The Temple of Gold

by William Goldman

  “Am I boring you, soldier?” he snapped, not smiling any more.

  “Not exactly, Major,” I said, standing up. “And no disrespect meant on my part either, but I don’t want to be an officer in the United States Army. I figure it’s a good life and all that, Major. Like you say, it’s just crammed full of honor and responsibility and the satisfaction of a job well done. But me, I don’t want all that responsibility. And all that honor would probably just go to my head. Because some people aren’t cut out to be officers, Major, and I guess I’m one of them. So it’s not so much that you’re boring me as you’re just wasting my time.”

  “Then you better leave, soldier,” he said.

  “Yessir.” I nodded. “I guess I better. But I’d sure hate to leave alone.” I looked down at Kelly. He looked away, then back, then at the Major.

  Then he stood up.

  We filed our way out of the auditorium, the silence thick enough to sit on. The minute we were outside, I turned and slugged Kelly on the arm.

  “Hello, farmer,” I said.

  We went to the barracks, laughing and joking, horsing around, waiting for the others. The Major must have talked for close to an hour, but then, when he had finished, the bunch of us marched out and joined the rest of the company for training. It was almost six o’clock before we got back to the company area.

  And when we did, he was there.

  I saw him the minute we turned into the company street. He was standing by his jeep, his back straight, his arms folded, waiting there in the afternoon sun, looking like a god.

  When we broke formation, Kelly didn’t move. I waited alongside him while the others rushed by us, going this way and that, streaming past like ants from a burning hill.

  He strode up to us, quickly, his swagger stick beating a tattoo against his trouser leg, those eagles glistening on his shoulders as they caught the sun. He strode up to us and when he got about two feet away, he stopped. He didn’t say a word, not one word, but just stood there, starring at Kelly, slapping his swagger stick into his open palm. All of a sudden there wasn’t a sound to be heard except the crack of his swagger stick against the hard flesh of his hand.

  I started counting those cracks. One. Two. Three. Four. We stood there. Five. Six. Waiting. Seven. Still nobody talked. Eight. Nine. His eyes, almost a colorless blue, burned up into Kelly’s face. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Kelly stared back into those colorless blue eyes, held them with his own. Thirteen. Fourteen. They were coming faster now, sharper, snapping off his hand into the afternoon heat. And still neither of them said a word.

  Then Kelly broke.

  “O.K.,” he whispered, so soft I could hardly hear him. “O.K. O.K.”

  With that, the Colonel wheeled, hurrying away, his shoulders set. And I think if I’d had a gun in my hands then, I would have shot him. I hated him that much. You work and you work to get something done, you try as hard as you can, and suddenly somebody comes along, snaps his fingers, and everything crumbles like a house of cards.

  But I didn’t have a gun, so all I could do was watch as he vaulted into his jeep and sat back, straight, his arms folded in front of him. The jeep’s motor roared and it jumped forward, gathering speed. He didn’t so much as give us a glance as he whipped on by.

  Kelly watched until the jeep was out of sight. Then he turned to me, a smile on his face. “What the hell,” he muttered. “What the hell. It’s not going to be so bad.”

  And it wasn’t.

  Not for a week or so anyway. Because during that week, Kelly talked to me all the time about going to Officer’s School, and how he was going to knock them dead. None of which I believed, naturally, seeing as Kelly wasn’t the kind of guy that knocks anybody dead at anything, most of all Officer’s School. But I let him talk, agreeing with him, making him feel as good about it as I could. We joked a lot together and when the weekend came, we went back in to see old Irma, me serving again as chaperon. He was a lot less nervous about it and walked into her room by himself, unaided. When he came out, he wasn’t excited or anything like he’d been before. This time he was calm, as if it was something he’d been doing for years, daily. And after a minute or two of horsing, we didn’t talk about it any more. So everything went along fine, without a hitch.

  Until that afternoon on the grenade range.

  It was a scorcher, 100° or more. During the morning, the whole company grumbled and moaned, sweating as we went through our paces, practicing with dud grenades, getting ready to throw the real thing in the afternoon.

  At lunchtime, I turned to Kelly. “Let’s get in the chow line,” I said. “Come on.”

  He shook his head. “I got to go to the latrine,” he told me. “You get in line, Trevitt. I’ll be with you in a while.” He started walking away.

  “Sure, Ulysses,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

  But I didn’t. I stayed right where I was, watching him as he walked over and talked to the Lieutenant in charge of the range. I saw what he did and when he left the Lieutenant, I followed him.

  He walked as fast as he could, never looking back, me trailing some distance behind. He walked across the range and then onto the road in back of it and then past that, heading for the big field of weeds beyond.

  Once he got there, I yelled to him. He didn’t stop. I broke into a run, tearing through those weeds full tilt, closing the gap.

  “Hi, Kelly,” I said, coming up behind him. He didn’t answer. “You got some sense of direction, Ulysses. The latrine is back there. On the range.”

  “You better get away,” he said.

  I laughed. “Why? Just because you hocked a live grenade?” He turned and faced me then. I laughed louder. “I saw you, Ulysses. You’d make a hell of a thief, you would. Now, let’s go.” He fumbled around with his hands for a second.

  Then he pulled the pin, his thumb pressing down on the release lever.

  “Now will you go, Trevitt?”

  I shook my head. “Not without you.”

  We stood there, facing each other, standing waist high in the weeds, him with his thumb on that lever, pressing it down, his thumb white, his hands squeezed against his stomach.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled. I didn’t move. “Get the hell out of here, Trevitt! Get the hell away!”

  We were both drenched with sweat, standing there in the hot sun, five feet apart. I stared at that grenade awhile, and his thumb, looking like a ladyfinger against the rest of his red hand. Then I started talking to him.

  “You got this wrong, Ulysses. You got it all wrong. This isn’t the way. You’re not going to find anything this way. Honest to God, Ulysses. Don’t you see. You got it all wrong. I know. I know, Ulysses. Because you’re not the only one ever thought about it. I did. Me. Honest to God, Ulysses. I was going to do it. But it’s not the way. And you know why? I’ll tell you. On account of you, Ulysses. On account of you. Don’t you see? Back there in town. That’s the way out. Not like this. Back there. That’s the way. I found you and you’ll find somebody and then everything’s O.K. It all makes sense then. So don’t do this, Ulysses. Not to me. Because that’s who you’re doing it to. Please, Ulysses. Don’t do this to me.”

  He blinked some sweat away from his eyes, staring down at the grenade. Then he looked at me. “This’ll fix the sonofabitch,” he muttered.

  Then he let go of the lever and the bomb was alive.

  I dove at him, trying to get my hands on it, but he turned, shoved it harder against his stomach while I clawed at him.

  The blast came a second later and I blacked out, deaf from the sound. I was flying backward, spinning in the air, and then I hit, tumbling down, my arms and legs tangled, there in a heap. When I came to, I could hear a lot of screaming, people running up, some crying, some vomiting as they stood around us.

  But I couldn’t open my eyes. All I could do was lie there, helpless, my leg throbbing. All I could do was lie there, thinking, saying it in my mind: “They’re dying on me, everybody’s dying on me, everybody’s dyi
ng on me.” Over and over and over.

  Then I screamed once with the pain and blacked out for good.

  The Town

  I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about my first few days in the hospital.

  I just lay there in bed, half asleep, half not, my knee stitched, my leg bandaged. Time slipped by on me as I lay there, listening to the orderlies walk along the halls, sometimes staring out the window at the sky. Then, the third day, I started snapping out of it, my head clearing. By evening, I was feeling pretty good again. Except for my leg.

  He came to see me on the fourth day, a Captain from main post. He took off his hat and smiled at me as I sat up in bed. “You’re Private Trevitt,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I’m from the Provost Marshal’s office, Trevitt. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He smiled again, going on. “I’d like to know what happened, Trevitt. Out there in the weed field. I’m in charge of the investigation and there are a number of things that need clearing up. So why don’t you tell me what happened. In your own words.”

  “Maybe some other time,” I said.

  “Now’s as good a time as any,” he said, pressing it. “So why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  “Kelly got blown apart by a hand-grenade,” I said.

  “We know that.”

  “I thought you wanted to know what happened, Captain. That’s what happened.”

  “I’d like a few more details, Trevitt. Now. What went on in that weed field?”

  “Just what I told you,” I said. “Kelly got blown apart by a hand-grenade.”

  “How?”

  “He pulled the pin and held it against his stomach. The rest was easy.”

  “How did he get the grenade?”

  “I suppose he stole it. I don’t know. Maybe he made it in his spare time.”

  “Look, Trevitt,” he said. “I just want to ask you some questions. That’s all.”

  “Well, you’re asking the wrong guy, Captain. It’s not me you ought to talk to.”

  “No?” he said. “Who then?”

  “Go see the Chief of Staff,” I answered. Then I lay back down and closed my eyes. He left me.

  It was about an hour later that I first heard the news.

  Major Downes, my doctor, told me. He came in humming, snipping away in the air with a scissors he always carried.

  “Afternoon, Trevitt,” he said, faking a few snips at my head.

  “Afternoon, Major Downes.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, but just smiled at me, almost laughing, grinning from ear to ear. I waited. “Trevitt,” he said, finally. “I envy you. Always envy lucky people. And Trevitt, you’re lucky. Me, I’m not. There I was, the most successful gynecologist in Dayton, Ohio, and what happened? I got drafted again. How’s the leg feel?”

  “Fine, Major. Why am I lucky?”

  He slapped me on the back. “Because you’ve got the million-dollar wound, Trevitt. You’re getting a medical discharge.”

  “Why?”

  “Your knee, Trevitt. That’s why.”

  “What’s the matter with my knee?”

  “Nothing fatal. But some of that shrapnel cut it. You’ll be walking with a limp, so just as soon as you’re able, out you go.”

  I nodded, staring up at him while he fiddled with his scissors. Then I asked him. “For how long, Major? How long will I limp?”

  “Permanently,” was his answer. After which he left me alone to think about it.

  Nineteen days later, I was discharged.

  They went fast, those nineteen days. There was so much to be done. First my bandage came off. Then the stitches. I was getting stronger again, but still at night I had no trouble sleeping. Because it was hard work, learning to walk. In the beginning I used crutches, until I could put weight on my left leg. After that I hobbled a day or two with a cane. Finally I was on my own, without help, limping around the room, falling back on my bed, cursing, trying it again, getting better at it all the time. Processing didn’t take long. I went to see the Provost Marshal, told them what happened. I had a physical, turned in my clothes, filled out a million forms—limping slowly around the post, from one office to another, getting set to go.

  Once I saw Colonel Kelly. From a distance. He was riding in his jeep, sitting just like he always did, straight up, his arms folded on his chest. He whizzed out of sight and that was the last of him. He never came to see me; not one time those nineteen days.

  Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, I was out.

  Major Downes saw me to the main door of the hospital. We shook hands, said good-by, and that was it. I was a civilian again.

  So I picked up my bag and headed for the main entrance to Camp Scott. It took me about fifteen minutes to get there, walking slow, sweating in the sunshine. But finally I made it, stopping a second by the MP stand to catch my breath. I nodded to the MP on duty and, in a little, I picked up my bag again and walked those last steps to the road outside. When I got to that road I looked first one way, then the other. There wasn’t a car in sight, nobody, nothing, just me standing there alone. It was right then that it hit me.

  I didn’t know where I was going.

  I looked up and down that road again, shaking my head. Because I just wasn’t sure. I’d thought about it some, back in the hospital, figuring this answer and that, never coming to any conclusion. But now the chips were down and I hadn’t picked a winner. I stood there a long time, looking first to my right, then to my left, then to my right, then to my left. Cars passed me. I didn’t hail any of them.

  Finally, my leg began aching, so I went back to the post entrance. I found a little grass to sit on and flopped down, facing the sun. I stayed there awhile, eyes closed, basking, not a thought in my head. Then the MP came up. A private, maybe eighteen years old; he looked me over, trying to make up his mind.

  “What’s the story?” he said, finally.

  “No story,” I answered. “I just thought I’d like to sit here awhile.”

  “Nobody’s allowed to sit here,” he told me.

  “Come on,” I said. “Please.”

  “You’re on Government property.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re on Government property,” he came again, reaching down this time, grabbing my arm.

  I jerked free. “Get your hands off me,” I said. “You’re touching a civilian.”

  “What are you doing here then?”

  I held up my bag. “I’m going to blow up Camp Scott,” I whispered. “I got the biggest bomb in here you ever saw. It weighs 500 pounds and the minute you turn your back, BOOM!”

  He hurried back to his stand and when he picked up the telephone I saw I’d better get, so I headed for the road. In a minute, the bus for Hastingsville came by. I flagged it and got on.

  I took a room in Hastingsville, a room with one big window right across from an Army-Navy store. That store had a huge neon sign in front and it flashed all night long. ARMY. NAVY. ARMY. NAVY. ARMY was red. NAVY was blue. All night long as I lay there in bed, the room kept changing color before my eyes. First red, ARMY. Then blue, NAVY. I stayed in that room for one day and two nights, not sleeping, not eating, but just lying flat, my hands behind my head, watching the colors change. ARMY. Where do I go, Zock? NAVY. Which way do I go? ARMY. And the temple of gold, Zock. NAVY. What about that? ARMY. Tell me, Zock. NAVY. Tell me. ARMY. Where do I go from here, Zock? NAVY. Which way?

  Then finally, the second night, I knew. It came to me gradually, because I suppose I’d known all along, from the minute Major Downes had told me I was getting out. Just as simple as A.B.C.

  Where do you go when there’s no place to go?

  You go home.

  So I started off, thumbing my way North. It was still dark when I began, but I got a ride without any trouble, and by daylight I was speeding through the Indiana farmland. I had a lot of rides, and all in all, I made good time.

  Becau
se it was dusk when I got off at the main highway from Chicago and started the walk in, to Athens. It was a beautiful night, cool and clear. As I walked along I heard the birds still singing in the trees, the insects buzzing around in the bushes. I continued on, setting a slow, steady pace. Then the road opened and Athens College was right in front of me.

  There’s nothing like a college town when the college is closed. Quiet, deserted, it looks almost dead, as if it had never seen students riding around on bicycles, or teachers hurrying along, carrying briefcases. Only the buildings themselves remain, dark and squat against the setting sun.

  Off in the distance I saw some kids playing ball, running and screaming, but I didn’t stop to watch. I just went on, past the college, into Patriot’s Square, also deserted, except for the yellow lamplights beaming on its corners. When I got to the center, I stopped and turned around, taking it all in: the college behind me, the town on my right, the Lake out in front, and on my left, home.

  They were eating supper when I got there. I opened the front door as quiet as I could, listening.

  “So I told her that if she didn’t want to work at the Red Cross Wednesday afternoons, it was quite all right with me. Because there were plenty of others to do the job. And when I said that, she turned as meek as a lamb.”

  “Indeed.”

  Which was so funny I broke out laughing. For there wasn’t any doubt about it. I was home. And nothing had changed.

  “I’m sure glad things are going good at the Red Cross,” I said, walking into the dining-room. She dropped her spoon and stared at me. I nodded to my father. We shook hands.

  “Raymond,” my mother said, smiling now. “We weren’t expecting you. We had no idea. What are you doing here?”

  “Mother,” I said, “it’s a long story. But if you’ll get me some supper, I’ll tell you.”

  And I did. After she’d come back from the kitchen with a plateful of food, I began. Skipping most of the details, concentrating more on the explosion and my knee and the medical discharge. She sat there, listening carefully, while my father leaned forward in his chair, muttering “Indeed” every once in a while, to show he was interested. When I’d finished, I excused myself, said I was tired, and went up to my room. I undressed, turned out the light, and lay down, staring at the ceiling. Then my mother came in.