From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [101]
“Ike Galovitch! Jesus Christ! He was our boiler orderly at Bliss, couldnt even speak plain English.”
“Thats the boy. He still cant speak it. And he’s Dynamite’s Close Order expert.”
“My God!” Stark said. He was sincerely shocked.
“You see what I’m up against?” Warden grinned happily, watching the lovely beautiful brilliant shuttling of the bottle as it wove and wound and spun the web of unreality, of talk about them both, relaxing into it.
“. . . But you’re all right. You were at Bliss and that puts you on the inside track.” . . .
“These cooks wont like it though.” . . .
“To hell with them. Long as I like it, you got no worry.” . . .
“Okay, First. You lead the band.” . . .
“You goddam right I do. . . .
“. . . the setup in the Regiment. Holmes and Colonel Delbert are just like that, see? They . . .”
“. . . what I got to work with.” . . .
“They’s two men you can depend on. . . .
“. . . and heres the setup in the Compny. Strickly a jockstrap outfit, see? Dhom is the Staff because he’s trainer for Dynamite’s squad, but he’s as far as he will ever get and . . .”
The soldier’s greatest hobby, he thought as he listened to his own voice talking, the bull session, add a bottle and you have his greatest joy, also his greatest escape, he thought. The unofficial institution that is the first-string substitute for women and the age-old conversation where the man explains his ideals and his hopes for his life and the woman listens and agrees and tells him how wonderful he is. But soldiers are men without women, he thought, and they cannot hold each other’s heads upon their breasts and pat each other’s hair. But they escape just as well, the other part reminded him.
Ah, if you could only lose this other part of your mind too, like Stark is doing, not lose but forget it for a little while, without thinking about the women, or the men, or all the other angles.
“Gimme a drink,” Stark said. “Is that tall blonde wife of his still around?”
“Who?” Warden said.
“His wife,” Stark said. “Whats her name. Karen. Is he still married to her?”
“Oh her,” Warden said.
Maybe its better for you you cant deliberately distract that other part, he thought. More painful, surely. But maybe in the long run better. Provided, of course, that you can stand it. There is courage, he thought, and then theres courage.
“Yeah,” he said, “he’s still married to her. She comes over here ever once in a while. Why?”
“I just wondered,” Stark said, mellow now and feeling philosophical. “I dunno, I awys figure Holmes would of left her before now. She was a regular bitch in heat at Bliss, when I knew her, but mean like, as if she really hated it and all the ones she gave it to. They said she laid half the EM on the Post at Bliss.”
“They did?” Warden said.
“Hell yes. I heard she even got the clap down there. Ony thing kept her from bein out and out a whore was she was married.”
“You mean she kept her amateur standing,” Warden said.
Stark threw back his head and laughed. “Thats it.”
“I dont put much stock in stories like that though,” Warden said, carefully casual. “You hear them about every woman that lives on a Army Post. Mostly wishful thinking, you ask me.”
“Oh yeah?” Stark said indignantly. “Well this aint no story. I fucked her myself, at Bliss. So I know it aint no story.”
“Come to think of it,” Warden said. “I been hearin some pretty rough stories about her around here.” What was it she had said, that afternoon, in the house, with the rain dripping sounding softly at the open window, what was it? Now he had it. She said, “Dont you want me either?”
“You can probly,” Stark said, whiskily innocent, “believe them all. Because she’s rough. I can see a single woman sleepin around some,” he said; “I can even see a married woman steppin out on her old man. But I dont like to see any woman, specially if she’s married, just layin for any guy comes along. A whore’s a whore, thats how she makes her livin. But theys somethin wrong with a woman who does it for