by Gus Lee
“You think I’m an ignoramus, don’t you? Hey, bozo, you’re the missin’ brick from the full load. You got a chip on your shoulder the size a Bear Mountain—takin’ offense for every shitty little minority group in America.” He laughed. “I saw you in the open, soldier. Last time, you didn’t want Scrounger Duke’s butt for his slam on ninnies and Jews—you wanted to waste him—and you were thinkin’ about takin’ me down, too.” He smiled broadly.
“Coc dau, ole’ Doctor Death, come to West Point, patrollin’ the dark side with an M-79 and a knife, clipped ears danglin’ from your LBE.” He leaned back and looked up at his grungy ceiling, transported by sweet memory. “Swear to God, ain’t no one better at wastin’ people than a slant-eye grunt. Run all night in the bush, slit your throat, and drink your blood. Number One!” He looked at me with narrowed eyes, making me look like his image of me. He sat up, his old chair creaking.
“I know who you are, asshole. Your daddy or someone obviously tore the holy shit outa you when you were a squirt. Treated you like dogshit and gave you small-man complex. Now you fuckin’ pump weights, kiss ass with Plebes, shoot everyone a shit-eating grin when you’re lonely and left out, and try ta jump a room full of white guys for a thought not worth two cents.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You think I’m stupid cuz I don’t talk pretty.” He snorted. “Numbnuts, I’m smarter’n anyone you’ll meet this lifetime. I’m a lot smarter’n you. Listen to Papa: you pull the pin on all your touchy feelings while you’re in the Nam, you’ll kill so many gooks they’ll end up givin’ you the goddamned Medal a Honor.”
I said nothing, trying to control my breathing. Did I have a chip on my shoulder? Was I angry? Did I have feelings? Touchy ones?
“Heard you quit the bottle.” He laughed. “Well, didja?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t like my drink. Don’t like Smitty’s booze? Well, screw you twice for a goddammed fucking religious ingrate.” He opened one liquor cabinet, then another, slamming doors. He banged a bottle of Glenfiddich on the table, almost breaking the container.
“Ever have this?”
I shook my head.
“Single-malt scotch, best in the world. Not as good as Bushmills Irish, but it’ll do when resupply crashes on the pad.”
He poured long into two dirty tumblers. “Sit. Every shot you down, I’ll give you some deep and dark poop on the Scandal a ’51.”
He smiled and I sat. I had quit for good after drinking wine in Quebec. The booze spoke to me. I lifted the glass and downed it. It burned and was smooth; it kissed and it bit. The warmth of it zipped down my throat, reawakening old needs. I felt like giggling, and it eased aches in my shoulders I had not recognized until the alcohol hit my blood. Cures polio, I thought. I thought of Pearl, admiring my decision to end my attempt to become a silly drunk.
“Cheatin’ was a way of life for some a the squad.” He sucked his tumbler, licking his lips. “Goddamned Honor freaks! Took out thirty-seven players from the Brave Old Army Team.” He poured again, splashing it into the glasses. “Imagine that shit. Team like Notre Dame, with Seymour and Hanratty, like Syracuse when Jim Brown’d score forty-three points a game. Thirty-seven boys of oak and hearts of gold, doin’ what the Academy taught ’em to do—to take care a each other when shit creek rises high. Drink.”
I drank. It went straight to my head. I pulled out my notepad and pen and wrote, “37/Army Team, boys of oak, hearts, gold, teamwork, care for ea. other.” I felt no pain.
“Corps had only two regiments.”
They had expanded to four regiments last year, in 1966.
“Drink.”
“Sir, there were only two regiments last year. That’s not new poop. Tell me about the cheating.”
“I am telling you, you dirty sonofabitch!” he snapped. He drank, shaking his big head. “I do not like talking about this shit. Pour slow,” he said. “Too good to spill.”
I poured slowly and held my glass.
“Cross-Corps, cross-regimental,” he said. “Drink.”
I drank. “Say again, sir?”
“Listen, barfbrains. Hasn’t changed. First Regiment has engineering Monday, Wednesday, Friday, humanities and that other shit on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, right?”
I nodded.
“Second Regiment had the reverse. Then, in the next semester, they switch schedules. Got it?”
I wrote: “?”
“You are a dipshit. Say you’re in First and I’m in Second. You take your Juice whufer on Wednesday—I’ll take the same, exact goddamm writ on Thursday. Get it? Drink.”
I drank. My head buzzed. It seemed complicated.
Smits got up and turned on his Japanese lamps. I looked into the lights. I giggled.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?”
“The lights,” I said. The insanity god lived in the light.
“You’re such a numbnuts. Look, brain surgeon. You take your writ. You bag a copy or write down the problems before you forget. We meet in the library, draggin’ butt from drillin’ with B Squad and runnin’ our plays for Saturday. You give me the writ or the questions you remembered on crib sheets. Then I can rest my weary ass in the rack, cuz I know what’s on tomorrow’s whufer.
“Next semester, I return the favor, and you get to play Sleepin’ Beauty during finals. We keep this up until graduation. No one flunks out. Everyone gets the ring and gets to throw the white hat in front a mom and dad. No one’s papa puts a hole through his head cuz his boy flunked out. Drink.”
I wanted to spill it so it wouldn’t go into my head. He had just told me the answer. There was a question mark written on my notepad. I wondered what it was for.
“Drink, you yellow bastard. You made a deal.”
I drank carefully. Cross-regiments. First helps Second. Staggered classes. Staggered Cadet Ting. I laughed. Cadets cheating by organization, by plan, by the numbers. A system. Hearts of gold. Helping classmates. Cold hearts, without Honor.
He sighed, long and deep. I wrinkled my nose. “Started with the tutors. Tutors tryin’ to save the Team from gettin’ found. Ya don’t get it. We had the best fuckin’ team in the entire country. Playin’ Notre Dame was bigger’n religion.” He blinked. “It was religion.” He sucked at the scotch, looking sad. “The tutors were tryin’ to save God and the Army Team.”
I got it. I studied him blearily. “You cheat too, sir?” I asked.
“Drink,” he said.
I drank. “Did you?”
“No,” he said.
He walked to his window and looked out between the Venetian blinds. I didn’t know what he saw. I felt four pounds on my wrist, so I knew I was wearing my Rolex. I read it. It meant nothing.
“Ting, this is between you and me. I was B Squad. Not good enough for A Team. Then most of the Team got found, wiping out offense and defense. I made A Squad. Tried to restart the cheating ring. Hell, I was a goat. The whole country was talkin’ about it. Cover of Time. I had big balls, asking questions after the scandal.
“Coach Blaik pulled me aside.” His voice strained. “He said, ‘Don’t do it, son.’ ”
I stared at Smits until I figured out that he was waiting at the window until he recovered control. He slowly straightened, smoothing his wildly floral aloha shirt, all the colors running.
“No more Coach Blaiks,” he said, his grating voice almost soft. “You go to the Nam and things go south, tits up. Do your homework, spec the problem, recon the map. Supporting units dick it up cuz officers are on a ticket-punch rotation and everyone’s new and they leave you high and dry and now it’s just you. You kill the gook little people and they keep comin’ and now they’re bleedin’ you bad and you can’t kill enough of those little slope bastards, and now no more medevacs and the guns are splashin’ all over the grid and half the LTs are too stupid and shot-up to know when to fart.” He showed his teeth in a rictus of memory. “No Coach Blaik to tuck you in at night and tell you he loves you.”
He poured, then made it a double.
“Drink,” he said.
“Had enough, sir—too much,” I said.
“Drink and I’ll tell you the secret to West Point,” he said.
I took a breath and drank it. It was wet and smooth, with a small nibble. My head buzzed and I wanted to laugh and say something about little people, about how I wasn’t little, and could now bench almost three hundred pounds. I was at two-nine-five.
“Hated greensuits,” he said, sour, too close to my face. I saw the pores in his twice-broken nose, the livid scar in his chin where the hair didn’t grow, his smell filling my nostrils, infesting my uniform. “Always screwin’ with you, dishin’ quill, takin’ privileges, makin’ you walk the Area. Assholes! Now I’m a suit. And here to tell you, when you hit the real world, there ain’t no Honor Code to help.
“You crocked?”
“Little,” I said.
“Yeah, like you’re a little stupid. Someone like you came round sniffin’ on the Team back in ’51, you’d get your curious Chinese rump ripped from top to bottom.
“This tin-soldier shop runs the perfect world. Everything hunky-dory. Everything’s squared away, marchin’ squares, eatin’ squares, bandbox reviews with square corners, bells go off on time, the band plays and when the Corps marches it looks like heaven. Never work harder in your life on so many goddammed things. Everyone’s a lord, an honest gentleman. Leave your wallet with your pay on the desk, it’s there in the morning. Damn BPs are gents.
“Go out in the Regular Army. You’re the best. No one stronger, smarter, harder working, more honest, more freakin’ earnest, ready to die. But the people do you, Ting, ’cause they didn’t have the Corps and the Code, and they hate it that you went to West Point for free, the four years a military life comin’ off you like BO. Get a combat command and it ain’t no band a brothers. You can’t keep all your people alive. The shit falls and they die faster’n you can police up dog tags and the op orders carry bullshit from shit-firin’ careerists that don’t know that maps don’t tell the story. That’s when I figured that West Point was a big, neat trick.
“Perfection. Ain’t no such fuckin’ thing in the world.
“That’s why, Oriental Boy Wonder, we got the Poker Society. Reality. People bein’ real in their heads, swearin’, takin’ no names, no prisoners, none a that fake gentlemen shit! It’s no scrimmage after graduation—boh-coo uh-uh! It’s your nuts they’re after. Careerists, women, whores, newspaper men, fellow officers, the slant-eyed gooks and patriots, misinformed Presidents and the goddammed Congress. They love West Point, and like to screw West Pointers. That’s what the staffoid dick-with-ears said who nuked my Medal a Honor. Called me a ringknocker.
“All this,” he said, waving at his bottles, at West Point, “for nothin’. Won’t even keep your first sergeant alive, or keep the legs on your RTO, or keep a young kid screamin’ for his momma. I told Troth that. He understands, poor bastard. But you, you’re dumber’n a GI in a whorehouse on payday. Only people off the boat believe in perfection. Americans oughta know better. You wanna be an American, don’t believe it. It ain’t real.
“Drink, then back outa here. You’re like all those slopes. You wear the shit outa me.”
“Sir, how would you start on this problem if you were me?”
“I already told you, troop,” he snarled. “Go out and kill something, snip its ears an’ pin ’em on your LBE.” He took a long, angry swig, sighing as it burned into his guts. He blinked at me as if I had just appeared.
“You still here? Unass my AO, yellow soldier.” He stood, stumbled over empty beer cans, which banged hollowly across his floor. He switched on his record player, strange sounds emerging as the turntable began rotating and gained speed, bringing the Animals back into quarters 40.
31
BIG DICK
West Point Museum, January 15, 1967
“A Frigault 64 Electrical,” said Mike, “is a standard Fort Fumble, Pentagon model. It has a five-number set combination and requires two intermediate steps to open the tumblers: a clockwise, dial-down rotation for the second and fourth pins and a ten-second delay on a preset number to allow one tumbler to gravity-fall. It’s called a Frigault combination.” As usual, Mike was reciting data he’d seen once.
“Three-sixteenths-inch steel plate welded, that’d survive collapse of the building. The slide bolts are uncuttable half-inch steel rods. The silent tumblers defeat a combo search by sound sensing. It’s where I should keep my boodle when Kai’s around.”
“Ha ha,” I said.
“I’m serious,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Combination’s changed annually. But get this: the faculty has two lieutenants.” LTs couldn’t be faculty. “Ever hear of ‘McNamara Monuments’?”
Just what we needed. More statues. We shook our heads.
“Draft calls are up. McNamara’s called up advanced-degree people who used up their deferments, getting them into the Pentagon. Some are PhD’s. We have six at the Academy—two in Juice, one in social sciences, and three in language. ‘McNamara Monuments.’ The two Juice Monuments teach Second and Fourth Regiments. Their names are Baker and Nasser.”
“They have access to the Frigault?” asked Sonny.
“Roger,” said Mike. “All profs have to secure writs in the exam safe before and after grading.”
“If I wanted to get into that safe,” said Sonny, “I’d trick a Monument. Use a ruse. Guy wouldn’t know the culture or the system. Like, who’s gonna suspect cheating at West Point?”
“I’ll follow up on the Monuments,” said Mike.
“I talked to Colonel Smits,” I said.
“Why him?” asked Mike. “You didn’t drink with him, did you?”
“He’s Class of ’52, played football. He knew a lot about the cheating in ’51. If I drank, he gave me the poop.”
“What an asshole,” said Mike.
“I’ve known meaner drunks. Here’s what I remember. The ’51 cheating operation wasn’t complicated—no thefts of writs from safes or burglaries. It was cross-regimental—copying or spec’ing whufers by First Regiment guys on crib notes, who passed them to the Second Regiment guys, who took the writs one day later. The next semester, when the schedules reversed, they switched roles. It started with the tutors to the football team in Juice. Football became as important as Honor.”
Mike and Sonny looked at each other. “If they got enough guys,” said Mike, “they could pool their poop by committee. They wouldn’t need a hive to figure the answers.”
“Still need Big Dick, the planner,” said Sonny. “Staggered classes.” He shook his head. “Never think a the other regiments till brigade finals. There’s a whole world in East Barracks and the Lost Fifties. And the football team—”
“Would cross the regimental barrier,” said Mike. “The Team’s divided up through all the companies. It’s not the Team, is it?”
“These are my sectionmates who had canned writ answers,” I said. “None on the Team.” I couldn’t say their names. I wrote:
Jeff T. Faubus
Galen Nocksin
Farren McWhiff
“Damn!” said Sonny. He had tutored all of them. “Sorry.” He exhaled loudly, running fingers through his hair.
“Sonny,” said Mike, “you take Jeff T., since he’s in your company. Galen’s company is next door to mine, so I’ll take him. Farren’s next to yours,” he said to me. “We have to follow them.”
“Why’d they do this?” asked Sonny. “It’s not logical.”
“They want to graduate,” I said.
“Let’s hope that trailin’ ’em leads to Big Dick,” said Sonny. He looked at me. “Why’d Kai get the writ copy?”
Mike jittered his right knee. Sonny peered at the ceiling. I adjusted my underwear.
“That’ll help you think,” said Sonny.
“Free promotion of the ring,” said Mike, his knee still. “Pass out free copies of the stolen writ to goats who need help. Do it covertly, in the night—no tracing back to sources. Give h
ints that the source was the tutor. They take the writ, they’re in.”
“So why didn’t other goats get the writ?” I asked.
“We don’t know that they didn’t,” said Mike.
“Guess we can’t worry about that,” I said. “We gotta find guys in First and Third who study with guys from Second and Fourth.”
“What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?” asked Sonny. “You’re the stud communicator, the Hudson High-Woo Poo schmoozer who raps all over campus. That’s why Maher picked you.”
“You got the bad detail, Kai,” said Mike. “You’re point man.” He slapped me on the leg. “You know we’re in this together. You just get to do it alone.”
Nine small orange figurines marched down the roofline of the Hanlin Academy at the gates of the Forbidden City. At the rear, driving the column, is a fierce and rotund dragon. In the lead is Prince Min, the irresponsibly corrupt Han official whose punishment for greed was permanent point man in the walk of life. These nine little figurines served as lightning rods, waiting for storms, to take the blow from heaven for the sake of the noble red roof. Min rode a ridiculous chicken and led the procession for hell, waiting for an ugly fate. I knew how he felt. I was on the chessboard, trying to fork an invisible enemy in the perfection of the Academy, while storm clouds gathered above my head.
“Sonny, what about the keys?” asked Mike.
“Woo Poo’s keys are cut by maintenance and held by the PM, the provost marshal. He’s got key control and keys for Bartlett and faculty offices are Top A Restricted, no copies authorized. That’s been SOP since 1951.
“Faculty offices have individualized keys, not keyed to department. So Maher, the department head, and the PM are the only ones with a key to his office.
“I know Cutler, the department head,” said Sonny. “He’s a detail guy. Doesn’t lose his keys. Doesn’t lend or borrow keys.”
“Ben Franklin would like him,” I said.
