Dress Gray

by Lucian K. Truscott

  “Your name, misstah, is not New Cadet David Hand. Your name, misstah, is New Cadet Candidate David Hand until yew are told otherwise. Yew got that?”

  “YESSIR!”

  The cadet stepped in front of Hand and moved back until Hand could see him clearly. A black name plate on the right pocket flap of his starched short-sleeve shirt announced his name in white capital letters.

  SLAIGHT.

  David Hand would not forget the name Slaight.

  “That’s better. Yew are beginning to get the big picture, smackhead. Give us a few eons, smackhead, and we may whip yew into shape. But Ah doubt it. Yew are dull, misstah. Dull and ugly. And smelly. Yew are the reason they call this Beast Barracks. Yew are subhuman. Yew are a smackhead, a crot, a dullard, a simple little bean … in short, smack Hand, yew are a beast. Yew got that smackhead?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Now are yew ready to proceed, New Cadet Candidate Hand?” The cadet’s voice oozed scorn.

  “YESSIR!” Hand screamed reflexively. He was angry.

  “Now then. We come to the good part, smack Hand. And yew listen up to me and listen up good, smack, cause Ah’m only gonna tell yew once. Yew take that dull bean of yours, and yew direct that chin up. UP, SMACK, UP. SKYWARD, DULLARD. Look up there at the roof of those barracks over my shoulder. Not just your eyes, dullard. Move your whole head. That’s better. What do yew see up there, smack?”

  “NOTHING, SIR!”

  “Well … well …” the cadet drawled. His accent was a phony, Hand realized. If not phony, at least exaggerated.

  “We-e-ell, that’s just too goddamn bad, smack, because yew better enjoy the view right now. This is the last time yew are gonna be gazing up in that direction, yew hear me?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Listen up, smack.”

  Hand looked the cadet in his bloodshot eyes. He was perfect. Down to the last detail, the last thread. Like an expensive toy.

  “You roll that chin down. DOWN, SMACK. DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. That’s the big idea. Rest that skinny chin of yours on your skinny neck. Now. Get ready. CRACK THAT CHIN TO THE REAR. TUCK THAT CHIN TIGHT UP ABOVE YOUR ADAM’S APPLE. TUCK IT UP THERE, SMACK. TUCK IT. TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT.”

  David hand’s chin was crammed down against his Adam’s apple, like somebody had driven a tenpenny nail up through the base of his skull. The pain at the back of his neck, across his shoulders, was great He held the position.

  “That’s a good little bean, Misstah Hand. Yew know what this is, smackhead?”

  Hand choked: “NOSIR.”

  “Yew are assuming the fourth-class position of attention, smackhead, and it is known commonly around here as BRACING, yew unnerstand me, smackhead?”

  Hand choked: “YESSIR!”

  “Yew will never utter the word bracing, but yew will assume this position at all times, yew unnerstand me? Yew will walk bracing. Yew will run bracing. Yew will eat bracing. In fact, the only time yew will not brace is in your sleep, yew got that, Hand?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “The only place on the face of this earth yew are permitted to relax from bracing is in your room. But yew do not have a room yet, smackhead. And so yew will brace. Yew will brace everywhere yew go today. Yew will brace unless yew are told to do otherwise, smack. To relax will be known as falling out. But yew will not fall out, smack. Yew will brace. Beginning today, for the next eleven months of your miserable little insignificant life, bracing is your mission, your identity, your fuckin’ destiny, yew got that, smackhead Hand?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “NOW, BRACE, MISSTAH. BRACE, GODDAMMIT! SCREW THAT PUNY CHIN OF YOURS UP AGAINST YOUR BACKBONE AND BRACE! AH WANNA HEAR YOUR NECK CRACK, MISSTAH! AH WANNA HEAR YOUR NECK CRACK, MISSTAH! AH WANNA HEAR YOUR FUCKIN’ BONES RUBBIN’ AGAINST THAT SKINNY CHIN OF YOURS, SMACK! AH WANNA HEAR THE MUSIC OF CHIN MEETING BACKBONE, THE FUCKIN’ MUSICAL SOUNDS OF FUCKIN’ BRACING, SMACK! BRACE!”

  Hand braced. The cadet smiled, thrusting his own chin forward in ridicule, wagging it back and forth in the air between them. Hand braced and swore silently … if I ever get through this day … he didn’t have time to complete the vow.

  “Now. Yew listen up again, misstah. Ah’m gonna give yew your three answers. Yew will use them at all times, unless otherwise instructed. Yew are being given exactly three answers, misstah, because it has become abundantly clear that yew are so completely dull, so totally beastly, yew are unable to handle more than three answers. Are you ready, smack?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Listen up. Your three answers are: Yessir. Nosir. No excuse, sir. Yew got that, smack?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Okay. Let’s have them. What are your three answers, smackhead?”

  “YESSIR, NOSIR, AND NO EXCUSE, SIR, SIR!”

  “SMACK, THAT’S NO WAY TO ANSWER A QUESTION. GOD DAMN. DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SPELLED OUT TO YEW, BEAN?” The cadet dropped his voice.

  “The answer to the question, smack, is as follows: ‘Sir, my three answers are: et cetera, et cetera, and et cetera.’ Yew got it straight now?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Let’s hear them now. What are your three answers?”

  “SIR, MY THREE ANSWERS ARE: ET CETERA, ET CETERA, AND ET CETERA.” Hand could not keep himself from smiling. Two could play the game of semantics, and the cadet had fallen for his own trap. The cadet reddened. Was the cadet going for his throat? The cadet shook his head slowly from side to side in mock resignation. He looked behind himself, then back at Hand.

  “Listen up, you wise-ass smackhead. Yew see that man in the red sash standing over there across the area?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “We-e-ell, just for the convenience of yew dull, dull beanheads, he will be known for today as the man in the red sash, and yew are going to be seeing a hell of a lot of him, so yew may as well get used to him. When Ah release yew from my presence, which Ah’m gonna do in about one second because Ah cannot stand the sight of yew for another minute, yew will proceed over to the man in the red sash on the double, and yew will report to him, and he will send yew on your next mission. Ah would not advise making any wise-ass cracks to the man in the red sash. Ah doubt yew will find he has the finely honed sense of humor we have shared this morning, smackhead, with all the spinnin’ and grinnin’ yew been doin’. Yew get my drift, smackhead?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Now, Misstah Hand. Let us get ourselves together. What are yew gonna do when Ah tell yew to report to the man in the red sash?”

  “SIR, I AM GOING TO REPORT TO THE MAN IN THE RED SASH.”

  “Do yew know how to report to the man in the red sash, beanhead?”

  Hand considered the question. It was loaded.

  “NOSIR.”

  “Smack, yew are so goddamn dull. YEW ARE SO GODDAMN DULL, THEY ARE GONNA HAVE TO OPEN UP A WHOLE NEW CATEGORY OF DULLNESS FOR YEW, A SPECIAL NEW AREA OF DULLNESS, SMACKHEAD, YEW HEAR ME?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Now, smack, when Ah tell yew to report to the man in the red sash, yew POST over there, and Ah’m sure if yew stand around long enough, he’ll notice your dull bean, and yew can work out reporting procedures with the man in the red sash, yew got that, bean?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “When Ah tell yew to move out, smack, yew move out ON THE DOUBLE, BECAUSE YEW MOVE OUT ON THE DOUBLE EVERYWHERE YEW GO TODAY AND THE NEXT DAY AND EVERY GODDAMN DAY HEREAFTER, YEW UNNERSTAND THAT?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “Now, smack. When Ah tell yew to move out, move out. MOVE OUT!”

  Hand grabbing for his bags, stumbling, sweat pouring into his eyes, the area a foggy maze of heat and gray and white, bodies, madness, on every side shrieking and cursing and half-naked forms scurrying jerkily everywhere at once, Hand moving in the general direction of the man in the red sash only by concentrating with near catatonia on each successive step he was able to negotiate.

  He ended up in a heap of duffel bags and skinned kne
es and sweat-soaked gym clothes and scuffed shoes somewhere in the general vicinity of the men in the red sash, for in fact there were several nearly identical men in red sashes standing side by side. Each had a clipboard on which he copied the names of the new cadets sent to him alongside a list of tasks to be performed within the next few hours. As tasks were performed by the scurrying new cadets, they were checked off the clipboard chart by the men in the red sash, and a similar check was made on a manila tag pinned to the gym shorts of each new cadet. The men in the red sash were central control over the entire melee. They ran a rudimentary bookkeeping operation, and by cross-checking gym shorts tag against clipboard, it was possible to ascertain the progress of any new cadet at any time.

  The precision of this process, of course, was not clear to the new cadets, who imagined themselves, at the least, victims of unimaginable crime, at the worst, inmates of an insane asylum for which no West Point catalogue or cadet recruiter had prepared them. They rushed from one place to another, on an endless series of missions, each of greater, more pressing import than the last. Moments clicked by like hours. The first day of Beast Barracks would never end. Each new cadet suspected somewhere deep within him this was true. They were trapped. There was no way out and it would never end, and besides, if they ever got out, who would possibly believe them?

  From the man in the red sash, who turned out to be a harried but gentle sort, David Hand was sent to the man on the stoop, another upperclassman whose sole function was to teach the proper procedure of reporting to one’s superiors. He sent David Hand inside the 11th Division of barracks to report to the company first sergeant. Hand stood in the hallway, waiting his turn, watching other new cadets stumble in and out of the first sergeant’s office like wind-up toys, fumbling their reporting over and over again. Finally Hand’s turn came.

  “SIR, NEW CADET CANDIDATE HAND REPORTS TO THE FIRST SERGEANT OF THE SIXTH NEW CADET COMPANY FOR THE FIRST TIME AS ORDERED.” The words tumbled from his mouth in proper order, as much a surprise to the first sergeant as to Hand himself, who stood with his fingers perched above his right brow in close approximation of a salute. Hand was the first new cadet to get the procedure correct the first time all day. He knew it. He tried not to show his satisfaction.

  “You think you’re pretty goddamn smart, huh, beanhead?” The first sergeant looked up from the paper work on his desk at Hand, still saluting.

  “NOSIR!”

  The first sergeant returned the salute, and Hand dropped his arm to the fourth-class position of attention.

  “You got prior service?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “Your old man a grad?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “Rotcee?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “You go to some goddamn toy military prep school, smack?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “Then what is it with you, smackhead? Why’d you get it right when none of the rest of these fuckers can get their goddamn names straight, much less the whole poop?”

  “I was determined to get it right the first time, sir, and I did.”

  The first sergeant looked up from his paper work again. A haze of icy fury crossed his face.

  “That one of your three answers, you worthless arrogant little smack?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “Then you’ve learned exactly nothing today, right, smack? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Goose fuckin’ egg. Vacuum. Right, smack?”

  “I guess not, sir.”

  “YOU GUESS NOT! SMACKHEAD! GET UP AGAINST MY WALL, SMACK! SCREW THAT NECK TO THE REAR, PULL IT IN, IN, IN, IN, SMACK, IN! I WANNA SEE THAT WALL TREMBLE AS YOUR PUNY BODY VIBRATES, SMACK. BRACE, GODDAMMIT! BRACE UP AGAINST THAT WALL!”

  Hand slammed himself against a stretch of institutional green wall and braced. This was it. The real stuff. He smelled it. The first sergeant was genuinely angry. He wasn’t playing games. This wasn’t make-believe.

  “WE DON’T LIKE SMART-ASS PUNKS LIKE YOU AROUND HERE, YOU GOT THAT? WE DON’T LIKE PUNKS WHO THINK THEY’RE SMART SHIT BECAUSE THEY GOT SOME SIMPLE-ASS BULLSHIT STRAIGHT THE FIRST TIME, YOU GOT THAT? YOU LISTEN TO ME, BEAN. YOU LISTEN UP GOOD. NOTHING YOU DO IS RIGHT, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? NOTHING! YOU ARE A DULLARD. A DULL, DULL SMACKHEAD. YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU ARE LESS THAN NOTHING, SMACK. SO FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, YOU DO NOT EXIST. YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “NOW YOU SCREW THAT WORTHLESS BEAN IN, HAND. CRAM IT TO THE REAR. SLAP THE BACK OF YOUR NECK FLAT UP AGAINST MY WALL, BEAN. I WANNA SEE SWEAT COMING OFF YOUR FACE IN A MAJOR RIVER, SMACKHEAD. I DON’T WANNA SEE ANY DAYLIGHT BETWEEN THE BACK OF YOUR NECK AND MY WALL, SCREW. I WANT YOU TO VIBRATE, YOU ARE BRACING SO HARD, SMACKHEAD. I WANNA SEE YOU SHAKE, HAND. SHAKE!”

  By this time, the first sergeant was off his chair and leaned forward, both hands on the desk. His face was a wide, impassive mask. He was not angry, he was mean.

  A face appeared next to Hand’s. He recognized the breathing as that of the first cadet he had encountered at 9 A.M.

  Slaight.

  “Smack, you know what it means when the first sergeant gets all upset like that?”

  “NOSIR!”

  “It means he is truly pissed. Pissed, you understand? It means he’s about ready to boil over that desk of his and clear a space on his wall and invite you to spend the rest of the month up against that space, like you are right now, up against his wall, bracing. You are not interested in becoming a permanent fixture in the first sergeant’s room, are you, Hand? You are not interested in becoming part of the first sergeant’s furniture, are you, mister?”

  “NOSIR!” Hand noticed Slaight had dropped the accent he affected out on the area.

  “Then you post out of here, and you rid yourself of that arrogant attitude, you hear me, smackhead?”

  “YESSIR!”

  “NOW, POST OUT OF HERE.”

  Hand posted, back to the man in the red sash, who sent him to see the supply sergeant, and from there to the barber, where his head was completely shaved, crew cut, and from there to the mess hall, where he ate a single bologna sandwich he had difficulty swallowing while bracing, having been instructed by the table commandant, the upperclassman in charge of his ten-man mess hall table, that bracing in the mess hall was especially desirable. From the mess hall Hand was sent back to the 11th Division of barracks, to Room 1144, where he was to sort through and inventory the contents of his duffel bags. In Room 1144, he found his roommates. They had already scattered the contents of their duffel bags all over the room and were madly scrambling among the confusing collection of equipment, uniforms, underwear, toilet articles, books, shoes, sheets, pillows, even a box of “Cadet Stationery,” The room was an unbelievable mess, and Hand stood in the door, still bracing, his duffel bags at his sides, near tears at the sight of the two subhuman pack rats before him, digging, rooting through their stuff. Suddenly he was struck by the realization he was the same as them … he looked the same … he had bags of the same stuff … he had to sort and inventory it … the whole thing was hopeless. He was trapped.

  Hand introduced himself to Chauncey Dippel, a tall, skinny, awkward-looking guy from the Bronx, and Lester Woodruff, a slow-moving football player type from some farm town in western Ohio. Except for the shapes of their bodies, the two were almost indistinguishable. Dippel and Woodruff (the new cadets would rarely call each other by their first names … there didn’t seem to be time) had their heads shaved, and their sweating faces were coated with cut hairs uncleaned by the harried barbers. The two were completely confused by the contents of their duffel bags … they didn’t know what anything was, where it was supposed to go, what it all meant. Which was a hand brush and which was a clothes brush and which was a shoe brush? The toothbrush was easily identified, but eight cross-belts (white cotton), breastplate, waist plate, web belt, shirts (Sierra) and shirts (khaki)? Who knew? Who … cared? The three roommates rummaged and guessed and made checks on inventory sheets with a stub of pencil Hand found in a desk drawer.

/>   While Hand stacked the contents of his duffel bags in neat piles on one of the bunks, his roommates scattered stuff from the fireplace to the door and before they knew it, they’d lost track of what was what and whose was whose and they were arguing. Hand could tell. His roommates were … well, uncoordinated. They didn’t have it. And so he kept to himself, sorting and checking and piling and organizing. Before long, he was in what he’d been told was the uniform for the afternoon—gray trousers, black shoes, white cotton shirt with gray epaulets, black web belt, and brass belt buckle. Hand was examining himself in a full-length mirror on the wall when a figure appeared in the door to their room. It was their squad leader, who had walked down the hall from his room, 1141, Rysam Parker Slaight III. Hand saw Slaight and popped to attention, bracing. His roommates didn’t notice the presence of an upperclassman.

  “You gonna call the room to attention, Hand, or you gonna just stand there with your fuckin’ thumb up your ass like some kind of dufus fool?”

  “ROOM, TENSHUN!” Hand screamed, trying to sound like the upperclassmen he’d heard drilling new cadets on the area that morning. His roommates looked up, startled. They snapped to the brace, quivering at the sight of Slaight.

  “So. Smack Hand. Smack Woodruff. Smack Dippel. What a crew. You three better learn to get along. It’s gonna be one fuck of a long two months, and you’re gonna be spending the better part of it rubbing up against each other like you were fuckin’ married.” Slaight stood in the door, grinning. His three charges braced.

  Slaight’s grin was forced. The records he’d been handed by the company administrative officer on David Hand showed that he was indeed the brother of Samantha Hand, the girl from Vassar he’d just broken up with, the girl who’d handed him a flower and an antiwar leaflet as he’d walked back to the barracks from the area the last week in May. What in hell was Samantha Hand’s brother doing at West Point? And what terminal twist of fate had landed him in Slaight’s squad? An appeal to the cadet company commander had failed to dislodge Hand from his squad only a half an hour ago. If one guys gets to change his squad around, Slaight had been told, every guy will want to do the same. No dice. Slaight was stuck.