordinary tin soldier, melt it down a little to change the look of it, build it up here and there with model-airplane glue, and all the rest of it is in the painting.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” One of the soldiers held a tall staff with a partially unfurled Union Jack, and Michael said “How’d you make the flag?”
“Toothpaste tube,” Nelson told him. “Piece of toothpaste tube’ll give you a pretty good flag, if you can get it to wrinkle the right way.”
Michael felt like saying You know what you are, Nelson? You’re too fucking much. Instead, after taking a drink from the heavy glass of bourbon in his hand, he said only that the soldiers were beautiful.
“Well, it’s just something I do for kicks,” Nelson explained,“and besides, the boys like to watch. But I guess I always have been hooked on soldiers. Here, look—” and he pulled open a deep drawer of the cabinet. “These are the combat troops.”
The drawer was packed with hundreds of jumbled tin soldiers from the dime store – riflemen in all firing positions, or hauling off to throw grenades, machine-gunners seated or prone, other men crouched at the tubes of mortars – and it brought an unexpected pang of longing to Michael’s throat. He had once thought he must be the only boy in Morristown, New Jersey, if not in the world, who went on loving tin soldiers after the age of ten, when all other boys gave them up in favor of athletics. He had kept his own hoard of them in a box in the shadows of his closet and would often take them out and play with them during the hours before his parents woke up in the morning, until his father caught him at it once and told him to throw the God damn things away.
“You can have real battles with ‘em, too,” Tom Nelson was saying.
“Real battles?”
“Oh, well, you can’t do the
small-arms
fire, of course, but you can do the artillery.” And from another drawer came two plastic toy pistols of the kind made to shoot four-inch sticks tipped with rubber suction cups. “Friend of mine back in Yonkers and I used to have battles that’d last all afternoon,” Nelson said. “First we’d get the right terrain – no grass; just dirt with a few little ridges and hills; or if it was supposed to be the First World War we’d dig ourselves a series of trenches on both sides. Then we’d divide up the troops and we’d spend a long time deploying them, trying to figure the best – you know – the best tactical advantages. Oh, and we had a strict rule about the artillery: you couldn’t just blast away at random, or it would’ve been a shambles. You had to get back six feet behind the rear ofyour own infantry, and you had to keep the heel of your hand on the ground at all times” – and he demonstrated this by dropping to his haunches and setting the butt of one toy pistol firmly onto the carpet.
Across the small room, where the girls were sitting, Pat Nelson rolled her eyes in fond exasperation and said “Oh, God, they’ve started in on the soldiers. Well, never mind; pay no attention.”
“You could control your elevation and your range,” Nelson said, “and you could even change positions – we used to allow each other three changes of position during a battle – but you always had to fire from a fixed point on the ground, like real field artillery.”
Michael was entranced by all this, and by the unashamedly boyish, dead-serious way Nelson was telling it.
“Then afterwards,” Nelson went on, “I mean if it was a good battle, we’d lay down cigarette smoke very low over the whole scene and take photographs. It didn’t always work, but some of those photographs really did look like the real
“Oh, I made ‘em,” Nelson said. “It’s easy. You start with an ordinary tin soldier, melt it down a little to change the look of it, build it up here and there with model-airplane glue, and all the rest of it is in the painting.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” One of the soldiers held a tall staff with a partially unfurled Union Jack, and Michael said “How’d you make the flag?”
“Toothpaste tube,” Nelson told him. “Piece of toothpaste tube’ll give you a pretty good flag, if you can get it to wrinkle the right way.”
Michael felt like saying You know what you are, Nelson? You’re too fucking much. Instead, after taking a drink from the heavy glass of bourbon in his hand, he said only that the soldiers were beautiful.
“Well, it’s just something I do for kicks,” Nelson explained,“and besides, the boys like to watch. But I guess I always have been hooked on soldiers. Here, look—” and he pulled open a deep drawer of the cabinet. “These are the combat troops.”
The drawer was packed with hundreds of jumbled tin soldiers from the dime store – riflemen in all firing positions, or hauling off to throw grenades, machine-gunners seated or prone, other men crouched at the tubes of mortars – and it brought an unexpected pang of longing to Michael’s throat. He had once thought he must be the only boy in Morristown, New Jersey, if not in the world, who went on loving tin soldiers after the age of ten, when all other boys gave them up in favor of athletics. He had kept his own hoard of them in a box in the shadows of his closet and would often take them out and play with them during the hours before his parents woke up in the morning, until his father caught him at it once and told him to throw the God damn things away.
“You can have real battles with ‘em, too,” Tom Nelson was saying.
“Real battles?”
“Oh, well, you can’t do the
small-arms
fire, of course, but you can do the artillery.” And from another drawer came two plastic toy pistols of the kind made to shoot four-inch sticks tipped with rubber suction cups. “Friend of mine back in Yonkers and I used to have battles that’d last all afternoon,” Nelson said. “First we’d get the right terrain – no grass; just dirt with a few little ridges and hills; or if it was supposed to be the First World War we’d dig ourselves a series of trenches on both sides. Then we’d divide up the troops and we’d spend a long time deploying them, trying to figure the best – you know – the best tactical advantages. Oh, and we had a strict rule about the artillery: you couldn’t just blast away at random, or it would’ve been a shambles. You had to get back six feet behind the rear ofyour own infantry, and you had to keep the heel of your hand on the ground at all times” – and he demonstrated this by dropping to his haunches and setting the butt of one toy pistol firmly onto the carpet.
Across the small room, where the girls were sitting, Pat Nelson rolled her eyes in fond exasperation and said “Oh, God, they’ve started in on the soldiers. Well, never mind; pay no attention.”
“You could control your elevation and your range,” Nelson said, “and you could even change positions – we used to allow each other three changes of position during a battle – but you always had to fire from a fixed point on the ground, like real field artillery.”
Michael was entranced by all this, and by the unashamedly boyish, dead-serious way Nelson was telling it.
“Then afterwards,” Nelson went on, “I mean if it was a good battle, we’d lay down cigarette smoke very low over the whole scene and take photographs. It didn’t always work, but some of those photographs really did look like the real
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