by James Jones
“Why not?”
“Because. Because its just bad policy, thats all, very bad. Thats why.”
“But I dont see why.”
“Because I say so,” Lorene said sharply, sitting up. “Because if you ever do that, I’ll never have another thing to do with you, ever.”
“You wouldnt?” he said, hearing the seriousness in her voice now, and not feeling serious nor wanting to argue, turning it aside by making what he had said seriously into a teasing of her. “You really wouldnt?”
“No I would not.”
“But why?” he teased. “I could find you easy now, with that description. You’d stick out like a sore thumb, now.”
“Well,” Lorene said, mollified to see he was only teasing, “you had better never.”
“But why not get tanned?” he said. “You would look good tanned.” In his mind he could see her on the beach. He wondered where she lived. Sandra’s avocation was Lau Yee Chai’s, instead of the beach. He wondered where Sandra lived. “You would look fine tanned,” he said. “I’d love you tanned.”
“Would you want me to get fired?” Her voice was a smile now, in the darkness. “How many times have you been to a Honolulu whorehouse? That you dont know the girls are never tanned.”
“I guess I never noticed it.” Where in the city, where on the island, in what unsuspected blank face houses, did they live, the army of them, these women that were the only women on the Rock, for all that we might know?
“If any of them had been tanned,” she laughed, “you would have noticed it. They stick out more than sore thumbs, women with tanned arms and legs and stomachs and the rest of them still white. There is a standing house rule against tan, even the face.” She paused. “It seems,” she said, “that soldiers and sailors seem to like their whores to be pure and virginly white.”
“Score!” he said. “You win that round. Just the same, I would like it though. On you.” The only women for us anywhere, he thought, and here the only place to find them. If you saw them in the bars, or on the beach, or in the shops, you never recognized them, and if they recognized you they were wonderful at hiding it. Maybe I’ve seen her before, in Waikiki, and did not know it. After they left the office, he thought, the business office, and went out to mingle with the city, then they just disappeared. Mingle is a good word, he thought sleepily. Mingle. Mingle. I think I need a drink.
The tumbler was still where Angelo had left it, untouched, and he made himself get up in the dark and hunt around till he found it. Old Doctor Maggio’s magic sleeping potion, he thought and drank half of it and carried it back to the bed and set it on the floor where he could reach it. It did not last him long, but neither did it warm or fill the hollowness that he poured it into.
“I would like to look at the stark white skin,” he said to her, “against the deep brown tan. Then I would think about how on the beach the white was all covered up and hidden, so no one could see it, and of how I was going to look at what no one else got to look at.”
“You are a funny one, little Prew boy.”
“You said that before.”
“And I say it again. You are a funny one, a very funny one, that I cannot figure out.”
“I guess I’m easy to figure out, if you got the key.”
“Not to me. I guess I dont have the key.”
“No,” he said, sleepily. “You aint got it. And that seems to impress you a lot.”
“It does. Things I cant figure out make me curious. I like to have things all figured out. One, two, three. In the same way that I had this all figured out before I ever came here.”
“Yes,” he said, and he noticed that her voice was beginning to come loud, then faint, from across the curtain of the sleepiness. Maybe I’m asleep already, he thought, Maybe I’m dreaming. “You said that same thing earlier tonight,” he said, “and it struck me. But you aint explained it to me yet. Tell me, how did you ever come to get into this racket?”
“I am a volunteer,” Lorene said, and he noticed there was no trace of sleepiness in her voice.
“Maybe you think,” she said, “that all whores are virgins who were kidnapped by Lucky Luciano, and raped, and then farmed out. Maybe you think,” the voice said, “that all whores are inducted. Well they’re not. Lots of them enlist. Some because they just like the life, and dont mind doing what they have to do to get the rest of it. Others because they are bitter against some man who took their cherry and maybe knocked them up and then left them, and now they are getting even in some funny way, or else just dont give a damn, any more.
“Oh,” said the voice, “there are lots of us who have enlisted.”
“And lots who re-enlist,” Prew said. “Lots who end up thirty year men.”
“Not necessarily. There are some, but not nearly as many as you think. Lots of them, like me, figure it all out beforehand. Get in for one hitch and clean up and then get out. Lots of them do that.”
“Is that what you aim to do?”
“You dont think I mean to do this all my life? For fun? In another year I’ll be back home, with a pile of bills big enough to choke a steer. And then I will be all set, for life.”
“But what about home?” he asked the voice, sleepily, wonderingly, not sure yet that this was a dream he dreamed and had not really heard at all. “What will the people back home say?”
“They will say nothing. Because they will know nothing. In my home town, where my mother still lives—on the money that I send her—I am a private secretary to a big, big shot in the Hawaii sugar trade. I am a hometown waitress who went to night school and developed herself and became a private secretary who is saving her money to come home and take care of her poor invalided mother.”
“But what if you get caught?” he asked this dream.
“How can I get caught? In the little town in Oregon where I come from nobody but the very rich even venture out as far as Seattle. When I come home wearing all my demure conservative private secretary’s clothes and retire, on the modest ‘nestegg’ I will have, who is to doubt I am and was just what I say I am?”
“Nobody, I guess. But why? How did you ever get hold of the idea?”
“I had a boyfriend,” the apparition said. “I was a waitress, working in the local chain drugstore. He was from one of the richest families in town. Old story, with no new twists. I didnt get knocked up, nothing like that. He just married the girl his parents thought was suitable for his position, after two years of sleeping with me.”
“Too bad,” he murmured to it. Was that the whiskey that was loosening him up so, all through his arms and legs? “Too bad. Rotten.”
“It does make a pretty story, doesnt it?” the voice smiled. “Maybe they could make a movie from it.”
“They did,” he said. “Ten thousand of them.”
“But not with the ending this one has. This one does not end with the heroine still devoted, with the heroine going to work for them as maid in their new home, taking care of their children for them, just to be near her beloved, like was in this lovely movie, The Hollow of Intention.”
“No,” he said. “Life aint like that, not very often. Not at all in the sections of life I’ve seen.”
“Nor in any other sections of it. No it certainly is not. I left town after the marriage and went to Seattle, as a waitress. There was a bigtime pimp use to come in the store, all the girls pointed him out to me. It wasnt very hard to interest him into making a pass, the hard part was in letting him lay me and making him think I liked it. So that I could work him then, when he thought I loved him, into doing what he meant to do all along. Only, I fixed it so I got sent here, instead of Panama or Mexico; because he loved me, you see, and I loved him. He didnt know that every night after he left my place I’d get up and go and puke my guts out.”
“Lorene,” he said, “Lorene,” and he was not sure if he was dreaming this, or saying it out loud. “You’ve got a lot of guts, Lorene. I’m proud of you, Lorene. I understand you now, Lorene, and I am
proud of you, no matter what any other bastard says.”
“Guts,” the voice said. “Guts are nothing. Guts are only good for what you can make them bring you.”
“You sound hard, Lorene.”
“If prestige, position, money are what the good men need from their wives, why I will get them. The only way they can be got. With money.
“And after I go home with a stocking full of bills, after I build the new home for my mother and myself, after I join the Country Club and take up golf, get in the most acceptable bridge club, read them a book report on The Hollow of Intention for the Tuesday Literary Club—then the proper man with the proper position will find me as a proper wife who can keep a proper home and raise the proper children, and I will marry him. And I will be happy.”
“Lorene,” he dreamed, “I hope you pull it off. By god, I hope you do.”
“Theres nothing to pull off. Its all there. One, two, three. In black and white. In my town there are many who have done this, except that they were amateur whores, ‘mistresses,’ instead of professionals.
“And then,” the voice said softly, “with it all arranged and running like a well oiled clock, the other will fade out and die and be only the memory of one of those dreams you dream, and are always afraid will happen to you in real life, but that never do. Because when you are proper, you are safe.”
“Lorene,” he dreamed, “Lorene. Lorene, I think that I love you, Lorene. You’ve got guts and beauty and, Lorene, I think thats why I love you, Lorene.”
“You’re drunk,” said the voice. “How could a man love a whore? that he met for the first time in a whorehouse? You’re drunk and you had better go to sleep.”
“Thats what I thought you’d say,” he grinned slyly at the apparition, at the dream. “I knew you’d say that.”
“How did you know?” the voice said.
“I just knew,” he said. “I know you, Lorene. But will he love you, Lorene, this rich guy? Will he love you like I think I do?”
“You dont love me,” the sleepiness around him said. “You’re drunk. And he wont be rich.”
“But he’ll have prestige, position, money, all the things you said, all the things us fucking joes wont never have. But I dont think he’ll love you much, Lorene. I just dont think he will, somehow.”
“He will never know that I was a whore. There is no way in God’s world he could ever find it out.”
“It wasnt that I mean, Lorene.”
“And for the rest—I’ll make him love me. Because by then, I really should know how.”
“No. No one ever has it all, Lorene. Some that are lucky are allowed to choose, but even then its not a choice. But no one ever has it all, somehow. Theres not even any use to ask for it, or even fight for it. Dont ever expect it either, Lorene. He will never love you, Lorene, this rich guy. Your mind, Lorene, being what it is, aint goin to let him love you. Thats the part you’ll never have, thats the part you’ll have to pay. No one ever has it all, and what you get from life at all you pay him dearly for, by giving up what you really wanted more, but never knew it, never realized, until after he high pressured you to sign.”
“Its time you went to sleep,” the voice said soothingly.
“I know. Because I’m drunk. But its when I’m drunk, Lorene, that I can see the things I cant remember and cant see, when I’m sober. I’m drunk and dreaming, but oh, Lorene, I can see the Truth so plain. I can almost reach out and touch it.”
Then, it seemed, the long pale dream gowned in the filmy flowing stuff that did not cover up the nipples or the swelling black triangle that he loved to look at reached down to him the plate with the golden bugle on it and the other plate in the other hand with the two cans of C Ration Meat & Beans, and bent over him and kissed him on the lips because he had chosen the wrong one and the cloudy heavens fell.
“Now go to sleep.”
“Why did you kiss me? You think I’m drunk, and that I wont remember. But I’ll remember. And I’ll come back.”
“Shush. Shush. Of course you’ll come back.”
“You think I wont. But I will. I’ll be back. I’ll always be back.”
“Of course you will, I know you will.”
“I’ll be back Payday Night.”
“And I’ll be looking for you.”
“And I’ll remember everything I saw tonight and explain it to you then. I saw it all so clear, so plain. I know that I’ll remember. Dont you think I will remember?”
“Of course you will remember.”
“I must remember. Its important. Dont go away, Lorene. Stay here.”
“I’ll stay here. You go to sleep now.”
“All right,” he said, “all right, Lorene.”
Chapter 18
HE DID REMEMBER. He had been very drunk and very dreamy, but he remembered. All during the time the three heavily hung-over soldiers, looking very chastened but with their faces newly clean of pressure, meekly ate their breakfast in the rich man’s mirror encrusted diningroom of the Alexander Young Hotel in downtown Honolulu and then after the waffles and fried eggs and ham and bacon and much coffee, all of a fortifying excellence, walked across town through the deserted dew-fresh city streets of early morning to the Army-Navy Y to catch a cab back and be late for Reveille—all during this he was remembering. All during the thirty-five-mile cab trip back he was remembering.
His head felt very big and very soft to the touch and it was hard to separate the dream of last night from the reality. But he could remember distinctly that she kissed him, on the mouth. Whores do not kiss soldiers on the mouth, neither do they tell them their life story. But he could remember all the details of her story, and how when she was caught up in the telling of it the carefully educated accent and the meticulous serenity, both probably very painfully acquired, had dropped off of her revealing the real Lorene. A hard Lorene, a cold and brilliant, like a diamond; but real, very real, and alive. This was what clinched it for him. He had gotten under her shell, as men very seldom get under women’s shells, as soldiers never get under whores’ shells, and he was going back payday night, if he had to steal the money, because, he thought, in this world, any more, with things like they are, the hardest of all hard things was to know the real from the illusion, to meet one other human being breath to breath without the prefabricated sound-proofed walls of modern sanitation always in between and know in meeting that this was this human and not this human’s momentary role; in this world that was the hardest, because in this world, he thought, each bee out of his own thorax makes the wax for his own cell, to protect his own private stock of honey, but I have broken through, just once, this one time only. Or, at least, he thought, I think I have.
In fact, thinking back about it, the only thing about it all that he could not remember was the old familiar drunken revelation, the moment when he had reached out and grasped the whole of all truth and compressed it into a single sentence that was one single cure-all capsule, easy to swallow, painless to take. Of that all he could remember was that he had done it. He could not remember the sentence. But then, he thought, surely you do not expect to remember that, all your life you have been not remembering that, you should be used to that.
They pulled in home (after taking the precaution to walk the last two blocks, just in case Holmes or The Warden might be watching for them) just as the Company was going upstairs after breakfast. He was a little worried and Angelo was very worried, once they were back inside the half-forgotten confines of the Post, but Stark who did not have to stand Reveille formation was not worried at all, and not above razzing them a little.
But worrying at all was needless, this time they were lucky. Chief Choate, still their Corporal, was waiting for them on the porch. Neither Holmes nor The Warden nor S/Sgt Dhom had taken Reveille this morning, the Chief said, 2nd Lt Culpepper had taken it, and the Chief was able to report his squad all present and get by with it, since Sergeant Platoon Guide Galovitch was as stupid as he was zealous, but goddam them, where had
they been.
Feeling very lucky, they both rushed upstairs, like runners who are safe on a steal at second and then got ready to steal third, and changed from their civilians straight into fatigues.
Chief Choate, his deadpan Indian stolidity showing plainly by its walnut blankness that he had not said all there was to say, patiently followed them upstairs, bloodshot-eyed but placid after his customary hard night at Choy’s.
“The uniform’s been changed,” he told them ponderously. “Sidearms and leggins.”
“Jesus whynt you tell us?” Maggio, who had thought he was all dressed, said angrily.
“Aint had a chanct,” the Chief said. “Up to now.”
“We better hurry,” Maggio said, and sprinted for his wall locker.
Prew was looking at the Chief’s moon face which revealed nothing of the startling implications of the order. “Why, that means we drill outside.”
“You guessed it right. They changed the Drill Schedule early this mornin. Looks like the rainy season’s over. You better get your leggins on.”
Prew nodded and went to his wall locker and Chief Choate lit a cigaret and stared at the knotting string of rising smoke and waited patiently for them to come back.
“Old Ike,” he said, “is been snoopin all over hell, since before breakfast, lookin for you. I tole him you run over to the PX for a pack of butts.”
“Thanks, Chief,” Prew said.
“Thanks nothing,” the Chief said. “Thanks hell.”
Angelo was feverishly finishing up his first leggin, half hitching the string end. “I always know this guy was chickenshit,” he grinned.
The Chief looked at them stolidly. “This is no twobit ass eating, kid. This here is serious. Or maybe you dint hear me? When I said Drill moves outside?”
“No, I dint,” Angelo said.
The Chief ignored him. “The word’s gone out already,” he said to Prew. “From now on its no holts barred. They goin to have practicly a free hand with you, in the field.”
Prew slipped his toe in through the leggin strap and worked it back, not saying anything. There was nothing to say. He had known for a long time it was coming, but he had not expected it to come. It was like with dying.