From Here to Eternity (75 page)

his eyes already glazing. His right arm was still stretched out as if trying by sheer will to draw the knife back up into it, as if that might change things. He wheezed and managed to put his left hand over his cut belly. "You've killed me. Why'd you want to kill me," he said, and died. The expression of hurt surprise and wounded reproach and sheer inability to understand stayed on his face like a forgotten suitcase left at the station, and gradually hardened there. Prew stood looking down at him, still shocked by the reproving question. Around the corner of the alley the two bartenders of the Log Cabin came out together and clinkily locked the door and moved off talking quietly down the brick toward Beretania. Prew moved then. He closed the knife and wrapped it in his handkerchief and snapped the rubber band around the handkerchief and put the package in his pocket. His side was bleeding steadily and he took the other handkerchief, the clean one, and wadded it and stuck it inside his shirt and clamped his arm down on it, working hurriedly to catch it before it soaked down through his pants; it had already come through his shirt in spots and the gook shirt had been ripped open where the knife had gone in. But his arm would partly cover that. Then he moved on out the east end of the alley, walking north away from town. After he had walked two blocks he stepped into another alley and sat down and leaned back against the wall to think it over now. It felt very cozily safe in the alley. He ought to be somewhere up around Vineyard Street now. This was gook quarters up here above Beretania, tenements, and he didn't know this part very well. But Vineyard Street, he remembered, ran east quite a ways. It was east that he would have to go. It was useless to think about going back to Schofield now, cut up like this; they'd have him the first thing in the morning as soon as they found Fatso even if he did manage to get in through the gate. The only thing left to do now was to make it across town to Alma's. If he could get to Alma's he would be all right. His mind was working very clearly, with the same crystal intensity of focus as in the fight, and he grinned at it ruefully. Lock the barn after the horse is stolen. If the son of a bitch could only think as clearly all the time as it did when it had to, we wouldnt never get into these positions where it had to. He had not even considered the possibility of getting cut up so bad he could not go back to the Post. Any fool ought to of thought of that. He had not thought to bring extra handkerchieves either; dry handkerchieves would have helped to coagulate it faster. The steady bleeding, slow, but still as inexorably logical and indifferent to plans and wishes as one of Jack Malloy's Natural Laws, was beginning to soak through the handkerchief in spots and drip down his side again. He shifted the handkerchief again and clamped his arm back down on it and that stopped the dripping, but he still would not be able to climb on a bus or streetcar looking like this with a ripped-open shirt showing spots of blood. It might soak through on the bus where he could not shift it again and his mind coldly flashed him a picture of the consternation he would cause getting up to walk off a brightly lighted city bus. There was nothing in this world as red as blood. Not even Jack Malloy's archenemies the Communists were as red as blood. Especially your own blood. It was probably four miles to Kaimuki from here, then almost another mile up Wilhelmina Rise to Alma's. And that was as the crow flies. You could add another mile for detours to keep on the side streets that were not lighted bright enough to show like the buses would. That made it about six miles to do, figuring liberally. And he would have to walk it. But if he could get to Alma's he would be all right. We want to figure this out right, he told himself, we want to be damn sure, we want all the percentages we can cluster. He might risk a taxi, provided he could find one on the side streets, if he thought he couldnt make it. We'll keep that for the old ace in the hole. Some of them write to the old folks for coin, thats their old ace in the hole. Others have girls on the old tenderloin, thats their old ace in the hole. They tell you of trips they are going to make, from Frisco down to the South Pole; but then names would be mud, like a chump playing stud, if they lost their old ace in the hole. You're already getting nuttier than a peach orchard boar, Prewitt. Pretty soon you wont know whether Christ was crucified or died with the screen door flux. Sitting with his back against the wall of the alley he allowed himself time for one cigarette before starting, thinking it would clot up some if he held quite still. It was the best cigarette he had ever tasted. He smoked it slowly feeling cozily safe in the alley. Then he grinned again. Funny how the little things like a smoke seemed so wonderful and good when you were bad off and you thought if I ever get out of this one I'll take more time to enjoy the little things. And then you never hardly noticed them when everything was going good in your favor again. Well, he told himself, I guess we might as well go on and get started. The sooner we get started, you know, the sooner we get there. It was hard to make himself leave the false security of the alley. He had to remind himself he would have to get moving before it started to stiffen up on him, now while it had not started to hurt bad yet. Already it was beginning to have the nightmarish quality of a dream where you know you will wake up pretty soon, and that was dangerous. You take it easy in dreams" because you always know you will always wake up. But this wasnt a dream. This isnt a dream, Prewitt, he reminded himself, this you wont wake up from. And whatever else happened he did not intend to ever go back to the Stockade. At the next corner he was very careful to check the street sign and make sure it was Vineyard, before he turned east. You're really over the hill for good, this time, Prewitt. Your days as a thirty-year-man are over. When you dont show up tomorrow, and then they find old Fatso and start checkin, they wont be no doubt who it was done it. This time there wont be no getting back to the Post before you're picked up, so as to get off with company punishment. This time its desertion. He did not know how far east Vineyard went, but it was the only street around here that went more than a block or two and he turned down it. Below Beretania and King Streets toward the beach he knew the town like the back of his hand, but he did not know it up here. He knew enough to know that when you got out as far as the University all the east-west side streets stopped and then you had to either use Beretania or King to keep going east, or else cross over both of them to the beach side. That was going to be the hard part, crossing Beretania and King. The only chance was to find a straight street that ran down through both of them, so you would not have to walk along either one of them under the lights. They were not as populous out near the University as they were back in town, but they were still the main streets. He followed Vineyard down to Punchbowl Street, then up Miller to Capt Cook, and back down Capt Cook to Lunalilo. There was a straight stretch on Lunalilo of over half a mile, but then it deadended at Makiki. From the corner he could see the Masonic Temple, so he knew there were no through cross streets here, because this was just a block from Kalakaua Ave that cut off toward Waikiki. Beyond Kalakaua there were wide streets on the beach side, but here there were only a few dead end lanes and then nothing, clear down to the KGHB radio station on Kapiolani Boulevard. He had to go up Makiki till he hit a street east and go clear across Punahou and then cut back down. Complicated. Very complicated. Why was it everything was always so goddam complicated? Even the simplest things was so goddam complicated when you come to doing them. It was over a quarter of a mile up Makiki before he hit Wilder Ave east. He followed Wilder half a mile before he found Alexander Street that cut clear down to Beretania, but when he got down there he found Alexander did not cross it. It was beginning to get into him by then, and he was having to keep a very tight hold on his mind. He scouted up and down above Beretania half an hour, looking for a street that went clear through. But by then it had become all nightmare and wasnt so bad. From Alexander Street on he was laughing all the time. He crossed Beretania and King on McCully Street that ran clear down to Kalakaua. There was Fern Street and Lime Street and Citron Street and Date Street and he remembered from somewhere that Date Street crossed Kapiolani Boulevard and the Territorial Golf Course clear into Kaimuki. It was over a mile across the golf course to Kaimuki and after that he did not remember the streets he used to angle up through Kaimuki to Waialae where he hit Wilhelmina. All he remembered was that after he got to Alma's he would be all right. When he crossed the drainage canal in the middle of the golf course on Date Street, he dropped the package containing the knife into the water and watched the string of bubbles come up. He was going to have a nice scar there, he thought with a giggle. The scars on a man's body were like a written history of his life. Each one had its own story and memory, like a chapter in a book. And when a man died they buried them all with him and then nobody could ever read his histories and his stories and his memories that had been written down on the book of his body. Poor man, he thought whose written history is buried with him. Poor Fatso. He bet Fatso had lots of scar-histories. He had guts too, Fatso did. And Prewitt killed him. Poor Prewitt. You're getting silly, he warned himself, you better straighten up and fly right. You aint even to Kaimuki yet. You got a good piece to go yet, lets you and me go over our scars and see can we remember the stories. We've got a good many histories, too. There was the one on the index finger of his left hand he had got that time in Richmond Indiana on the bum when the nigger saved him from the guy with the knife. But that was only a little one, he'd been a kid then. Wonder where the nigger is now? Wonder where the guy is? Then there was the one on his left wrist. That was a bigger one. He had fell off the roof of the house in Harlan and gashed it on a nail and cut the artery. His mother run and got Uncle John and Uncle John stopped the bleeding or he would of died probly. When his father came home he laughed about it. His father was dead now. Uncle John was dead too. His mother was dead too. And it had all seem so important to all of them at the time, except his father, who wasnt there. And where was it now? It was on his left wrist, thats where. And when you die? Then its gone. He come awful close to dyin lots of times. He had the scars to prove it. And he wasnt dead yet. But you'll have to die sometime. Thats right. Thats true. And then they're all gone. If they cremate you, it'll be a regular book burning, wont it? There was the scar under his left eyebrow on his eyelid, just a thin pencil line now, that he got at Myer in the ring. They wanted to stop the fight but he talked them out of it and won by a knockout. The doc was going to sew it up, but the trainer raised such hell and insisted so loud for an adhesive bridge that that was what they finally did and hardly left any scar at all. It would have been a hell of a scar if they'd sewed it or clamped it. Wonder where the doc is now? Wonder where the trainer is? Both still at Myer? At the time he'd wish they would of sewed it because he wanted a good scar then. What a kid, Prewitt, What a wise punk. Well, you've got it now. You've got a lot of them now. There was the scars he got in the Stockade, still new and red. And there was all the scars he'd got in all the barracks, coming in drunk and falling over the footlockers. He had lots of scars. He had a real history. Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a history of the United States in one volume, from the year 1919 to the year 1941, uncompleted, compiled and edited by We The People. There were the scars he had got on the county road gang in Georgia, and the scars he had got in Mississippi in the city lockup. There were the scars he had got from the police, and the scars he had got from the enemies of the police. He knew when it was Wilhelmina Rise Street because it was so goddam steep. It really winded him. Really getting out of shape any more. Ought to do a little roadwork. Getting old. There was the two scars he had got the last year at Myer on the fatigue detail when he was working in the attic and fell through the skylight it the Officers' Gymnasium. The glass cut a line from his left sideburn down to his mouth-corner, and a big gash in his right hip. It was the ony time he ever got to see the inside of the Officers' Gymnasium. And now you couldnt even see the line on his face except right after he'd shaved. So many years. So many scars. Where the hell they all go to anyway? There was the scar he got in the fist fight in Washington, from an uppercut right on the point of the chin, and he went all fuzzy and then he was on the ground, and the other guy was gone, and the scar turned coal black afterwards and he never could understand why unless it was because of his beard but he had another scar in his beard where Koleman'd knocked two teeth through his lower lip when Koleman beat him for the Class I Championship and that one never turned coal black. Maybe when he fell he got dirt in it maybe, the one on his chin. The lights were on in the house. That was good. That meant he wouldnt have to use his key and he couldnt remember if he'd brought his key or not. You see, he hadnt meant to go over the hill and come up here tonight. He had meant to go right back to the Post. That was what he had meant to do. He knocked with the brass knocker and Alma opened the door in person, Georgette right behind her. "Oh my God!" Alma said. "Jesus Christ!" Georgette said. "Hello, Baby," he said; "Hi, Georgette. Long time no see"; and fell in through the door.

BOOK FIVE

The Re-enlistment Blues

CHAPTER 45

THE PAIN did not really start until the next morning. The next morning, of course, it was worse. The stiffness had come by then, and with it the soreness and dull pain of healing that was always worse than the sharp dear pain of getting it. He was a pretty sick boy for a couple of days. But then pain was a thing he knew about. Pain was like an old friend he had not seen for a long time. He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve enough to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down in it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain. Pain was like ring-fighting; if you kept going back in there long enough you finally got an instinct for it; you never knew just when it came, or where it came from, but suddenly you discovered you had it and had had it a long time without knowing it. That was the way it was with pain. Pain was like with a village at the foot of a mountain that had a cathedral built on its shoulder high up over the town and the bells in the cathedral never stopped playing "The Old Rugged Cross." He had come to on a divan about five-thirty, rising fighting up out of exhausted sleep with the impression that they had him back in the Stockade and Major Thompson was branding him under the left arm with a large capital P for the killing of Fatso, thinking it was the same as the stencil they used on the fatigue jackets except they were branding him for life with it but every time he tried to jerk away from it the brand only burned that much deeper. Then he had seen Georgette sitting in the big armchair watching him unwinkingly and Alma lying back in the wicker chaise-longue with her eyes closed above the dark circles. They had undressed him and cleaned him up and put a compress over the cut and bandaged it on with gauze around his chest "What time is it?" he said. "About five-thirty," Georgette had said, and got up. Alma jerked upright wide awake, her closed eyes coming wide open staring at nothing without sleepiness, and then followed Georgette over to him on the divan. "How do you feel?" Georgette said. "Pretty sore. This bandage pretty tight." "We made it extra tight on purpose," Alma said. "You lost quite a bit of blood. Tomorrow we'll take it off and put on one not so tight." "How does it look?" "Not so bad," Georgette said. "It could have been a lot worse. The muscles isnt severed. You owe a great debt of thanks to your ribs though, my boy." "You'll have a nice scar," Alma said. "But it'll heal up all right in a month or so." "You gals should have been nurses." "Every good whore should have a course in practical nursing," Georgette grinned. "It comes in handy." He noticed there was a new look on both their faces that he had never seen there before. "What did the other guy look like?" Alma had smiled. "He's dead," Prew said. Then he added, rather unnecessarily he thought later, "I killed him." Both their smiles had gradually faded off. They had not said anything. "Who was he?" Georgette said. "Just a dogface," he said, and paused. "He was the Chief Guard in the Post Stockade." "Well," Georgette said. "Well, I'll go make you a cup of hot beef bouillon. You need to build up your strength." Alma watched her until she had gone up the three little steps into the kitchen. "Did you kill him on purpose?" Prew nodded. "Yes." "Thats what I thought. That was why you came here, wasnt it?" "I meant to go back to the Post so they wouldnt suspect me. Then I was going to come down later, after this'd blown over." "And how long have you been out of the Stockade?" "Nine days," he said. He said it automatically, without having to count. "Over a week," she said, "and you didnt even call me up. You might at least have called me up." "I didnt want to take any chances of fouling up." Then he grinned. "And I didnt want to risk getting you into trouble. Course, I forgot all about the possibility of getting cut up so bad I couldnt go back." Alma didnt seem to think it was humorous. "Didnt Warden get in touch with you?" he said. "I ask him to." "Yes," Alma said, "he got in touch with me. He came down to the New Congress. That was how I found out you were in jail. Otherwise, I wouldnt even have known. I think you might at least have written a letter." "I cant write letters," Prew said. He paused and looked at her. "Well," Alma said, "of course if you cant write them.. ." "Did Warden -" he said, and stopped. She looked at him, waiting for him to finish it, a look of almost contempt coming onto her face. When he didnt go on, she said, "Did Warden what? He was a perfect gentleman, if thats what you mean." Prew moved his head vaguely, looking up at her. "He was kind," she said, enumerating them, "and considerate, and thoughtful, and gentle, and a perfect gentleman." Prew tried to imagine Warden being like that. "Much more so than a lot of other men I have met," Alma told him. "He's a good joe, all right." "He certainly is. He's a fine man." Prew clamped his jaws shut on what he wanted to say. "You dont know what its like up there," he said, instead. "Its not a big help to a guy's imagination. Four months and eighteen days, and every night there is all that time you lay in your bunk with the lights out, before you finally go to sleep." The contempt faded off of her face and she smiled at him brimmingly apologetically. It was the same smile of a while ago that he had never seen on her face before - maternal, solicitous, tender, almost happy, and infinitely more gentle than he had ever seen her look. "You've had a hard time," she smiled self-castigatingly. "And here I am being mean and nasty, when you're sick and in pain and need rest more than anything. I guess," she said, "I'm afraid I'm in love with you." Prew looked at her proudly, even with his side prodding him angrily, thinking she was a professional whore which instead of making him less made him even more proud, because a professional whore who knows the score is even harder to make fall in love with you than a respectable woman. Not many men are ever loved by professional whores, he thought proudly. "Hows for a kiss?" he grinned. "I've been here this long and you aint even kissed me." "Yes I have," Alma said. "But you were asleep." But she kissed him again anyway. "You've had a hard time," she said softly. "Not as hard as some guys," he said woodenly, seeing again the by now familiar, every-detail-sharply-remembered, picture of Blues Berry standing nose and toes against the gym wall and by inference seeing Angelo Maggio in the same spot. "I guess I'm over the hump for good now," he said. "Even after I'm well I still cant go back. When I dont show today they'll know I did it. They'll be looking for me." "What do you plan to do?" "I dont know." "Well, at least you'll be safe here. Nobody here knows who we are. So you can stay here if you want," she said, looking up with a question at Georgette coming in with the hot soup. "You can stay as long as you want, kiddo," Georgette grinned, "as far as I'm concerned. If thats what you two are wondering." "We hadnt mentioned it," Alma said. "But thats a point that would have to be considered: how you felt." "I've always had a soft spot for crazy sons of bitches," Georgette grinned. "And I aint got nothing to thank the Law for except my free medical examination every Friday." "I'm glad you feel that way, Georgia," Alma said. "I'll be a fugitive from Leavenworth," Prew reminded her. "A murderer, to the Law." "To coin a phrase," Georgette said, "up the Law's." The coined phrase obviously did not appeal much to Alma, but she did not say anything. "Can you sit up by yourself for this?" Georgette said, moving the cup. "Sure," Prew said, and swung his legs down over the side of the divan, pulling his trunk up. Bright hot spots danced on a warm moist film in front of his eyes. "You crazy dam fool!" Alma cried angrily. "You want to start it bleeding again? Lay back down and let me help you." "I'm up now," Prew said weakly. "But I'll let you help me back down after I drink the soup." "You're going to get lots of this," Georgette said, holding the cup to his lips. "You'll probly get so much of it you'll probly be damned sick of it." "It tastes good now though," he said between swallows. "Wait till tomorrow." 'Tomorrow," Alma smiled, "we'll feed you a good big thick steak, rare and bloody." "And liver and onions," Georgette grinned. "A T-bone?" Prew said. "Or a porterhouse," Alma said. "Man, man," he said, "stop it, you're killing me." There was that same loving look on both their faces again, more pronounced now,, of an almost unbelievable happy tenderness. "You gals sure treat your invalids right," he grinned at them. "How about a cigarette now?" Alma lit it for him. It tasted wonderful, better than the one in the alley, because now he could relax with it. He dragged the smoke deep into his lungs and it seemed to ease the stiff sore fire of indignant protest from his side, even though it hurt to breathe that deep, It hurt also, considerably, when they had helped him back down; and that, he reminded himself, is only today. Wait till tomorrow. And then wait till the second day which will be even worse. But it didnt hurt nearly so much as the big gesture of sitting up by himself. Well, okay, to hell with the gestures, he thought, letting himself sink back down into the luxurious will-less irresponsibility that is the nicest thing about being bad sick. "Okay," he said. "I'm all right now. You gals might as well go on back to bed." "We've stayed up this long," Alma smiled happily. "We might as well stay up the rest of the night." "You dont get any more chances to doctor invalids than I get chances to be sick, do you?" he grinned. "Now you just go back to sleep," she said bossily. 'Try not to talk. Try to rest." "But dont you want to hear all about the big fight?" "We'll read about it in the paper tomorrow," Georgette said. "Okay, doc," he grinned. "Do you think you can sleep all right?" Alma said. "Sure," he said. "Sleep like a top." "I'll give you a sedative if you want." "Wont even need it." And he had lain and watched them as they turned off all the fights but the night light on the end-table and then go back to their chairs in the gloom, Alma to the armchair this time and Georgette to the chaise-longue. The radio-bar was still in the corner of the sunken tile floor by the steps to the kitchen and the record-player was still on the little table by the record-cabinet and the three steps still went up to the glass doors that opened out onto the fairy-tale porch over Palolo Valley. He could hear their breathings there in the dark room, positive, comforting, reassuring, as he tried to get comfortable with the soreness. In a way, it was a good bit like coming home from someplace. And he did not care much if he couldnt sleep. He was more than content to just lie and look at all of it. Hell, it was almost like being a regular civilian. And he had lain like that for a long time without disturbing either one of them. But he did not feel nearly so chipper next morning, when he awoke to the stiffness and soreness that is always worse the next day. Alma and Georgette were already up and had gone out for the steak and studied the paper. There was nothing in the paper. He did not have any appetite but they fed him the steak anyway, Georgette holding him up while Alma cut it and forked it into his mouth like a farmer forking hay into a mow, and every hour or so they made him drink a cup of the beef bouillon that, as Georgette had prophesied, he was already sick at the thought of. Alma phoned in to Mrs Kipfer and asked for, and got, three days off. Mrs Kipfer did not believe she was menstruating, and Alma knew she did not believe it. But it was the time-honored excuse of her business, that the favorites could get by with, just like the dead-grandmother-furlough in the Army, that the favorites could always get away with; nobody was expected to believe it. They settled down to taking care of the invalid. They made him stay on the divan until almost evening, before they moved him in on Alma's bed, and they absolutely refused to change the tight bandage until at least the second day. He did not turn down the sedatives this time. It was in the paper the second day. They had searched for and found it before he woke up. After they fed him his breakfast of liver and onions, they showed it to him. Right then, he would not have cared enough to have looked for it. He hardly bothered himself to read it when they held it up in front of him. He had expected to see it in 60-point banner headlines spread over the whole front page, with his name as the hunted killer just below it in 20-point; instead, it was on page 4 almost down at the bottom with a bannerhead of 12-point and not-quite two inches of type that was a marvel of brevity and said, in effect, that another soldier had been found dead in another alley of a knife wound, that his name was S/Sgt James R Judson, that he had been in the Army 10 years and came from Breathitt County Kentucky, that he had been Chief Guard at the Schofield Barracks; Post Stockade and because of this it was believed that he had been murdered by some vengeance-crazed ex-prisoner fo:r some fancied wrong, possibly by a recently escaped convict whose apprehension was expected by the Army at any moment named Pvt John J Malloy. The deceased, it said, had been unarmed and was apparently not expecting to be attacked as there was a look of complete surprise still on his face. No witness could be found. The employees of the Log Cabin Bar and Grill near which the body was found remembered the deceased who had patronized them that evening but could not say when he had left or with whom. He had a hard time coming back up out of the pain of his sorely stiffening side that almost had him giggling again now, to concentrate his mind on it. But he was able to glean two or three things. Apparently nobody, neither the two sailors who had not come forward nor the bartenders who had been called forward, wanted any part in it, for one. And apparently someone had found the; body before the Law did and acquired themselves a good knife, for another. And, after figuring quite a while, he came up with the startling discovery that the recently escaped convict named Pvt John J Malloy must be Jack Malloy and that, for lack of anything better, they were going to pin it on him for a while, for the public at least. And this brought him to the thing he had been searching his mind for all the time he was reading it but had not