The Collected Stories of Richard Yates (8 page)

The clerk leaned forward so earnestly that some of his coffee spilled. “Listen,” he said. “He's known about this all week—how the hellya
want
him to act? How the hell would
you
act if you knew somebody was screwing you out of the thing you liked best? Can'tcha see he's under a strain?”

But that, we all told him with our surly stares, was no excuse for being a dumb Rebel bastard.

“Some of you kids act too big for your pants,” the clerk said, and went away in a sulk.

“Ah, don't believe everything you hear,” Schacht said. “I'll believe he's transferred when I see it.”

But it was true. That night Reece sat up late in his room, drinking morosely with one of his cronies. We could hear their low, blurred voices in the darkness, and the occasional clink of their whiskey bottle. The following day he was neither easy nor hard on us in the field, but brooding and aloof as if he had other things on his mind. And when he marched us back that evening he kept us standing in formation in front of the barracks for a few moments, at ease, before dismissing us. His restless glance seemed to survey all our faces in turn. Then he began to speak in a voice more gentle than any we had ever heard him use. “I won't be seein' yew men any more after today,” he said. “I'm bein' transferred. One thing yew can always count on in th' Army, and that is, if yew find somethin' good, some job yew like, they always transfer your ass somewheres else.”

I think we were all touched—I know I was; it was the closest he had ever come to saying he liked us. But it was too late. Anything he said or did now would have been too late, and our predominant feeling was relief. Reece seemed to sense this, and seemed to cut short the things he had planned to say.

“I know there ain't no call for me to make a speech,” he said, “and I ain't gonna make one. Onliest thing I want to say is—” He lowered his eyes and stared at his dusty service shoes. “I want to wish all yew men a lot of luck. Y'all keep your nose clean, hear? And stay outa trouble?” The next words could scarcely be heard. “And doan let nobody push y'around.”

A short, painful silence followed, as painful as the parting of disenchanted lovers. Then he drew himself straight. “P'toon! Tetch—
hut!
” He looked us over once more with hard and glittering eyes. “Dismissed.”

And when we came back from chow that night we found he had already packed his barracks bags and cleared out. We didn't even get to shake his hand.

Our new platoon sergeant was there in the morning, a squat jolly cab driver from Queens who insisted that we call him only by his first name, which was Ruby. He was every inch a Good Joe. He turned us loose at the Lister bags every chance he got, and confided with a giggle that, through a buddy of his in the PX, he often got his own canteen filled with Coca-Cola and crushed ice. He was a slack drill-master, and on the road he never made us count cadence except when we passed an officer, never made us chant or sing anything except a ragged version of “Give My Regards to Broadway,” which he led with fervor although he didn't know all the words.

It took us a little while to adjust to him, after Reece. Once when the lieutenant came to the barracks to give one of his little talks about playing ball, ending up with his usual “All right, Sergeant,” Ruby hooked his thumbs in his cartridge belt, slouched comfortably, and said, “Fellas, I hope yez all listened and gave ya attention to what the lieutenant said. I think I can speak fa yez all as well as myself when I say, Lieutenant, we're
gonna
play ball wit' you, like you said, because this here is one platoon that knows a Good Joe when we see one.”

As flustered by this as he had ever been by Reece's silent scorn, the lieutenant could only blush and stammer, “Well, uh—thank you, Sergeant. Uh—I guess that's all, then. Carry on.” And as soon as the lieutenant was out of sight we all began to make loud retching noises, to hold our noses or go through the motions of shoveling, as if we stood knee-deep in manure. “Christ, Ruby,” Schacht cried, “what the hella
you
buckin' for?”

Ruby hunched his shoulders and spread his hands, bubbling with good-natured laughter. “To stay alive,” he said. “To stay alive, whaddya think?” And he defended the point vigorously over the mounting din of our ridicule. “Whatsa matta?” he demanded. “Whatsa matta? Don'tcha think he does it to the captain? Don'tcha think the captain does it up at Battalion? Listen, wise up, will yez?
Evvybody
does it!
Evvybody
does it! What the hellya think makes the Army go?” Finally he dismissed the whole subject with cab-driverly nonchalance. “Arright, arright, just stick around.
Yull
find out. Wait'll you kids got
my
time in the Army,
then
yez can talk.” But by that time we were all laughing with him; he had won our hearts.

In the evenings, at the PX, we would cluster around him while he sat behind a battery of beer bottles, waving his expressive hands and talking the kind of relaxed, civilian language we all could understand. “Ah, I got this brother-in-law, a real smott bastid. Know how
he
got outa the Army? Know how
he
got out?” There would follow an involved, unlikely tale of treachery to which the only expected response was a laugh. “Sure!” Ruby would insist, laughing. “Don'tcha believe me? Don'tcha believe me? And this other guy I know, boy, talk about bein'
smott
—I'm tellin' ya, this bastid's
really
smott. Know how
he
got out?”

Sometimes our allegiance wavered, but not for long. One evening a group of us sat around the front steps, dawdling over cigarettes before we pushed off to the PX, and discussing at length—as if to convince ourselves—the many things that made life with Ruby so enjoyable. “Well yeah,” little Fogarty said, “but I dunno. With Ruby it don't seem much like soldiering any more.”

This was the second time Fogarty had thrown us into a momentary confusion, and for the second time D'Allessandro cleared the air. “So?” he said with a shrug. “Who the hell wants to soldier?”

That said it perfectly. We could spit in the dust and amble off toward the PX now, round-shouldered, relieved, confident that Sergeant Reece would not haunt us again. Who the hell wanted to soldier? “Not
me,”
we could all say in our hearts, “not
this
chicken,” and our very defiance would dignify the attitude. An attitude was all we needed anyway, all we had ever needed, and this one would always sit more comfortably than Reece's stern, demanding creed. It meant, I guess, that at the end of our training cycle the camp delivered up a bunch of shameless little wise guys to be scattered and absorbed into the vast disorder of the Army, but at least Reece never saw it happen, and he was the only one who might have cared.

MYRA STRAIGHTENED HERSELF
in the backseat and smoothed her skirt, pushing Jack's hand away.

“All right, baby,” he whispered, smiling, “take it easy.”

“You take it easy, Jack,” she told him. “I mean it, now.”

His hand yielded, limp, but his arm stayed indolently around her shoulders. Myra ignored him and stared out the window. It was early Sunday evening, late in December, and the Long Island streets looked stale; dirty crusts of snow lay shriveled on the sidewalk, and cardboard images of Santa Claus leered out of closed liquor stores.

“I still don't feel right about you driving me all the way out here,” Myra called to Marty, who was driving, to be polite.

“'S all right,” Marty grumbled. Then he sounded his horn and added, to the back of a slow truck, “Get that son of a bitch outa the way.”

Myra was annoyed—why did Marty always have to be such a grouch?—but Irene, Marty's wife, squirmed around in the front seat with her friendly grin. “Marty don't mind,” she said. “It's good for 'm, getting out on a Sunday insteada laying around the house.”

“Well,” Myra said, “I certainly do appreciate it.” The truth was that she would much rather have taken the bus, alone, as usual. In the four years she had been coming out here to visit her husband every Sunday she had grown used to the long ride, and she liked stopping at a little cafeteria in Hempstead, where you had to change buses, for coffee and cake on the way home. But today she and Jack had gone over to Irene and Marty's for dinner, and the dinner was so late that Marty had to offer to drive her out to the hospital, and she had to accept. And then of course Irene had to come along, and Jack too, and they all acted as if they were doing her a favor. But you had to be polite. “It certainly is nice,” Myra called, “to be riding out here in a car, instead of a—
don't
Jack!”

Jack said, “
Sh-h-h,
take it easy, baby,” but she threw off his hand and twisted away. Watching them, Irene put her tongue between her teeth and giggled, and Myra felt herself blushing. It wasn't that there was anything to be ashamed of—Irene and Marty knew all about Jack and everything; most of her friends did, and nobody blamed her (after all, wasn't it almost like being a widow?)—it was just that Jack ought to know better. Couldn't he at least have the decency to keep his hands to himself now, of all times?

“There,” Marty said. “Now we'll make some time.” The truck had turned off and they were picking up speed, leaving the streetcar tracks and stores behind as the street became a road and then a highway.

“Care to hear the radio, kids?” Irene called. She clicked one of the dial tabs and a voice urged everyone to enjoy television in their own homes, now, tonight. She clicked another and a voice said, “Yes, your money buys more in a Crawford store!”

“Turn that son of a bitch off,” Marty said, and sounding the horn again, he pulled out into the fast lane.

When the car entered the hospital grounds, Irene turned around in the front seat and said, “Say, this is a beautiful place. I mean it, isn't this a beautiful place? Oh, look, they got a Christmas tree up, with lights and all.”

“Well,” Marty said, “where to?”

“Straight ahead,” Myra told him, “down to that big circle, where the Christmas tree is. Then you turn right, out around the Administration Building, and on out to the end of that street.” He made the turn correctly, and as they approached the long, low TB building, she said, “Here it is, Marty, this one right here.” He drew up to the curb and stopped, and she gathered together the magazines she had brought for her husband and stepped out on the thin gray snow.

Irene hunched her shoulders and turned around, hugging herself. “Oo-oo, it's
cold
out there, isn't it? Listen, honey, what time is it you'll be through, now? Eight o'clock, is it?”

“That's right,” Myra said, “but listen, why don't you people go on home? I can just as soon take the bus back, like I always do.”

“Whaddya think I am, crazy?” Irene said. “You think I want to drive all the way home with Jack moping there in the backseat?” She giggled and winked. “Be hard enough just trying to keep him happy while you're inside, let alone driving all the way home. No, listen, we'll cruise around a little, honey, maybe have a little drink or something, and then we'll come back here for you at eight o'clock sharp.”

“Well okay, but I'd really just as soon—”

“Right here,” Irene said. “We'll see you right here in front of the building at eight o'clock sharp. Now hurry up and shut the door before we all freeze to death.”

Myra smiled as she slammed the door, but Jack, sulking, did not look up to smile back, or wave. Then the car rolled away and she walked up the path and the steps to the TB building.

The small waiting room smelled of steam heat and wet overshoes, and she hurried through it, past the door marked
NURSES
'
OFFICE—CLEAN AREA
and into the big, noisy center ward. There were thirty-six beds in the center ward, divided in half by a wide aisle and subdivided by shoulder-high partitions into open cubicles of six beds each. All the sheets and the hospital pajamas were dyed yellow, to distinguish them from uncontaminated linen in the hospital laundry, and this combined with the pale green of the walls made a sickly color scheme that Myra could never get used to. The noise was terrible too; each patient had a radio, and they all seemed to be playing different stations at once. There were clumps of visitors at some of the beds—one of the newer men lay with his arms around his wife in a kiss—but at other beds the men looked lonely, reading or listening to their radios.

Myra's husband didn't see her until she was right beside his bed. He was sitting up, cross-legged, frowning over something in his lap. “Hello, Harry,” she said.

He looked up. “Oh, hi there, honey, didn't see you coming.”

She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek. Sometimes they kissed on the lips, but you weren't supposed to.

Harry glanced at his watch. “You're late. Was the bus late?”

“I didn't come on the bus,” she said, taking off her coat. “I got a ride out. Irene, the girl that works in my office? She and her husband drove me out in their car.”

“Oh, that's nice. Whyn't you bring 'em on in?”

“Oh, they couldn't stay—they had someplace else to go. But they both said to give you their regards. Here, I brought you these.”

“Oh, thanks, that's swell.” He took the magazines and spread them out on the bed:
Life, Collier's
and
Popular Science.
“That's swell, honey. Sit down and stay awhile.”

Myra laid her coat over the back of the bedside chair and sat down. “Hello there, Mr. Chance,” she said to a very long Negro in the next bed who was nodding and grinning at her.