by James Jones
“You bet your ass,” Maggio said. “With a pool cue. And about to do it again.”
“What?” Bloom said, blinking his eyes now, the stun of the blow that should have felled an ox but did not even dent his massive skull enough to knock him down or even make him dizzy enough to sit down just reaching him now, him not understanding it yet, but beginning to, and his indignation mounting as the understanding grew. “With a pool cue?”
“Thats right,” Maggio said distinctly, “and I’ll do it again, right now, or any other time. Or place, if you come over here around my bunk, or around me, for anything, anything at all.”
“But what for? Thats no way to fight. If you want to fight, ask a man out,” Bloom said, putting his hand up to his head and bringing away blood. When he saw the blood he understood it, finally and fully, and he went berserker with rage at the sight of his own shed blood.
“I’d stand a big chance with you on the green, wouldn’t I?” Maggio said.
“Why, goddam you,” Bloom screamed, not hearing him. “You dirty, yellow, sneaking, twofaced, lying, rotten,” having to stop because he could find no word to span this breach of sportsmanship, “Wop, you,” he said, “yellow little Wop. If thats the way you want to fight,” he said. “If thats the way you want to play.”
He charged across the squadroom to his own bunk through all the now standing watching men, keeping up a solid, smooth, unbroken stream of screaming cursing, tugging at his pack to pull his bayonet and fumbling with the catch, using every obscenity he could think of, using them again when he ran out of new ones. He charged back with the naked bayonet glinting oilily and evilly in his hand, still screaming cursing, clear across the room where no man tried to stop him, but Maggio moving with his club out into the aisle for clearance and going to meet him, and death suddenly slid into the big room dartingly like a boxer on silent resined feet moving pantherishly in to punch.
But before they could meet in the center stage and put on this show their still-stunned audience did not want to see First Sergeant Warden, with his apparently weird uncanniness of occult knowledge, was suddenly between them brandishing an iron lock bar from the rifle racks and cursing indignantly and vilely for them to come on, he would just as soon kill them both as not anyway. He had come out of his room to stop the racket that had disturbed his nap and then, realizing what was happening, stepped in. But to the dumbstruck audience he seemed like an avenging genii of all Discipline and all Authority risen mystically from the floor, and his mere presence was enough to stop both of them in their tracks.
“If theres any killing in my Compny, I’ll do it,” The Warden ridiculed, “not a couple unweaned punks who the sight of a dead man would make to crap their pants. Well? Come on. Why dont you come on?” he sneered, his mammoth contempt making them look so foolish in their own eyes that it was no longer a hurt to the pride to quit, but was instead the only means of saving it.
“Aint you coming?” The Warden scoffed, “then throw that bayonet down on the bed there if you aint going to use it, Bloom. Like a good little boy now. Thats it.”
Bloom did what he was told obediently, silent with the blood running down his forehead, but with an unmistakable look of relief under it.
“Almost scared there wasnt anybody going to stop you for a minute, werent you?” The Warden snorted. “Killers,” he said. “Tough guys. Out for blood. Real killers. Give that club to Prewitt, Maggio.”
Maggio gave it to him, looking hangdog, and the spell was broken.
“If you guys want to fight,” somebody yelled, “fight with fists, and take it outside on the green.”
“Shut up,” The Warden roared. “There’ll be no fight. And there’ll be no more goddamned suggestions from any stupid bastards who would stand around and let these two damfools kill each other.” He looked around belligerently but no one would meet his eyes.
“And you two men,” The Warden said, “neither one of you’s grown up enough to be allowed to fight. You have to be a man to fight. If you act like children, you can expect to be treated like children.”
Nobody said anything.
“You’ll get plenty of fighting,” The Warden said. “More fighting than any of you got the stomach for. And it wont be too goddamned long. Wait’ll you hear bullets from a sniper you cant even see hitting the tree right above your head, then come around and tell me how you’re killers. Then I’ll believe you’re killers. Killers,” he snorted, “real killers. Jee sus Christ!”
Nobody said anything.
“Corporal Miller,” The Warden said, “take this baby’s bayonet and put it away, he aint old enough to play with it yet. Then take Bloom over and sit him down on his bunk and see he stays there. Have him sit with his face to the wall, thats the way to punish children. The only thing he’s allowed to move for is to go to the latrine, and when he does you go with him, and see that he comes back, since he aint to be trusted out by himself. And dont forget to button his pants for him.
“Prewitt, I want you to do the same thing with baby Maggio. They’re both to stay there till time to report to the kitchen. And they talk to nobody. Looks like we have to fix up a couple dunces’ stools in this Compny.
“If either one of them gives you any back talk I want to know about it. They court-martial men for things like this, although it would be a shame to court-martial babies. Thats the only reason I dont have you both locked up, see?
“Now,” he said. “Is there any other little things for me to take care of? If not, maybe you punks’ll be quiet enough so I can get my goddam beauty sleep, ’ey?”
He turned and walked off disgustedly, back to his room, not even waiting to see if his orders were carried out. The men moved around steathily to do as they were told, and the squadroom settled down again with Maggio sitting in one corner and Bloom in the other, and nobody knew that The Warden lay down on his bunk dry mouthed, wiping the sweat of a near thing off his forehead, and made himself lay there for ten minutes before he would pass through the squadroom to get the drink of water that he needed very badly.
“He’s right,” Maggio whispered to Prewitt. “The Warden. He’s a damned good man, you know it?”
“I know it,” Prew whispered back. “He could just as easy have had you both in the Stockade. They dont come like him very often.”
“I’ve never even seen a dead man,” Maggio whispered. “Except my grandfather in his casket when I was a kid, and that made me sick.”
“Well I’ve seen them, no matter what The Warden says. I’ve seen a lot of them. They no different than dead dogs, once you get used to the idea.”
“Even dead dogs bother me,” Maggio whispered. “I made a mistake someplace, I guess, but I dont know where. I dont see how I could of done anything else, after that big stoop said a thing like that.”
“I’ll tell you where you made your mistake. Your mistake was you didnt hit him hard enough to put him out. He wouldnt have gone off his nut if he’d been unconscious. He might have laid for you after he come to, but I doubt even that.”
“My God,” Maggio protested, whispering. “I hit him hard as I could. His head must be solid ivory.”
“Personally,” Prew whispered, “I think it is. But if he ever fucks with me any more it wont be in the head I’ll hit him.”
“Just the same, I’m sure glad The Warden stopped us.”
“So am I,” Prew said.
Chapter 15
THEY SAT THAT WAY till the cook’s whistle shrilled up through the screens, calling them back to work. Then they went down, singly and silently, no one of them talking to any of the others. There was not much conversation and absolutely no horseplay on KP that night. For once even Bloom did not feel like talking. Probably he was still trying to figure out if whether, with the surprise ending the afternoon had taken, his honor had been smirched or not.
Even Stark noticed the gloominess of no talking and he came around to Prew to ask what had happened upstairs to cause such a profound dismalness. Prew told him, alth
ough it was obvious he had already heard about it, probably from someone who had run downstairs with the news right after it had happened, as someone always does, and he was only checking stories now and trying to get an inside account, instinctively, as good cops and good noncoms always do. But Prew was glad Stark had picked him to ask and, remembering what Stark had done this morning, he would have told him anyway.
“Maybe it’ll teach the big kike a lesson,” Stark said.
“Nothing will ever teach that guy a lesson.”
“I reckon yore right,” Stark said. “Jews never learn. They still think they God’s Chosen People. I dont like Jews, you know it? But this one’s goin to be a big man around here someday. I heah The Man’s sending him to the next NCO School, in April. Wont be long till he makes corprl.”
“Sure,” Prew said, “and if he can win four fights next year, he’ll be a fucking sergeant.”
“He’ll win them, too. He aint a bad fighter.”
“He aint a good one.”
“I never saw a Jew that was, including Barney Ross. But he’ll make it plenty tough on you and Angelo though, when he gets them stripes.”
“Not too tough.”
“It never gets too tough,” Stark mocked. “For a good man.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “But theres lots better men than future corporal Bloom ridin my tail in this outfit, tryin to scare me into going out for fighting. And they aint done it.”
“Thats right,” Stark said. “You dont scare, do you?”
“All right,” Prew said. “Okay. But a man cant let himself be pushed around by a bunch of pricks like that.”
“No,” Stark said, “a man cant do that.”
Prew shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But thats still the way I feel. Why not say it? I aint bragging.”
“I know yore not. But I never seen any sense in a man goin out of his way to ask them for it.”
“I dont go out of my way to ask them for it.”
“You dont think so,” Stark said. “They think so.”
“All I want is to be left alone.”
“In this world,” Stark said, “today, nobody is left alone.”
He sat down on the table beside the sink and got his sack of Golden Grain out, slipped a paper free, opened the sack with his teeth, and poured tobacco delicately and with great absorption into the curl.
“Take a break a while,” he said offhand. “Theres no hurry tonight. Listen,” he said, “how would you like to come to work for me in the kitchen.”
“You mean cooking?” Prew said, laying down the spatula. “Cook for you?”
“What else?” Stark said, without looking up. He offered Prew the sack.
“Thanks,” Prew said, taking it. “Well I dont know. I never thought about it.”
“I like you,” Stark said, absorbedly smoothing the tobacco away from the middle so it would be thick on the ends and not hump in the middle when he rolled it. “I reckon you know you can expect a rough time of it, when the Compny moves back into field training after the rainy season’s all done, along with Ike Galovitch, and Wilson and his boyfriend Henderson, together with Baldy Dhom, Dynamite, and all the rest the jockstraps; and with the Compny Smoker season drawin nearer all the time. Unless, of course, you change yore mind and decide to go out for Compny Smokers.”
“I suppose you want me to tell you all about why I dont go out?”
“Not me. I heard it all already. Plenty times. Old Ike dont talk about nothing else. If you was in the kitchen, Prewitt, they couldnt none of them get at you.”
“I dont need anybody to protect me,” Prew said.
“I aint asking you because of charity, buddy,” Stark said, suddenly clearly distinctly, no longer hesitantly. “A kitchen dont run on charity. If you couldnt do the work you wouldnt stay. If I dint think you could I wouldnt of ast you.”
“I never much liked to work inside,” Prew said slowly, seeing he meant it seriously now, and carefully thinking over how good it really would be to work under a man like Stark. Chief Choate was like this too, but in this outfit the corporals didnt run their squads, the platoon guides who couldnt speak English ran them. But Stark really ran the kitchen.
“I been wantin to get rid of Willard quite a while,” Stark said. “I could kill two birds. Sims would make First Cook and I’d start you off as Apprentice, so nobody could kick, then move you up to Second Cook and First and Sixth as soons you been there long enough to keep anybody from accusing me of favoritism.”
“You think I could do the work?”
“I know damn well,” Stark said, “or I wouldnt of ast you.”
“Would Dynamite okay a deal like that? When it was me?”
“He would if I promoted it. I’m the fair-haired boy right now.”
“I like to be outside,” Prew said, saying it very, very slowly. “And its messy in a kitchen. Food’s all right on the table, but its too sloppy for me in the pan. I lose my appetite.”
“Men got to eat.”
“But I dont have to be reminded of it all the time.”
“Somebody got to fix it.”
“Thats true,” Prew admitted, wondering where the hell this conversation was going anyway and how it got off on this. It would, though, he thought, be really good to work under a man like Stark, who was absolutely, truly fair. For a change.
“Quit stalling me,” Stark said. “I aint going to coax you. Either you want it or you dont want it.”
“I’d sure like to,” Prew said slowly. “But I cant,” he said, finally getting it out finally.
“Okay,” Stark said. “Its your funeral.”
“Wait a minute,” Prew said. “Heres the way I look at it, Stark. I want you to understand it.”
“I understand it.”
“No you dont. Every man’s supposed to have certain rights.”
“Certain inalienable rights,” Stark said, “to liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. I learnt it in school, as a kid.”
“Not that,” Prew said. “Thats The Constitution. Nobody believes that any more.”
“Sure they do,” Stark said. “They all believe it. They just dont do it. But they believe it.”
“Sure,” Prew said. “Thats what I mean.”
“But at least in this country they believe it,” Stark said, “even if they dont do it. Other countries they dont even believe it. Look at Spain. Or Germany. Look at Germany.”
“Sure,” Prew said. “I believe it myself. Thems my ideals, too. But I’m not talking about ideals. I’m talkin about life.
“Every man has certain rights,” he said; “in life I mean, not in ideals. And if he dont stand up for his own rights nobody else is going to stand up for them for him.
“Theres nothing in the Law, or in the ARs, that says I have to go out for fighting in this outfit, see? So its my right not to go out, if I dont want. I’m not just doing it to be bastardly, I got a good reason, and if I want to do some thing and I do do it, then I can still go along and live my life, as long as I dont harm nobody, without bein kicked around. Thats my right, as a man. To not be kicked around.”
“Persecuted,” Stark said.
“Thats it. Well, if I go in the kitchen then I’m giving up one of my rights, see? I’m admitting I’m wrong and dont have that right, and letting them think they’re right, and that they’ve forced me. Whether into fighting or not isnt the point. They still forced me. You see?”
“All right,” Stark said. “Yes, I see. But you let me say something now.
“Now in the first place,” he said, “you’re looking at it all bass-ackwards, you’re going on the idea of the world as people say it is, instead of as it really is. In this world, no man really has any rights at all. Except what rights he can grab holt of and hang on to. And usually the only way he can get them is by taking them away from somebody else.
“Now dont ask me why. All I know is its so. And if a man’s going to holt onto anything, or gain anything, he’s got to take account of that.
He got to see how other people get and keep what they got, and then he got to learn to do it that way too.
“The best way, the one most people use the most, is politics. They get friendly with somebody who’s got influence they need and then they use that influence. Thats what I did. At Fort Kam I was as bad off as you are here. But I dint walk out on it until I knew where I was goin. It was bad, sam, bad. But I stayed there. I stayed there till I knew for damn sure I was tradin it in on something better, see? I found out old Holmes was up here and come up and used him to get out.”
“I dont blame you,” Prew said.
“Then compare that to you when you quit the Bugle Corps,” Stark said. “If you’d really been smart, sam, you’d stayed there till you found a sure thing to get out into. Instead of runnin off half cocked and blowin your top and transferrin out, like you did, and look where you are now.”
“I dint have any good angles,” Prew said. “I dint have any angles.”
“Thats what I say: You should of stayed till you did. And now, when I’m offering a good angle, one that will get you back onto safe ground, you’re turnin it down. It just aint smart, it aint even sensible, because thats the only way anybody can get along in this world.”
“I guess I just aint sensible,” Prew said. “But I hate to believe that thats the ony way a man can get along. Because if it is, then what a man is dont mean anything at all. A man himself is nothing.”
“Well in a way,” Stark said, “thats true. Because its who he knows and not the man himself that counts. But in another way its not true either, not true at all. Because listen: What a man is, sam, is always the same. And nothing in God’s world, no kind of philosophy, no Christian Morals, none of that stuff, can change it. What a man is just comes out in a different channel, thats all. Its like a river that finds the old channel dammed up and moves into a new channel where the current’s just as strong, only it moves in a different direction.”
“Only people lie about it,” Prew said. “Thats what confuses you. They say they come up the hard way, by good hard honest labor, but really they married the boss’s daughter and inherited it. And what you mean to say is: it takes just as much on the ball for a man to marry the boss’s daughter out from under the rest of the competition as it does to beat the competition out the hard way. Which is impossible anyway, any more.”
