Byte Array of int and char

Please help,

I want to make an array that will hold both ints and chars.

It will be like a memory emulator using an offset to get the next area of data.
mem[0] is a char, mem[0+offset] is a int, mem[0+offset] is a char.

I thought about using a union, but pulling the data out correctly doesn't work.

I also tried pointers with reinterpret_cast, but I am getting the type that was originally declared for the pointer.

So, what do I do? How would I declare the pointer to make sure I get the correct data from the array? And how would I handle the offset part?

Or ay other suggestions would be great.

-zbc