Buddy, by his association with Jack, had unwittingly found his “in.” Had he not had Jack to introduce him, to smooth the way for him and his camera, he might have found the doors of Naples shutting politely in his face. Buddy was raw—he’d been brought up graceless, and he rubbed people the wrong way. He addressed them by their first names before proper introductions had been made; he seemed unacquainted with the mysteries of conversation. His speech was unmusical, all the words running together without emphasis. There was no richness to him. But doors opened to him because of Jack: everyone knew Jack, if not everyone approved of him; and they permitted the gawky unskilled boy to clamber around their living rooms with his heavy equipment. They talked to him, while hot lights shone in their eyes; afterward, he barely thanked them, just packed together his equipment and left. Buddy was a charmless rapist, taking Naples for all he could, trading on its hospitality and on the unaccountable friendship he had forged with Jack.
I didn’t understand why Jack tolerated him, but I supposed that Jack was amused by him, and Jack liked to be amused. There was something in his attitude as he squired Buddy around that put me in mind of the man who has a favorite joke, one he will always tell, one he never tires of telling; one that grows longer and more complicated, and, incredibly, funnier with each repetition. Buddy was Jack’s favorite joke, and we his audience.
I avoided them, for the most part, although Buddy seemed keen on me and flopped up to me in Stokes’s with his arrogant pedigree-pup style, hoping to pin me down for a session in front of his camera.
“I’d really like to get you on film,” was the way he put it, and there was something predatory in his manner, something eager that made me queasy. I imagined myself pressed onto celluloid and threaded onto a reel in Buddy’s projector. I demurred.
“Wal now,” was what I said. “It’s a little late to be starting a career in the movies.” Some old-boy nonsense that went over well. To Buddy, it was one and the same if you worked in the mines or tuned pianos for a living; the world for him was split into two masses: the college educated and the ignorant poor. He didn’t see the texture in the rest of the world, and he bought my down-home obtuseness whole, with that air of suppressed impatience with which he treated all of us at times, even Jack.
Buddy’s expression dimmed at my refusal.
“If it’s your—you know, well, your—impediment,” he said, “you don’t have to worry. The editing process—”
“Folks are lining up for you,” I said. “Don’t waste your,” and I swallowed the last of my beer. “Time with me.” Cutting him off without seeming to, giving a good-natured laugh, ordering another beer, turning away.
I was getting as good at pretending as Joan, I realized; it wasn’t as difficult as I had thought.
I met Joan when I was eighteen, fresh on leave from the army, my scalp showing through my regulation haircut, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself. I had joined up in direct defiance of my father, who wanted me to go to college. I had been offered a scholarship, but I told myself that academics bored me; that I couldn’t face another four years of book learning; that I had always lived in Naples, had always been smart and weak, with my nose in a book. I longed for the change which I thought was due me. The propaganda of my youth had been funded by war, and naturally my thoughts turned to the military as an alternative to higher education. I craved the uniform, the respect, the soldier’s physique, his fearlessness. I went to a recruitment center to investigate.
“Make a man out of you,” the sergeant behind the desk said, when I walked in. Shrewdly, he had seen to the very soul of my weakness. “I bet your dad was a military man.”
“Yessir,” I said. “He was in the”—I coughed—“Great War.”
“Bet he told you all kinds of stories,” said the sergeant, his brow wrinkling up. Had my coughing fit fooled him? I merely nodded, not about to risk another slip.
“Sure he did,” said the sergeant. “And let me tell you, son: every one of them is true.”
Actually, my father had made only one mention of his wartime experience in my hearing; a most casual remark, it was delivered to me one winter evening as we sat in front of the fire.
“You find out who your friends are, in the trenches,” he’d said. “By God, that’s the only time you ever know.”
He never mentioned the war again and seldom referred to his wound, although I knew it bothered him during the change of seasons. For him, as for Jack, war seemed to be an essentially private experience, not to be traded on or displayed.
When my father found out I’d enlisted, he was furious. I had never seen him angry, and was perplexed at first by the changes in him: the cords standing out in his neck, the vessel beating at his temple. His face went slowly dark; and the intensity of his emotion made him uncommonly vocal.
“You belong in school,” he said.
“You joined up,” I argued.
“That was different,” he said, with effort. “It was a crisis then. There’s no war on; no need.”
“Peacetime defense is as important as war,” I said.
Beyond speech, he said nothing and slashed at the pork chop on his plate. I glanced at him during the rest of the meal, uneasy with my victory.
That weekend, Ellen arrived for a visit, leaving the new baby with the housekeeper and making the two-hour journey by train. She arrived mid-morning on Saturday, and that day’s dinner was filled with her gentle chatter, all about the baby and Marshall, her husband, and the prices of things in the city. It was all very natural; there were no sly glances my way; no hint of conspiracy. Still, I wasn’t fooled. After dinner, we all gathered in the living room.
Ellen had brought needlework; she spread the fabric across her lap and fussed with her wicker sewing basket. Her head down, her fingers on a spool, she said, “You wouldn’t believe how much thread costs in the city.” Without looking up, she continued, “But I expect you’ll soon be finding out for yourself what it’s like, Gillie.”
“No, I won’t,” I said abruptly, irritated by the baby nickname.
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at me now, eyes wide.
“Stop pretending,” I said, rudely. “Dad told you everything, didn’t he?”
“Told me—” she began, when our father interrupted her.
“It’s all right, Ellen,” he said. To me, he said, “Thought you might listen to her.”
“He did mention it,” said Ellen, still sewing. Then she dropped her hands into her lap. “Oh, let’s just be honest with each other. What’s this about the army?”
“I signed up,” I said.
“You actually signed?” she asked, as if holding out some hope.
I nodded. “In ink,” I said.
They began then, their gentle harassing, Ellen wheedling me from one side and my father bullying me from the other, until I felt myself confused, and their faces spinning into a pale anxious blur.
“Oh, Gil,” cried Ellen. “You could be anything. A doctor, even. You have so many opportunities.”
“Be grateful for what God gave you,” my father admonished.
“He gave me,” I said. “Brains.” I cleared my throat. “What’s the good of giving them to me if I can’t choose for myself?”
“Don’t talk against Him,” said my father, severely.
“Do you really think He’s listening?” I said, insolently. “I’m not sure I even believe He’s there at all.”
“You listen to me,” said my father, apoplectic.
“Gil,” said Ellen at the same time, deeply shocked.
“You’re not too old for a whipping,” said my father.
I laughed. My father had never raised his hand against any of us.
“Hush, Dad, that just makes it worse,” said Ellen, who understood me better. She turned to me. “Have you thought about this, Gil? I mean, have you really and truly thought about it?”
All this time, Jack said nothing, a slight lift to his lips as he listened, but no change of ex
pression.
I told them I’d thought about it; that I knew what I wanted, that I was adult enough to choose for myself. With rare ease, I lectured them all: my father on his hypocrisy, my sister on her treachery, my brother on his superior attitude. I expanded, berating my family for its unwillingness to make a real contribution to the defense of its country. I parroted the recruitment officer, whose resounding cliches did not appear to move my audience as they had me.
“I made my contribution,” said my father. He patted his leg. “I made mine, and Jack, too, so you wouldn’t have to.”
“You mean so you can keep me out of it,” I said. “And keep your secrets.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Jack, provoked out of his silence. “You don’t know nothing about nothing.”
“Jack,” said Ellen.
“You ain’t going to learn nothing you can use,” Jack continued, heedless. “You think you’re going to learn all kinds of things, all kinds of big secrets. There ain’t no secrets, and there ain’t no learning. Just stupid shit dogfaces, and stupid shit officers thumping a big fat rulebook. It’s just rules,” he said. “It’s crap.”
“Be quiet,” said Ellen, in a rare display of temper.
“No,” said my father. “He’s right.” He turned to me. “There ain’t nothing in it for you, son.”
His tenderness, so unexpected, made me want to weep.
“I’ve already signed up,” I said, stubborn. Airily, I added, “I won’t be a dogface for long. And as for rules, they serve a purpose. They establish discipline.”
Jack whistled, low. My father looked down and said nothing.
“What do you think of that?” I asked Jack.
“I think,” he said. “We got us a regular G.I. in the family.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Ellen, but her lips twitched. It was the way Jack had, of playing on people, of making them smile. It got even to her, who took life so very seriously.
And that was that. They gave up their arguing and let me go about my business.
By the time I left for basic training, the town had heard all about it—how I had refused the scholarship, and the fight with my father, and Jack’s closing remark. They found nothing inherently ridiculous about the military, but they enjoyed a good joke, and Jack’s nickname caught on. I was hailed on the street as “G.I.” Some of the wags at the barbershop offered to shave my head in advance, “real cheap,” Harley said, while the others fell about laughing. Sam and Ned Lucas stiffened to attention when I passed them, and threw me exaggerated salutes. Humiliated, I counted the days until my departure and the rigors of boot camp.
After a few days in Georgia, I knew that I had made a great mistake. I had envisioned great man-making experiences, a quick rise to authority. Very quickly, I discovered the bald truth: that a rise in the army must be paid for in advance, with years of subservience and toil. I had anticipated leadership, but I was an average soldier, hardly the stuff of command. Not so inept as other recruits, not so brilliant as the best, I was treated fairly and with only random cruelty, not singled out in any way for praise or punishment. I was one of a horde of young men, a drop in a river of khaki, and my days consisted of a series of orders, everything always performed in a group, a hundred men eating, shaving, pissing at once. I had sought enlightenment, but I learned nothing about myself beyond that I detested rising early, detested marching in step, detested being an indistinguishable, insignificant portion of a greenish wave of rookie soldierdom. In short, I detested everything about the army, and I wanted out.
Pride kept me from revealing my feelings to my family. I had left Naples so cocky, so certain of success; I couldn’t even admit to myself that Jack had been entirely correct. My weekly phone calls were brief, full of false cheer. Making them required all of my excess energy; I feared I would have none left to continue the pretense during my first home leave.
It was not just facing my family; it was also facing the townspeople, whose ridicule had been irritating when I had the strength of my convictions. Now, with my greater knowledge, it would be excruciating. I lay awake the night before I was to go home, concocting anecdotes to feed to the lions awaiting me in Naples.
The effort, as it turned out, was unnecessary: no one asked me anything about my experiences. Ellen and her husband came for the weekend, bringing the baby; they talked about his new position in an insurance firm, and there was much made of my nephew. My father had fallen back into his customary silence. Even Jack refrained from needling me. They called me “G.I.” still, but it was pronounced with affection. Baffled by the directionless supper table chitchat, I took advantage of a silence to launch into one of my prepared stories unprompted. The silence that followed my lies was hideous for its kindness: it humiliated and enraged me. I retreated into myself after that, and for the rest of my week in Naples I crept around the house and through the streets, avoiding confrontations. I arose late in the day to an empty house, and I prowled the streets late at night, going to unfamiliar bars, attempting to hide myself among people who didn’t know me, taking revenge on my family who had tried to protect me, blaming them.
I had been slinking around Naples for three days, visiting dark, vile bars, the kinds of seedy places that spring up all in one area, in even the best of towns, when I met Beth Miller again.
I hadn’t seen her for a year, not since she’d broken with Jack, suddenly, over a weekend. Naples had assumed long since that the romance would end in marriage, and had turned its eye away from the couple. When they quarreled, we all yawned: it was commonplace for courting couples to pull apart in fury just before engagement. When Beth took up with another young man, there was clucking of tongues, but no surprise: that, too, was an old trick. Hadn’t many of the wives of Naples done it themselves, to force their fellow’s hand? It was tiresome, but certainly not immoral.
But when, after only two months, Beth married the fellow, the town was wild. They felt cheated, all the more because the couple had eloped. No society wedding, no three-page spread in the Chronicle. From the time Beth was small, we’d been assured of a splendid wedding someday in the future. Like dedicated Royalists deprived of their event, like baseball fans who’ve been told there will be no World Series, we mourned. The news spread across town; and there was an ominous two-day calm, a kind of gossip cease-fire. Then the first wave of talk opened the floodgates; and after the shock came the countershock, and on the fourth day the quarreling began in earnest.
Everyone had a side. There were two main factions, pro-Billy and pro-Jack. Billy Crawford, until the weekend of his elopement, was little in the public eye. He was a dedicated hell-raiser, but his antics sparked little interest, being unoriginal; he was a stereotype, a black sheep, and not even much good at that. The Crawfords were a Village family, with a house near the top of the hill; they had three other sons and a daughter in Billy’s generation; all of his brothers had university degrees, and his sister was married to a banker in Richmond. Not Billy. Youngest of the five, he was a drinker, a weak-mouthed and stupid-looking fellow, prone to pointless rebellion; he was expelled from the Boys’ Academy just six weeks shy of graduation. Since that time, he’d done nothing of any consequence, and his prodigal habits had worn his family’s patience. A few months before Beth married him, they had severed their financial support.
The pro-Billy group was legalistic in their arguments. They said that Billy might be a no’count, but that did not make him malicious. Furthermore, they said, he had been within his rights; Beth and Jack had been broken publicly for two weeks before Billy even dated Beth; as far as anyone knew, Beth and Jack hadn’t even seen one another in months. Now here the pro-Billy members always stopped, and carefully outlined a tricky ethical point. If, they said, Jack had shown that he was distraught over the separation, if he had advertised his intent to reclaim Beth, then Billy might have been guilty of infringement. But Jack had shown nothing, had complained of nothing. He’d been in fine form two days before the elopement, beating his buddies at dollar
pool, drinking whisky all night. So reported Steve Grissom, who’d been one of the beaten and who was a staunch Billyite.
The pro-Jack faction used a dual argument, the first passionate. Look at them, they said, look at how they were together. They were made for each other; Billy Crawford had no reason to go sticking his nose in. Yes, Beth and Jack had broken up, but it was likely that they’d have found their way back to one another again: after all, they weren’t like other couples, who break and re-ally a dozen times in a month. They had dated almost four years before having any trouble. This led the Jack supporters neatly into their next point, which revolved around the concept of tenure. Here, the style of argument varied; but it didn’t much matter. They talked a good show, but what their words came down to in the end was: Jack saw her first.
There was a third, splinter faction, of people sympathetic to Lucy Miller. This group was not as vocal as the other two, not from lack of conviction, but because they weren’t sure right away which way they should jump. Was Lucy happy to be rid of Jack? Furious to have been deprived of a gala wedding? Happy that Beth, one way or another, had ended up married into the Village? Or unhappy that she’d married Billy Crawford, if anything a less impressive son-in-law than Jack would ever have been? She had equal reason to feel any of these things, or all of them, at any time; and so the Lucyites vacillated between support and condemnation of the marriage.
The Crawfords were thrilled to have Beth as their daughter-in-law; they immediately took Billy back into the family, and presented the couple with a house near their own as a wedding present. They put the title in Beth’s name. “Not that we don’t trust Billy,” said Billy’s mother anxiously to Beth.
“Don’t be silly, Marian,” said Joseph, scowling at Billy. “We’d be fools to trust him at this point,” he said, beaming upon Beth. “Don’t you worry,” he added ambiguously, patting her hand.
Lucy and Dale Miller of course could have annulled the marriage; but although the town half expected it, they did nothing. Perhaps looking at the gabled house on the hill made Lucy able to smile upon her son-in-law. Billy Crawford was not a monster, after all; he was just weak. Beth would manage him; they would be just fine.
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