“Do you want anything else from me? My blood type? My sign? I’m a Pisces. Does that help?” The kid was blowing smoke again, tapping his fingers.
“I want you to think about the cadet. You’re sure you can’t remember his name?”
“Certain.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“He was … handsome. Good-looking. And tall. About David’s height. Trim. Fit. You know. Military.”
“You remember the color of his hair?”
“Come on. Next you’re going to ask me if he had bad breath.”
“No. Next I’m going to ask you if you could pick his picture out of a yearbook. Could you?”
The kid paused, smoking. He was scared. He’d probably already told more than he ever intended to tell. Slaight waited.
“I … don’t know. Maybe. But listen. That was two years ago! How many times do I have to remind you? People … change. Times change. And David is dead. Gone. What difference could it possibly make? Who’s to say this guy killed David? You’re just … shooting in the dark. That’s all you’re doing.”
“I’m shooting in the dark, Patou. You’re right. But now I’ve got a target. And you’ve got a flashlight.”
“Maybe you’ve got more than one target, Slaight. I forgot to tell you. There were several cadets at our high school that day. Three of them, as I recall. Each of them gave lectures to different groups.”
“And your group was?”
“All the seniors who had lunch at the first sitting. I remember now. The lecture was just after lunch. Some seniors heard another cadet earlier. Some heard another lecture after ours. I can’t remember which cadet addressed which group. It was all mixed up. They spoke to the junior class, too. That’s why there were three of them at school that day. Ours was the biggest high school in town. Over four thousand students. More than one thousand seniors alone. That’s why they had to break us up into groups. The auditorium would seat only five hundred at a time.”
“Jesus. So there were three cadets in your school recruiting that day, and Hand made it with one of them, huh?”
“That’s it.”
“Did you see all three of them?”
“I saw cadets in the halls between classes. I don’t know if I saw all three. They all looked the same to me.”
“Do you remember if any of them had stripes on their sleeves, you know, like this.” Slaight outlined a chevron on the table with his forefinger.
“I think so. I can’t be sure. I don’t remember if David’s cadet had stripes or not, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“That’s what I’m getting at.”
“Well, I don’t remember.”
“But you might be able to pick this guy out of a yearbook. Is that correct?”
“I honestly don’t know. Are the photos in uniform, those gray jackets?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they all look the same to me. My goodness. I hardly recognized David at Christmas in his uniform. They make you look so … stiff.”
“Yeah. Know what you mean.”
“Are you finished now? Can I go?”
“Just one more minute. I need to know how I can get in touch with you. Maybe later this month. Maybe in September, when school starts again. I might want to let you have a go at the yearbook, see if you recognize anybody.”
“Not through my parents! I don’t want them involved … well … you understand, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I understand. How about Samantha? Is it okay to have her call you?”
“Yes. That would be all right.”
“Where do you go to college, Billy? Down here? Tulane?”
“No. Yale. I went North to … be close to David. But I never heard from him. I never saw him. Not until Christmas. Even then, things were … different. You know?”
“I think so.”
“What is it about that place, West Point? David seemed so … changed. It wasn’t just the uniform or the haircut. He seemed … like a different person. What do they do to you at West Point? Is everyone changed like that … I mean … so their own best friends hardly recognize them?”
Slaight finished his beer and looked at the kid. He was leaning on his elbows, peering through the semidarkness across the table. His face was earnest. He really wanted to know.
“I’ll tell you what, Billy. I’ve been there three years, and I’m damned if I know. I guess you’d have to ask my best friend, back home. I guess we’re all a little different after being at West Point. It’s that kind of place. It does … it does change you, I guess.”
“And where is back home for you?”
“Kansas.”
“Kansas! Phew!”
“Yeah. Phew.”
“So you won’t call my parents, and you won’t tell anyone … what I’ve told you tonight. Is that right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what did you say?”
“I said nothing would get out about you. I won’t tell anyone I’ve spoken to you. The only other person who knows your identity is Samantha, and she won’t talk. You know you can count on her.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“But you’ve got to understand. I’m going to make use of what you’ve told me tonight. I’ve got to, if I’m going to figure out who killed your friend Hand. But I won’t tell anybody where I got the information. So far as I’m concerned, I went out for a drink tonight and talked with a guy by the name of Ray. Right?”
“I have your … word?”
“You’ve got my word, man. You can count on it. Far as I’m concerned, you’re just some dude in a bar. Satisfied?”
“Yes. I guess so. It’s just that … well … I really …”
“You really what?”
“I didn’t really plan on telling you any of this. I thought it was none of your business.”
“You’re right. It’s not my business. It’s the business of the men who run West Point, but they’re sitting on their fannies waiting for the smoke to clear. Before it does, I’m gonna figure out who killed Hand, and I’m gonna make them get off their asses and nail him.” Slaight signaled for the waiter to bring the check, scribbling on an imaginary scrap of paper in the air with his hands.
“Why?” Patou stared at Slaight across the table.
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t know. It bothers me. That’s as good a reason as any.”
“That’s interesting. David told me last Christmas he did something that bothered you, and you really gave him hell for it. He called you a ‘take charge guy,’ that was the phrase he used. Take charge. The way he said it, I could tell he admired you.”
“Yeah.” Slaight stared at the check, digging in his wallet. Patou was making him nervous, and Slaight was doing his best not to show it.
“Hand ever tell you why he went to West Point?” Slaight asked the question defensively, to break the sticky, hot silence.
“I don’t think he ever said it out loud.” Patou stirred his drink, thinking. “But I always kind of knew why he wanted to go to West Point. It’s funny. We never talked about it—him going to West Point, me going to Yale—because we didn’t have to.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“I told you. We were friends. I knew him. I guess you … wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I knew he’d go to West Point the day that cadet came to our high school. David watched him. He just followed him around and watched him. If you could have seen his eyes … sometimes, he’d get this look. It was like he was looking at himself in the mirror, only different. I don’t know how to explain it. You’d have to see it.”
“I did.”
“That’s right. You were his commander or something, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you know what I mean … about the look in his eyes.”
“I think so. But I’m not sure I understood it, not completely. That’s w
hy I asked you if Hand ever told you why he wanted to go to West Point. I could never figure it. I didn’t know he was homosexual, but somehow, I knew he was different. He didn’t fit.”
“The way David talked about you, I’m surprised you didn’t know he was gay. I would have thought …”
“Look. I didn’t know he was a fag until the day he died.” Slaight bristled, glaring at Patou, then shifting his gaze quickly to the side. He looked through an arched doorway at the bar. It was late, but business was brisk. New Orleans. Jesus.
“I know what it was!” Patou brightened, waving his arms, nearly spilling his drink.
“You know what?”
“That look in his eyes. David’s. The look he got watching the cadet. It was like singing in the showers, after gym class. We used to do it all the time. You know how your voice always sounds better in the shower, more resonant, fuller? Then you walk back to the lockers, still singing, and it’s just your same old voice again? That’s the way it was, the look in David’s eyes, watching that cadet. It was like he was admiring himself in the mirror, only better. He was watching an image he knew would disappear when the cadet left. There was always sadness in his eyes, too. I could see it. With the cadet, it was worse. I knew he’d fuck that guy when I saw the way he watched him. I just knew it.”
“What are you saying, Patou? You’re talking in circles.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” Patou peered at Slaight through the dim, smoky air.
“Hey, if I understood all this shit, you think I’d be here in this hellhole feeding questions into you like nickels in a juke box? Come on, man. Give me a break.”
“Incredible.” Patou sipped the last of his drink with an abrupt slurp.
“What?”
“You’re so straight. I mean … you don’t see it, because you’re the answer to your own question.”
“Damn straight I’m straight, Patou.” The kid looked up, and they both laughed.
“Okay,” said Patou, signaling the waiter for another drink. “Okay. I get the message. I mean … it was always so clear to me, I guess I never stated it out loud. David went to West Point because West Point was the straightest place on the face of the earth. That cadet, in high school, he was straightness personified. David fell in love with West Point because he wanted to become it. It was always that way with David. Image. The straight guys he used to fuck, he was never satisfied because they never lived up to their own image. Once he’d fucked them, they weren’t straight any more. You see what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“West Point … David’s image of West Point was like the final edge of maleness, beyond anything he’d ever encountered—oil rig roughnecks, Cajun longshoremen, cowboys in the movies. Beyond John Wayne. Sure. He fucked that cadet when he was here recruiting. But West Point was different. I think David thought West Point would … change him. Is that what West Point does? Does West Point have that kind of power?”
“In some ways. Yeah. It’s got power. A special kind of power.”
“What kind?”
“Shit, man, if I could answer that one, I’d have my own academic department up there.” Patou laughed. Slaight sipped the beer Patou had ordered.
“Is West Point as straight as David thought it was?” The question was loaded, and Slaight knew it. He sipped his beer. Patou was asking questions now.
“Yeah, I guess so. Hand’s image of the place was correct. He couldn’t have missed it with his eyes closed. They work on that image of West Point, shine it till it gleams. They’ve got it down. They should. They’ve been polishing the West Point image for a hundred sixty-five years now. If Hand fell for the image, he wasn’t the only one. There’s plenty of others, me included.”
“And the cadets? Are they as straight as they seem?”
“Yeah. Christ. Getting laid at West Point is like a requirement for graduation. Women are part of the currency, traded for goods and services. And status. The guys are straight, all right.”
“But David wasn’t. Nor was the cadet he fucked, the one you think killed him.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Are there any other gay cadets?”
Slaight stared straight ahead.
“Did you ever know one?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of?”
“This guy in my class, from another regiment, a guy I don’t really know, he stopped by my room one day to bullshit. I’d seen him around. He was one of the smart guys, up there near the top of the class. We both worked on the cadet magazine, The Pointer. So he stops by, we’re talking about the next issue, and he asks me what I’m doing over summer leave. I tell him. Then he tells me he’s spending his summer leave working as stage manager for one of the off-off Broadway theaters in the Village. Tells me it’ll be his third summer working there.”
“So?”
“So I knew what the scene was with off-off Broadway theater. I wrote a story for The Pointer about two plays I’d seen down there the year before. He knew I knew. He never came right out and said it, but he was telling me he was homosexual.”
“And you didn’t turn him in?”
“Turn him in? For what? One of the incredible ironies about West Point is the fact there’s no regulation against homosexual behavior, but there are a slew of them proscribing relations with women, saying what you can and can’t do and when and where. Shit. You wouldn’t believe it. Anyway, that’s not why I didn’t turn the guy in. It was obvious he needed to tell somebody. I mean, he had to let it out in the open, and he figured I would understand, and I did. It was just one of those things. Everybody needs to talk to somebody about something really private, you know? I did, too, when I was a plebe. When I needed someone, there was a guy I knew I could go to, and depend on, and be there when I needed him. Same with this classmate. You could think of it as an unwritten rule. You don’t rat on a guy when his own personal hammer comes down on him like that.”
“But this unwritten rule—is it West Point’s?”
“No. It’s the cadets’, as much a part of the system as the uniform. But there’s one crucial difference. What belongs to the cadets does not necessarily belong to, or have the approval of, the academy. Often the two are at odds, as different as … you and me.”
“I know what you mean. At Yale, it’s not the same, but there are parallels, I guess you could call them.”
Slaight shifted nervously in his seat. He enjoyed talking to the kid. Patou was smart. But it was getting late, and he wanted to go back to the rooming house, back to Irit. Here he was, sitting in a bar in New Orleans, talking to this screaming faggot as if … The glow of Patou’s white palm caught Slaight’s attention and interrupted him. Patou was waving at him.
“I don’t want to keep you, but …”
“No, man, that’s okay. Go ahead.”
“You never really answered my question. About West Point. You said it lived up to David’s image of how straight he thought it was. But you never said whether or not West Point was really straight. Inside the image, what’s it like? What is it about West Point that gives it the ‘special power’ you said it has?”
Slaight twirled the bottle of Dixie beer in his hand, pondering the question. Patou was driving at the core of something Slaight himself had always avoided, and he was coming at it from an angle no one, not a single person, had attempted, at least not in Slaight’s experience. Quickly, Slaight added up what he knew: the murder, Hand a secret fag, the cover-up, Hedges and the rest of them running scared from something Slaight couldn’t figure. He didn’t buy the commie demonstrator angle, Hand’s murder affecting national security. Hedges didn’t buy it either. Hedges was using that bullshit in the all-us-men-together manner, welcoming Slaight into the insiders’ covey, a special center rarely opened, promising everything. Guys he had known during his three years at West Point had eaten each other alive trying to get there. Slaight’s instincts told him Hedges promised more than he would deliv
er. His father had a phrase for it, one he remembered from years ago when they were showing horses at the county fair. “Carney blow,” his father called it, as they walked down the midway. “They say it costs a quarter. So does five songs on the juke box. So does a one-armed bandit. You get what you pay for.” Slaight had been down plenty of midways since that hot summer afternoon fifteen years ago. He had trouble recalling their various “attractions,” but he remembered his father’s cynical advice, word for word.
Now Slaight had new information. Pursued properly, it might force the identity of Hand’s killer. And he finally understood something about the engine which had driven Hand with such inhuman energy through Beast Barracks. Hand didn’t go to West Point to get laid, to fuck cadets. David Hand went to West Point to test himself, to see if he could live up to West Point’s definition of manhood. What had long perplexed Slaight now made a perverse kind of sense. Beast. Crolius. Hand’s stubborn refusal to listen to reason, to play by the rules. Having tested cadets and found them, like other humans beings, weak, Hand began testing the system.
Hand wanted to fuck West Point.
“Jesus, Patou. You’re asking me to explain West Point. I’m no expert, man.” Slaight was trying to wiggle out. Patou pressed him.
“But you know something. I can tell.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you what I know. You read God and Man at Yale?”
“Yes, I’ve read it.”
“You think you understand what Buckley was saying?”
“Well. These days,” Patou glazed the words with derision, “Buckley is considered something on the order of Cro-Magnon man. I guess he basically took issue with Yale’s philosophy that all sides of any question can be presented with complete impartiality. He thinks a university should propound a more unified point of view, if not an actual ideology. Events seem to have passed Mr. Buckley without his notice.”
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