From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [231]
“You’re sober, aint you?” Prew said. “I bet you never do get drunk. Why dont you get drunk? Why do you want to write it for, then?”
“You dont know my own name anyway,” Tommy said. His deep-set eyes swung suddenly, wildly at Prew. “You dont, do you? Do you?”
Prew was watching Hal trying to get Maggio up on his feet. “No. I dont. You’re ashamed of that story, aint you?”
“Of course,” Tommy said, relievedly. “Do you think I’d be proud of it?”
“I hate it,” Angelo said. “The whole mother fucking deal.”
“And yet you wrote it,” Prew said profoundly.
“Of course. But only for the money. Thats why I used a pen name. Someday, when my novel is done . . .”
“Is it on queers?”
“No it is not,” Tommy said stiffly.
“I wouldnt play a bugle call unless I was proud of it,” Prew said. “Thats one thing I got, see? If I did do it, it would never be the same again. I’d never have it any more.”
“Oh,” Tommy smiled. “A bugler. We’ve got an artist in our midst, Hal.”
“No,” Prew said. “Only a bugler. But I dont even bugle any more. And you’ll never write no book. You only want to talk about it.”
He stood up, feeling the release of the liquor pounding in him, wanting to smash something that would stop the cogs from rotating in tomorrow and Reveille at six o’clock. The self winding springs. He looked around dimly. There was nothing to smash.
“Lissen,” he said. He stabbed his finger at the big white bulk of Tommy. “You’re queer as a three dollar bill. How did you get to be queer? What made you queer, anyway?”
Tommy’s dark eyes that behind the deep purple circles never seemed to focus on anything at all, were on him now and focused, and they became brighter and brighter as he watched them.
“I’ve always been that way,” Tommy said. “I was born that way.”
“Like to talk about it, dont you?” Prew grinned. He felt the silence of both Hal and Maggio behind him and knew that they were watching him.
“No,” Tommy said. “I hate to talk about it. It was a tragedy, being born that way.” He was smiling now and breathing fast, smiling painfully the way a broken dog does when you pat him.
“Balls,” Prew said. “Nobody’s born that way. When was the first time you went down on anybody?”
“When I was ten,” Tommy said, talking swiftly now, almost joyously. “I was going to a military school in New York, my parents were divorced and my mother sent me there, a bunch of upperclassmen got,—oh a whole bunch of them, there must have been twelve at least,” Tommy’s eyes were brighter and his voice was going faster, hardly space between the words to breathe, “—they got me out and tied me up, and beat me, they made me go down on all twelve of them, one right after another, and they beat me till I did it.”
Prew watched him talking, his big body jerking nervously in the chair, as if under a whip.
“I dont believe that,” Prew snarled. “I bet that wasn’t the first time. Because lissen, they could of killed me and I wouldnt of ever done it. If they did it, they did it because you wanted them to do it. No matter how much you tried to fight. You wanted to be beaten, and you wanted to be evil.”
Hal moved from beside Maggio and stepped toward the other two. “Thats a lie,” he said.
“Its true,” Tommy whispered. “It wasnt the first time. But it was the first important time. I did want it. Do you hate me?”
“No,” Prew said, contemptuously. “Why should I hate you?”
“But you do. You’re contemptuous of me. Arent you? Arent you? You think I’m evil.”
“No. You’re the one that thinks you’re evil. Thats what I think. I dont think you’re evil. I think you like to do anything you think is evil, the eviller the better, and the better you will like it. Maybe its because you can show how much you hate the church.”
“Thats a lie.” Tommy was sitting pushed way back in the chair. “I am evil, and I know it. You dont have to make it easy for me. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Hell, buddy, I wouldnt make it easy for you. You dont mean nothing to me.”
“I know I’m evil,” Tommy said. “I know I’m evil.”
“Who made you believe that?” Prew said. “Who taught you that? Your mother?”
“No,