They said Curly Waldo was sweet on Mary, but he was a poor Italian. Pink Waldo come of good family and was trying to beat him out. They were pulling for Curly Waldo.
When they left, Slop Chute and me talked over old times in China. I kept seeing him like he was on the John D. Edwards, sitting with a cup of coffee topside by the after fireroom hatch, while his snipes turned to down below. He wore bleached dungarees and shined shoes and he looked like a lord of the earth. His broad face and big belly. The way he stoked chow into himself in the guinea pullman—that’s what give him his name. The way he took aboard beer and samshu in the Kong-moon Happiness Garden. The way he swung the little ne-sans dancing in the hotels on Skibby Hill. Now… Godalmighty! It made me know.
But he still had the big jack lantern grin.
“Remember little Connie that danced at the Palais?” he asked.
I remember her, half Portygee, cute as hell.
“You know, Charley, now I’m headed for scrap, the onliest one damn thing I’m sorry for is I didn’t shack with her when I had the chance.”
“She was nice,” I said.
“She was green fire in the velvet, Charley. I had her a few times when I was on the Monocacy. She wanted to shack and I wouldn’t never do it. Christ, Christ, I wish I did, now!”
“I ain’t sorry for anything, that I can think of.”
“You’ll come to it, sailor. For every guy there’s some one thing. Remember how Connie used to put her finger on her nose like a Jap girl?”
“Now, Mr. Noble, you mustn’t keep arthur awake in quiet hour. Lie down yourself, please.”
It was Mama Death, sneaked up on us.
“Now rest like a good boy, charles, and we’ll have you home ~; before you know it,” she told me on her way out.
I thought a thought at her.
The ward had green-gray linoleum, high, narrow windows, a . spar-color overhead, and five bunks on a side. My bunk was at one end next to the solarium. Slop Chute was across from me in the middle. Six of us was sailors, three soldiers, and there was one marine.
We got mucho sack time, training for the long sleep. The marine bunked next to me and I saw a lot of him.
He was a strange guy. Name of Carnahan, with a pointed nose and a short upper lip and a go-to-hell stare. He most always wore his radio earphones and he was all the time grinning and chuckling like he was in a private world from the rest of us.
It wasn’t the program that made him grin, either, like I thought first. He’d do it even if some housewife was yapping about how to didify the dumplings. He carried on worst during sick call. Sometimes Uncle Death looked across almost like he could hear it direct.
I asked him about it and he put me off, but finally he told me. Seems he could hypnotise himself to see a big ape and then make the ape clown around. He told me I might could get to see it too. I wanted to try, so we did.
“He’s there,” Carnahan would say. “Sag your eyes, look out the corners. He won’t be plain at first.
“Just expect him, he’ll come. Don’t want him to do anything.
You just feel. He’ll do what’s natural,” he kept telling me.
I got where I could see the ape—Casey, Carnahan called him—in flashes. Then one day Mama Death was chewing out Mary and I saw him plain. He come up behind Mama and—I busted right out laughing.
He looked like a bowlegged man in an ape suit covered with red-brown hair. He grinned and made faces with a mouth full yellow teeth and he was furnished like John Keeno himself. I roared.
“Put on your phones so you’ll have an excuse for laughing,” Carnahan whispered. “Only you and me can see him, you know.”
Fixing to be dead you’re ready for God knows what, but Casey was sure something.
“Hell no, he ain’t real,” Carnahan said. “We ain’t so real ourselves any more. That’s why we can see him.”
Carnahan told me okay to try and let Slop Chute in on it. It ended we cut the whole gang in, going slow so the masks wouldn’t get suspicious.
It bothered Casey at first, us all looking at him. It was like we all had a string on him and he didn’t know who to mind. He backed and filled and tacked and yawed all over the ward not able to steer himself. Only when Mama Death was there and Casey went after her, then it was like all the strings pulled the same way.
The more we watched him the plainer and stronger he got till finally he started being his own man. He came and went as he pleased and we never knew what he’d do next except that there’d be a laugh in it. Casey got more and more there for us, but he never made a sound.
He made a big difference. We all wore our earphones and giggled like idiots. Slop Chute wore his big sideways grin more often. Old Webster almost stopped griping.
There was a man filling in for a padre came to visitate us every week. Casey would sit on his knee and wiggle and drool, with one finger between those strong, yellow teeth. The man said the radio was a Godsend to us patient spirits in our hour of trial. He stopped coming.
Casey made a real show out of sick call. He kissed Mama Death smack on her mask, danced with her and bit her on the rump. He rode piggy back on Uncle Death. He even took a hand in Mary’s romance.
One Waldo always went in on each side of a bunk to look, listen, and feel for Uncle. Mary could go on either side. We kept count of whose side she picked and how close she stood to him. That’s how we figured Pink Waldo was ahead.
Well, Casey started to shoo her gently in by Curly Waldo and then crowd her closer to him. And, you know, the count began to change in Curly’s favor. Casey had something.
If no masks were around to bedevil, Casey would dance and turn handsprings. He made us all feel good.
Uncle Death smelled a rat and had the radio turned off during sick call and quiet hours. But he couldn’t cut off Casey.
Something went wrong with Roby, the cheerful black boy next to Slop Chute. The masks were all upset about it and finally Mary come told him on the sly. He wasn’t going to make it. They were going to flunk him back to the big ward and maybe back to the world.
Mary’s good that way. We never see her face, of course, but I always imagine for her a mouth like Venus has, in that picture you see her standing in the shell.
When Roby had to go, he come around to each bunk and said goodbye. Casey stayed right behind him with his tongue stuck out. Roby kept looking around for Casey, but of course he couldn’t see him.
He turned around, just before he left the ward, and all of a sudden Casey was back in the middle and scowling at him. Roby stood looking at Casey with the saddest face I ever saw him wear. Then Casey grinned and waved a hand. Roby grinned back and tears run down his black face. He waved and shoved off.
Casey took to sleeping in Roby’s bunk till another recruit come in.
One day two masked orderlies loaded old Webster the whiner onto a go-to-Jesus cart and wheeled him off to X-ray. They said. But later one came back and wouldn’t look at us and pushed Webster’s locker out and we knew. The masks had him in a quiet room for the graduation exercises.
They always done that, Slop Chute told me, so’s not to hurt the morale of the guys not able to make the grade yet. Trouble was, when a guy went to X-ray on a go-to-Jesus cart he never knew till he got back whether he was going to see the gang again.
Next morning when Uncle Death fell in for sick call Casey come bouncing down the ward and hit him a haymaker plumb on the mask.
I swear the bald-headed bastard staggered. I know his glasses fell off and Pink Waldo caught them. He said something about a moment of vertigo, and made a quick job of sick call. Casey stayed right behind him and kicked his stern post every step he took.
Mary favored Curly Waldo’s side that day without any help from Casey.
After that Mama Death really got ugly. She slobbered loving care all over us to keep us knowing what we was there for. We got baths and back rubs we didn’t want. Quiet hour had to start on the dot and be really quiet. She was always reading Mary o
ff in whispers, like she knew it bothered us.
Casey followed her around aping her duck waddle and poking her behind now and again. We laughed and she thought it was at her and I guess it was. So she got Uncle Death to order the routine temperatures taken rectally, which she knew we hated. We stopped laughing and she knocked off the rectal temperatures. It was a kind of unspoken agreement. Casey give her a worse time than ever, but we saved our laughing till she was gone.
Poor Slop Chute couldn’t do anything about his big, lopsided grin that was louder than a belly laugh. Mama give him a real bad time. She arthured the hell out of him.
He was coming along first rate, had another hemorrhage, and they started taking him to the clinic on a go-to-Jesus cart instead of a chair. He was supposed to use ducks and a bedpan instead of going to the head, but he saved it up and after lights out we used to help him walk to the head. That made his reflection in the chart wrong and got him in deeper with Uncle Death.
I talked to him a lot, mostly about Connie. He said he dreamed about her pretty often now.
“I figure it means I’m near ready for the deep six, Charley.”
“Figure you’ll see Connie then?”
“No. Just hope I won’t have to go on thinking about her then. I want it to be all night in and no reveille.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too. What ever become of Connie?”
“I heard she ate poison right after the Reds took over Shanghai. I wonder if she ever dreamed about me?”
“I bet she did, Slop Chute,” I said. “She likely used to wake up screaming and she ate the poison just to get rid of you.”
He put on a big grin.
“You regret something too, Charley. You find it yet?”
“Well, maybe,” I said. “Once on a stormy night at sea on the Black Hawk I had a chance to push King Brody over the side. I’m sorry now I didn’t.”
“Just come to you?”
“Hell, no, it come to me three days later when he give me a week’s restriction in Tsingtao. I been sorry ever since.”
“No. It’ll smell you out, Charley. You wait.”
Casey was shadow boxing down the middle of the ward as I shuffled back to my bunk.
It must’ve been spring because the days were longer. One night, right after the nurse come through, Casey and Carnahan and me helped Slop Chute walk to the head. While he was there he had another hemorrhage.
Carnahan started for help but Casey got in the way and motioned him back and we knew Slop Chute didn’t want it.
We pulled Slop Chute’s pajama top off and steadied him. He went on his knees in front of the bowl and the soft, bubbling cough went on for a long time. We kept flushing it. Casey opened the door and went out to keep away the nurse.
Finally it pretty well stopped. Slop Chute was too weak to stand. We cleaned him up and I put my pajama top on him, and we stood him up. If Casey hadn’t took half the load, we’d’a never got him back to his bunk.
Godalmighty! I used to carry hundred-kilo sacks of cement like they was nothing.
We went back and cleaned up the head. I washed out the pajama top and draped it on the radiator. I was in a cold sweat and my face burned when I turned in.
Across the ward Casey was sitting like a statue beside Slop Chute’s bunk.
Next day was Friday, because Pink Waldo made some crack about fish to Curly Waldo when they formed up for sick call. Mary moved closer to Curly Waldo and gave Pink Waldo a cold look. That was good.
Slop Chute looked waxy, and Uncle Death seemed to see it because a gleam come into his wooden eyes. Both Waldoes listened all over Slop Chute and told Uncle what they heard in their secret language. Uncle nodded, and Casey thumbed his nose at him.
No doubt about it, the ways was greased for Slop Chute. Mama Death come back soon as she could and began to loosen the chocks. She slobbered arthurs all over Slop Chute and flittered around like women do when they smell a wedding. Casey gave her extra special hell, and we all laughed right out and she hardly noticed.
That afternoon two orderly-masks come with a go-to-Jesus cart and wanted to take Slop Chute to X-ray. Casey climbed on the cart and scowled at them.
Slop Chute told “em shove off, he wasn’t going.
They got Mary and she told Slop Chute please go, it was doctor’s orders.
Sorry, no, he said.
“Please, for me, Slop Chute,” she begged.
She knows our right names—that’s one reason we love her. But Slop Chute shook his head, and his big jaw bone stuck out.
Mary—she had to then—called Mama Death. Mama waddled in, and Casey spit in her mask.
“Now arthur, what is this, arthur, you know we want to help you get well and go home, arthur,” she arthured at Slop Chute. “Be a good boy now, arthur, and go along to the clinic.”
She motioned the orderlies to pick him up anyway. Casey hit one in the mask and Slop Chute growled, “Sheer off, you bastards!”
The orderlies hesitated.
Mama’s little eyes squinted and she wiggled her hands at them. “Let’s not be naughty, arthur. Doctor knows best, arthur.”
The orderlies looked at Slop Chute and at each other. Casey wrapped his arms and legs around Mama Death and began chewing on her neck. He seemed to mix right into her, someway, and she broke and run out of the ward.
She come right back, though, trailing Uncle Death. Casey met him at the door and beat hell out of him all the way to Slop Chute’s bunk. Mama sent Mary for the chart, and Uncle Death studied Slop Chute’s reflection for a minute. He looked pale and swayed a little from Casey’s beating.
He turned toward Slop Chute and breathed in deep and Casey was on him again. Casey wrapped his arms and legs around him and chewed at his mask with those big yellow teeth. Casey’s hair bristled and his eyes were red as the flames of hell.
Uncle Death staggered back across the ward and fetched up against Carnahan’s bunk. The other masks were scared spitless, looking all around, kind of knowing.
Casey pulled away, and Uncle Death said maybe he was wrong, schedule it for tomorrow. All the masks left in a hurry except Mary. She went back to Slop Chute and took his hand.
“I’m sorry, Slop Chute,” she whispered.
“Bless you, Connie,” he said, and grinned. It was the last thing I ever heard him say.
Slop Chute went to sleep, and Casey sat beside his bunk. He motioned me off when I wanted to help Slop Chute to the head after lights out. I turned in and went to sleep.
I don’t know what woke me. Casey was moving around fidgety-like, but of course not making a sound. I could hear the others stirring and whispering in the dark too.
Then I heard a muffled noise—the bubbling cough again, and spitting. Slop Chute was having another hemorrhage and he had his head under the blankets to hide the sound. Carnahan started to get up. Casey waved him down.
I saw a deeper shadow high in the dark over Slop Chute’s bunk. It came down ever so gently and Casey would push it back up again. The muffled coughing went on..
Casey had a harder time pushing back the shadow. Finally he climbed on the bunk straddle of Slop Chute and kept a steady push against it.
The blackness came down anyway, little by little. Casey strained and shifted his footing. I could hear him grunt and hear his joints crack. -
I was breathing forced draft with my heart like to pull off its bed bolts. I heard other bedsprings creaking. Somebody across from me whimpered low, but it was sure never Slop Chute that done it.
Casey went to his knees, his hands forced almost level with his head. He swung his head back and forth and I saw his lips curled back from the big teeth clenched tight together… Then he had the blackness on his shoulders like the weight of the whole world.
Casey went down on hands and knees with his back arched like a bridge. Almost I thought I heard him grunt… and he gained a little.
Then the blackness settled heavier, and I heard Casey’s tendons pull out and his bones snap. Casey and Slo
p Chute disappeared under the blackness, and it overflowed from there over the whole bed… and more… and it seemed to fill the whole ward.
It wasn’t like going to sleep, but I don’t know anything it was like.
The masks must’ve towed off Slop Chute’s bulk in the night, because it was gone when I woke up.
So was Casey.
Casey didn’t show up for sick call and I knew then how much he meant to me. With him around to fight back I didn’t feel as dead as they wanted me to. Without him I felt deader than ever. I even almost liked Mama Death when she charlesed me.
Mary came on duty that morning with a diamond on her third finger and a brighter sparkle in her eye. It was a little diamond, but it was Curly Waldo’s and it kind of made up for Slop Chute.
I wished Casey was there to see it. He would’ve danced all around her and kissed her nice, the way he often did. Casey loved Mary.
It was Saturday. I know, because Mama Death come in and told some of us we could be wheeled to a special church hooraw before breakfast next morning if we wanted. We said no thanks. But it was a hell of a Saturday without Casey. Shakey Brown said it for all of us—“With Casey gone, this place is like a morgue again.”
Not even Carnahan could call him up.
“Sometimes I think I feel him stir, and then again I ain’t sure,” he said. “It beats hell where he’s went to.”
Going to sleep that night was as much like dying as it could be for men already dead.
Music from far off woke me up when it was just getting light. I was going to try to cork off again, when I saw Carnahan was awake.
“Casey’s around somewhere,” he whispered.
“Where?” I asked, looking around. “I don’t see him.”
“I feel him,” Carnahan said. “He’s around.”
The others began to wake up and look around. It was like the night Casey and Slop Chute went under. Then something moved in the solarium…
It was Casey.
He come in the ward slow and bashful-like, jerking his head all around, with his eyes open wide, and looking scared we was going to throw something at him. He stopped in the middle of the ward.
The Dark Side Page 16