by James Jones
Nearly all the Waikiki Tavern gang were there. Corp Knapp was there, so was Sgt Harris, so was Martuscelli. Polack Dyzbinski was there, so was Bull Nair, so was Dusty Rhodes, The Scholar, so was fat Readall Treadwell. Champ Wilson and Liddell Henderson were both there, so was Corp Miller, so was Sgt Lindsay, so were Anderson and Friday Clark, and Prewitt.
They were allowed to go upstairs to wash and change to CKCs since they were being taken to town. Neither the CQ nor the armed MP guards were sent up with them. Nobody was worried about anybody trying to escape. The names were on the roll call.
They came downstairs to catch one fleeting glimpse of the departing recon with the city police mustard, the Shafter suntan and black brassard, and the dark conservative business suits that were more of a uniform than either of the others, and were fallen in and counted off and given another check roll call, and then were herded into the open trucks to find Pvt 1cl Bloom and one other Pvt 1cl from the NCO School sitting disconsolately waiting for them. The MP guards rode in the cabs with the drivers boredly. There was no fear of anybody trying to jump out and escape a roster of the FBI.
Having the entire backs of the trucks to themselves, conferences of strategy were called in the backs of both trucks simultaneously, as if by the same natural instinct that makes southbound geese and schools of fish rendezvous at certain predetermined places, both conferences following instinctively the same identical pattern, each truckload instinctively knowing and trusting that the other truckload was doing the same thing, so that in effect it was really one big conference of strategy, instead of two.
By checking back and utilizing each man’s memory, each truckload was able to determine just who was in the other truckload, and from that to deduce just who was missing. It was discovered, then, that there were at least six queer-chasers from G Company as persevering and proficient as any queer-chaser present, who had not been called at all.
In both trucks, almost simultaneously, there were indignant cries of “What the hell” and “Those lucky bastards” and “How the hell do they get off so easy” and “They aint no goddam bettern we are.”
In both trucks, almost simultaneously immediately, there were answering cries, by the same men who had voiced the other cries, of “Shut up, for god sake” or “Hell yes. We got enough worrying to do about us without worrying about them” or “Yeah, drop that. Lets decide what we going to do.”
When quiet was restored, it was also discovered there were two men from F Company and one from E in the truck Prew was in. There was one man from F in the other truck, they said, but none from E. It was decided by the board of strategy that whoever it was that had informed was pretty well acquainted with G Company, although that did not greatly narrow down the choice. Apparently there were no men from the 1st or 3rd Battalions being called in at all, although all of them had run into plenty of men from both the 1st and 3rd Battalions working the circuit at Waikiki. It was decided that this was only a little local flurry, and not a general roundup. The best thing to do was to clam up and know nothing and recognize nobody. They didnt have any proof or they would have made a general roundup, all they were doing was to try and scare some proof out of somebody, that was all, just putting on the heat to scare somebody.
In both trucks when this deduction had been reached there was, almost simultaneously, a chorus of sighs of relief. This did not lessen either the nervousness or the worried anxiety of fear. Neither did it lessen the happy holiday air of Payday that accompanies any release from drill. Both conferences were adjourned practically simultaneously and broke up into excited discussions of the prospects.
Friday Clark, his long Wop nose a waxy yellow, was scared to death. When the conference was over, he got up and moved down the swaying jouncing truck, holding to the ribs above his head, and squeezed in beside Prewitt.
“Jees, Prew. I’m scared. Why they want to call me for? I never been out with one. In my whole life.”
“Neither has none of the rest of us,” Bull Nair drawled.
It drew a general laugh.
“In your whole life?” Readall Treadwell said.
“Oh,” Nair drawled. “You mean in my whole life.”
It got another laugh.
“Christ no,” Dusty Rhodes said. “You shewn me a queer, I wunt even know one of em things from a woman.”
“Thats no lie,” somebody said.
“Yeah, dont forget to tell the cop that, Scholar,” somebody else said.
“I dint mean it like that,” The Scholar protested. “What I meant is you show me a queer, I’d probly gap at him like this.” He bugged his eyes and gaped his mouth until it looked like the rictal cavern of a hungry young bird.
“Hey, Nair,” he said, liking the idea. “I’m gapping at you, Nair.”
“I’m gappin at you,” Nair drawled, and gaped back.
The Scholar laughed uproariously, and they started gaping at each other regularly.
“Look at Knapp,” Nair drawled, and pointed to the long thin unruffled form of the Corporal sprawled out on the bouncing seat. “He looks worried, dont he? Lets gap old Knapp.”
“Okay,” Rhodes said. “Probly do him good.”
They gaped at him in unison.
“We’re gappin you, Knapp.”
They laughed uproariously, looking at each other slyly with a country-man’s secret humor, as if they had discovered the greatest comedy routine that had ever been discovered.
“Gap this,” Knapp grinned, jabbing himself.
They were untouched. They started using their routine on first one and then another down the truck. It did not make much of an impression on the general anxiety.
“Its all right for them,” Friday said to Prew, his fawn’s eyes shy and wild with fear. “They chased queers. I aint never. What if they threwn my ass in jail? for something I aint never done?”
“I was only down there once myself,” Prew grinned. “You’re safe. They wont do anything to anybody anyway.”
“But look at how my hands are shakin,” Friday said. “I dont want to go to jail.”
“Hell, if they threw all the queens and queer-chasers in Honolulu into jail, the city’d go broke tryin to feed them and half the businesses would have to close down for lack of help and the Army’d have to declare a holiday.”
“Yes,” Friday said. “But.”
“Ahh, shut up,” Bloom said, from down the seat. “Whats a matter, you yellow? What do you have to lose? Look at me, I’m liable to get kicked out of NCO School.”
Bloom was sitting on the swaying seat, his elbows braced on his knees, cracking his knuckles, beside the other candidate, a man named Moore.
“You think they’ll kick us out over this?” Bloom asked him.
“Christ, I hope not,” Moore said.
“Sure I’m yellow,” Friday blazed at Bloom. “Least I admit it I’m yellow. Who was it got old Andy started chasin queers down town, and to quit the git-tars?” he said accusingly. “It wasnt me.”
Andy, sitting legs out on the floor with his back against the cab and grinning painfully trying to hide the fear that was in his eyes, looked as if he wished he had stayed with the guitars, but he made no comment.
“Are you callin me a goddam queer?” Bloom said, getting up, keeping his balance by holding a rib above his head. “Watch how you talk to me, you crummy little Wop.”
“Kiss my ass,” Friday said suddenly, startled by his own audacity.
“Why, goddam you.” Bloom leaned forward, hanging by his left hand on the rib and grabbed him by his shirt front and jerked him up and shook him, the slender Friday’s head and arms flopping loosely like a shaken rag doll.
“Leave me alone, Bloom,” Friday stuttered. “Leave me alone. I didnt do nothing to you, Bloom.”
“Take that back,” Bloom said, shaking him. “Take it back.”
“Okay,” Friday gargled, flopping. “I take it back.”
Prew stood up, holding another rib for balance, and grabbed Bloom’s wrist and ben
t his thumbnail in hard on the tendon.
“Let go, you son of a bitch. He dont take nothing back. Do you, Friday?”
“Yes,” Friday gargled. “No, I dont know.”
Bloom’s hand opened under the thumbnail pressure and Friday fell back limply on the seat, his eyes wide with fear, and Bloom and Prew stood in the truck bed swaying, looking at each other, each trying to keep his balance by holding with one hand on a rib above him.
“Yeah, and you’re another one I’ve got my eye on,” Bloom sneered. “If you’re such a hot shot fighter why dont you go out for fighting?” He looked around the truck. “If you’re such a tough son of a bitch, why aint you on the boxing squad?”
“Because theres too many cocksuckers like you on it, thats why.”
They stood swaying, staring, neither one able to concentrate on his staring properly because he had to use all his concentration to keep his balance.
“Someday you’re going to make me mad,” Bloom said.
“You’re kiddin,” Prew said.
“Right now I got more important things to worry about,” Bloom said. He sat back down.
“Any time you’re ready,” Prew said. “And I’ll give you plenty of time to take your shirt off, too.” He sat back down himself.
“Thanks, Prew,” Friday said.
“Ahhh,” Prew said. “Listen, Friday,” he said loudly, looking at Bloom, “if that son of a bitch picks on you any more dont fool with him. Pick up a chair or a bar and crown him like Maggio did.” He was boiling that Bloom should have ignored the taboo that made Friday Off Limits and a sort of Company mascot, any more than anyone would hit the village idiot boy.
“Okay, Prew,” Friday gulped. “Anything you say.”
“Yeah,” Bloom snorted. “Do that. And you’ll end up the same place Maggio ended up.”
“Through no fault of yours,” Prew amended.
Bloom hunched his shoulders contemptuously then, and turned back to Moore, the other NCO candidate who was of his own status, the great indignant rage fading off his face as suddenly as it had come, to be replaced by the astonished anxiety of outrage that had been there before, as if he had suddenly remembered he was being carried downtown against his will, to be investigated as a queer.
“Jees,” he muttered tensely to the other, “I sure hope this here dont get us kicked out of the School.”
“Christ,” the other said nervously, “me too.”
Bloom shook his head. “Guy has to watch his step, things like that.”
“Thats right,” the other said. “I never should of went down there in the first place.”
They were almost to the branch highway to Pearl and Hickam Field by then. The two trucks roared slowly in through Honolulu, keeping to the back streets as much as possible, running around the northern outskirts on Middle Street, past the church that had the big red electric sign above it: JESUS, COMING SOON!, and then east on School Street, but still having to come down Nuuanu right through town to get to the city police station, where the recon was parked at the curb as they pulled in.
Pedestrians on Nuuanu and Queen Streets coming and going from the docks where a new tourist liner was pulling in amidst many leis and a band playing in the bright morning sunshine, stopped to stare at them, probably thinking there must be another sabotage problem in the Army’s new security program coming off today, and musing momentarily solemnly upon the seriousness of life in this year of Our Lord 1941 before getting back to business, watching curiously the trucks pulling into the alley and the men dismounting and trooping up the steps into the station.
Angelo Maggio, flanked by two MP guards with riot guns and sidearms, was sitting in the anteroom to the police lieutenant’s office, as the mob trooped in.
“My god,” Maggio cheered. “This here looks like a regular G Company roll call, or else convention. Who’s got the beer?”
One of the big MPs jerked his head. “Shut up,” he said.
“Okay, Brownie,” Maggio grinned cheerfully. “Whatever you say. I wouldnt want you should shoot me with that buckshot cannon.”
The MP looked discomfited and his eyes narrowed at Maggio, and Maggio’s eyes narrowed back, above his grin.
“Hey, Angelo. Hello, Angelo. Hi, Angelo. Theres Angelo. Look at Angelo. Hows it goin, Angelo.” Men who had liked him in the Company, men who had not liked him in the Company, men who had hardly known he was in the Company, even Bloom who would have liked him out of the Company, they all crowded around to say hello to Angelo.
“I aint allowed to talk,” grinned the celebrity. “I’m under orders. I’m a prisoner, I mean internee. And prisoners aint allowed to talk. They allowed to breath though, if they good that is.”
He seemed to be the same old Angelo. He wanted to know how the Dodgers were making out with their first games.
“I aint had time to keep up on the sports sections lately,” he grinned.
And at first glance, a month in hock did not appear to have changed him any. But a closer look saw that he had lost a lot of weight, and the hollows under his scrawny cheekbones were even deeper, the narrow bony shoulders if that were possible were more narrow and more bony, there were deep crescents of purple doeskin underneath his eyes. He looked harder, both physically and mentally, and when he laughed there was a metallic glitter in it now.
Prew got himself a seat next to him when the detail was told to sit and wait. They talked, low and fast. The two Schofield MPs were obviously at a disadvantage here in public to control their charge.
“They cant do nothing to me here,” Angelo grinned complacently. “They on their good behavior. They got to make a good impression on this gook lieutenant. Orders from headquarters.”
“Wait’ll you get home,” the MP called Brownie said emphatically. “You’ll find yourself wishin you could learn to keep your big mouth shut, when you get home.”
“You’re telling me,” Angelo grinned. “He’s telling me,” he said to Prew. “Thats only been to me the biggest trouble all my life, and he’s tellin me.”
“You think its been trouble?” the MP called Brownie said, “you just think its been trouble, Wop.”
Angelo grinned narrowly. “What can you do to me? thats worse than what I’m doin? Throw me in the Hole maybe for a couple days, is all. You can kill me, but you cant eat me, Brownie.”
He went on talking, leaving the MP looking discomfited again at the unfair advantage that was being taken of him.
“Maybe you better take it easy,” Prew suggested.
“Hell,” Angelo grinned, “I dont get to do this very often. I’m in bad anyway now. I might as well get the good out of it.”
“How is it up there?” Prew said.
“Not so bad. Look at the muscles I’m gettin. And,” he added, “I’m gettin so I like Duke’s Mixture bettern tailormades now. Save me a lot of money when I get out.”
“They treat you all right then,” Prew said. “No rough stuff.”
“Well, it aint exactly a school for young ladies. But at least you know they got your best interests at heart. Aint that right, Brownie?” he grinned.
The MP called Brownie did not answer. He was still discomfited. He stared straight ahead of him.
“He aint use to bein treated like that,” Angelo explained to Prew. “Come to think of it, I aint use to treatin him that way neither.”
“I came up to visit you with a couple cartons of tailormades,” Prew said apologetically. “But they wouldnt let me in.”
“Yeah, I heard about it,” Angelo said expansively. “Like to got me on the shitlist. Ony I was already on it. Thought I was a sissy, to be smokin tailormades. Had a hard time convincin anybody I wasnt.”
“Whats going to happen?” Prew asked. “You found out what the deal is?”
“Hell no. They tell me nothin. But my trial ought to come up soon, and I’ve already served a month already. So even if I get a Special and they give me the limit, I’ll still only have five months more rehabilitation. I come out, I
ought to be a thirdy year man myself.
“Listen,” Angelo said. “Dont worry about it. It’ll work out okay. I already done one month, see? They’ll take that off. It wont be so long. Have you still got that forty dollars?” He swung his eyes narrowly without moving his head, toward the MP behind him and back to Prew.
“Part of it,” Prew said. “I spent part.”
“Well, I wanted to tell you. That forty’s yours, see? You earned it. You spend it. Dont worry about what you owe me, see?” Again he swung his eyes narrowly without moving his head, toward the MP standing behind him and back to Prew.
“Okay,” Prew said.
“They check all your dough in the guard room anyway,” Angelo said. “So you just spend it.”
“I’m using it to work on Lorene,” Prew said.
“She give you a hard time Payday, dint she?” Angelo said.
Prew nodded.
“Well, you use it. And more power to you, buddy.”
“Okay,” Prew said.
“Looks like they gettin ready to get this show on the road,” Angelo said.
A police clerk had come out of the inner office with a long list in his hand. He called off a name. One of the men rose and followed him inside. The door remained closed for quite a while, then it opened and the clerk with the list called Maggio’s name.
“Thats me,” Angelo said, and got up. “I think I’m the decoy, or would you call it guinea pig?” He went in through the door, one MP with riot gun going in ahead of him, then him, then the other MP with riot gun following him. The door closed. In a few minutes Maggio came back out, one MP with riot gun coming out first, then Maggio, then the other MP with riot gun.
