From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [308]
The thing was, she was too easy fooled (he felt) too generous for her own good, just let any lonely unhappy guy come along with a good snow job and she’d let him have it just to make him feel better, maybe. Take him right in. He remembered how easily she had sucked in his loneliness spiel. The fact that his had been true did not make any difference. They all were true. Nobody ever lied about being lonely. But they were all lies too, he knew from himself, because as soon as you started to talk to a woman about your loneliness you werent alone any more, you were like the playwright believing in the hero of his own play, the novelist trying to live his own novels. As soon as you saw the audience was affected you knew you had something to gain and you started to act, to make the truth more convincing. And then the truth wasnt there any more, it had got lost in the shuffle. He felt if he could only talk to her a minute, and warn her. He was terribly afraid suddenly she would not be able to see that the guys who spieled her were lying. After all, she had not seen it with him, had she? Or had she? maybe she had and that was why she kept refusing to marry him? Because she didnt trust him. But, she had to trust him! The panic was getting into him; he could hardly restrain himself from turning to stare at the chainmesh grills locked on the windows. He felt that any second he would fall down on the floor and start screaming and beating his fists on the floor. In front of these three watching him, watching so closely.
This had never happened to him before. He had gone without any for longer than three months without hurting any, plenty times. It had never bothered him in the old days on the bum and at Myer. But then he had not had any idea of what it really could be like with a woman, then. It wasn’t like this with Violet either. Suddenly, he wondered if Violet had ever felt this way about him. Maybe it was because he loved Alma? But he had thought he loved Violet. Or maybe it was because he was so sure Alma didn’t love him. You’re crazy, you must stop it, he tried to convince himself desperately, as he went right on straining his eyes to try and recognize the black silhouette, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill the evil black son of a bitch.
“What’s the matter?” the trustee grinned solicitously. “Did I say something?”
Prew felt his face grinning somewhere. Thank God! he thought. He looked around behind him at the two giants. “What?” his voice said. “You mean to me? Not to me,” his voice said, “why?” I made it, I made it, he thought, I have made it. But how will it be at night in the bunk in the dark when they’re all asleep and theres nobody around to make your pride work, he thought sickly.
The two giants were still grinning appreciatively and he knew he was not fooling any of them. He was not covering it up. He was only just barely saving his pride. They could all see what a fucking lovesick fool he was. Everybody could always see what a fucking lovesick fool he was. Why couldnt he stop being a goddam lovesick fool sometime? other people werent.
“Heres your hats, bud,” the trustee said. “Dont forget your hats.” He passed him two of the GI fatigue hats, brand new with the brims stiff as a board and the thin denim crowns mashed flat in millions of wrinkles, that always looked like rags on your head no matter how sporty you fixed them and that were the main reason every man on the Post owned two campaign hats, one for good and one for fatigue.
“Sorry, bud,” the trustee grinned relishingly, as if reading his mind again. “But we dont issue no campaign hats here. Guess the QM forgot us on the campaign hats.