Too Mean to Die

by Len Levinson

  Finally Bannon was called to the stand. He was ready, because Captain Ginsberg had prepared him well. In response to Captain Ginsberg’s questions, Bannon explained that he’d been a ranch foreman in Texas before the war and had no criminal record. He said that he’d enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor and fought on Guadalcanal since the initial US Army landings in October. The prosecutor objected to the testimony, stating that there was no need to know Bannon’s life history, but his objection was overruled because the judge thought it was so interesting.

  Then Ginsberg questioned Bannon about the events that had taken place in the whorehouse, and Bannon said that he’d drunk too much and blacked out for a short period of time. The bouncers had tried to throw him out and he had resisted, and then one of them pulled a knife and he had to defend himself. After he’d killed the bouncer he ran away because he was drunk and confused.

  The prosecutor cross-examined Bannon, trying to plant the idea in the jurors’ minds that he was nothing more than a criminal in uniform who’d killed a man in rage and cold blood, but his voice suggested he didn’t really believe it himself. America was at war and even the prosecutor was a patriot. He felt intimidated by Bannon, who was fighting the enemy on the battlefield instead of trying to put people in jail. Bannon fended off his questions and finally the prosecutor gave up and rested his case.

  The judge gave his instructions to the jury, and they filed out of the room. They deliberated for an hour; then their foreman sent word to the judge that they had reached a verdict.

  Everyone returned to the courtroom, and the judge pounded his gavel. “The court will come to order!” he said. Then he turned to the jury. “Have you reached a verdict?”

  “We have, Your Honor,” said the foreman. “We find the defendent not guilty!”

  Frankie La Barbara shouted for joy and threw his cunt cap into the air. The judge pounded his gavel and declared that the trial was over. He walked out of the courtroom as soldiers and whores crowded around Bannon, shaking his hand, slapping his back, thanking Captain Ginsberg for doing such a good job.

  Nettie tried to get away, but this time Frankie La Barbara was ready for her, and he grabbed her arm. “Where are you going, baby?”

  “Home,” she said, trying to break loose from his iron grip.

  “Don’t you think you ought to congratulate the corporal for beating the rap.”

  “He’s got enough people congratulating him.”

  “The more the merrier.”

  Frankie pulled her toward Bannon, and at that moment Bannon was able to see her through all the bodies crowding around him. Nettie felt her insides quaking, but she gritted her teeth and tried to pull herself together as Bannon approached.

  “I’m sorry about everything,” she said, looking at his shirt because she couldn’t bring herself to look at his face.

  “That’s okay,” Bannon replied. “It was my fault, I guess. Thanks for coming here and testifying for me.”

  She looked up at him, and her eyes filled with tears. “It was the least I could do.”

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “Well, it’s all so sad,” she replied, looking away again.

  “No it’s not.”

  “Don’t be so nice to me. You should hate me for what I did.”

  “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

  “You just scared me, that’s all, when you started talking about marriage and that stuff.”

  “I’ll still do it if you want.”

  “Naw, that’s okay.”

  “Maybe you should think about it.”

  “I don’t deserve somebody like you.”

  “I don’t think I deserve somebody like you.”

  They looked at each other and moved closer. Then Colonel Stockton’s voice boomed out.

  “All furloughs in the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment are revoked as of right now!” he said angrily, and everyone turned to face him. “I want you four men on the next plane to Guadalcanal or else! Sergeant Butsko, make sure my orders are carried out! Report to Sergeant Major Ramsay as soon as you get back!”

  “Yes, sir!” said Butsko, who feared Colonel Stockton more than any civilian court of law.

  Colonel Stockton turned and marched out of the courtroom, and Butsko knew that he was very mad. He knew there’d be hell to pay when all of them returned to Guadalcanal.

  “All right, you heard him!” Butsko said to Bannon, Longtree, and Frankie. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to finish up your business, and then we’re leaving for Hickam Field!”

  Frankie La Barbara turned to Janie, the little blond nurse. “Well, kid, I guess this is it,” he said. “I’ll see you again someday, I hope.”

  “Will you write to me, Frankie?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “You know I will.”

  But both of them knew very well that he wouldn’t.

  A few feet away Butsko looked down at Dolly as spectators filled out of the courtroom.

  “I wish I could stay a while longer,” Butsko said, “but the Army is the Army.”

  “I can drive you to Hickam Field.”

  “No, because I’ll have to take the men with me, and they’ll want to take their girls with them, and there won’t be room.”

  “Sure there’ll be room,” Dolly said. “We’ll make room.”

  “I don’t know,” Butsko said. “You never know what might happen.”

  “It could be worse if you go out to Hickam Field in a bus.”

  Butsko let that roll over his mind. The bus would be full of drunken servicemen, and anything could happen. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it.” He turned to his men. “Change of plans! We’re leaving for Hickam Field right now in my wife’s vehicle! Let’s go!”

  “Can I come?” asked Janie.

  “Sure.”

  Bannon looked at Nettie. “Why don’t you come too?”

  “I don’t know,” she said nervously. “I have to be at work.”

  “You can be late one day. C’mon.”

  She wrinkled her nose, because she was shy and didn’t want to be in a car full of strangers who knew she was a whore.

  “Please,” Bannon said.

  She imagined him in his combat uniform, lying in a foxhole, fighting Japs. Maybe he wouldn’t be alive much longer. It was the least she could do for the war effort.

  “All right,” she said.

  They all left the courthouse and piled into Dolly’s 1933 Chervolet sedan. Butsko drove, Dolly sat beside him, and Longtree was on the right end of the front seat, the only one without a girl. In the backseat Bannon and Nettie, and Frankie and Janie, smooched all the way through the streets of Honolulu and over the highway until they came to Hickam Field. Butsko pulled into the parking area next to the main gate and cut the engine.

  “All right, let’s hit it,” he said.

  They all got out of the car.

  “Make it short,” Butsko said.

  Longtree stood to the side and watched the others say goodbye. He felt sad, because he wasn’t as lucky as Bannon or as forward as Frankie or married, like Butsko. But there had been a time on Guadalcanal when they’d captured a Japanese comfort girl, and he was the one who’d wound up in her arms at night while the others slept alone.

  “Dolly,” Butsko said, his big hands on her waist, “stay out of trouble, willya?”

  “I’ll try, Johnny. You stay out of trouble too.”

  “Fat chance of that,” Butsko replied, thinking of the upcoming campaign on New Georgia.

  “Well, keep your head down, anyway.”

  “And you keep your pants on.”

  She blushed. “Oh, Johnny, we never had a chance to be alone.”

  “I’ll see you again sometime, and if I don’t, well, that’s the way it goes.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and held him close to her. “You’ll be back, Johnny. I’m not worried about that. You’re too mean to die.”

  Nearby,
Frankie kissed the red berry lips of Janie the nurse, and she was crying. “I’m going to miss you, Frankie,” she whispered, “and I know you’ll forget me in five minutes, because I’m just another girl to you, and you’ll never love anybody but yourself.”

  Frankie did a double-take, because he knew she was absolutely right. Maybe he would remember her after all. “Baby,” he said, “all I know is that this time tomorrow I’ll be back on Guadalcanal, and a week from now I might have Japs shooting at me, but I’ll remember you and your sweet little ass, don’t you worry about it.”

  “Why is it,” she sighed, “that I’m attracted to men who are no good for me?”

  “Whataya mean?” Frankie asked. “What makes you think I’m no good for you? What’d I ever do to you?”

  “You made me love you,” she said. “Now I’ll be sick for a year.”

  “Naw,” Frankie said, “in a few days you’ll meet another nice guy like me and you’ll forget all about me.”

  “I’ll never forget you, Frankie.”

  “Bullshit.”

  On the other side of the car, Bannon gazed into Nettie’s eyes.

  “I wish I didn’t have to leave so soon,” he said.

  “I wish you didn’t either.”

  “Maybe if I stayed around, someday you’d be able to trust me.”

  “I trust you right now.”

  “Do you really?”

  She nodded and didn’t look away this time. “Yes.”

  “I wish you weren’t going back to the whorehouse,” he said.

  “I’ll get out as soon as I can and get a defense job, like you said. You were right and I know it now. Being a whore is no good.”

  “Jesus, I wish we could get married,” Bannon said, pressing his cheek against hers.

  “When you come back to Honolulu someday, I’ll be waiting for you. Then we can get married if you still want to.”

  “Of course I’ll want to.”

  “Time makes people change their minds.”

  “I’m not changing my mind,” Bannon said. “How’ll I be able to find you?”

  “Give me your address. I’ll write to you.”

  Bannon took out his notebook and wrote his name, serial number, and address. “Even if I’m transferred, you’ll be able to trace me through my serial number.”

  “All right!” said Butsko. “The vacation is over! Let’s move it out!”

  The men kissed their women one last time, then moved away slowly and joined Butsko on the side of the car closest to the gate. They looked at the women and smiled sadly, while Longtree wished he had somebody to say good-bye to also.

  “C’mon,” Butsko said. “Let’s not make this any harder than it is already.”

  The men shuffled toward the main gate, where two MPs with chrome helmets and white gloves were standing guard, checking orders. The women watched them go, their eyes filled with tears, as the men took out their orders and showed them to the MPs. The soldiers passed through the gates and looked back, waving at the women. Then the soldiers turned and walked away, heading back to the war.

  ELEVEN . . .

  Their C-47 touched down at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal after dark. Colonel Stockton wasn’t on the plane with them. The plane taxied and stopped near the hangars, where so many Japanese bombs and artillery shells had landed that autumn. The stairs were moved next to the plane and the soldiers descended them, sick at heart to be back on that godforsaken island.

  It even smelled different from Hawaii. There were no bright neon lights, no movie theaters, no pretty girls walking around in thin cotton dresses. It was just grim old Guadalcanal, with military discipline, training, fatigue duty, KP, and all the chickenshit that Army officers, with nothing better to do, dreamed up.

  Glumly they made their way across the field and headed for the Eighty-first Division area and then to the Twenty-third Regiment, not saying anything, thinking about the women they had left behind. They felt desolate and alone, for love is the rarest commodity on a military installation. They heard the clank of military equipment being moved around, and the engines of jeeps and deuce-and-a-half trucks. Sergeants and officers shouted at men, and men’s voices could be heard coming from pup tents, singing to the accompaniment of guitars about the blue bills of Kentucky or the Mississippi Delta, the plains of Iowa or Forty-second Street.

  The men from the recon platoon were heartsick and almost nauseous by the time they reached the headquarters of the Twenty-third Regiment.

  “You men wait here,” Butsko said. “I’ll go in and report.”

  Butsko looked at his watch: it was eight o’clock in the evening. He climbed the steps to the small wooden building and pushed open the screen door. Seated behind the desk was Lieutenant McClintock from Headquarters Company, the officer of the day.

  “I’m back from furlough with three of my men,” Butsko said. “Here’s our orders.” He threw them on the desk.

  McClintock looked them over. “Everything looks okay to me. I’ve got a note here from Sergeant Major Ramsay that says you’re supposed to report to the old man first thing in the morning.”

  “He’s back already?” Butsko asked.

  “No, but we expect him tomorrow. And tell your men they’re confined to the company area until further notice.”

  “How come?”

  “The old man’s orders. Ask him.”

  “He must really be pissed at us.”

  “I reckon that’s so,” McClintock said.

  Butsko left the office and returned to his men, who were standing around in the darkness, smoking cigarettes.

  “Nobody leaves the company area until further notice,” Butsko told them. “Fall out.”

  “How come we can’t leave the company area?” Frankie asked.

  “The old man is pissed at us, so watch your step.”

  Butsko trudged off, heading toward his pup tent, and the other three looked at each other. They shrugged and followed Butsko into the jungle.

  After morning chow Butsko returned to Colonel Stockton’s headquarters and saw his old buddy, Sergeant Major Ramsay, seated behind his desk against the right wall.

  “Look who’s back,” said Ramsay with no enthusiasm in his voice.

  “The old man in yet?” Butsko asked.

  “Not yet. Have a seat. He should be here before long.”

  Butsko sat down and took out a cigarette. He wore green fatigues and combat boots, with his old yardbird hat on his lap. His six days in Honolulu seemed like a dream to him already.

  “Hey, Ramsay,” said Butsko, “where’s the old man?”

  “He’s on his way back from Hawaii.”

  “I have the feeling that he’s mad at me.”

  Ramsay looked up at Butsko from the morning’s messages on his desk. “Whatever gives you that idea?” he asked, deadpan.

  “He’s really is, huh?”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  “What’s he gonna do?”

  “I don’t know, but you’d better get ready for the worst. You’ve made a lot of trouble for him, whether you know it or not.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I think he should be the one to tell you that.”

  “C’mon, Ramsay, don’t be such a prick.”

  “All I got to say is that you and those baboons you went on furlough with are in a whole world of trouble in this regiment. If I was you, I wouldn’t count on wearing those stripes much longer.”

  Butsko looked down at the master sergeant’s stripes on his arms. So the old man was going to bust him. Well, he’d been busted before. It was no big thing. He’d just stand with the rest of the men in the formations and not have to make any more decisions. Let somebody else make the decisions. It was all bullshit no matter how you looked at it.

  The sun rose in the sky and the day became hotter. Officers and enlisted men arrived at the orderly room and left off papers or picked them up. Ramsay’s clerk, Pfc. Levinson, pounded his typewriter behind the desk on t
he other side of the room. Butsko chain-smoked cigarettes and thought about Dolly. He wondered what she was doing just then. Probably still in bed, because Dolly always liked to sleep late, entwined in her flimsy nightgowns and the expensive perfumes that she wore.

  Where did she get the money to buy all those perfumes? How did she live so well without having a job? The allotment she got from him wasn’t that much, so who was giving her the dough? Butsko became angry and jealous again. If only she was the kind of woman who was quiet and did what she was told. Instead she gave him something to worry about every time he thought about her. That goddamn Dolly. I wish I could forget her.

  At ten o’clock in the morning Colonel Stockton entered the orderly room, attired in a starched tan Class A uniform, tailored to his long, lean body. He looked at Butsko; there were no smiles, no friendly words of greeting as in days gone by when Butsko used to visit Colonel Stockton and they’d shoot the shit for hours in his office. Colonel Stockton looked coldly, even angrily, at Butsko, then snapped his eyes away and turned to Sergeant Major Ramsay, who gave him a stack of important papers that had come in that morning.

  Without a word Colonel Stockton took them into his office and closed the door. Butsko lit another cigarette, his hands shaking. He was afraid because he knew that Colonel Stockton had the power and authority to do just about anything with him that he wanted.

  Butsko waited to be called into Colonel Stockton’s office, and the time passed slowly. He knew what Colonel Stockton was doing now. Colonel Stockton was making him wait and worry, imagining all the punishment that could be inflicted. But Butsko knew that Colonel Stockton wouldn’t put him in the stockade or anything like that. Colonel Stockton needed him for the upcoming campaign on New Georgia.

  Butsko continued to chain-smoke, and every five or ten minutes he looked at his watch. The waiting was driving him nuts. His furlough in Honolulu had been a disaster. He’d spent most of it in the Honolulu jail, and he’d never even had time to get laid or sleep in a real bed. All his nights had been spent on that slab of wood in his jail cell. All because of Dolly. That goddamned Dolly.