Something About a Soldier - Charles Willeford

by Charles Willeford

  "Come down here a minute," Higdon said. "I want to talk to you."

  "He don't understand English," the corporal said.

  "You tell him then."

  "I talk Tagalog, not Igorot."

  "Tell him in Tagalog."

  The corporal said something in Tagalog, but there was no response. The little Igorot just backed away in that top bunk until all we could see were his nose, brown eyes, and his fingers gripping the iron rail of the top bunk.

  "I guess you'll have to open the door," Higdon said. "I'll have to go in there and get him."

  "No," the corporal said. "I can't let you bother that Igorot. He's going to be hanged in the morning?

  Higdon was six four, and he must have weighed at least 190 pounds. He had red hair, bright blue bloodshot eyes, and long arms. He squatted down until his eyes were level with the corporal's. He lowered his voice to a whisper:

  "Open the door."

  The way he said it, anyone would have reached for the keys, let alone a little constabulary cop in a small town like Baguio. He opened the cell. Higdon went inside while we stayed outside and watched. After a few minutes our sides were hurting from laughter. I've never laughed so hard before in my whole life. The little Igorot didn't come as high as Higdon's chest, and he was faster than greased owl shit. Higdon would climb the tier, and then the Igorot would scramble down headfirst, as slippery as mercury. Then, as Higdon started down, up the Igorot would climb again to the top bunk. Higdon was getting angrier by the minute, calling him a pagan sonofabitch, and anything else he could think of. By the time Higdon finally caught the Igorot by the leg, he was breathing heavily through his mouth. He twisted the little man's arm behind his back, forced him to kneel, and said:

  "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"

  The Igorot didn't say anything, so Higdon jerked the arm up a little higher and asked him the same question. This time the corporal said something in Tagalog, and the Igorot nodded his head vigorously. Higdon accepted the nod for a yes and released the man. He immediately scrambled up the tier again and looked down at us from the top bunk. If the Igorot was saved, he sure as hell didn't know it.

  "I'm sorry if I hurt you, boy," Higdon apologized. "But you'll thank me for it someday when we meet in heaven."

  D'Angelo also thanked the constabulary corporal for his cooperation, and I gave him a cigarette and lighted it for him. The cell was locked again, and Higdon seemed oddly subdued and sobered. The corporal was happy to see us leave the jail, and he shook his head solemnly as we left.

  "You shouldn't have bothered that Igorot. He's going to be hanged in the morning."

  "Does he know it?" I asked.

  "No, no. That would be too cruel, to know that you were going to be hanged. No, he doesn't know."

  "He was tried, wasn't he‘?"

  "Oh, yes, he was tried. The judge decided."

  "But they didn't tell him?"

  "No, that would be too cruel. We are not a cruel people, we Filipinos?"

  "Nobody said you were."

  When we got outside again, we decided to walk back to Camp John Hay. There was plenty of time before noon chow. On the way, D'Angelo said that they didn't tell prisoners in France when they were going to be executed either. In America, of course, we always told our prisoners well in advance, down to the exact date and minute. We discussed which was the best way, whether to know or not, and concluded that the American way was best. How in the hell could a man sleep at night, knowing that any time someone could come in and put a noose around his neck?

  "I'm sorry if I hurt that little fucker," Higdon said suddenly. "But I think I saved his soul. He doesn't know he's going to be hanged and he doesn't even know that what he did was wrong. They probably didn't tell him that it was against the law to eat his enemy, either. Jesus, what a fucking backward country this is! Can you imagine what this place'll be like when we pull out? As soon as they begin starving to death, they'll probably start eating each other again, and that little bastard's death will be in vain. It makes me sick to my fucking stomach."

  "Don't look at it that way, Hig," D'Angelo said. "It's their country, not ours, and they're entitled to run it the way they want, just as we do ours. Besides, you did your Christian duty. So look on the bright side."

  "Of course," I added, "you should've baptized him while ' you were at it-——"

  "Jesus!" Higdon said, slapping his forehead. "I should of baptized him, shouldn't I? Let's go back!"

  "It's too late for that now, Hig. That corporal wouldn't let us in again."

  "I guess you're right. Besides, a baptism without total immersion is a half-assed way to baptize anybody, and they don't have any tank or water trough at the jail."

  When we got back to the barracks, Higdon didn't go with us to the mess hall. He wasn't hungry, he said, and he had a headache. He stretched out on his bunk and put the pillow over his face.

  "You know," D'Angelo said after we sat down at the table and filled our plates, "that was the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. My stomach still hurts. But I don't think I'll ever tell anybody about it."

  "Me neither," I said. "But I might write something about it someday."

  "That's the best way, Will. That way, nobody'll understand why we laughed."

  "Fuck you."

  D'Angelo laughed, reached out, and speared another pork chop.

  FIFTEEN

  THe NEXT WEEK D'ANGELO AND HIGD0N BOTH WENT back to Manila. I rode down on the truck with them to the bus station to say good-bye. I also got their addresses. I thought that if I went to Manila again on a three-day pass I might look them up. I knew I wouldn't, however, because life in the Army doesn't work out that way. A man is always making and losing friends, and most of the time he never sees the guy again. But when you do run into an old buddy again, you take up with him as though there has been no separation at all. I had liked both of those guys, and after the bus pulled out for Dagupan I felt oddly alone.

  Before they left, however, a Filipino driving a battered Willys parked ahead of the bus and brought three gold ingots over to the bus driver. They were heavy, because he made three separate trips, carrying one ingot at a time. He dumped the ingots on the floor by the driver's feet, got into his Willys again, and drove away. The bus driver didn't sign for the ingots, and there were no destination tags on them either. They had been stamped with serial numbers, but that was all.

  "You'd think there'd be an armed guard for all that gold," D'Angelo said. "That gold's worth thousands of dollars."

  "They don't need no guard," Higdon said. "Luzon's an island. If someone stole it, where would he go with it? When we get down to Dagupan, some guy from the train will put it in the baggage car, and it'll be safe till it gets to Manila."

  l'd never thought about it before, but there was very little crime in the Philippines. There were plenty of Filipino prisoners locked up in Bilibid Prison, down in Manila, but they were mostly there for crimes of passion, and very few for robberies, rapes, and hold-ups. When they got mad at each other, Filipinos had a tendency to carve each other up with a bolo, and women were more apt to reach for a bolo than a man. On the other hand, everyone was so poor there was very little to steal from one another, anyway. If a man stole something from a rich man's house, he couldn't sell it because he couldn't explain how he got it.

  It was much too easy to get jawbone, too. A soldier could establish credit almost anyplace just by signing his name to a chit. If he couldn't pay at the end of the month he simply avoided that place until he could pay, and then his credit was good again. Filipinos were much too trusting for their own good. American soldiers, when they knew they were getting ready to leave on the next quarterly boat, frequently ran up big tabs during their last month, knowing that they had no intention of ever paying the bill. We even had a saying about this: "When the whistle blows [meaning the boat whistle], all debts are paid."

  After being stung dozens of times, you would think that the Filipino bar owners wo
uld be more careful about whom they gave jawbone to, but they never seemed to learn. Having to depend upon one another for centuries had apparently destroyed their ability to use common sense in money matters. It also explained why the Chinese immigrants were so successful at business and the Filipinos weren't. Chinese gave credit, too, because that's the way business operated in the Far East, but they limited their credit severely. And somehow a Chinese store-owner always knew when a soldier had arrived and knew when he would leave. Chinamen rarely got taken. Of course, with c so many transients in Baguio, it was difficult to establish jawbone, but with my long leave I could have gotten credit if I had wanted it.

  ***

  I WAS AT LOOSE ENDS AFTER THE BUS LEFT. IT WAS A beautiful sunny day, and there was very little humidity. I walked over to the outdoor skating rink, watched the skaters for a while, and then rented a pair of roller skates. The large plaza was paved, great for skating, and it didn't take long before I got the hang of it again. I hadn't skated since I was a kid, but there was music blaring from a pipe organ and plenty of room to experiment. The sun was warm but the air was cool. There was no laughing or fooling around. The Filipino skaters, men and women, looked upon skating as a serious business. This was a place where they came to meet someone. A man would join a woman, and then, talking, they would skate together for a while. If they liked each other, soon they would be holding hands, or he would have an arm around her waist.

  I started trailing a girl who was wearing a quilted jacket with a white rabbit collar and cuffs. She had on a short, pleated navy blue skirt. Her legs were long for a Filipino, although they were bowed slightly. She was cute, though, with dark, slightly flushed skin and mascaraed eyes. She was a much better skater than me, and when I attempted to get close to her, in an effort to come alongside, she would speed up slightly. Not too much, but just enough to keep me trying. She was playing, or teasing; that was unmistakable. She always managed to stay out of reach until I called out, "Okay, I'm giving up."

  I was out of breath, so I skated over to the side of the rink and sat on a stone bench. She circled the rink again and then came over to my bench. She made a slow and perfect circle on one foot, spun around a couple of times, and stopped in front of me.

  "I haven't seen you here before You are from Camp John Hay?"

  I nodded. With my white sidewall haircut, it was obvious that I was a soldier in civilian clothes.

  "Permanent party?"

  "No, I'm on a six-week leave."

  "Do you know the Mecca? I work at Mecca."

  I knew where the Mecca was; it was one of the better restaurants in town, an upstairs café with a small dance floor and a six—piece orchestra. Every decent restaurant in P.I. had an orchestra;and the band members always wore tuxedos, even at noon. I had eaten pansit a couple of times in Baguio, but I was husbanding my money, so I preferred to eat free at camp.

  "Sure," I said, "I know the Mecca."

  "I have to go to work now. You come to Mecca tonight, and then we go out. Okay?"

  "Why not? What's your name?"

  "Maria."

  "Okay, Maria. My name's Willeford. What time do you get off work?"

  "Midnight. I'm cashier at Mecca."

  "There ain't a hell of a lot to do in Baguio after midnight, is there?"

  She laughed. "We find something to do."

  She skated away, without looking back, and crossed the rink. She took off her skates with her key, slung them over a shoulder by the straps, and disappeared into the crowded street.

  That's how my romance with Maria began, and at first it was a damned fiasco. It started to rain that night right after chow. By ten P.M. it was pouring down like a squall at sea. The rain was icy cold, and the strong wind made the trees sigh. I didn't relish the idea of going into town.

  The last bus left camp at ten-thirty for its final round trip of the night, and came back from town at eleven. If I met Maria at midnight I knew that the least it would cost me was a three peso taxi ride back to camp. On the other hand, this girl—a woman really, she was twenty-two—excited my curiosity. She was a working girl, not a prostitute, and it was obvious that she wanted to get laid. She had as good as told me so. I caught the ten-thirty bus, wearing my G.I. slicker over my blue suit, and went into town.

  I climbed the steep stairs to the second floor at the Mecca and got a table by the dance floor. There weren't many people in the restaurant, not on a wet night like this one, but there were four or five couples. The orchestra was playing a medley of show tunes from N0, N0, Nunette, including "Tea for Two," and the bandleader was grinning and beating the air with his baton as if thefloor were crowded with dancers. Maria was standing behind the cash register. I signaled to her when I sat down and she waved back.

  I ordered a gin highball and a chicken salad sandwich. Midnight came, and by then I had put away the sandwich and two more gin highballs. The place closed at midnight, yes, but it took her another half hour to check out the register with the manager. However, when the waiter gave me my check, and I paid him, she tore up the check at the register and sent him back to the table with my money.

  I left him a good tip; I had a hunch I would be coming back. At last she put on a red raincoat, and we left the Mecca. Out on the street, she hugged my arm. "I didn't think you'd come."

  The rain was still coming down hard, and I was feeling my drinks. I laughed.

  "Why you laugh?"

  "Ak0 malagaya ini ibig gita," I said.

  "You make fun?" She dropped my arm and stopped dead.

  "I hope so. Where're we going, anyway?"

  "I thought my house. Okay?"

  "Why not?"

  I followed her lead for about ten blocks, cutting through narrow, stinking alleys and streets, and we finally arrived at her house. I didn't know, or care, where I was. She rented a room, she told me, which she had to share with three small children of the family who owned the house. I should have picked up on the implications of that, but I didn't. She told me to be quiet because everybody would be sleeping. There were about five or six bodies on pallets and covered with blankets in the living room, and I almost stepped on one when she opened the front door. We picked our way over and around them on the way to her room, where three children were sleeping under a comforter on the floor. There was a streetlight outside the window, but no curtains or blinds, and her room was as bright as if it had a three-hundred-watt overhead bulb. She started to unroll a mattress by the window.

  "You want to do it with the children here?"

  She nodded and put a finger to her lips.

  "No," I said. "What if they wake up?"

  "We must be quiet."

  I shook my head. "Anybody passing by can look right in the window and see us, for Christ's sake!"

  She shrugged and pointed to the curtain on the wall. She crossed over to the curtain, opened it, and beckoned.

  It was a tiny bathroom, the kind with a hole in the floor and two cross-hatched footrests. It smelled terribly, and there were a half dozen little piles of used toilet paper on the floor, too. The floor was wet, and there was a bucket of soapy water in one comer with a long-handled bottle brush sticking out of it.

  "You must be very quiet," she whispered as she took off her raincoat. I kept mine on. The room was small, stinking, and I wasn't going to get down on that wet floor. Although there was no light in the bathroom, plenty of light filtered through the flimsy curtain from the bright

  streetlight.

  "Let's go out and get a cab," I said.

  "All right."

  She shrugged back into her raincoat, and we made our way out again, but not before I stumbled over a body in the living room and almost fell. These inert people didn't move a muscle, but I could feel the tension. They were all awake, all right. We walked about three blocks in the rain before we found a little Willys cab. After we got in, I told the driver to take us into the mountains and to find a level pull-off and park. He drove out of town for about a mile and then pulled off under a
stand of dripping pines. If it hadn't been raining, I could have made him leave the cab and stand a dozen yards or so away, but I couldn't very well make the driver stand out in the rain. He turned off the overhead light and sat behind the wheel while I took off my pants and Maria removed hers. The driver was watching us in his rear-view mirror with a solemn expression. The meter ticked away. There was no way to do it in the little space we had. My legs were too long. The back seat of a Willys simply isn't designed for straight fucking. There was only one practical way, and that was to bend Maria over the front passenger's seat and come in from behind. But I didn't want to do that because the driver's serious face, when I bent over, would be right next to mine. Finally, I told Maria we would have to go outside. She stood on the running board, squatting slightly, and I stood on the ground. I would get it in, and then it would slip out again the moment she moved. The condom came off, and I put it on again. When I finally got a good position, my feet would slip in the mud beside the car, and then the condom would come off again. After a while I began to get tender, and I realized that I had scraped at least two tissue—paper layers of skin off the head of my dick. I was soaking and so was Maria. The rain, including the heavy drip from the trees, sluiced down my face and into my mouth. Maria's hair was matted, and her hiked wool skirt was heavy with water.

  "I guess that's enough for one night," I said. We got dressed again, pulling on our pants, and she told the driver in Tagalog where she lived. He drove us to her house.

  "I had a good time, Wirrafold," she said. "Tomorrow night at the Mecca?"

  I nodded and grinned. "Tomorrow night at the Mecca."

  The next night I rented a hotel room for two pesos before going to the Mecca. At midnight, when she finished work, we went to the hotel. The family she lived with was pissed off, she told me, and she said we couldn't go back to her place anyway. That's what I did for the next thirty days. I'd pick Maria up at the Mecca, take her to the hotel and screw her once or twice, and then I'd go back to camp and she would go home.