"Yes."
"What does he teach? You told me, but I forgot."
"Biology...How old was he, Vincent?"
"Twenty," Vincent said.
"Nine years younger than you," Babe calculated inanely. "Do your folks - I mean do your folks know you're going overseas next week?"
"No," said Vincent. "Yours?"
"No. I guess I'll have to tell them before the train leaves in the morning. I don't know how to tell mother. Her eyes fill up if somebody even mentions the word 'gun.'"
"Have you had fun, Babe?" Vincent asked seriously.
"Yes, a lot," Babe answered. "...The cigarettes are behind you."
Vincent reached for them. "Seen a lot of Frances?" he asked.
"Yes. She's wonderful, Vince. The folks don't like her, but she's wonderful for me."
"Maybe you should have married her," Vincent said. Then, sharply, "He wasn't even twenty, Babe. Not till next month. I want to kill so badly I can't sit still. Isn't that funny? I'm notoriously yellow. All my life I've even avoided fist fights, always getting out of them by talking fast. Now I want to shoot it out with people. What do you think of that?"
Babe said nothing for a minute. Then, "Did you have a good time - I mean till that letter came?"
"No. I haven't had a good time since I was twenty-five. I should have got married when I was twenty-five. I'm too old to make conversation at bars or neck in taxicabs with new girls."
"Did you see Helen at all?" Babe asked.
"No. I understand she and the gentleman she married are going to have a little stranger."
"Nice," said Babe dryly.
Vincent smiled. "It's good to see you, Babe. Thanks for asking me. G.I.'s - especially G.I.'s who are friends - belong together these days. It's no good being with civilians anymore. They don't know what we know and we're no longer used to what they know. It doesn't work out so hot."
Babe nodded and thoughtfully took a drag from his cigarette.
"I never really knew anything about friendship before I was in the Army. Did you, Vince?"
"Not a thing. It's the best thing there is. Just about."
Mrs. Gladwaller's voice shrilled up the stairs and into the room, "Babe! Your father's home! Dinner!"
The two soldiers stood up.
When the meal was over, Professor Gladwaller held forth at the dinner table. He had been in the "last one" and he was acquainting Vincent with some of the trials the men in the "last one" had undergone. Vincent, the son of an actor, listened with the competent expression of a good player on stage with the star. Babe sat back in his seat, staring at the glow of his cigarette, occasionally lifting his cup of coffee. Mrs. Gladwaller watched Babe, not listening to her husband, searching out her son's face, remembering it when it was round and pink, remembering the summer when it had started to get long and dark and intense. It was the best face, she thought. It wasn't handsome like his father's, but it was the best face in the family. Mattie was under the table, untying Vincent's shoes. He was holding his feet still, letting her, pretending not to notice.
"Cockroaches," said Professor Gladwaller impressively. "Everywhere you looked, cockroaches."
"Please, Jack," said Mrs. Gladwaller absently. "At the table."
"Everywhere you looked," her husband repeated. "Couldn't get rid of 'em."
"They must have been a nuisance," Vincent said.
Annoyed that Vincent had to make a series of perfunctory remarks to humor his father, Babe suddenly said, "Daddy, I don't mean to sound pontifical, but sometimes you talk about the last war - all you fellas do - as though it had been some kind of rugged, sordid game by which society of your day weeded out the men from the boys. I don't mean to be tiresome, but you men from the last war, you all agree that war is hell, but - I don't know - you all seem to think yourselves a little superior for having been participants in it. It seems to me that men in Germany who were in the last one probably talked the same way, or thought the same way, and when Hitler provoked this one, the younger generation in Germany were ready to prove themselves as good or better than their fathers." Babe paused, self-consciously. "I believe in this war. If I didn't, I would have gone to a conscientious objectors' camp and swung an ax for the duration. I believe in killing Nazis and Fascists and Japs, because there's no other way that I know of. But I believe, as I've never believed in anything else before, that it's the moral duty of all the men who have fought and will fight in this war to keep our mouths shut, once it's over, never again to mention it in any way. It's time we let the dead die in vain. It's never worked the other way, God knows." Babe clenched his left hand under the table. "But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroism and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm."
Babe stopped talking, afraid that he had made a terrible fool of himself in front of his father and Vincent. His father and Vincent made no comment. Mattie suddenly came up from under the table, wriggled onto her chair, in cahoots with herself. Vincent moved his feet, looking at her accusingly. The laces of one shoe were tied to the laces of the other.
"You think I'm talking through my hat, Vincent?" Babe asked, rather shyly.
"Nope. But I think you ask too much of human nature."
Professor Gladwaller grinned. "I didn't mean to romanticize my cockroaches," he said.
He laughed and the others laughed with him, except Babe, who resented slightly that what he felt so deeply could be reduced to a humor.
Vincent looked at him, understanding that, liking his friend immensely.
"What I really want to know," Vincent said, "is who do I have a date with tonight. Whom."
"Jackie Benson," Babe answered.
"Oh, she's a lovely girl, Vincent," Mrs. Gladwaller said.
"The way you say it, Mrs. Gladwaller, I'm sure she's as homely as sin," Vincent said.
"No, she's lovely.... Isn't she, Babe?"
Babe nodded, still thinking of what he had said. He felt immature and a complete fool. He had been windy and trite.
"Oh, I remember the name now," Vincent recalled. "Isn't she one of your old flames?"
"Babe went with her for two years," Mrs. Gladwaller said fondly, possessively. "She's a grand girl. You'll love her, Vincent."
"That'll be nice. I haven't been in love this week.... Who are you taking, Vincent, as if I didn't know."
Mrs. Gladwaller laughed and stood up.
The others stood up too.
"Somebody has tied my shoelaces together," Vincent announced. "Mrs. Gladwaller. At your age."
Mattie nearly had a fit. She slammed Vincent on the back, laughing till she was almost hysterical. Vincent watched her, dead-pan, and Babe came around the table, smiling again, picked up his sister and sat her high on his shoulder. He took off Mattie's shoes with his right hand and gave them to Vincent, who solemnly opened the side flaps of his blouse and put the shoes in his pockets. Mattie howled with laughter, and her brother set her down and walked into the living room.
He went to the window where his father was standing, and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's snowing again," he said to him.
Late at night, Babe couldn't sleep. He tossed and twisted in the dark, then suddenly relaxed, lying on his back. He had known how Vincent would react to Frances, but he had hoped that Vincent wouldn't say how he felt. What was the good of telling a guy what he knew anyway? But Vincent had said it. He had said it not thirty minutes ago, in this very room. "Boy, use your head," he had said. "Jackie is twice the girl Frances is. She runs rings around her. She's better-looking than Frances, she's warmer, she's smarter; she'll give you ten times the understanding that Frances would e
ver give you. Frances will give you nothing. And if ever a guy needed understanding, it's you, brother."
Brother. The "brother" had irritated Babe as much as anything. Even from Vincent.
He doesn't know, thought Babe, lying in the dark. He doesn't know what Frances does to me, what she's always done to me. I tell strangers about her. Coming home on the train, I told a strange G.I. about her. I've always done that. The more unrequited my love for her becomes, the longer I love her, the oftener I whip out my dumb heart like crazy X-ray pictures, the greater urge I have to trace the bruises: "Look, stranger, here is where I was seventeen and borrowed Joe Mackay's Ford and drove her up to Lake Womo for the day....Here, right here, is where she said what she said about big elephants and little elephants....Here, over here, is where I let her cheat Bunny Haggerty at gin rummy at Rye Beach; there was a heart in her diamond run, and she knew it....Here, ah, here, is where she yelled 'Babe!' when she saw me serve an ace to Bobby Teemers. I had to serve an ace to hear it, but when I heard it my heart - you can see it right here - flopped over, and it's never been the same since....And here - I hate it here - here is where I was twenty-one and I saw her in one of the booths at the drugstore with Waddell, and she was sliding her fingers back and forth through the knuckle grooves of his hand." He doesn't know what Frances does to me, Babe thought. She makes me miserable, she makes me feel rotten, she doesn't understand me - nearly all of the time. But some of the time, some of the time, she's the most wonderful girl in the world, and that's something nobody else is. Jackie never makes me miserable, but Jackie never really makes me anything. Jackie answers my letters the day she gets them. Frances takes anywhere from two weeks to two months, and sometimes never, and when she does, she never writes what I want to read. But I read her letters a hundred times and I only read Jackie's once. When I just see the handwriting on the envelope of Frances' letters - the silly, affected handwriting - I'm the happiest guy in the world.
I've been this way for seven years, Vincent. There are things you don't know. There are things you don't know, brother.
Babe rolled over on his left side and tried to sleep. He lay on his left side for ten minutes, then he rolled over on his right side. That was no good either. He got up. He walked around his room in the dark, tripped over a book, but finally found a cigarette and a match. He lighted up, inhaled till it almost hurt, and as he exhaled he knew there was something he wanted to tell Mattie. But what? He sat down on the edge of his bed and thought it out before he put on his robe.
"Mattie," he said silently to no one in the room, "You're a little girl. But nobody stays a little girl or a little boy long - take me, for instance. All of a sudden little girls wear lipstick, all of a sudden little boys shave and smoke. So it's a quick business, being a kid. Today you're ten years old, running to meet me in the snow, ready, so ready, to coast down Spring Street with me; tomorrow you'll be twenty, with guys sitting in the living room waiting to take you out. All of a sudden you'll have to tip porters, you'll worry about expensive clothes, meet girls for lunch, wonder why you can't find a guy who's right for you. And that's all as it should be. But my point, Mattie - if I have a point, Mattie - is this: kind of try to live up to the best that's in you. If you give your word to people, let them know that they're getting the word of the best. If you room with some dopey girl at college, try to make her less dopey. If you're standing outside a theater and some old gal comes up selling gum, give her a buck if you're got a buck - but only if you can do it without patronizing her. That's the trick, baby. I could tell you a lot, Mat, but I wouldn't be sure that I'm right. You're a little girl, but you understand me. You're going to be smart when you grow up. But if you can't be smart and a swell girl, too, then I don't want to see you grow up. Be a swell girl, Mat."
Babe stopped talking to no one in the room. He suddenly wanted to tell Mattie herself. He got up from the edge of his bed, put on his robe, sniped his cigarette in his ashtray and closed the door of the room behind him.
There was a hall light burning outside Mattie's room, and when Babe opened the door, the room was adequately lighted. He went over to her bed and sat on the edge of it. Her arm was outside the cover, and he rocked it back and forth gently, but strongly enough to wake her. She opened her eyes, startled, but the light in the room wasn't strong enough to hurt.
"Babe," she said.
"Hello, Mat," Babe said awkwardly. "What are ya doing?"
"Sleeping," said Mattie logically.
"I just wanted to talk to you," Babe said.
"What, Babe?"
"I just wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you to be a good girl."
"I will, Babe." She was awake now, listening to him.
"Good," said Babe heavily. "Okay. Go back to sleep."
He stood up, started to leave the room.
"Babe!"
"Sh-h-h!"
"You're going to war. I saw you. I saw you kick Vincent under the table once. When I was tying his shoelaces. I saw you."
He went over to her and sat down on the edge of the bed again, his face serious. "Mattie, don't say anything to Mother," he told her.
"Babe, don't you get hurt! Don't you get hurt!"
"No. I won't, Mattie. I won't," Babe promised. "Mattie, listen. You mustn't tell Mother. Maybe I'll have a chance to tell her at the train. But don't you tell her, Mat."
"I won't. Babe! Don't you get hurt!"
"I won't, Mattie. I swear I won't. I'm lucky," Babe said. He bent over and kissed her good night. "Go back to sleep," he told her. And he left the room.
He went back to his own room, turned on his lights. Then he went to his window and stood there, smoking another cigarette. It was snowing hard again, big flakes that you couldn't really see till they popped big and wet against the windowpane. But the flakes would get drier before the night was over, and by morning the snow would be deep and good and fresh all over Valdosta.
This is my home, Babe thought. This is where I was a boy. This is where Mattie is growing up. This is where Mother used to play the piano. This is where Dad dubbed his tee shots. This is where Frances lives and brings me happiness in her way. But this is where Mattie is sleeping. No enemy is banging on our door, waking her up, frightening her. But it could happen if I don't go out and meet him with my gun. And I will, and I'll kill him. I'd like to come back too. It would be swell to come back. It would be -
Babe turned, wondering who it was.
"Come in," he said.
His mother came in, in her dressing gown. She came over to him, and he put his arm around her.
"Well, Mrs. Gladwaller," he said, pleased, "The etching department is right over - "
"Babe," his mother said, "You're going over, aren't you?
Babe said, "What makes you say that?"
"I can tell."
"Old Hawkshaw," Babe said, trying to be casual.
"I'm not worried," his mother said - calmly - which amazed Babe. "You'll do your job and you'll come back. I have a feeling."
"Do you, Mother?"
"Yes, I do, Babe."
"Good."
His mother kissed him and started to leave, turning at the door. "There's some cold chicken in the icebox. Why don't you wake Vincent, and you two go down to the kitchen?"
"Maybe I will," Babe said happily.
11. Once A Week Won't Kill You
HE HAD a cigarette in his mouth while he packed, and his face squinted to avoid smoke in the eyes; so there was no way of telling by his expression if he was bored or apprehensive, annoyed or resigned. The young woman sitting in the big man's chair, looking like a guest, had her pretty face caught in a blotch of early morning sunshine; it did her no harm. But her arms were probably the best of her. They were brown and round and good.
"Sweetie," she said, "I don't see why Billy couldn't be doing all that. I mean."
"What?" said the young man. He had a thick, chain-smoker's voice.
"I mean I don't see why Billy couldn't be doing all that."
; "He's too old," he answered. "How 'bout turning on the radio. There might be some canned music on at this time. Try 1010."
The young woman reached behind her, using the hand with the gold band wedding ring and on the little finger beside it the incredible emerald; she opened some white compartment doors, snapped something, turned something. She sat back and waited, and suddenly, without any pretext, she yawned. The young man glanced at her.
"What a horrible time to start, I mean," she said.
"I'll tell them," said the young man, examining a stack of folded handkerchiefs. "My wife says it's a horrible time to start out."
"Sweetie, I am going to miss you horribly."
"I'll miss you, too. I have more white handkerchiefs than this."
"I mean, I will," she said. It's all so stinking. I mean. And all"
"Well, that's that," said the young man, closing the valise. He lighted a cigarette, looked at the bed, and dropped himself on it....
Just as he stretched himself out the tubes of the radio were warmed, and a Sousa march, featuring what seemed to be an unlimited fife section, triumphed voluminously into the room. His wife swung back one of her marvelous arms and put a stop to it.
"There might have been something else on."
"Not at this crazy time."
The young man blew a faulty smoke ring at the ceiling.
"You didn't have to get up," he told her.
"I wanted to."
It had been three years and she had never stopped talking to him in italics.
"Not get up!" she said.
"Try 570," he said. "There might be something there."
His wife tried the radio again, and they both waited, he closing his eyes. In a moment some reliable jazz came through.
22 Out-of-print J. D. Salinger Stories Page 9
