by James Jones
“I guess it is,” Maggio said. “Your gain, I mean.”
“Did you hear that, Prew?” Hal called back.
“Yes,” Prew said stoically. “I heard it.”
“Because all these people hate the soldiers,” Hal said, going on and developing the idea like a weaver working for his own amusement, “because they believe soldiers are scum—in fact believe all men are scum, women do, because they have that ghastly thing dangling between their legs—because of that my enemies the women are slowly but inevitably bringing about their own destruction.”
“How is that?” Prew said.
“Isnt it obvious?” Hal laughed. “Look at yourself. For you soldiers there are no women, except the whores. The soldiers have to turn to us because we have no sense of sin, like the respectable women.”
“Oh, I dont know,” Prew said, but he could hear the hollowness in his own voice because this was coming too uncomfortably near the truth.
Hal laughed his sweet boyish laugh, but he did not press the advantage. “You see,” he said gently, “I have a theory about that. My theory is that homosexuality is the direct result of chastity in women.”
“Then how do you explain the lesbians?” Prew countered.
“Touché,” Hal laughed. “I believe though, truly, that all homosexuality is the result of frustration and disappointment in life. The more topheavy and abortively respectable a society becomes, the more homosexuals it produces. Decadence, they call it. Did you ever stop to think why is it that it is always in its decadence that a society produces its greatest art?
“Ah, you see? Homosexuality breeds freedom, and it is freedom that makes art. But, alas, with the coming of freedom the topheavy society always collapses. Falls into dust. Is gone. Destroyed. Utterly.” Hal laughed merrily.
“What art have you ever produced?” Prew said.
“Who, me? Nothing much. I wrote a novel once, on the life of a bisexual. Nobody would ever publish it. However, everywhere I took it everyone in the office was most anxious to read it. I did not get it back from one publisher for seven months. But I am unimportant. Look at the Greeks, if you dont believe me. Look at the Romans. Look at the Holy Mother Church during the Renaissance.”
“Balls,” Tommy said.
“I’ve read a little about them things,” Prew said. “I’d like to see your novel sometime.”
“Someday I’ll let you see it,” Hal said. “Well, here we are.”
He led them around a not old banyan tree, the gnarled above ground roots making them stumble in the darkness, the pencil-thin branch roots not grown into the earth yet and dangling free from the branches slapping them repeatedly in the face.
“Isnt that a truly lovely thing to have in one’s yard?” Hal said. “Watch your step now.”
They were at the side of a two storey frame house painted white, at the foot of an outside staircase, uncovered and with open stairs supported by white four by fours, all of it painted white.
“We must continue this discussion after we have a drink,” Hal whispered to Prew as they all stood on the little landing looking across into the dark bulk of the banyan, while he unlocked the door.
He led them into a little entry hall.
“Just make yourselves at home, you dears. I’m going to get my clothes off. You can take yours off too, if you want,” he laughed, and disappeared into a doorway.
“Aint this place somethin?” Maggio said to Prew. “How would you like to have a place like this here? Hunh? How would you? Just imagine it, livin in a place like this. Jesus!”
The two of them stood just inside the little entryway, looking around at the neatness and the order and the niceness of the apartment.
“I cant,” Prew said. “I cant imagine it.”
“Now you see why I come down here,” Maggio said. “Partly. In them goddam concrete barracks a guy forgets there is such places in this world.”
Tommy, standing behind them, growing impatient, shoved past and went across and sat in one of the big chrome and real leather modern chairs. It broke the spell.
“I got to piss,” Maggio said, “and by god I want a drink. The crapper’s in here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Prew watched him go through the door where Hal had gone, and then saw beyond into the tiny hall with the bathroom on the left and the bedroom at the end. He turned back to look around the living room.
To the left as you came in the door was a raised place one step up with a wrought iron railing where there was a dinette table and a door that led into the kitchen. Across the room was an enormous bay with small glass panes from floor to ceiling clear around its curve, with drapes half drawn across it, and in the middle set back against the wall a cabinet radio and record-player with two record stands of twelve-inch albums flanking it. On the right wall was a big bookcase that was full, and a well-desk. Prew walked around the room looking at the things, trying hard to think of something to say to Tommy.
“Have you ever had any of your writing published?” he asked finally.
“Of course,” Tommy said stiffly. “I had a story in Collier’s just a few weeks back.”
“What kind of a story was it?” Prew was looking at the records, all classical, symphonies and concertos.
“A love story,” Tommy said.
Prew looked up at him and Tommy giggled in his deep bass voice.
“Story of an aspiring young actress and a rich young Broadway producer. He married her and made her a star.”
“I can’t read them kind of stories,” Prew said. He looked back at the records.
“I can’t either,” Tommy giggled.
“Then why write them?”
“Because people want to read them, and will pay for them.”
“They aint like real life though,” Prew said. “Nothing like that crap ever happens.”
“Of course not,” Tommy said, stiffly. “Thats why the people read them. You have to give the people what they want.”
“I aint so sure that they want that,” Prew said.
“What are you?” Timmy giggled bassly. “A sociologist?”
“No. But I figure I’m about like most people. I don’t know nothing about great literature, but I cant read them stories.”
“Its not the men,” Tommy said. “Its the women. The stupid, romantic, filthy, moralistic women. They’re the ones that like it. They are the book and magazine buyers. And they eat it up. They have to get their kicks some way, dont they? Their morals wont let them get their kicks in bed.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I aint convinced of that.”
“Women and their moral concepts,” Tommy said. “If they dont wake up they’ll find themselves without any men at all, someday.”
“I can see that,” Prew said. “You mean they’ll drive all the men into being homos, just to get their gun off, like Hal said.”
“No, I did not say that,” Tommy said stiffly. “I did not say that at all. The women have nothing to do with that.”
“Maybe they do,” Prew said. “I never thought of it before tonight.”
He was passing by the well-desk. Prominently displayed on one corner was a photograph in a washed gold frame. It was a snapshot of a naked woman, standing on the outside solid staircase of a stucco house, her long blonde hair reaching to her shoulders. His eyes moved over it and passed on, then startled, came swinging back. He stopped involuntarily, then stepped over to look at it more closely. Behind him he heard Tommy laugh.
“His masterpiece,” Tommy sniggered. “Isnt it filthy?”
Prew picked the picture up. Where there should have been a woman’s flattened crotch hung the genitals of a man. It made a very startling effect. He set it down and stepped back to study it. A closer inspection showed the hips were narrow like a man’s and the belly flat and hard. The breasts were woman, so was the hair, so were the arms, but there was a subtle masculinity in the jawline. There was, absolutely and utterly, no evidence of any overlay or trick photography.
“I
t really shocked you, didnt it?” Tommy sniggered.
“Yes,” Prew admitted. “Yes, it did.” He looked at the picture, feeling his mouth go dry and his palms begin to sweat in the old way.
Then from the bathroom he heard Maggio flush the toilet and then he heard his voice.
“Aw, Hal, cut it out. . . . Not now, Hal. I want a drink. . . . No, goddmn it, Hal. I wnt a fucking drink, god damn it. I’m going in.”
Prew turned away from the picture quickly and looked at Tommy, feeling in his belly as if he’d had too many drinks.
Tommy giggled again, the same bass giggle, something Prew had never heard before, and that in its own right was somewhat of a peculiarity.
“Make you hot, dear?” Tommy sid. “The picture?”
“No,” Prew said. “It didnt.” He picked the picture up again, feeling for some reason he had to pick it up.
“Well,” Tommy grinned disbelievingly. “You’re the exception. But I think you’re lying.”
“Frankly,” Prew said, “I dont give a fuck what you think, buddy.”
“What?” Maggio said, coming in, “dont give a fuck what who thinks?”
He walked over to where Prew still held the picture. Hal came in behind him, wearing a Tahetian pareu wrapped around him that was printed with flaming poincianas smothered in their deep green pinnate leaves. His thin spruce frame looked angular and flat and muscleless now, instead of debonair. The deep burned tan on the thick juiceless skin seemed unnatural, scaly, as if he had been painted with iodine.
“Aint that the damdest thing?” Angelo laughed over Prew’s shoulder. “I thought sure I was goin blind the first time I seen it.”
“Ah,” Hal said. “I see you’ve found my picture. Wasnt it you who was asking about what art I had produced?”
“Yeah, that was me.” Prew put the picture back on the desk. “You know, me and Tommy just been talkin about how women are romantic,” he grinned, “how they live in their fantastic dreams, to escape reality.” He looked back at the picture.
“Oh?” Hal smiled the sweet boyish smile. “Well, you know some people actually are born deformed that way. Unfortunately, or fortunately, all according to the way you see it. So I wouldnt say the picture was entirely idealistic.”
Prew shook his head, grinning. “This aint no morphidite, if thats what you mean. I been in too many freak shows, from Times Square to Frisco, to swallow that. They don’t have perfectly developed breasts. Or cocks.”
“You’d be a dear thing,” Hal said distastefully, “if you didn’t strain so hard to be filthy.”
“Filthy?” Prew grinned. “How can anything be filthy, if you dont believe in morals?”
“Its not what you say. Its the manner in which you say it, that is filthy. To me that picture is beauty.”
“Not to me. To me its trick photography, and good too. But its not beauty because it aint true”
Hal raised his brows, sweetly, and stared at him. “Sometimes,” he said to Angelo, “your buddy almost irritates me.”
Prew could feel himself grinning and under the grin his face felt stiff, the way it always felt when he heard somebody use the old kill word. “Way I see it, your idea is just as much wishful thinking as the rich young Broadway producer in Tommy’s story.”
“I can see I made a mistake about you,” Hal smiled. “I can see now that you dont really have imagination at all, that in truth you are rather a dull clod.”
“I guess so,” Prew grinned. “I guess between the Army and bein on the bum they kicked the imagination all out of me. What’d you do? Superimpose the breasts? and the hair?”
“You’ll never know, dear.”
“Wheres this champagne, Hal?” Angelo said. “Hunh? Come on, lets break her out, hunh? I’m gettin thirsty.”
“In a moment, my pet. Some day,” he said to Prew, “as you grow older, you will find imagination sometimes produces a truth that is greater than any fact.”
“I can see that,” Prew grinned. “But theres something else too, that I don’t get. The more I talk to you the more you sound like a priest, for some reason.”
Hal smiled. “If you werent Tony’s friend, I’d throw you out for that.”
Prew turned to grin at him, easily. “I dont think you could. But if you want me out, all you got to do is ask me.”
“Well,” Hal smiled to Maggio. “Your buddy is a bravo.”
“Hell, dont mind him,” Maggio said. “He’s just hot headed. All’s wrong with him is he needs a drink.”
“Is that all?” Hal asked Prew.
“Well,” Prew said. “I could use one.”
Tommy stood up from his chair and walked to Prewitt’s side protectively. “Goddam you,” he said to Hal. “Cant you leave the poor thing alone a minute? He’s my date, not yours, you know. Quit tormenting him.”
“Dont do me no favors,” Prew said.
“If you dont like the way I treat my guests, Tommy,” Hal smiled, “you can always go home. I dont know but what I’d like two bedfellow tonight anyway. What time must you boys be back?”
“Six o’clock,” Angelo said. “For Reveille.” He looked over suddenly at the clock on the desk, as if he had just remembered he would have to die someday. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Come on. For Chrisake lets have a fucking drink.”
“Oh, you,” Tommy was saying to Hal. “You bitch. You dirty filthy bitch. I’ve a good notion to walk right out, right now.”
Hal laughed merrily. “Suit yourself, Queenie.” He turned on his heel and went up the step and into the kitchen.
Tommy stood glaring after him, his great arms straight at his sides, his hams of fists clenched against his thighs.
“You know I wont leave,” he said. “You know I have to stay.”
Hal stuck his head out the kitchen door. “Of course I know it. Come up here and help me fix these drinks.”
“All right,” Tommy said. He moved his big body stiffly, his hurt feelings on his face.
“Come here, Prew,” Maggio nodded, whispering. He led him around the corner and over by the record player in the glassed in bay. “Jesus, take it easy, will you? You want to mess everything up for me? Lay off for a while.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I dont know what got me started. That ‘born’ stuff, I guess. I dont want to upset your applecart, Angelo. Its just theres something about these guys gets my goat. Always picking at you, just like a goddam chaplain insisting that you come to church and worship God. Why do they have to make you listen to a Salvation Army sermon before you get your sinkers and coffee? Why do they have to convince everybody being a homo is wonderful?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Just let them talk. Thats what I do. You think I argue with them? Like hell I argue with them. I just listen and nod my head and let it go and ask them for me a nuther drink.”
“All right. I’ll try that. You know what I feel like?”
“No. What?” Angelo said indifferently. He was leaning on the radio cabinet, tapping nervously with his fingers, his black eyes snapping with the liquor.
“I feel just like some young dame that a cocksman has been working on. I know how a woman feels now. I can sympathize with them.”
Angelo laughed explosively. “Would that make me a whore then, wouldnt it?”
Prew grinned. “Listen, dont tell me if you dont want to, but did this guy ever try anything else on you? He ever try to pogo you?”
Angelo nodded sideways and looked away. “He said something about it a couple times, just kidding sort of, but I got pissed off and blew my top and threatened to beat him up. He quit that.” The tiny Maggio scowled fiercely, but there was no comedy in it. “I could do it too, buddy. I pick me up a chair or a pool cue like with that fucking Bloom.”
“I guess I just aint cut out for this kind of life,” Prew said.
Angelo shook his head. “Sometime I feel like I’m livin on top a powder keg their gonna blow any minute. You pay for everything you get in this world, man.”
“I’ve he
ard a lot of talk about ‘great love’ between homos, but I aint never seen it. I think its more like hate, probably.”
“I dont care what it is. Long as I can keep that income. So take it easy, will you?”
“Sure. I dont want to mess you up.”
“Boy,” Maggio said, “I’m going to get drunkern a fiddler’s bitch. I mean.” He looked over at the clock. “Reveille,” he said. “Reveille or no Reveille,” he said.
Hal came in then from the kitchen, carrying two crystal champagne glasses. Tommy came behind him, carrying two more.
“Sorry we have no tray,” Hal smiled. “But at least the glasses are right. You cant drink champagne cocktails from a water glass.”
Maggio took a glass and winked secretly at Prew.
“I suggest,” Hal said, “that you all get out of those clothes and be comfortable. Since we are all among friends anyway. Arent we?”
“I agree,” Tommy said fervently. He handed Prew a glass and set his own down and began to take his clothes off. He took off everything but his shorts and then sat down and picked up his drink. In contrast to Hal’s deep tan Tommy was as white as milk except for the rings of tan above his collar and on his forearms. It gave him an unpleasant half-fried look.
“I know you dogfaces never wear shorts,” Hal smiled. “I have a pair of trunks I keep for Tony to go swimming, but I havent anything for you.”
“Thats okay,” Prew said. “I’d just as soon keep my pants on.”
Hal laughed merrily, quite good humored again.
They sat around that way, four men baring their bodies to seek what coolness that came through the outside screen door. Someone looking through the glassed in bay would probably have felt a renewing sense of human warmth at seeing four bare-chested men, relaxing, holding glasses, talking in a friendly way.
“This is what I always wear at home,” Hal said, flicking a fold of the pareu idly. “Its in keeping with the Hawaiian tradition, dont you think? Of course, the beachboys all wear trunks now, but they used to wear the pareu. That was before the missionaries, of course. In Tahiti they still wear it, but, alas, there is as little use for a French tutor there as there is in France.”
