From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [310]
“The beds all right,” Hanson said.
“Whats wrong with the shelf?”
“Lousy,” Hanson said. “Get a demerit first thing.”
“Whats a demerit? I mean, in this place?”
Hanson grinned.
“I mean, what does it get you?”
Hanson grinned. “Shelf’s lousy,” he said. “You’re new so I’ll give you a chance to fix it. Tomorrow you wont get a second chance.”
“It looks all right to me,” Prew argued.
“It does,” Hanson grinned. “Look at the others.”
“Dont look any different to me,” Prew insisted.
“How long you been in the Army?”
“Five years.”
“Suit yourself,” Hanson said. “You ready to go?” He started away for the door, and Prew felt something dangerous touch at his mind delicately and then go clear away again.
“Wait,” he said. “I want it to be right,” he said lamely.
The silent one, Turnipseed, still lounging smoking, suddenly laughed snortingly.
Grinning, Hanson came back and screwed up his eyes at the shelf. “Major Thompson inspects ever morning; he carries a plumb bob in his pocket,” he said.
Prew looked at his shelf. He went over and took the stack of clothes down off it. He started putting them back one at a time, and Hanson came over and peered over his shoulder professionally.
“The lines from the ends of the razorbox dont biseck the handles of the shaving brush and shaving stick,” Hanson said. “The soapbox aint in the center of the washcloth.”
Prew fixed them and went back to the clothes stacking.
“You know what a plumb bob is?” Hanson asked.
“Yeah.”
“I never heard of it till I come here,” Hanson said. “Its somethin carpenters use, aint it?”
“Yeah,” Prew said. “And bricklayers.”
“What they use it for?”
“I dont know. Get their corners straight. Make sure a board is straight up and down. Stuff like that” He was beginning to feel better now. He had it choked back down. But he could feel it still lying there, just under his swallowing mechanism, still waiting. It was not gone. Even as he thought about how he felt better the association caused it to start to rise up again, sickeningly, dizzily, ponderously, like a fairgrounds balloon. With something like astonished disbelief he realized again that he was here, locked in behind chainmesh grids, while she was there, still in Maunalani Heights that he knew so well in his mind, and he could not leave here and go there when he wanted to. He swallowed and set his jaw tight and kept his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. It pressed up against them a moment tentatively and then sank back patiently waiting, as elemental a force as that which kept the planets in their courses and as unfeeling. Fooled you that time, he told it, seen you coming. If you couldnt swallow it, you were licked, you were through. Alma, he thought, Alma. No, he told himself, no, you dumb bastard, no.
He had been in other jails, hadnt he? He had been in some tough ones, back in the days on the bum. And none of them had ever gotten into him, none of them had ever broken him down. A couple of them, a county outfit in Georgia and a city lockup in Mississippi, had been as tough as they come. Even the Nazis had nothing on them. He still wore their scars. And they had not cracked him.
But he had not been in love then, had he? Being in love made you especially vulnerable. You wanted something. He must immediately fall out of love temporarily, he informed himself, it was the only way. He tried to think of all the things he disliked about Alma. He couldnt remember any. He couldnt remember a one. It was strange how he had not realized how much in love he was until he heard the chainmesh gates close and lock after him.
“There,” Hanson was saying to Turnipseed, “I told you, you dumb fuck. This dumb fuck Turniphead,” he grinned at Prew, “he tried to tell me Major Thompson invented it.”
“Invented what?” Prew said dazedly.
“Plumb bob,” Hanson said. “Just to use in inspections.”
“Well, I never heard of the goddam thing before,” Turnipseed said angrily. “An he’s the kind of guy would do it. I still think he