Dress Gray

by Lucian K. Truscott

  “We’ve got to wait for him to call back,” he announced to the subcommittee, when he returned to the board room.

  “So who’s Grimshaw got to call?” asked Slaight, taking a shot in the dark.

  “I don’t know.” Slaight studied Kip’s face. He didn’t know.

  The phone rang in the office next door. Kip left to answer it. Another five-minute conversation. He returned. Slaight was told to leave the room. He walked out in the hall, stood there for a moment, and figured: If they can do it, so can I. He walked in the next office, picked up the phone, and dialed Buck’s number. Buck picked up.

  “Leroy, they got me in the conference room up in 720, holding a goddamn honor subcommittee. Get Lugar and come on up here. The Honor System booklet says these things are supposed to be open to the upper classes, but they yanked me up here so fast, I didn’t get a chance to tell anybody.”

  “On our way,” said Buck. Slaight returned to the hall, pacing. The door open, and Sam Kip signaled for him to return. He took his seat. The five-striper spoke again:

  “Major Grimshaw did not bring the charges. He relayed charges brought by the commandant of cadets. The facts, as Grimshaw outlined them, are these: You told General Hedges twice—once last summer and once in August, during re-orgy week—that you would not discuss certain matters with others. This morning you told Major Grimshaw you had discussed these matter with cadets and someone you referred to as your attorney. That is the charge. You lied to the commandant in that you promised you would not divulge certain information. Then today, you admitted to Major Grimshaw you had.”

  At that moment, Buck and Lugar strode into the room.

  “What are you two doing here?” asked the five-striper.

  “More to the point, what are you doing here?” asked John Lugar, a smile plastered across his red freckled face.

  “We’re holding an honor subcommittee, and you are not permitted …”

  “Says here we are,” said Lugar, opening a small book with a light blue jacket. “Say right here in the Honor System pamphlet that all honor committee hearings are open to the upper classes. Here. Wanna see?” Lugar held out the small blue pamphlet.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked the five-striper.

  “In the library. I checked it out. Found it under ‘standards and traditions.’ ” The five-striper examined the pamphlet.

  “This is last year’s. Doesn’t apply.”

  “What do you honor reps do? Change the Honor System every year and not tell anybody about it? What is this shit?” Slaight stared the five-striper in the eye.

  “Last year’s Honor System pamphlet does not apply here. These two must leave.”

  “Okay,” said Lugar. “You show me in this year’s pamphlet where it says we’ve got to go. Show me the exact paragraph. Every honor meeting I’ve attended in the last three and a half years, the honor rep said all upperclassmen could attend Honor Committee functions. Now show me the System pamphlet that says we’ve got to leave.”

  “I don’t have it with me,” said the five-striper lamely.

  “Then we stay. Go ahead with your business,” said Lugar.

  “But this is different. Even if I had the pamphlet, Major Grimshaw said this was … sensitive.”

  “Major Grimshaw!” Slaight spat his name like a piece of bad meat. “What the fuck does Grimshaw have to do with this? He runs the Honor Code now? Who’s in charge here, anyway? You or Grimshaw? Come on. Is it all just a bunch of rhetoric, a bunch of shit—‘the code belongs to the corps’? Or are you going to abide by Honor Code custom and let them stay?”

  The five-striper looked nervous. A neat stack of cadet chevrons had not prepared him to make decisions.

  “Okay. You guys can stay. Sit down over there.” He indicated folding chairs along one wall. Lugar and Buck sat down. Buck unzipped his dress coat and withdrew a yellow legal pad of paper and a pen and prepared to take notes.

  “No notes!” screamed the five-striper.

  “Whatssamatter? You ashamed of what’s goin’ on here?” asked Buck.

  “No….”

  “Then you won’t mind if I note the proceedings—for the edification of my colleagues back in the barracks, of course, who have an equal right to be present at this hearing.” The five-striper sat mute.

  “Okay, guys, let’s get back to it,” said Slaight, energized by the presence of his friends. “Question: What information did I promise the com I wouldn’t divulge?”

  “I don’t know,” said the five-striper.

  “Any of the rest of you know?” asked Slaight. Heads shook, no.

  “Question: How can it be determined if I divulged this so-called certain information if we don’t know what in hell it is?”

  Blank stares.

  “Major Grimshaw said you told everything to the guys who were in your room this morning and to your attorney,” said one of the subcommittee reps.

  “Everything? Everything about what?”

  “I don’t know,” said the five-striper.

  “For the record: The guys in my room this morning were Buck and Lugar, sitting right over there,” said Slaight, looking slowly around the semicircle sitting before him. “My attorney’s name is Captain T. Clifford Bassett. I’ve told all three of them lots of stuff. Now it appears to me that we can handle this thing two ways.” Slaight paused.

  “Go ahead,” said Sam Kip, the D-3 honor rep, breaking the silence.

  “Okay, Sam. Thanks. Method One: We can deal with these so-called charges of Grimshaw’s about so-called certain information with raw technicalities, itty-bitty rule by itty-bitty rule. Method Two: We can deal with the facts. Which will it be?”

  The honor subcommittee huddled.

  “Let’s hear your reading of the technicalities,” said the five-striper.

  “Okay. Grimshaw says I lied to the com. The alleged lie involved the mysterious certain information. You don’t have the certain information, thus you can make no determination as to whether or not I divulged the certain information. All you’ve got is Grimshaw telling you I told him I told Lugar, Buck, and the lawyer everything. Everything about what? Everything could be the schedule of my bowel movements. You don’t know. So you can make no determination as to whether there are enough facts to warrant an Honor Board, because you have no facts. Zero facts. Nothing.”

  The subcommittee huddled again.

  “I see what you mean,” said the five-striper.

  “Now. You want to know what went down between me and the com? I’ll tell you what went down. The com called me in twice and offered to make me a battalion commander—me! a battalion C.O.!—if I’d keep my mouth shut about what you call certain information. That is, if I would shut up and forget certain things, I’d be wearing stripes. Observe my sleeve, guys. You see any stripes? I’m a file-closer, a cadet sergeant. I made no deal with the com. I promised him nothing. So Grimshaw’s bullcrap about me promising I wouldn’t divulge the mystical certain information is just that. So much bullcrap. I will say this. The com told me not to go talking to anyone about this certain information, and I went ahead and talked about it. So I disobeyed his order. Disobedience is a violation of regulations, guys. Not honor. If the com wants to write me up for it, he can. In fact, they’re calling an Aptitude Board on me pretty soon, so I’d imagine it’ll all come out then. But this shit Grimshaw came off with to Sam Kip—it’s no honor violation, guys. You’ve got nothing on me.”

  “I guess not,” said the five-striper. “But Hedges … he’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “Hedges!” It was Lugar, walking over from his seat by the window. “What the fuck does Hedges have to do with this?”

  “We’ve got to file a report, showing the minutes of the subcommittee, our finding, and the reasons for our finding.”

  “Show me in this goddamn Honor System pamphlet where it says you’ve got to report to the com,” said Lugar, enraged.

  “It doesn’t. I know. Hedges put out the word informally last
year, when he first became com. We’ve got to report everything to him, whether a subcommittee finds for a full Honor Board or not and whether the full board finds a guy guilty of a violation or innocent. We report everything to him.”

  “In writing?”

  “Yes. He even had a special form printed up for us.”

  “So no matter what happens after an honor charge has been made, a guy will still have written records in his file about it, huh?”

  “I guess so. I don’t know what happens to the reports we give Hedges.”

  “You don’t know!” Lugar was seething now. “You don’t know! Jesus, what are you running here? An Honor Code or an inquisition?”

  “Don’t get uptight, John,” Sam Kip stepped in. “What’s the finding of the subcommittee?”

  They huddled briefly.

  “No evidence. No Honor Board. You can go now,” said the five-striper.

  “What are you going to say in your report to Hedges?” asked Slaight.

  “I don’t know. We’ll think of something. This kind of thing has happened before. We’ll cope. Don’t be surprised if we have to run another subcommittee on you later this week, if they come up with some evidence. We’ll let you know.”

  “Give me some notice next time, huh, guys?” said Slaight over his shoulder, as he, Buck, and Lugar walked out. “This is the essence of cool … the midnight honor patrol.”

  “You think you’re the essence of cool, Slaight,” said Arthur Dudley, the battalion honor rep. Slaight wheeled. He felt the tug of Buck’s hand on his left sleeve.

  “Don’t say anything, Ry,” said John Lugar.

  Slaight gritted his teeth, turned, and left. Things were bad, Arthur Dudley was doing his damnedest to make them worse, but at this point, Lugar was right. Dudley didn’t count. The three friends walked back down the stairs to New South Area. It was quiet, a few windows lighted dimly by desk lamps aiding the “hives,” the cadets who really dug in and studied, maybe the late-night letter writers, the guys who in the wee hours felt the bottom edges of cadet loneliness and reached out with pen and paper for girl friends near and far.

  D-3 had a guy like that, Jay Bloomingburg, from some small town in northern Washington State, of Canadian-American stock. He was always writing to girls, always, late at night, alone at his desk while his roommate slept. It was like writing a girl was something he could only do alone. Sometimes, if his roommate stayed up late studying, you could find him in the shower room, sitting on one of the wooden benches writing his letters on a clipboard. He was a gentle guy and deeply religious—to the point of seeming simple-minded at times, though he was actually an intelligent, engaging person when you got right down to it. He sang in the chapel choir, taught Sunday school, and attended daily prayer services every morning when other guys were getting ABR, precious after breakfast rack. Though it wasn’t talked about openly around the company, it was known that Bloomingburg was still a virgin. Despite all his letter writing, he’d never been laid. He didn’t want to be. He was going to wait until he married, he was that old-fashioned.

  Bloomingburg was waiting in the hall outside Room 226 when they returned from Building 720. The CQ had told him that a bunch of firsties had disappeared in the direction of 720 in Dress Gray, and Bloomingburg wanted to know what happened. He was concerned. John Lugar used to tease him that his middle name was “Sincere,” but it didn’t bother Bloomingburg. He knew it was true.

  When Lugar, Buck, and Slaight reached Room 226, Bloomingburg followed them in. He saw their Dress Gray uniforms, checked his watch. It was 1:30 A.M. He smelted honor.

  “What happened, guys?” he asked in all innocence.

  “None of your fuckin’ business, man,” snapped Slaight.

  “Hey, Ry. I just wondered. I was worried when I heard …”

  “Yeah? Well, you hear too fuckin’ much, and you worry too fuckin’ much, and you oughtta go back to writing your fuckin’ letters, man, and leave us alone.”

  “Ry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

  “You didn’t mean … shit. Why don’t you go dig out your fuckin’ Bible and say us all a prayer. That’s what we could really use. A fuckin’ prayer.” Slaight sneered at the word prayer. Bloomingburg left, and in a moment, returned with his Bible.

  “Aw, fuck, put an eyeball on this, guys,” laughed Slaight, pointing derisively at Bloomingburg.

  “Hey, Ry, knock it off,” said Lugar, who openly professed atheism, but admitted he would buckle under to a Catholic wedding to his girl friend, Josie Irene Severns, when the time came. Bloomingburg sat down on Lugar’s bunk and started flipping through his Bible.

  “When you gonna come down off the God act, man?” asked Slaight.

  “Come on, Ry. Cut the shit,” said Leroy Buck, a Southern Baptist from a congregation of about thirty back in Burning Tree, Indiana.

  “Hey! What fuckin’ good is God gonna do up against an SOB like Hedges, huh? What the fuck you think you’re gonna find in that goddamn book, anyway? Blueprints for happiness? A goddamn map through the West fuckin’ Point mine field? Think you gonna find you a piece of ass in there, Jay, huh?”

  Lugar grabbed Slaight by the T-shirt and hauled him up from his desk chair. Lugar outweighed him maybe ten pounds, but it was all muscle. He coached the company intramural boxing team and had fought his way into Brigade Finals, West Point’s version of the Golden Gloves, every year but one, his plebe year. He was walking the area that year and couldn’t train properly.

  “One more word out of you, Slaight, one more goddamn word and I’m gonna check you into the hospital myself. Only you’re not gonna like the way I put you there.” Slaight peered into Lugar’s eyes. They were bloodshot with fatigue.

  “I know you’ve had some trouble, Ry. I just thought I might be able to help,” said Jay Bloomingburg. He had his Bible open now, and in a low voice he began reading from the 23rd Psalm—Yea, though I walk—and Slaight was in shock, trite, trite, I don’t believe this….

  Slaight’s folks made him go to Sunday school downtown until he was fourteen. Fourteen! Nobody went to Sunday school when they were fourteen. But Ry Slaight did, in his black tie-shoes and his black suit with the little speckles in the fabric, a 1950s special that had been bought from Sears three sizes too large so he could wear it all the way through junior high. Bloomingburg was reading the 23rd Psalm, his voice a steady drone. They made him memorize the damn 23rd Psalm, just like they made him memorize everything else. And none of it amounted to a hill of shit. None of it. Not until his dog died.

  His folks had bought the dog, a dachshund, when he was born, so he’d have a companion, somebody to grow up with out on the farm twenty miles outside Leaven-worth where his father ran his riding stables, Wild Acres. Since he had no brothers or sisters, the dog, Rags, so named because all his life his little dog nest had been a pile of old dishcloths and rags, old Rags had been the guy he grew up with. He died at sixteen, an elegant old creature with a gray muzzle and gray eyebrows where once light tan hair had offset his sleek black coat. When Rags died, Slaight was crushed. He came home from school to find the dog laid out on a piece of plywood next to the house, and he just knelt there. His mother, Jill Ritter Slaight, didn’t know what to do to help the boy, so she went in the house and brought out the family Bible. Its satin bookmark unfolded the 23rd Psalm, so she stood there in the spring Kansas sun, birds chirping in the trees around the house, squirrels chattering like they knew their foremost adversary had fallen, Slaight’s mother stood there in the sun and read the 23rd Psalm aloud. The sun hit the back of Slaight’s neck, his tears stung his cheeks, he’d just begun to shave, and his dog lay dead.

  The words he heard, the words his mother was reading, hit him for the first time. It went beyond jarring his memory of a passage he had to memorize six years before. It went beyond all that talk in Sunday school, endless discussions of the true meaning of things. His mother’s voice went way beyond and landed somewhere deep in what he would come to know as his subconscious,
some invisible place inside himself where he hid secrets—secrets he and Rags had shared growing up, secrets he shared with no one, secrets he didn’t even share with himself. He listened to his mother, listened to her finish reading the Psalm. He stood up straight, embraced his mother and said: Ma, let’s go bury Rags, and they did. He knew strength that day at sixteen, the strength that comes from knowing death and moving on, the strength that was in his mother’s voice—he’d known about it for years, but never focused on it so clearly—and the strength in her words, in the words of the 23rd Psalm. He didn’t understand the strength, didn’t know where it came from, where it was going, or what to do with it. He just felt it.

  Now in Room 226, New South Barracks, Jay Bloomingburg’s high-pitched voice carried those words again. The four of them—Slaight, Buck, Lugar, Bloomingburg—sat in the room in their drawers, as cadets always did at night in the barracks. Bloomingburg read, and they felt drawn together, Slaight perhaps more than the others with his memory of his dog Rags, Slaight, cynical, logical old Slaight, at twenty-one, ready to bite poor Bloomingburg’s head off because all he wanted to do was reach into his little bag, pull out the tools at his disposal, and help.

  Irit said it all the weekend before, that night they blew away the physical surveillance that someone had been running on Irit. They were drunk in bed, and it was dark except for the glow of the clock radio at bedside. Out in the living room, they could hear Leroy Buck settling in for the night on the sofa. Lugar and his girl friend had left for the hotel. All of them were blasted out of their skulls, laughing at Buck and his accent and his stories, reveling in the glow of their “victory.” She lay next to him, spooning; he could feel her bosoms pressing against his bare back, and she whispered in the darkness….

  Ry, don’t you know you’re becoming the thing you’re fighting, the thing you hate? You behaved the same way I would expect those men to behave, plotting your elaborate plans, going through your rehearsals. You are driven, Ry. Driven. Why? Why go on? What do you expect to accomplish?