The Brick Foxhole

by Richard Brooks

  At first she just imagined she heard it, it was so slight. Then she was sure of it.

  Someone was knocking at the door. Again the knocking. Louder.

  The sound of the knocking came to Keeley’s senses like the distant tap of a blind man’s stick on the pavement. It kept tapping its way into his consciousness until now it sounded loud, like a battery of 75’s. He glared at the door. There was his head, on the doorknob. It was listening to the knocking and trying to open the door. He tried to push her away and get up. The door had to be opened. It was important, but he couldn’t move. His head rolled its eyes at him from the door.

  “The door,” he pleaded with her.

  “There’s nobody at the door,” she said. “You’re tired, Peter.”

  He tried to believe her, wanted to believe her, but the knocking was insistent. He summoned all his strength. He called it from the alcohol brewing in his veins, wrung it from his heart and roots. It was a tug of war which brought the sweat out until it ran down his face and soaked his clothes.

  Slowly he pulled himself toward the door, first by inches, and then faster. A legless man with legs. A headless man crawling for his head, and finding it, and putting it back on his shoulders, and his fingers fumbling with the knob until finally the door stood open and he was staring up at Max Brock.

  Ah, Max, he thought. Max my Jew. Max my savior. You’ve found him. You’ve found Jeff. I knew Max would find him.

  Max came in and closed the door. He lifted Keeley to his feet, while Helen sat still and felt her hopes splinter.

  “I found him, Keeley,” he said.

  Keeley nodded eagerly.

  “He’s safe for awhile.”

  Keeley nodded again.

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “I know,” Keeley muttered. His fingers held Max’s arm fiercely. “Take me there.”

  “But you can’t go,” said Max. “Not like this. You’re … you’re sick,” said Max.

  For Helen there was a moment of hope, and then it was gone.

  “Take me,” said Keeley again.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Keeley,” said Max. “Jeff … he’s a friend he needs us.” And he led Keeley from the room.

  A friend needs him, sobbed Helen. A friend. But I need him. I need him more than all the friends in the world.… Peter I love you. Don’t go away. Say you’ll stay, Peter.… Oh, Peter, why did you go? Why weren’t you killed in the war, Peter? Why aren’t you dead so I won’t need you?… Ah, Peter, why won’t you come to me like this? When I need you, where are you, Peter? Oh, God, let me not want him so much, need him so much. Let me love him the way he loves me. Let me love him without needing him. She sat and waited for the tears to come.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The ride down in the elevator made Keeley retching sick. The Negress who operated the elevator became afraid he would ruin her spotless car, but he managed to control his nausea until he got to the men’s room on the ground floor. Keeley was glad no one was in the men’s room. The stench of his vomit continued to make him sick. He stood stooped over the bowl, holding his forehead with one hand and leaning heavily on the other. Max Brock wanted to help but didn’t know how.

  After awhile Keeley stopped. He was breathless, choked, nauseated, but he was regaining his strength and his sobriety. He asked Max to go to the desk to see if there were any phone calls. Perhaps some of the boys had found Floyd Bowers. Max nodded and went.

  When Max came back, Keeley was sprawled in a chair, face pale, eyes closed, resting. He opened his eyes and looked up at Max, focusing clearly. Max handed him a telegram, and Keeley opened it while Max tried to clean up the mess.

  The telegram was from Mary. It said: ARRIVING TEN THIRTY-FIVE PLANE NATIONAL AIRPORT. HAVE JEFF MEET ME. MARY MITCHELL.

  Keeley looked at his wrist watch. Almost three o’clock. He gave the telegram to Max to read.

  “Where do you think she went when you weren’t there?” asked Max.

  Keeley shook his head and rose painfully. He felt better. Much better.

  “She knew I was here,” said Keeley. “Check the desk again.”

  Max went to check the desk. Keeley turned on the faucets and bathed his face and head. The water felt good. He tried drinking some of it and almost got sick again. He took off his shirt and bathed under the arms and shivered from the coldness of the water. He took several paper towels and made wet balls of them. Then he put one under each arm and sat down again.

  A paratrooper came in the washroom. His high leather shoes shone and sparkled with polish. His uniform was newly pressed, his eyes wide-awake. He sniffed and said, “Smells like dinnertime in Salerno.”

  Keeley didn’t venture to reply.

  “Having a good time, I see,” said the paratrooper.

  Keeley could have murdered him for being so young, so full of bounce, and so sober. The paratrooper regarded himself in the mirror. He took a small black comb out of a pocket and combed his already combed hair. Then he tried to wipe off a bit of lipstick that had smeared his shirt collar.

  “Wonderful women, these women in Washington,” said the paratrooper, still working on the lipstick. “Love ’em, each and every one. Only trouble is, they kiss you all over your face and neck.” He gave up trying to remove the lipstick. “Well, see you in church,” he said gaily and, with a wave to Keeley, left.

  Two sailors came in. They went at once to the back of the tiled chamber and one of them started to roll a pair of dice.

  “Stinks in here,” said the second sailor.

  “I’m rolling a buck,” said the first sailor.

  “Dice is no good when only two play,” said the second sailor.

  “Why not? One guy rolls, the other bets. I’m rolling a buck.”

  “Maybe he’ll play,” suggested the second sailor with a nod toward Keeley.

  The first sailor looked at Keeley. “Hey, soldier … some dice?” he called.

  Keeley didn’t reply.

  “Drunk,” said the first sailor.

  “Everybody’s drunk,” said the second sailor.

  “I’m rolling a buck. Covered?”

  “Whyn’t we wait till some more get in the game?”

  “You don’t wanna play?”

  “Yeah. But two guys … jeez.”

  “Okay. I’m rolling a buck.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  The first sailor rolled the dice. Keeley got up and put on his shirt. Max Brock came back.

  “I found her,” said Max.

  “Where?”

  “In the hotel across the street.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The desk clerk. When she came here the clerk telephoned over there because he didn’t have anything here. He says she’s been trying to call you on the phone.”

  Keeley could navigate now. He walked with Max through the lobby and noticed a man get up from a deep chair. Keeley thought it must be one of Captain Finlay’s men.

  Max told Keeley where Jeff was hiding.

  They left the Stewart and went across the street. Keeley asked for Mrs. Mary Mitchell on the house phone. He heard the phone ring a couple of times and then a woman’s voice answered.

  “This is Keeley,” he said, “Peter Keeley.”

  “Oh,” she said. Then: “Where are you?”

  “Downstairs in the lobby.”

  “Will you please come up?”

  “Yeah. What’s the number of your room?”

  She gave him the number and he hung up. He and Max took the elevator and started up. Keeley thought that no matter how different hotels in D.C. looked, they were all the same. The same gang in the lobby, the same faces, the same thoughts and ideas. He wondered what Mary would look like, what kind of woman she was, whether she really had gone to bed with some half-baked hero, as Jeff said. He had to admit to himself that she had answered his summons to Washington promptly enough. This indicated that at least she was concerned about Jeff, that she cared for him. It was only a little over twenty-four hours
since he had called her. A lot of things had happened since then, he thought.

  Mary answered his knock.

  She was tall, without being large. She was attractive, without being beautiful. Her eyes told him only that she was frightened.

  “Hello,” said Keeley from the doorway.

  She was looking over his shoulder at Max.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “This is Jeff’s friend, Max Brock.”

  “Where’s Jeff?” she asked anxiously.

  Keeley stepped into the room and said: “He’s all right. He’s.…”

  Then he stopped abruptly. On the table in the center of the room stood Jeff’s furlough bag. He heard the door close behind him. Keeley’s eyes circled the room. Then he smelled the pipe before he saw him. By the closed door stood Captain Finlay. He nodded to Keeley glumly.

  “How did you find her?” Keeley asked Finlay.

  “Same as you did,” he said.

  “What’ve you told her?”

  “Same thing you would have told her.”

  “Mr. Keeley,” said Mary, “please tell us where Jeff is. Please. I had no idea when you called me that.… Why didn’t you tell me on the phone what had happened? Mr. Finlay … Captain Finlay here, says you’re interfering. You’ll get Jeff into trouble. He says.…”

  Keeley was suddenly tired. Tired of everything. He wanted to sit down and get off his feet. He wanted to tell Finlay where Jeff was and let him carry the ball for awhile. He wanted to go back to his room and be with Helen. He sank into a chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. Why was it things were less complicated when you had an actual enemy in front of you? Why were the issues so much clearer in a foxhole or jungle swamp? At least then you knew where you wanted to go and how far. And when you got there, it was over. You killed or got killed. Then there was a new objective. Always clearly defined on overlays and maps. You worried about keeping the rust off your rifle, getting a new sear pin for your machine gun, washing your underwear so that it wouldn’t rot on your back, hiding your tobacco and cigarettes and being miserly about them, hoarding your souvenirs so that you could get them home someday. Simple. Easy. Direct. No reasons within reasons. No subtle games and cross games. Over there where you didn’t have your own women, women were the essence of simplicity. They had lips you wanted to kiss and bodies you wanted to hold onto, and you remembered their smells and their mannerisms. Over here they became complicated. There were cross-purposes and tears and the future to think about, and the future had such snags as money and jobs and a place to live and the woman’s family and a lot of talk. Over here everything was too drawn-out and there were too many in-betweens. Over there you imagined things in short sequences, like in a movie. You took the girl in your arms and kissed her and made love to her. Then the scene faded from your mind. You were both in a beach house and getting ready to run into the ocean. And you ran over the hot sand and into the cold water, and you could remember the seaweed-feel on your legs and the laughter of the girl. And you both swam. Then the scene faded and you were eating hot dogs. Then the scene faded and you were asleep in bed, and the sleep was good and untroubled. Over here you couldn’t fade out. After you made love to her she was still there. And you didn’t know what to say or do. There was time to talk about things but you didn’t know what to talk about, and when you did talk it was puny, futile talk. And somehow eating hot dogs over here wasn’t the same as it was in your mind over there. There you heard music in your mind and here there was no music. And in bed it was hot and lonely and not like you imagined it. That was because it went on and on. Things had no end, no plan, no dispatch.

  And here was Mary who wanted things explained. He didn’t want to explain. Jeff had wanted Mary. Keeley had sent for her. It had seemed as simple as that when he did it.

  “Look, Finlay,” said Keeley wearily, “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  “Yes, boy?”

  “I know where Jeff is.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I want to talk to him.”

  “Yes?”

  “And Mrs. Mitchell wants to talk to him.”

  “Uh-hmmmm.”

  “Give us an hour with him.”

  “And then?” asked Finlay.

  “Then you can have him.”

  “Please, Captain Finlay,” pleaded Mary.

  “Only if I can go with you,” he said. “I’d be willing to wait outside of wherever it is he’s hiding.”

  Keeley knew that was a fair condition. He got up. “All right,” he sighed.

  Finlay knocked the ashes from his pipe. “There’s something you ought to know,” he said. “We’ve found the Bowers boy.”

  “Then why do you want Jeff? Give me five minutes with Bowers and you’ll have the truth.”

  “The Bowers boy is dead. Murdered. Strangled with his own necktie.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  The newsreel had just finished playing. A reissued Donald Duck cartoon began. A few of the all-night bums whistled and applauded.

  Jeff sat in the same seat, shifting his position, squirming, leaning, crouching, slouching, not paying any attention to the screen, yet unable to keep the sound of it out of his ears. Each time someone sat down close by he grew apprehensive. Each new arrival made him stretch to see who it was, and then pull down for fear of being recognized.

  He tried to pay attention to the cartoon. It only made him wish he were back at Disney’s. It seemed again that that had been a wonderful world. What had happened? How had he come to be in uniform? Who was it that had made decisions which could yank him away from a life, uproot him, wipe out everything that had been, and substitute this? Who? And who was Hitler? How did he know such a man even existed? Who were Tojo and Hirohito? Pearl Harbor—what was that? He had never been there. Never seen it. What did he have to do with all that? And when it was over, what about the peace? How could he know what sort of peace there should be when he did not yet know what war was. He was confused and depressed. He didn’t know what to make of anything any more. What was important? Unimportant? What mattered and didn’t matter?

  A hand on his arm made him jump. It was Keeley. He sat back and almost wept. Keeley. The rock. The man. The earth itself. The unshakeable. The answer-man. He knew. Things didn’t go wrong with Keeley. He knew where he was going all the time. And he knew what he would find at the end of the tracks. Keeley was there and he wouldn’t have to worry any more. His confusion would be dispelled. And he would want to paint again, and draw and work. And because there would be Keeley, he would know what kind of work he should do. Ah, yes. Even the colors came to his mind. The world was colors. Splashes of color. Shapes, curves, figures. Keeley was all this. Keeley was the steel band that held the earth together.

  “Jeff,” said Keeley, “are you all right?”

  “Yes, Pete. Oh, yes, I’m all right. I’m all right now. Ah, Pete, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’ve got some good news for you, Jeff.”

  Ah, that was Keeley for you.

  “They know I didn’t kill anybody, don’t they?” Jeff said.

  Keeley didn’t answer.

  “Monty told them, didn’t he? You know, Monty’s not so bad. And Floyd Bowers. They were there with me, Pete. In the apartment. They know I didn’t do anything.”

  What’s the use of telling him about Bowers? thought Keeley. With Bowers dead, what chance is there? Monty will come out ahead. The depraved Montys of the world always do. Why? Why?

  “Where did you go when you left the apartment?” Keeley asked.

  “Well, first I got a little drunk, and then I went to a whorehouse. I met a girl there and.…”

  “What time were you with the girl?”

  “I don’t know. About eight-thirty.”

  A good alibi, thought Keeley, if the girl will testify. Yeah. A perfect alibi, except that his wife will know he was in the arms of a whore.

  “I don’t want you to tell that to anybody,” said Keeley. “No one. Especially Mary.�
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  “Mary?”

  “Yeah. She’s here.”

  “Mary’s here? Here right now?” Jeff half rose.

  “She flew in. Got here a couple of hours ago.”

  “But how could she know?”

  “She didn’t. I telephoned her last night. I thought you needed her.”

  “If she’d only been here last night.”

  “But she wasn’t,” said Keeley. “Anyway, she knows everything. The point is this: Do you love her?”

  “You know I love her. But where.…”

  “This is very important, Jeff. Maybe you’ll never know how important. So answer carefully. Do you love her? Really love her? No matter what mistakes she may have made?”

  Jeff knew that all his vows to destroy her and never see her again had been only manifestations of self-pity. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, no matter what.”

  “Wait here,” said Keeley. He got up and walked into the lobby of the theater. He got Mary and brought her in. He was holding her arm to guide her, and he could feel her trembling. He stepped to the back of the theater as she began to slide along the empty row of seats toward Jeff. He saw Jeff rise to meet her. They kissed quickly, holding each other tightly, closely. And Keeley heard Jeff say the million words he had saved up: “Mary darling.” And he heard her say: “Jeff, Jeff, what’s happened?”

  Keeley walked out of the theater. The Donald Duck cartoon was over and the bums were applauding again. It was funny. The bums loved Donald Duck because he too was a bum. The stuffed shirt liked Donald because he too was a stuffed shirt. Donald Duck was all things to all men. He was simplicity. How simple Jeff’s life could have been, Keeley thought. How complicated it has become. Where did all the intricacy begin? Had it started when some fool in the barracks uttered a lie? Or even suppose it was the truth? When did this thing happen to Jeff? At that moment? When did it happen to himself? To all of them in the barracks, in the foxholes, in the filth of a distant swamp with some unpronounceable name? Had it begun with Pearl Harbor? With Hitler’s march into Poland? With the castration of Spain’s liberty? With Ethiopia? With Manchuria? Where? Where had it started, this universal blight that destroyed love and substituted hatred and frustration? Had it started back in Versailles over a treaty? Or with the Inquisition? Or with Attila’s plunge through history? When Khan strode the earth? When Christ died? When? Where was its beginning? Where its end? Who could say, but perhaps some wild thought expounded in a cave among prehistoric men had had its effect on the twelve million men and women who wore America’s uniforms, the twenty million of Russia, the millions of England and China and Germany and Japan—some wild and monstrous primitive thought which had at last found expression in this great expenditure of life and dreams. Yes, thought Keeley: every single act and utterance made by any man or woman affected every other man and woman in the world in some way. The unknown man who died unjustly in the dark alley of a Hungarian city left a blot on justice throughout the world. The Greek child whose belly is bloated with rickets today will haunt us tomorrow. These things Keeley knew. He knew we were all part of the whole, and that no man can say he stands alone.