From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [186]
“What do you want to make over the old duffer so much for?” Pete asked, still speaking with great emotion. “Whynt you let him die in peace? since he’s old and useless?”
“I dont make over him. Him and me got an understanding, aint we, Choy?”
“You play now,” Old Choy grinned, setting down the cans. “You play, Walden.”
“See?” Warden said.
“Nobody has any use for him any more,” Warden said, getting out another bill. “He owns the business but his eldest son runs it and collects the money and gives him his allowance and tells him what to do. Well, I’m the First Sergeant and everybody tells me how they want my compny run. I wear the stripes and draw the money and they tell me who to make and who to bust and how they want it run. Me and Old Choy understands each other.”
“Yas,” Pete said, “you sure take a beating, dont you?”
“Sure. Even Mazzioli tells me how to run my orderly room. Come on, lets get out of this. What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock. But what for? I’m just beginning to enjoy myself,” Pete protested.
“Sure. And we hang around here any more you’ll be crying in your goddam beer.”
“But you dont understand,” Pete said, his great emotion coming back. “The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done. All of them gone. All of them not any more.”
“Sure,” Warden said, “sure, I know. Come on, for Christ sake. Come on. I cant stand it. You’re killing me.”
“But you dont understand,” Pete said. “Where’ll we go?”
“Go out front,” Warden said. He led the way out of the kitchen and around to the front of the restaurant so no one would see them coming out because it was against regulations.
It was not the same now any more, you could do it all, the same as you use to do it, but it was not the same.
Chief Choate was at his corner table and they sat down with him, ordering more beer. Pretty soon they were joined by the K Company topkick who had just quit a little bit ahead of O’Hayer’s game, making the four of them a tight little group of old timers in the smoky room that was crowded with the yelling singing horseplay of the youngsters, amongst whom they sat quietly upon their dignity and talked about the Old Army. Chief retold his story of the time he was on guard duty in PI and caught a black gook going down on the colonel’s wife in a calash parked along the road on his post, in a much-more-than-embarrassing position.
“Did you see it?” Warden said. “Did you see it? or did you just suspect it?”
“I seen it,” the Chief insisted with his ponderous calm. “You think I’d make it up? A thing like that?”
“Hell, I dont know,” Warden said, twisting the big shoulders irritably, looking around the room. “How the hell do I know? What do you say we get some pitchers and adjourn to the green? This goddam place gives me the willies.”
All of them looked at The Chief for agreement, since this was his table and he rarely left it.
“Its okay by me,” The Chief said. “I dont like it much in here myself on Payday.”
“I dont believe it,” Warden said, as they went out in the sallyport. “You probably heard that story someplace, from some bastard’s perverted imagination and just picked it up, thats all.”
“I dont give a damn what you believe,” The Chief said. “I know what I seen. Whats eating you?”
“Nothings eating me. What makes you think somethings eating me?”
The Chief shrugged. “This is better out here,” he said. “A lot nicer.”
And it was nicer, as they sat down cross legged on the sparse grass around the pitchers they had brought out. The air was very clear to breathe and good to see through after the deafening confusion and tobacco smoke of Choy’s. The quad was dotted with parties of beer drinkers but their conversation made a pleasant insect-like hum out here that was no longer deafening. Now and then a laugh would ring up sharp and clear out of the hum and the stars seemed to be winking at all of them over each other’s shoulder. The fights that kept breaking out out here on the green were removed from them and remote, instead of being in their laps. The large warm semi-tropic moon was just coming out,