“Anonymous,” says Homer, like he was trying out the sound of it.
“Seems to me if you’re going to be a great man, be one in the world, where it counts. If you’re looking for glory. Life after death ain’t the kind of glory I’d be interested in.”
“Your friend Adam, he is a philosopher, isn’t it?”
“No,” I said, “he’s just got a good line and likes a fight.”
“Is what I mean. Same thing. Got a good line, like a fight, it’s what I call philosophy.”
He turned and walked back to the entrance and yelled at someone outside. A voice answered back and he called again. This time it was probably an order, since nobody said anything but there was a lot of moving around.
“Adam?” I said. “What the hell?”
“Damn, you fool. See to it you don’t mess up on it again.”
“What kind of a joker is that anyway?”
“I told you, he’s all right.”
“I just hope he wasn’t joking about the food.”
“No, that’s for real. They fed me once already.”
“When did they pick you up?”
“An hour before noon, about then. They brought me straight here, even gave me a drink. It’s all right. When did they get you?”
“About two hours after. But they dragged me around first, took me to about three different places inside this big building and made me wait.”
“Did they ask you a lot of questions—I mean specific questions about people you know or business you might be involved in?”
“Just name, age, and where I lived. Most of the time I think they were arguing about who was responsible for me and whether I should be charged according to where I said I lived or where they made the arrest or what. Then I believe there was some complication about the charge being under the civil administration or the military authority—is that right? I wasn’t paying much attention, I was all beat out. Does that have something to do with the trial, whether we’ll be tried under some kind of martial law? I always thought martial law just meant they killed on sight.”
“Did you find out which one they charged you under?” Jake said.
“I don’t rightly know.”
What I remembered most about the waiting was the young soldier who’d been set to keep an eye on me. He was the one who hadn’t dared to beat me up too openly, but while we waited he went stiff as a plank with the strain, hoping I’d make a move so he could watch the others come kick my guts out. I kept wondering what sort of a man he’d be in five years’ time, whether he had a girl or a mother, whether he wouldn’t want her to see what his face looked like looking at me. Or if there was some person, anybody, for him who he wouldn’t ever want to find out exactly how he was wishing the hurt on me, not out of hate but just to see it happen.
I smelled food.
It came around the entranceway and filled the place like a rain-bearing wind. The jailer came in, with four others and the food. Jake told me quickly not to try for a break.
“The one on the left is mean as hell. I think I’ve seen him around before, he’s probably a retired professional fighter. And Homer’s a lot stronger than he looks—got me in the neck when I made a move last time. Don’t try it.”
They opened the door, made me stand back so I had to crouch down against the wall, and they set it all down on the floor. Then they closed up again.
The smell was so good and so strong it made me dizzy. I sat down with my back to the bars and took the bowl on my knees, telling myself all the time to take it slow or it would make me sick. I don’t think I’d seen so much food together in one meal for two years. It almost made me feel like crying. And when I took the first mouthful it felt all surprised, as though I’d just eaten it ten times over in my thoughts and the taste of it should be different. They’d given us something to drink, too, like Jake said they would. With every swallow I kept reminding myself to go slow, and hoping I wouldn’t get so drunk I’d forget to call him Adam or that I was supposed to be Abe.
“How you doing, Abe?”
I turned my face around to him.
“Fine.”
“If you could see what you look like. My, like you just been through some kind of mystical experience.”
“If I’d known—if I’d known I was going to eat like this, I’d have tried to get in.”
“It’s just good luck,” he said. “We’re lucky to have Homer. All the jails I been in, nobody ever gave me food like this. See, the jailers get this allowance from the state for feeding prisoners. Most of them just pocket it. And some of them work it double, take the money and claim they get in more prisoners in a week than they’ve seen in a month. As busy making up names as we are. The officers are in on it too most times, or they know about it and let it go till they need a favor. I told you, Homer is all right. He don’t even hold it against me for trying to break.”
It took a long time and I was full before the bowl was empty, but I hung on to it and kept chewing real slow and washing it down between mouthfuls. Then I wondered about what to do afterwards. The only thing in the cell besides me and the walls was a straw mat at the back. And there was a funny, close smell about the place that I hadn’t noticed so much while I’d been standing.
“Jake,” I said, “you know, it isn’t all that strong, but this place smells like they been keeping wild animals in it.”
“That’s us, society’s wild animals.”
“What do I—”
“Adam, Adam,” he added. “Lord, will you remember it? You may be in the clear politically, but I’m not so sure they’d like it if they knew a few things I’d been up to lately. It’s all right this time, he didn’t hear. Just remember.”
For a moment I thought the food would come up. I began to sweat and as soon as I felt it coming out I knew I’d been sweating in waves ever since they closed the cell door the first time.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to—”
“Take it easy. Don’t get all panicked. What were you saying?”
“Oh, about what you do when you’ve got to relieve yourself in this place, just do it against the wall or where?”
“Ask Homer, he’ll hand you a pot for it. I figure it’s his own idea—I’ve got a mark on the wall over here and drawings by about five ex-prisoners. They never had it so good in this place till they hired Homer.”
The whole bunch came back and we went through the unlocking again so they could take away the bowl and all, and I asked Homer.
“When he gives it to you,” Jake says, “take it in the hand you aren’t going to use to eat with, and then don’t put that hand near your mouth again till you can wash it. Wipe it on your clothes if you have to. Be on the safe side.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. And another thing, I haven’t exactly seen anything moving yet, but I’d stay away from that straw job if you can help it. If you want to sleep, curl up on the floor near the bars.”
“Not exactly the comforts of home.”
“It’s pretty good compared to the others. In that respect, at least.”
He didn’t say anything about the walls or even look at them, but he was thinking about them. I didn’t mind for the moment. It went in patches, thinking about what was going to happen to us, and sweating, and then putting it out of my mind. Right then I was thinking about Maddie again.
Later on Homer came in. He gave me the pot and some water and came back again a spell later and stayed to talk. He told us all kinds of stories from all over the world and had us both laughing. It was going fine between us and I was feeling good, almost proud about saying Adam or just leaving out the name every time I wanted to say something to Jake. Once when Homer stepped away to speak to a man at the entrance Jake said his stomach turned over every time he thought I was about to come out with his name, but I was pretty sure I could handle it now. There was just one time where I suddenly felt bad, when Homer was in the middle of a story and I wondered if they were
all his or whether he’d collected some of them from the men he’d been in charge of and if maybe some of those men had been put to death.
Jake started in then, and he was in good form. Nobody can tell a tall tale like Jake, specially the ones where you have to keep a straight face till the end, and he had Homer wheezing and coughing and practically dancing over the floor with laughing.
I once said to Maddie I wished I was made like that, always joking and laughing and not taking the world seriously. And she said it only looked that way with Jake because he was so energetic and he’d always had that joking way and the gift to make other people laugh when he wanted them to. But really it was all put on like an actor, and underneath Jake was very serious. “A lot more than you,” she said. But I never could see it, unless she meant political things. “Aren’t I serious?” I said, and she’d said, “No, you’re just worried,” which was true enough.
I asked Homer finally, “Are you a navy man?”
“Who, me? No, not for anything would I go near the navy. Never.”
“I just thought, no offense, the way you walk.”
“Oh,” he said, “oh, I break my ankle, is nothing. No, I get the choice a long time ago. You see, me and some others, they catch us for taking things. Oh, we were very young but we do it for years, all together working like a team. And the law says well you can choose how to be now, in a hole for life or you go into the forces. So what do I do? My mother is in the country illegal and I know so many boys die in the navy living so close like they do, freeze in the winter and burn up in the summer, wet all the time and no sleep—nothing. Three man I know kill themselves there. No, I don’t touch the navy, is slavery. I say, I go into the army and serve the country, become a respectable citizen, earn money, travel maybe. And is what I do. Is not bad life, the army. And people have respect. Is no matter where you come from, how poor, if you’re a good soldier you can put that behind. And other people also forget. Is democratic.”
“Sure,” said Jake. “Don’t you think that’s a damning indictment of a country, that the only way a man can become a first-class citizen or anything approaching it is to join the military? Though of course your case ain’t quite the same as ours.”
“You can join,” Homer said. “Why not?’
“Why not? Oh, I know the army. But do they call it by its right name? Exploit a place here, free a place there—everybody’s still at peace but meanwhile everyplace is being occupied and there are a lot of corpses lying around wherever the army’s been. And if you look at the ordinary soldier, why, under normal conditions he’d be in the place of these people he’s supposed to be guarding or freeing or occupying or whatever they call it from day to day. People with no rights. He comes from someplace where he’s got no rights and the army knows he’ll join it to get hold of them. Then they make him take away the rights of other people just like him. I don’t see how anybody can be such a—”
Suddenly he began to cover up. It sounded all right if you didn’t know him and hadn’t been looking for the pause before he started to unsay everything. I didn’t think Homer would care in any case.
“Politics,” Jake said. “I expect you’ve got politics in Greece, too.”
“Don’t speak of politics, she drive me crazy. All Greeks talk about politics, always. Always. Since beginning of time. We invent politics, I tell you.”
He asked me if I held such strong views as my friend Adam.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I sort of agree, but not for the same reasons. I got no grudge against the military, or the law either. Not really, when you think about it. I mean, somebody’s got to keep order. But I don’t know. I almost did join up with the forces, it sounded pretty good. Food and pay and travel maybe, all that. But I’ve seen too many folks go that way. They say it’s such a wonderful life; follow the rules and work hard, and on your free time there’s no responsibility and you’re your own man. You get drunk and get into fights, have all the women you want, and nobody holds it against you. It’s expected you’re going to cut loose and go wild when the discipline lets up. Wherever you go there are always girls around and drink and everybody thinks you’re so big because the army’s big. Well, that’s all right when you’re eighteen or twenty or for a couple of years more. Gets the wildness out of you. But I’ve seen men, forty or fifty years old, and they’re still leading that life and doing all those things, the things you do when you’re eighteen or twenty, and still thinking that way: how good it is to be independent and tough and not be tied down. Those men, it’s as if they never grew somehow. And they’re the ones that feel very strong about the army, get tears in their eyes when they remember how good it’s been to them. Just because they’ve made the army into what they should have had if they were grown men. Work, get married, have a family and work for them—that’s what a man should do.”
“Lots of men in the army has families,” Homer said.
“Sure, I know. The army’d rather have them single, though. And I was talking about career soldiers, that’s what I’d have to be. Otherwise you get in there and get married, say, and then you can’t get out because you need the pay twice as much, and what else are you fit for except soldiering if you’ve been in there for four or five years? You’d have to start right at the beginning and you can’t do that because you got a family to support. And you’re only half a family man besides, because you see more of the men you work with than you do of them. And when you get your time off, most of these men will try and talk you into going with them to hit the town, and they’ll keep picking at you if you say no, tell you you’re going soft, and make you think you’re not a real man any more if you just want to have a quiet evening alone with your family. They’re wrong. They’re the ones don’t know what it is to be a man. But it’s hard to stand up to that kind of thing, especially if they’re your friends, challenging your manhood like that. In the end you’re only half a soldier and half married and you can’t give your best to either side.”
“You don’t have to give the best,” says Homer. “You act sensible and do not worry about the pride, it works out all right. Lots of soldiers have their families to live with them.”
“And a lot of them only think it’s going to work out easy that way and then find out it’s harder than they imagine. The way things are, it’s easy for army families to break up.”
“But lots of men has their family come along and no trouble,” says Homer.
“Sure, I know. The family ain’t too happy about it, though. It takes a real solid marriage for it to work. Even then, I know of cases where they split up. It’s just that you can only have the one or the other all the way. Sometimes it works out. That’s mostly when the boys go in there for the money and save it up, send it home, and don’t get married till they’re out. But that’s dangerous, of course. I could have done that, I suppose. Go in to fight, right into the frontliners—that’s where the money is. But we were too poor to take the chance. Even allowing for me being scared to die, I couldn’t afford to—no honest, it ain’t so funny. Say I lasted two years and get killed, well what happens to my family in five or ten years? That means they’re one worker short for the rest of their lives. And now I got a family of my own. I could have joined the military yesterday. Sometimes I got so desperate I thought I’d maybe do that. But the way the political situation is now, you know they’d never send me out of the country. I’d have more value to them here. They’d stick me right here in the middle of the city, keep me on home ground, so the next time there’s a big riot I’d be out there doing crowd control. And who’d be in the crowd? Some day I might come face to face with my best friend or my wife or even my kids. So you see I can’t, the choice isn’t really there. It doesn’t make sense to say I could join. I couldn’t, not the way it’s set up.”
“You married?”
“Yes, married young. Are you?”
“Oh yes,” Homer said. “But I’m not so young when I marry. She’s back home. Across the water. I save to bring her over.�
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“A Greek girl?” Jake said.
“Girl?” Homer laughed. “I tell her, she like that.” He drew a picture in the air with his hands, showing us his wife’s shape. “A woman!” he said loudly. “A big woman, built big.”
“Big as that?” said Jake. “That’s something you can hang on to in a storm, all right.”
“You bet,” said Homer, and winked. We all laughed.
“Plenty storms in marriage, I guess. She is not beautiful. But I miss. She has a pretty voice, soft. And she is funny—no, is fun. Fun to talk with, not stupid. She make you feel good. Is most important of all, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
Jake shrugged and said he’d never thought about what was the most important thing of all.
“I got the one I wanted, anyway, that’s important. Only I like them a little smaller.”
He put his hands through the bars and shaped a curve out and in and out, and looked at me.
“What do you say, Abe?” he said.
I wondered what would he do if I came out with it and told him: I say that’s my sister you’re talking about so freely. He was enjoying himself, putting me on the spot when he knew there was a doubt about how far he could push me, and whether I’d remember his name right. It’s strange to have a friend like that, so close you know each other like your one hand knows the other, but you don’t understand, like I still don’t understand how Jake doesn’t worry or how it is he’s got to walk right on the edge, always, and thinks it’s fun.
He said, “I always found those big girls give you a lot of working space, but in the long run most of them are kind of low on activity. Make you do the whole job yourself. I like something with more action.”
Homer leaned his hand up against the wall just far enough away so Jake couldn’t grab him if he wanted, and said, “Is lots of men play the trumpet, but not all of them can make her sing.”
“There’s one on you, Adam.”
Jake was smiling, and said, “That’s pretty good. I’ll have to remember that one.”
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