The Barracks Thief

by Tobias Wolff

  Lewis picks out the crazy one in a bar filled with reasonable girls.

  She is older than the others and not the best looking, and the trouble she’s in shows plainly. She hasn’t brushed her hair all day and her dark eyes are ringed with circles like bruises. She is sitting by herself at the bar. The ice has melted in her ginger ale, which she pushes back and forth and never picks up. In a few years she will be talking to herself.

  Lewis doesn’t even look at any of the others. He is going to do something bad and she is the one to do it with. He goes straight to her and sits on the stool next to her. He avoids the bartender’s gaze because he is not sure that he has enough money to pay for liquor and women both. Liquor and women are the words that come to his mind. He is really going to do it. Tonight, with her. He swivels on his stool and says, You come from around here?

  She can’t believe her ears. She stares at him and he looks down. His face is in motion, jerking and creasing and knotting. You want something? she says.

  Lewis looks at her and looks away.

  Well? she says.

  No, he says. I mean maybe I do.

  Well do you or don’t you?

  I don’t know, he says. I never paid for it before.

  Then go beat your meat, she says, and turns her shoulder to him.

  The calamine lotion has dried pink on Lewis’s hand and is starting to flake off. He picks at it with a fingernail. How much? he says.

  She turns on him. Her eyes are raking his face. What are you trying to pull? she says. You trying to get me jugged or something?

  All I said—

  I know what you said. Jesus Christ. She dips into her shiny white bag and pulls out a cigarette. She glances around, lights it, and blows smoke toward the ceiling. Drop dead, she says.

  Lewis doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, but he will have a woman and this is the woman he will have. Hey, he says, you ever been to Kentucky?

  Kentucky, she says to herself. She grabs her purse and gets off the stool and walks out of the bar. Lewis follows her. When they get outside she whips around on him. Damn you, she says. What do you want?

  I want to go with you.

  She looks up and down the street. People move past them and no one pays them any attention. You don’t give a shit, she says. I get jugged it’s all the same to you.

  You asked me did I want anything, Lewis says. What are you all mad about?

  She says, I had enough of you, and turns away down the sidewalk. Lewis follows her. After a while he catches up and they walk side by side. I’ll show you a time, Lewis says. That’s a guarantee.

  She doesn’t answer.

  Right down the street from where Lewis threw the bottle of calamine there is a motel with separate little bungalows. She stops in front of the last one. Ten dollars, she says.

  How about eight?

  Damn you, she says.

  It’s all I got.

  She looks at him for a while, then goes up the steps and unlocks the door and backs into the bungalow. Let’s have it, she says, and holds out her hand.

  But there are only six ones in Lewis’s wallet. He had forgotten the popcorn and the coke and the Sugar Daddy. He hands the money to her. That’s six, he says. I’ll give you the rest on payday.

  Drop dead, she says, and starts to close the door.

  Lewis says, Hey! He gets his foot in and pushes with his shoulder. Hey, he says, give me my money back. She pushes from the other side. Finally he hits the door with his whole weight and it gives. She backs away from him. He goes after her. Give me my money back, he says. Then he stops. Put that knife away, he says. I just want my six dollars is all.

  She doesn’t move. She holds the knife as a man would, not raised by her ear but in front of her chest. Her breathing is hoarse but steady, unhurried.

  All right, Lewis says. Look here. You keep the six dollars and I’ll bring the rest tomorrow. I’ll meet you tomorrow, same place. Okay?

  I don’t care what you do, she says. Just get.

  Tomorrow, he says. He backs out. When he’s on the steps the door bangs shut and he hears the lock snap.

  The next day Lewis steals the first wallet. It is not under a pillow as the owner later claims but lying on his bunk in plain sight. Lewis sees it on his way to lunch and doubles back when everyone is in the mess hall. It holds two one-dollar bills and some change. Lewis takes the money and tosses the wallet under the barracks steps. He is mad the whole time, mad at the corporal for leaving it out like that and for being so stuck on himself and never saying hello, mad at how little money there is, mad at not having any money of his own.

  He doesn’t think of borrowing a few dollars from his friends. He has never borrowed anything from anyone. To Lewis there is no difference between borrowing and begging. He even hates to ask questions.

  Later, when he hears that the corporal is telling everyone he had a hundred dollars stolen, Lewis gets even madder. That evening at dinner he stares at the corporal openly but the corporal eats without looking up. On his way out of the mess hall Lewis deliberately bumps against the corporal’s chair, hard. He stops at the door and looks back. The man is eating ice cream like nothing happened. It burns Lewis up.

  It also burns him up the way everybody just automatically figures the wallet was stolen by an outsider. They are so high and mighty they think nobody in the company could ever do a thing like that. I’m no outsider, he thinks. He gets so worked up he can’t sleep that night.

  The next day Lewis is assigned to a detail at the post laundry, humping heavy bags across the washroom. The air swirls with acrid steam. Figures appear and vanish in the mist, never speaking. It is useless to try and talk over the whining and thumping of the big machines, but now and then someone shouts an order at someone else. Lewis takes one short break in the morning but gets so far behind that he never takes another. All day he thinks about the woman in Fayetteville, how she looks, how bad she is. Doing it for money and carrying a knife. He is sure that nobody he knows has ever had a woman pull a knife on him. He thinks of different people and pictures to himself how they would act if they found out. It makes him smile.

  When he gets back to the company he takes a shower and lies down for a while to catch his breath. Everyone else is getting ready for dinner, joking around, snapping each other with towels. Lewis watches them. His eyes sting from the fumes he’s been working in and he closes them for a moment, just for a rest, and when he opens them again the barracks is dark and filled with sleeping men.

  Lewis sits up. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast and feels hollow all through. Even his legs seem empty. He remembers the woman in town, but it’s too late now and anyway he doesn’t have the money to pay her with. He imagines her sitting at the bar, sliding her glass back and forth.

  It starts to rain. The drops rattle on the tin roof. A flash of lightning flickers on the walls and the thunder follows a while after, a rumble like shingle turning in a wave, more a feeling than a sound. Lewis gets up and walks between the bunks until he finds a pair of fatigue pants lying on a footlocker. He picks them up and goes to the latrine and takes the money out of the wallet. A five-dollar bill. Then he stuffs the wallet and pants into the trash can and goes back to bed.

  He thinks about the woman again. At first he was sorry that he didn’t meet her when he said he would, but now he’s glad. It will teach her something. She probably thought she had him and it’s best she know right off the kind of man she is dealing with. The kind that will come around when he gets good and ready. If she says anything he will just give a little smile and say, Honey, that’s how it is with me. You can take it or leave it.

  He wonders what she thinks happened. Maybe she thinks she scared him off with that knife. That’s a good one, he thinks, him afraid of some old knife like you’d buy at a church sale. Kitchen knife. He remembers it pointed at him with the dim light moving up and down the blade, worn and wavy-edged from too many sharpenings, and it’s true that he feels no fear. None at all.

&n
bsp; As he dresses in the morning Lewis looks over at the man he stole from. The man is sitting on his bunk and staring at the floor.

  The whole company knows about it by breakfast. And this time they know it’s not an outsider but one of their own. Lewis can tell. They eat quietly instead of yelling and stealing food from one another, and nobody really looks at anybody else. Except Lewis. He looks at everyone.

  That night the first sergeant comes through and makes a speech. It’s a lot of crap about how an infantry company is like a family blah blah blah. Lewis makes himself deaf and leaves for town as soon as it’s over.

  In town Lewis looks for the woman in the same bar. But she isn’t there. He tries all the bars. Finally he walks down to the bungalow. The windows are dark. He listens at the door and hears nothing. A TV on a window sill across the street makes laughing noises. He sits and waits.

  He waits for two hours and more and then he sees her coming down the sidewalk with the tiniest little man he has ever seen. You could almost say he’s a midget. She’s walking fast, looking at the ground just in front of her, and when they get close he can hear her muttering and him huffing to keep up. Lewis comes down the steps to meet them. Hey, says the little man, what the heck’s going on?

  Beat it, Lewis says.

  Okay, okay, the little man says, and heads back up the street.

  The woman watches him go. She turns to Lewis. Who do you think you are? she says.

  Lewis says, I brought you the rest of the money.

  She moves up close. I remember you, she says. You get out of my way. Get!

  Here’s the money, Lewis says, and holds it out to her.

  She takes it, looks at it, drops it on the ground and walks past him up the steps. Four dollars, she says. You think I’d go for four dollars? Get yourself a nigger.

  Lewis picks it up. I already gave you six, he says. This here is the rest.

  You got a receipt? she says, and sticks her key in the lock.

  Lewis grabs her arm and squeezes it. She tries to jerk away but he holds on and closes her hand around the money. That makes ten, he says. He lets go of her arm.

  She gives him a look and opens the door. He follows her inside. She turns on the overhead light, kicks her shoes across the room, and goes into the bathroom. He can hear her banging around in there as he sits on the bed and takes off his shoes and socks. Then he stands and strips to his underwear.

  She comes out naked. She is heavy in the ankles and legs and walks flat-footed, but her breasts are small, girlish. She drops her eyes as she walks toward him and he smiles.

  All right, she says, let’s have a look. She yanks his underpants to his knees and grabs him between her thumb and forefinger and squints down while she rolls him back and forth. Looks okay, she says, and drops him. You won’t do any harm with that little shooter. Come on. She goes to the bed and sits down. Come on, she says again, I got other fish to fry.

  Lewis can’t move.

  Okay, softy, she says, and goes to her knees in front of Lewis.

  No, Lewis says.

  She ignores him.

  No! Lewis says, and pushes her head back.

  Christ, she says. Just my luck. A homo.

  Lewis hits her. She sprawls back on the floor. They look at each other. She is breathing hard and so is Lewis, who stands with his fists in front of him like a boxer. She touches her forehead where he hit her. There’s a white spot. Okay, she says. She gives a little smile and reaches her hand out.

  Lewis pulls her up. She leans into him and runs her hands up and down his neck and back and legs, dragging her fingernails. She stands on his feet and pushes her hips against his. Then she rises up on her toes, Lewis nearly crying out from the pain of her weight, and she presses her teeth against his teeth and licks his mouth with her tongue. She kisses his face and whenever he goes to kiss her back she moves her mouth somewhere else, down his throat, his chest, his hips. She puts her arms around his knees and takes him in her mouth and a sound comes out of Lewis like he has never heard another human make. He puts his hands along her cheeks and closes his eyes.

  When he is close to finishing he tries to think about something else. He thinks about close-order drill. They are marching in review, the whole company on parade. The files flick past like rows of corn. He looks for a familiar face but finds none. Then they are gone. He opens his eyes and pulls back.

  The regular way, he says. In bed.

  He wants to hold her. He wants to lie quiet with her a moment, but she straddles him. She lowers herself onto him and digs her fingers into his flanks so that he rises up into her. He tries to move his own way, but she governs him. She puts her mouth on his and bites him. His foot cramps.

  Then she rolls over and wraps her legs around his back and slides her finger up inside him. He shouts and bucks to be free. She laughs and tightens around him. She holds her mouth against his ear and presses with her teeth and murmurs things. Lewis can’t make out what she’s saying. Then she arches and stiffens under him, holding him so tightly he can’t move. Her eyes are open halfway. Only the whites show. Lewis feels himself lift and dip as she breathes. She is asleep.

  She sleeps for hours. Nothing disturbs her, not the argument in the street, nor Lewis stroking her hair and saying things to her. Then he falls asleep too.

  When he wakes, her eyes are open. She is watching him. Hey there, he says. He reaches out and touches her cheek. He says the same words he was saying before he dozed off. I love you, he says.

  She pushes his hand away. You garbage, she says. She slides off the bed and finds her purse where she dropped it on the floor and takes out the knife. He gets up on the other side and stands there with the bed between them.

  You talk to me like that, she says. You come here and mock me. You’re garbage. I won’t be mocked by you, not by you. You’re just the same as me.

  Let me stay, he says.

  Get out of here, she says. Get! Get! Get!

  Lewis dresses. I’ll come back later, he says. He goes to the door and she follows him part way. I’ll be back, he says. I’ll bring you money.

  She waves the knife. You’ll get this, she says.

  It’s three o’clock in the morning. The last bus to camp left hours ago so Lewis has to make the trip on foot. The only cars on the road are filled with drunks. They yell things as they drive by. Once a bottle goes whistling past him and breaks on the shoulder. Lewis keeps going, feet sliding in his big square shoes. He doesn’t even turn his head.

  Just outside the base there is a tunnel with a narrow walkway along the side. The beams from the headlights of the cars glance off the white tiles and fill the tunnel with light. Lewis steadies himself on the handrail as he walks. One of the drivers notices him and leans on his horn and then the other drivers honk too, all together. The blare of the horns builds up between the tiles. It goes on in Lewis’s head long after he leaves the tunnel.

  He gets back to camp just after dawn and lies on his bunk, waiting for reveille. The man in the next bunk whistles as he breathes. Lewis closes his eyes, but he doesn’t sleep.

  At reveille the men sit up and fumble their boots on, cigarettes dangling, eyes narrowed against the smoke. Lewis thinks that he was wrong about them, that they are an okay bunch of fellows, not really conceited, just careful who they make friends with. He can understand that. You never know with people. He thinks about what good friends they are to each other and how they held the line in Vietnam against all those slopes. He wishes he had gotten to know them better. He wishes he was not this way.

  For the next three days he tries to find a wallet to steal. At night, when he is sure that everyone is asleep, he prowls between the bunks and pats the clothes left on footlockers. He skips meals and checks under pillows and mattresses. As the days pass and he finds nothing he gets reckless. Once, during breakfast, he tries to break into a wall locker where he saw a man put his camera, one of those expensive kind you look through the top of, worth something as pawn, but the lock won’t give
and the metal door booms like thunder every time Lewis hits it with his entrenching tool. He feels dumb but he keeps at it until he can see there’s no point.

  During dinner on the fourth night he searches through the barracks next to his. There is nothing. On his way back out he passes the latrine and hears the hiss of a shower. He stops at the door. In one of the stalls he sees a red back through the steam, and, just outside, a uniform hanging on a nail. The bulge of the wallet is clear.

  Lewis comes in along the wall. The man in the shower is making odd noises and it takes Lewis a moment to realize that he is crying. Lewis slips the pants off the hook and takes out the wallet. He is putting the pants back when the man in the shower turns around. His pink face floats in the mist. Hey! he says. Lewis hits him and the man goes down without a sound.

  Outside the barracks Lewis falls in with the first group of men leaving the mess hall. He heads toward the parade ground and when he gets there he climbs to the top bench in the reviewing stands. He looks over in the direction of the company. No one has followed him, but men are drifting into small groups. They know that something has happened.

  Lewis rubs his hand. It is still a little swollen and now it hurts like crazy from the punch he threw. He felt strange doing that, surprised and helpless and sad, like a bystander. What else will he watch himself do? He opens and closes his fingers.

  There is a breeze. Halyards spank against the metal flagpole as the rope swings out and back.

  He sees right away from the military I.D. that the wallet is Hubbard’s. Lewis knows that he and Hubbard had a feeling once between them. He doesn’t feel it now and can’t recall it exactly, but he wishes he had not hit him. If there’d been any choice he’d have chosen not to. He pockets the money, three fives and some change, and looks through the pictures. Hubbard and a man who looks just like him standing in waders with four dead fish on the ground in front of them, one big one and three just legal. Hubbard in a mortarboard hat with a tassel hanging down. A car. Another car. A girl who looks exactly like Hubbard if Hubbard had a pony tail. An old man on a tractor. A white house. A piece of yellow paper folded up.