"I wondered what the hell had happened to you," Pickering said. "I took a chance and ordered breakfast for both of us."
"I'm not hungry," McCoy said.
But he sat down for a cup of coffee and wound up eating a breakfast steak and a couple of eggs and the half dozen remaining rolls.
"I thought you might take just a little bite," Pickering said, "for restorative purposes." "Fuck you," McCoy said.
"Then you didn't get any," Pickering said. "With your well-known incredible good luck, you fell into the clutches of one of our famous cockteasers."
"I got a goddamned cherry," McCoy said. "I didn't know there were any left," Pickering said without thinking, before realizing that McCoy wasn't boasting; that quite to the contrary, he was ashamed. "Who was she?" he asked.
"There were two poor people in here yesterday," McCoy said. "I found the other one."
"What has being poor got to do with getting laid?" Pickering asked. "Just looking around, I get the idea that poor people spend a lot of time screwing."
"She's a nice girl, Pick," McCoy said. "And I copped her cherry."
"Death," Pickering said, mocking the sonorous tones of the announcer in the March of Time newsreels, "and losing cherries comes inexorably in due time to all men. And virgins." "Screw you," McCoy said, but he was smiling. "Which one was it?" Pickering asked. McCoy didn't want to tell Pickering her name. "We're going to have lunch," he said. "I will, of course, vacate the premises," Pickering said. "Nothing like that, goddamn it," McCoy said. "She has to work this morning. She said she would meet me for a sandwich. Someplace called the Grand Central Oyster Bar. You know where it is?"
"Oddly enough, I do. The Grand Central Oyster Bar, despite the misleading name, is in Grand Central Station." He stopped himself from saying what popped into his mind, that McCoy's deflowered virgin had apparently heard of the aphrodisiacal virtues of oysters. "It's right around the comer from Brooks Brothers."
"She said twelve-thirty," McCoy asked. "Is that going to give us enough time?"
"Sure," Pickering said.
Platoon Leader Candidates Pickering and McCoy were not the first about-to-be commissioned Marine officers the salesman at Brooks Brothers had seen. More than that, he was pleased to see them. Not only was it a sale of several Hundred dollars (more if the customer wanted his uniforms custom made rather than off the rack), it was a quick sale. None of the salesman's time had to be spent smiling approval as the customer tried on one item after another. There were no choices to be made. The style was set.
"Uniforms, gentlemen?" the salesman said.
"Sure," one of the Marines said. "I thought it would be a good idea if you remeasured me. I have just gone through a rather interesting physical training course, and I think I ain't what I used to be."
"Oh, you have an account with us, sir?"
"Yes," Pickering said. "But I'm glad you brought that up. This is Mr. McCoy. He's just come from the Orient, and he doesn't have an account. I don't think he's even had time to open a bank account, have you, Ken?"
"I've got a bank account," McCoy said.
"In any event, you'll have to open an account for him," Pickering said.
"I'm sure that won't be a problem, sir," the salesman said. "I didn't catch the name?"
"Pickering, Malcolm Pickering."
"One moment, sir, and I'll get your measurements," the salesman said.
Pickering's measurements were filed together with his account. There were coded notations that payment was slow, but was always eventually made in full.
Brooks Brothers preferred to be paid promptly, but they were just as happy to have very large accounts (the last order from young Mr. Pickering had been for two dinner jackets, three lounge suits, one morning coat, a dozen shirts, a dozen sets of underwear, a dozen dress shirts and two pairs of patent leather evening slippers) paid whenever it was convenient for the affluent.
The fitter was summoned. Mr. Pickering was an inch and a half larger around the chest than he had been at his last fitting, and his across-the-shoulder measurement had increased by an inch.
"You know what we're supposed to have?" Mr. Pickering asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, measure him, then, and we can get out of here. Mr. McCoy has a pressing social engagement."
When McCoy signed the bill, he couldn't quite believe the amount. They were to be paid a $150 uniform allowance. The uniforms he had just ordered (Brooks Brothers guaranteed their delivery, if necessary by special messenger, in time for their commissioning) were going to cost him just under $900.
He had the money in the account at the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, but it was absolutely unreal that he was going to pay nearly twice as much for uniforms as he had paid for the LaSalle.
When they were on the street, Pickering said: "I debated you getting your uniforms there," he said. "They're expensive, but you're going to need good uniforms. In the long run, they're just as cheap. If you don't have the dough, I'll lend it to you."
"I don't need your money."
"Hey, get off my back. Get two things straight. First, that you're my buddy. And second, that being rich is better than being poor, and I have no intention of apologizing to you because I was smart enough to get born to rich people."
"The last shirts I bought cost me sixty-five cents," McCoy said. "I just bought a dozen at six-ninety-five apiece. That's what they call 'unexpected.' "
"Then you had better be careful with them, hadn't you?" Pickering said. "Make a real effort not to spill mustard on them when you're eating a hot dog?"
McCoy smiled at him. He found it very difficult to stay sore at Pickering for very long.
"It's five minutes after twelve," McCoy said. "Where's Grand Central Station?"
"Yonder," Pickering said, pointing at it. "Do I get to meet your deflowered virgin?"
"That's going too fucking far!" McCoy flared.
Pickering saw icy fury in McCoy's eyes.
"For that I apologize," he said.
The ice in McCoy's eyes did not go away.
"I'm sorry, Ken," Pickering said. "You know my mouth."
"Well, lay off this subject!"
"Okay, okay," Pickering said. "I said I was sorry and I meant it. If you're free, I'll be either in the room, or '21.' Call me. If you're not otherwise occupied."
McCoy nodded and then turned and walked toward Grand Central Station. Pickering watched him. Halfway down the block, he looked over his shoulder as if to check if Pickering was following him.
Pickering pretended to be looking for a cab.
The poor sonofabitch has really got it bad for this broad. I wonder who she is?
A cab stopped, and Pickering got in.
"Grand Central," he said.
"It's right down the street, for Christ's sake!"
Pickering handed him five dollars.
"Take the long way around," he said. "I'm in no hurry."
Feeling something like a private detective shadowing a cheating husband, he stationed himself in the Oyster Bar where he felt sure he could see McCoy and the deflowered virgin, but they could not see him.
Pickering was twice surprised when the deflowered virgin showed up five minutes early, and after a moment's hesitation kissed McCoy, first impersonally and distantly, and then again on the lips, looking into his eyes, as a woman kisses her lover.
Pick Pickering had known Ernie Sage most of her life. He was surprised that she had been a virgin. And he was surprised that McCoy thought she was poor. There were some people who thought Ernie Sage had gotten her job with J. Walter Thompson, Advertising, Inc., because she had graduated summa cum laude from Sarah Lawrence. And there were those who thought it just might be because J. Walter Thompson had the account of American Personal Pharmaceutical, Inc., which spent fifteen or twenty million a year advertising its wide array of toothpastes, mouthwashes, and hair lotions. The chairman of the board of American Personal Pharmaceuticals (and supposedly, its largest stockholder) was Ernest
Sage.
Chapter Thirteen
(One)
U.S. 1 Near Washington, D.C.
2230 Hours, 23 November 1941
They stopped for gas and a hamburger, and when they started off again, Pickering took the wheel.
"What did you think of the Met?" Pickering asked.
"What?"
"Since I didn't see you from the time we walked out of Brooks Brothers until five-thirty this afternoon, I naturally presumed that you had been enriching your mind by visiting the cultural attractions of New York City. Like the Metropolitan Museum of Art."
McCoy snorted.
"We did take the Staten Island Ferry," he said. "She said it was the longest ride for a nickel in the world."
"It must have been thrilling!" Pickering said.
"Fuck you," McCoy said, cheerfully. "Since you're so fucking nosy, we spent most of the time in her apartment."
"We are now going sixty-eight miles per hour," Pickering said.
"So what? You're driving. You'll get the ticket, not me." Then he added, "But maybe you had better slow down a little. The Corps goes apeshit when people get speeding tickets. Especially in cars they're not supposed to have in the first place."
"If you were to slug me, I would probably lose control, and we would be killed in a flaming crash," Pickering said.
McCoy looked at him curiously.
"I mention that because I have something to say to you.
Some things-plural, two; and I want you to understand the risk you would be running by taking a poke at me."
"You can say anything you want," McCoy said. "God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world."
"Ernie Sage really got to you, huh?"
"How do you know her name?" McCoy demanded,
suspiciously.
"I followed you," Pickering said. "When you met her in Grand Central, I was lurking behind a pillar."
"You sonofabitch!" McCoy said. But he wasn't angry. "I hope you got an eyeful."
"Very touching," Pickering said. "Romeo and Juliet."
"She's really something," McCoy said.
"I realize this is none of my business-"
"Then don't say it," McCoy interrupted.
"-but since you seem to put such weight on such things, I feel obliged to tell you something about her."
"Be careful, Pick," McCoy said, and there was menace in
his voice.
"Ernie is named after her father," Pickering said. "Ernest Sage. Ernest Sage is chairman of the board of American Personal Pharmaceutical."
"So what?" McCoy said. "I never even heard of it."
Pickering recited a dozen brand names of American Personal Pharmaceutical products.
"In other words," McCoy said, finally catching on, "she's like you. Rich."
"The rich say 'comfortable,' Ken," Pickering said.
"I don't care what they say," McCoy flared. "Rich is rich." There was a moment's silence, and then McCoy said, "Oh, goddamn!"
It was a wail of anguish.
"As I have tried to point out, being rich is not quite as bad as having leprosy," Pickering said. "I'm sure that if you put your heart in it, you could learn to like it."
"She lied to me, goddamnit. Why did she do that?" McCoy asked. Pickering knew he hadn't heard what he had
told him.
"There is a remote possibility that the lady finds you attractive," Pickering said. "Marines have that reputation, I'm told."
"She made a fucking fool out of me!" McCoy said. "Goddamnit, she got me to tell her all about Norristown."
"Norristown?"
"About why I went in the Corps. About my father. Even about my slob of a sister.''
"If she wanted to hear about that, then that means she's interested in everything you are. What's wrong with that?"
"Just butt out of this, all right?"
"Now I'm sorry I told you," Pickering said.
"If you hadn't, I would have made an even bigger fucking fool of myself!" McCoy said, adding a moment later, "Jesus!"
"As I said," Pickering said, "there is a remote possibility that Ernie likes you-"
"She doesn't like to be called Ernie" McCoy said.
"-for what you are. Warts and all," Pickering continued.
"Jesus, you just don't understand, do you? this isn't the first time this has happened to me. All she wanted was a stiff prick. Marines have a reputation for having stiff pricks."
"I think you're dead wrong," Pickering said.
"Fuck what you think, I know," McCoy said.
"You told me that you"-Pickering paused and then went on-"were the first."
"So what?"
"That means something to women, from what I've seen. They can only give it away once. Ernie chose to give it away to you."
"She decided to get it over with, and I was available."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
"She lied to me, you dumb fuck! A whole line of bullshit, about this being her first job, right out of school, and I thought she meant high school, and how they were paying her eighteen fifty a week, and that's why her apartment was such a dump."
"That's all true," Pickering said.
"You know what I mean," McCoy said.
"She had to lie to you, you dumb fuck," Pickering said. "You have this well-developed inferiority complex, and she was afraid you'd crawl back in your hole."
"Do me a favor, Pickering," McCoy said. "Just shut your fucking mouth!"
"Ken, I want to keep you from-"
"Shut your fucking mouth, I said! The subject is closed." Pick Pickering decided that under the circumstances, the only thing to do was shut his fucking mouth.
(Two)
The last week of training in Platoon Leader's Course 23-41 went just as rapidly as the previous weeks had, but far more pleasantly.
In the words of Pick Pickering: "It's as if the Corps, having spent all that time and effort turning us into savages, has considered the risks they'd run if they turned us loose on an unsuspecting civilian population and is now engaged in recivilizing us."
There were several lectures on the manners and deportment expected of Marine Corps officers, and lectures on "personal finance management" and the importance of preparing a last will and testament. There was a lecture on insurance, and another on the regulations involved in the travel and transfers of officers.
They were even taken to the Officers' Club, where the intricacies of officer club membership were explained in a hands-on demonstration. They were ushered into the dining room, allowed to order whatever struck their fancy from the menu (which Pickering and McCoy found somewhat disappointing), and then shown how to sign the chit. Commissioned officers and gentlemen do not pay cash in officers' clubs.
Afterward, before they marched back to the company area, a lance corporal at a table outside the dining room permitted them to redeem the chits for cash.
But they got the idea. And they had their first meal as gentlemen-if not quite yet officers-and-gentlemen-and were thus free, since they had paid for it, not to eat it if they didn't like it. Corporal Pleasant had not even marched them over to the officers' club (Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy had been ordered to do that) and there was thus no risk that any of them would be ordered to slurp it up.
And they were given liberty at night during the last few days, from retreat to last call. Pickering and McCoy went to the slop chute, where a pitcher of beer and paper cups were available for a quarter. McCoy put away a lot of beer; but neither he nor Pick Pickering got drunk or reopened the subject of Miss Ernestine Sage.
On Wednesday afternoon, in time for the retreat formation, most of the officer uniforms were delivered. The uniform prescribed for the retreat formation was a mixture of officer and enlisted uniforms. They could not be permitted to wear officer's brimmed caps, of course, because they were not yet officers. But they wore officer's blouses and trousers, without officer-type insignia, because the primary purpose of the formation was really to see if the un
iforms would fit on Friday, when they would be sworn in.
Platoon Leader Candidates Pickering and McCoy did not have their officer's uniforms on Wednesday afternoon. When this was discovered by Corporal Pleasant, it afforded him one last opportunity to offer his opinion of the intelligence, responsibility, and parentage of two of his charges. But even after that, they were not restricted to the barracks for the evening. They got the LaSalle one last time from the provost marshal's impounding lot and went off the base so that Platoon Leader Candidate Pickering could make inquiries of Brooks Brothers.
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