The Brick Foxhole

by Richard Brooks

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. If somebody’d take care of my ma I’d be in there myself. I’d be in the same outfit as you. Best in the world.” Then he threw the remainder of his argument over his shoulder at Jeff. “But you can’t expect an old lady to live on fifty a month, can you?”

  Jeff didn’t think the kid had to apologize. The world was full of mothers who had to be taken care of. How had Keeley said it? A mother could be like an octopus. Once she did you the honor of giving birth to you, she never let you go. She wrapped a million arms around you. A guy could kick his wife in the face or poison his father or drown his brother, but let him forget to send a card on Mother’s Day and he became some special kind of all-American bum. Keeley had said it was a mothers’ world all right. They got more glory out of a man getting killed on a battlefield than the man himself.

  The elevator stopped on the fourth floor.

  “You turn left, and straight down the hall,” said the kid.

  “Thanks,” said Jeff.

  He turned left and walked down the hall. There was a thick, cheap carpet underfoot and the walls were painted in a cream color that had faded. At the far end of the hallway the door to an apartment was open and a neatly dressed colored maid stood there, her unsmiling face looking out like a tan calling card of respectability. Jeff stopped before her.

  “Good evening,” she said simply.

  “Er … uh … how do you do,” stammered Jeff.

  “Won’t you come in, please?” she asked softly. She made it seem like a pleasant social call and Jeff was grateful.

  He stepped across the threshold and he heard the door close quietly behind him. He looked around trying to appear disinterested. It wasn’t at all like what he had imagined, yet he had imagined nothing up to that moment. It looked like an ordinary apartment. Perhaps it was furnished a little better. It smelled a little nicer. There was no odor of cooking here as there so often was in apartments. Maybe there were more magazines lying around. There undoubtedly were far more shaded lamps than he had ever seen before in one room. But otherwise it was much like an ordinary apartment. He groped for a word to describe it. It was respectable. That was the word. Well-lived-in respectability.

  A large heavy woman waddled out of what must have been the kitchen. She was picking her teeth with her tongue. She smiled broadly at Jeff.

  “Hello, there, soldier.” Her voice was low and her laugh soft and pleasant. “How’s Mr. Carter?” she asked, and from the way she asked it he knew that he wasn’t expected to know the answer.

  “Fine, fine,” he said. He took off his cap and held it in his hands.

  “Welcome home,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Bell.” She guided him into the living room. It was a large comfortable room. There was too much furniture in it, but it was a nice room. There were a lot of mirrors on the walls. A small bar stood at one side of the room but it was only an ornament. Liquor was never served here. Liquor is bad for the business. It makes a man hang around and waste more time than he needs to. An enterprise like this, thought Jeff, needs to have a quick turnover. A small upright piano stood against another wall but no one was playing it. As a matter of fact there was no one else in the room. The buzzer of the telephone sounded somewhere off in the direction of the kitchen. Jeff heard the colored maid answer the phone.

  “Sit down, soldier,” said Mrs. Bell. “There’s no hurry, honey. The girls’ll be right out.” She squeezed his arm playfully. “You’re an early customer. Excuse me.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m early,” Jeff said. “I didn’t know you had office hours here.”

  Mrs. Bell burst into a spasm of laughter. Her huge, pendulous, romping bosom heaved.

  “You soldiers,” she squealed when her breath returned, “you’re all alike. Very funny. The minute you get out of camp you come right to Mama Bell’s.” She slapped her great thigh and shook her head. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked off in the direction of the kitchen.

  It amused Jeff to discover the basic motif of American sentimentality in a place like this. That word “Mama.” Jeff tried to imagine Mama Bell in the role of a mother. Would she treat her son right, seeing to it that he got a woman when he needed one? Or would she develop unsuspected moral scruples where he was concerned, warning him to keep away from the place, and reserving her girls for other mothers’ sons?

  The comic sections of the Sunday papers were already on the floor. The colored maid came into the room and aimlessly picked up some of them. She punched a few pillows back into shape. Then she went through a draped opening. The maid was talking to someone, a woman. He heard the other woman laugh. A few seconds later he heard a toilet flush. Then the maid came back into the room. She picked up some more papers and offered a magazine to Jeff. He took it and let it lie on his lap.

  A young, red-haired girl came into the room through the draped opening. She sat down across the room from him on a large couch, and curled her legs under her. She looked at him and without a smile said: “Hello.”

  “Hello,” said Jeff.

  He thought she couldn’t be any more than sixteen. She was slim, almost boyish, firmly so. He thought that only a young girl would be so careless of her grace. When Jeff didn’t say anything else, she picked up a magazine and took a chocolate from a near-by box. She wore a long evening gown of thin, silky material. Her gold-braided shoes were small and peeped out with a dull glitter. The evening gown covered her from throat to foot and yet concealed nothing. He had the illusion that he had seen her somewhere before. But he knew he hadn’t. She merely reminded him of girls he had known before. During his high school days. They had looked much like this girl, but without her poise, her disinterest. He thought that the girls at his high school dances had never been as attractive as this one. And the reason, he realized, was that the high school girls were novices. And to a high school boy who lacks experience, a novice lacks the very thing he is looking for.

  Another girl came into the room from the same direction. She was older than the red-haired girl and bigger. She, too, wore an evening gown. It stuck Jeff that the main difference between youth and that uncertain age in a woman which can only be described as no longer young is that the latter presses too hard. An older woman exaggerates her good points and minimizes her bad points, thus making of herself a sort of caricature of the more perfectly balanced grace she has lost. This woman took a chocolate from the same box and came toward Jeff.

  “Hello, soldier,” she smiled. “How’s the war coming?”

  Jeff looked at her and was stirred. She was a comfortable woman. She came close to him and the smell of her was strong, but it was a good smell after the smell of the barracks and of sweaty men.

  “The war?” he asked stupidly.

  “Never mind the war,” she said. She leaned toward him, her hands on the arms of his chair. “My name’s Louise. I’ll make you forget all about the war.”

  He was looking at her breasts, revealed now by her position and unrestricted by the confines of a brassiere. They were large, white, cool breasts, waiting for him. He pulled her down onto his lap. She came down willingly. He wondered whether she could really make him forget the war. Why was it a woman always wanted to make a man forget things? Why did she imagine that by wrapping her arms around a man, she could make him withdraw from the world, from the whole universe of life outside her and beyond her? Keeley would say it was because a woman was never satisfied unless she could absorb the man. She considered herself successful only when the man had lost his identity.

  “You’re okay, Louise,” he said. He kissed her awkwardly on the cheek. He wondered about the proper etiquette. Maybe she would invite him to another room. He didn’t think the act would be concluded there in the living room.

  “Like me?” she asked. He could see where Louise had applied lipstick beyond the curve of her lips.

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure, I like you.” She noticed he was looking at the first girl.

  “That’s Ginny,” said Louise. “We call her
Ginny ’cause she’s from Virginia. Big plantation girl, only she doesn’t like cotton.”

  Ginny looked up, the corners of her mouth lacquered with contempt.

  “H’ya, honey-chile,” said Louise, playfully.

  Ginny went back to her magazine.

  “What’s the matter, baby? Nothing to say tonight?”

  Ginny shook her head. “I always respect my elders,” she said.

  Louise rose from his lap, holding onto Jeff’s hand. He heard Mrs. Bell’s voice in the hallway. She had opened the door and was greeting someone. A moment later she entered the room with a man. Jeff unconsciously leaped to attention. The man was a naval officer. He wore two broad stripes of gold on his sleeve. In one hand he held the grip of a small satchel. Now, what the hell kind of custom prevailed here? Was he supposed to come to attention because of the officer? He didn’t know. What would Monty Crawford say on the subject of military courtesy under these conditions? The navy lieutenant stood there looking somberly past Jeff. His eyes were only for Louise. His freshly shaven jowls still glistened blackly. The Lieutenant walked stiffly across the living room and through the draped opening. He had obviously been there before. Mrs. Bell nodded quietly to Louise. Louise turned and saluted Jeff. “Don’t wait for me, honey,” she said, and followed the lieutenant. Jeff heard a door close somewhere beyond the drapes.

  “Well, soldier?” asked Mrs. Bell offhandedly, in her most pointed manner. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” said Jeff.

  “That’s good,” said Mrs. Bell. “Ginny’s a fine girl.” Mrs. Bell went into the kitchen, idly scratching her belly as she went.

  Jeff moved over to the piano and sat down on the stool.

  “Play something,” said Ginny. But Jeff knew that she didn’t want him to play anything.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Can you?” But she knew that he didn’t want her to play anything.

  Besides, neither of them could play the piano.

  “What would you like to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to have on a tux and take you dancing someplace.”

  “Dancing?” Her thinned eyebrows became twin parabolas of surprise.

  He felt ashamed suddenly. He was being romantic. In a clearinghouse of love there was plainly no place for romance.

  “I’ve got a radio in my room,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll dance with you.”

  She turned and, without waiting to see whether he would follow, started for the draped opening. This was better. A difficult barrier had been hurdled. He walked close behind her. They passed a bathroom which had the door open. Then there were several rooms with doors closed. Another bathroom with the door open, and finally a small room with its door open. He liked the way Ginny walked. Fast. Rhythmically. She was going someplace. Like the train in the night. She had a destination. At the last door she paused and, seeing he was behind her, went in. He followed.

  It was a small room, pitifully small. The room was lighted by a pair of sister lamps which stood on a cheap dresser. The rest of the furniture consisted of two chairs and a bed. The bed filled most of the room. It was a large double bed. There was a closet. A small, grass throw rug only emphasized the bareness of the floor. The rug was ratty-looking and one of its corners was turned up. This room, Jeff thought, didn’t seem to belong in the same apartment with the living room. Then he realized it wasn’t the room that mattered, it was the bed. It wasn’t even the bed that mattered, it was the woman. And finally he knew that it wasn’t even the woman who mattered, it was the size of a man’s loneliness.

  Ginny switched on the small radio which stood on the dresser between the two lamps. While the radio warmed up, she took a cigarette from a small, cheap case, and Jeff hurriedly applied a match. He tried to imagine she was Mary. He was just coming home. They were going to get dressed before going to dinner. She was now going to smoke while she changed clothes. Then the music was playing on the radio. Jeff didn’t know what the music was. It didn’t matter. Then they were dancing. He tried to remember whether he had ever danced this way with Mary. He must have. But they hadn’t done much dancing during their years of marriage. He wasn’t much good at it, and she was too good.

  He held Ginny close and danced around the bed. She was light on her feet and tolerant of his embrace. The music stopped playing and he still held her. He kissed her mouth. Then he kissed her again. She smiled at him. She said nothing. She left his arms and went to the dresser and precisely squeezed the live end of the cigarette out into an ash tray.

  They had danced.

  He had kissed her.

  The next move was obvious.

  She removed her evening gown with a quick, dexterous flip. He watched her as she opened a drawer of the dresser and took out a small towel, hardly larger than a napkin.

  Somehow he felt lonelier than before. He was disappointed, too. Not in her. Her body was flawless. He thought she looked just as young disrobed as she did when dressed. And that was wonderful, because women so rarely looked well in the nude. She was exciting to Jeff, but mainly because he knew what was about to happen. Actually, she was boyishly immature, but it wasn’t that. No, it was not the girl in whom he was disappointed. It was himself. He had imagined something different, perhaps. He had supposed she might want to kiss him, maybe cling to him the way Mary had. He had wanted her to give some expression of … of he didn’t know what. He knew only that she had made him feel unnecessary. She would go to bed with him, certainly. She would also brush her teeth in the morning. Something was being left out. Something important.

  Back there in the barracks he had imagined himself with Mary on countless occasions. He had even gone over most of their relations with a shivery sort of delight. And what had made it all so wonderful were the things Mary would say; the things she would do; the shy little courtesies between them; the way her eyes would look and the response she would offer to his emotion. There had been more to it than going to bed when he had dreamed of Mary. There had been an intimate companionship. And it was that for which Jeff was hungry. It was that which he conjured up in his mind when he was alone. Here he had a companion without companionship. It was going to be casual. He would have nothing to remember later. Nothing would happen that was worth remembering. The trouble was that he wanted Mary desperately. Keeley had been wrong. It wasn’t a woman he needed. It was Mary.

  Ginny turned and, upon seeing him still dressed, questioned him with her eyebrows.

  “Hello,” he said. “Haven’t we met before?”

  She smiled at him and got into bed. She placed the little square of cloth at her side. To Jeff this seemed a sort of signal, a way of saying that soon the whole routine would be finished.

  “What’s the matter, soldier?” she asked.

  He knew it was a command to come on and get it over with. So he began to take his clothes off, slowly, embarrassed, until he realized she was not watching him.

  His dog tags tinkled as he slid down beside her. He kissed her, and the dog tags were cold against her breast. Her lips were closed, firm.

  Then she looked at him. It was an impersonal look. There was nothing in it but professional duty. It made him feel like a side of beef under the scrutiny of a government inspector whose only concern is to determine whether the meat is fit to go to market. And now the earlier disappointment he had felt was no longer even that. In its place there was only emptiness. This girl was strange. Most strange. It was all strange. For the past year in the service he had been thoroughly lectured about prostitutes. Once every month he had been required to sit through a movie on sex hygiene showing the horrors of what happened to careless young men whose desire was stronger than their sense. His head had been filled with the drumbeats of continence, with specific and unalterable statistics on how many prostitutes were diseased. And yet here was this girl concerned over whether or not he was infected.

  Apparently satisfied, she lay back and smiled. He felt better. He leaned over and kissed her
again.

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?” she asked.

  He looked at her blankly. What procedure had he skipped? Then he thought he knew. He arose and walked to the chair over which his clothes were draped. He reached into his pocket and removed his wallet. From it he took twelve dollars—all the money he had—and dropped the bills on the dresser. Then we went back to bed.

  “Thanks,” she said, “but I didn’t mean that.”

  She saw he didn’t understand.

  “Don’t most of you boys use raincoats?”

  The look on his face made her smile, and this time it was not her set little professional smile, but a real smile. She got up and went to the door. She opened it and shouted to the maid. “Looks like rain,” she sang out. “How about an umbrella?” Jeff wondered what it was all about. His ignorance made him lose what little confidence he had left. This young girl knew too much. Then he heard footsteps, and the colored maid appeared. From the pocket of her white apron she took a small package and placed it in Ginny’s hand. Jeff was about to cover up but the maid was looking at him without seeing him. He began to sweat.

  Ginny came back to the bed and showed him what she had in her hand.

  “I never use them,” he said.

  “Not afraid?” she asked.

  “I never get into a bathtub with a bathing suit on,” he said. “Do you?” He smiled at her.

  She laughed.

  He turned toward her and found her lips.

  The dog tags tinkled against her. Then there was silence. Jeff took the world in his hand and threw a curve ball at the moon.

  CHAPTER XIII

  “Good for life!”

  That’s what the announcer had screamed. Jeff was lying on his back, his head propped on his hands. The once-cool bed was warm now. He moved to find a cooler spot on the pillow. Ginny was gone from his side. Probably to the bathroom, he thought.

  An electrical transcription was being broadcast on the radio. The best quartet in the world (self-professed) had sung the best jingle in the world (announced as such) about the best soft drink in the world (could there be any doubt about it?) which was “Good for life.”