by James Jones
“Oh yeah?” Stark said indignantly. “Well this aint no story. I fucked her myself, at Bliss. So I know it aint no story.”
“Come to think of it,” Warden said. “I been hearin some pretty rough stories about her around here.” What was it she had said, that afternoon, in the house, with the rain dripping sounding softly at the open window, what was it? Now he had it. She said, “Dont you want me either?”
“You can probly,” Stark said, whiskily innocent, “believe them all. Because she’s rough. I can see a single woman sleepin around some,” he said; “I can even see a married woman steppin out on her old man. But I dont like to see any woman, specially if she’s married, just layin for any guy comes along. A whore’s a whore, thats how she makes her livin. But theys somethin wrong with a woman who does it for fun, and then dont like it.”
“You think thats what she does?” Warden said. “Holmes’s wife, I mean?”
“Hell yes. Why should she of fucked me down there at Bliss? a buckass private in the rear rank, who didnt even have no dough to spend on her?”
“You really fucked her?” Warden asked, then felt ashamed, because he used that word which was a good word, one of the best words, strong and powerful and coming straight from life into the language, like all the best words come; but still a word that was also private, intimate, a word to be whispered at the right time and in the right ear, but not a word he should have used, here and now, with Stark.
“You think I’d lie to you about it?”
“I don’t see why you should,” Warden said, and shrugged. “What the hell?” he said. “Its nothing to me. Maybe I can get some of it myself, sometime.”
“If you’re smart,” Stark said, “you’ll leave it alone. She’s nothin but a topflight bitch. She’s coldern hardern any whore I ever saw.” His face was adamant, convincing.
“Here,” Warden said. “Have another drink. Dont let it get you down, for Christ sake.”
Stark took the bottle without looking at it. “I done seen too many of these rich women. They worse than queers. And I dont like them.”
“Neither do I,” Warden said. If she had as many . . . Leva had said, she’d be a porcupine, he thought, listening to Stark’s voice going on to something else and his own voice answering. And they’re both smart boys, he thought, they know their way around, they aint punk kids.
But how can you, with your past experience, take anybody else’s judgement? you who’ve seen so many of the sure ones proved so wrong so many times? Conviction and intensity are not the coin of truth, they alone can never buy it. You take one man’s word, because he knows, and then you find the next man tells you just the opposite just as surely, and he knows too. Leva’s only giving you hearsay, he’s had no personal experience with her. And Stark was five years younger then, a mere nineteen, a kid, when he had his experience with her. That must have been an experience, he thought, that must really have been quite an experience, to make him talk the way he does now, five years later. Remember he was a juicy green young kid serving his first hitch.
But would the woman who went on the moonlight swimming party have done that? would she have laid for half the EM at Bliss? What do you say? I dont know. Yes, you dont know; and here are two men who do know. But can you trust their judgment? No, you cant. You cant accept what they know, and you dont know. Where does that leave you?
He wanted to take the bottle and rise up and smash it down on this talking, jawbone wagging skull, flatten it out on the floor until the jawbone jutted out of the pancaked matter and ceased wagging. Not because of what Stark had told him, and not because he’d laid this woman he himself had laid (you shy away from the Word, dont you?), no not because of that; he felt almost a curious friendliness and comradeship for him because of that, like two men who use the same toothbrush. Did two men ever use the same toothbrush? No, he wanted to flatten out this wagging skull with this bottle simply because it happened to be here, and he, absurdly, for no reason, felt the need of smashing something. Because what right have you to be mad at Stark because she laid for him? or for all the EM on the Post at Bliss, for that matter?
“. . . I think we can make it work,” Stark was saying. “We got all the cards.”
“Right.” Warden caught the shuttle in midpassage and returned it to his footlocker. “You wont see me around after this, Maylon,” he said. Might as well call him by his first name, he’s practically your brother, it looks as though you’ve got a lot of brothers. “Bring your troubles to the Orderly Room,” he said, listening to the tones of his own voice carefully. “You’ll have plenty of them. But after Retreat you dont know me any better than you do any other noncom in this outfit.”
Stark nodded at this wisdom. “Okay, First,” he said.
“You better get back down and get that stuff cleaned up now,” Warden said, astounded, maybe even proud, at how cool he could make his own voice sound.
“Christ,” Stark said getting up. “I forgotten all about it.”
Warden grinned, it felt as if his face was cracking, and waited till he left. Then he lay down on his bunk and put his arms behind his head. And with the other part, that came forward now, that always came forward when he was alone, thinking about it, consciously, like a man who cant quit biting on a sore tooth but wont go to the dentist.
He could see it all in his mind, just the way it must have happened, with Stark holding her, her lying on the bed as he himself had seen her, every secret open and unveiled, the heavy breathing like a distance runner, the eyelids shuddering closed at that moment when you went clear out of your own body and you knew nothing and knew everything, you a long ways off with only a slim silver cord attaching you to yourself back there. Maybe Stark gave her more pleasure than you gave her, he thought, biting on the tooth that was unbearable, maybe all of them gave her more pleasure than you gave her, maybe even Holmes gave her more pleasure than you gave her. He had never thought about Holmes sleeping with her before. But now he thought about it. Now he wondered if she might not be sleeping with Holmes all along, all this time.
Whats the matter with you? he thought, what is it to you? You’re not in love with her. Its nothing to you who she sleeps with. You’re not even going to see her anymore anyway. You made your mind up to that the night of the swimming party, didnt you?
He would, he decided after a while, just keep that next date, after all. Theres no sense in turning down a piece of free stuff, when it costs three bucks at Mrs Kipfer’s. Besides, he would like to find out the true answer to this puzzle, just to satisfy his curiosity, his intellectual curiosity.
I think, piped up the other part of his mind suddenly, I think you wanted to keep it all along, meant to keep it all along.
Maybe, he admitted. But anyway I didnt blow this transfer deal, did I? I could have, but I didn’t. This deal should pan out all right now, if we have any luck, dont you think?
Dont change the subject on me, the other part insisted. I think you meant to keep that date even then, that same night, when you went down to Wu Fat’s and got drunk, looking for sympathy.
All right, he said to it, but go away. Do you always have to be checking up on me too? like you do with everybody else? Cant you even trust your own flesh and blood?
How much do you know about families? it said to him disgusted, and you ask me that? You’re the one I should trust the least.
Listen, he said, I got work to do. This kitchen deal is going to be touch and go for a while, and we’ll need all our luck, but I think we can swing it, if we have the luck. So dont bother me with theory. This is practical. And he got up quickly off the bed and went downstairs to make out Stark’s promotion, before it had a chance to answer.
They had the luck. Capt Holmes found the order on his desk that night, when he stopped in a minute on his way up to the Club for dinner, and he signed it. It made Stark a First Cook with a First and Fourth, dropped Willard back to Second Cook and First and Sixth, and sent Pfc Sims back to straight duty shorn of his Sixth Class.
It was just the way Holmes had planned it, except he had not meant to let Sims keep his Pfc, and he was surprised to find it there like that because he had expected to have trouble out of Warden when he put it through. Nothing serious, just some of Warden’s childish balking, and he was glad now, as he signed it, that there would be no argument because he always hated to have to pull his rank, even when it was for the good of his Company.
The rest of it was just as easy as that. It was so ridiculously easy that it seemed incredible. Stark had the anticipated trouble with the cooks. They balked at the assumed authority of the newcomer. Fat Willard, watching the wind change and seeing his own star set, was the ringleader. He agitated brilliantly and complained superlatively until Stark took him out on the green and beat him up so bad he was afraid to speak at all. When the rest of them impeded progress Stark took it to the Orderly Room. Warden gave his decision and Stark departed. By the end of a week Capt Holmes was so sure he had discovered a kitchen genius that he pointed out to Warden the vast importance of proper early training for recruits.
Stark loved his kitchen, it was already “his,” with the single-mindedness women have been taught to dream of and expect, demand, and decry when attached to anything but love. Stark drove himself as hard or harder than he drove the cooks and the KPs. The dormant Company Fund was brought into the light, and Stark bought new silverware, he recommended the purchase of newer better equipment. There were even fresh flowers on the tables now and then, a unique experience in G Company. Sloppiness in eating was no longer allowed, and Stark enforced this new rule like a tyrant. A man who slopped catsup over his plate onto the oilcloth would suddenly find himself outside the door in the middle of a meal. The KPs lived a life of hell on earth, yet the reflective eyes in Stark’s sad sneering laughing face were always soft and no KP could force himself to hate him. They saw him working just as hard as they did, and they chortled at the way he rode the cooks. Even fat Willard was forced to work.
In less than two weeks, before the end of March, the tall cadaverous Sergeant Preem was broken to a private. Capt Holmes could be as hard as the next man, when it was necessary. He called Preem in and told him bluntly and militarily. Because after all, it was Preem’s own fault, nobody could have given him more of a chance than Capt Holmes. If another man was the better man, then by rights he should have the job. He gave Preem a choice between transferring to another company in the Regiment, or transferring to another regiment, because you cant let a former high-ranking noncom stay in his outfit as a private, its bad for discipline.
Preem, who had been rising every day at noon, oozing that stale mushy smell of a middle-aged drunk, and wandering out dazedly through his now bustling sparkling kitchen where there was no room for him, chose the other regiment because he was ashamed. He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He was through and he knew it. His gravytrain days were over. He heard his fate with a face that was as much dazed as it was impassive. He was a broken man.
“Captain,” Warden said, after he had left, “how you want me to make this order out? Busted for ‘Inefficiency’?”
“Why, yes,” Holmes said. “How else would one make it?”
“Well, I thought maybe we might make it ‘Insubordination.’ Everybody gets busted for insubordination sometime or other. A man who aint been busted for insubordination aint a soldier yet. But ‘Inefficiency,’ a man who’s got that on his record’s done.”
“Why, yes, Sergeant,” Holmes said. “Make it ‘Insubordination.’ I dont guess anybody’ll know, will they? Preem ought to have a break, as long as it doesnt interfere with the efficiency of my Company. After all, he served with me in Bliss.”
“Yes, Sir,” Warden said.
The order was made out that way, but he knew it was a futile gesture. The minute Preem appeared at this new outfit with his rubber hammer look they would know the story.
That night Stark bought the traditional boxes of cigars and passed them out at chow. Everybody was happy with the new food, new management, and new rating. Pvt Preem ate in obscurity at a back table, already completely forgotten, displaying that most touching mark in soldiering: the dark spots on his sleeves from which the stripes had been removed.
Stark, Warden, Leva, Choate, and Pop Karelsen celebrated the occasion and christened Stark’s three stripes with beer at a private table in the shouting befogged interior of Choy’s. There were four fights that night, and Big Chief had to be transported home in the usual manner. Leva went over for the big two-wheeled machinegun cart and with much straining and grunting the huge limp Choctaw was dumped in and carted home by the other four.
In the midst of the festivity Stark sat at the table silently, the perpetual dark rings under his eyes making them look like burning oil at the bottom of two deep wells. He bought all the beer the others could manage to drink between seven and eleven, and he drank a lot of it himself, even though he had had to borrow the money from the twenty percent men to pay for it. But he watched it all reflectively, and the old peculiar almost laughing, almost crying, almost sneering expression did not leave his face.
Prewitt was one of the G Company men who happened in during the evening. Stark bought each one of them the traditional free beer a new noncom always buys. It was the custom to drop in and collect it. But when Prewitt came Warden waxed drunkenly sarcastic.
“Whats a matter, kid?” he wanted to know, swimmingly, his hair down in his eyes. “You broke kid? Poor kid, he broke. No beer, no money, no cunt. Poor kid. I’ll buy you a whole case, kid. I hate to see you come around for the handout, its as hard on a man’s pride as a breadline. Hey, Choy! Bring my friend here a case of Pabst, and put it on my account.” He laughed uproariously.
Stark watched Warden with reflective eyes and then looked Prewitt over thoughtfully. His eyes crinkled up contemplatively as he studied both of them. Then he offered to buy Prewitt another beer, besides the free one. But Prew refused and left, and Stark nodded thoughtfully.
That night Warden lay in his narrow bunk, his big arms crossed behind his head and listened to Pete’s drunken snore. It had been like drawing a flush at stud, when trips was the best possible hand against you. In the dark the pixy look of relish swept over his face, raising the quivering ends of his eyebrows. He looked at Pete’s dim form pityingly and then rolled over triumphantly toward sleep.
Dont pity Pete, it told him in the silence.
What, he thought, you again? I thought you went on a trip.
Nope, I’m still here. Did you think you could put me off forever? You’ve had a good time, the past two weeks, evading me. But the thing with Stark is over now.
Socrates had nothing on me, he thought. You mean you think I’ve been deliberately avoiding you?
Well? Havent you?
My god, he thought, whats gotten into you anyway? I can remember back when you trusted everybody; not just me, but everybody. And it wasnt so many years ago either, not more than ten. And now you wont even take my word of honor.
Thats right, it told him cheerfully. Can you remember all the scrapes we got into back then, too? We trusted this one, and we trusted that one. Man, it really cost us, didnt it? I can even remember a few times when I trusted you, and nearly laid us both right out to cool.
You’re exaggerating, he thought, you’re just cynical, god damn you.
Is that any way to talk to me? After all I’ve done for you?
Great God, he thought, I didnt marry you. You’re getting so you sound just like my Mother.
Dont blaspheme me, it told him coldly. You pulled a fast one, Milton, it went on relentlessly, on this deal with Stark. It looked good. But it didnt change the Company any. Its still the same. O’Hayer and the jockstraps havent lost an inch. And besides, its no credit to you. Anybody could have won a made to order hand like that one was, with Stark as the old ace in the hole.
All right, he thought, you bastard. I give up. What do you want?
Are you going to keep that date with Karen?
I sai
d I was.
But you didnt admit you’d meant to keep it all along.
I did too admit it.
But you didnt believe it.
All right then, he thought, then I believe it. Does that suit you, you moralistic bastard? What else do you want me to admit?
Nothing now, it grinned. I’ll see you later.
“Oh Jesus,” he said aloud, “but you’re a distrustful son of a bitch. I wouldnt be like you for anything.”
“What?” Pete mumbled, sitting straight up in his bed. “I didnt do it, Sir. Honestly I didnt, Sir. I’m innocent as a new born lamb, Sir, I really am.”
“For Christ’s sake shut up and go to sleep,” Warden bellowed, plumping up his pillow. “You drunken bum.”
Chapter 13
STARK WAS IN THE stockroom the next morning working on his ordering lists when Preem came through the kitchen.
Preem was leaving shortly and he was making his farewells. Everybody, including the KPs, was ill at ease with him the way a man will fumble awkwardly with his hat and look embarrassed when he passes by the casket of a former friend to view the corpse. This has nothing to do with me, he wants everyone to know. And when Preem came near a man the work suddenly demanded great attention. But Preem didnt seem to notice. He was not so much saying goodby to the men as he was saying goodby to the kitchen itself.
Through the open doors Stark could see him working his way up toward the stockroom. He went on working, but when Preem finally got up to the stockroom, he put aside his list and watched the tall gaunt former mess sergeant with that curious sad, laughing, sneering expression. Because he felt he could not let himself just slide over this meeting, as the others had.
“I just come to say so long,” Preem said awkwardly. “You dont mind?”
“Me? Hell no,” Stark said. “Help yourself.”
Preem walked around the walls. He looked up at the high shelves and down at the low, all of them crowded with cans and sacks. He put his hand on a No. 10 can of pineapple. He punched a 100 lb sack of sugar.
