by James Reston
BILLY: Geezus.
ROONEY (Nodding gently): Didn’t get to sing the song, I bet.
COKES (Standing, staring at the fallen bottle): No way.
RICHIE: What song?
ROONEY (HE rises up, mysteriously angry): Shit sack! Shit sack!
RICHIE: What song, Sergeant Rooney?
ROONEY: “Beautiful streamer,” shit sack.
COKES, gone into another reverie, is staring skyward.
COKES: I saw this one guy—never forget it. Never.
BILLY: That’s Richie, Sergeant Rooney. He’s a beautiful screamer.
RICHIE: He said “streamer,” not “screamer,” asshole.
COKES is still in his reverie.
COKES: This guy with his chute goin’ straight up above him in a streamer, like a tulip, only white, you know. All twisted and never gonna open. Like a big icicle sticking straight up above him. He went right by me. We met eyes, sort of. He was lookin’ real puzzled. He looks right at me. Then he looks up in the air at the chute, then down at the ground.
ROONEY: Did he sing it?
COKES: He didn’t sing it. He started going like this. (HE reaches desperately up ward with both hands and begins to claw at the sky while his legs pump up and down) Like he was gonna climb right up the air.
RICHIE: Ohhhhh, Geezus.
BILLY: God.
ROONEY has collapsed backward on BILLY’s bed and HE lies there and then HE rises.
ROONEY: Cokes got the Silver Star for rollin’ a barrel a oil down a hill in Korea into forty-seven chinky Chinese gooks who were climbin’ up the hill and when he shot into it with his machine gun, it blew them all to grape jelly.
COKES, rocking a little on his feet, begins to hum and then sing “Beautiful Streamer,” to the tune of Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer.”
COKES: “Beautiful streamer, open for me. . . . The sky is above me . . . ” (And then the singing stops) But the one I remember is this little guy in his spider hole, which is a hole in the ground with a lid over it. (And HE is using RICHIE’s footlocker before him as the spider hole. HE has fixed on it, is moving toward it) And he shot me in the ass as I was runnin’ by, but the bullet hit me so hard (His body kind of jerks and HE runs several steps) it knocked me into this ditch where he couldn’t see me. I got behind him. (Now at the head of RICHIE’s bed. HE begins to creep along the side of the bed as if sneaking up on the footlocker) Crawlin’. And I dropped a grenade into his hole. (HE jams a whiskey bottle into the footlocker, then slams down the lid) Then sat on the lid, him bouncin’ and yellin’ under me. Bouncin’ and yellin’ under the lid. I could hear him. Feel him. I just sat there.
Silence. ROONEY waits, thinking, then leans forward.
ROONEY: He was probably singin’ it.
COKES (Sitting there): I think so.
ROONEY: You think we should let ’em hear it?
BILLY: We’re good boys. We’re good ole boys.
COKES (Jerking himself to his feet. HE staggers sideways to join ROONEY on BILLY’s bed): I don’t care who hears it, I just wanna be singin’ it.
ROONEY rises; HE goes to the boys on ROGER’s bed and speaks to them carefully, as if lecturing people on something of great importance.
ROONEY: You listen up; you just be listenin’ up, ’cause if you hear it right you can maybe stop bein’ shit sacks. This is what a man sings, he’s goin’ down through the air, his chute don’t open.
Flopping back down on the bunk beside COKES, ROONEY looks at COKES and then at the boys. The TWO OLDER MEN put their arms around each other and THEY begin to sing.
ROONEY and COKES (Singing):
Beautiful streamer,
Open for me,
The sky is above me,
But no canopy.
BILLY (Murmuring): I don’t believe it.
ROONEY and COKES:
Counted ten thousand,
pulled on the cord.
My chute didn’t open,
I shouted, “Dear Lord.”
Beautiful streamer,
This looks like the end,
The earth is below me,
My body won’t bend.
Just like a mother
Watching o’er me,
Beautiful streamer,
Ohhhhh, open for me.
ROGER: Un-fuckin’ -believable.
ROONEY (Beaming with pride): Ain’t that a beauty.
And then COKES topples forward onto his face and flops limply to his side. The THREE BOYS leap to their feet. ROONEY lunges toward COKES.
RICHIE: Sergeant!
ROONEY: Cokie! Cokie!
BILLY: Jesus.
ROGER: Hey!
COKES: Huh? Huh? (HE sits up. ROONEY is kneeling beside him)
ROONEY: Jesus, Cokie.
COKES: I been doin’ that; I been doin’ that. It don’t mean nothin’.
ROONEY: No, no.
COKES (Pushing at ROONEY, who is trying to help him get back to the bed. ROONEY agrees with everything HE is now saying and the noises ROONEY makes are little animal noises): I told ’em when they wanted to send me back I ain’t got no leukemia; they wanna check it. They think I got it. I don’t think I got it. Rooney? Whata you think?
ROONEY: No.
COKES: My mother had it. She had it. Just ’cause she did and I been fallin’ down.
ROONEY: It don’t mean nothin’.
COKES (HE lunges back and up onto the bed): I tole ’em I fall down ’cause I’m drunk. I’m drunk all the time.
ROONEY: You’ll be goin’ back over there with me, is what I know, Cokie. (HE is patting COKES, nodding, dusting him off) That’s what I know.
BILLY comes up to them, almost seeming to want to be a part of the intimacy THEY are sharing.
BILLY: That was somethin’, Sergeant Cokes. Jesus.
ROONEY whirls on BILLY, ferocious, pushing him.
ROONEY: Get the fuck away, Wilson! Whata you know? Get the fuck away. You don’t know shit. Get away! You don’t know shit. (And HE turns to COKES, who is standing up from the bed) Me and Cokes are goin’ to the war zone like we oughta. Gonna blow it to shit. (HE is grabbing at COKES, who is laughing. THEY are both laughing. ROONEY whirls on the boys) Ohhh, I’m gonna be so happy to be away from you assholes; you pussies. Not one regular army people among you possible. I swear it to my mother who is holy. You just be watchin’ the papers for doin’ darin’ brave deeds. ’Cause we’re old hands at it. Makin’ shit disappear. Goddamn whooosh!
COKES: Whooosh!
ROONEY: Demnalitions. Me and . . . (And then HE knows HE hasn’t said it right) Me and Cokie. . . . Demnal. . . . Demnali . . .
RICHIE (Still sitting on ROGER’s bed): You can do it, Sergeant.
BILLY: Get it. (HE stands by the lockers and ROONEY glares at him)
ROGER: ’Cause you’re cool with dynamite, is what you’re tryin’ to say.
ROONEY (Charging at ROGER, bellowing): Shut the fuck up, that’s what you can do; and go to goddamn sleep. You buncha shit . . . sacks. Buncha mothers—know-it-all motherin’ shit sacks—that’s what you are.
COKES (Shoulders back. HE is taking charge): Just goin’ to sleep is what you can do, ’cause Rooney and me fought it through two wars already and we can make it through this one more and leukemia that comes or doesn’t come—who gives a shit? Not guys like us. We’re goin’ just pretty as pie. And it’s lights-out time, ain’t it, Rooney?
ROONEY: Past it, goddammit. So the lights are goin’ out.
There is fear in the room, and the THREE BOYS rush to their wall lockers, where THEY start to strip to their underwear, preparing for bed. ROONEY paces the room, watching them, glaring.
Somebody’s gotta teach you soldierin’. You hear me? Or you wanna go outside and march around awhile, huh? We can do that if you wanna. Huh? You tell me? Marchin’ or sleepin’? What’s it gonna be?
RICHIE (Rushing to get into bed): Flick out the ole lights, Sergeant; that’s what we say.
BILLY (Climbing into bed): Put out th
e ole lights.
ROGER: (In bed and pulling up the covers): Do it.
COKES: Shut up. (HE rocks forward and back, trying to stand at attention. HE is saying good night) And that’s an order. Just shut up. I got grenades down the hall. I got a pistol. I know where to get nitro. You don’t shut up, I’ll blow . . . you . . . to . . . fuck. (Making a military left face. HE stalks to the wall switch and turns the lights out. ROONEY is watching proudly, as COKES faces the boys again. HE looks at them) That’s right.
In the dark, there is only a spill of light from the hall coming in the open door. COKES and ROONEY put their arms around each other and go out the door, leaving it partly open. RICHIE, ROGER and BILLY lie in their bunks, staring. THEY do not move. THEY lie there. The SERGEANTS seem to have vanished soundlessly once THEY went out the door. Light touches each of the boys as THEY lie there.
ROGER: (HE does not move): Lord have mercy, if that ain’t a pair. If that ain’t one pair a beauties.
BILLY: Oh, yeh. (HE does not move)
ROGER: Too much, man—too, too much.
RICHIE: They made me sad; but I loved them, sort of. Better than movies.
ROGER: Too much. Too, too much.
Silence.
BILLY: What time is it?
ROGER: Sleep time, men. Sleep time.
Silence.
BILLY: Right.
ROGER: They were somethin’. Too much.
BILLY: Too much.
RICHIE: Night.
ROGER: Night. (Silence) Night, Billy.
BILLY: Night.
RICHIE stirs in his bed. ROGER turns onto his side. BILLY is motionless.
I . . . had a buddy, Rog—and this is the whole thing, this is the whole point—a kid I grew up with, played ball with in high school, and he was a tough little cat, a real bad man sometimes. Used to have gangster pictures up in his room. Anyway, we got into this deal where we’d drive on down to the big city, man, you know, hit the bad spots, let some queer pick us up . . . sort of . . . long enough to buy us some good stuff. It was kinda the thing to do for a while, and we all did it, the whole gang of us. So we’d let these cats pick us up, most of ’em old guys, and they were hurt-in’ and happy as hell to have us, and we’d get a lot of free booze, maybe a meal, and we’d turn ’em on. Then pretty soon they’d ask us did we want to go over to their place. Sure, we’d say, and order one more drink, and then when we hit the street, we’d tell ’em to kiss off. We’d call ’em fag and queer and jazz like that and tell ’em to kiss off. And Frankie, the kid I’m tellin’ you about, he had a mean streak in him and if they gave us a bad time at all, he’d put ’em down. That’s the way he was. So that kinda jazz went on and on for sort of a long time and it was a good deal if we were low on cash or needed a laugh and it went on for a while. And then Frankie—one day he come up to me—and he says he was goin’ home with the guy he was with. He said, what the hell, what did it matter? And he’s sayin’—Frankie’s sayin’—why don’t I tag along? What the hell, he’s sayin’, what does it matter who does it to you, some broad or some old guy, you close your eyes, a mouth’s a mouth, it don’t matter—that’s what he’s sayin’. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wasn’t hearin’ anything I was sayin’. So the next day, see, he calls me up to tell me about it. Okay, okay, he says, it was a cool scene, he says; they played poker, a buck minimum, and he made a fortune. Frankie was eatin’ it up, man. It was a pretty way to live, he says. So he stayed at it, and he had this nice little girl he was goin’ with at the time. You know the way a real bad cat can sometimes do that—have a good little girl who’s crazy about him and he is for her, too, and he’s a different cat when he’s with her?
ROGER: Uh-huh.
The hall light slants across BILLY’s face.
BILLY: Well, that was him and Linda, and then one day he dropped her, he cut her loose. He was hooked, man. He was into it, with no way he knew out—you understand what I’m sayin’? He had got his ass hooked. He had never thought he would and then one day he woke up and he was on it. He just hadn’t been told, that’s the way I figure it; somebody didn’t tell him somethin’ he shoulda been told and he come to me wailin’ one day, man, all broke up and wailin’, my boy Frankie, my main man, and he was a fag. He was a faggot, black Roger, and I’m not lyin’. I am not lyin’ to you.
ROGER: Damn.
BILLY: So that’s the whole thing, man; that’s the whole thing.
Silence. THEY lie there.
ROGER: Holy . . . Christ. Richie . . . you hear him? You hear what he said?
RICHIE: He’s a storyteller.
ROGER: What you mean?
RICHIE: I mean, he’s a storyteller, all right; he tells stories, all right.
ROGER: What are we into now? You wanna end up like that friend a his, or you don’t believe what he said? Which are you sayin’?
The door bursts open. The sounds of machine guns and cannon art being made by someone, and CARLYLE, drunk and playing, comes crawling in. ROGER, RICHIE and BILLY all pop up, startled, to look at him.
Hey, hey, what’s happenin’?
BILLY: Who’s happenin’?
ROGER: You attackin’ or you retreatin’, man?
CARLYLE (Looking up; big grin): Hey, baby . . .? (Continues shooting, crawling. The THREE BOYS look at each other)
ROGER: What’s happenin’, man? Whatcha doin’?
CARLYLE: I dunno, soul; I dunno. Practicin’ my duties, my new abilities. (Half sitting. HE flops onto his side, starts to crawl) The low crawl, man; like I was taught in basic, that’s what I’m doin’. You gotta know your shit, man, else you get your ass blown so far away you don’t ever see it again. Oh, sure, you guys don’t care. I know it. You got it made. You got it made. I don’t got it made. You got a little home here, got friends, people to talk to. I got nothin’. You got jobs they probably ain’t ever gonna ship you out, you got so important jobs. I got no job. They don’t even wanna give me a job. I know it. They are gonna kill me. They are gonna send me over there to get me killed, goddammit. WHAT’S A MATTER WITH ALL YOU PEOPLE?
The anger explodes out of the grieving and ROGER rushes to kneel beside CARLYLE. HE speaks gently, firmly.
ROGER: Hey, man, get cool, get some cool; purchase some cool, man.
CARLYLE: Awwwww . . . (Clumsily. HE turns away)
ROGER: Just hang in there.
CARLYLE: I don’t wanna be no DEAD man. I don’t wanna be the one they all thinkin’ is so stupid he’s the only one’ll go, they tell him; they don’t even have to give him a job. I got thoughts, man, in my head; alla time, burnin’, burnin’ thoughts a understandin’.
ROGER: Don’t you think we know that, man? It ain’t the way you’re sayin’ it.
CARLYLE: It is.
ROGER: No. I mean, we all probably gonna go. We all probably gonna have to go.
CARLYLE: No-o-o-o-o.
ROGER: I mean it.
CARLYLE (Suddenly HE nearly topples over): I am very drunk. (And HE looks up at ROGER) You think so?
ROGER: I’m sayin’ so. And I am sayin’, “No sweat.” No point.
CARLYLE angrily pushes at ROGER, knocking him backward.
CARLYLE: Awwwww, dammit, dammit, mother . . . shit . . . it . . . ohhhhhhh. (Sliding to the floor, the rage and anguish softening into only breathing) I mean it. I mean it. (Silence. HE lies there)
ROGER: What . . . a you doin’ . . .?
CARLYLE: Huh?
ROGER: I don’t know what you’re up to on our freshly mopped floor.
CARLYLE: Gonna go sleep—okay? No sweat . . . (Suddenly very polite. HE is looking up) Can I, soul? Izzit all right?
ROGER: Sure, man, sure, if you wanna, but why don’t you go where you got a bed? Don’t you like beds?
CARLYLE: Dunno where’s zat. My bed. I can’ fin’ it. I can’ fin’ my own bed. I looked all over, but I can’ fin’ it anywhere. GONE! (Slipping back down now. HE squirms to make a nest. HE hugs his bottle)
ROGER: (Moving to his bunk, where HE grabs a
blanket): Okay, okay, man. But get on top a this, man. (HE is spreading the blanket on the floor, trying to help CARLYLE get on it) Make it softer. C’mon, c’mon . . . get on this.
BILLY has risen with his own blanket, and is moving now to hand it to ROGER.
BILLY: Cat’s hurtin’, Rog.
ROGER: Ohhhhh, yeh.
CARLYLE: Ohhhhh . . . it was so sweet at home . . . it was so sweet, baby; so-o-o good. They doin’ dances make you wanna cry. . . . (Hugging the blankets now. HE drifts in a kind of dream)
ROGER: I know, man.
CARLYLE: So Sweet . . .!
BILLY is moving back to his own bed, where, quietly. HE sits.
ROGER: I know, man.
CARLYLE: So sweet . . .!
ROGER: Yeh.
CARLYLE: How come I gotta be here?
On his way to the door to close it. ROGER falters, looks at CARLYLE, then moves on toward the door.
ROGER: I dunno, Jim.
BILLY is sitting and watching, as ROGER goes on to the door, gently closes it and returns to his bed.
BILLY: I know why he’s gotta be here, Roger. You wanna know? Why don’t you ask me?
ROGER: Okay. How come he gotta be here?
BILLY (Smiling): Freedom’s frontier, man. That’s why.
ROGER: (Settled on the edge of his bed and about to lie back): Oh . . . yeh . . .
A distant bugle begins to play taps and RICHIE, carrying a blanket, is approaching CARLYLE. ROGER settles back; BILLY is staring at RICHIE; CARLYLE does not stir; the bugle plays.
