From Here to Eternity (60 page)

smart for them both. He makes them eat it and like it." "You sure he aint Superman in disguise now," Prew said irately. "I know he's the squarest, straightest, fairest joe I ever met in my life," Angelo said glowingly. "He is, hunh?" Prew said irritably. He could sense bis own jealousy. You dont want Angelo to have another hero, do you, Prewitt? You sure did him a lot of good when you were his hero, didnt you? "Well, he's beginning to get in my hair," he said. Angelo looked a little shocked. "And I know he's the smartest operator I ever met, too," he said coolly, "if that means anything to you." "It dont mean nothing to me," Prew said. "Why aint he out here with the rest of the fuckups, if he's so tough?" "He was a mechanic by trade," Angelo said, "and he works in the Stockade motorpool. When he aint in the Hole. Thats why he aint out here: He says they got so now they always keep his old job back for him because he's the only guy they can get to fix up their trucks." "He must be quite a guy," Prew said. "Has he got a halo?" "If I was the Pope," Angelo said without hesitation, "he would have." "But you aint the Pope," Prew told him, "and so Jack Malloy aint no saint. Okay, then what the hell is he then?" Angelo laughed feverishly between swings of his hammer. "He says he's the Rockpile." "The what?" Prew said, stopped momentarily. "The rock-pile?" "Yeah." Angelo laughed again harshly. "This heres the rock-pile for the prisoners, see? Well, Jack Malloy says he's the Rockpile where Father Thompson and Fatso and all the rest of them are condemned to for hard labor the rest of their natural lives," he said, looking at Prew to make sure he got it. When he saw he had, he laughed again. "He had to explain it to me, too," Angelo said. "Thats pretty good," Prew admitted reluctantly, unable to escape a twinge of interested curiosity about any man who could conceive of a thought like that one. "You wait till you meet him," Angelo promised triumphantly. "I will," Prew said. "And you'll meet him," Angelo went on. "You wouldnt be able to stay in Number Three with the punks and the ass kissers if you wanted to. And you wont want to, not after you find out what our bunch of guys in Number Two is like." "It sure sounds like I got some complainin to do," Prew grinned at him. Angelo nodded. Then he shook his head and grinned wolfishly. "It wont be pleasant," he warned. "You never know just what they'll do, especially if Fatso's in on it. They play rough. Whatever it is, you can bet it wont be pleasant. But it'll be worth it to you after," "And it sounds like Number Two's the place to be," Prew said. Angelo grinned back at him with that feverish wildness, his white eyes narrowing in the gray dust of his face. "I knew you wount give a damn," he said proudly. "I knew you'd know the score." He dropped the head of his hammer down to the ground and leaned on the shaft. "Goddam," he said. "Goddam. You old son of a bitch you. So you took Old Ike and Bloom both." "Old Angelo," Prew said. "Old Fuckup Angelo. Get to work, you social parasite you." "How'd you leave your girl?" Angelo said. "How's Lorene?" "Okay," Prew said. "She's fine." He swung with all his strength with his hammer. Alma, he thought sickly, Alma, Alma; and swung it again. No, he told himself furiously, no. He swallowed and set his jaw tight and kept his tongue pressed up against the roof of his mouth and it went away a little bit. '"We'll have you all moved in tomorrow," Angelo said. "We'll pull it tomorrow at noon and when you come out of the Hole your stuff will already be moved for you." "Whats wrong with today?" Prew asked him wildly. "I want to take it home with me first and talk it over with Jack Malloy," Angelo said. "I aint takin no extra risks, not on you. I want to get Jack Malloy's seal of approval on the whole thing before we make a move." "Jesus Christ," Prew exploded. "I dont need Jack Malloy's permission to complain about the goddam food, do I?" "Take it easy, buddy," Angelo said. "Jack Malloy knows the ropes a hell of a lot bettern me. You aint in no hurry. You got. three whole months yet." Prew felt a murderous rage crack and burst in him like an orgasm. Three months! Ninety days!! Fourteen weeks, it would be! Oh, Alma, he thought. Oh, Jesus! Alma. He wanted to beat Maggio over the head with his hammer and beat him down into a bloody bonejagged mess on the ground, for reminding him. "Jack Malloy knows the little things that help make pulling a job like this easy on you," Angelo said, "things I either forgotten or dint even ever know. And in this place, that's important." "Okay," Prew said. "Okay, okay. You're the boss. You run it. If you want to make it next week, make it next week." "We'll do it tomorrow," Angelo said. "A day or two dont make no difference to you, and theres a right way to do things like this and thats plan everything out that you can figure." He took off his wrinkled denim hat and wiped his face with it. It came away gray black but there was no noticeable difference in the color of his face. "These hats," he said. "These goddam hats. Nobody knows how I hate these goddam hats. I wouldn't wipe my ass on these goddam hats," he said, wiping his face, and put it back on and grinned. The grin, Prew thought, there was something about the grin. Then he remembered. It was like the grin that was in Hanson's face and Turnipseed's. He could even feel it some now on his own face already, as he looked at Angelo Maggio, the grin, the same special grin, that was in Maggio's and Hanson's and now in his face, a stiffness that pulled the lips up stiffly, tightly, you started out to smile and it turned itself into this grin, stiff, wolfish, feverish, wild. Probably after a while you did not even notice it? "Old Angelo," he grinned. "The Gimbel's Basement Terror. Take up thy sledge and work." "You men!" the guard yelled from the road. "You Maggio! and you that new man! You're suppose to break them rock. If we was afraid you'd hurt them we'd of give you rubber hammers. You've had time 1:0 say hello, now cut out that goddam talk and get your ass back to work!" "See what I mean?" Prew grinned at him. "Up him," Angelo said. "Up em all."

CHAPTER 37

THEY TALKED OVER the plan the rest of the afternoon, working on the rockpile. It made a good thing to talk about, working on the rockpile. It was exciting and since the excitement was intrinsic it could not go bad and leave them working on the rockpile. Bad things, Prew thought, were never quite so bad, if you could force somebody you knew and liked to suffer them with you. Usually you couldnt; they were too busy suffering something themselves and trying to force you to suffer it with them. But if you could, it helped thin that sense of seeing the whole damned world move past you on the corner without knowing you were standing there. Of course, it was hard on the friends. You hated to see them suffer. One thing about the Stockade, it made the bad things general so that your sufferings were equivalent You did not have to get into a fight and accuse each other of your lack of sympathy. Angelo Maggio's face had changed during the past two months. There was no longer any trace of the naively-cynical, city-bred, lovable young Italian boy. This face had discarded cynicism as being as useless a pose as optimism, and it was a face without nationality, now that the long wop nose was broken. Then there were the scars, all new and still red yet with youth, not faded brown yet by memory, a gradual accumulation the beginnings of which Prew had only noticed vaguely at the queer investigation down town that time, but which had grown considerably since then. His left ear was cauliflowered now, not badly, but enough to give him that wild lopsided ribald look of a punchy. He had lost three upper teeth on one side that satirized his grin and his lips were thicker, like an old prizefighter's. There was one scar that ran up over the point of his chin almost to his lower Up, and another lowercase-v-shaped one on his forehead. He looked competent. He was still the same personality, just changed. Except for that wild wary miserly look that he got whenever he inadvertently mentioned his secret plan which he could not keep from doing every five minutes; that was new. Then, when he was like that, it was as if Prew did not know him and he did not know Prew. But when they knocked off for the day and split up to go to their separate trucks for the separate barracks, his little black eyes were clear and he gave Prew a quick deliberate wink to remind him of tomorrow. The next day he did not show up for work on the rockpile. Prew had to content himself with wondering in silence. He was a new man and a. stranger, to everybody but Angelo. It would have been useless to try to get any of the men around him to talk to him. Under the steadily heavier morning sun the rockpile was like some dim, dust haunted, fear crazed fantasy out of a madman's imagination. The half moon quarry caught all the available sun and reflected it back on them blazingly. Prew worked on doggedly, wondering crazily after a while if he had only conjured a vision of Angelo yesterday maybe. The heat threatened to sizzle his brains in their pan. That anyone could actually take a man of his talents and sensibilities and unconcernedly hold his nose against this grindstone nine hours a day seven days a week for three months was not only inconceivable, it was patently impossible. He refused to believe it. There had been a mistake somewhere. He knew there had been a mistake somewhere, in a minute an MP giant would come up and touch him on the arm and inform him obsequiously that there had been a mistake, that he was not like these other craven wild-glaring wolfish-grinning animals and had no business here, please to come with me, back into civilization, where men are men, he thought bitterly, and women hate them for it, and they hate the women for not loving it. My God! he thought horrifiedly, I'm getting to talk just like The Warden! He hated to think Angelo would actually ditch him deliberately. If he wasnt back in the Black Hole or something like that, then it must have been this Jack Malloy character. This latter day Robin Hood who ruled Major Thompson's Stockade with an iron hand. This 20th Century Jesse James who was iron enemy to the railroads, symbol of hated authority, and protected widows and orphans. We have become a nation of cop haters, he thought sadly, we have taken for our hero a Robin Hood myth that never existed except in the history books, and only then 500 years after, when it was safe to print it. It must be hard on a man, being a cop. I'm glad I'm not a cop. I'd rather be a Robin Hood iron man, like Jack Malloy. The iron man has probably turned thumbs down on Prewitt, cold, he thought, hating both of them wildly, as if all this were their fault. Angelo had to choose, and it was easy to see which way he had. He went on swinging his hammer wildly, in a kind of rhythmical frenzy, feeling the new blisters squash wetly and burst on the already grittily sweatslick handle, and relishing it - until finally, a long, thin, ferret-headed, gimlet-eyed old man of twenty named Berry who said he was from Number Two barrack managed to convey to him guardedly, with the secrecy of a conspirator helping to lay a vast Global Plot, that Maggio was back in the Hole. "I figured that," Prew whispered back, wanting to yell with relief. "I knew something like that had happened. What'd he do?" The guard on the road had turned him in last night for talking yesterday. They had come and got him after bedcheck, their favorite time, and worked him over and given him 48 hours. The Wop, Berry whispered lovingly grinning wolfishily, sent Prewitt his love and his deepest regrets that their business arrangement would have to be postponed temporarily, but that he had every assurance of its early success, as soon as this other little matter that had come up had been attended to. "That's the message," Berry chuckled. "Word for word. He's a hot one, The Wop is. Aint he a hot one?" Scrupulously, Berry did not inquire of Prew into the nature of the business arrangement. "He sure is," Prew whispered. "Thanks." He was beginning to feel conspiratorial, too. He was careful to keep on swinging his hammer and not look around, as Berry was doing beside him. Poor old Angelo, he thought feeling better than he had felt for some time. "I mean that:" he said, "thanks a lot." "Dont thank me," Berry whispered. "Thank The Malloy." "For what?" "It was him give me the message." "All right, I'll thank him," Prew conceded. "When I see him." "He'll appreciate it," Berry whispered. "He's the roughest drill in this factory - but he's got a heart just like a great big baby," Berry said with great sentiment. The Wop, Berry whispered, had slipped the message to The Malloy before Mister Brown and Handsome Hanson and Hayseed Turniphead had taken him out. Berry had been up at the other end talking to Billyclub Burke. The- Malloy had told Berry, later, to tell Prewitt. "An whats your nickname?" Prew whispered foolishly. "My what?" Berry whispered. "Your moniker. What they call you?" "Oh," Berry whispered. "Why? Call me Blues Berry some time. Razz Berry, Jazz Berry, Fuckle Berry, Goosy Berry - all them like that. Why?"- "Just curious," Prew whispered happily. "Use to call me Beer Belly," Berry grinned wolfishly, "but not any more." "But will again," Prew whispered. "Sure," Berry grinned. "I should live so long. This time's The Wop's fifth trip since he been here," Berry whispered proudly. "You know that?" "He dint tell me. I seen he was pretty scarred up though." "Hell," Berry snorted, "you think he's scarred? The Wop aint scarred. Look at that." He showed a long line down his jaw. "Look at my nose. Someday I show you my back and chest, where Fatso work me over, one time." "You mean he used a whip!" "Hell no!" Berry exploded indignantly. "Dont you know whips is unlegal in this country? He just use a plain grub hoe handle but he's good with one. Someday I'm going to kill him for it," Berry chuckled, as if that would be a joke on Fatso. Prew felt something cold. "Does he know it?" "Sure," Berry grinned'. "I told him." Prew felt something colder, as if he were standing out in a raw wind in a thin shirt and with no jacket to put on. He remembered Fatso's eyes. "What'd he say?" "Dint say nothing," Berry chuckled. "Just hit me again." "I wonder why they didnt come get me too, last night?" Prew asked him. "They got it in for The Wop," Berry whispered. "Because he wont take none of their shit. They wear themselves out on him and they still cant get a peep out of him. He's a tough little baby, pal." "He sure is. He's from my Compny, you know." "They bang him around like a tackling dummy," Berry chuckled. 'Till their old ass is draggin the ground. And they cant make a dent in that boy. They've made plenty them on him," he laughed merrily, "but they sure cant make them in him. He's got them stumped. The Wop's got that old college try, pal, I mean. Next to The Malloy he's just about the hardest artery in this hospital." "He's a good boy," Prew whispered proudly. "You just bet your sweet life he is, pal," Berry chuckled. "Well, I see you later. I got to shove before that guard sweats me. They all fartin fire today." He slouched off thinly, through the gray cloud of rockdust that Prew swore made as much resistance to a hammerswing as water, a long thin phantom-shape straight out of a good citizen's nightmare, moving unrepentently through the hell to which they and himself had consigned him. Prew remembered to let him go a few seconds, before he risked turning to get a better look at him. Angelo was really getting up there, when he had earned the unreserved admiration of an old hand like this Berry. He must have used his time well and worked very hard, to amass such an enviable reputation in only two months. And now Prewitt was getting to ride in on the skirts of the garment he had once helped to fit, in a way. He felt a twinge of envy, like the schoolteacher watching her star pupil get the medal for winning the county spelling bee. But he also felt suddenly warm and protected, as if the invisible cloak of the long-termers' secret brotherhood that was as hard to get into as the Elks or the Country Club, was being wrapped slowly around him. He was picking it up fast. It was like a different universe, and when you were out of it for a while you forgot it was there and almost had to learn it all over again. It was so easy to forget it, on the Outside. Then when you first came back it shocked you a moment. That Berry would get Fatso some day, or literally the trying. Remembering Fatso's eyes again, Prew felt cold again. He hoped he would never get himself into the position where he would have to make up his mind like Berry had had to. He hoped that was one test he would not be put to. Because he did not know if he could cut her. He remembered suddenly, with a strange sense of disbelief, that there were people living on the Outside who did not even know this other world really did exist, except in the movies. But there was always a Skid Row, somewhere, in every town, where the great dividing line between the Guilty and the Innocent melted away before the one real immediate need, Mutual Defense. In France we called it the Underground, which was a heroic term. Here we called it the Underworld, and gave it a different connotation. But it was the same world, and the same kind of people, and with the same purpose. He had almost forgotten all of it, in the last five years, but he was beginning to get the feel of it again. He had already had his first taste of the daily inspections. In one way, to an old jailbird like him who had lived on the bum so long, it was almost like coming home. First Call was at 0430 hours in the Stockade. Breakfast was at 0530 hours. The inspection started at 0600 hours and usually lasted till seven. They inspected unarmed, Major Thompson and S/Sgt Judson, carrying their grub hoe handles loosely in their right hands just after of the balance as they moved down the line, S/Sgt Judson always just two paces in the rear. Major Thompson also carried his plumb bob and the white cloth dressglove he used for dust. It was the first dressglove Prew had seen since Myer, in the Old Army. S/Sgt Judson carried the demerit notebook and a pencil. That was all they carried, but there were two giants armed with riotguns at port arms and also wearing pistols standing just inside the locked double doors that a third riotgun-and-pistoled giant standing outside held the key to. That first day there were only three men in the west barrack to get demerits. The almost weird versatility, speed, and accuracy of a grub hoe handle administering a demerit in the hands of these experts made Pfc Hanson look like a rank amateur. Berry had been right: Fatso was good with one. So was Major Thompson. And you had to admire their skill. The first of the three men had his right foot an inch or so out of line. Major Thompson pointed to it with his grub hoe handle in passing and went on around the bunk to inspect the man's equipment without looking back. The man tried frantically, during an infinite second to retrieve the offender but S/Sgt Judson, two paces in the Major's rear, had already raised his grub hoe handle and reversed his grip in midair without breaking stride or stopping and said "Dress it up" and brought the square-sawed headend down sharply on the foot like a man driving down the piston of a churn, and went on around the bunk behind the Major without looking back before he stopped and entered the demerit in his notebook. The man's face went white with a grimace of outraged affront at both himself and his goddamned stupid foot, and Prew had to smother the same tickling impulse to laugh out loud that you get when you have just watched the look of surprise on the face of a man who has just slipped on a banana peel and broken his hip. The man's equipment passed the inspection perfectly and the Major and S/Sgt Judson went on down the line without looking back. The second man had a belly which was out of line. He was a fat man from the 8th Field, a former cook, and he really had an unusual belly. Major Thompson, as he passed him going back up the other side some fifteen minutes later, raised his arm and drove the butt of his grub hoe handle backhand into the belly and said "Suck it in" without stopping to look back. Instead of sucking it in as he was told, the fat man, still staring straight ahead as if he had not had time yet to be surprised, grunted protestingly and raised both hands to his belly tenderly, and S/Sgt Judson, moving two paces in the Major's rear, raised his own grub hoe handle and rapped the fat man across the shins as he came up abreast and said "You're at attention, Prisoner. Suck it in" and went on around the bunk to the Major before he stopped and entered the demerit in his notebook. The fat man, like a runner caught off base flatfooted, still without time yet to think of moving his head, dropped his hands as if he were trying to throw them
away. Still staring straight ahead, his fat lips began to quiver and two single trickles of tears began to run down out of his eyes into the corners of his mouth so that, watching him, Prew felt so painfully embarrassed he had to look away. By this time the Major and S/Sgt Judson were already three beds away. The third man, a thin young Indiana farmboy, tried to watch the Major from the corner of his eye as the Major looked over his equipment. He would have been better off if he had not worried. His equipment was excellent. S/Sgt Judson said "You're at attention, Prisoner. That mean eyes, too" without turning or even lowering his notebook and swung his grub hoe handle backhand by one end like a man warming up with a bat, across his chest loosely, all in one movement lightly, from where it hung at his side loosely just aft of the balance. The flat of the headend caught the farmboy accurately with just the right force in the side of the head without touching the vulnerable temple and the farmboy began to walk sideways, tacking off across the barrack as if he had decided to go away from this place, but his knees went out from under him almost immediately and he hit the floor on his face tiredly without getting far. S/Sgt Judson said "Pick him up" without looking up from his notebook that he was entering the demerit in, and the two men on either side jumped out and stood him up and started him back but his knees sagged as soon as they let go and he started down again so they just stood and held him up by his armpits helplessly and looked guiltily, as if it was their fault he would not stand up, at S/Sgt Judson. S/Sgt Judson said "Slap his face" as he and the Major moved on to the next bunk, and one of them slapped him and he came back enough to control his legs although he looked like he resented it. His head was bleeding some and some of the blood was on the floor where he had fallen and S/Sgt Judson said "Get a rag and wipe that blood up, Murdock, before it dries and you have to scrub it" as he and the Major came out into the aisle again to move on to the next bunk. The boy turned to his shelf, where there was no rag, and stopped. Then he had an inspiration. He got his GI khaki handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood up carefully dreamily and then as an afterthought wiped off his head too, still looking as if he was listening to a faroff musical concert of infinite beauty, and put the khaki GI handkerchief back into his hip pocket meticulously. By this time the Major and S/Sgt Judson were already/\ finished with the last bunk which was only four up from the boy's, and on their way to the door where the two riotgunned giants stepped aside for them while the third giant outside unlocked the doors. S/Sgt Judson stopped in the door, without looking to see if the blood was wiped up, and said "At ease. Rest" and was gone. The guard outside locked the doors after him and followed. A sort of collective silent sigh seemed to go up from the barrack. Cautiously at first like accident victims who dont know yet if they're hurt, then with increasing confidence, the men inside began to move around stiffly, vague-eyed and self-conscious like bus passengers stretching after a long ride. They cleared their throats and began to talk loudly against a great silence which they could not dent and rolled themselves cigarettes out of their Duke's Mixture thirstily, avoiding the three casualties guiltily in the same way combat soldiers avoid their own wounded. Prew stood by himself, without smoking. He wanted one, bad, but he would not let himself smoke one. He watched the others coldly, feeling himself begin to fill up slowly like a large bucket under a hard-pouring tap with the greatest disgust he had ever felt in his life. He did not know whether the greatest part of this disgust was directed at them or at the Major and S/Sgt Judson. Or at himself, for being a member of the human race. But he did know, with a kind of first-dawning understanding, why Angelo and Jack Malloy and Beer Belly Berry not only preferred to be in Number Two barrack, but were proud of it. He would be proud of it, too, when he got in Number Two, and he wanted to get there now, in a hurry. Stonily he sat himself on the floor at the end of his bunk until the whistles blew Work Call, and the men seemed to sense his distaste because they left him alone and none of them tried to talk to him. Only when the rest of them had eased off from that first hungry smoke, did he compromise and let himself roll a cigarette. The men did not try to talk to the three casualties either. They were like the neighbors who feel guilty because omniscient disaster has struck and burned down the home of a friend and left their own standing. The casualties themselves did not seem to care whether they were talked to or not; it was as if they understood they had moved into a class by themselves where the consolations of the lucky would not help them anyway. The fat man, still standing at attention staring straight ahead crying silently long after Fatso had gone, suddenly collapsed himself down onto his carefully-made drumtight bunk that he would have to tighten again now, and put his head in his hands and began to sob rackingly. The first man, the one with the foot, had sat down on the floor in his tracks immediately, as soon as Fatso was gone, and taken off his shoe tenderly. Then he just sat, momentarily happy with the relief, like a fat woman just out of her corset, massaging his foot concentratedly, his lips moving silently cursing disgustedly. The Indiana farmboy didnt do anything, but just stood in the same spot, still staring dreamily at his shelf, as if wondering why no rag had been there, or perhaps still hearing his music. Prew watched all three of them through the cold hard crystal of his general disgust, wondering with a kind of dispassionate scientific interest just how this would affect them overall, and making a mental note to watch and see. Within a week the fat man had wangled an angle and got himself assigned to the kitchen as an apprentice cook. Two days later he was a trustee, and moved over to Number One, the east barrack, where the trustees bunked together, and Prew did not see him any more. The man with the foot limped around for two days before he got his nerve up to go on Sick Call. He was pleased to find, when he finally did, that he was suffering from a broken metatarsal for which the Stockade doc sent him up to the prison ward at the Station Hospital with a report on how a rock had fallen on his foot while at work on the rockpile. He rode off in a recon happily, expecting to spend four or five weeks of vacation in a cast. He was back in four days, very bitterly, in working splints and eventually he ended up in Number Two where he and Prew became quite friendly. The Indiana farmboy, who had looked the worst, had less trouble than any of them. He stayed in his daze all that day and had to be led out to work and led in to chow. At the rock-pile they put his hammer in his hands and he stood in the same spot all day swinging it dreamily while the rest of them, including Prew, more or less tried to keep an eye on him. The next morning he came out of it in a fighting rage and knocked three men down, cursing and yelling, before the ones working nearest him could swarm over him, leaving an arm waving and a leg kicking here and there out of the press, and hold him down and quiet him. After that, he was his same old mild placid uncomplaining self again as if nothing had happened. That was all there was to it. By that time there were other no less interesting casualties to observe, and by that time Prew had lost that first overwhelming disgust. Perhaps that was what horrified him the most: that he had lost it. He was afraid if he was not very careful he might even get so he did not mind any more. Because try as he would, he could not find anybody to fix the blame on. He felt it would help a lot if he could only find somebody to blame. He hated Major Thompson and Fatso, but that was not the same thing as being able to blame them. He also hated the casualties who let themselves be beaten around like somebody's burro, and he certainly could not blame them. He hated the Major and Fatso, he analyzed shrewdly, because he feared them; and the casualties Because he feared being like them. Both hates were personal. He felt morally obligated to refrain from basing the blame on personal hatreds. He could not even blame the Army. Angelo could blame the Army; Angelo hated the Army. But he didn't hate the Army, not even now. He remembered what Maureen had told him once; that it was the system that was at fault, blame the system. But he could not even blame the system, because the system Was not anything, it was only a kind of accumulation, of everybody, and you could not blame everybody, not unless you wanted the blame to become diluted into a meaningless term, a just nothing. Besides, this system here in this country was the best system the world had ever produced, wasnt it? This system was by far and above the best system anywhere else in the world today. He felt if he did not find somebody to blame pretty soon he would hate everybody. He talked on the rockpile about it to Angelo, when the little guy came back from the Black Hole the morning of the third day, and especially Prew mentioned that swift lessening of the disgust; that was what bothered him most. Even worse than fixing the blame. "I know," Angelo Maggio smiled at him grimly out of the flinty battered new face that never failed to surprise Prew each new time he saw it. "I know, the same thing happen to me. I even got scared I might even turn into a trusty," "So did I!" Prew confessed. "But you wont feel that way when you're the one getting hit," Angelo advised, "when its you that its happening to." "It hasnt any of it happened to me yet though, except that interview the first day." "Thats one of the reasons I'm glad I'm in Number Two," Angelo grinned at him wolfishly. "Least they know where I stand. And," he said, "when you're in Number Two you dont have to worry about if you will try to keep it from happening to you. You aint got no choice." Angelo grinned again, savagely, from behind the new scar he had brought back from the Black Hole. His left eyebrow had been split and the dark line of the new scab ran down through it diagonally like a meticulous part in a balding man's hair. It made the one eyebrow look derisively lifted. 'Thats why you need to get into Number Two yourself, Prew, soon as you can. Bein in Number Two gives a guy's conscience a rest." Angelo had talked the plan over with Jack Malloy, both before he went into the Hole and last night after coming out. The Malloy was all for it. It was the best plan available to get yourself disciplined just enough to get yourself in, but it was still a minor offense like making mistakes at inspection which only got you demerits and a trip to the Hole (if you got enough demerits) but did not ever get you thrown into Number Two. Also, this plan never failed because they were strict about food complaints, so that you did not have to worry about having to go through with it two or three times before it finally clicked. The Malloy absolutely swore by it. "I'm sold," Prew said. "You dont have to sell me. I was sold before you took this last trip. The only reason I waited at all was because you made me promise I would." "An a damn good thing for you, too, buddy," Angelo said fervently. "The Malloy passed along a couple of tips that will help you plenty. An I wount of thought to tell you any one of them. "The first thing," he warned, "is to not ever let them know you want into Number Two. You want to make them think that compared to getting threwn into Number Two, the being worked over and the time in the Hole are heaven-sent pleasures." "Okay," Prew said. But the main thing, Jack Malloy said, the secret, was to not fight back with the guards when they worked him over; take it and keep his mouth shut. That was the really important thing. The other thing was how to handle himself after they locked him up in the Hole. "Why the hell not fight them back?" Prew said quickly. "Because it will only get you a worse working over and not accomplish a damn thing." "I dont aim for none of them to get the idea I'm yellow." "Yellow my big fat ass," Angelo said. "Yellow my balls. You go into it thinkin like that, you sure to fight them back." "Well, I notice you and Berry both fight back." Angelo grinned bitterly. "Sure, an we aint the ony ones. But its a mistake on our part, not somethin to copy. Thats one of the things The Malloy is awys givin all us guys hell over. "I know he's right," Angelo said, "but when I get in there I just cant help it. Berry, he dont know no better; but I do. But I get in there with them I awys forget. I fly off the handle and then I dont care if they kill me or not." "Maybe I cant help it, either," Prew grinned, wishing they could stop talking about it and get on with it. Three days ago the excitement had been a pleasantly thrilling escape from the rockpile. Now it was so strong it had become distinctly unpleasant. "Its not for to joke with," Angelo bored on inexorably. "A guy is a sap to get himself messed up when he dont have to. And you can get under their skin worse that way than you can by fighting them. The Malloy calls it the Principle of Passive Resistance. Says Gandhi invented it. And it works, too, because I've seen Jack Malloy make it work. If I dont do it, its because I just aint that good of a man yet, not because I dont want to." "Okay!" Prew said irritably, "I'll do what I can. How do I know I can do it or not? What makes you so sure I can do it? when you cant do it yourself?" "Because I know how you work," Angelo said defiantly. "I aint never seen you fight in the ring, but I have heard about that also. You're a good soljer," he admitted grudgingly unwillingly, "just like The Malloy's a good soljer," he said. "Ordinarily, I aint got no use for good soljers; but it takes a crack soljer with plenty control, to beat another good soljer like Fatso who's holding the reins and got all the cards," he said angrily, "and you mights well admit it." "Balls!" Prew said, embarrassedly because Angelo had touched him on his soft spot, derisively because he felt a sunburst of pride, pride that he knew he had no right to in front of any man who had earned this face from behind which Angelo Maggio of Atlantic Avenue looked out at him so devotedly. "You ask me!" Angelo said argumentively. "I tole you!" "Awright, awright," Prew growled. "Now what else?" "Theres just one other thing," Angelo said. "And thats the Hole. You got to know how to act, in the Hole." "The Hole? I thought you were all by yourself in the Hole." "Thats just it, you are. Thats what makes it bad. The Malloy says you can beat that too, if you just go at it the right way, but I never been able to do