The Brick Foxhole

by Richard Brooks

  “Come back in a couple of hours. There won’t be so many visitors then, and.…”

  “I want to go someplace else with you. Not here.”

  “I’m sorry, soldier.”

  “And I won’t see you again?”

  She looked at him—for the first time, at him—and it was as though she saw him at last. She opened a drawer of the dresser and scribbled something on a piece of paper. She handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “This is where I live. I won’t be home until four or five in the morning. It depends. Go there and take a snooze. If you want to make a sandwich, okay. If you want to leave, lock the door and leave this key in the mailbox. If you want to stay, okay.” She handed him a key. He put it in his pocket.

  Then he kissed her. This time she opened her lips and the warmth of her mouth set his imagination loose. The silk of her dress felt good. She was returning his kiss.

  “Wait there for me, Ambassador,” she breathed. She went to the door, and he picked up his cap and followed. She looked at him briefly. “And, honey,” she said, “button your pants. Mrs. Bell is strict about things like that.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  In D.C. the thousands of personal bypaths crisscrossed, ran together, bucked against each other, tangled, became enmeshed. As the largest city in the center of a web of service camps and posts, Washington became the mecca for escape. Beginning early each Friday and continuing through Saturday and Sunday, the buses, railroads, taxis, and private automobiles disgorged their multitude of khakis and dress whites and blues and greens and grays and all the colors of the services. It made no difference what they wore, they were the same. They were coming to D.C. for the same purpose: to drink the same drinks, rent the same hotel rooms, eat from the same white tablecloths, see the same movies, attend the same amusements, and solace the same loneliness, the same boredom, the same pent-up tensions and frustrations in the same catharsis of sexual adventure. And their disappointments in these adventures were also the same. If they were young and callow, afraid to put their virginity to the test, they walked the streets and looked longingly at all the pretty girls who passed and wished they had the courage to speak to them. And Sunday night they went back to their barracks more lonely than ever, not having found what they sought, yet promising themselves that on some wonderful future occasion they would seek it again, and, finding it this time, would be daring enough to seize and take it. If they were more mature and not afraid of women, it was more or less the same with them, too. They might pick up a girl on the street or at a bar and sleep with her, or they might go in desperation to one of the dark and stealthy houses of the night and there find quick and urgent surcease from the body’s hunger, yet it was still the same. They had found something, but it turned out not to be what they wanted. They had not found love; and they knew, with the same illusory hope of some impossible future fulfillment, that they would go on looking for it. And the badge of their sameness, of the absolute identity of these week-end hordes of servicemen, was the small furlough bag each one carried. It was a super-sales item in drugstores everywhere, large enough to hold a shaving kit, two pairs of socks, and a shirt; or, if one preferred, three quarts of hooch.

  As Jeff emerged from the apartment building he felt empty-handed and realized that he did not have his furlough bag. He remembered then that he had left it somewhere earlier in the evening, but he could not remember where. He wondered vaguely about it, but it no longer seemed to matter. He looked at his watch. A little after nine. But now he had a destination! A place to go! Someone who would meet him later! He was pleased with himself and with D.C. Even the people around him seemed to be more interesting. Less irritable. If they were still irritable, he thought up reasons for their being that way. A waitress might be overworked. They usually were. A policeman might be tired of trying to keep soldiers and sailors from running into trouble. The M.P.’s and the S.P.’s had a job to do after all and theirs was not an easy lot. Hotel desk clerks really couldn’t give you rooms if there weren’t any.

  Jeff was magnanimous. He knew that if there was any order to the madness in D.C., it was only the order which proclaimed that all was disorder. The effect of whisky still was heavy on him, but he was now under the pleasing anesthetic of promised companionship. He felt also that some of his dignity had returned. By going to bed with another woman he had evened the score with his wife. Far better than merely feeling injured, and therefore miserable at the same time, he now felt he had righted a wrong. An eye for an eye … a lay for a lay. Further than that he did not want to think. It was necessary for him to focus on the immediate. He realized that long-range objectives were no good for a man who was pinned down in a barracks. Such a man had to say “Tomorrow I will try to stay cool and not eat so much” or “There’s a good movie at the post theater, I’ll go tonight!” or “I’m lonely. I’ll find a girl.” In that way the days went quickly, the nights were not so painful. And the war would soon be over. Everything hinged on that, he told himself. The war over, everything would turn out right. He knew this was a lie, but didn’t contest it. He knew that when the war was over everything would not be all right. But it was good to think so. At least he would then be out of prison. In civilian clothes no one would know who he was or what he had done. He had learned that day that a man can appropriate to himself a part of the war whether it is rightfully his or not. His mind he would snap shut. He smiled as he thought that, of all things, the uniform pointed him out as something special. Instead of hiding his identity as it was supposed to do, it told the world everything about him. What branch of the service he belonged to, what his rank was and his pay, whether he was G.I. or not, whether he had been overseas, whether he had fought in any battles, whether he had been wounded, how long he had been in the service. This very same uniform, which all men wore, set them apart under special labels for display.

  While Jeff made his way along the crowded streets, slowly building up his ego, D.C. was getting wound up for its regular Saturday night whirligig. At that precise moment three government girls from Baltimore were getting off the bus and taking a cab for the Stewart Hotel. Two somber-faced Wacs were pushing through the Union Station and taking a cab for the Stewart Hotel. Two Waves, both ensigns, were at the desk of the Stewart Hotel asking for rooms.

  Of these several patriotic young women (all over twenty and under thirty-five), one had joined the service because her brother had been killed on Wake Island, two were hoping to find husbands, two more had added themselves to the Federal payroll because they were sick and tired of their home towns, one was curious, and another had never been on a Pullman train in her life and wanted to take a trip.

  The government girls from Baltimore had reserved a room for the three of them, two weeks back. They, too, had come to Washington to escape from something. They were clerical workers in one of the mammoth Federal agencies which had been shipped off to Baltimore bag and baggage because there was no longer any room for them in D.C. That move had been a severe blow to the girls. They had taken their jobs in response to an appeal “to help the war effort,” and in Washington they had had the illusion that they were helping, that they were at the very nerve center of the war; but in Baltimore the war seemed far away. After six months of petty details, typing letters and answering phones, their work had lost its glamour and many of the girls had gotten down to bedrock logic. These three, for example, knew now just what they wanted. And they wanted above all to have again the privilege of sleeping late, of drinking straight hard liquor, of having a man in bed and not in a hallway or on the hard earth or in the tall grass or in a rocking canoe. They were not bad girls because they wanted a man. They wanted only what other women had. They rarely, if ever, made appointments to meet a man in some room for the specific purpose of going to bed with him. They did, however, hope that a man would have a few drinks with them, that he might linger on and eventually stay the night. That was nicer.

  Their room at the Stewart Hotel was ready and waiting for them when they arrived. As t
hey got out of the elevator and followed the bellhop down the corridor, they were pleased to note that most of the doors were open and that pleasant sounds came from the rooms. Sounds of clinking glasses and laughter and good-fellowship.

  Edifice rex!

  The Stewart Hotel. It might just as well have been any hotel in Washington, for it was a composite of all hotels. It was a thing of imagination, of beauty, of comfort. A soldier looking for the Stewart Hotel would never find it. Yet he would find it in any hotel at which he stopped.

  Edifice rex!

  The Stewart—twelve stories of chrome and steel and wide panes of glass and modernistic curves and air-conditioned rooms. A miracle in hostelry, it had every modern convenience. The lobby was spacious and high-ceilinged. Into it, each week end, came scores of soldiers looking for fun. Fun was a few drinks and a woman. Either could make you forget what you didn’t want to remember. And in the pillared, sleek-carpeted, vase-decorated lobby of the Stewart you could be sure of finding one or the other or both.

  The newsstand sold the most expensive cigars as well as the standard brands of cigarettes. There were newspapers from almost everywhere. There were also gadgets and souvenirs. Roy Rogers might walk into the lobby wearing his cowboy uniform, or a visiting governor might stop at the newsstand to buy a paper and nod to a few people. The drugstore just off the lobby had everything. Everything, that is, except electric razors. No drugstore had them.

  The subdued Mirror Room offered dancing to a loud orchestra, fair food at exorbitant prices, white tablecloths, and a headwaiter who shuddered at soldiers.

  The cozy cocktail bar beside the Mirror Room was a Lonely Hearts Club soaked in alcohol. You bought drinks for somebody else, and somebody else bought drinks for you. Liberty, fraternity, equality—and above all, liberty—the liberty that was license to do as you pleased. Officers became chummy with enlisted men. Officers held the knees of women. The women filled ash trays with cigarettes, drank innumerable cocktails, and were glad they were not in uniform. They were doing their part by giving blood once or twice a year, wrapping bandages, ogling the officers, and feeling sorry for the enlisted men. They felt there was no need to do anything for the enlisted men because there were U.S.O.’s, weren’t there? U.S.O.’s where a soldier could get a piece of cake and some coffee and a free dance with a skinny girl who was heroically doing her part. And there was a canteen, wasn’t there? Or was it in New York? Or maybe Hollywood? Where movie stars danced with the men and everybody was gay and what the hell, this was war anyway, and what did you expect in a war? And if you could buy several drinks and sit for half an hour, you could walk out with a girl who didn’t have a room at the Stewart and who had come there for the same reason you had.

  In the lobby there were palms, the tubs they grew in filled with cigarette butts, and there was a table at which a cool-looking woman sold war bonds. In the lobby, or by just stepping through one of the many doors that opened on it, you could eat, drink, rent a room, find your home-town newspaper, buy a contraceptive, purchase a ticket on an airline or railroad or bus, pay scalper’s prices for a seat to a show, buy a dress or an officer’s uniform, get your hair cut, your face shaved, your shoes shined, goggle at jewelry, buy a watch but not have yours fixed because it would take three months and besides there were no parts for it, find good and bad conversation, meet strange women who were not strange at all, sit in a chair and relax, or later at night sprawl in a chair and sleep. Or you could take an elevator to the floors above.

  The elevators were run by muscular, bored young Negresses. You stepped into one of the elevators and saw yourself in a large mirror. A small fan in the corner whirled the air about you. The elegant cars were always filled, and the people in them were always laughing or giggling or getting their behinds pinched, and everybody in the elevator knew that everybody else was not married to the girl he was with and that they would all have one hell of a time that night and the next day. And if you smiled at the other riders, you could and would be invited to a party that hadn’t been a party until you accepted the invitation.

  The rooms were a tribute to modern science and the joy of every serviceman who could afford the price. The furnishings were the last word, and the lamps were the kind you had always wanted for your den back home and had never got. The bathroom was an antiseptic dream in white porcelain. The toilet seat had a strip of paper across it which announced that it had been disinfected and you could therefore use it with impunity. The drinking glasses had been sterilized. The bathtub shone. The mirror was spotless. The floor was cool and tiled. The towels were large expanses of white glory. The single rooms were furnished with a wonderful sofa that opened out into a bed. Few servicemen ever got around to that. The double rooms had double beds, or sometimes twin beds, and the servicemen wished they would never have to get out of them.

  A knob brought you a radio program. Another knob brought you heat. Turned another way, it brought you air conditioning. The closets were large and smelled clean. The hangers were marked STEWART HOTEL and were stolen every day. Half the barracks around Washington were holding up sweaty uniforms under the banner of Stewart. The doors of most of the rooms were wide open because you never knew who might wander in and give the password: “How about a drink?”

  Here a serviceman might spend a month’s salary in one day to remind himself that once upon a time he had been a civilian. In the Stewart there was no war. There was only the fever of war. Those civilian travelers who had observed the hundreds of soldiers and sailors asleep in the railroad station, developing a spinal curvature from the cast of the benches, or curled up into human snails in the telephone booths, or propped up like a praying mantis against a suitcase, had seen some of the symptoms of this fever. There were many others.

  For example, there was a church in D.C. that set up cots for servicemen. Nearer my God to Thee. Hooray for religion. It had found a purpose. The church had opened its doors to give a man eighteen square feet to stretch out in. The uniform was the only entrance fee. A soldier of any color was welcome. That there were no Negroes sleeping there was due, not to the church, but to the men who frequented it. In the morning there was coffee and doughnuts (on the house) served by a big-bosomed woman with a kindly face and broad features who was so sorry for the soldiers that the soldiers began to feel sorry for her. If the soldiers were early-Sunday-morning-risers and could make their getaway before ten o’clock, it was not even necessary to attend the services. But the church was a last resort—as it usually is. The Stewart held first place in the hearts of the servicemen.

  For the Stewart was paradise. Here the man in uniform fortified himself for another week or more of griping at the barracks. Here everybody had fun.

  Edifice rex!

  In Room 985 the three Baltimore government girls undressed and waited turns to take a shower. The bus had been crowded. They wanted to smell nice. They told each other to hurry up, borrowed each other’s toilet articles, marveled at the beds and the accessories and talked about doing their bit for the war. Their bit meant meeting some exciting man who was not a soldier. Here at the Stewart they might even meet someone who was important who had the money to buy them a dinner and drinks, who would make love to them tenderly, passionately, fully. Someone who would make their overnight interlude a holiday. And if such men were not to be met, then there were the soldiers. The lonely, eager soldiers. They each thought, through some complicated machinery of thinking, that something should be done for the soldiers. If only soldiers weren’t always running off and going overseas. If only a girl could hold on to a soldier and see him again. “Oh, Lordy, if soldiers would only co-operate. The second and third times were so much better than the first.”

  “Where’ll we go for dinner?”

  “Who wants to eat?”

  “If you don’t eat, you’ll get tight when you start drinking.”

  “How about O’Donnell’s?”

  “Fishy. It stinks.”

  “Too crowded.”

  “Did
you hear about Emily? She’s pregnant.”

  “How would that dope know?”

  “But she is.”

  “Serves her right.”

  “Who did it?”

  “That fat soldier from Aberdeen.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “What’s the difference? Maybe she’ll marry him. Then she’d get an allotment.”

  “Do you think those fellas will come down to D.C. like they said?”

  “Who cares? The town’s lousy with men.”

  While waiting for the shower they lay back on the beds and smoked cigarettes. They examined each other’s bodies with aloof but critical stares. They were excited by the prospects of a Saturday night in Washington.

  “How about liquor?”

  “They say you can’t get bourbon or Scotch.”

  “Well, I can’t stand gin.”

  “Rum’s not bad.”

  “If you put it in coke.”

  “And for heaven’s sake, let’s not get stuck with any beer hounds tonight.”

  “Only the married men can afford something better.”

  “Whyn’t we be honest? We’ll take anything we can get.”

  “Isn’t this room the nuts, though?”

  “Terrific. Wish I never had to go back.”

  “Gee, but I’d like to fall in love.”

  “Say, honey, what do you use to get the hair off your legs?”

  “A razor. Ain’t it awful?”

  Finally they were all ready to leave the room. They left two of the lamps burning as a sign of nonchalance.

  “God,” said one of the girls in a sudden flurry of doubt, “I hope it doesn’t come on me this week end. I’m about due.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it or it will.”

  They all primped their hair, looked to their lipstick, hitched at their stockings, and sauntered gingerly down the hallway.

  Two floors above was Room 1136. It was a busy room. Its present occupants were a Marine and a slightly tipsy, lipstick-smeared, befuddled young girl. The Marine, naturally, was amorous. He made love in a most direct manner. He kissed sloppily but his hands were those of an artist. He also kept looking at his wrist watch. He still had twelve minutes to get this young lady undressed, into bed, seduced, dressed, and out of there. For down in the lobby were two other Marines each of whom had a third interest in this room. The schedule was half an hour to each man. At the end of that time the Marine who was using the room had to vacate it. The next Marine would then get his chance. Naturally, the procedure was assembly-line stuff. Pour a drink into the dame, then another. Kiss her. Squeeze her breast. Don’t discuss politics. Don’t discuss anything. Keep pouring drinks into her. It was always a good idea to start the drink routine down in the lobby bar. Then it took less time upstairs in the room. Some of the girls required a little more than half an hour. They wanted to be loved. In half an hour there was no time for love. There was time only for fast action. So far that evening none of the Marines had made the grade, a shameful truth none would admit to the others. Each came down grinning and winking and acting as though he had swallowed the canary. The girl usually looked as though she had been through a wringer … and usually she had.