Selections

by Theodore Sturgeon

  He cut off the road near town and come to it through woods like he liked to. There was a factory there where they made paper boxes and kraft bags out of yellow pine that grows like a weed on worked-out cotton land. There was a railroad siding. There was a little shack there with a watchman. That there watchman had George's father's face. That watchman was drunk, he smelled of sweat and dirty skin and cheap liquor just like the father, he yelled at George sudden the same old way, like he did not have to draw breath, it was there ready for yelling.

  That whole thing was too much for George and so he slid back into the woods and he roamed around in there for a long time, three, four days. He never did remember. He did not eat sleep probably not even a drink of water. One thing came clear later like a picture, it was the cave and the smell of their blanket and Anna sitting by him crying. Whatever else really happened is only what he was told. Anna brought him back to Aunt Mary's place. He was weak and sick and he had a bad fever, and how she took him so far is a miracle but then she was pretty strong.

  He was sick a week, just laying there in his room and not saying nothing even when he got well enough to. Aunt Mary explained about Uncle Jim as much as she could, especially when he was not around to hear her. She said he was a little man through and through and always was mad at a big man just for that. She even told him they had quarreled, her and Uncle Jim, about George. He never really said there was funny business but he said she looked at big old George with his yellow hair and his muscles in a way that she should not even if she did not know it herself. And also Uncle Jim was no spring chicken no more. So when you added it up it was a high heap, Uncle Jim was mad at him because he was young, because women thought he was good looking, because he was strong, because his wife liked-him, and on top of all that because he could not figure him out, you cannot when a guy never says anything. So to cream it off on the top is, Uncle Jim thought that night with the skunk he was laughing at him. George was not laughing at him. A thing like that is funny but not when you are there.

  Uncle Jim never said he was sorry or anything but Aunt Mary said he was and George believed her. Uncle Jim just never mentioned it again and you would not believe it but things went on like before. But you have to remember George was used to all hell breaking loose and then everything just going on again, from he was a child. Maybe things was even a little better than before. Uncle Jim, he had shot himself a big lump and it was slow to fill up again, also he must be trying to hold off from that type thing he was not proud of. It did not really make much difference to George, he was used to it, and Aunt Mary was as kind as she could be while scared of what Uncle Jim said about liking George too much. But it really was better and no fooling with George and Anna, because it done Anna a lot of good to take care of him that once when he could not help himself, and it done George good too. There was many a time when George thought back to that, cuts and fever and the whole thing, it was what a guy really wants all the way down inside--to have your fill, to be safe with someone taking care, and just to quit thinking.

  Everything smoothed over like that until George was nineteen and Anna got sick.

  The only good thing about it was George knew why she was sick, she was knocked up, that is why. If she just did not show up and he got to hanging around her pa's place asking, it would of been even worse a mess. Because he was never sure but he thought they knew what was wrong with her and you can bet they were crazy trying to figure out who was the guy. They was a stiff-neck bunch, her folks, and they would not let it get around but all the same, any guy around asking after her would of been on the spot. So it was a good thing he knew and could stay away. She was sick already when she told him. She was throwing up all the time, they call it morning sickness but this did not need mornings, she could not hold nothing on her stomach any time. She missed her period two times already, well, he knew that really before she did, she never used to keep track. So when she stopped showing up after chores it was because she had to stay in bed sick That was only a nuisance at first but when it got to be two weeks, four and six and seven, it was hard to take. George had grew to need Anna, he could not get along very easy without he saw her. And he begun to worry either she was so sick she would not get better and then what would he do? or she was getting better or was even better already but she was mad and not taking no more chances with him. Either one of these ideas he could not stand and he hopped from one to the other all the time. And he had to admit in spite of these years he was seeing her he really did not know her well enough to know if she would dump him over such a thing as that.

  What he did besides worry was to hate that little bugger inside her. Even if it was only a baby or less that made it worse. There it was warm and fed all the time with nothing to do or even think about while George had to do without. Like if Anna had some other fellow and George had to lose out to another guy that was stronger or smarter or richer or something, well he might be sore and sad too but at least the guy who beat him out was something, was more some ways than George. But this animal in her, growing like some sort of big wart or something inside her, it was a real nothing, but it beat him out hands down without even trying, without even knowing he was there. And it was the only thing he ever got mad at her for, what did she want to get herself knocked up for, he could have done without that, it was just her wanted it and now look.

  He used to see to his traps, he went back to hunting again a whole lot, and then he would go to the cave and set there and whittle with his sheath knife and the only thing he did was hating that thing inside of her.

  Which is how he come to join the army, because things got so bad he could not sleep or nothing, he had that hot in his stomach almost all the time and it was harder and hard to get rid of. It was like word got around in the woods, everything gone from there, rabbits, coons, chucks, even chipmunk and mice, and what was left was skinny and runty. But he was kidding himself. One time with the biggest fattest possum he ever did see he felt the same way.

  Still he took to looping out wider and wider, he did not know what he was looking for but just thought he might find it somewhere else if he could not find it around home. And it was in the middle of the summer he found a beaver lodge way up the hills and went to work on a deadfall, it would have to be a big one because beaver is hard to hold. And he always always set traps where nobody ever went, this was not to save anybody any trouble, it was just no sense at all to set traps where people was slamming around yelling and jabbering. There is not one man in eight hundred dozen knows how to be quiet anywhere, let alone woods, that is what is mostly wrong with people. So anyway he come back the next day to this deadfall by the beaver lodge and here was a damn little snotnose kid caught up by the leg. Well this made George so damn mad it is funny but so damn mad he felt better. You get that mad when you are all like lost and mixed up, you do not feel lost any more at least while you are mad. He clobbered that kid good for tripping the deadfall, the kid was for him the kid growing in Anna and pushing him out of the way, he could hit out at the kid at last.

  The next day he went to town and saw the man at the post office and the first thing Aunt Mary knew about it was when he brought back the papers for her to sign, he was on his way. It come so sudden she and Uncle Jim did not know what to say even, she kind of puddled up and Uncle Jim just kept on saying Well whaddaye know, well whaddaye know, and when George was in his store clothes he said Son all we did was the best we could. George he just smiled that smile he had when he did not know what to say, and he took off.

  VI

  Well they say a lot about the army it is no good, it is hurry up and wait, it is this lousy army, this goddam army. Well I am here to tell you there is lots of guys get a better deal in the army they ever got before, there is a lot of them griping the worst never had a word to say before they got the wrinkles out of their belly the first time in their whole lives. There is better grub than army grub but army grub is a whole lot better than a lot of these guys ever saw before at least that regular. And you
would be surprised how many guys never in their whole life got enough sleep week in week out and kept themselves clean before. You do what they tell you and never volunteer, and you find you got a life. You want to worry, go ahead, but it will be all peanuts and chicken spit you are worrying about, the big things is all thought out for you, you do not have to worry yourself. I said this before and I will have to say it again, when you come right down to it there is not a thing a man needs than a way to fill his belly and let somebody take care of all his thinking, he don't have to if he don't want to. And if that is not the army through and through I do not know what is.

  For once in his life George figured he done the right thing. He was sorry sometimes he could not see Anna but whatever happened to her she was not alone in the world and she would be all right unless she died and then what can you do. Anyway for the two-year hitch and training and motor mechanic school George had everything he wanted and for once some money besides. It was the state school all over again for him only bigger and easier too. When he come to the school he had to spend a long time learning what to do and what not, but in the army he already knew, he knew better than a lot of guys who never lived in a dormitory or a barracks before. He did not bother with nobody and nobody bothered with him, he was still a big guy who kept his mouth shut which is the recipe for getting left alone if you want to.

  Time come to re-enlist he did, you know he did not even take his furlough but just hung around the base, it was in California. And it could be he fell in this slot people are always falling in, getting the idea that things are going to go on like they are forever. Well they aint.

  First a lot of rumors and you know how to shuck off rumors, but what really happened was one of the rumors you shucked off. The whole outfit shipped overseas. Some said it was a war and some a police action and I guess it was a big joke to some of them.

  For George it was bad, there was nobody to talk to about it and he would not know what to say if he did. He moved around a lot in the army, Louisiana, New Jersey, Michigan, California, but no move was like this move. And that old hot place come back to him in his gut, and there was not much he could do about it. Overseas it was not so easy to go off hunting and there was not much to hunt if you did. And there was none of this trading passes and easy coming and going. Everything was laced up a notch, tight.

  Then there was drilling and that never bothered George, but this one day it was on the airstrip and these three C-119s came in with casualties and they told off infantrymen for stretcher-bearers. They took out one hundred and sixty three stretcher cases altogether and you see this and you hear this and you are never the same again.

  All you can say about the way George felt is he was a little kid again he was going to get for something he did or for nothing. The father would do it but the father coming home, even coming home drunk, did not mean he would get hit just then. The only thing you could be sure of was getting hit, that was going to happen and no fooling. You just never knew when, that is all. And George with the school and the farm, but especially the army, George had like grown away from all that, it was dead and gone and past so forget it. And then these casualties, they were for real. So getting hit for sure, but you don't know just when--here it was again. And here it always had been. George thought he left it behind, well he did not. And maybe tonight and maybe next week you would go over there where they made stretcher cases out of men. And when you went maybe you would not get yours tonight or next week, but get it you pos-i-loot-ly would.

  George was not the only one felt this way and he knew it. Some laughed and talked louder and ran faster and did everything heavier and some slunk off every chance they got and sat and looked worried, and some spent all their time figuring out how to get loose just one time and get especially drunk. But George, there was only one thing he wanted and needed and he began to think of Anna, think of Anna like he never did before, think of Anna so much he could almost smell Anna the way she was, warm.

  And there was not nothing he could do about it, that was the worst. So what he done was as hard as anything he ever did because he never done it before, he decided to write a letter. It must have took him four days to write that letter and most of the time was just sitting looking at the paper. Then he wrote his letter and that was that, it did not make him feel no better but it was all he could think of to do and he done it and there was nothing more he could do. And nobody else knew how he felt. He never was a talker. When somebody talked to him about getting shipped over, he would just smile. I guess nobody really knew at all.

  Then one day they called him to see this doctor, this colonel. And he went and that is where I began this story. Phil said I could begin it any place as long as I explained whatever I said.

  Well old George Smith just went stateside and he clammed up like he never did in his life before, and when you come down to it it is a good idea nobody bothered with him once they welded him into that tank. Because he was away down deep crazy mad at first. Not crazy, crazy mad, there is a big difference. So anyone pushing at him when he felt that way he would of just got stubborn maybe fight some more. But a crazy mad is like a fire, you shut it up by itself for long enough it is just naturally going to go out.

  So one day the door opened and the guard let in this doctor, only he was just a sergeant and not very big. Bigger than Uncle Jim but not very big. And he had black bushy hair and glasses and he right away said he was a doctor all right but call him Phil and how did he feel. And George could of broke him in two over his knee or snapped him like a rattlesnake when you want to break his neck you got no stick, but Phil just waved at the guard go away, and the guard locked him in and Phil sat down near him on the bed and handed cigarettes although this George Smith never did smoke he wished he did.

  So Phil was smoking and keeping his mouth shut and George Smith begun to feel easier and finally Phil asked him what did he want most of all and George said Out. And Phil asked Why. And George was surprised at this but if it was a stupid question Phil did not look stupid. So George said, To go back to his girl and get married. Because George knew now of all the places in the world he could go to, it would have to be next to Anna, she knew what he was and she liked it too and nobody else ever would. And he did not want the army no more not after those stretcher cases.

  Then Phil told him he could get out but he would have to do just what Phil said. And George Smith, he was ready to climb the wall and hang off the ceiling if Phil said to. I have to say here that I trust Phil. He wants me out, I am sure of that. I also don't think he wants this writing of mine to be nothing but the truth. He has got nothing to sell, not to me or to anybody who reads this. I would not believe that at first but I do now.

  So he told me to write the story of my life and I said I did not know how or even where to begin and he said begin anywhere but be sure you explain everything. He said like a movie or a comic where they start outa guy is an old man and go back to what happened earlier if I wanted to. Just as long as I wrote down everything important so he could understand me better. And he told me if there was trouble getting started then write it about somebody else, because he said that is a good way to back off from yourself, you remember better. So after he went I started in, I made up the name George Smith and he is right. I wrote all the rest of that day and from then on I did not do nothing but write as long as there was any light, and he come back two other times but I was not finished.

  So this is the story and it is all true and it is all I can remember. I done the best I could. I do not know why I am here or why I was shipped stateside here to this nut factory instead of the can for just hitting an officer. I am not crazy, anyone is who thinks so. All I want is out. I want out of here and I want out of the army, I had enough. All I want is to go back to my girl, we will get married and leave there or maybe a farm some place. Or a store.

  VII

  Here is another of the letters with the letterhead discarded.

  Looneybin Lane O-R

  Orgonia, Ore. Feb 26


  Dear Phil, dammit:

  With all I've got to do I have been sitting here pulling on my lower lip and wondering what to say to you. I'm going to tell you right at the start that when I first got that bundle of paper from you and determined it wasn't the Sunday Chronicle complete with the spring fashions supplement, I was mad as hell. And I suppose I still am. And I began by feeling that "George Smith" should be thrown out of that maniac's motel of yours, and I wound up feeling the same way. But you made me laugh.

  Well of course, you stinking psychologist you. Anything you might have said to me I'd've spit in your eye for, after all this time. If I thought about you and "George" at all, I thought no news is good news and you'd finished with it. Then you send me his autobiography with no comment at all, just nothing.

  So ruefully, it is to laugh. I know what you're up to. You want me to react, i. e. think. Now you know damn well an administrator doesn't have time to think any more than he has time to plow through a testament like this. You also know me well enough to know I’d leaf through it and get hauled in and then go back and start over and hit every word. And be impressed by the effort that went into it, not excluding your pecking it all out on the typewriter. (What's the matter--haven't you got enough work to do?) (Seriously, Phil, I know you did it instead of sleeping and cut that out: I need you. You're going to kill yourself.)

  Now about the biography. I am doubtless much more impressed by the pathetic horror of it than a case-hardened character like you. I am also impressed by this kid's descriptive ability. I don't know how a fourth-grade English teacher would parse some of his sentences (like his description of the weathered knot of wood in the boat's side: "...you see things like that sometimes that though they do not move your eye keeps going into and out of and around and back again there are two spirals of hair on a cat's back that way.") but I never failed to get exactly what he meant. And aside from the one or two real insights he comes up with, as for example that discussion on sex and the machine-precise, almost delicate distinction he draws between Satisfy and Relieve, I am impressed by the completeness of his story. To this jaundiced eye he has left out nothing of significance; his portrait of himself is filled in to a substantial solid and contains no appreciable holes. What he has left out, like the exact details of his sex techniques with Anna, shouldn't bother anyone except a grubby clinician like yourself who is beyond the reach of the chivalrous asterisk.