They drank in silence for a while, staring at the television. “Got a little bonus today,” Ralph said. “Fifty dollars.”
“Yeah?” Eddie said. “Good.”
A batter struck out; the inning was over and the commercial came on. “So?” Eddie said, rocking the beer around in his glass. “Still gonna get married?”
“Why not?” Ralph said with a shrug. “Listen, finish that, willya? I wanna get a move on.”
“Wait awhile, wait awhile. What’s ya hurry?”
“C’mon, willya?” Ralph stepped impatiently away from the bar. “I wanna go pick up ya bag.”
“Ah, bag schmagg.”
Ralph moved up close again and glowered at him. “Look, wise guy. Nobody’s gonna make ya loan me the goddamn bag, ya know. I don’t wanna break ya heart or nothin’—”
“Arright, arright, arright. You’ll getcha bag. Don’t worry so much.” He finished the beer and wiped his mouth. “Let’s go.”
Having to borrow a bag for his wedding trip was a sore point with Ralph; he’d much rather have bought one of his own. There was a fine one displayed in the window of a luggage shop they passed every night on their way to the subway—a big, tawny Gladstone with a zippered compartment on the side, at thirty-nine ninety-five—and Ralph had had his eye on it ever since Easter time. “Think I’ll buy that,” he’d told Eddie, in the same offhand way that a day or so before he had announced his engagement (“Think I’ll marry the girl”). Eddie’s response to both remarks had been the same: “Whaddya—crazy?” Both times Ralph had said, “Why not?” and in defense of the bag he had added, “Gonna get married, I’ll need somethin’ like that.” From then on it was as if the bag, almost as much as Gracie herself, had become a symbol of the new and richer life he sought. But after the ring and the new clothes and all the other expenses, he’d found at last that he couldn’t afford it; he had settled for the loan of Eddie’s, which was similar but cheaper and worn, and without the zippered compartment.
Now as they passed the luggage shop he stopped, caught in the grip of a reckless idea. “Hey wait awhile, Eddie. Know what I think I’ll do with that fifty-dollar bonus? I think I’ll buy that bag right now.” He felt breathless.
“Whaddya—crazy? Forty bucks for a bag you’ll use maybe one time a year? Ya crazy, Ralph. C’mon.”
“Ah—I dunno. Ya think so?”
“Listen, you better keep ya money, boy. You’re gonna need it.”
“Ah—yeah,” Ralph said at last. “I guess ya right.” And he fell in step with Eddie again, heading for the subway. This was the way things usually turned out in his life; he could never own a bag like that until he made a better salary, and he accepted it—just as he’d accepted without question, after the first thin sigh, the knowledge that he’d never possess his bride until after the wedding.
The subway swallowed them, rattled and banged them along in a rocking, mindless trance for half an hour, and disgorged them at last into the cool early evening of Queens.
Removing their coats and loosening their ties, they let the breeze dry their sweated shirts as they walked. “So what’s the deal?” Eddie asked. “What time we supposed to show up in this Pennsylvania burg tomorra?”
“Ah, suit yourself,” Ralph said. “Any time in the evening’s okay.”
“So whadda we do then? What the hell can ya do in a hillbilly town like that, anyway?”
“Ah, I dunno,” Ralph said defensively. “Sit around and talk, I guess; drink beer with Gracie’s old man or somethin’; I dunno.”
“Jesus,” Eddie said. “Some weekend. Big, big deal.”
Ralph stopped on the sidewalk, suddenly enraged, his damp coat wadded in his fist. “Look, you bastid. Nobody’s gonna make ya come, ya know—you or Marty or George or any a the rest of ’em. Get that straight. You’re not doin’ me no favors, unnastand?”
“Whatsa matta?” Eddie inquired. “Whatsa matta? Can’tcha take a joke?”
“Joke,” Ralph said. “You’re fulla jokes.” And plodding sullenly in Eddie’s wake, he felt close to tears.
They turned off into the block where they both lived, a double row of neat, identical houses bordering the street where they’d fought and loafed and played stickball all their lives. Eddie pushed open the front door of his house and ushered Ralph into the vestibule, with its homely smell of cauliflower and overshoes. “G’wan in,” he said, jerking a thumb at the closed living-room door, and he hung back to let Ralph go first.
Ralph opened the door and took three steps inside before it hit him like a sock on the jaw. The room, dead silent, was packed deep with grinning, red-faced men—Marty, George, the boys from the block, the boys from the office—everybody, all his friends, all on their feet and poised motionless in a solid mass. Skinny Maguire was crouched at the upright piano, his spread fingers high over the keys, and when he struck the first rollicking chords they all roared into song, beating time with their fists, their enormous grins distorting the words:
“Fa he’s ajally guh fella
Fa he’s ajally guh fella
Fa he’s ajally guh fell-ah
That nobody can deny!”
Weakly Ralph retreated a step on the carpet and stood there wide-eyed, swallowing, holding his coat. “That nobody can deny!” they sang, “That nobody can deny!” And as they swung into the second chorus Eddie’s father appeared through the dining-room curtains, bald and beaming, in full song, with a great glass pitcher of beer in either hand. At last Skinny hammered out the final line:
“That—no—bod—dee—can—dee—nye!”
And they all surged forward cheering, grabbing Ralph’s hand, pounding his arms and his back while he stood trembling, his own voice lost under the noise. “Gee, fellas—thanks. I—don’t know what to—thanks, fellas. . . .”
Then the crowd cleaved in half, and Eddie made his way slowly down the middle. His eyes gleamed in a smile of love, and from his bashful hand hung the suitcase—not his own, but a new one: the big, tawny Gladstone with the zippered compartment on the side.
“Speech!” they were yelling. “Speech! Speech!”
But Ralph couldn’t speak and couldn’t smile. He could hardly even see.
At ten o’clock Grace began walking around the apartment and biting her lip. What if he wasn’t coming? But of course he was coming. She sat down again and carefully smoothed the billows of nylon around her thighs, forcing herself to be calm. The whole thing would be ruined if she was nervous.
The noise of the doorbell was like an electric shock. She was halfway to the door before she stopped, breathing hard, and composed herself again. Then she pressed the buzzer and opened the door a crack to watch for him on the stairs.
When she saw he was carrying a suitcase, and saw the pale seriousness of his face as he mounted the stairs, she thought at first that he knew; he had come prepared to lock the door and take her in his arms. “Hello, darling,” she said softly, and opened the door wider.
“Hi, baby.” He brushed past her and walked inside. “Guess I’m late, huh? You in bed?”
“No.” She closed the door and leaned against it with both hands holding the doorknob at the small of her back, the way heroines close doors in the movies. “I was just—waiting for you.”
He wasn’t looking at her. He went to the sofa and sat down, holding the suitcase on his lap and running his fingers over its surface. “Gracie,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Look at this.”
She looked at it, and then into his tragic eyes.
“Remember,” he said, “I told you about that bag I wanted to buy? Forty dollars?” He stopped and looked around. “Hey, where’s Martha? She in bed?”
“She’s gone, darling,” Grace said, moving slowly toward the sofa. “She’s gone for the whole weekend.” She sat down beside him, leaned close, and gave him Martha’s special smile.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Well anyway, listen. I said I was gonna borrow Eddie’s bag instead, remember?”
“Yes.”
<
br /> “Well, so tonight at the White Rose I siz, ‘C’mon, Eddie, let’s go home pick up ya bag.’ He siz, ‘Ah, bag schmagg.’ I siz, ‘Whatsa matta?’ but he don’t say nothin’, see? So we go home to his place and the living-room door’s shut, see?”
She squirmed closer and put her head on his chest. Automatically he raised an arm and dropped it around her shoulders, still talking. “He siz, ‘G’ahead, Ralph, open the door.’ I siz, ‘Whatsa deal?’ He siz, ‘Never mind, Ralph, open the door.’ So I open the door, and oh Jesus.” His fingers gripped her shoulder with such intensity that she looked up at him in alarm.
“They was all there, Gracie,” he said. “All the fellas. Playin’ the piana, singin’, cheerin’—” His voice wavered and his eyelids fluttered shut, their lashes wet. “A big surprise party,” he said, trying to smile. “Fa me. Can ya beat that, Gracie? And then—and then Eddie comes out and—Eddie comes out and hands me this. The very same bag I been lookin’ at all this time. He bought it with his own money and he didn’t say nothin’, just to give me a surprise. ‘Here, Ralph,’ he siz. ‘Just to let ya know you’re the greatest guy in the world.’” His fingers tightened again, trembling. “I cried, Gracie,” he whispered. “I couldn’t help it. I don’t think the fellas saw it or anything, but I was cryin’.” He turned his face away and worked his lips in a tremendous effort to hold back the tears.
“Would you like a drink, darling?” she asked tenderly.
“Nah, that’s all right, Gracie. I’m all right.” Gently he set the suitcase on the carpet. “Only, gimme a cigarette, huh?”
She got one from the coffee table, put it in his lips and lit it. “Let me get you a drink,” she said.
He frowned through the smoke. “Whaddya got, that sherry wine? Nah, I don’t like that stuff. Anyway, I’m fulla beer.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “And then Eddie’s mother feeds us this terrific meal,” he went on, and his voice was almost normal now. “We had steaks; we had French-fried potatas”—his head rolled on the sofa-back with each item of the menu—“lettuce-and-tomata salad, pickles, bread, butter—everything. The works.”
“Well,” she said. “Wasn’t that nice.”
“And afterwards we had ice cream and coffee,” he said, “and all the beer we could drink. I mean, it was a real spread.”
Grace ran her hands over her lap, partly to smooth the nylon and partly to dry the moisture on her palms. “Well, that certainly was nice of them,” she said. They sat there silent for what seemed a long time.
“I can only stay a minute, Gracie,” Ralph said at last. “I promised ’em I’d be back.”
Her heart thumped under the nylon. “Ralph, do you—do you like this?”
“What, honey?”
“My negligee. You weren’t supposed to see it until—after the wedding, but I thought I’d—”
“Nice,” he said, feeling the flimsy material between thumb and index finger, like a merchant. “Very nice. Wudga pay fa this, honey?”
“Oh—I don’t know. But do you like it?”
He kissed her and began, at last, to stroke her with his hands. “Nice,” he kept saying. “Nice. Hey, I like this.” His hand hesitated at the low neckline, slipped inside and held her breast.
“I do love you, Ralph,” she whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”
His fingers pinched her nipple, once, and slid quickly out again. The policy of restraint, the habit of months was too strong to break. “Sure,” he said. “And I love you, baby. Now you be a good girl and get ya beauty sleep, and I’ll see ya in the morning. Okay?”
“Oh, Ralph. Don’t go. Stay.”
“Ah, I promised the fellas, Gracie.” He stood up and straightened his clothes. “They’re waitin’ fa me, out home.”
She blazed to her feet, but the cry that was meant for a woman’s appeal came out, through her tightening lips, as the whine of a wife: “Can’t they wait?”
“Whaddya—crazy?” He backed away, eyes round with righteousness. She would have to understand. If this was the way she acted before the wedding, how the hell was it going to be afterwards? “Have a heart, willya? Keep the fellas waitin’ tonight? After all they done fa me?”
After a second or two, during which her face became less pretty than he had ever seen it before, she was able to smile. “Of course not, darling. You’re right.”
He came forward again and gently brushed the tip of her chin with his fist, smiling, a husband reassured. “At’s more like it,” he said. “So I’ll see ya, Penn Station, nine o’clock tomorra. Right, Gracie? Only, before I go—” he winked and slapped his belly. “I’m fulla beer. Mind if I use ya terlet?”
When he came out of the bathroom she was waiting to say goodnight, standing with her arms folded across her chest, as if for warmth. Lovingly he hefted the new suitcase and joined her at the door. “Okay, then, baby,” he said, and kissed her. “Nine o’clock. Don’t forget, now.”
She smiled tiredly and opened the door for him. “Don’t worry, Ralph,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
Jody Rolled the Bones
SERGEANT REECE WAS a slim, quiet Tennessean who always managed to look neat in fatigues, and he wasn’t exactly what we’d expected an infantry platoon sergeant to be. We learned soon enough that he was typical—almost a prototype—of the men who had drifted into the Regular Army in the thirties and stayed to form the cadres of the great wartime training centers, but at the time he surprised us. We were pretty naïve, and I think we’d all expected more of a Victor McLaglen—burly, roaring and tough, but lovable, in the Hollywood tradition. Reece was tough, all right, but he never roared and we didn’t love him.
He alienated us on the first day by butchering our names. We were all from New York, and most of our names did require a little effort, but Reece made a great show of being defeated by them. His thin features puckered over the roster, his little mustache twitching at each unfamiliar syllable. “Dee—Dee Alice—” he stammered. “Dee Alice—”
“Here,” D’Allessandro said, and it went like that with almost every name. At one point, after he’d grappled with Schacht, Scoglio, and Sizscovicz, he came to Smith. “Hey, Smith,” he said, looking up with a slow, unengaging grin. “What the hell yew doin’ heah ‘mong all these gorillas?” Nobody thought it was funny. At last he finished and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “All right,” he told us. “My name’s Sahjint Reece and I’m your platoon sahjint. That means when I say do somethin’, do it.” He gave us a long, appraising glare. “P’toon!” he snapped, making his diaphragm jump. “Tetch—hut!” And his tyranny began. By the end of that day and for many days thereafter we had him firmly fixed in our minds as, to use D’Allessandro’s phrase, a dumb Rebel bastard.
I had better point out here that we were probably not very lovable either. We were all eighteen, a confused, platoon-sized bunch of city kids determined to be unenthusiastic about Basic Training. Apathy in boys of that age may be unusual—it is certainly unattractive—but this was 1944, the war was no longer new, and bitterness was the fashionable mood. To throw yourself into Army life with gusto only meant you were a kid who didn’t know the score, and nobody wanted to be that. Secretly we may have yearned for battle, or at least for ribbons, but on the surface we were shameless little wise guys about everything. Trying to make us soldiers must have been a staggering job, and Reece bore the brunt of it.
But of course that side of the thing didn’t occur to us, at first. All we knew was that he rode us hard and we hated his guts. We saw very little of our lieutenant, a plump collegiate youth who showed up periodically to insist that if we played ball with him, he would play ball with us, and even less of our company commander (I hardly remember what he looked like, except that he wore glasses). But Reece was always there, calm and contemptuous, never speaking except to give orders and never smiling except in cruelty. And we could tell by observing the other platoons that he was exceptionally strict; he had, for instance, his own method of rationing water.
> It was summer, and the camp lay flat under the blistering Texas sun. A generous supply of salt tablets was all that kept us conscious until nightfall; our fatigues were always streaked white from the salt of our sweat and we were always thirsty, but the camp’s supply of drinking water had to be transported from a spring many miles away, so there was a standing order to go easy on it. Most noncoms were thirsty enough themselves to construe the regulation loosely, but Reece took it to heart. “If yew men don’t learn nothin’ else about soldierin’,” he would say, “you’re gonna learn water discipline.” The water hung in Lister bags, fat canvas udders placed at intervals along the roads, and although it was warm and acrid with chemicals, the high point of every morning and every afternoon was the moment when we were authorized a break to fill our canteens with it. Most platoons would attack a Lister bag in a jostling wallowing rush, working its little steel teats until the bag hung limp and wrinkled, and a dark stain of waste lay spreading in the dust beneath it. Not us. Reece felt that half a canteenful at a time was enough for any man, and he would stand by the Lister bag in grim supervision, letting us at it in an orderly column of twos. When a man held his canteen too long under the bag, Reece would stop everything, pull the man out of line, and say, “Pour that out. All of it.”
“I’ll be goddamned if I will!” D’Allessandro shot back at him one day, and we all stood fascinated, watching them glare at each other in the dazzling heat. D’Allessandro was a husky boy with fierce black eyes who had in a few weeks become our spokesman; I guess he was the only one brave enough to stage a scene like this. “Whaddya think I am,” he shouted, “a goddamn camel, like you?” We giggled.
Reece demanded silence from the rest of us, got it, and turned back to D’Allessandro, squinting and licking his dry lips. “All right,” he said quietly, “drink it. All of it. The resta yew men keep away from that bag, keep your hands off your canteens. I want y’all to watch this. Go on, drink it.”
The Collected Stories Page 4