by Pat Conroy
Tradd said, “They affectionately refer to him as that poor boy who lost his mind and his marbles soon after he graduated from the Institute.”
“They call him Colonel Toecheese,” Pig muttered, looking at me strangely.
“The Vietcong captive thinks he has been led before a torturer. He looks into McLean’s cold steely eyes and is completely cowed. Though he has fought with the Cong for twenty years, has faced platoons of Green Berets, has endured the terror of napalm and B-52 raids, he has never known the true meaning of fear until he stares trembling into McLean’s eyes. McLean looks at him like he is looking at a urine sample,” I said, leaning forward and staring malignantly into Tradds eyes.
“Trained by professors at the Institute,” I continued, my nose now an inch from Tradd’s, “in the secret nuances of the Vietnamese language, McLean leans down close to the prisoner and begins the interrogation with these subtle, well-chosen words: ‘Fuck you, Cong.’ Naturally, the prisoner is taken aback. But McLean relentlessly presses ahead with the questioning. ‘Have you ever eaten a Hershey bar? Have you ever owned a Chrysler or a Chevrolet? Have you “ever seen Gone with the Wind? Have you ever got a hard-on looking at pictures of Marilyn Monroe?’ I’m confusing him with this line of questioning. My accent is so perfect he thinks I was born next door to him in Hue. I’ve got him off guard—then, quick as a flash, I show him my Institute ring and he panics, he flips out, he goes fucking bimbo. He realizes that he is not being questioned by any ordinary man. He’s being questioned by a full-fledged Institute Man, a goddam bona fide, Grade-A, government-inspected, sterling-silver Whole Man. He breaks down completely when I tell him that we’ve enrolled him as a knob at the Institute and he’s going to have to go through the plebe system. Colonel Will, that fightin’ fuckin’ fool, has done it again. The prisoner gives me the telephone number of Ho Chi Minh’s daughter. I call her up for a date. When we go out, she goes wild with lust at the sight of an Institute man’s body. We get married and a peace treaty is signed. All because the Institute offered a course in the Vietnamese language.”
“Are you really going to take that course, Will?” Tradd asked.
“Hell no,” I answered. “I’m not going to have anything to do with that goddam country.”
“You didn’t hear the news this morning, did you, Will?” Pig said.
“What news?”
“Rodney Harris got killed in Vietnam last week.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, Pig. I know you two were good friends.”
“He was on the wrestling team with me. We used to work out together, get in shape together. I don’t feel like joking about Nam the day I hear about my buddy getting wasted. OK?”
“You should have stopped me, Pig,” I said. “I didn’t know about Rodney. There are so many casualties over there now that you need a slide rule to keep up with them.”
“Will,” Pig said, “I want to talk seriously to you, paisan. I want to make a new rule in the room. No more jokes about Nam. OK? Not when we got friends of ours getting killed over there. You’ve got to earn the right to joke about something that serious. You got a big mouth and you can laugh about anything else you want to. But not the war.”
For a moment the room was silent, but it was the silence of agreement, and I saw Mark and Tradd looking at me as though I were an outsider, a stranger in the clubhouse.
Finally Tradd spoke, “Pig, I can hardly believe my ears. But that’s a remarkably intelligent thought and very moving, too. I’m afraid that I agree with Pig completely, Will. There are certain subjects far too serious for humor. You’ve never known where to stop. I’ve meant to talk to you about this before, but I was afraid of your ridicule. All of us are afraid of your tongue.”
“Mark?” I asked, sitting in my chair and facing the interrogation of my roommates. “What do you think?”
“We might be dying there next year, Will,” Mark said. “Have you ever thought about that? I don’t give a shit if you joke about Nam or not. But are you going to laugh then? How are you going to find a way to laugh when they’re burying one of your roommates?”
“No! No!” I said, despairing at the thought. “I won’t laugh then. I won’t know what to do.”
“Well, Tradd, Pig, and I will all be over there about this time next year. So it might be good for all of us if we put the war off limits.”
“Do you know what they’re doing to us, boys?” I said, trying to find the exact words for what I was thinking for the very first time, in the face of the hostility of my best friends. “Do you know what this school is setting us up for? It’s setting us all up to be killed.”
“I couldn’t disagree with you more, Will,” Tradd responded angrily. “That’s simply cynical of you to talk like that. And pure nonsense. Trashy talk. The Institute simply believes that her sons owe a great debt to their country. An immeasurable debt. It trains us to be both good citizens and good soldiers, just as it promised to do when we were dumbheads. In times of war, good citizens come to the aid of their country and there’s a reason for it, Will. This country is simply better than most other countries. It has values and ideals like freedom and democracy, ideals that I’m sure you would joke about, but which have been won with the blood of patriots. I’m waiting for you to laugh. I’m waiting for you to make fun of what I’m saying, but it’s what most of us believe at this school and none of us is ashamed of it.”
“That was beautiful, Tradd,” Pig said proudly. “Fucking poetry. Fucking Keats shit. Keats shit all the way, man.”
“Why do you want to go to Vietnam, Pig?” I asked, realizing that the question had never once arisen in the room. “And you, Mark? Tradd just told us why he’s going, and I accept that.”
“I’m going to win medals and kill gooks,” Pig said, his voice angry and explosive. “I hate gooks.”
“You’ve never seen a gook, Pig,” I said.
“I hate gooks for what they did to Rodney Harris.”
“They killed Rodney Harris, Pig,” I said. “I grant you that. But let us put it in perspective. Rodney was out in the jungle trying to kill them. They didn’t have anything against Rodney Harris any more than they have anything against you. They won’t even know your name, Pig. They won’t even know how nice a guy you are. You won’t know their names. Do you guys understand what I’m trying to say?”
Tradd walked over to where I was sitting and said, “Why are you against everything, Will? If someone holds a belief sacred why do you have to set yourself up as the grand judge to ridicule it and make it sound foolish and base? What do you hold sacred, Will? And do you have a single belief you’d die for? You ridicule religion. You ridicule patriotism. You ridicule the Institute. You ridicule Charleston and the people who are so proud of her history. You ridicule the South even though you’re Southern. You ridicule General Durrell and all the tactical officers. Why are you against absolutely everything? I want to know, Will. What’s troubling you about the war and our duty to our country?”
“I don’t know, Tradd,” I said truthfully. “Something’s wrong with the war. Something’s wrong in all of us walking out of here without asking any questions. No one’s asking any fucking questions.”
“But your three best friends in the world believe in the war, Will,” Tradd insisted. “All of us are committed to going to Vietnam. All of us are going to put our lives on the line for our belief in this country.”
“When did I start rooming with Sergeant York, Tradd? I could put those same words in the mouth of General Durrell or Major Mudge or any of the others in this school. Those are the same goddam words every goddam cretin in this school uses when talking about that fucking war. This is a college for parrots, not patriots. Even smart guys like you, Tradd, truly intelligent guys sound like dimwits when they explain why they want to go to Vietnam.”
“You’re nothing but a fucking coward, Will,” Pig shouted at me, approaching me with the veins in his forehead protruding, “so be a quiet fucking coward. Don’t open your mouth about the
war unless you want me to shut your mouth for good.”
“I will always fight for the merits of cowardice, Pig,” I said, trying to lighten the situation somewhat.
“You’re so touchy and melodramatic, Pig,” Tradd said. “This is simply a debate among men of good will. This is an intellectual exercise.”
“It’s like kicking the teeth out of dead men, paisan,” Pig muttered, nearly out of control and hovering above me, “so shut up. Just shut your goddam mouth.”
“I’ll talk about anything I want to, Pig. If I can’t, I’ll find some new roommates. But you can’t make me shut up about a single thing,” I said angrily.
He put his hands suddenly around my throat, and with a certain unnerving quality of grieving, almost gentle violence, he lifted me off my feet, the huge muscles of his arms beautiful in their full definition, as he held me against the wall like a man lynched from below. His grip tightened and I squeezed his wrists frantically—and felt the urgency of his pulse; oxygen to my lungs and blood to my brain were cut simultaneously, and Pig’s face, distorted and crazed, stared up at me and my own eyes strained to focus on his, but the trapped blood that burned behind the retina blossomed with indistinct images and formless movements in the room around me. I heard Tradd pleading with Pig to put me down; his voice was shrill and unhinged. I heard the sound of my own gagging, a terrible strangling noise that barely managed to escape from my throat. I did not see Mark. More significantly, neither did Pig.
It was easy to forget about Mark Santoro’s speed. The strength you never forgot about: that was a given. But the speed was always a surprise in such a large man. Mark’s fist caught Pig in the left temple, and the blow sent him spinning wildly into one of the steel presses near the alcove. I dropped from Pig’s hands and lay on the floor gagging and fighting for breath. I tried to speak and choked; I tried to breathe and couldn’t.
When I finally could look up and my eyes could focus, Pig had entered that first sinister position of karate, and Mark stood facing him, resolute and dangerous, in a boxer’s stance of at least equal formidability. Mark’s eyes were wild and I had never seen Pig angrier. I didn’t just fear they would hurt each other; I feared they would kill each other. Each of them had the strength, the capacity, and the occasional inclination to kill a man with either hand. Heavyweights can harm each other grievously and permanently, and that was what was always so fearful about strong and well-shaped men locked in mortal combat. I grew nauseated when I saw them about to fight, and I tried to rise.
But Tradd had already sprung between Mark and Pig. He looked thin, inconsequential, and fragile as he moved into the dangerous land between them.
“Enough,” he cried. “Enough of this silliness.”
“Get out of the way, Tradd.” Mark spoke through grimly tightened lips.
“He’s the only thing between you and a broken jaw, Toecheese,” Pig said.
“I will not have this in my room,” Tradd spoke again, with conviction and with a determined look on his face. “I will not tolerate this among us.”
“You ever touch Will again,” Mark snarled at Pig, “the nicest thing I do to you is throw you off the fourth division.”
“I want to touch you, Mark,” Pig answered. “I’m gonna touch you like you’ve never been touched before. Your body’s gonna be broke up in a hundred places when I finish kicking you.”
“You’ve never fought a man in your life, Pig. You always pick on guys who’ve never fought a single fight in their whole lives. For four years I’ve watched you pick fights with guys who were afraid of you.”
“I refuse to allow you to fight. I simply will not tolerate violence among my roommates,” Tradd shouted at the combatants.
Rising, my throat bruised and aching, I staggered across the room and stood between Mark and Pig, locking my arm with Tradd’s, leaning on him for support. Mark stared fiercely over our heads, his eyes full of contempt and challenge.
“Pig,” I said, my voice almost recognizable, “I’m sorry I made you mad about the war. I won’t mention the war in this room again. I love the goddam war, if that’s what you want. I was trying to make a point about the school, not the war.”
“I didn’t get the point,” Pig said.
“That’s because you’ve got four pounds of provolone where most people got brains,” Mark shouted, shaking his fist. “This is college, you dumb bastard. This is a place where you’re supposed to argue and learn and get pissed off. You don’t go around choking your buddies just because they don’t happen to believe what you believe.”
“I don’t care if you believe everything I do or not, paisan,” Pig said to me, softening. “I just want you to believe the important things.”
“Then you believe this, motherfucker,” Mark said, pointing his finger at Pig’s face, “if you ever lay a fucking hand on William or if you so much as touch Tradd with one of your fat pinkies, you’re going to think a platoon of Marines staged a landing on your ass. They’re off limits. They’re to me what Theresa is to you.”
“Hey,” Pig said, uneasily feeling the hostile solidarity of the room directed against him now, “I feel the same way, Mark. You know I do. All of you know that. Will, you know it more than anybody. I lost my head. I really did. I’d rather die than to hurt you, Will. I’d kill myself if you were hurt. I’d never forgive myself.”
“I hate bullies,” I said to him, my own damaged voice almost breaking as I said it. “I’ve hated bullies all my life. And that’s the part of you I hate. You make people afraid of you; then you use that fear against them.”
“You do the same thing with your tongue, Will,” Tradd said. “You sometimes use your tongue to hurt and bully people. Both of you can learn something from this silliness. Pig, you’ve simply got to learn to rely on your wits,” Tradd continued in a gentle, conciliatory tone.
“Ha!” Mark snorted. “That’s like asking a fish to rely on its legs.”
“Don’t piss me off, Santoro,” Pig warned, the veins reappearing in his forehead, the physical roadmap of his emotions. “I said I was sorry. What do you want me to do? Kiss everybody’s ass?”
“Yeh,” Mark answered resolutely, “I want you to kiss everybody’s ass. Everybody’s in the room. Then I’ll know you’re really sorry.”
Tradd and I looked at Mark, waiting for some external sign that he was joking, but his eyes were mirthless and his tone unmistakably serious.
“That’s the grossest thing I’ve ever heard of, Mark,” Tradd declared. “His word is good enough. He’s an Institute man like the rest of us. You don’t humiliate a man who’s going to wear the ring for the rest of his life.”
But Pig was beyond humiliation, and he had a touching need to perform a public act of contrition and expiation. He fell to his knees, pulled Tradd toward him and planted a wet, fervent kiss on his struggling behind. It was a far more unsettling ordeal for Tradd than for Pig, and I laughed out loud when I saw the appalled look cross Tradd’s face.
“I bet that’s the first St. Croix in the history of America that’s ever been kissed on the ass,” I said as the tension in the room dissipated.
“When Pig is wrong, he’s man enough to say he’s wrong. Come here, Will, I got to plant a big wet one on your backside.”
I leaned down and grabbed my ankles. Pig, laughing again and enjoying the success of his performance, kissed my ass reverently, deliciously, moaning with exaggerated pleasure, as though he were a leading man kissing a lovely woman in the last frame of a film. Then he bit my ass and purred licentiously.
“I’ve always been an ass man, boys. Come here, Santoro. I’m going to kiss your ass instead of kicking it.”
“Naw, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to kiss my ass. At least not yet,” Mark said, walking to the window at the end of the room and staring out to the deserted tennis courts.
“I don’t have forever, paisan. I’m in an ass-kissing mood now, and it ain’t often I feel like kissing the hard hairy asses of my roommates.”
“Just wait a minute,” Mark said, smiling, and I knew by the smile, the old Santoro smile of mischief and deviltry, that he was up to no good.
“I want to kiss your ass, son,” Pig begged. “I’ve got to kiss it or it will mean you haven’t forgiven me.”
“OK, Pig. Kiss my handsome ass now. I want to feel those lips through my pants.”
Pig went down behind Mark and kissed him firmly on the behind, and Mark, with perfect timing, loudly and triumphantly farted.
Mark wheeled and sprinted out the door laughing maniacally, almost helplessly, as Pig, spitting on the floor and swearing, raced to the sink and began brushing his teeth furiously, brushing his teeth over and over again, brushing his teeth and coughing, as Tradd and I rolled on the floor of our alcove room, laughing until tears rolled down both our faces.
That night Pig wrapped my throat in a hot steaming towel before I went to bed. He gave me some vitamins, which he swore would remove the bruises caused by his hands within two days. Pig’s real apologies always involved a dispensing of vitamins and a soft laying-on of the powerful hands.
I did not speak of Vietnam in that room again. But I used to worry and dream about Pig being killed in Vietnam.
I wish he had been. I only wish he had.
Chapter Eleven
In the 1960s, to be liberal was one infallible way for a Southern boy to attract the attention of his family and friends. Since my father was a conservative of a particularly fevered strain, it was natural for me to study carefully every creed or doctrine to which he was irrationally and diametrically opposed. Rebellion came naturally to me. It is the tyrant’s most valuable and life-enhancing gift. Very early I discovered that my father could control my behavior but not what I thought, though God knows he tried. Liberalism—and I use that term imprecisely and in the abstract, meaning only what I thought at a particular time in reaction against my environment—gave me the opportunity to sharpen my rather charming, naive political and social views. I spoke often about politics and knew nothing. But there was an immense power in my sanctimony that lent a certain trembling credence to my outbursts. My blood told me what to think, not my brain. Facts only confused me and got in the way. My ideas were gaseous emanations rising out of a natural, inexhaustible wellspring of piety. Approaching the age of twenty-one, I was the most preachy, self-righteous, lip-worshiping, goody-goody person I have ever known. I had seen others who approached my level of righteousness but none of them was really in my league. This is why the incident with my roommates upset me so much. They had figured me out.