by James Jones
There wasnt any hurry now, it was all luck now. No telling where he might have gone. A peaceful drunken fatalism filled him. Somewhere the MPs were hunting in pairs like hawks, but it might take a couple hours yet to find him.
He wiped the pebble off drunkenly carefully, taking his own sweet time in the stillness, feeling happily the stillness, and spit on one side of it and flipped it like you flip a coin. Just like you use to do when you was a kid, he thought.
Hell, the little bastard might even come back to Hal’s. Hal would let him in, of course. Then Prewitt would be looking for him when he was back safe at Hal’s.
Wet was Kalakaua. Dry was the Canal. He hunted for the pebble in the darkness with a lighted match. The wet side was up.
Okay.
He turned left on the main drag, back toward the Tavern, feeling like a hunter in the forest. Down the long blocks of the wide slightly curving street no thing moved. The street car tracks stretched away. Every other street light was turned off. Not a car, not a bus, no people, no life. His footfalls sounded very loud. He got off the sidewalk and walked on the grass.
He stopped to listen then, once, but he remembered Angelo was bare footed. And wearing trunks, no less!
The MPs were tough babies down here. These were from Shafter and Department Hq. All big boys, like the Schofield bunch, and always in pairs treading heavily in the GI shoes and tight whitewashed leggins. At Schofield the MP Company that covered the Post and Wahiawa and the road down under the two columns of tall trees alongside the reservoir, they had men just as big, and just as tough, but Prew knew several of them. So to him they were more human, somehow. He had come over on the boat with several, all good joes then, until they put on the white-washed leggins. Up at Schofield, in a pinch, he had a forty-sixty chance of meeting one of the guys he knew, who could be talked into giving him a break. Down here he knew none of them. And Angelo out drunk bare footed in trunks! He began to laugh out loud tumultuously. The loud sound of his own voice stopped him.
He hunted carefully along Kalakaua, stopping to look in darkened yards and on the benches set on the sidewalk corners, and under them. Man, are you lucky you are not a big man. You might have been a fucking MP yourself. The Provost Marshal didnt take no for an answer when he looked them over as they came down the gangplank off the boat. When The Man picked the biggest for his very very own, they were his and thats all she wrote. He remembered one big guy of six foot four who had been signalled out just ahead of him. The only thing saved that guy was he was in the Air Corps, and was the Provost Marshall pissed off over that one!
He hunted for what seemed an eternity, expecting arms with brassards to grab him any minute from behind. And if they did, well it was dear john, thats all. Those boys knew how to work you over, and they did not have to hide the marks like the civilian cops. He passed Lewers Street, looking on both sides. Then, passing Royal Hawaiian Street he saw, or thought he saw, a shadow move across silent way up in front of him. He crossed Kalakaua and slipped into the edge of the Royal grounds and stalked it. When he got up to Seaside Street, where the Royal Hawaiian Hotel driveway went in off Kalakaua, he could see a figure wearing trunks sitting calmly on a sidewalk bench in front of the Royal grounds.
“Hey, Maggio,” he called.
The figure did not move.
He crossed over to the curbing, keeping an eye on the bench as if it were a deer seen through the leaves that he was walking up on, walking down alongside the very tall smooth white royal palms and the vivid green, black now, of a thickness of plants and bushes growing almost to the sidewalk.
There was a streetlight a few feet past the bench. He could tell it was Angelo. He relaxed.
“Goddam you, Maggio,” he said.
His own voice sounded eerie. The figure did not move the outstretched arms along the benchtop or the thick curly head that lolled back against it.
“Is that you, Angelo? Wake up, goddam you. Answer me, you fuckin bastard.”
The figure did not move. He stopped in front of the bench and stood looking down at Maggio, grinning suddenly, feeling the still night around them, feeling suddenly the presence of richness and wealth and ease that seeped through the screen of bushes from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
This is where the movie stars stay when they come to Hawaii to rest and play. All the movie stars. Wouldnt it be nice, he thought. He had never been inside the screen but he had walked past the Royal on the beach and seen them on the patio. But wouldnt it be nice, he thought, if a movie star would come out right now and see me here and ask me back inside, up to her room. Maybe she’s just been for a midnight swim and the water droplets still on her and just taking the bathing cap off the long falling hair, her arms up to her chin. Dorothy Lamour, maybe. He had seen her once, at a distance, when she visited Schofield. She was in some big brass’s car. They gave her the key to the city and made her a mascot, of some outfit or other. Or Lana Turner maybe, with the stupid face and the knockers like a big round dish of cream. Or maybe Rita Hayworth. They all of them stayed here. Maybe some of them were even here now, and they all looked so hot on the screen, hot as hell.
He looked up from Maggio suddenly, looking toward the darkened driveway where a faint light showed inside, thinking surely he would see this woman walking out, knowing it positively, her coming looking for a man and finding him available. They said these did it like that all the time. Suddenly there was a very large ache inside his belly, almost like a cramp and he thought about Lorene at the New Congress. He stood looking at the empty driveway. What a way to make a living.
“Hey, come on. Wake up, you dago bastard. Wake up and lets go down town and get a piece of ass.”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Angelo said, not opening his eyes or moving. “I wont do it again. Just dont lock me up, Sir. Just dont make me re-enlist. Honest I wont.”
Prew leaned down and shook him by the naked bony shoulder. “Come on, wake up.”
“I’m awake. Its just that I dont feel like moving. I just dont feel like going back.”
“We got to go back.”
“I know it. But maybe if we was to sit here long enough some movie star will come out from there and pick us up and take us back to the States in her private plane and install us in her private swimming pool. You suppose? Maybe if we was to just sit here real still and dont move none except to breathe and dont open your eyes, when we open our eyes it wont be here. None of it, no street, no bench, no pass, no Reveille.”
“Jesus Christ!” Prew snorted. “Movie stars, no less. My god you are drunk. Come on. Wake up. I got your clothes.”
“I dont want clothes,” Angelo said.
“I got em anyway.”
“Well, give em back to the Indians. The Indians need clothes. All they wear is codpieces. Did I hear you say piece of ass?” Angelo opened his eyes and turned his head to look the question.
“Sure. I made your boyfriend for forty bucks. He was scared you’d get picked up and come back bringin the law with you. Sent me out to find you and take you home.”
“Hell,” Angelo said. He sat up and rubbed his hands hard against his face. “I aint drunk, friend.” He paused. “Hell, man, you dont need no instruction from me, buddy. The very most I ever got out of him was twenty-two-fifty. And then I was suppose to pay it back. I aint though.”
Prew laughed. “I couldna got it if he wasn’t scared so bad he crapped his pants.”
“Did he really?”
“No.”
“See, Prew? I aint drunk. I sure had you guys fooled.” He stood up and immediately fell back against the lamppost. He grabbed it with both arms to keep from falling. “See?” he said.
“No. You aint drunk.”
“I aint. I just stumbled on that crack there.” He pushed himself up straight and let go the lamppost cautiously.
“Whoops!” he yelled, throwing his head back and letting it out from the bottom of his lungs.
“Fuck it! I’M GUNNA RE-ENLIST!”
“Shut up, go
ddam it,” Prew said. He stepped in quick and grabbed him by the waistband as he started to fall back flat, clear off balance from the throwing back of his head.
“You want the goddam MPs on us?” Prew said.
“MPs! MPs! MPs!” Angelo yelled. “COME AND GET US. HERE WE IS!”
“You jerk.” Prew let go of the trunks suddenly and Angelo fell full length on the sidewalk, without moving a hand to catch himself.
“Look at me, Prew. I’m shot. I’m dead. A poor dead soljer, not a friend in the fuckinworld. Just send the medal home to mother, boys, maybe she can hock it.”
“Get up,” Prew grinned. “Come on. Lets get out of this.”
“Okay.” Angelo scrambled to his feet, using the bench to hoist himself up with. “How long you think before we get in the war, Prew?”
“Maybe we wont get in it.”
“Oh, yes we will.”
“I know it.”
“You dont have to protect me,” Angelo said, mimicking Tommy’s deep bass feminine voice. He started laughing. “I wish I had a decent drink, this slop is filthy,’” he mimicked Hal’s precise speech. “Hell with it. Come on,” he said. “Lets go to town.”
“We’ll have to call a cab, but first we got to get you in your clothes.”
“Okay, Prew. Whatever you say, Prew.” Angelo grabbed the trunks and jerked them down to his knees and started to step out of them. His foot hung and he fell again.
“Who hit me?” he said. “Who done it? Let me at the bastard.”
“God damn,” Prew said. He grabbed the little guy by the armpits and hauled him off out of the light into the bushes.
“Hell,” Angelo protested. “Take it easy, Prew. You’re scrapin my ass on the sandy sidewalk.”
“You’ll have worse than that scraped, if you dont get into these clothes and get out of here. . . . Listen,” he said.
They both held their breath and listened, and Angelo was suddenly very sober. From down the street they heard the heavy footfalls of the GI shoes. They were not running, but they were not walking. There were voices floating with them, and then they heard a single rattle of a billy against a post.
“Goddam it,” one voice said. “For Chrisake, be quiet.”
“All right, all right,” the other voice said. “I want an arrest as bad as you. You and that corporal’s rating.”
“Shut up, then. Come on.”
They came in pairs, at night, dogtrotting heavyfooted, leggins scrapping softly, clubs swinging silently, wherever soldiers ever lived. And the air of fear they carried with them went before them always, the Law, holding them inside it, and then they were mean to see the others turn away. They came in pairs, wherever soldiers ever drank to forget or yelled to forget or fought to forget or put their hands in their pockets to remember. Soldiers must not forget, they said, soldiers must not remember; all that is treason.
“Now you did it,” Prew said. “Come on, back this way. Lets take off.”
“I’m sorry, Prew.”
Angelo followed docilely, sober now and ashamed for causing trouble, and they skirted the big wide drive to the movie stars’ place of rest, working west through the Royal grounds and passing the Willard Inn that was for officers, and running through the bushes breathlessly till they came to Kalia Road, down near the beach and the rambling swank Halekulani Hotel that was so swank most tourists never heard of it and that was on the beach here where the surf was breathing gently against the sand.
“Now,” Prew said. “Take them trunks off and get in these clothes.”
“Okay. Gimme the sack. What’ll I do with these, old buddy boy?”
“Hell, I dont know. Here, give em to me. Listen, Angelo, are you sure you’re sober now? Those guys are going to be waiting back up on Kalakaua. One of them may try to go down Lewers and beat us to Kalia Road there. But our best bet is to walk Kalia down as far as Fort De Russy and walk out from there, without gettin inside the Post. Listen to me, goddam it.”
Maggio looked at him, and then Prew could see the tears running down his cheeks.
“Oh, fuck,” Angelo said. “Runnin like a goddam criminal. I’m sick of it. All the time scared to fart for fear an MP’ll hear you. I’m sick of it. I aint going to take it, see? The bastards, the dirty motherfucking bastardly bigfooted apeheaded cocksucking motherfuckers. I aint, I say.”
“All right,” Prew said. “Take it easy, Angelo. You dont want to get picked up. You’re still drunk.”
“Sure, I’m drunk. Sure I am. So what? Cant a man get drunk? Cant a man do anything? Cant a man even put his goddam hands in his goddam pockets on the goddam street? Why not get picked up? You might as well be in Leavenworth, anyway, instead of always on the outside looking in and never getting past the glass front, like a kid outside a candy store. Why not get picked up? I aint no coward, to be running from them. I aint yellow. I aint no coward. I aint no bum. I aint no scum.”
“Okay, okay, okay. Just take it easy. You’ll be all right in a minute.”
“All right? I’ll never be all right again. Its all right for you, if you’re a thirty year man. I aint. I dont give a fuck for them, see? Not a single goddam solitary frazzle-assed fuck. I—just—got—my—belly—full.”
“Breathe deep, Mack. Take ten, and breathe real deep. I’ll be right back, soon as I ditch these trunks.”
He stepped down to where the water was still lapping, very softly, an inrush and a froth and then a dripping back. He threw the trunks out into the water and stepped back to where he’d left the boy from Brooklyn. Maggio was gone.
“Hey,” Prew said softly. “Hey, Angelo. Hey, buddy. Where are you?”
When there was no answer he turned and started running up the street, up Lewers Street, up towards the light, running hard, very lightly on his toes.
When he got to the edge of the pool of light from the streetlight he stopped and slid back off the sidewalk out of sight.
On the curbing at the corner, in the same pool from the streetlight, little Maggio was fighting the two big MPs from Shafter.
He had one of them on the ground and was hanging crablike on his back, punching with all his wind at the MP’s head that was pulled down between his shoulders. While Prewitt watched, the other MP clubbed him on the head and dragged him off the first one’s back. He clubbed him again, Maggio holding his hands up over his head, the club hitting skull and fingers, and Maggio went down. He crawled up on his hands and knees and was going for the MP’s legs, but slowly now, and the MP clubbed him as he came.
“Go ahead,” Maggio said. “Hit me again, you motherfucker.”
The first MP was up now and stepped over and began to club him too.
“Sure,” Maggio said. “Come on, both of you. Is that the best two great big strong men like you can do? Go ahead and hit me. Come on, hit me. You can do better than that.” He tried to get up and was knocked back down.
Prew moved then, back on the sidewalk and into the light and was running up the street at them, running lightly, figuring his footing and the steps before he jumped.
“Get back,” Maggio yelled. “I’m handling this. This aint your affair. I dont need no help.”
One of the MPs looked around and started down toward Prewitt. On the ground Maggio moved, crablike, and tackled him. As the MP fell, Maggio was on his back, bouncing his head against the street, punctuating his words there was not breath in him to say.
“Sure. You big jokers. And your clubs. Whats the matter. Cant you take it. You can dish it out though. Cant you.”
“Go on, take off,” he yelled at Prew. “You hear? You keep out of this.”
The MP on the ground rose up slowly, Maggio riding his back punching at his head, and arched his back and bucked the demon off, like a horse will toss its rider.
“Go on,” Maggio yelled. He lit on his hands and knees and came back up. “Get goin. This aint your affair.”
The other MP, standing, was fishing for his pistol. He stepped toward Prewitt, tugging to get it from the holst
er. Prew turned and faded down the street out of the light and into the bushes. Over his shoulder he saw the first MP’s pistol sighted on his back. When he hit the bushes he threw himself down and worked, like a rifleman under fire, crawling further in.
“Put that gun away,” the second MP yelled. “Whats the matter with you? You fire in there and kill some moviestar and then we’ll both be up shit creek.”
“Sure,” Maggio said, punching him. “You big ox. Without a paddle.”
“Come here and help me with this madman,” the MP sobbed.
“The other one’ll get away.”
“Let him. Come help me hold this one down, or he will too.”
“Oh, no,” Maggio sobbed. “Not this one. This one wont get away. Sure,” he said. “Come on. You better call in another squad while you’re at it, too. You think two’s enough?”
Prewitt lay in the bushes, breathing hard, not able to see them but hearing all of it.
“Sure,” he heard. “Come on. Hit me some more. Come on. Why, you cant even knock me out. Come on and knock me out. Or else let me up. You fucking sons of bitches. Come on. Is that the best you can do? Come on.”
Prew lay listening and he could hear the fallings of the clubs, muffled and with a penetrating chunk. There were no sounds of fists now.
“You get on back to the Post,” Maggio yelled. “I know what I’m doing. You get on back. You hear?” His voice was muffled.
“Sure. Come on. Why dont you let me up? Come on. I bet you eat Wheaties, dont you?”
The voice stopped after a little while, but the other, the chunking sound, did not. Prewitt lay and listened to it keep on after the voice had stopped. He noticed that his hands were aching and he looked down at them and then unclenched them. He waited till the chunking stopped.
“You want me to go back after the other one, Jack?” he heard one pant.
“Naw, he’s gone by now. Lets get this one in.”
