The Devil's Tub

by Edward Hoagland

  The candles shone through Babs’ hands, when she cupped them, with an astonishing pink iridescence. Even Gerry and Fallon could watch their blood move. Fallon said he remembered reading that a candle wouldn’t shine through a dead man’s hand. He suggested they try out the rule. Gerry didn’t like the idea especially, because he’d become still brisker with the bodies since having been told by the colonel that he had a sadistic side too. With the candles glowing before them, however, and not many subjects to talk about, they went in to test if the story were true on a middle-aged corporal from one of the anti-aircraft sites who had been autopsied during the afternoon. He had died in the hospital’s mental wing, the cause of his death, a brain tumor, not having been diagnosed properly. It wouldn’t have been operable, but the doctors had had a sad time, regretting not letting his family visit him and not having fixed him in quiet surroundings.

  Looking down at the man’s face again, holding the hot, dripping candle, Gerry immediately recognized the wrongness of what they were up to. Nobody was eager to unfold the hands—his slowness slowed them all down. The aberrant behavior that had confused the doctors hadn’t left any tokens behind. In a relaxed way the corporal seemed more soldierly than a middle-aged corporal might usually look, and, if he wasn’t too bright, he looked steady. One nostril had widened slightly, as if he were just going to smile a little on that side of his mouth, as if he were with a friend, having finished a hard, marching day, and, pleasurably enough, was just a bit bored. The business was terribly awkward. They were fumbling at it when two starchy MPs, along with the AOD and the MOD and the NCOD, unlocked the door to bring in another body. This interruption seemed to fit in with the silliness of the project so well that for a minute they didn’t realize they were in trouble.

  The Medical Officer of the Day was an intern who had watched the postmortem, and he glanced at Gerry and at the dead corporal with disapproval, nodding goodbye to his colleague, who would take charge. The Administrative Officer, by mischance, was the provost marshal, a most effective major who lived off-post with his family and who wore an insignia mustache.

  “Who are you?”

  “Sir, I work here. I’m in the Pathology Department,” Gerry said.

  “Where are your clothes? You’re not in uniform.”

  “I’m off duty, sir.”

  The major grimaced at what was in front of him, growing leery and clipped. “What is this nonsense? Why are you here then? What are you trying to burn, for heaven’s sake?” He walked quickly through the other three rooms and back.

  “Sir, it looks strange, but it really was nothing particular,” Gerry said, following him at a distance. “We were trying out an old wives’ tale.”

  “You were having a party, I gather. Whose glasses?”

  “We’d heard—we were wondering whether it’s true—that a candle doesn’t shine the same way through a dead man’s hand. I’m sorry. It sounds crazy, I know. We were shining it through,” explained Gerry numbly.

  “Yes, if you work here you know it’s off-limits better than anyone else.”

  Fallon blew out the candle and Gerry helped stow the new arrival onto an icebox tray. The NCOD was the assistant supply sergeant who gave them their clean sheets every week, but he was braced as impersonally as the MPs for the obvious court-martial, as if to witness a ritual ordeal.

  “It’s pretty cut-and-dried, isn’t it?” said the major. He wrote down the time and their names. He sighed, looking around. “See if Captain Bone is still on post, will you, Ashlen? I’m going to get your captain in. We might as well. If you like to burn bodies, you can look at this one. He was a real smart guy. He hasn’t a flashlight and he wants to see if his gas tank is empty, so he looks down the hole with a match.”

  “We weren’t trying to burn anything, sir,” Fallon told him. Gerry explained again that they were testing an old rule of thumb.

  The captain came, with his commission riding lightly on his shoulders, a more adjustable type altogether, but he too screwed up his face at the mess they had gotten themselves into, in their lounging sweaters and all.

  “That’s sheer absolute idiocy. Who was the bright one? Who had the brainstorm? Can’t let anybody off?” He had Babs in mind, but before they could agree, he said, “No, we can’t. It’s a restricted area. She’s not a baby.”

  Wetthall was called because of his prickly reputation where his own section was involved, and he turned up, although they had hoped that he wouldn’t. He listened to the accounts, regarding Gerry with flat dislike and the others assembled with some distaste.

  “Don’t you realize these people when they’re about to get out of the army think that they own the place? It’s a wonder they don’t run many more tests!” He laughed. After first clasping his hands behind him as if he were hearing an irksome speech, when that wasn’t comfortable he stuck them into his pockets instead, and then finally crossed his arms on his chest. He showed none of the ritual air of the NCOs or the duty officer, never mentioned proceedings being taken, and, when the major did, opened his eyes in surprise and averted them as if the notion were news indeed. Gerry, appalled, fighting the sensation off, all at once felt completely saved.

  “It doesn’t quite have the smell of a court-martial situation, Major, would you say? When you compare it with some of the other things, it seems short of the borderline.” He gave a mansion-porch smile, seeing company off.

  Captain Bone stood very straight with his eyebrows raised, so that one’s heart couldn’t help but go out to him; but the provost marshal was a tougher cookie, who also knew how to spread on a smile.

  “It seems to be clear as a clam to me. You’ve got it down like a laundry list. You’ve got the candle, no less, whatever exactly that means. You’ve got the wine. You’ve got the girl in on it. You’ve got the poor corpse inside there. Whether you add them up upside down or right side up it’s still awful funny.” He did a palms up. “I’m responsible, Colonel, and it may look sort of like a bad joke to you and to me, but if the relatives knew they wouldn’t feel the same way.”

  “If the relatives knew there had been an autopsy or if the relatives knew the results of the autopsy, they wouldn’t be pleased. It’s a wretched little piece of history,” Wetthall remarked, touching his gaze along the shelves of specimen jars. In subdued ridicule he turned from there to the crease in the major’s sleeves and the militant line of his shirt front and fly.

  “Well, with all due respect to you, this is my night, sir, I’m afraid. I’m responsible. It seems to be very much cut-and-dried,” said Major Kinsey.

  “If we had a martinet working in here he’d probably be buggering the corpses,” the colonel said softly in his cracked voice. “This is part of my lab. I know the personnel who are concerned. They say they were shining a candle through a dead man’s hand, which is an extraordinarily stupid thing to have been doing, almost beyond belief, and you might have to admit that they’re missing a screw, but it doesn’t impress me as suitable for court-martial action. If Captain Bone chooses to give punishment on the company level, that might be appropriate, but a court-martial action would not be. We can discuss it tomorrow morning with the general if you’d like.”

  He put on a cordial smile. He excused the enlisted men. The major walked away angry, looking more like a colonel than he. Captain Bone went out to his car, amused, maybe vaguely disgusted. Wetthall left for the officers’ billiards room at such a speed Gerry couldn’t keep up with him, which was all he was trying to do, just stay behind him.

  Cowboys

  ZINO’D BEEN THE GATOR WRESTLER since he’d left the Army last spring. Lemkuel’s Hollywood was a pretty good carny. Offered lots of attractions but nothing too big for the trucks or expensive to use. Easy to move; played it cool. The hard part for the wrestler was hopping on him and off because if you know about gators you know they can’t open their mouth once you’re holding it closed—nor the same as the muscles which shut it. That was when the gator’s being calm was important. There’s a
powerful tail also, but this one forgot about his and, as it worked out, only had teeth to eat. Lemkuel told Zino to take some kind of spurs to him to jazzen up the show. Zino told Lemkuel to hire a freak.

  Zino wrestled with the gator, and Spike, his friend, took care of the hyenas, controlled their jitters and made them laugh at the right times. The third guy who was with them, the paratrooper, took care of the carnival’s elephant, gave the towners rides. He did a lot else and so did Spike and so did Zino, but the point is they thought they were tops for handling animals, Frank Buck, Tarzan, and the cat’s meow.

  Lemkuel’s H. was showing Kimberton while the rodeo went on. That’s eastern Oregon, cattle country, pretty famous for its rodeos. Lemky’s H. was there a week day-and-dating with the rodeo when all the people were in town. Wasn’t competition, really, just to get their slough-off, which made a new experience for Spike and Zino and the Trooper, in hick country not to be the grand attraction. May seem silly, but it had to matter, working in a lousy carny, sleeping anywhere, with the numbers stamped indelibly on their shoulders in cattle ink they’d been given by the border cops when the show had zigzagged into Canada to play the suburbs of Vancouver. Beside the rodeo, Lemkuel looked almost the same as the gypsy, nut-game, hotdog stuff that used to creep up near his midway to try for a smidgen of business. And Zino and his friends were on the bum and not true carnies to whom a fleabag three-truck show set up in a vacant lot in Harlem, New York, might be the greatest object of attraction in the city: if the general public didn’t know this, so much the worse for it.

  Spike was a Marine—had been in the Marines—and he was sure he was the toughest thing God made. No, he let the paratrooper be an equal to him. But Spike didn’t cotton to playing second fiddle to that rodeo. Competing cowboys owned the town like Lord and Master. Five-thousand-dollar cars wouldn’t draw a glance if one of them was strolling down the street. Cowboys never brag to strangers, excepting ways like flossy chaps or with their hats, but even silent ways irked Spike. He watched the cowboys all the time. He’d squint. He’d reconnoiter vantage spots where he could watch a bunch of bars and several streets, and not ascared of nothing. A Marine.

  They’re suckers, cowboys, course. Zino had sucker stuff he fiddled with, Chinese charms, and they spent when they won—cowboys don’t get salaries, they win or starve so he had no particular complaint. He was peaceable by nature. But usually in a town people would be asking him and hanging round and being excited. Here, this town, he was s’posed to be the fascinated one and dog them! In a bar the cowboys would be leaning on their arms with all their weight, on account of all their hurts and pains, favoring one leg or the other, and everybody’d want to buy them drinks, breathe their burps, listen for the pearls of wisdom—when the cowboy’d gotten drunk enough to condescend to talk. Women would be saying those fancy shirts they wore were cute as mink. And, because of the rodeo, ordinary, everyday cowboys who never gave Zino any trouble in the other towns got to thinking they were special. Seemed to take an hour to make a quarter off them.

  Spike wore tee shirts covered with the carnival and a mauler-looking leather jacket with LEMKUEL’S HOLLYWOOD CARNIVAL written out in full on it, the whole shebang, and always threw out hints to people as to where he worked. Here it was like he had had on a Wall Street suit. People thought he was different from them, all right, but they paid no attention to him, didn’t give a damn. The cowboys weren’t starting trouble, either on the lot or off it. They kept their fights among themselves—stand still trading punches till one guy’d run low, and that would start the tumbling over tables and the throwing crockery and chairs—bartenders were the ones they hurt, because they’d wreck a bar. But Spike lost weight about them, until finally Spike took Zino and the Trooper to the rodeo.

  Zino’d served his time like anybody’s brother as a draftee, not a Fighting Man. The gator wrestling redeemed him for the other two. And although Zino was proud enough of the carny as carnies went, he knew you had to be a bum to work in one and once he’d started getting some breaks from the world he’d quit—so in the last analysis he wasn’t proud; it wasn’t like a service outfit to him. But Zino was curious, wanted a laugh. He went along for kicks. Spike was deadly serious. Spike suggested it while they were hosing down the bears. “Let’s go to the rodeo.” He emphasized the “go.”

  “When we’re off they wouldn’t be showing either,” Zino said.

  “That don’t matter.”

  Spike thought about the thing all Sunday, and the next day, soon as they finished the morning chores and before the opening for the matinee, he asked again: “You comin’?”

  Zino hardly knew what Spike was talking about—“You comin’?” was all he said—and yet he really couldn’t be excused by that because he had a notion. Even if he didn’t know Spike’s plans he did know Spike. Cowboys were hayseeds, Zino figured. He’d never been worried by hayseeds before, and if a carnie can’t handle the hayseeds he’d better go straight.

  “We’ll see about Airborne,” Spike said.

  Airborne was sleeping on top of his elephant. He liked height. Spike didn’t hesitate to wake him. “Hey, you want to stir some cowboys up?”

  Airborne was down—fast as that. Didn’t wait to be elevatored on the elephant’s trunk. He jumped, and then he scratched his elephant’s tongue. She moved it under his hand like diddling a lollipop.

  “Do we got to clean?” Airborne asked Spike. Watching them was funny. Paint four dots on a piece of metal and you’d have how their eyes looked. Sergeants’ eyes. Zino smiled.

  Spike told him yes. It was risky because Lemkuel spotted people with nothing to do; it would be safer simply to clear out—in that the carnival was like the service—but they always made him wash. Being a good soldier. Airborne kept his clothes and face and armpits clean, but anybody taking care of elephants stinks something terrible. Washing doesn’t do away with it, but you try. Stinks terrible if you don’t like elephants much, which women don’t. They argued about the smell and scrubbed and fooled around so long they had to call in witnesses whose noses still could judge if it was there. Finally let him be. No one happened to think cowboys must stink too; they weren’t going visiting women. It was habit, washing Airborne any time they left the show.

  So now they waited while he got his boots. He’d always fuss. Like putting money in the bank, when you brought Airborne you started off by sacrificing rime, and Spike and him were buddies. The jump boots he had on weren’t freshly polished—”These’re getting crummy.” His second pair was in an airtight plastic sack inside a box inside his trunk, each boot wrapped with felt to prevent scrapes against the other boot, and he was always changing boxes to find one which would “hold up.” He blew at the boots to get off lint, then started in with rags and polish. Spike was sympathetic, but Zino told the guy to hang a sign, Museum Exhibitions.

  When Airborne was through with the rags, the boots were like you’d see on a colonel, and he was only partly done. He spit and used his finger round and round and round laboriously. Then to cement the shine he lit a match. The shine burned in, he took a razor blade and shaved the white-gut laces newly white. They were permanently put in, a special, raised, jump-boot pattern; zippers on the sides were used for getting in and out. He polished the zippers. Zino made faces and began looking forward to going to the rodeo very much. Spike tapped his foot, whistled softly, and stared at trees. Last, Airborne bloused his pant cuffs to the boots with two steel springs which shaped and made them rigid, and with rubber bands. A sergeant’s shine, a sergeant’s boots. Zino snorted.

  “Are we ready?” Spike asked, trying to keep from being sarcastic. He sympathized with soldiering and didn’t want to side with Zino.

  “Wait’ll I look,” Airborne said. “You didn’t give me notice.” Since he wore no shirt he centered his buckle and the fly of his pants with the line of hair down his stomach, and checked that the huge tattoo on his chest wasn’t blurred by hair, was shaven: the head of a screaming eagle, his old outfit’s emblem.


  Zino kidded: “Did the gooks give you notice?” Spike still watched trees.

  “Let’s move out,” Airborne said, satisfied and grinning. He snapped Spike a salute in fun, which Spike returned. None of this pussyfoot, brush-your-forehead-with-your hand an officer would use; a leaping whiplash, an electric motion, an enlisted man’s salute. They stepped off with the thirty-inch step, Spike calling cadence, all regulation. Hup Haupereep Haup. Zino was the slick-sleeve, but they weren’t harassing him; he went along with it. Spike’s lilt and chat and joyousness made it fun, as good as a band for stirring you up. Kosher sergeants: by the book.

  Pretty soon Spike gave them Double Time, letting Airborne do the Airborne Shuffle. Spike was smart, though, and cut it back to Quick Time before Zino thought about the silliness of running; then to Route Step, where they walked as they pleased without cadence. He was a battlefield Marine and he preferred this, quiet and alert, not civilian walking. Put them fifty feet apart on alternate sides of the road with a stride that could last for thirty miles. And as he walked, Spike seemed to clothe himself in solemn battle-green, the aura of war, the time-honored burdens of pack, shovel, and littler gear and crossed, tall weapons—all half-joking; he wasn’t a nut. But he started memories of maneuvers crowding upon Zino. The flares and hammering machine-guns; the trim traced mustaches of the officers; the clap of laughter when the top ones joked; the shadow of a marching file in the afternoon, long on the grass like a moving fence; the First Soldier during the hurricane telling them this was the United States Army and to feel some pride and quit their gripes, and late the worst night (not in the hurricane at all but when he chose to make it) standing erect on one foot in a jeep’s headlights on a roadside post in his tee shirt and muddy pants and boots, telling the two hundred of them: “Yes, you men are troops now. You done good. I don’t swear at men under me, I just run them till their tongues drop out, and the man that falls had better show me blood on him and whites for eyes, because I’ll look. But you’re men now, you boys, and you’re troops. And any of you that were men before are good men now, and troops. You’ve earned your sleep. Fall out.”