by Gus Lee
I was down six bucks. When I swallowed, I felt the swelling in my neck where Fors’s long arm had caught me. It had taken three hard, vicious rights for me to figure out that he was aiming for my neck, trying to break it. I had grinned at him through my mouthpiece, feeling only fear, unable to swallow spit in a dry mouth. Now my body hurt north to south, east to west, with red neon signs that resisted the hard and honest work of Army APCs, aspirin.
I reviewed tonight’s mnemonic, describing the plan: SSKSMAS—Star, Study, Key, Safe, Mike, Arch, Sonny.
It was Saturday night at the Poker Society, and the gang was here. KDET played “Turn, Turn, Turn,” with the volume knob set at four, and Mike and I studiously avoided eye contact. We were the conspirators, and the others were the chickens. The chickens had us outnumbered. It had taken a federal conspiracy to bring Mike to the Society, the center of bohemia and the war against perfection, ripe with inebriation and the criticism of women and minorities.
My floating ribs spoke to me, complaining that I had not protected them adequately. The fight with the long-armed Gabe Fors, a year older and twenty pounds heavier, had been the fastest three rounds in my life. I’d sit in the corner and the bell would ring. “How about a minute between rounds?” I had asked Mike.
“Been a minute,” he had said. “This is New York. Go get ’im.”
“Where’s your dago friend?” asked Duke.
“Pole-vaulting over fish turds,” I said.
Duke laughed. “Where’s that Vassar gentility, Ting? Or does ‘dago’ fit with your California anti-American bullshit?”
“Sorry. Forgot you’re an asshole,” I said.
Mike kicked me under the table. Cool it.
“Want something real to drink?” asked Colonel Smits gruffly.
“No thanks, sir. I’m on the wagon.” My mouth had a memory of his Glenfiddich. It had been artfully smooth. Could cure all ills, stitch my chest and torso wounds, cauterize my split lip.
“Hurtin’ my feelings, hero,” he said, as he dealt stud.
I started to laugh, and saw that he had been serious.
Bets went around, everyone in. Time to put “Q.E.D.” on the solution page of Operation Benedict Arnold.
Moose Hoggatt played Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66’s moody “Constant Is the Rain” on KDET. For this hairy moment I needed the Army Band and the Official West Point March and everything Beethoven had composed. Mike nodded at Bob Lorbus. Time for star.
“Duke,” said Bob, “remember asking me to get a circled star from Sonny Rappa? Remember I gave it to you?”
Duke looked at Bob, then at me. I was the doofus who ended up with that star and the paper—only when I got it, a whole bandit Juice whufer had been written around it. Bob’s future had been pitched, slow and straight, to Duke’s bat. Duke could implicate Bob as part of a cabal by saying no, or release him with a yes.
Duke leaned back in his chair, huffing, pursing his lips, studying me, then Bob. Oscar Wilde had said that a cynic knew the value of nothing, and the price for everything.
“Yeah,” said Duke. “I remember. I asked you for it. So what?”
“So thanks, buddy,” said Bob, “for remembering.”
That was it. Duke’s words had cleared Bob and Sonny. Troth looked at me: I freed Lorbus and Rappa. Now, pay my price: lay off.
Mike left, then returned. Study-key-safe was next. My turn. Toos had said, “Talk slow, and look ’em in the eye.” I cleared my aching throat. It was a Thayer kind of day. Tom Jones was singing.
“Worried about Juice?” I asked Duke.
Duke raised his eyes to me slowly. I saw Clint look at Duke, his eyes looking for something. No, Clint: don’t look to Duke.
“Hell no,” said Troth. “Strange shit coming from you. All you do is hive Vietnam and play Hardy Hardass on Plebes all over campus. Even knobs who aren’t yours. Still dee in Juice?”
“Yeah, I am. Duke, what’s the key to success in Juice?”
He started to answer, then looked hard at me. I wasn’t playing along for him. I now had king high, and led the betting, going slow. I felt the winds of chance bending to me.
“Nothin’ to it,” he said. “Juice is a breeze.”
“Feel safe,” I said, “with Juice whufers coming?”
“What are you getting at, Kai?” asked Clint, sitting tall.
“Pair of kings,” I said, “bets ten more.” Stay out, Clint.
Clint dropped out, looking tense, his deep dimples sallow. Duke stayed, showing jacks. My kings beat Miles’s queens and I gathered the chips. It was time. Duke was ready, and Smits would do what he would do. The Honor Committee would sort it out.
“Duke,” I asked, “how do you feel about the Honor Code?”
Duke looked at Colonel Smits, waiting for him to say something. Smits lit a cigarette and looked blandly back at Duke.
“Great—super,” Duke said, glancing at the colonel.
“Would you tolerate a violation?” I asked.
“Kai, what are you doing?” asked Clint.
“Would you report yourself for cheating?” I asked.
“You’re gonna get reported for fartin’ dingleberries in the wind,” Duke said.
“Duke,” I said. “Have anything to say to the Honor Committee?”
Cards went down and chairs pushed back in tunes of sour scraping. It was like Chinese music, deep, mournful strings of women’s lament bound by gahng to fathers, husbands, and sons. I felt something strong, old, and traditional, something like China itself, in my veins. A time for moral rectitude. I was on the path of the moral man. Even if I lost, I was in the right. place. “I do not worry about dying. I worry about a life not well lived,” said Uncle Shim. Jacta alea est. P’o fu ch’en chou. Break the pot and sink the boat.
Clint’s mouth had become a light crease in the lower half of his face. He had swallowed his lips.
I looked into Troth’s eyes. “Do you?”
His eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “You’re crazy. Bad crazy. Stop this shit now, Ting.”
I pulled out a notepad and pen, which all good officers carry. “Bob. Help me out. Please note time and date.”
Bob looked at his Rolex. “2003 hours, 23 February 1967,” he said thinly. He and I cleared space on the table.
“Luther Darwin Troth,” I said, “I charge you with two Honor Code violations and one of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I charge you with violating the Code by participating in the theft of an EE 304A WFR from Electrical Engineering, on or about 9 December 1966, at West Point, New York, and of distributing copies of that WFR to other Second Classmen before the review.
“Under the provisions of the UCMJ, I charge you with violating Article 128, Aggravated Battery, in that on 18 February 1967 at West Point, you caused a collision between a bus and Cadet Santino Rappa, on Thayer Road, in order to discourage him from completing an Honor investigation on you. I am obligated to report these accusations and allegations to the Honor Committee, and to the Department of Tactics, for further disposition. Bob?”
“Wait one—got it,” said Bob, scribbling madly.
“How say you, Luther Troth, to these charges?” I asked.
“I say you’re full a crap. Who you tryin’ to be, the first chink Laurence Olivier?”
I thought of Chase Maher. “I don’t want to brag,” I said.
“I didn’t do a goddamn thing,” said Duke. “I’m good in Juice. You—you asshole—you couldn’t figure a Juice writ with Dago Rappa sittin’ in your chair. You’re the asshole who needs to cheat, not me.”
“You’re a thief in the night, ripping off brothers,” I said.
“Actually,” said Mike, “you’re a thief all the time.”
“You’re full a shit,” said Duke, turning on Mike.
Mike shrugged. “Not really. Your focus is misplaced.” He stood, his big chest filling the room, inviting Troth to swing: Clark Gable standing up to Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian challenging Julius
Caesar. Troth blinked. “I need air,” Mike said.
He opened the door. A slender civilian with a bad GI haircut entered as if he had too many feet.
“Gentlemen,” said Mike. “First Lieutenant Tom Baker, an MIT doctorate and member of the Juice faculty. Sir, this is Lieutenant Colonel Smits, post staff, Messrs. Bestier, Brodie, Ting, Lorbus, and Troth. The lieutenant is a PhD draftee. The Pentagon calls him a McNamara Monument.”
“Hello,” said First Lieutenant Baker, waving. No sign of recognition of anyone.
“Lieutenant,” said Mike. “A cadet asked you to stow a ring in the exams safe. Is that cadet in this room?”
Lieutenant Baker studied us. He looked twice at Troth, thinking. He looked at Bob, and Clint, then back to Troth.
“LT, play some poker,” said Smits, hoarsely.
“Uh … no,” Baker said, trying to place Duke Troth.
Smiths banged down a glass, belched long and wet, smiling with his teeth, scratching himself. Baker seemed to see Smits in the reality of his disrepair for the first time. He sniffed the aromas of old food and anxious men. Baker looked again at Duke, then Bob. Both were tall and large. “He could be here.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“Take your time, sir,” I said, smiling, panic in my guts. C’mon, you got a doctorate. You got a brain. Don’t freak ’cause you got Army all around you. The President made you an officer and a gentleman. I bet it was Troth who got you to pop the safe while he scoped the combination. Remember! The LT blinked at me, now trying to figure out why a Chinese guy was in the room. I had distracted him. He looked again, licking his lips nervously, but it was over. He left. He had been our best shot, the strongest of our ducks in a wishful line. No one could’ve been smarter, and he was the only percipient witness that could put Duke in Maher’s office.
“Ting, what the fuck are you doing?” asked Colonel Smits, his voice filtered by the cigarette between his lips.
I tried to swallow the lump of cold defeat in my throat. “You know what I’m doing.”
Smits stood. “What do you mean, yellow soldier?”
I stood. “We got people making up their own rules. Rules for cheating and shoving classmates under buses.” I couldn’t keep my voice flat. “People can’t be screwed with like that—no more.”
“Listen, idiot, people get screwed every day. All you guys are gonna get it in the Nam.” He shook his head, ambled around until he found the Glenfiddich, and banged it on the table. “Ready to quit the bottle again, Ting?” I sat down and he laughed.
There was a thumping in the hallway. Arch Torres stuck his head in the door. “Guys,” he said. He helped Sonny hobble in on crutches. Sonny looked bad. I was afraid he was going to barf on Arch before he could reach Duke. I went to help him.
“Hey,” Sonny gasped, sweat on his brow. “I was doin’ the obstacle course for practice. Good,” he said, as he collapsed in Mike’s chair. “Came here ta test my faith in a loving and forgiving God.” He looked at Duke. “You’re it.” He put down the crutches.
Duke snorted. “Break my fuckin’ heart. Rappa, unass this party and fuck you, in that order. No one invited you.” I moved toward Duke, and Mike stopped me in an iron grip. “Hey—you can invite him to dance, but I can’t?” “Look at Sonny, Kai,” said Mike.
Sonny, who felt like hammered cow feces, was smiling at me. He was doing it sincerely. Sonny had hived the problem. I might never get to dunce Duke Troth, but I smiled, too.
A hard-boned, humorless older man stepped into the room and took off his baseball cap. He looked around sternly, like it was his room and we were all uninvited transients.
“Well, fuck me to tears!” said Smits. “It’s really Joe Schmoe the ragman. Who comes after him, Ann-Margret, or the Pope?”
“Evening, sir,” said the man politely to Colonel Smits, then reached over and gently patted Sonny. “Hey.” He had a deep voice.
“Meet Mr. Sam Marse,” said Sonny thinly. “Senior BP for Bartlett and keeper of the keys. Mr. Marse is a decorated combat veteran of the European Theater of Operations, where he was a tank commander, credited with three Panther and one Tiger tank kill. Mr. Marse, this is…,” and Sonny introduced him to each man.
“Recognize anyone, Mr. Marse?” asked Sonny.
He shook his head. “No, sir,” he said.
I looked at Sonny. Sonny was frowning. He looked confused, then said, “Mr. Marse, you lend any cadets keys to Bartlett last month?” The radio played the Hollies’ “Bus Stop.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “But I wouldn’t lend ’em to anyone but a Plebe. No one in this room,” he said.
Sonny was thinking. “Why’s that, Mr. Marse?”
“Well, with Yearlin’s takin’ physics an’ chemistry, Cows takin’ Juice, an Firsties with or’nance, all them tests in there, wouldn’t be kosher. Plebes don’ have no tests there in January.”
“But you lent them to someone,” said Sonny.
Sam Marse nodded, looking around the room. “Yes, sir. But I don’ see ’im.”
“Fuckin’ dago bug-pecker bullshit!” muttered Duke. “That’s all this is! Get this janitor outa here before someone gets hurt!”
Mr. Marse stiffened. “I’m a barracks policeman, sir, not a janitor.”
“Way to go, Scrounger,” said Smits. “Now you got BPs on your butt.”
“There he is,” said Mr. Marse. “Him.” He pointed.
Mr. Fors entered the room. I stood. “Come in, Gabe.” He entered the Q, as if drawn by Sam Marse’s pointing digit.
“That’s him,” said Marse, studying Fors. “But he looked a lot different.” He looked at Sonny, and at the rumpled room. “Seems you young men are havin’ a great number of accidents.” Marse looked at Sonny again, found an old folding chair, and sat down.
“What happened, Fors?” asked Colonel Smits.
“Sir, I challenged Mr. Ting to meet me in the ring.”
“You go three rounds?” asked Smits.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good for you. Why’s he callin’ you by first name?”
“Sir, after the bout, Mr. Ting recognized me.”
Smits nodded and lit another cigarette. “Interesting.”
Fors looked at me and I tossed him a can of pop. I started to speak and Sonny waved me off. “Gabe,” said Sonny, “you ask Mr. Marse for keys to Bartlett and Major Maher’s office?”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Back off!” cried Troth at me. “Gabriel, don’t let these douchebags screw with you! They’re using you! They don’t give a crap about you. C’mon, buddy! You gotta stick with the Duke. I’ll see you through this.”
Gabe Fors tried to hold his face still.
“Don’t screw this up,” said Troth. “Screw them!” His eyes left Fors and sat on me. “SHUT UP!!” he screamed, fearing I would argue. His jaw muscles articulated, struggling to control his mouth, his breathing. “Look,” he said, his voice quiet, reasonable. “It’s been a helluva day in a long fucking week. Gabriel, we gotta patch you up. We can take care of that back at the company. I’m sorry if this asshole hurt you. We’ll take care of him later.
“Why don’t we all confess to something?” He ran his hand through his dark hair, disturbing the wedge that pointed into the center of his forehead. “We’ve all been sweating rumors about something not square in Juice. Guys, I haven’t done anything wrong. Gabriel here, he hasn’t, either. Now Kai Ting here can run a little parade of horribles, and you can meet civilians in tans, and you can meet old men who are BPs and shot up German tanks, and he’ll probably have Ed Sullivan and Topo Gigio and dancing girls in here next who’ll sit on your lap for a quarter.” He smiled broadly. I thought one of his teeth gleamed.
“Ting’s a little confused. He’s flunking Juice. Can you beat it? A fuckin’ Chinese, flunkin’ Juice. For some reason, he wants to take me down with him. Do I deserve this shit? Negative! I introduced him to the Society. Now I couldn’t get
him laid, but face it—some things you gotta do for yourself.” He looked around the room, smiling, teeth brighter. He was warming up.
“We drank too much,” he said. “Let’s call it a fuckin’ day. Kai, go push your Disneyland crap someplace else.” He paused. “I want all of you to think real hard about what’s coming down here. Let’s give it a rest. Then we’ll meet and talk it over.” He laughed softly. “I’ll give you this. You Chinese people sure have a—”
“STOP IT!” cried Fors in a high, piercing voice, the cords in his neck strained and taut. “STOP LYING! I got the keys for a prank! You said it didn’t involve Honor. That BPs didn’t count—you were going to put the reveille cannon on top of Bartlett. That Rappa was setting you up as a cheat and that it was a ritual to knock a lying cadet into the Newburgh bus and to beat a colored person in the ring—that a Chinese would count.”
He wiped his eyes. He honked loudly into a tissue as he cleared his pipes, unable to look at me or at Mr. Marse. The corners of Fors’s mouth turned violently downward, his lips quivering as he tried to gain control.
“Well,” I said, “I did have a black mother.”
Mr. Marse raised his eyebrows at me.
“Gabriel, Gabriel,” said Duke. “Why do you believe them? Rappa was after me. The asshole wired my room, right above my rack. They were the ones who came over to our company and fuckin’ crawled your ass—and then beat you up. The keys were for a prank.”
“Right, Troth,” said Fors. “The whole goddamm Second Class showed up at the hospital, watching him around the clock. Kids brought Mr. Rappa cards and wives brought him flowers. Shit! They cried when they saw him. You jerk! He’s their Sunday-school teacher. Father Fiala thinks Rappa’s God’s gift. He’s one of those guys in your class who helps others. I keep hearing the bus. This was no prank. You set me up good. Damn near killed one of the best men in the Academy.” He squeezed the can in his hand, baring his teeth, grunting, and the tab popped and soda exploded from it to spatter his uniform and his face and he kept squeezing until it was crushed in his grip. I was glad he hadn’t done that in the ring.