Sweet Reason (9781590209011)

by Robert Littell

  Filmore coughed.

  The XO cleared his throat.

  At the other end of the table, Lizzy Kobb smiled at the XO and then turned to Ensign de Bovenkamp. “They tell me you were a basketball star in civilian life — pretty well known one too they say.”

  De Bovenkamp fingered a stick of gum and began unwrapping it slowly. “Heck, I’m not nearly as famous as you.”

  Lizzy Kobb laughed. “What school did you lead to triumph?”

  “It was Yale.”

  “Yale! Now that’s interesting. Tell me, as someone out here with his neck on the firing line, what do you think of all those antiwar types who are raising such a ruckus back at your old alma mater?”

  De Bovenkamp smiled self-consciously. “If I were back there there’d be one heck of a lot less of them, that’s all I can tell you.”

  There was some appreciative laughter around the table.

  “How long have you been in the war zone?” Lizzy Kobb asked.

  “This is our second day,” de Bovenkamp replied. “We arrived on Yankee Station early yesterday morning.”

  Miss Kobb waved her hand in surprise. “My God, with your record, I thought you’d been here months. Tell me” — she placed the tips of her fingers on de Bovenkamp’s wrist and looked straight into his eyes — “what do you think of the war?”

  The stick of gum was unwrapped now. De Bovenkamp slid it into his mouth as if it were a tongue depressor and began to work it around thoughtfully. “I feel we have a job to do out here, and it’s not my place to ask about the whys and wherefores, but to get on with the job. I mean, the way I understand it, these Communists want to take over the world and right now they’re picking on a little guy and it’s our job to — we have treaty obligations that — heck, what I’m trying to say is —”

  “I think I understand,” Lizzy Kobb said sweetly. She pulled out an envelope and began to scribble on the back of it. “How do you spell your name?”

  “De Bovenkamp, with a small d-e, then a new word, capital B, small o-v-e-n-k-a-m-p.”

  Lizzy Kobb turned to Lustig, sitting across the table from her, and asked him what he thought of the war.

  “I really don’t think about it much,” he said noncommittally. “If the government says this is what we ought to be doing, I guess that’s good enough for me.”

  “You trust your government then?”

  Lustig looked startled. “Sure. Doesn’t everybody?” (“I trust it — as far as I can throw it,” Lustig thought to say later.)

  Miss Kobb scribbled some more notes and asked Lustig how he spelled his name.

  “L-u-s-t-i-g.”

  She finished writing and looked up into the deep-set eyes of the young man next to Lustig. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “I’m Joyce,” said the Poet. “J-o-y-c-e.”

  “You look like an alert fellow,” Lizzy Kobb said. “Tell me what you think about the war?”

  Suddenly it seemed as if everyone were hanging on Joyce’s answer.

  “To tell the truth, Miss Kobb, some of us — maybe I should only speak for myself — I’m confused about what we’re doing out here.”

  Lizzy Kobb scratched a line through the word “Joyce” and put her envelope and pencil away. “You hear that, Filmore?” she said. “You guys spend millions putting out the word and here is someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing out here. My God, wait till they hear about this back at the Pentagon.” And she laughed at his embarrassment. “Come on, Filmore, why don’t you tell him what he’s doing out here.” And she laughed again.

  “Ah’d be proud to answer that question if’n Ah can.” All heads turned toward Congressman Partain, all that is except Captain Jones who, cuticles to teeth, sat glaring at the Poet.

  Nobody was better equipped to enlighten Joyce than the Congressman. He was on his fifth fact-finding trip to the warzone in five years — the last four at the express request of the President of the United States. After each tour Partain returned home to tell the network reporters about how “the tide is a-turnin’ ” or how he could see “a specka light at the end of the tunnel” or something of the sort. (“Stick to the clichés,” Filmore always advised him. “It reassures people to hear familiar phrases.”) In the privacy of the White House, Partain was more candid. “Ah reckon, if’n the panty-waists and bleedin’ hearts would get off’n our back, we could hold out another year or so,” he had reported after his fourth trip.

  Partain was nobody’s fool. He had read every scrap written on the current war he could get his hands on, he had attended secret war college briefings and think tank seminars. The Congressman knew the scenarios and options backward and forward. He understood as well as anyone what the President hoped to achieve, or at least what he would settle for. It was a grim insight into foreign policy and the Congressman usually kept it to himself. Today, for no good reason, he felt like calling a spade a spade and seeing what the reaction would be.

  “Now I know you-all are housebroken, Lizz,” Partain started out, “but for the record this is off the record. If’n anybody quotes me, Ah’ll deny it, but Ah believe in the domino theory. Ah really do. Ah believe that if’n we back off heah, we’ll have to defend ourselves on a line closah to home — and closah — and closah, till we stop ’em dead in their tracks.”

  “So we must have victory here, then?” the Poet asked.

  “Ah believe we’re obliged to, yes,” the Congressman said. “Isn’t that right, Lizzy?”

  Lizzy Kobb smiled. “Would the gentleman care to define victory?”

  “What she means, son, in her sardonic way, is that theah is no such thing as victory out heah,” Partain said. “Lord knows we’re a generous people.” (“We’re generous because we have so fucking much,” Lustig thought of putting in — as always, later.) “But this heah is your proverbial bottomless pit, and theah is a limit to how much even we can provide without drainin’ our vast resources. All things considered, we’ll be Godamighty lucky to keep from sinkin’ in any deepah.”

  “I don’t understand,” the Poet said. “If we can’t win, what do we hope to accomplish?”

  “Now see here, Joyce,” the Captain interrupted, chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “That’s all right, Captain,” Partain said, waving off Jones’s interruption. He turned back to Joyce. “When anyone asks me what we hope to accomplish heah, son, Ah usually talk about defendin’ freedom or aidin’ a peace-lovin’ people to fight off aggression, but between you, me and the wall ovah theah, that’s pure bull. Buyin’ time. That’s what we’re about. Buyin’ time. What we’re aftah is a decent interval — say two or three years — between our disengagement and the Communist takeovah. That’ll give us time to get the American people used to the ideah we got to defend the next line.”

  “Decent interval?” said the Poet.

  “Decent interval,” repeated Partain.

  “More coffee, sir?” asked True Love, and he turned on the empty, mechanical smile of those who are programmed to serve by standing and waiting.

  Proper Cashes in a Rain Check

  Five men were squatting in the crowded barber shop. Four of them — Angry Pettis, Waterman, Tevepaugh and Ohm — had paid five dollars a head for the privilege of being there. The fifth, Sonarman Third Dwight Proper, hadn’t paid a cent. Cee-Dee, the impresario of the show, was threading the film through the projector and telling about the Italian who had figured out a new way to beat the draft.

  “How soon the fuckin’ thing gonna start?” demanded Angry Pettis.

  “Why don’t you jerk off — makes the time go quicker,” said Ohm.

  Angry Pettis spun around to Ohm. “Watch your fuckin’ ass, whitey,” he snapped.

  “Yeah, watch yourself,” giggled Tevepaugh, “or Proper here will get the bright idea you’re some kind of nut, like — what’s his fuckin’ name? — Sweet whatcha-ma-call-it.”

  Ohm, only too happy to sidestep a confrontation with Angry Pettis, glared at Tevepaugh. “Nobody
accuses me of being Sweet Reason.”

  Cee-Dee pushed Ohm away from Tevepaugh. “Pick on someone your own size, Ohm,” he said. “That’s the American way. If you pick on somebody, you pick on somebody your own size.”

  Cee-Dee turned back to the projector. “Okay, okay, here it comes,” he said finally. “Get the lights, will you, Proper?”

  Proper switched off the overhead light. The emergency bulb next to the fire extinguisher remained on, bathing everything in eerie red. The movie projector started up, spattering its image of the Black Cat Inn on the fax bulkhead.

  “She-it,” said Tevepaugh. “Will you look at de Bovenkamp go. This here is almost as good as being in Pireaus.”

  The way he pronounced the name of the Greek port city that Socrates once frequented, it sounded like a venereal disease.

  De Bovenkamp Laughs Last

  Angry Pettis and Waterman were heading forward along the inboard passageway when they met de Bovenkamp coming aft. Waterman kept a straight face but Angry Pettis couldn’t contain himself. As he stepped to one side to make way for de Bovenkamp, he started giggling, then burst into laughter. The mood infected Waterman and he burst into laughter too.

  “What’s so humorous?” de Bovenkamp demanded. But the two blacks, holding their sides now and gasping for air and words, just laughed harder.

  A crowd began to collect. Suddenly de Bovenkamp found himself trapped inside a circle of laughter.

  “I won’t be made fun of,” de Bovenkamp said, his voice rising in anger. The two blacks laughed still harder.

  “Gawddamn, enough is enough,” de Bovenkamp yelled. He was furious now. “I’ll give you something to laugh about. I’m writing you two men up for insubordination. Let’s see if you’re still laughing when you’re in front of a court-martial.”

  Angry Pettis and Waterman stopped laughing instantly. “You’ve got to be kidding?” said Waterman.

  “You’ll see if I’m kidding or not,” de Bovenkamp sneered as he pushed through the circle.

  “Motherfucker,” Angry Pettis yelled after him, but de Bovenkamp retreated into the after wardroom and slammed the door on the insult. “Motherfucker,” Pettis yelled again and started to follow de Bovenkamp into the wardroom. Waterman grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  “He’ll get his,” Waterman said.

  Proper Comes Up with Another Suspect

  Captain Jones was on his way back to his cabin from the radio shack when Proper, standing in the shadows, buttonholed him outside the chart house.

  “Beg pardon, Captain. Can I see you for a —”

  Jones threw up his hands to fend off a would-be mugger. “Who’s there? Who is it? Come out of there.” He backpedaled as he spoke, ready to turn and flee if the face that emerged from the shadow looked as if it were still in a shadow.

  “It’s me, Proper,” Proper said, stepping hat in hand into the light. “I only wanted to see you for a second, Captain.”

  “Ah, you gave me a fright, Proper. What do you have to report? You’ve brought home the bacon, eh?”

  “The bacon, sir?”

  “That’s a manner of speaking. What I mean is have you found the fatal typewriter? You did finish the search when the Congressman left?”

  “I sure did, Captain. I been through every compartment in this ship, from after steering to the chain locker up forward. You know what I found in the chain locker, right under the anchor?”

  “A typewriter?”

  “A dead seagull.”

  “A dead seagull?”

  “Squashed dead, with maggots and all.”

  “Uck,” said Jones, and he turned his head away to hide the fact that it really didn’t bother him all that much. He turned back. “So you didn’t find the fatal typewriter, eh?”

  “No sir, but I accomplished a lot, because now I know where it isn’t.”

  Proper was beginning to wear thin. “Two days ago, damn it, you promised me you’d find out where it is, but all you seem to have accomplished, if I read you correctly, is to’ve found out where it isn’t.”

  “In police work, Captain, that’s a very crucial step. I’ve narrowed down the area where the typewriter could be.”

  “Since you’ve searched the entire ship and haven’t found it, I’d say you narrowed it down to zero.”

  “No sir, not quite. There are a few places I haven’t searched yet, and that’s where the typewriter will be. I’ll stake my reputation on it.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Proper, you’re risking nothing if you stake your reputation. Where is it you haven’t searched?”

  Proper leaned toward the Captain and lowered his voice. “There are eight spaces that were locked when I went around the ship, Captain — places like the after paint locker and the ship’s store.”

  “Why didn’t you open them?”

  “Either the men who had the keys couldn’t be found, or the keys themselves were missing.”

  “And so now you propose to search these spaces, eh?”

  “Yes sir, that’s what I’d like to do, Captain,” Proper said. “The fatal typewriter is sure to be in one of them, and the man who has access to the space is sure to be Sweet Reason.”

  “All right Proper, I’ll give you one more shot at it,” Jones said. “After the shore fire exercise tomorrow morning, get the XO to give you Quinn’s key ring. You should be able to open the doors with that. And this time you’d better come up with something, eh?”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” Proper said. As Jones turned to go Proper tugged at his sleeve. Jones looked down at his sleeve with a pained expression on his face. “Are you trying to attract my attention, Proper?”

  “Beg pardon, Captain, no offense intended. I wanted to tell you one more thing.” Again Proper lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaned toward Jones. “I got another prime suspect, Captain. I thought you might like to sound him out, sort of, the way you sounded out Ensign Joyce.”

  “Who is it this time, Proper?”

  “It’s …”

  “Speak up, man, how do you expect me to hear something when you whisper like that?”

  “It’s Cee-Dee, sir.”

  “Who the hell is Cee-Dee?” Jones asked.

  “Cee-Dee is Czerniakovski-Drpzdzynski, the ship’s barber, Captain. I suspect him for two reasons. One is I personally heard him talk about draft dodging in such a way as to indicate he approved of it.”

  “And the second?”

  “The second what, Captain?”

  “Jesus Christ, Proper, the second reason.”

  “Oh, that. The second reason is because he’s the least likely suspect on the entire ship, and in police work it’s very often the least likely suspect that committed the crime. This Czerniakovski-Drpzdzynski goes way out of his way to show how pro-American he is. He even has a — begging your pardon, Captain — ‘Fuck Communism’ sign up in his barber shop. Now it seems to me that anybody who is really innocent wouldn’t have to go to all this trouble to appear innocent, if you get my drift.”

  Jones nodded slowly. “What kind of a name is —”

  “Czerniakovski-Drpzdzynski.”

  “Czerniakovski-Drpzdzynski,” the Captain repeated. “What kind of name is that? He’s not colored, is he?”

  “Oh no, sir, it’s nothing like that. Czerniakovski-Drpzdzynski’s a foreign name.”

  “A foreign name, eh? All right, send him on up and I’ll see which way the wind is blowing.”

  Cee-Dee Comes Through with Flying Colors

  Cee-Dee turned up fifteen minutes later carrying a sheet and his barber utensils in his right hand and one of his sex magazines in the other. “Evening, Captain,” he said, offering the magazine to Jones. “Makes the time pass more quickly.” And before the Captain could say a word he plunked the magazine on his lap, draped the sheet over his shoulders and started in trimming the hair away from his right ear.

  Jones was a split second away from yanking the sheet off and leaping out of the chair and giving
Cee-Dee a piece of his mind when he remembered he needed a haircut and decided this was as good a time as any to get one. So he sat back and watched Cee-Dee, who was ducking and weaving around him, darting in with a clackety-clack-clack of the scissors, then leaning back and tilting his head to observe his handiwork. All the while Cee-Dee kept up a running conversation.

  “Pleasure to give you a haircut … you know some of us think you’re doing a bang-up job … big difference since you took over command … could you turn a little more toward me, that’s it … friggin’ Commies will rue the day the Eugene Ebersole turned up off their friggin’ coast … hear you been recommended for a silver star … bend your head forward, please … some shellackin’ we —”

  “Tell me something,” Jones interrupted. “What do you think of this Sweet Reason character?”

  Cee-Dee stopped cutting and stepped back from the chair and stared at the Captain in astonishment. “You asking me what I think of Sweet Reason?” he demanded, brandishing his scissors. Jones sank back into his chair, afraid that Cee-Dee was about to lunge at him.

  “You don’t have to answer the question if it disturbs you,” he said in a thin voice. His lower lip was quivering and he put his hand against the side of his face to stop it.

  “No offense intended, Captain, but this faggot who calls himself Sweet Reason should be boiled in friggin’ oil.”

  “In oil, eh?” Jones said, and the quivering in his lower jaw stopped.

  Cee-Dee went back to cutting hair. “There’s a rotten Commie apple in every barrel, Captain.”

  Jones had regained his composure by now. “I’ll remember that, son,” he said. “You feel pretty strongly about Communism, don’t you, eh; what do they call you, Cee-Dee?”

  Cee-Dee darted in and snipped away at the hair over the Captain’s collar. “I sure do, Captain sir. I got a poster in the barber shop that tells it like it is. It says — excuse the expression — ‘Fuck Communism.’ That’s how I feel about it. I’d like to fuck — beg your pardon, Captain — I’d like to have sexual intercourse with every one of those filthy, atheistic Commie sons of bitches, every man, woman and child. They’re all the same if you ask me. Scratch a Commie and you find a friggin’ bastard.”