From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [315]
The rockpile was a halfmoon surface quarry that had been worked back maybe forty yards into the hillside. There were two other guards besides the one on the road, one up on top looking down into the arena below, the other off to the right where the cleft petered out into the thin woods that led back toward the wilderness of Mount Kaala, elev 4030 ft and the highest peak on Oahu. At least over there he would be that near to the free wilderness of the mountain.
Prew moved over toward that side, carrying the sledge. A gray rock-dust-grimed gnome rested its hammer, looking like one of the Mountain People out of Rip Van Winkle, or one of Richard Wagner’s smithy-dwarfs grimy from deep caves in the hidden mountain fastnesses. It put a hand against its back and straightened itself and grinned at him feverishly, teeth and eyes wolfish white in the gray seams of the face.
“Hello, you son of a bitch,” Angelo Maggio said. “How are you?”
“My back hurts,” Prew grinned.
“Ha. You should have seen mine, buddy,” Angelo grinned wolfishly. “Blacknblue for two weeks. Every time I took a piss I thought I had the clap for sure.”
Prew laughed and set down his hammer and they shook hands.
“You son of a bitch,” Angelo said. “You no good bastard you. I been wonderin when the hell you’d turn up. Goddam you,” he said, “goddam you.”
“You’re lookin good yourself,” Prew said. “What I can see of you under that dust.”
“Hey you!” the guard yelled up from the road. “What’re you guys passin back and forth up there?”
“Shakin hands,” Maggio yelled back wolfishly. “Ever hear of it? A gesture, done between two civilized men of Christian society, used to denote friendship and long time no see. Or did you?”
“Can that lip, you Maggio!” the guard yelled, “you’re buckin for the Hole. You better watch your step, with me goddam you, I wont take your crap. Swing the hammer and shake the hand later. You know you aint supposed to talk up here.”
“Okay, chickenshit,” Maggio yelled. Some of the hammer-swingers around him looked up and laughed wolfishly, but he did not see them.
“Goddam,” he said; “goddam but you look good, goddam. I never seen a uglier face.”
“I love you too,” Prew grinned.
“Come on,” Angelo said, “make like you’re workin.” He picked up his hammer and bent his back and let the hammer fall once of its own weight on the rock. “Come on,” he invited, “plenty room on this rock for two.” He looked up at the recently blasted slab, measuring it with his eyes as if estimating an enemy. “I aint greedy,” he said, “you can have half.” He raised the hammer and let it fall once more of its own weight on the rock.
“Thanks,” Prew said, getting into position. “Dont do me no favors.”
Angelo leaned forward to peer where he had hit. “This here seems to be an unusual hard rock,” he said.
“Get to work,” the guard yelled from the road, “up there, you two.”
“Yes, Sir,” Maggio yelled. “Thank you, Sir.”
“I dont suppose they’ll let you take your shirt off up here?” Prew asked him.
“Ha,” Maggio said. “No. Nor your hat neither. The shirt has the P on the back which is the mark of the prisoner and also a very good target. The hat they throw in extra for free. Well,” he said, “well goddam. What’d they finally get you for?”
Prew told him the story.
“Well, well,” Angelo said happily. “Joy, joy. So you whipped old Bloom’s ass.”
“It was about even,” Prew said. “Maybe I had a little edge.”
“But he couldn’t fight could he. That night, in the Smoker. He wasnt able to fight was he.”
“Yeah, he fought. The main go. And won TKO in the first.”
“The son of a bitch,” Angelo said bitterly. “Well, hell,” he said philosophically, “a man cant have everything, can he? A man had everything he wount have nothing to hope for, would he? And so then you busted Old Ike when he drew his knife?”
“Yeah.”
“And all that for ony Three Months and Two-Thirds,” Angelo said incredulously. “Why, its worth double that. For double that I’d do it myself, right now, and do that extra time standin on my head holdin my breath with my dick in one