King of the World

by Thomas Berger

  Cornell peered into the mirror. Was that a visible vein on his nose? No, merely a loose hair. A hair? He feverishly examined his scalp. It looked as if it were thinning, though not specifically; he couldn’t find a particular area of loss, but the strands he took between thumb and forefinger felt strange, lacking in substance. He brushed and shaped his hair with his eyes shut part of the time. He didn’t want to see if any more fell out.

  At last he got hold of himself, returned to the dormitory and exchanged his nightie and robe for the green uniform and yellow hat, adjusting the latter in his compact mirror, pulling little curls out below his ears. Did the captain mean it when she said he had a sweet face? If so, how many more years would that last? You never think your own face is sweet, yet if someone else says it is, you can see what they mean.

  Cornell gave himself one more sweet expression, closed the mirror, and strode along the aisle, crying: “All right, boys, you’ve had your beauty sleep. Rise and shine!”

  The recumbent men began to stir and murmur. Cornell harried them amiably, with that little touch of mockery that boys expect from those in authority. Until she fired him, Ida had usually addressed him in that tone. He missed it in the humorless Movement.

  “Come on, children. Time to play!” The men grumbled, and more than once Cornell had to pinch the toe of some persistent sleepyhead. Several of the boys had gone to bed in curlers, many in masks of face cream. Jackie of course had done the works: he had treated his hair with one of the many concoctions from his portable drugstore and had turbaned a towel over it. His face was concealed behind a hardened cover of greenish mud, through which his eyes peeped out defenselessly, without the false lashes.

  Sergeant Peters stayed in her room and probably would sleep all morning while he performed her duties. After the boys were dressed and made up, the beds had to be put in shape. He knew that from the morning before, when Peters had marched up and down, commanding. Cornell did it more gently, though some of the men were awfully slovenly when it came to putting away their nightclothes. He had to admonish one big redhead whose shorty pajamas were left where the man had stepped out of them: on the bedside rug.

  Finally the job was done, all the coverlets in place, all the wardrobe curtains drawn, and a detail of four boys had zipped around with dry mops and taken up the balled dust, loose hair, and chewing gum wrappers. Cornell then led his group to breakfast, where, supposing he should set an example, he performed a heroic feat with the mountain of scrambled eggs and accompanying logjam of sausages. He ate a good third of it To compensate he would try to skip lunch. He could not bring himself to chide the boys who picked at their meal. It was obscene to face that much food in the morning.

  Peters had not yet furnished him with the mimeographed agenda, but yesterday they had returned to the barracks after breakfast. So they did it again today. He was wondering whether to wake up the sergeant when it came to his attention that he hadn’t seen Farley since the night before. He now remembered that Farley’s bed was already made when he was waking up the others. In the heat of his responsibility, he had not reacted seriously to that observation, and had assumed Farley was in the bathroom. He had not noticed him at breakfast.

  Another thing Cornell did not possess was a roster against which he could check attendance. A man could desert without his being the wiser. Mary! Suppose Farley had run off. Could he be blamed? Cornell went through the lavatory, looking into the showers and each open toilet booth. The last one was closed. “Farley?” No answer. Suppose Farley had sat down on the toilet and slashed his wrists. Cornell’s limbs turned numb. He rapped on the door. “Farley?”

  It was Jackie’s voice that wailed: “I’m not feeling well, Georgie!”

  Cornell returned to the dormitory. Gordie sat writing a letter on flowered notepaper. He had one of those correspondence kits which when unfolded made a little lap desk.

  “Have you seen Farley?”

  “Who?”

  “The brunet.” Cornell pointed at Farley’s bed.

  “Oh, is that his name? I haven’t met him.” He hadn’t seen him, either. Nor had Howie. Farley was not the kind who attracted notice from anyone but Cornell. He was a loser, like poor old Charlie. Cornell seemed to have an affinity for such people. He tried to help them, and the result was that he got into trouble himself. What would happen to him if Farley had deserted? Was that a mean thought? What would happen to poor Farley?

  Cornell hurled himself onto his bed. All his new confidence was gone. He raised his head: he was crushing the B.L. bonnet. He would report to the captain and surrender the hat. He was unworthy of it, having lost a man. He sat up and removed it from his head. While he was doing so, his distracted glance happened to travel up the aisle to the door of Sergeant Peters’ room. It opened, and out came Farley. Even at that distance one could see he was unshaven and his hair was a disgrace.

  Cornell replaced the cloche and marched towards the sergeant’s room, passing Farley midway.

  “Morning, Farley,” he said sweetly.

  Farley looked as if he were going to avoid Cornell’s eyes, but at the last moment he glanced sideways through his tangled hair.

  “Morning, Georgie.” His voice was dull. He must have had a hard night. His stride was slightly pigeon-toed.

  Peters was a sight in her striped shorts, belly hanging over the waistband, the low lumps of her strapped breasts in the T-shirt. She stood next to her bed, yawning, stretching. Two crescents of yellow sweat-stain showed in her armpits.

  Cornell didn’t look for her dildo.

  “Sergeant,” he said. “If I’m to do my job, I need a roster of the men.”

  She swept some loose socks off the tabletop and found her clipboard underneath.

  “Roster’s beneath the duty schedule,” she said, handing it over.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  Peters yawned again and went into the bathroom, letting down her drawers en route.

  Cornell discovered the second privilege of the barracks leader, the first being the bonnet: he was not expected to participate, or at any rate not very ardently, in the activities to which he led his men. These were largely in the home-economics area—cooking, sewing—the beautician field: makeup, hairstyling. Then there were arts & crafts: dancing, fingerpainting, and whatnot. From what he could see, the curriculum was a little less sophisticated than that of the average boys’ high school, so it would be redundant for many of the conscripts. But he could understand that the Sperm Service had a problem in keeping the men occupied. They were here, as Peters said, to be milked. The rest was waiting.

  As to that milking, he was interested to see that nowhere on the duty schedule did such an entry appear, yet the day-to-day program for the week’s events was a fixed one which apparently held good throughout their six-month term. Every Wednesday morning was given over to Knitting & Crocheting; every Saturday evening a film was shown; and so on. Unless the semen-collection was masked behind some innocuous designation such as “Outdoor sports—badminton, field hockey, etc.,” Sunday afternoons, there seemed no provision for it in the schedule.

  This was strange indeed. Cornell sat on a folding chair in the corner of the room in which his boys were learning the craft of flower arrangement from a dreamy, pudgy man named Hughie Hayworth, like most of the instructors a civilian.

  The more Cornell thought about the omission, the more puzzling it seemed. He could of course question Peters about it, or the captain. He was after all a kind of official, appointed by them. But he remembered that Peters would take over from him when a collection was due: the one job retained by the lazy sergeant. If he, Cornell, had no authority in this area, a question might be considered impertinent

  Cornell bit his underlip and looked around the room. The flowers they used were paper, of course. Hayworth was very deftly manipulating an arrangement of big gaudy paper zinnias, having previously put together a nosegay of pansies interspersed with baby’s-breath: the former in a glass bowl, the latter in a swell-b
ellied vase of green ceramic.

  “Georgie, may I go to the bathroom?” It was big, goodnatured Gordie, who did everything well. His flower arrangement, a bowl of roses, was almost as good as one of Hayworth’s, and Cornell had seen the instructor approve it somewhat jealously.

  “Oh, gee,” Cornell answered. “Do I have the authority?”

  “Hughie Hayworth told me to ask you,” Gordie said, smiling with his big square white teeth. “You don’t know your own power.”

  Cornell shrugged boyishly. “It’s all so new. Well, then, sure you can, if it’s up to me.”

  As Gordie went out, some of the other fellows looked pettishly at him. Cornell must never forget masculine envy. He went to Hayworth and asked if he could make an announcement.

  Hughie gestured fussily with his shears. “I’m just a paid employe here. You’re the officer.”

  This statement amazed Cornell, but he replied smoothly:

  “There is such a thing as courtesy, my dear. It’s your class.”

  Hayworth, dried-up little man in his blue smock over a shapeless dress, was touched. “They must have slipped up when they made you barracks leader. You’re actually a very nice person.”

  Of course Cornell enjoyed the compliment, but he had been given another worry. Did the authorities expect him to perform his office in a brutal manner? Was he being too easy on the men?

  He made his announcement: “Permission will be granted to use the lavatory, but no more than two boys may leave the room at the same time.” That seemed reasonable: there were but four booths in the facility, the door to which was just down the hall between theirs and another classroom with which they must share it. By Cornell’s considerate arrangement the other class would have two booths available at all times.

  Several men raised their hands. With index finger Cornell chose the closest and also the most pathetic-looking, a tall young man with a face empurpled by acne.

  Hardly had the boy gone than he was back, and Gordie returned shortly thereafter.

  “What a hassle,” Gordie told Cornell. “That place is filled with kids from the embroidery class. They all crowded in at once, and there are only four potties and two washstands and one big mirror.”

  How unfair. Cornell went to the acned boy and said: “You didn’t get to go at all?” The lad nodded unhappily. Cornell patted his hand and addressed the class.

  “We’re getting a raw deal, boys, and I’m going to straighten it out.” He squared his shoulders, touched his bonnet of office, and marched into the hall.

  There were a dozen or so men in single file outside the lavatory door. He pushed past the head of the line and swung the door open. All the booths were shut, and at least four boys were using washstands and mirror. One blond was elaborately working on his eyes.

  “You,” said Cornell, with waggling finger. “You just put away that eyeliner and come out of there. And you others”—he raised his voice so as to be heard in the closed booths—“you finish up your business as quickly as possible and leave.” One toilet flushed immediately.

  He stepped into the hallway.

  “Are you boys under any kind of supervision?”

  From behind him he heard a familiar voice.

  “What’s going on here?”

  He turned very slowly. First he must maintain his authority. The second requirement was that he identify the voice and be prepared to deal with the person from whom it came. The pitch was a unique compromise of tenor and contralto, rather synthetic if you thought about it—and he never had thought about that particular matter during the days in jail.

  He was all the way around by now, and just as he remembered the voice, he saw in a Sperm Service uniform dress like his own, and a similar yellow cloche, his erstwhile cellmate, Harriet.

  “Who the hell are you to push my men around?” she asked.

  Cornell’s panic was manifested in an awful scowl. Recapitulating the incident later on, he believed this must have been the case: he did not know it at the time. To himself he seemed frozen. Yet he had a surrealistic memory that he had advanced upon her, as if rolled along on wheels pushed from behind, and that Harriet had retreated.

  Less aggressively she said: “This is my group.” Her voice now went into definite soprano. “I’m in charge here!”

  He continued dumbly to advance, his hand coming up, as if mechanically operated, to do something: perhaps rub his mouth, his nose, his new nose. New nose. She did not recognize him.

  “Don’t get tough with me,” she said fearfully.

  He lowered his harmless hand. His power to direct himself began to return from the tips of his extremities.

  He said: “Don’t be foolish. Nobody’s fighting you.”

  Immediately she became more cocky. “Lucky for you.”

  Her men tittered. This did not shame or even annoy Cornell. Now that his fright had eased, he had begun to develop a strange feeling of intimacy for this little undercover girl. They shared a piece of common history; he knew it, and she did not. Were she to find it out, he was in danger. Meanwhile he enjoyed the first advantage he had ever had over a woman.

  At the same time he marveled at her mobility: from the Men’s House of Detention to the Sperm Service, still in the same basic pose.

  He drew her aside and spoke in an undertone.

  “We shouldn’t quarrel in front of the men,” he said. “It doesn’t look good. I gather you are barracks leader of this group.” He told her his boys should have a fair chance at the bathroom.

  “Fair?” she asked. “My group got here first.”

  “You know how men are,” Cornell said cleverly.

  She narrowed her bright blue eyes and screwed up the little nose.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They like discipline. What bothers them is not abuse, but being ignored.”

  The statement took her by surprise. “Oh, yeah?”

  “So,” said Cornell, “I’m going to bring my boys out here, and you can tell them they have to wait.”

  She thought about that briefly. Then: “You’re a smartass, aren’t you?” She searched his face. “I know you.” His heart faltered, but she relieved him immediately. “I know your kind. Give you a bonnet and you begin to identify with the staff. I’m not interested in power plays.”

  He continued to be strengthened by her failure to recognize him. He merely grinned now.

  She stamped her foot. “All right, if it will make you happy, we’ll divvy up the johns: two for your group and two for mine.” Embarrassed by this submission, she turned away.

  He decided to introduce himself, but to say “Georgie” was pushing it to the extreme. Surely that name, common as it was among the male population, would have special meaning for her. Then too, since assuming the B.L. bonnet, Cornell had been thinking it would make sense to separate himself in still another way from the men under him. They were all called by normal male diminutives. As their superior, wearing the yellow cloche, he should be addressed otherwise. “Leader,” of course, was too pretentious.

  “Name’s Alcorn,” he said to Harriet. “My friends call me Al.”

  She went on the offensive again. “That’s a girl’s name.”

  “When it stands for Alice. But it doesn’t here.”

  They stared levelly at each other for a long moment.

  Then Harriet smiled. She could not be called precisely handsome, but there was suddenly something about her face that seemed endearing—seemed, he firmly told himself; he could no longer afford the old habit of making favorable judgments on the basis of transitory expressions.

  “You’ve got the answer to everything, haven’t you?” she asked, saucily but not nastily.

  “Just trying to get by,” said Cornell. “This is a tough world.”

  “For men.”

  He would not be sucked into that trap, if such it was. He was a veteran of Harriet’s tricks.

  “For human beings,” he said. “I think self-pity is a waste of time. Anyway, I don’
t have too much to complain about.” He was in perfect control of this exchange, taking every initiative, and turning her thrusts back at her. Now he peered boldly and asked: “Do you?”

  “I thought it was so urgent for your men to get to the toilets,” said she. “And here you stand talking pseudophilosophy.”

  She marched to her line of waiting boys.

  I expect that woman will be the last thing civilized by man.

  GEORGE MEREDITH, 1859

  9

  AS HE RETURNED to his class Cornell experienced a delayed negative reaction to the encounter with Harriet. What was she doing there? Instead of the stupid little one-upping exercise, he should have tried to probe her for information. He too was now a secret agent. And he did not even know which name she was currently using.

  He took immediate measures to establish his own change of diminutive. Lining up his men in twos for the march to the bathroom, he announced that he was henceforth to be addressed as “Al.” Eyebrows went up, and Jackie whined: “Why, Georgie, for heaven’s sake?”

  “No talking in ranks,” said Cornell. His voice was somewhat harsher than he had intended, but perhaps that was to the good. He had permitted too much familiarity in the past.

  A surprise awaited him as he led them into the corridor: Harriet and all her boys had vanished. The lavatory was empty. That was spite for you! Losing the contest, she had either taken her boys to another toilet somewhere, or—He halted his group, went along the corridor to the next classroom and peeped through the window in its door. There she sat, reading a newspaper, and her men were back with their embroidery hoops. Poor things, victims of her wounded ego. That was more the kind of thing you’d expect from a man—unless it was part of her act to be virilely bitchy. As it had somehow become his to be effeminately authoritative though just.

  He returned to the file waiting at the toilet door.

  “First two go in,” he ordered. “The rest of you may converse, but in low voices that won’t disturb the nearby class.”