From Here to Eternity (43 page)

easy, will you? You want to mess everything up for me? Lay off for a while." "Okay. I'm sorry. I dont know what got me started. That 'born' stuff, I guess. I dont want to upset your applecart, Angelo. Its just theres something about these guys gets my goat. Always picking at you, just like a goddam chaplain insisting that you come to church and worship God. Why do they have to make you listen to a Salvation Army sermon before you get your sinkers and coffee? Why do they have to convince everybody being a homo is wonderful?" "Hell, I don't know. Just let them talk. Thats what I do. You think I argue with them? Like hell I argue with them. I just listen and nod my head and let it go and ask them for me a nuther drink." "I guess I just aint cut out for this kind of life," Prew said. Angelo shook his head. "Sometime I feel like I'm livin on top a powder keg thats gonna blow any minute. You pay for everything you get in this world, man." "I've heard a lot of talk about 'great love' between homos, but I aint never seen it. I think its more like hate, probably." "I dont care what it is. Long as I can keep that income. So take it easy, will you?" "Sure. I dont want to mess you up." "Boy," Maggio said, "I'm going to get drunkern a fiddler's bitch. I mean." He looked over at the clock. "Reveille," he said. "Reveille or no Reveille," he said. Hal came in then from the kitchen, carrying two crystal champagne glasses. Tommy came behind him, carrying two more. "Sorry we have no tray," Hal smiled. "But at least the glasses are right. You cant drink champagne cocktails from a water glass." Maggio took a glass and winked secretly at Prew. "I suggest," Hal said, "that you all get out of those clothes and be comfortable. Since we are all among friends anyway. Arent we?" "I agree," Tommy said fervently. He handed Prew a glass and set his own down and began to take his clothes off. He took off everything but his shorts and then sat down and picked up his drink. In contrast to Hal's deep tan Tommy was as white as milk except for the rings of tan above his collar and on his forearms. It gave him an unpleasant half-fried look. "I know you dogfaces never wear shorts," Hal smiled. "I have a pair of trunks I keep for Tony to go swimming, but I havent anything for you." "Thats okay," Prew said. "I'd just as soon keep my pants on." Hal laughed merrily, quite good humored again. They sat around that way, four men baring their bodies to seek what coolness that came through the outside screen door. Someone looking through the glassed in bay would probably have felt a renewing sense of human warmth at seeing four bare-chested men, relaxing, holding glasses, talking in a friendly way. "This is what I always wear at home," Hal said, flicking a fold of the pareu idly. "Its in keeping with the Hawaiian tradition, dont you think? Of course, the beachboys all wear trunks now, but they used to wear the pareu. That was before the missionaries, of course. In Tahiti they still wear it, but, alas, there is as little use for a French tutor there as there is in France." "When was you in France?" Prew said. "I've been in France off and on for fifteen years," Hal smiled. "When I tutored in New York I used to save all my money until I had enough for an extended trip, then I'd go to France and stay, until my money ran out. That was before the war, of course. I came out here after the war started. I decided this would be about the least likely place to run into war. Dont you?" "I guess so. But I reckon any place in America will be about the same, when we get in the war." "I'm too old for the draft." Hal smiled. "I meant restrictions and like that." Hal shrugged. It was very much a Frenchman's shrug. "At one time I seriously considered becoming a citizen of France. Its the most wonderful country in the World. However," he smiled, "I'm rather glad I didn't, now. "Its odd. The very traits of freedom that made living there so wonderful are the very things that in the end defeated la belle France," Hal smiled, but he looked as if he were about to cry. "That seems to be a law in the very nature of life, I guess," he said. "It looks like a man's rooked either way, dont it?" Prew said. Finally now, at last, under these last few drinks, he was sitting in the shade of the old on-pass feeling again, finally now he had recovered it again, as he had had it climbing the stairs to the New Congress. He felt very sad. The sun was finally going down now, the heat was moving on, the shade was getting longer now, it was time to rest now. He looked over at Angelo and Angelo was in the deep shade too, mumbling to himself. "Are you in the deep shade, Angelo?" he said. If they would only let us drink up their shade, he thought, and then leave us alone, not exact their pound of flesh. Why was it you always had to pay for things? "I dont think the word freedom's got any meaning any more," he said to Hal. "I think I'm free," Hal said. Prew laughed in the shade. "How about a nuther drink?" "All right." Hal took the glass and went out into the kitchen. "Don't you think I'm free?" "Bring me too one," Angelo said. He got up vaguely and carried out his glass. "Are you afraid of anything?" Prew called to Hal. "No," Hal said, coming back with the glasses. "I fear nothing." "Then you're free," Prew said. He watched Angelo sit down and empty off his glass. "I'm free," Angelo yelled. He leaned back in the chair and kicked his heels up in the air. "I'm free as a fucking bird. Thats what I am. You aint free," he yelled to Prew. "You goddam thirty year man. You're a goddam thirty year slave. But I'm not. I'm free. Till six o'clock in the morning." "Quiet down," Hal said sharply. "You'll wake up my landlady downstairs." "Gothell," Angelo said. "Up hers. And you gothell." "I think its time you went to bed, Tony," Hal said sadly. "And slept it off." "Sure," Angelo said. "Sing for your supper." "Thats not a very nice thing to say to me," Hal said. "Sorry, old boy. I can't help it. Its the truth, aint it?" "Yes," Hal said. "But one doesnt always have to mention the truth, does one?" "No," Angelo said. "I guess one doesnt." "Come on," Hal said. "Let me help you up." He went over to Maggio's chair and offered to put his arm around the narrow bony shoulders and help him up. Maggio waved him away. "Not yet. I'll get up by my goddam self." "Do you want to stay out here with me?" Tommy asked Prew coyly. "Sure," Prew said. "Why not? What the hell?" "Well," Tommy said stiffly. "You dont have to, you know." "Dont I? Well thats good." "I'm drunk," Angelo yelled. "Whoopee! If you wasn't a thirty goddam year man, Prewitt, I'd really like you." Prew grinned. "You said yourself it wasnt much diffrnt from Gimbel's Basement." 'Thats right," Angelo said. "Thats what I said, didnt I? Listen," he said. "Before my hitch is up we'll be in this fuckin war. You know that? I hate the Army. Even you hate the Army, Prewitt. You just wont admit it. I hate it. O god how I hate the fucking Army." He leaned back in his chair and hung his arms over the leather, rolling his head and repeating his passion to himself. "Do you write under your own name?" Prew asked Tommy. Hal was standing beside Maggio's chair, looking anxious and wringing his hand a little. "Of course not," Tommy smiled reasonably. "Do you think I want to put my own name to such stupid stuff?" "You're sober, aint you?" Prew said. "I bet you never do get drunk. Why dont you get drunk? Why do you want to write it for, then?" "You dont know my own name anyway," Tommy said. His deep-set eyes swung suddenly, wildly at Prew. "You dont, do you? Do you?" Prew was watching Hal trying to get Maggio up on his feet. "No. I dont. You're ashamed of that story, aint you?" "Of course," Tommy said, relievedly. "Do you think I'd be proud of it?" "I hate it," Angelo said. "All of it. Everything." "I wouldnt play a bugle call unless I was proud of it," Prew said. "Thats one thing I got, see? If I did do it, it would never be the same again. I'd never have it any more." "Oh," Tommy smiled. "A bugler. We've got an artist in our midst, Hal." "No," Prew said. "Only a bugler. But I dont even bugle any more. And you'll never write no book. You only want to talk about it." He stood up, feeling the release of the liquor pounding in him, wanting to smash something that would stop the cogs from rotating in tomorrow and Reveille at six o'clock. The self winding springs. He looked around dimly. There was nothing to smash. "Lissen," he said. He stabbed his finger at the big white bulk of Tommy. "You're queer as a three dollar bill. How did you get to be queer? What made you queer, anyway?" Tommy's dark eyes that behind the deep purple circles never seemed to focus on anything at all, were on him now and focused, and they became brighter and brighter as he watched them. "I've always been that way," Tommy said. "I was born that way." "Like to talk about it, dont you?" Prew grinned. He felt the silence of both Hal and Maggio behind him and knew that they were watching him. "No," Tommy said. "I hate to talk about it. It was a tragedy, being born that way." He was smiling now and breathing fast, smiling painfully the way a broken dog does when you pat him. "Balls," Prew said. "Nobody's born that way. When was the first time?" "When I was ten," Tommy said, talking swiftly now, almost joyously. "I was going to a military school in New York, my parents were divorced and my mother sent me there, a bunch of upperdassmen got, - oh a whole bunch of them, there must have been twelve at least," Tommy's eyes were brighter and his voice was going faster, hardly space between the words to breathe, "- they got me out and tied me up, and beat me, they made me, one right after another, and they beat me till I did it." Prew watched him talking, his big body jerking nervously in the chair, as if under a whip. "I dont believe that," Prew snarled. "I bet that wasn't the first time. Because lissen, they could of killed me and I wouldnt of ever done it. If they did it, they did it because you wanted them to do it. No matter how much you tried to fight. You wanted to be beaten, and you wanted to be evil." Hal moved from beside Maggio and stepped toward the other two. "Thats a lie," he said. "Its true," Tommy whispered. "It wasnt the first time. But it was the first important time. I did want it. Do you hate me?" "No," Prew said, contemptuously. "Why should I hate you?" "But you do. You're contemptuous of me. Arent you? Arent you? You think I'm evil." "No. You're the one that thinks you're evil. Thats what I think. I dont think you're evil. I think you like to do anything you think is evil, the eviller the better, and the better you will like it. Maybe its because you can show how much you hate the church." "Thats a lie." Tommy was sitting pushed way back in the chair. "I am evil, and I know it. You dont have to make it easy for me. You don't have to protect me." "Hell, buddy, I wouldnt make it easy for you. You dont mean nothing to me." "I know I'm evil," Tommy said. "I know I'm evil." "Who made you believe that?" Prew said. "Who taught you that? Your mother?" "No," Tommy said. "No, no, no. My mother was a saint. You dont understand. My mother was a saint." "Shut up, Tommy," Hal said narrowly. Prew swung on him. "If you guys like being queer, why dont you be queer with each other? Instead of all a time trying to cut each other's throat? If you believed that crap about true love you been putting out, why do you get your feelings hurt so easy? Somebody's always hurtin your feelings. Why do you always pick up somebody who aint queer? Because if you're with another queer, you dont feel evil enough, thats why." "Stop!" Hal said. "This quivering hulk of jelly can say whatever he wants to say. But I am none of these things. I stand as a rebel against society. I hate its falseness and I'll never knuckle down to it. It takes courage to stand by what you believe." "I dont like it very much myself," Prew grinned. He could feel the warmness and the fumes, rising in his head, the urge, urge, urge, the smash, smash, smash, six o'clock, six o'clock, six o'clock. "Its never done much for me, society. What has it given me? It aint done near as much for me as it has done for you. Look at this place, look at it. "But I dont hate it like you hate it. You hate it because you hate yourself. You aint rebelling against society, you're rebelling against yourself. You aint rebelling against anything, you're just rebelling." He stabbed at the tall man with his finger. "And thats why you're like a priest. You got a gospel to preach. The true gospel. The ony gospel. Thats all you got, a gospel. Dont you know life dont fit no gospels? Life makes gospels - afterwards. Gospels dont make life. But you, you and all the rest of the priests, you gunna make life fit your gospel. And nobody elses. You wont even admit anything exists but what you say." He paused. The brightly lighted revelation was surging up now again, in his mind. 'He could see it. But how to say it? How to express? How to mold it and make it plain? Life was enough, in itself. All men should see life in itself was enough, was all, because it was there. Why did you climb the mountain, Mr Mallory? Because it was there. Life was there, it had been put there, for a purpose. That was enough. That was everything. "If thats courage," he concluded lamely, subduedly, "maybe you got it, buddy. If thats courage." "Hey, hey," Angelo yelled suddenly. "I got courage. All the courage in the goddam world. I'm free and I got courage. All I want. A dollarn a half at any liquor store." He struggled up vaguely from the chair and started for the door in desultory tackings. "Where are you going, Tony?" Hal said. All the rest was forgotten. "Please come back, Tony. Please come back here, I say. You're in no condition to be wandering around." "Going for a fucking walk," Angelo yelled. "Need some fucking air." He went out and slammed the screen. They could hear him stumping down the outside stairs in his bare feet. Then they heard a stumbling falling crash and Angelo's hearty cursing of the banyan. Then silence. "Oh my god," Hal said. "Somebody must stop him. Somebody must do something. He'll get picked up, wandering around like that." "You do it," Prew said. "He's your boyfriend." "You go after him, Pre'w," Hal said. "Wont you? You dont want him to get picked up. He's your friend. Isnt he." "He aint my boyfriend," Prew said. "You go get him." He began to grin a little and sat down heavily on the couch, bouncing a little with drunken resolution. "But I cant," Hal cried. 'Truly I cant. I'd go after him if I could. Why, as drunk as he is, if he got picked up he might bring the police right up here." "Let him bring em," Prew grinned. His face felt stiff from the liquor and someplace in his head a bell tolled. He was very very drunk and suddenly very happy. "Oh he cant," Hal said, wringing his hands. "They know us all by report.