From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [280]
“We can go down to old Mom’s shooting gallery on Hotel Street,” Prew said, “after we get back in garrison.”
“That old whoor?” Warder said. “Anyway, you wouldnt have no more chance ther’n you would on the range.”
“What’re you doin?” Prew said. “Backin down?”
“Sure,” Warden grinned at him slyly. “Always back down.” He sat down in the middle of the gravel road and crossed his legs. “Here, old buddy. Have a lil drink.”
“Okay.” Prew took the bottle. “I dont mind drinkin your liquor any morn I’d mind drinkin Culpepper’s.”
“Ats fine,” Warden said. “I dont mind havin you drink it any morn I would havin Culpepper drink it.”
The liquor mingled hotly with the fumes already boiling in his belly. Prew sat down beside him and handed back the bottle and wiped his mouth. “This is a helluva fuckin life, you know it?”
“Miserble,” Warden nodded loosely. He drank. “Perfeckly miserble.”
“Guy cant have any fun.”
“Ats right,” Warden nodded. “No fun a tall. Now you’ve got yourself on Culpepper’s shitlist too.”
“I’m on everybody else’s. I might as well be on his too.”
“Ats right,” Warden said. “Make it a royal flush. Make it a full house.”
“Make it five of a kind,” Prew said. “Joker kicker.”
“You’re the joker,” Warden said. He handed him the bottle. “Right?”
“Right.”
“I went and got myself on Stark’s list too. Probly have to buy all my meals out now. Who am I to talk to you?”
“How’d that happen?” Prew said conversationally. He drank and gave the bottle back. In front of them and in back of them, the light yellow of the road stretched away to dimness that became invisibility, running like a trail of moonlight across a blackened sea.
“Never mind,” Warden said slyly, “never mind.”
“Oh,” Prew said. “You dont trust me. I trust you.”
“We’re talkin about you,” Warden countered. “Not me. What for do you want to go and fuck up for all the time, Prewitt? What do you want to be a bolshevik for?”
“I dunno,” Prew said disconsolately. “I been tryin to figger that out fer years. I guess I was just born that way.”
“Horshit,” Warden said. He took another drink and peered at him owlishly. “I say horshit. Pure plain unadulterated horshit. You disagree with me? Come on, disagree with me.”
“I don’t know,” Prew said disconsolately.
“Horshit, I say,” Warden said rhetorically. “Nobody’s bornd that way. Look at me. Here,” he said. “Have a drink.”
He peered at Prewitt slyly as he drank. “Aint this a fuck of a world?” he said. “Here you are going right straight to the Stockade and here I am goin right straight to gettin busted someday. And here we both are sittin in the middle of this crummy road. What if a truck was to come along and run over us?”
“That’d be awful,” Prew said. “We’d be dead, wouldnt we?” He could feel the raw whiskey mingling in him smokily explosively with the other, Andy’s whiskey, that was already there. Dead, he thought, dead dead dead.
“And nobody to give a damn,” Warden said. “Nobody to even mourn. Hell of a note. You better not sit there any more. You better get up and move over to the side of the road.”
“What about you?” Prew said, handing back the bottle and looking off down the yellow road for the truck. “You got more to live for than I have. You got to take care of your goddam compny.”
“I’m old,” Warden said, taking a drink. “Dont matter if I die. My life’s behind me,” he said, “all behind me. But you’re young. Your life’s ahead of you.”
“But theres nothing in it to look forward to,” Prew said stubbornly. “While your life’s important. Hitler said if it wasnt for our noncoms we wouldnt have no Army, dint he? We got to have a Army, dont we? What would all the Culpeppers do? if we dint have a Army? No, sir,” he said stubbornly. “Its you should get up.”
“No, by god!” Warden bellowed. “My life is over. I’m an old man. Nuther five years I be like ole Pete. You cant talk me out of it. You get up.”
“No,” Prew insisted. “You get up.”
“I wont do it!” Warden hollered.
“Well neither will I. I’ll sit here as long as you do,