Men Die

by H. L. Humes

  “It's a delicate situation.”

  “He abets it, of course. But only when he's too drunk to remember anything about it the next day. I'm not sure he remembers anything at all. I've never seen anything like it. He'll go for a month without a drink or a whimper. Then he works himself into a state of nervous exhaustion by staying up and reading all night, never going out of the house, never eating properly. Sometimes he just drinks and quietly passes out, and that's all right. But other times …” he looked at the luminous dial of his watch “—well, we'll soon know.”

  “Look, you think he's already cracked, don't you.”

  “Psycho?” Dolfus didn't look up. There was a slight pause. “What makes you so worried all of a sudden?”

  “I don't know. Today he was talking about prophecy, and hidden knowledge … he almost had me … In fact he showed me something in the Bible that …”

  “I don't know,” Dolfus said flatly. “So he's started that affair with you, has he? The Armageddon of the white race, and all that?”

  “Well—” Sulgrave found himself cut off sharply.

  “If the white race doesn't survive, it will be because on their own terms they don't deserve to survive. They've set their own terms for salvation—let them live up to them or be damned.” Dolfus was suddenly truculent. He jumped to his feet and threw his empty beer bottle out into the night. It disappeared over the edge without a sound and into the sea. “I'm sick of these episcopate pricks who don't know die meaning of charity—they're trapped in their own contraceptive longings after nobility. They can't even love their human selves, so how can they intelligently love humanity? Let him learn to sing and keep his pecker up, then we can ponder the mysteries.”

  At the sound of Dolfus' raised voice, the men stopped talking and turned to look. Dolfus again made the angry gesture of squaring his hat. Then, like a man who's said his piece at a meeting, he sat down.

  “No, I don't think he's commitably insane,” Dolfus said finally. “He's trying to be something he's not. I think he hates the sea, the navy, everything he's doing. His wife's father was an admiral. You'd never guess it unless you thought about those eyebrows, but his own father was a Baptist minister.”

  “Are you Catholic?”

  “Catholic? What the hell's that got to do with it? Yes, I'm catholic, a Jew with a classical education and a nigger heart. I'd make a good pope. Would you like to hear how I met him?”

  “Who?”

  “I had a pupil once who wanted to be a good sailor, but was deathly afraid of water. One day, to get over his fear, he decided all by himself to take a small boat out in what later turned out to be one of the worst storms of that year. He got over his fear. He got over his life. His father, who I knew was an Annapolis man, came down …”

  “You mean you think Hake is doing the same thing?”

  Dolfus let out his breath, relaxed back in his chair. He seemed deflated. “Yes, I guess that's what I mean,” he said slowly.

  “Go on. I didn't mean to interrupt you.”

  Dolfus shook his head. “It doesn't matter. You've got the important part. I'm tired of talking.”

  After a while Dolfus broke the silence. “We better go back and see if we can help the poor unhappy prick.” He rose and began folding the deck chair, shaking his head. “Christ, I feel sorry for any man as unhappy as that.”

  As they started up the ladder, one of the men joked after them: “Ah hear they brought in some fine poontang on that there cattle boat today, Lieutenant. Least, that what the man in the goodcheer gallery say.”

  “It'll still be there tomorrow, Clarence. You pass your second class and you can watch them get off the boat. Don't forget to count the tools before you secure.”

  “They'll be there tomorrow if they aren't all used up tonight,” one of the other men said, laughing.

  “Get your wife to complain to your congressman, Dukes.”

  The other men hooted and laughed around Dukes and the noises of horseplay followed Sulgrave up over the top of the ladder.

  They discussed the funeral, she explaining all through dinner who the people were who attended—it amounted to a brief history of her life with her husband. It was one of the best restaurants in Washington, and the food and service were good. They ate early, to be on time for the concert. Sulgrave listened as she talked, watching her closely whenever her eyes wandered to the people at other tables. “I hate the navy because it devoured him,” she was saying, “but it wasn't the navy's fault. It takes two to make a feast, one who's hungry and one who wants to be eaten.” Then she nodded toward a corner table. “I wonder why that woman is eating alone.”

  “Perhaps she owns the place,” Sulgrave said lightly.

  “She keeps looking toward the door as if she's expecting someone. I don't think she is.”

  And all through dinner, try as he would to keep track of her zigzagging conversation, one image kept floating through his mind: of her hand resting lightly on the dressing table to steady her balance, one sloped shoulder steeply below the other, as she reached down to change her shoes; of the black ribbon of silk that slipped delicately off her shoulder down her arm as she twisted the tight shoe on, breasts jiggling lightly. A warm ripe mystery of lace. A surge of life had struck through him then like a choir of hiccups.

  Later in the evening, she confessed that she couldn't shake off the worry that she might have a chance meeting with one of their—her and her late husband's—service friends. She shied visibly every time she saw a naval uniform. They left the concert at the intermission and walked the chill distance back to her hotel. Sulgrave tried to ignore a vaguely shameful sense of anxiety mounting in him as they neared her hotel; it was too dangerous to admit, too profound to be cast off. He searched his mind for a better image of himself. She was only a few days a widow, a beautiful woman. Then, as though to placate conscience, forlorn angel of childhood, a shining gesture of righteousness broke through the dark swirl, like a sword from the lake: Arrange for some flowers. Flowers to brighten her room tomorrow—just the right thing. But no sooner had he grasped the blade of virtue than he perceived even in this pure act a delicate ambivalence of intent, felt the keen double edge. Tarnished by his own warm breath, the bright reflection clouded, and he returned from the future to the anxious present. They were nearing the hotel: So what, I'll get her flowers anyway.

  At the hotel, just as he set the revolving doors in motion for her, she stopped and turned around. She faced him and tossed her white scarf back over her shoulder in a fluent gesture, and stood for a moment looking at him, both hands holding her fur coat closed tight under her chin.

  She smiled at him. “Will you come up for breakfast?”

  He laughed lightly, gave the revolving door another push, more dilatory. “I'd be delighted, although at this time of night I'd rather have a drink.”

  On that brief pinnacle of time he halted, suspended, stopped by her look. From her immediate eyebrow he sensed he'd blundered, overshot. He felt the smile sticking to his face like adhesive plaster—the hush-thumping revolving doors slowed to a whisper and glided to a mocking stop—her smile just barely hardened, not enough for him to be certain of what she felt. Come up? She said come up. She said nothing, did nothing, made no clear move that would help him hatch his uncertainty. Meant tomorrow?

  “Perhaps,” he said lamely, “in the bar, before …”

  “Your eagerness is flattering, Lieutenant.” She said it coldly, suddenly.

  For some reason he sensed relief; she had overstated it, as though she too were guilty of a thought crime. He felt easy again. He smiled, made a small bow. “Madame, I presume only to the modest possibility of a drink, nothing more.”

  The threat was momentarily past. She smiled. “That's not as flattering as I thought, then. A fledgling widow needs all the flattery she can get.” She held out her hand decisively. “You can have your drink tomorrow—for breakfast. I've had a lovely time.”

  He shook her gloved hand. “It was my
pleasure.”

  “Say around nine. I'd like to go shopping early. Would you like to come with me?”

  “I have two weeks of leave. All of it is at your service.”

  “You're very sweet. Tomorrow, then.” She turned and was gone, waving a gloved kiss through the turning glass panel.

  As Sulgrave walked through the last night of November back to his own room at the Mayflower, he felt peculiarly empty; the mood of keyed attention was gone. As he picked up his key at the desk, he paused a moment and looked at it in his hand and had a suffocating vision of his anonymous room upstairs. It seemed aimless to take the elevator up. Suddenly he was struck with a loneliness so acute as to be almost a wrath; it seemed like a delayed reaction to the funeral, since that was what he found himself suddenly thinking about. Then he thought of the broken sword in his suitcase upstairs; the steam heat would be stifling….

  He broke off thinking, pocketed his key, headed for the street. Again a fleeting remembered image: of Vanna again, of her straightening up and catching him staring at her, a momentary sharp question in her eyes; and the eloquence of a woman's common gesture: the hitching of her shoulder strap back into place with a hooked thumb. A womanly rap on the knuckles.

  (Unsure of the room number, she hesitates before the door, searches her purse for the key she already holds in her left hand, discovers it, compares the brown fiberboard tag with the number on the door before her. The room is hers. As she inserts the key, her attention is arrested by the fact that her hand is shaking. She enters, closes the door behind her and leans back against it, pulls jerkily at her gloves finger by finger.)

  Get undressed

  See through his eyes

  Get undressed

  (She moves aimlessly around the sitting room undoing her dress and unfastening her pearls, her gaze glancing from one object to another as though studying the texture of her surroundings. Absently she goes into the bedroom dropping clothing wherever it comes off, enters the bathroom wearing girdle, stockings, shoes. She opens both taps and stands idly before the sink with the water running, gazing again at her reflection in the mirror.)

  The record came to the end again; the needle slipped into the endless off-center groove and oscillated back and forth in the scratchy silence. Nobody moved to shut it off.

  But the Commander wasn't asleep yet. He raised his head from his arms and glared blear-eyed across the desk into space. “Steward!” He lurched forward slightly as his folded arms slipped on the desk top. Orval BlueEyes scuttled in from the veranda and went straight to the phonograph. He was wearing a white mess jacket. He lifted the needle and started vigorously to wind the crank again. Hake turned his head and focused his eyes with effort on Orval. “Theah you are,” he said in a minstrel-show accent, “you shif'less black good-f-nothin'. Put it on again. Keep on playin' it till Ah tell you t' stop. I want these gemmun to hear mah f av'rit song with me.”

  Hake swung his head toward Dolfus, who was sitting profiled on one window ledge, then to Sulgrave, sitting opposite on the other. “An', Steward, refresh the gemmun's drinks. I don't wan't' keep havin' to ask yuh.”

  Orval continued to crank. No one said anything. Both Dolfus and Sulgrave had full drinks in plain view. Hake's was empty. He reached for the bottle at his elbow, splashed into his glass. “Rum ssa sailor's drink. Bourbon or rum. Anythin' else is for gemmun an' the ladies.” He took a half lime from the bowl in front of him, mashed it between his fingers and palm and dropped it into the glass. “Keep y' teeth from fallin' out.” Then he dumped a spoonful of powdered sugar in and stirred it sloppily with the same spoon. The desk top was a sticky mess of spilled liquor and powdered sugar. “Energy,” he said.

  “Steward! More ice!”

  “Ain't no more ice, suh. We ran out a long time ago.”

  Hake grunted. “Damn kerosene icebox.” Then he looked at Dolfus, whose head was turned toward the calm black sea. “Making ice with fire. Thas' something to think 'bout. You think 'bout it.”

  The needle went into the groove, hissing loudly. Then the first tinny notes of ragtime banjo issued from the machine, and the cymbal-shot that was the starting gun for the rest of the band: rick, rick-tickety-too…

  Oh, you beau-ti-ful doll,

  You great big beau-ti-ful doll …

  Dolfus grimaced and took a sip from his glass. Sulgrave watched him. This was the twentieth time the record had been played since they arrived. How many times before that, and on how many other nights before this night, was impossible to guess. But to Sulgrave's ear the record was almost worn through to the other side; the lyrics were nearly incomprehensible under the scratching of the cactus needle. Hake took a long pull on his drink, and dropped his head over his folded arms again.

  It was after midnight by Sulgrave's watch, and he was tiring of the vigil. He wasn't quite sure what they were waiting for, since apparently Hake had already had at least one fit of rage before they arrived. The girl was gone—if for certain she had ever been there. Bored, Sulgrave swung one leg out over the window ledge, straddling it like a horse.

  The place had been a shambles when they first came in; one of the bookcases had been pulled over, and Orval was busy replacing the spill of volumes. The Commander was then in his bedroom. When Orval went in to announce their arrival, Hake had come out carrying the phonograph. It was playing even then “Oh, You Beautiful Doll,” with the needle yawing back and forth over the grooves as Hake lurched into the room. Orval took the machine and set it up on top of the bookcase.

  Hake was full of overinsistent joviality, a sort of deadly mixture of drunken boisterousness with a truculent determination to prove it. They were just in time to join the party. This was the party.

  Sulgrave had by now drunk just enough to feel pleasantly warm. He watched the comatose Hake behind his kneehole desk, and felt certain that it wouldn't be long before he failed to notice when the music stopped. From there it would be a simple matter to get him to bed. The bottle on the desk was nearly empty. Orval had gone back to the veranda, where Sulgrave could just make out the outlines of his white jacket in the darkness; he would be sitting on the top step with Big Randy, silently sipping beer, waiting.

  As the record was about to end again, Orval came in, put it on from the beginning. Dolfus yawned and looked at his watch, cast a bored, expressionless glance at Sulgrave, then at Hake, shrugged, and looked out the window again.

  Then it happened. Hake slowly sat up, stared for a moment as though astounded, then jumped up and bellowed a curse. “Hard right! Full astern! God damn you, you hear me?” Dolfus put down his glass and swung his legs to the floor.

  Sulgrave was so surprised at the force of the voice that in trying to get his leg back inside he lost his balance and fell backward out the window. A few feet below, he lay on his back gazing at the moon, hearing music. He disentangled himself from the bushes and stood up just in time to see: Orval gaping, undoubtedly wondering what the Lieutenant was doing looking in the window; and Dolfus, despite everything, holding his sides laughing.

  Then, like a magic-lantern slide, the scene changed again. “Sabotage!” Hake shouted. “Get every one those black devils out on deck. Port and starboard watches. Get 'em out. Wake them up. Turn them out! I'll get them out myself …”

  With that he lifted one side of the heavy desk and turned it onto the floor with a horrendous crash. Bottle, glass, sugar bowl, tray—everything went skittering. Orval ran across to help Sulgrave climb back in the window and went down on a wet lime, windmilling backwards as his feet scuttled out from under him. The falling desk had so jarred the frail room that the phonograph needle rasped across the disc, and was just starting over from the beginning when OrvaPs less ponderous thump kicked it out of its groove and started it again.

  Oh, you beau-ti-f ul doll,

  You great big beau-ti-ful … zzzxk …

  Oh, you beau-ti-f ul doll …

  “Start the pumps!” Hake shouted. “Bridge to Damage Control—check bilges for water!”
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br />   Hake hadn't budged from where he was standing. He stood glassy-eyed amid the chaos around him, weaving slighdy and shouting into empty air, his face purple, eyebrows twitching. Dolfus wasn't doing anything yet, but looked ready for whatever might come. Orval picked himself up off the floor. The phonograph continued to spill its cackling lyric out into the starry night.

  Insanity.

  Then the scene changed again. Hake saw Orval, shouted, “Conspiring to break a lawful command. The whole lot of them.” He pulled free a drawer from the desk and raised it over his head, scattering papers all over the room. “A good flogging, that's what …”

  Before he could heave the drawer, Dolfus snatched it out of his hand, but Orval was still ducked to a running crouch when he collided with Big Randy coming in the door. Hake swept Dolfus aside with one powerful sweep of his arm; Dolfus and the empty drawer were slammed hard against the wall; the bungalow boomed like a drum. Zzzxk! For a suspended instant there was utter silence. Nothing moved. Then came the ragtime banjo, the cymbal-shot, and the music started again, from the beginning.

  Oh, you beau-ti-ful doll …

  The Commander had just started around the desk toward the door blocked by Big Randy, when Sulgrave gave up his frantic effort to hoist himself in by the window and started around toward the door on the veranda. As he ran past the window fronting Orval's vegetable garden, he tripped on the wire supporting the string-bean vines and went down. Getting up he glanced in the window for an instant and saw Randy and the Commander swaying in a static embrace and looking for all the world as though they were dancing to the idiot music. But as Sulgrave came around the corner of the veranda, there was an enormous shuffling of feet and a crash as heavy bodies collided with the near wall. Sulgrave heard the boards crunch. Orval flew out the door and off the top step in one bound, his white jacket flapping like a night bird into the gloom, stopped, ran back up the steps to look in. As Sulgrave creaked up the steps behind him, there was total silence inside. Then, inevitably, but this time as though sick from fatigue, the Commander's favorite song began again, winding down from the beginning; and Sulgrave knew that whatever was going to happen, had happened. The Commander's party was over for tonight.