“You’ll cause a sensation,” Zock said, nursing his Scotch.
“Gimme,” I said, grabbing his glass. “It’s refill time.”
“You know, you could always stop.”
“I suppose so,” I answered. “But I’m not about to.” I said that very slow and carefully, as I was pretty far gone already. I went to the bar, snuck an extra one, then came back with our refills. He was looking at his watch when I got there.
“I have to leave in fifteen minutes,” he said. “You come too.”
“Why don’t you skip it, Zock? Look, you can see Bunny all summer, so why don’t you skip it?”
“Because we’re both leaving in fifteen minutes,” he answered. “And I mean that.”
We didn’t talk for a while then, but just sat quietly over in that corner. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Zock,” I said. “For chrissakes. How could she do it to me?”
“Who?”
“Don’t be funny. Annabelle.”
“Be happy she did,” Zock said. “Now. We’re going in five minutes.”
I managed to make it back to the bar for another, but it was getting tougher each time. I crashed down in the chair and stared across at him. “That girl is a no-good bitch,” I said. “Do you know that?”
“Very likely,” he answered.
“But I love her. She’s a no-good bitch and I love her. Why is that?”
“Beats me,” Zock said. “It probably has to do with your metabolism.”
“I really love her,” I said again. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“My mother tells me time heals all wounds.”
“Crap!” I said.
“Nicely put,” he said. “It has a ring to it. Crap. I must remember that word.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving.”
“You just think you’re not leaving,” he answered, pulling at me. I shook free and swallowed my drink. “We’re going home to beddy-bye, Euripides. Whether you like it or not.”
“This is my home.”
“I told you once to stop being melodramatic. I’ve got a weak stomach.” Then, somehow, me fighting all the way, he got me outside. The cooler air hit me and I sagged against him. “Get in the car,” he said.
I broke loose and sat on the ground. “I’m not going anywhere unless I drive,” I said. “I’m staying right here unless I drive.”
“You’re not driving,” he said, trying to lift me. “You couldn’t.”
“I can drive as well as you. Better. I can drive as well as anybody. I’m probably the best driver in the whole state of Illinois.”
“Very likely,” Zock said. “But tonight you’re not going to. So get up.” I didn’t move. He got in the car. “I’m leaving,” he said. “Right now. I’m not kidding, Euripides.” I still didn’t move. “This is your last chance,” he told me. “I’m leaving.” Then he drove off.
But he came back, naturally. About two minutes later he pulled up in front of me. “O.K.,” he said. “You win. You can drive.”
“Now you’re using the old bean,” I said, getting in the car. We started off, creeping down the center of the highway.
“You’re doing fine,” Zock said. “Keep it up.”
“I’ll do finer,” I told him, pressing down a little on the gas pedal and singing. “ ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning. Nothing could be sweeter than my sweetie when I meet her in the morning.’ ”
“No faster,” he said. “Don’t forget.”
“ ‘I have forgot much, Cynara. Gone with the wind. Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng.’ Zock? Why is it ‘roses, roses’? Why are there two of them? Why wouldn’t just the one rose be enough?”
“Well,” he began, staring out the window at the sun, which was starting to head on down. “Maybe so people like you would ask questions. Or maybe...”
He stopped talking then and tried grabbing at my leg as I pushed down on the gas pedal. I pushed it farther and farther and when I felt it touch the floor I kept it there, the motor roaring in our ears. I don’t know how fast we were going, but pretty soon we were out of control.
Just before it happened, Zock looked at me and said something.
Then we hit.
We smashed into Half Day Bridge going full speed and I guess the door on my side must have sprung open, because the next thing I knew I was lying twisted on the edge, watching as the car roared down into the ravine, rolling over and over, bending, buckling, scraping, until it hit the bottom with a crash and rested there, upside down, the four wheels still spinning around and around and around.
I made it to my feet. “Zock,” I whispered. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?” I began losing control. “Zock! Can you hear me? Say something. Answer me. Zock!” I started down the ravine but lost my footing and crashed the rest of the way, rolling over and over, like the car. “Zock!!!” and I guess I was screaming, for by then, I was next to it. The first thing I did was to stop those wheels from turning. I walked around the car, very slow, carefully putting my hands up on the wheels, stopping them. Then, when I was all done with that, I reached inside and pulled him out.
There was nothing to him. Covered with blood, he looked like a rag doll smeared with jam. His arms bent the wrong way. His ribs stuck out through his white shirt. Blood was still streaming from his mouth.
I stood up and the last thing I remember was staring at that beautiful sunset and thinking: “Not like this. There’s been a mistake made somewhere. It just couldn’t happen on a night like this.”
Then I crumbled. ...
When I came to, somebody was poking away at my cheek and I looked up to find myself in an ambulance with a doctor staring down at me. I blinked a couple of times.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Where are we?”
“Parked along the bridge. How do you feel?”
“How’s Zock?” He didn’t answer. I sat up slowly. “How’s Zock?” I asked again.
“You’ve got a nasty cut along your cheek,” he said. I put my hand up and felt it. It went all the way from my temple to my chin. I pulled my fingers away, red.
“But you won’t need stitches,” he told me.
“He’s dead?”
“Yes,” he mumbled, his back to me, fiddling with something. “In a few weeks, it won’t even show.”
“I want it to show,” I said. His back was still to me as I reached up with my fingers and placed them in the cut. Then I pushed it open, stretching the skin, digging in with my fingers until I could almost hear the skin as it split, farther and farther. Blood started streaming down my face, almost blinding me. I blinked it away.
He turned, and when he saw what I was doing he came at me, grabbing for my fingers. But I pushed him off, threw open the door to the ambulance, and stepped out.
They were all there, standing quietly on Half Day Bridge, with the sun almost down and just the last red rays slicing in, hitting them, making them look like a band of silent Indians. My folks, and Zock’s, and Bunny with hers, all dressed up for the dinner celebration. They were staring down the ravine at the half-dozen men—police and white-coated doctors—who were crowded around Zock’s body like so many flies.
“Get away from him,” I yelled. “Leave him alone.”
“There he is,” Mrs. Crowe shouted when she heard me. “There he is. There he is.” She came running up. I started to say something but before I could she was slapping me, crying hysterically and slapping me, saying: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” over and over. I didn’t move but just stood there, letting her hit me, the blood pouring down my face and dripping onto her clothes, spotting them. Mr. Crowe came up, tried to pull her away, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the doctor from the ambulance standing there, waiting.
“Don’t stop her,” I said to Mr. Crowe. “It’s all right.”
But he pulled her away and when I was free I took off down the ravine to where Zock was. They had
moved him, had tried to straighten him out, but it didn’t do any good. His bones still stuck out through the cloth of his bloody white shirt.
Then Bunny was holding me, crying and pale.
“Bunny, I’m sorry,” I said.
“At the end,” she whispered. “At the end. Did he say anything?”
I nodded: “He said: ‘Tell Bunny I love her.’ ” Which wasn’t what he’d said at all, but I figured I’d done enough to her already that night. One lie more or less wasn’t going to change anything.
She let me go and started back up the ravine. I could hear Mrs. Crowe crying and screaming, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” and her words echoed there, in the ravine, with the sun going down.
I knelt beside Zock. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Zock, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Honest to God, Zock, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” chanting it over and over, trying to drown out the echoes of Mrs. Crowe.
“Shock,” I heard a doctor say, and then he slapped a needle into my arm. I got dizzy and fell over on top of Zock, grabbing him, clutching what was left of him. Just before I went out I heard the doctor telling somebody, I suppose my father, not to worry, as I would be O.K. again in three days. And he was right.
Because four days later I enlisted.
The Army
I NEVER LIKED THE Army; I never hated it. I don’t think you can. It’s just something you have to accept, like the law of gravity, since it was here before you were and it’ll be here when you’re gone. It’s ridiculous to go around thinking: “That goddam law of gravity, I’ll fix its wagon.” How are you going to do it? Answer: you can’t. It would be nice, on a hot summer day, to float up a couple hundred feet and cool off. But that’s impossible, so why worry about it. The law of gravity has its points, good and bad.
So does the Army. Everybody talks about its bad points, but the good ones are there too. It doesn’t ask you a bunch of questions when you join up, such as what you’re running away from and why. All it cares is that you can breathe and sign your name, and if you can’t even do that, it’ll teach you. Which is as fair, I think, as anything you’re apt to find, in this world at least. No, the Army isn’t all bad; it just seems that way.
And what happens, when you’re in it for a while, is that you forget about it. Like everything else that rules you from way off. You don’t walk the streets thinking: “I am walking the streets because the goddam law of gravity keeps me here.” If you do, you’ll go nuts in no time. And so it is with the Army.
What you remember, long after, aren’t the marches, but who marched next to you; not the barracks, but who lived inside. And so I remember Ulysses S. Kelly, whom I have not seen for a long time now, but I doubt if the day will ever come when I’ll scratch my head and say: “Ulysses S. Kelly? Who’s that?” As he is apt to be with me until Armageddon, and who can know for sure when that will be?
We met on my third day in the Army. I was on KP, the first time, at Camp Scott, a big post down South where I had my basic training. But this was before, and what I was doing mostly was processing and pulling details. Which I didn’t mind, not even KP, for it kept you busy, your mind occupied, so you didn’t have much chance to think about things. Such as Zock’s funeral, which I missed, being in the hospital, but at which Mrs. Crowe went crazy for a while, throwing herself on top of his coffin right in front of everyone, having to be dragged away, crying and screaming, out of control.
I was on garbage detail that third day, and after breakfast when I wandered out, I saw another kid was already there and I walked up behind him.
“ ’Morning,” I said.
“Knock it off,” he answered, not turning. “ ’Cause there’s a lot of shaping up to be done.”
Then he got back to work. I watched him. He was a big kid, and if his mother had been describing him, she’d have said he hadn’t lost his baby fat yet, whereas, actually, he was a slob, with pudgy hands and soft, short fingers. It wasn’t his looks, though, that made me stare, but how he’d talked. As if he’d been in the Army thirty years so far and had just re-enlisted for six. The truth was, I later found, he’d been in five days total, two more than me.
And as I watched him work, I saw he wasn’t doing anything. From a distance it might have seemed he’d die of heat prostration if he kept on sixty seconds longer. But all he was really doing was lifting one garbage-can lid, putting it back, lifting another, switching it with a third, and like that. Busy looking busy.
“The way you’re going,” I said, “things’ll get shaped up the day after never.”
“Can the chatter,” he answered.
“Glad to meet you,” I said, turning him around. “Ray Trevitt.”
“Ulysses S. Kelly,” he said. We shook hands and it was right then I first realized he was scared half to death.
“Take it easy,” I told him. “We got all day.”
“We’ve talked enough,” he answered. “Let’s snap to.”
So we did.
Breakfast that morning had consisted mostly of dehydrated egg, no delicacy, and there was a lot left over. A whole garbage-canful, to be exact, which felt like it must have weighed half a ton. After breakfast a truck came up to haul away the garbage and we were given the job of hoisting that canful of dehydrated egg onto the back of the truck.
We bent down, the two of us, and started lifting that garbage can. The first couple of inches went fine, but then he gave a grunt, pooping out, letting go, and the can dropped with a crash, slopping egg over everything in sight.
Naturally I started to laugh, looking at that layer of yellow mess spreading around. But Kelly didn’t. He was too scared. He just stood there, his eyes darting like bumblebees, this way and that, wondering if anyone had seen.
“Get a mop,” I told him. “Unless you’re hungry.” He didn’t move. “Get a mop,” I said again.
“You did that,” he whispered to me. “It was your fault.”
“Come again?” I said.
“You dropped it,” he went on. “You. Not me.”
“I could have sworn it was the other way around,” I answered, laughing.
“Now get a mop and clean it up,” he whispered. “And don’t make me tell you again.”
I bowed low, not moving.
“Get a mop,” he said, and by this time he was shaking. I stared at him awhile.
“O.K.,” I told him finally. “Maybe I better.”
About fifteen minutes later, when we were finishing up with the egg, a jeep came roaring toward us. I took one look and jabbed Kelly in the ribs. “Watch it,” I whispered. “That’s the Chief of Staff.” Kelly just nodded.
A Colonel jumped out of the jeep and came walking in our direction. I watched him. Maybe forty years old, he looked to be thirty, short, trim. He was carrying a swagger stick and he flicked it constantly against his pressed trouser leg as he came, walking straight as a ramrod, right up to us. We snapped to attention, Kelly and I, saluting while he gave us the once-over.
“How’s it going, men?” he said, biting the words out sharp and clean, those eagles shining on his shoulders.
“Fine, sir,” I said.
He looked at what was left of the egg. “What happened here?”
“Accident, sir,” I said.
“Accident?” I looked at him, then out of the corner of my eye at Kelly, who was really shaking now, gnawing hard at his lower lip.
“It was my fault,” I said. “I dropped a garbage can.”
He smiled quickly, flicked us both on the shoulder with his swagger stick, jumped back into his jeep, muttered something to his driver, and sped away.
“Smoking-lamp is lit,” I said, pulling out a cigarette, slapping at the flies feasting on my fatigues. Kelly was still shaking. “It’s O.K.,” I told him. “Relax. He’s gone.”
“That’s my father,” Kelly muttered. “He was a war hero. He won the Silver Star on D-Day.”
* * *
At that time, there were 25,000 men taking basic training at Camp Scott,
a subject I will not linger on, for if you haven’t been through it, nothing could be duller, and if you have, you don’t want to hear about it again. All I will say is that there couldn’t have been many better than me. I was as Gung Ho as you can get, working every second, volunteering for jobs, keeping busy, always being the first one up in the morning, always having the shiniest boots in the company, the neatest uniform, etc., etc. And because of that—my attitude, plus the fact that I had enlisted whereas practically everyone else had been dragged in by the draft—I was supposed to be made platoon leader. All the others thought so, and Master Sergeant Muldoon, the first sergeant of the company, even called me into the orderly room the morning before training began to talk it over.
But I never got it.
Kelly did. Because that afternoon the Colonel appeared, straight and shiny from out of nowhere, and the next morning, when the platoon had reveille, Ulysses S. was put in charge.
And from then on, our platoon was always last. Mainly because Kelly was undoubtedly the worst platoon leader since the freeze at Valley Forge. Everything he did was wrong. When he was supposed to call right face, he called left; when he was supposed to call left face, he called right; when instructions were given, he never understood; when questions were asked, he couldn’t answer.
But rather than admit his mistakes, he gave excuses. He had more excuses than Carter had pills. When things went wrong, it wasn’t his fault.
It was mine.
I was his whipping boy and he yelled at me all the time, reveille to taps, sunrise to sunset. Which didn’t bother me particularly, seeing as I figured I knew why he was doing it, so I just let him go.
And the days went by, one pretty much like the one before, until late Wednesday afternoon in the third week of training. As we broke formation to get cleaned up, the first sergeant called my name.
The Novels of William Goldman: Boys and Girls Together, Marathon Man, and the Temple of Gold Page 129