In the anxiety following the Revolution, men acted in America as men had acted for centuries. In 1797 President George Washington pleaded with the Congress for the establishment of a military academy, noting that the art of making war “in its most unproved and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation,” and that “an academy where a regular course of instruction is given is … an expedient which different nations have successfully employed.” Washington and Jefferson would copy the examples of France and England. And the Military Academy copies them even today. The study of military history at the academy has always gone by the course title “Military Art.”
And so in the egalitarian vacuum of an infant democracy, an elite would be born to study the military art of making war. In the womb of a system of government consciously shunning royalty, a new kind of royalty would grow. It was a royalty of attitude and achievement rather than of blood, but its intent and effect were to be the same. Those who were chosen for the Military Academy would rise above others. Synthetic elevation was intended, and so it would remain—a great game played on a grand scale, and it would never match the elegant, controlled madness of divine providence. But it would come close. In its way, West Point was from the beginning an embodiment of the American dream. In the eyes of America, West Point would stand forever above even its sister academies. There would always be only one West Point, and to be chosen to go there had no equivalent in American life. The dream was to become a cadet. Cadet. The word rang with echoes of the Long Gray Line, tradition so steeped in greatness you could almost smell the sweat and the leather and the steel.
But to become a cadet you had first to become a plebe. In order to turn civilians into plebes, Beast Barracks was necessary—two months of intensive summer training, the academy’s equivalent of basic training. Plebes were the fuel upon which the academy ran, and Beast Barracks was the breeder reactor producing plebes, feeding the machine…. Plebes were necessary because they were practice dummies for the upper classes. All the things which were unstated at civilian colleges—or in the Ivy League, hidden behind the closed doors of Skull and Bones or the Porcelain Club—were practiced in the open at West Point, encouraged, acted out with a freedom stemming from the academy’s total removal from the rest of society like a monastery, a secret cult headquartered on the Hudson behind a stone façade untouched for better than a century and a half.
What it boiled down to was this: In order to become a warrior, you had to understand what it is to be warred upon … a process with its antecedents in ancient Greece, certain initiation rites during the Middle Ages. But the thing which fueled the Military Academy goes deeper than that, to man’s inhumanity to man, and on a less lofty level, boys’ inhumanity to other boys. Beast Barracks was the culture in which this ancient process would thrive. Beast Barracks was the way.
So that summer at West Point, the symbolic trench was dug. Haircuts were stingingly short, trousers immaculately pressed, shirts impeccably starched, shoes shined to mirror perfection. All was made ready. Tradition would reign. Beast Barracks would begin on July 1, 1967, just as Beast Barracks had begun on the first day of July every year. It was important—no, essential—to the interests of the nation that the academy forge inflexibly onward. The generals were determined: The rest of the country might bend—it might crack, hell, might go to the dogs—but West Point would not bleed.
On the last day of June, civilian boys checked into the Hotel Thayer for the last night before they entered The Life. A single word ran through the hotel in a river of apprehension and conjecture.
Cadet.
It was uttered in tones normally reserved for the football huddle and the church confessional. They listened to one another as boys talked themselves into fitful sleep.
Did you see those cadets standing around outside the barracks?
Yeah.
Did you see the looks on their faces, I mean, how serious they were?
Yeah.
Did you see the way they just stood there … you know … looking at us?
Yeah. Real straight.
Did you hear about all the yelling up in the barracks? A guy was walking by, and he said the cadets were really screaming. Said they were practicing. For tomorrow.
Yeah. I heard.
Silence.
Wow. Whatdaya think?
Silence. They were trying not to think.
I don’t know.
Think you’ll make it? I mean, through Beast?
I guess so … I mean … yeah. I’m gonna make it.
Me too. But some of these guys are gonna pussy-out. You can tell.
Yeah. Did you see that guy with his golf clubs and shit? Must have got off the bus at the wrong stop.
Laughter.
Talk ran through the night like athletic liniment, with the same effect on the tense atmosphere in the Thayer Hotel as balm on a leg muscle. Hot. Full of bluster and ego and fear. Indeed, the Thayer was closer to a locker room than a hotel that night. The boys slept restlessly, like the night before the big game. They knew little of what the next day held. Beast Barracks was a rumor. A secret whispered from bed to bed … pass it on … like word that the camp counselor was making his rounds.
The boys of the summer of 1967 represented a part of the country unsullied by the change outside. They were too young to have been wounded deeply by the death of John F. Kennedy, too young to have remembered the political wasteland of the I-Like-Ike years, too young to have invested themselves deeply in Johnson’s peace-preaching in 1964, then been disaffected by the lap-dissolve into a land war in Southeast Asia. They were young, but they weren’t innocents. Two years of watching the war on television, observing older boys scurrying through the various passageways of escape from the draft … the past two years had hardened them. They had come to West Point in many cases because they had been recruited. They’d been whispered the first clue of the secret. West Point held a promise the rest of the colleges didn’t. West Point’s promise was integration into an instant elite. All you had to do was make it through Beast.
When the guy tells you to drop your bags, drop them.
Someone, who said his father was a grad, whispered in the darkness. No one could figure out what the hell the voice was talking about, but each boy listened and nodded to himself in silent agreement with the apparent wisdom of the advice.
Yeah. Gotta remember to drop my bags.
Somebody chuckled. Somebody else giggled. If their friends could see them … the stories they’d be able to tell, six months from now, when they were first turned loose on Christmas leave…. They waited for dawn. They waited for July 1, 1967. They tried not to be afraid. Few were successful.
19
“DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH, DROP ‘EM. YOU HEAH ME, MISSTAH, DRO-O-OP THOSE BAGS, DROP ‘EM WHEN AH TELL YEW TO DROP THOSE BAGS!”
David Hand lowered two army duffel bags gently to the cement and raised his head. He was staring into gray eyes belonging to a tanned thin face, shaded by a gleaming white hat and a mirrorlike black patent-leather visor, balanced near the tip of his noise. The face grimaced.
“PICK ‘EM UP.” The words were not yelled so much as chewed off matter-of-factly, as if drop those bags and pick them up were the most natural things in the world to be saying at 9 A.M. on a sunny summer day. The voice had a coarse, imitation edge to it, but not so make-believe that it wasn’t just a bit scary. David Hand reached down and picked up his bags.
“DROP ‘EM.”
David Hand laughed. He had just completed a two-hour process which had divested him of all civilian gear in his possession, clothed him in a pair of gym shorts and T-shirt, black plain-toe tie shoes, burdened him with two fatigue duffel bags stuffed with all the military equipment and uniforms necessary to get him through the first few days of Beast Barracks. Hand laughed. Then he looked into the eyes of the cadet leaning forward only inches from his face, and he realized something was happening to him he did not completely understand.
This
guy was yelling and he was taking the business of dropping bags and picking them up seriously. David Hand leaned back as the cadet leaned forward until with elbows locked, pelvis shoved forward, and chin back trying to avoid the cadet’s face, Hand was contorted into a crazy human question mark.
David Hand wasn’t the only one. Central Area was teeming with spastic human question marks, each of whom was being similarly berated, directed to perform odd tasks, bombarded with verbal violence. Hand glanced from side to side. The place was a stone madhouse … worse than he’d imagined. Guys were running all over the place, bare knees pumping up and down, gray shorts and white T-shirts darting here and there, stiff black shoes slapping the pavement … and screaming! Animals! Growling, snarling, snapping…. But they stood there, stiff as cardboard in the crinkly heat, ramrod straight, just like the photos. And the voices—all the screaming and yelling seemed to come from nowhere but everywhere at once! You couldn’t see their mouths move! Their faces were shaded by hats, so voices spewed from the shade across the concrete, bouncing off barracks walls, crashing about the ears in a kind of music. The words came in staccato bursts, drum rolls, snapped at the end like cracking whips. It was all somehow handsome and appealing. David Hand could imagine, even in those first few split seconds, becoming just as sharp and quick and sure, just as expertly violent with his tongue, just as mean as they were. He could imagine becoming a cadet.
They were like Doberman pinschers, cadets, sleek and gray and vaguely sinister, even when standing in small groups at the end of the area, just watching. They wore gray trousers and white starched cotton shirts and gray epaulets and brass insignia, everything shiny and bright, blinding in the morning sun. They were sneak attack machines whose single purpose was to bring David Hand and other new cadet candidates under control—total control—complete domination of one man over the life of another. The first day of Beast Barracks was intended to stun, to leave new cadet candidates nearly senseless wondering what in hell was happening to them, and this was accomplished with a massive injection of order disguised as chaos. It was hard—no, impossible—to tell what was going to happen next. There was only one choice. Listen. React. Hand was fascinated, entranced by the experience. It was all so perfect.
“AH SAID DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH. YEW HARD A HEAHING?”
Hand dropped the bags. They hit the pavement with a dull thud.
“NOW PICK ‘EM UP.”
He scrambled for the bags, slung them over his shoulders.
“DROP ‘EM.”
He let them fall.
“PICK ‘EM UP, MISSTAH.”
Up over his shoulders went the bags again. Hand was sweating now, salty droplets of water stinging his eyes, wetting his hair, starting down his arms and legs.
“DROP ‘EM, AH SAID, DROP THOSE BAGS.” The face pitched forward, centimeters between them now. Hand could feel his breath, cadet breath. Startled, he paused.
“DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH. WHEN AH SAY DROP THOSE BAGS YEW DROP ‘EM AND YEW DO NOT HESITATE, MISTAH.”
Down. Plonk.
“THAT WAS NOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME, MISTAH. YEW UNNERSTAND THAT, MISSTAH? YEW UNNERSTAND ME, MISSTAH? SPEAK UP, GODDAMMIT! AH’M NOT STANDING HERE FOR MY HEALTH, MISSTAH, YEW HEAH ME? NOW …”
Hand scrambled for the bags, falling to his knees, anticipating the command. Concrete stung his skin. The voice dropped in pitch, twinged with quiet fury. Hand, on his knees, could feel the cadet’s anger, could imagine spittle forming at the edges of his mouth. He did not look up.
“Misstah, Ah did not tell yew to pick up those bags yet. Ah nevah gave that command, misstah, yew unnerstand me? Yew do not move, yew do not even fuckin’ flinch until Ah give the command. Yew unnerstand me, misstah? Now. DROP ‘EM.”
Plonk.
Hand, quivering human question mark, sweating profusely, soggy like a wet washcloth. Cadet utterly dry, caressed by an invisible cooling breeze, the voice low, barely tolerant.
“Ah do not like your attitude, misstah, yew unnerstand me? When Ah tell yew to pick up those bags this time, misstah, Ah want to see sparks fly. Ah wanna heah your chest heave. Ah wanna feel you move. Ah want yew to rustle the crease on my trousers in your breeze, yew heah me, misstah? Yew heah me?”
“Yes.”
“Speak up.”
“I said yes.”
“I take it yew mean yesSIR, smackhead.”
“Yessir.”
“Speak up, goddammit. YEW HEAH ME?”
“YESSIR!”
“PICK ‘EM UP, SMACK, PICK UP THOSE BAGS. MOVE … MOVE … MOVE … MOVE!”
Hand moved. The bags heavy on his shoulders. Weigh more each time.
“That is bettah, misstah. Now, yew listen up, and yew listen up close. Yew listen up to me like your little worthless life depended on it. DROP ‘EM!”
Drop. Plonk. Sweat. Drip.
“That is the idea, misstah. Yew are one slow smack-head, misstah. Now, yew listen up, now, you heah? Yew think yew are some kinda hot shit, diddlyboppin’ in here outta high school, big hero, goin’ to West fuckin’ Point. Well, misstah, yew got another think comin’, yew heah me?”
“YESSIR!”
“Yew got a brand-new think comin’, hey. Yew are gonna be a plebe now, smack. A new cadet. That is what yew are goin’ to be later. A new cadet. Right now, today, this minute, yew are a new cadet candidate. Yew got that straight?”
“YESSIR!”
“Ah’m heah to teach yew two things, smack. Two simple things. The position of attention for fourth-classmen, which yew will adopt as your very own way of life. And your three answers. Now yew listen up, smackhead. Yew listenin’?”
“YESSIR!” Hand could feel puffs of the cadet’s breath as he spat out the words derisively. Sweat rolled off his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, dribbling on his lips, his chin, staining the concrete at his feet. The cadet stepped back a foot. Hand waited.
“SUCK IN THAT OBESE CUT, SMACK! SUCK IT IN, IN IN IN IN IN. NOW ROLL THOSE HIPS BACK AND POINT THOSE THUMBS TO THE GROUND. TO THE GROUND, SMACKHEAD, TO THE GROUND! THE GROUND IS DOWN THERE AT YOUR FEET NOT UP IN THE GODDAMN AIR! RUN THOSE THUMBS ALONG THE SEAMS OF YOUR SHORTS, AND POINT ‘EM DOWN. CURL THOSE FINGERS AT THE FIRST KNUCKLE. CURL ‘EM! AND SUCK IN THAT GUT, SMACK, SUCK IT IN AND ROLL THOSE HIPS BACK AND STRETCH THOSE SHOULDERS TO THE SKY AND POINT THOSE THUMBS TO THE GROUND!”
The instructions came in a savage rush, and Hand struggled into a body position he imagined fit the description ringing in his ears. He felt like a scarecrow. He looked like a scarecrow. He grinned.
“Wipe that smirk off that dull face of yours, smackhead.”
Hand stiffened.
“Now, dullard, yew think this is so funny … yew listenin’ up?”
“YESSIR!”
“Yew think it’s been a big yuk so far, smack, yew just gonna love this next part. Now yew listen up to me, and yew listen up close. Ah’m only gonna tell yew this once. Yew take that dull bean of yours, smack, and yew direct your chin skyward.”
David Hand had no idea what the cadet was talking about. He blinked and gazed around, trying to see what the other new cadets were doing, hoping he could copy someone. Across the area, he spied another spindly human question mark, gazing in his direction, probably wondering the same thing. He grinned to himself.
“SMACKHEAD!”
Hand wheeled to find the cadet’s face only an inch from his. He tried to focus. Beads of sweat flooded his eyes. Under the shade of the cadet’s visor, he could see a face. The cadet’s eyes were red, bloodshot. Hand flinched, glancing down to avoid the cadet’s eyes. For the first time, he noticed the cadet was shorter than he, and had been standing on his tiptoes in order to bring his face close to level with Hand’s.
The cadet dropped his voice to a low whisper. He hissed:
“Ssssssmackhead. What is your name, smackhead? Please, be good enough to tell me your name, misstah. Yew think this is all so much fun … well, Ah wanna know who’s havin’ all the fun, misstah.” Ridic
ule dripped from the cadet’s voice like sweat from Hand’s brow, a steady, slow stream.
“My name is David Hand, sir.”
“What did yew say, misstah? Did yew just say something, misstah? I cannot hear yew.”
“I said, my name is David Hand, sir. I thought I spoke rather clearly.”
“Yew thought yew spoke rather clearly. Isn’t that cute. Hey, Leroy! This little bean thinks he speaks rather clearly. Isn’t that nice?” The cadet turned to another cadet not far away, his mocking tone announcing to the assembled upperclass cadets that he had a real fish on the line. The cadet called Leroy laughed. They both laughed. A bunch of cadets standing in a group not far away laughed. Everyone laughed. Hand winced, gathered his courage. The cadet was staring at him again. He looked the cadet right in his bloodshot eyes.
“I SAID MY NAME IS DAVID HAND, SIR.”
“That’s better, misstah. Much better. But Ah still don’t believe Ah hear yew properly. Tell me once more. Please. What is your name?”
Hand realized some kind of game was being played, and his mind raced back over the last few moments, an eternity, searching for the answer, the simple phrase he knew would release him from the cadet’s counterfeit superiority. He remembered.
“MY NAME IS NEW CADET DAVID HAND, SIR.”
The cadet’s face moved away, out of Hand’s direct vision, and Hand heard him inhaling and exhaling short, expensive bursts. The cadet eased his mouth close to Hand’s ear and whispered again, making believe what he said was just between the two of them. Hand knew all the other upperclass cadets were watching and listening.
Dress Gray Page 21
