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By Root 14024 0

stock, and concentrate on the very first step. He had taken that step of his own free will; he knew that then, and now, in ruminating back, he knew it now. But it was, he also knew an own free will that while it allowed him choice had presented only one alternative for him to choose from. If this was so, and he was quite sure that it was so, then that had not really been the first step at all, that quitting of the Corps, and there was no first step anywhere but only another mythical banister-meeting point shading off above him into god knew how long before he was ever born. Yet these steps were not haphazard. They were well built, well proportioned, all of a piece, and solid. They would never fall out from under you. They had been put there, each step a decision that was not a decision, part of a plan that was not a plan, each with its subsequent steps that were not subsequent steps. He saw all this quite clearly, knew it all quite positively, and realized quite surely that he could not have chosen other than he did. It was only that, after a while, not after a dozen steps, not after a hundred steps, not after five hundred steps, but after an infinitely infinite number of steps, the legs that took each single step so easily began to tire.

He pulled his first KP under the new Mess Sergeant two days after Preem’s shamefaced capitulation, three days before the end of March and the Payday he had been sweating out so hard. He had expected, knowing that his turn was coming inexorably up, that The Warden would have taken advantage of the fact and arranged it so his KP would fall on Payday, since he had done things like that before. So he was not only surprised, but almost pleased, to pull KP this time. He was certainly not expecting trouble.

Like the rest of the Company, he had watched the battle for the Mess dispassionately, not caring much who won, but knowing beforehand how it would obviously end. It was like watching the intricate, un-humanized move and countermove of pieces in a chess game from a master’s textbook, where you knew each move before it came and still must gasp in admiration at the beauty of the logic, but which did not touch the movement of your life. He had not cared at the time that Stark had won.

But after the night of the big celebration, when Stark had offered to buy him a second beer in spite of The Warden’s sarcasm, he had been glad that Stark had won. He had felt drawn to Stark and very grateful, even when the pride in him made him refuse because Stark had made a sudden rise to power in the Company, even when he wanted very badly to accept. He had felt there would be understanding there. And Prewitt needed understanding, male understanding. Almost as bad, or worse than he needed woman. He saw in Stark an admirable man, and he needed that too. So he was almost looking forward to this KP, as bad as he disliked KP. And he truly did dislike KP; it was amazing how unpleasant good food could become once the meal was over and a subtle chemistry changed it into garbage. He was hoping for a good KP.

But everything went wrong at the start. In the first place, he was on KP with Bloom and Readall Treadwell. Which meant that he would either have to work with Bloom, on dishes, or else take the rotten mucky job of pots and pans and let Reedy work with Bloom. Because there was no hope at all that Readall Treadwell, who never beat anybody anyplace, would beat Bloom down and get the second choice of jobs so Prew could work with him on dishes and leave Bloom the pots and pans. Bloom, who was a Pfc, who was a fighter, who was obviously soon to be a corporal, who had bravely stuck up for Pvt Prewitt when the boys had called him yellow, and whom he would not work with, ever.

Angelo Maggio was on Dining Room Orderly for that day, and he wished repeatedly that Bloom had got the DRO, and Angelo the KP, even though that was tough on Maggio.

He woke early; having kept the thought strong in his mind the night before, dropping off to sleep, that he must be the first down and get first choice of jobs, just in case Reedy did