From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [359]
“I cant make up your mind for you, Niccolo,” Warden said. “You’ll have to make up your own goddam mind.”
“I already got it made up,” Leva protested. “I had it made up when I come in here.”
“Then stop coming in here expecting me to change it for you. I aint stopping you. You’re right when you say you’ll never get another chance like it again. Go ahead and sign the son of a bitch.”
“It’ll probly take a couple days to go through.”
“Okay, so what? Maybe it’ll take ten days. Maybe it’ll take a full goddam year. So what?”
“It wont take ten days,” Leva said; “it wont take a week. It wont take over two.”
“Well, fuck it,” Warden said. “And how long it takes.”
“I’ll try and get the supplyroom straightened up pretty good for you by then,” Leva said. He sounded hurt, as if somehow The Warden had let him down.
“Okay,” Warden said indifferently. “Thanks.”
“Say, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Leva said.
“Nothing,” Warden said. “Not a damn thing. Whats wrong with you?”
“Nothings wrong with me,” Leva said. “Well,” he said, “well, I’ll see you, Milt,” and paused one last time in the doorway, all vestiges of the old wry cynicism and insolence, even the attempt at them, gone. Niccolo Leva looked suddenly worried and old like an aging man who has been named executor of a will that carries too many responsibilities.
“No,” Warden said, “you wont see me, Niccolo. The only place you would see me would be at Choy’s.”
“Well, whats to keep you from being at Choy’s?”
“I’ll be too busy,” Warden said.
“Oh,” Leva said, seizing it happily. “Too busy workin. Well, what do you want? You want me to stay and work for you on a lousy First and Fourth the rest of my life? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Warden stared at him reflectively without answering.
“All right then, goddam you,” Leva raged, “if thats what you want.”
“Its no go, Niccolo,” Warden said.
“I’ll tell Gilbert to take his rating,” Leva raged, “and paint it green and—”
“No,” Warden roared. “Goddam you, I said you’d have to make up your own goddam mind. I’m tired of making up everybody’s goddam mind for them. They all come to me and want me to make up their goddam mind for them. From now on they can make up their own goddam mind. I’m sick and tired of it. I’m a first sergeant, not a goddam priest of God, and I’m tired of being drafted in as everybody’s conscience. How would you like to be drafted in as everybody’s conscience?”
“Well Jesus Christ!” Leva said stiffly. “Of all the goddam gall! I dont need nobody’s help for my conscience.”
“Then go,” Warden said. “Or stay. But for Christ’s sake make up your mind.”
“Would you turn down a rating like that?”
“There,” Warden said, “see? Thats what I mean. How the hell do I know?”
“Well,” Leva said, “well, I’ll see you then, Milt,” but this time he said it as a formality.
“Sure,” Warden said, just as formally. “I’ll see you, Niccolo. Good luck with it.”
He watched him cross the quad through the window. It would be Sgt Niccolo Leva now, finally, after twelve years. S/Sgt Leva; after the new TO came out. When the times changed they were thorough. Niccolo Leva, as he went up the walk to M Company under Warden’s eyes, was carrying on his back the burden of an older order that was dwindling fast, carrying it inside for salvage, and Warden felt a rage bloom and balloon in him. If a lying two-faced bastard wants to run out on his friends like that and leave them holding the sack, thats his right, aint it? I dont begrudge him the goddam rating. But I never thought he’d do that, not Niccolo.
Milt Warden felt raped. But it was of something that had not been virginity for a long time now.
That afternoon, without even trying to work on the remaining Bloom papers that had to be done by tomorrow so he could meet Karen, he took off. He went over to Al Chomu’s Kemoo Bar and got drunk with Al and they talked about the old days before Schofield Barracks had become an Induction Center when life had been simple. There did not seem to be many of the old bunch left any more. They got so drunk Al’s wife had