From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [114]
“Thats the same reason I went on the bum,” Prew told him. “Except it wasnt flu killed mine. It was the goddam mines.”
“Yeah?” Stark said, handing him the last of the pans that they had got through fast, so incredibly fast Prew could not believe that they were done, was almost reluctant they were done, in the warmth of grateful friendliness he felt for the other. “Reason I went on the bum,” Stark grinned, “was they was too many mouths to feed at home.
“Well,” he said, “that does her.”
He straightened his long-bent back and pulled the plug and hung it by the chain on the faucet, looking with his fine natural style like what would have made an example picture for a Good Cook’s Handbook, if there had been such a thing.
“When you get these sinks cleaned up go on out and help them to finish peeling the spuds. Willard tries anything else, you let me know.”
“I will,” Prew said, trying to put in his voice what he could not say without killing, “I sure as hell will.”
And thinking happily that sometime, when there was less work and they had leisure, he must explain more fully to his friend Stark what he had meant to say about niggers because he had not quite got it across to him yet apparently, he washed down the sinks and went outside on the entryway porch to where Maggio, Bloom, and Readall Treadwell were still peeling at the two big No. 18 kettles of spuds, heartily disgusted because they had got no break this morning.
In the afternoon they got a break, a good long one of almost two hours, feeling after the din and frantic work of dinner like rich men with a pocketful of coupons. There were baked beans and franks tonight for supper, not canned franks this time and not even canned baked beans either, and there was no extracurricular KP labor to be done and it was the greatest luxury to them to contemplate almost two hours doing nothing, playing cards, and loafing.
“I’m going up,” Dining Room Orderly Maggio, who was done first, called in to him. “When you get through come up and we play some two-hand casino.”
“For how much?” Prew said.
“Well,” Maggio hedged. “How much you want to play for?”
“I’m broke.”
“You are? Then I guess we play for nothin. I’m broke too. Well, what do you know,” he said. “Both broke. I thought I could maybe make you for a couple bucks.”
“We could play for jawbone,” Prew grinned.
“I cant. I owe my payday out already. Unless you want to make it payday after next?”
“Okay.”
“I guess I better not,” Maggio reflected. “I owe part of that one too. All I want is when that loudmouth Bloom comes up to be doin something. I listened to him tell how he is the middleweight champ next year enough for one day. I be upstairs.”
“Okay,” Prew said. Willard had not bothered him any more and he finished up the pots and pans from dinner even before Bloom and Readall Treadwell got their dishes done. He wanted to talk to his friend Stark again, not about Negroes, not about anything specially, but just to talk, friendlily, about nothing, with another, who was a soldier, of his own category. But Stark was working so he went on upstairs and had a shower, exulting as the steamy scalding water beat the sickening grease off him, and put on a fresh suit of suntans, just to loaf around in and be clean in, until time to report back.
Angelo was stretched out on his bunk in suntans himself, his hair still damp and looking very clean and obviously enjoying it, reading a well rolled, long discarded comic book.
“I get my cards,” he said and handed Prew the book. “Man, I feel good. I been readin Tom Mix and the Ralston Straight Shooters. Pow! Pow!” he said, jabbing a forefinger and cocked thumb at the jockstraps and special duty men scattered around on their bunks. “Straight Shooters always win and a nuther thousand yowling redskins bit the dust.”
“The Mystery of the Haunted Ranchhouse, starring Tom Mix,” Prew read. “This aint the Ralston Straight Shooters. The Ralston