Satan's Cage

by Len Levinson

  Shaw raised his eyebrows. “How come the Army’ll pick up the tab?”

  “Because it will,” Lieutenant Lewis said.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Shaw said.

  “Shaddup,” Butsko said. “It’s a military secret.”

  Bobbie perked up her ears. “What’s the military secret?”

  “The size of my dick,” Butsko said.

  “How big is it?” she asked.

  “A foot long.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’ll show you,” Butsko said.

  He reached down to his fly and undid the top button. The bartender appeared with the shots and the beers. He took one look at Butsko and his eyes bugged out.

  “Hey—you can’t do that here! If you gotta go to the toilet, it’s in back!”

  Butsko flicked the button back into place.

  “Sorry,” he said to the blonde. “The man said I can’t take it out here. It’s too bad, because it’s nice out.”

  “Dollar and a half,” said the bartender.

  Lieutenant Lewis reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, and pulled out a wad of bills.

  “I’ll hang onto that,” Butsko said, snatching the money out of his hand.

  “What’re you doing!” Lieutenant Lewis said.

  Butsko turned calmly to the bartender. “You said a buck and a half?”

  “That’s what I said,” the bartender replied.

  Butsko threw two one-dollar bills onto the bar. “There you go, big feller.”

  The bartender picked the money off the bar. Butsko pushed the rest of the money into his left front pocket.

  “What’re you doing with that money!” Lieutenant Lewis shouted.

  “Relax,” Butsko replied. “You’re too nervous for your own good, and you’re starting to make me nervous.”

  Shaw grabbed his shot of whiskey. “Here’s to the Army!” he said.

  A drunken Marine on the stool next to him spun around. “Who said that!”

  “I said that!” Shaw declared.

  “Fuck the Army!” the Marine said.

  “Fuck your mother!” Shaw replied.

  “What!” screamed the Marine.

  “You heard me.”

  The Marine jumped off the stool and charged like a drunken elephant. Shaw timed him coming in and delivered a sharp uppercut to the bottom of the Marine’s chin. The Marine’s head snapped back and he flew into the air, landing on the bar in front of the bartender. The Marine’s buddy got off his stool and raised his fists, advancing toward Shaw. Butsko sucker-punched him from the side and sent him reeling into a table surrounded by sailors getting drunk.

  The sailors got to their feet and looked around. They saw three more Marines jumping on Butsko and Shaw. Butsko kicked one of them in the balls and Shaw punched another on the nose, flattening it out. Bobbie the blond hooker hit the third over the head with her pocketbook, and inside her pocketbook was a horseshoe that she carried around for good luck.

  Lieutenant Lewis raised the palms of his hands in the air. “Now let’s calm down around here!” he said. “Let’s settle down, men!”

  “Fuck you!” snarled a sailor, crashing a bottle of bourbon over the head of Lieutenant Lewis, whose eyes closed as he fell to his knees on the floor.

  The sailors leapt on top of Butsko and Shaw, and a bunch of Army paratroopers attacked the sailors. A group of marines lurched toward the paratroopers, and soon a full-blown all-out brawl was taking place in the bar.

  A Marine with a broken bottle in his hand ran toward Butsko, and Butsko grabbed his wrist with both hands, spun around, and threw the Marine over his shoulder. The Marine flew through the air and landed on top of two stalwart members of the Army Air Corps, who were rushing forward to get into the fight.

  The bartender jumped on top of the bar and cupped his hands around his mouth. “If you guys don’t settle down—I’m calling the cops!”

  Somebody threw a table at him, and it knocked him off the bar. He fell back against the mirror and the rows of bottles in front of it, splitting the mirror in half, busting the bottles. The bartender fell to the floor, out cold. A soldier leapt over the bar and opened the cash register. He stuffed a handful of bills into his pocket, and then threw another handful into the air.

  The punching and kicking became more earnest as the servicemen fought over the dollar bills. Women screamed and ran toward the ladies’ room. Servicemen hit each other over the head with chairs and beer bottles. Empty glasses flew through the air and the men cursed and grunted as they tried to punch each other out.

  A marine came at Shaw from his left side and a sailor attacked him on his right. Shaw danced on the balls of his feet, jabbed the sailor in the mouth, and threw a left hook at the marine. Both were staggered, and Shaw was happy to see that his punch hadn’t lost its wallop. He ducked underneath a sailor’s jab and hit him in the breadbasket. The sailor doubled over and fell to the floor.

  Butsko stood with his back to the bar and took on all comers. He punched and kicked them into oblivion, a smile on his face, because he was having fun. A sailor attacked him with the leg of a table in his hands, holding it over his head like a baseball bat, and swung down at Butsko’s head. Butsko dodged to the side, grabbed the sailor by his shoulder and his waist, throwing him over the bar.

  The sailor landed on top of the bartender, who was trying to get up. The bartender collapsed onto his stomach, the wind knocked out of him. A waitress clawed and scratched her way to a telephone booth in the corner of the saloon. A sailor pinched her ass and a soldier tried to tear off her blouse. She dived into the phone booth, closed the door, and dialed the number of the police, her shoulders bared by the tear in her blouse. She looked out the wire-laced window of the phone booth and saw the most incredible melee taking place. Servicemen clobbered each other with whatever they could lay their hands on. Ashtrays flew through the air and a framed photograph of Franklin Delano Roosevelt slammed against the telephone booth, making her flinch.

  “Police headquarters,” said a voice in her ear.

  “You’d better get over here real fast!” she screamed, her teeth chattering.

  “Get over where real fast?” asked the cop on the other end.

  Butsko and Shaw stood in a corner of the bar, watching the wall-to-wall violence.

  “Shit,” Butsko said. “This used to be a nice place.”

  “These guys’re too rowdy for me,” Shaw agreed, wiping some blood from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s go someplace peaceful.”

  “Okay,” Butsko said, heading toward the door. “C’mon.”

  “What about that officer!”

  Butsko looked back into the brawl. He saw countless bodies lying on the floor and figured Lieutenant Lewis was in there someplace.

  “Fuck him,” Butsko said.

  He headed toward the door and went outside. Shaw followed him, and a few moments later Bobbie the blonde joined them on the sidewalk.

  “Wait for me!” she said.

  Shaw put his arm around her shoulder. “You wanna come with us, baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  Butsko looked at a bar across the street. “That looks like a good place. Let’s go.”

  The two soldiers and the blonde crossed the street, while behind them a soldier and sailor crashed through the window of the Deep Six bar, their hands wrapped around each other’s throat, snarling at each other and twisting through the air along with shards of glass that twinkled in the light of the streetlamps.

  “Crazy bastards,” Shaw said.

  “Some people just don’t know how to behave in public,” Butsko replied.

  The stars twinkled in the sky over New Guinea. The patrol from the recon platoon made its way over a winding jungle trail three miles south of Afua. The night was silent and huge multicolored flowers grew out of bushes.

  It was one o’clock in the morning and the patrol had been uneventfu
l so far. They’d roved the trail network south of Afua and hadn’t seen anything worth reporting. The peace of the night lulled them into thinking no Japs were around. The men thought of the letters they’d received from home that day. They weren’t paying much attention to what was happening around them.

  Suddenly McGurk hit the dirt. The others saw him go down and their military instincts interrupted their reveries. They too dived toward the ground. McGurk raised his head and listened, perking up his ears. He turned his head from side to side and wrinkled his nose. Then he got to his feet and walked hunched over toward Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “Japs’re coming,” he said.

  “Take cover!” Lieutenant Breckenridge told the men in a hoarse whisper.

  They dissolved into the jungle beside the road. After penetrating ten yards Lieutenant Breckenridge held up his hand, and they all got down on their bellies, facing the trail. The jungle became silent again, and everybody looked in the direction where McGurk said the Japs were coming from.

  Soon they heard boots striking the ground and bodies brushing past leaves and ferns. The sounds came closer and then the Japs came into view. The Japs were in a long column and some carried American machine guns and American M 1 rifles. They looked healthy and strong, and a few wore American pants or shirts.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge counted them as they passed by. He took out his notebook and described the weapons they carried and the direction in which they were going. Finally the last one marched past, carrying an American mortar tube. Lieutenant Breckenridge added up the total and it came to fifty-two Japs.

  I wonder what they’re up to? he thought as he put his notebook and pad away.

  It was two o’clock in the morning. Butsko steered the o.d. green Chevrolet onto the street where he used to live with Dolly. All the lights were out in the houses on both sides of the street. The only illumination came from Butsko’s headlights and the streetlamps.

  Shaw and Bobbie were in the back seat of the Chevrolet, humping away. Butsko looked in the rearview mirror and saw her feet kicking in the air. Shaw grunted and snorted somewhere in the depths of the back seat, and Bobbie sighed and tittered. The car bounced up and down due to Shaw’s powerful thrusts.

  Butsko reached beside him and raised the bottle of Four Feathers whiskey to his lips. He gurgled some down and the road undulated in front of him as if it were made of rubber. His collar was unbuttoned and his tie loosened. His eyes were half-closed and his left pantleg was stained by a glass of beer that had been knocked over in one of the bars they’d visited.

  They’d visited countless bars, spending the money Butsko had taken from Lieutenant Lewis. They’d also eaten chop suey at a Chinese restaurant. Then Butsko decided it was time to go see Dolly. He always needed a few drinks under his belt before confronting her.

  He figured she should be home by now, and if she wasn’t he’d track her down and kick her ass. He was surprised that he hadn’t run into her in any of the saloons he’d visited, because she hung out in those kinds of places. She always said she liked men in uniform. Her father had been a sergeant in the U.S. Army and he fought in many of the big battles of World War I.

  The street began to look familiar to Butsko. He was approaching the house in which he’d lived briefly with Dolly. It was on the right a bit farther down the block he was on, a bungalow with two bedrooms and a big kitchen that Dolly seldom used. She was such a lazy bitch. Butsko wondered how he could have married such a useless human being. All she could do was drink, dance, and fuck.

  He saw the house loom up out of the darkness on his right. All the lights were out, which meant that Dolly either was sound asleep or she hadn’t come home yet. At least she wasn’t throwing a party. Last time he visited her she was throwing a party and he’d had to punch out most of her male guests.

  Butsko steered toward the curb. He wondered if she was in bed with a new boyfriend. If she was, Butsko would kick his ass all over the street. He’d wind up in jail and they’d never give him that medal, but fuck that medal. It’d be more fun to kick her latest boyfriend’s ass.

  Dolly didn’t like to sleep alone; Butsko knew that. She needed to get laid before she could fall asleep. Butsko hit the brakes and realized that she surely was sleeping with some guy. He knew that he and the guy would be going toe to toe in about five minutes.

  Shaw raised his head in the back seat. “What’re we stopping for?”

  “I’m home,” Butsko said.

  Shaw looked out the side window. “This is where you live?”

  “It’s where I used to live.”

  “Oh!” said Bobbie. “Lemme fix my face!”

  “You don’t have to,” Butsko said. “I’m going in alone.”

  Shaw grabbed Bobbie and pulled her back down into the rear seat. “C’mere baby.”

  “Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked.

  “Not with you around.”

  “I wanna take a rest.”

  “You got the whole rest of your life to rest. I said c’mere.”

  Bobbie’s head disappeared from sight. Butsko opened the door of the Chevrolet and stepped outside. He closed the door and took a Chesterfield from his shirt pocket, placing it into his mouth. Looking at his old house, he lit the cigarette with his Zippo.

  He puffed the cigarette and walked around the front of the Chevrolet. Crickets chirped on the lawn and nothing moved anywhere. It was as if the whole block had been evacuated. Butsko looked to his left and right and thought about all the nice people sleeping soundly in their beds. If Dolly was up there with a boyfriend, everybody would be awake damn soon.

  Butsko strolled up the sidewalk that led to the front door of the house. He tightened his tie and squared away his cunt cap on his head so it was low over his eyes. He walked with a limp but his leg wasn’t bothering him much anymore. He figured he’d be good as new in about a week.

  He walked up the steps to the front door and noticed that it had been painted recently. Dolly must’ve got some money. Maybe her boyfriend upstairs gave it to her. Butsko made a fist and knocked on the door. He waited a few seconds and didn’t hear any response on the other side, so he knocked again, louder this time.

  There was still no answer. Butsko looked to his left and right and puffed his cigarette. They must be passed out up there, he thought.

  He balled up his fist again and pounded on the door. A light went on upstairs, its rays illuminating the lawn below. Butsko pounded on the door again.

  “Just a minute!” said a man’s voice.

  Butsko’s blood ran cold. So she did have a man up there. Butsko dropped his cigarette and stomped it out with his shoe. He squared his shoulders and jammed his thumbs in his belt. I’ll kill the son of a bitch, Butsko thought. I’ll fuck him up so bad his own mother wouldn’t recognize him.

  He heard footsteps approaching the other side of the door. The latches clicked and a light went on above Butsko’s head. Then the door opened, revealing a man wearing a white tank-top undershirt, with tattoos over both his arms.

  “Whataya want?” the man asked.

  “Who the fuck are you!” Butsko said.

  The man scowled. “Who the fuck are you!”

  “This is my fucking house!” Butsko said. “What’re you doing here.”

  “This ain’t your fucking house!” the man replied. “This is my fucking house! You got the wrong fucking house! Go home and sober up!”

  “Sober up your ass,” Butsko said. “Where’s Dolly.”

  “Dolly who?”

  “Dolly who lives here.”

  “No Dolly lives here.”

  “You’re a fucking liar. You’d better go upstairs and tell her that her old man is home.”

  The tattooed man opened the screen door. He was in his thirties, with thinning hair and soft muscles. “I think you’d better sober up, soldier.”

  “You’d better tell Dolly to get her big ass down here.”

  Butsko heard a woman’s voice coming from somewhere behind
the tattooed man.

  “Who is it dear?” the woman asked.

  The voice wasn’t Dolly’s, and Butsko assumed the woman must be one of Dolly’s whorish girlfriends. Dolly was probably having a big sex orgy upstairs in the bedrooms.

  The tattooed man turned around. “It’s a drunk, looking for somebody named Dolly.”

  The woman appeared, wearing a white bathrobe. She was frumpy and her hair was in curlers. She stood beside the tattooed man and looked Butsko up and down.

  “This is no time to be knocking on people’s doors,” she said to Butsko.

  “This is my door,” Butsko said. “Where’s my wife?”

  “I’m the only woman living here, and I sure as hell ain’t your wife.”

  “You sure as hell ain’t,” Butsko said. “You’d better go upstairs and tell Dolly that her husband’s home.”

  The woman wrinkled her nose and looked at the tattooed man. Then she turned to Butsko again. “You wouldn’t be looking for Dorothy Butsko by any chance, would you?”

  “That’s her,” Butsko replied.

  “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “What do you mean she doesn’t live here anymore?”

  “She sold the house to us. She’s gone.”

  “She’s gone?” Butsko asked.

  “Yes, she’s gone,” the woman said.

  The tattooed man cleared his throat. “I toldja there’s no Dolly living here.”

  “Where’d she go?” Butsko asked.

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. “She said something about going back to the States, didn’t she dear?”

  “That’s what she said,” the tattooed man replied.

  “She said she wanted to get a defense job,” the woman in the robe told Butsko. “She said there weren’t no good jobs for a woman in Honolulu.”

  Butsko narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t imagine Dolly looking for a job. “You’re lying,” he said to the woman. “You’re just covering up for her.”

  The woman looked Butsko up and down. She could smell the liquor on his breath and see he was in bad shape, at the end of his rope because his wife wasn’t home. The woman noticed the Combat Infantryman’s badge on his shirt and realized what he’d been through.