by James Jones
“When was you in France?” Prew said.
“I’ve been in France off and on for fifteen years,” Hal smiled. “When I tutored in New York I used to save all my money until I had enough for an extended trip, then I’d go to France and stay, until my money ran out. That was before the war, of course. I came out here after the war started. I decided this would be about the least likely place to run into war. Dont you?”
“I guess so. But I reckon any place in America will be about the same, when we get in the war.”
“I’m too old for the draft.” Hal smiled.
“I meant restrictions and like that.”
Hal shrugged. It was very much a Frenchman’s shrug. “At one time I seriously considered becoming a citizen of France. Its the most wonderful country in the world. However,” he smiled, “I’m rather glad I didn’t, now.
“Its odd. The very traits of freedom that made living there so wonderful are the very things that in the end defeated la belle France,” Hal smiled, but he looked as if he were about to cry. “That seems to be a law in the very nature of life, I guess,” he said.
“It looks like a man’s rooked either way, dont it?” Prew said. Finally now, at last, under these last few drinks, he was sitting in the shade of the old on-pass feeling again, finally now he had recovered it again, as he had had it climbing the stairs to the New Congress. He felt very sad. The sun was finally going down now, the heat was moving on, the shade was getting longer now, it was time to rest now. He looked over at Angelo and Angelo was in the deep shade too, mumbling to himself.
“Are you in the deep shade, Angelo?” he said. If they would only let us drink up their shade, he thought, and then leave us alone, not exact their pound of flesh. Why was it you always had to pay for things?
“I dont think the word freedom’s got any meaning any more,” he said to Hal.
“I think I’m free,” Hal said.
Prew laughed in the shade. “How about a nuther drink?”
“All right.” Hal took the glass and went out into the kitchen. “Don’t you think I’m free?”
“Bring me too one,” Angelo said. He got up vaguely and carried out his glass.
“Are you afraid of anything?” Prew called to Hal.
“No,” Hal said, coming back with the glasses. “I fear nothing.”
“Then you’re free,” Prew said. He watched Angelo sit down and empty off his glass.
“I’m free,” Angelo yelled. He leaned back in the chair and kicked his heels up in the air. “I’m free as a fucking bird. Thats what I am. You aint free,” he yelled to Prew. “You goddam thirty year man. You’re a goddam thirty year slave. But I’m not. I’m free. Till six o’clock in the morning.”
“Quiet down,” Hal said sharply. “You’ll wake up my landlady downstairs.”
“Gothell,” Angelo said. “Fuck her. And you gothell.”
“I think its time you went to bed, Tony,” Hal said sadly. “And slept it off.”
“Sure,” Angelo said. “Sing for your supper. Okay, lets go to bed.”
“Thats not a very nice thing to say to me,” Hal said.
“Sorry, old boy. I can’t help it. Its the truth, aint it?”
“Yes,” Hal said. “But one doesnt always have to mention the truth, does one?”
“No,” Angelo said. “I guess one doesnt.”
“Come on,” Hal said. “Let me help you up.” He went over to Maggio’s chair and offered to put his arm around the narrow bony shoulders and help him up. Maggio waved him away.
“Not yet. I’ll get up by my goddam self.”
“Do you want to stay out here with me?” Tommy asked Prew coyly.
“Sure,” Prew said. “Fuck it. Why not? What the hell?”
“Well,” Tommy said stiffly. “You dont have to, you know.”
“Dont I? Well thats good.”
“I’m drunk,” Angelo yelled. “Whoopee! If you wasn’t a thirty goddam year man, Prewitt, I’d really like you.”
Prew grinned. “You said yourself it wasnt much diffrnt from Gimbel’s Basement.”
“Thats right,” Angelo said. “Thats what I said, didnt I? Listen,” he said. “Before my hitch is up we’ll be in this fuckin-war. You know that? I hate the Army. Even you hate the Army, Prewitt. You just wont admit it. I hate it. O god how I hate the fucking Army.”
He leaned back in his chair and hung his arms over the leather, rolling his head and repeating his passion to himself.
“Do you write under your own name?” Prew asked Tommy.
Hal was standing beside Maggio’s chair, looking anxious and wringing his hand a little.
“Of course not,” Tommy smiled reasonably. “Do you think I want to put my own name to such stupid stuff?”
“You’re sober, aint you?” Prew said. “I bet you never do get drunk. Why dont you get drunk? Why do you want to write it for, then?”
“You dont know my own name anyway,” Tommy said. His deep-set eyes swung suddenly, wildly at Prew. “You dont, do you? Do you?”
Prew was watching Hal trying to get Maggio up on his feet. “No. I dont. You’re ashamed of that story, aint you?”
“Of course,” Tommy said, relievedly. “Do you think I’d be proud of it?”
“I hate it,” Angelo said. “The whole mother fucking deal.”
“And yet you wrote it,” Prew said profoundly.
“Of course. But only for the money. Thats why I used a pen name. Someday, when my novel is done . . .”
“Is it on queers?”
“No it is not,” Tommy said stiffly.
“I wouldnt play a bugle call unless I was proud of it,” Prew said. “Thats one thing I got, see? If I did do it, it would never be the same again. I’d never have it any more.”
“Oh,” Tommy smiled. “A bugler. We’ve got an artist in our midst, Hal.”
“No,” Prew said. “Only a bugler. But I dont even bugle any more. And you’ll never write no book. You only want to talk about it.”
He stood up, feeling the release of the liquor pounding in him, wanting to smash something that would stop the cogs from rotating in tomorrow and Reveille at six o’clock. The self winding springs. He looked around dimly. There was nothing to smash.
“Lissen,” he said. He stabbed his finger at the big white bulk of Tommy. “You’re queer as a three dollar bill. How did you get to be queer? What made you queer, anyway?”
Tommy’s dark eyes that behind the deep purple circles never seemed to focus on anything at all, were on him now and focused, and they became brighter and brighter as he watched them.
“I’ve always been that way,” Tommy said. “I was born that way.”
“Like to talk about it, dont you?” Prew grinned. He felt the silence of both Hal and Maggio behind him and knew that they were watching him.
“No,” Tommy said. “I hate to talk about it. It was a tragedy, being born that way.” He was smiling now and breathing fast, smiling painfully the way a broken dog does when you pat him.
“Balls,” Prew said. “Nobody’s born that way. When was the first time you went down on anybody?”
“When I was ten,” Tommy said, talking swiftly now, almost joyously. “I was going to a military school in New York, my parents were divorced and my mother sent me there, a bunch of upperclassmen got,—oh a whole bunch of them, there must have been twelve at least,” Tommy’s eyes were brighter and his voice was going faster, hardly space between the words to breathe, “—they got me out and tied me up, and beat me, they made me go down on all twelve of them, one right after another, and they beat me till I did it.”
Prew watched him talking, his big body jerking nervously in the chair, as if under a whip.
“I dont believe that,” Prew snarled. “I bet that wasn’t the first time. Because lissen, they could of killed me and I wouldnt of ever done it. If they did it, they did it because you wanted them to do it. No matter how much you tried to fight. You wanted to be beaten, and you wanted to be evil.”
Hal moved from beside Maggio and stepped toward the other two. “Thats a lie,” he said.
“Its true,” Tommy whispered. “It wasnt the first time. But it was the first important time. I did want it. Do you hate me?”
“No,” Prew said, contemptuously. “Why should I hate you?”
“But you do. You’re contemptuous of me. Arent you? Arent you? You think I’m evil.”
“No. You’re the one that thinks you’re evil. Thats what I think. I dont think you’re evil. I think you like to do anything you think is evil, the eviller the better, and the better you will like it. Maybe its because you can show how much you hate the church.”
“Thats a lie.” Tommy was sitting pushed way back in the chair. “I am evil, and I know it. You dont have to make it easy for me. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Hell, buddy, I wouldnt make it easy for you. You dont mean nothing to me.”
“I know I’m evil,” Tommy said. “I know I’m evil.”
“Who made you believe that?” Prew said. “Who taught you that? Your mother?”
“No,” Tommy said. “No, no, no. My mother was a saint You dont understand. My mother was a saint.”
“Shut up, Tommy,” Hal said narrowly.
Prew swung on him. “If you guys like being queer, why dont you be queer with each other? Instead of all a time trying to cut each other’s throat? If you believed that crap about true love you been putting out, why do you get your feelings hurt so easy? Somebody’s always hurtin your feelings. Why do you always pick up somebody who aint queer? Because if you’re with another queer, you dont feel evil enough, thats why.”
“Stop!” Hal said. “This quivering hulk of jelly can say whatever he wants to say. But I am none of these things. I stand as a rebel against society. I hate its falseness and I’ll never knuckle down to it. It takes courage to stand by what you believe.”
“I dont like it very much myself,” Prew grinned. He could feel the warmness and the fumes, rising in his head, the urge, urge, urge, the smash, smash, smash, six o’clock, six o’clock, six o’clock. “Its never done much for me, society. What has it given me? It aint done near as much for me as it has done for you. Look at this place, look at it.
“But I dont hate it like you hate it. You hate it because you hate yourself. You aint rebelling against society, you’re rebelling against yourself. You aint rebelling against anything, you’re just rebelling.”
He stabbed at the tall man with his finger.
“And thats why you’re like a priest. You got a gospel to preach. The true gospel. The ony gospel. Thats all you got, a gospel. Dont you know life dont fit no gospels? Life makes gospels—afterwards. Gospels dont make life. But you, you and all the fucking priests, you gunna make life fit your gospel. And nobody elses. You wont even admit anything exists but what you say.”
He paused. The brightly lighted revelation was surging up now again, in his mind. He could see it. But how to say it? How to express? How to mold it and make it plain? Life was enough, in itself. All men should see life in itself was enough, was all, because it was there. Why did you climb the mountain, Mr Mallory? Because it was there. Life was there, it had been put there, for a purpose. That was enough. That was everything.
“If thats courage,” he concluded lamely, subduedly, “maybe you got it, buddy. If thats courage.”
“Hey, hey,” Angelo yelled suddenly. “I got courage. All the courage in the goddam world. I’m free and I got courage. All I want. A dollarn a half at any liquor store.”
He struggled up vaguely from the chair and started for the door in desultory tackings.
“Where are you going, Tony?” Hal said. All the rest was forgotten. “Please come back, Tony. Please come back here, I say. You’re in no condition to be wandering around.”
“Going for a fucking walk,” Angelo yelled. “Need some fucking air.”
He went out and slammed the screen. They could hear him stumping down the outside stairs in his bare feet. Then they heard a stumbling falling crash and Angelo’s hearty cursing of the banyan. Then silence.
“Oh my god,” Hal said. “Somebody must stop him. Somebody must do something. He’ll get picked up, wandering around like that.”
“You do it,” Prew said. “He’s your boyfriend.”
“You go after him, Prew,” Hal said. “Wont you? You dont want him to get picked up. He’s your friend. Isnt he.”
“He aint my boyfriend,” Prew said. “You go get him.” He began to grin a little and sat down heavily on the couch, bouncing a little with drunken resolution.
“But I cant,” Hal cried. “Truly I cant. I’d go after him if I could. Why, as drunk as he is, if he got picked up he might bring the police right up here.”
“Let him bring em,” Prew grinned. His face felt stiff from the liquor and someplace in his head a bell tolled. He was very very drunk and suddenly very happy.
“Oh he cant,” Hal said, wringing his hands. “They know us all by report. All they’d need is something like this to make a case against us.”
“Thats a shame,” Prew said contentedly. “Dont worry about it. You’ve got courage.” He watched Tommy get up from his chair and begin to put his clothes back on.
“Where are you going?” Hal asked sharply.
“I’m going home,” Tommy said, with dignity. “Right now.”
“Listen, Prew,” Hal said. “I’d go get him. Truly I would. You dont know what the little fellow means to me. But if I was picked up, I’d be ruined. And if I’m just seen with him, in his condition, I’d be picked up because they’re looking for a chance at me. I’d be thrown out of my tutoring, thrown out of here.” He waved his arms around the room. “Thrown out of my home.”
“I thought they knew about you,” Prew said.
“They do. Oh believe me, they do. But getting picked up by the police and prosecuted in a public scandal is another thing altogether. You couldnt expect them to stand up for me with it in the hands of the police.”
“No,” Prew said. “I guess not. Life sure is tough, aint it?”
“Please go and get him,” Hal begged. “Look. I’ll even get down on my knees and ask you. Look. See? Now, please. Please. He is your friend.”
Prew began to put his shoes and socks on. He fumbled with one shoelace and Hal, on his knees, tried to tie it for him. Prew slapped the tall man’s hand away and tied it for himself.
“You’re not too drunk, are you?” Hal said.
“No,” he said. “I’m not too drunk. I’m never too drunk.”
“You’ll get him, wont you, Prew? And if you get picked up you wont bring them back up here, will you?”
“Where I come from its bad manners to even ask that. You take that for granted.” He stood up, looking for his gook shirt.
“Goodby, I’ve had a nice time,” Tommy said from the door. “I’ll see you later, Hal. And I hope to see you again sometime, Prew,” he said. He went out and slammed the door.
Prew sat down on the couch again and began to laugh.
“Polite fella, aint he?” he said to Hal.
“Please go, Prew,” Hal said. “Please dont waste any time. Tony’s too drunk to know what he’s doing. Take him back to the Post and put him to bed.”
“His clothes are here.”
“Take them with you,” Hal said. He began to go around gathering up Maggio’s clothes. “If you bring him back here, he may cause trouble, drunk as he is.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “But I havent got any money for cab fare.”
Hal ran into the bedroom for his wallet. “Here,” he said, coming back. “Heres a five. That’ll be enough for car fare down town and a cab home, wont it?”
“Well, I dont know,” Prew grinned. “Its too late for the buses, you know. We’ll have to take a cab down town.”
“Heres ten then.”
“Well,” Prew said. He shook his head sorrowfully. “You see, the Schofield cabs stop running at two o’clock I think it is. Its a
lmost two now.”
“On Payday?” Hal said.
“Sure,” Prew grinned. “Every day.”
“All right,” Hal said. “Heres twenty then. Please hurry, Prew.”
Prew shook his head slowly reluctantly. “Trouble with that Angelo, every time he gets drunked up he wants a piece of ass. If he dont get it, he gets mean and causes trouble. Thats the reason he gets picked up, usually.”
“All right,” Hal said. “Heres thirty.”
“Look,” Prew grinned. “I hate to take your money. You just put it away. I’ll get him home someway.”
“God damn it,” Hal said. “Heres forty. Four tens. Thats all the cash I have. But you must hurry. Oh, please hurry, Prew.”
“Well, I guess that’d be enough to get us home,” Prew said. He took the money and started slowly for the door.
“You’re not too drunk, are you?” Hal said anxiously.
“Never too drunk. To do what I got to do. I dont want him picked up any more than you. But for a different reason.”
Hal shook his hand at the door. “Come back and see me,” he said. “Come back some time when Tony’s not along. You dont have to wait for him to bring you. You have a standing invitation.”
“Why, thanks, Hal,” Prew said. “I may do that. I always like to associate with persons who got the courage of their convictions, you know.”
At the corner he looked back. The door was shut and the lights were already out. He grinned hazily. In his pocket, under his hand, the four tens felt very crisp and good.
Chapter 27
THE STREET HAD THAT late-at-night deserted look fully developed now. Even the darkened silent houses and the streetlights had that look now.
There was no sign of Angelo, or of Tommy. To hell with Tommy. Angelo was the thing. There was no telling where the drunken little bastard went. He might have gone back up toward Kalakaua. On the other hand, he might just as easily have decided to go the other way, for a quick swim in the Ala Wai Canal. He put the paper sack with Angelo’s clothes and shoes in it under his arm; the paper rustle was loud in the clear still night; and reached in his pocket for a coin. There was no coin, only Hal’s four tens. He grinned again, and wandered over happily to the gutter to light matches until he found a flat pebble.
