Too Mean to Die

by Len Levinson

  “She can sit on my banana any day,” said Frankie La Barbara.

  “Who?” asked Butsko.

  “That girl in the jukebox.”

  “Oh,” said Butsko. He hadn’t been paying any attention to the jukebox. He was still thinking about Colonel Stockton. “You know, the colonel ain’t a bad guy,” he said. “He’s one of the best officers I ever served under. Really knows his stuff. Let’s have another drink to the colonel.”

  “My glass is empty,” said Longtree, who felt himself becoming a little woozy already.

  “I’ll order another round.” Butsko waved to the bartender. “Hey, Charlie, let’s have another round over here!”

  “My name ain’t Charlie!” replied the bartender.

  “Just gimme another round over here!”

  “Wait your turn!”

  “Wait my turn,” Butsko grumbled, turning around. “This fucking gin mill is a real shithouse.”

  “You brought us here,” said Frankie.

  “It was the closest place.”

  Bannon looked at the bottles stacked on the back of the bar. “Reminds me of a place back home,” he said, “only we had a band.”

  “What’d they play?” Frankie asked. “Shitkicker music?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Butsko slapped Longtree on the arm. “How you doing, Chief?”

  “Okay, Sarge.”

  “You know,” Butsko said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “you’re a damn fine soldier, Chief.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.”

  “I mean it. I really do mean it.”

  “I know you do, Sarge.”

  “Don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  “You’d just put some other asshole on the point.”

  “There’s nobody like you, Chief, and I really mean it.”

  “Hey,” Frankie said to Butsko, “what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “You ain’t never said nothing good to me, Sarge.”

  “That’s because you’re a fucking goldbrick, Frankie. Couple times I thought of shooting you, you know that?”

  “Yeah?” asked Frankie, stunned.

  “Yeah,” replied Butsko.

  The bartender set down the four glasses. “Two bucks,” he said,

  “While you’re here, Charlie,” Butsko told him, “you might as well pour us another round.”

  “My name isn’t Charlie,” the bartender said.

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  “Just call me bartender.”

  “Okay, Charlie.”

  The bartender frowned as he set more glasses on the bar. Butsko drained the glass he was drinking and then picked up a drink that the bartender had just served.

  “To Colonel Stockton!” he said.

  The others drank their double shots quickly and took fresh glasses. They clicked glasses, and Butsko, his face flushed and his eyes starting to glaze over, decided to make a speech.

  “To the colonel!” he said. “To the only officer worth a fiddler’s fuck in the entire Army! And to the Twenty-third Regiment, the toughest sons of bitches in the world!”

  Frankie grunted. “You mean to the biggest bunch of assholes in the world!”

  “What was that?” Butsko said.

  “Nothing, Sarge.”

  Butsko took another gulp of whiskey, and it tasted fine. He looked around and everybody seemed to be floating through the air. Emotion overcame him and he burst into song.

  “Two bucks!” interrupted the bartender.

  “You again?” Butsko asked, reaching into his pocket.

  “Yeah, me again,” said the bartender.

  Frankie beat out Butsko and threw his money on the bar. “Here you go, big-time,” he said to the bartender.

  Butsko tapped Frankie on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “You know, Frankie, you’re not a bad guy at all.”

  “Yeah?” Frankie said. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “I like you, Frankie,” Butsko replied. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now. You got your head up your ass most of the time, but you’re a fighter. I always know I can depend on you when the shit hits the fan.”

  Frankie was pleased. This was the first time Butsko had ever said anything nice to him, and he didn’t know what to say.

  Butsko wiggled his glass in the air. “Here’s looking at you,” he said, and raised it to his lips.

  The men drained their glasses and dropped them on the bar. By now they were all a little whacked out. Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra were playing on the jukebox, and the Marine in front of Butsko got up and went to the toilet. Butsko dropped onto the Marine’s stool.

  Bannon was looking at the bottles on the back of the bar. It reminded him of the night in Pecos, Texas, when he was sitting at a bar in a little dive and the most beautiful girl in the world walked in. He said something to her—he didn’t remember exactly what right now—and she said something back, and that had been the beginning of the love affair that was still supposed to be going on, although he hadn’t seen her in over a year, and on top of that, he had gotten married to a native girl on Guadalcanal a little while back. Bannon didn’t know what to do about the native girl, because things had cooled considerably between them. She didn’t speak much English and he didn’t speak any of her language, so there wasn’t a hell of a lot to hold them together after the fucking was over.

  Fresh double-shot glasses were on the bar, and Bannon grabbed one of them.

  “Who we drinking to this time?” Bannon asked.

  Butsko narrowed his eyes and a little drool seeped from the corner of his mouth. “You wanna know something, Bannon?”

  “What?”

  “You’re the best fucking soldier in the platoon, except for me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah.” Butsko burped. “Just thought I’d tell you.”

  There was embarrassed silence for a few moments, and Butsko was more embarrassed than anybody else. He’d never spoken to his men like this, but they were all getting drunk and they were in a strange environment. Butsko put his hand on Bannon’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.

  “You’re smart as a whip and you’ve got balls of steel,” Butsko said to Bannon. “You saved my life on Tassafaronga Point, and don’t think I forgot it.”

  Bannon didn’t know what to say. Frankie snickered nervously because tender moments made him uncomfortable.

  “You been drinking too much of that cheap whiskey,” Frankie said. “Next thing you’ll be taking us to the nearest church.”

  “You need to go to church,” Butsko said, “because you’re a bad egg, Frankie. You don’t think straight. You think crooked. You’re gonna get yourself in a real jam someday, and I won’t be able to get you out of it.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Sarge. I can take care of myself.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Butsko drained his glass and brought it down with a slam on the bar. “Hey, Charlie, set ‘em up over here!”

  A chubby waitress walked by and Butsko winked at her, but the waitress kept walking. An argument started up in a corner where a bunch of servicemen were playing bumper pool. The Marine came back from the shithouse and looked at Butsko.

  “Hey,” said the Marine, “you’re sitting on my stool.”

  “I didn’t see your name writ on it,” Butsko replied.

  “But I was sitting on it!”

  “Well, I’m sitting on it now.”

  The Marine was a red-faced young man with big jug ears and freckles on his nose. The Marine Corps had no equivalent of the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, but he wore a strip of combat ribbons above his left shirt pocket. A few Marines who’d been standing nearby moved a little closer to the argument.

  The Marine looked Butsko over and wondered how far to take it. Butsko was big and ugly, a master sergeant in the infantry, but the young Marine was no coward, and he wanted to uphold the honor of the Marine Corps.

&
nbsp; “I think you’d better get up, Sergeant,” the Marine said, moving his legs apart and planting his feet firmly on the floor.

  Now the ball was in Butsko’s court. He could lay the kid out with one punch and start a big brawl, or he could give the kid the bar stool and cool out the situation. Butsko had seven days of furlough coming to him, and he didn’t want any problems. Fuck it, he’d give the kid the barstool.

  Butsko stood up and grinned. “I guess you need it more than I do, kid.” He slapped the stool with his hand. “Here you go.”

  Now the young Marine felt bad, because Butsko was older than he and had more rank. “Naw, that’s all right,” the Marine said with a wave of his hand. “Forget about it.”

  Butsko slapped the seat again. “C’mon sit down.”

  “I been sitting down too much anyways,” the Marine replied. “I think I’ll stretch my legs for a while.”

  “What’re you drinking?” Butsko asked.

  “Whiskey and ginger ale.”

  “Hey, Charlie!” Butsko shouted to the bartender. “Give this young Marine here a whiskey and ginger ale!”

  “I told you that my name ain’t Charlie!”

  “Stop breaking my hump,” Butsko told him, and then turned to the Marine. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

  “Harrison.”

  “I’m Butsko, and this is Bannon, La Barbara, and Longtree.”

  They shook hands all around, and some of the sailors and Marines standing in the vicinity got into the act, introducing themselves and shaking hands. Soon a substantial group of servicemen was huddling around Butsko and the others from the recon platoon.

  “What outfit you with?” Butsko said to the Marine.

  “The Seventh Marines.”

  “The Seventh Marines! Then you musta been on Guadalcanal?”

  “Your fucking-A-well-John I was on Guadalcanal,” said the young Marine.

  “Well, we’re from the Twenty-third Infantry.”

  “No shit!”

  “No shit.”

  The Marine motioned with his hand. “These guys here with me are from the Seventh Marines too!”

  “No shit!”

  “No shit!”

  “Well, I’ll be good-go-to-hell!” Butsko exclaimed. “Charlie, a round of drinks for my friends here!”

  “My name ain’t Charlie!” the bartender said angrily.

  Butsko leaned over the bar and looked him in the eye. “It is now,” he said.

  The young Marine leaned over the bar too. “That’s right.”

  “You heard what the man said,” Frankie La Barbara snarled at the bartender.

  All the GIs and Marines looked menacingly at the bartender, and he backed down. He thought he might be able to handle one or two of them, but he knew he couldn’t handle all of them. Actually, he couldn’t even handle one of them, because they were all combat soldiers and he was just a big guy who thought he was tough.

  “What’ll you guys have?” the bartender asked, trying to smile.

  The GIs and Marines told him what they wanted, and he picked bottles off the bar, mixing the drinks. A waitress threaded her way through the group of men and they whistled seductively, but she kept going as if she didn’t hear anything. On the jukebox the Andrews Sisters came on and sang “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anybody Else But Me.” Some of the men sang along, thinking of their wives and girl friends back home.

  Butsko looked at his watch. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. He hadn’t intended to spend so much time with the men in his platoon, but now he wondered why he’d been so eager to get away from them. After all, they were his men, his blood brothers practically, and he had become closer to them than anybody else in the world. He felt closer to them than to his real family back in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and even to his wife, Dolly, who was no good and had never been any good. Bannon even had saved his life once, and all the others had never let him down when the bullets were flying on Guadalcanal.

  He was a little drunk, and some whiskey trickled out the corner of his mouth when he drank from his glass. “You know,” he said with slur, “I love you fucking guys.”

  Frankie La Barbara guffawed. “Gimme a break, willya, Sarge?”

  “I mean it,” Butsko said, pushing his cunt cap to the back of his head. “You guys are all right.”

  Bannon put his arm around Butsko’s shoulder. “You’re the best fucking master sergeant in the Army, Butsko.”

  “That’s right,” said Longtree. “You’re a mean, ugly son of a bitch, but I’d follow you anywhere.”

  Frankie couldn’t hold back any longer. “Me too. There’s nobody like you, Sarge. You know more about the Army than all those other assholes put together.”

  It was a strange, emotional moment, because none of the men from the recon platoon had talked to each other this way before. The Marines moved away because they knew something heavy was going down. The men from the recon Platoon all had their arms around each other’s shoulders and formed a little circle next to the bar. They thought of all the shit they’d been through together, and of their buddies who’d been cut down by the Japs and shipped back to the States in pine boxes. They realized they were lucky to be in Honolulu together, drinking whiskey, far from the war.

  But they were men and couldn’t let the closeness between them last too long, because it made them uncomfortable.

  “I need another fucking drink,” Butsko said, taking his arm off Bannon’s shoulder.

  “Me too,” said Frankie. He looked at his watch. “Shit, man, I got to get me some pussy.”

  Bannon took his arm off Longtree’s shoulder and waved it at the bartender. “One more round!” he shouted.

  “Coming up,” replied the bartender.

  The men looked at each other sheepishly, ashamed by their display of emotion. Butsko decided it was up to him to put everything where it was before they started getting mushy.

  “You guys had better stay out of trouble while you’re in this town,” he said. “If any of you wind up in the stockade, don’t expect me to come and get you out. You can fucking rot there for all I care, if you’re dumb enough to get caught.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bannon told him. “We’re not here to look for trouble.”

  “That’s right,” Frankie said. “We’re just here to look for pussy.” He slapped Longtree on the stomach with the back of his hand. “Right, Chief?”

  “Fucking A,” Longtree replied.

  The bartender poured the last round of drinks, and Longtree paid for it. The men raised their glasses in the air.

  “Here’s to young pussy!” Butsko said.

  “I’ll drink to that any day,” replied Frankie La Barbara.

  The men touched glasses and then gulped down the whiskey. They had become so drunk that it didn’t even burn anymore when it went down.

  FOUR . . .

  At seven o’clock in the evening Bannon staggered down a gaudy neon street toward a sign that said CURTIS HOTEL. All around him were bars, shooting galleries, pool halls, and other sleezy waterfront businesses that catered to servicemen. Bannon paused in the doorway of a shoeshine shop and lit an Old Gold cigarette. He spat and shook his head to clear out the sludge of too much drinking. Jesus, I must look a mess, he thought.

  He took off his cunt cap and smoothed down his sandy hair. Reaching toward his necktie, he tightened the knot and centered it. Looking down, he saw that his uniform was wrinkled but unstained. He’d just had a cup of coffee in a little diner a few blocks away, and it had sobered him up a little. Now all he wanted to do was get his hands on a naked young woman, and the fastest easiest way to do that was to pay for it.

  He puffed his cigarette and made his way toward the front of the Curtis Hotel. The air was salty with the smell of the bay not far away, and overlaid with the scent of oil from the ships lying at anchor. Bannon coughed into the back of his hand and took another puff from his cigarette, thinking of the great time he’d had with Butsko and the others at that bar.
Back on Guadalcanal he’d never dreamed he’d drink in a bar with them someday, and it had been a blast. Butsko had been great as usual, Frankie had been funny, and Longtree had loosened up for the first time since Bannon had met him. An hour ago they’d all split up to do the things they wanted to do. Bannon had stopped at a pawnshop to buy a cheap switchblade knife, because Butsko told him it got a little tough down on the waterfront, and then he’d headed like a bird dog toward the Curtis Hotel.

  He stood underneath the sign and looked at the door, which shimmered before him like Satan’s gate. He heard footsteps coming down stairs and stepped out of the way. The door was flung open and two sailors stepped onto the sidewalk, laughing and reeling, their white caps on the backs of their heads and their hair tousled on their foreheads.

  “What’re the girls like up there?” Bannon asked them.

  “Not bad at all,” one of them said.

  “Ask for Trixie,” the other one said. “She’s about the best.”

  “Thanks,” said Bannon.

  The sailors walked off and Bannon opened the door, looking up at the narrow flight of stairs. It didn’t look promising at all. In fact, it was kind of grim, but it was the third week of May and most servicemen were broke toward the end of every month, when they got paid.

  At the top of the stairs Bannon pushed open another door and blinked as he stepped into a scene of gaudy elegance. He was in a corridor covered with red wallpaper, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The banisters were polished wood and the knobs on the doors that lined the corridor were polished brass.

  Across from Bannon was a counter, and behind it were two women and two big guys, who Bannon figured were the bouncers.

  “Can I help you, soldier?” asked one of the women, who had curly gray hair and looked like somebody’s grandmother.

  Bannon didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen such a nice-looking old lady in a whorehouse before.

  “Can I help you?” she asked again.

  Bannon stumbled toward the counter and put out his cigarette in the ashtray on the counter. “I hear you got some girls up here,” he said.

  “Who told you that?” the old lady asked.

  “My platoon sergeant.”