From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [373]
Chapter 42
THEY PLAYED A GAME in the Stockade. In the evening after chow the mattress from an empty bunk would be hung on the chain mess grid across the center window in the back wall with strings of knotted shoelaces. Then one man, usually the smallest unless there was a volunteer, would stand with his back against the mattress and the rest would line up at the far end of the aisle according to size with the smallest first and, one at a time, run at the man against the mattress and hit him in the belly with their shoulders like a fullback throwing a checkblock at the end on an offtackle shoot, except that in this case with the mattress behind him there was no place to fall back to and it was up to the belly muscles to protect themselves.
Since cards dice roulettewheels and coins were not allowed in the Stockade, this game provided the chief recreation of Barrack Number Two in the evenings. It was not played at all in either of the other barracks, but in Number Two no man was allowed the privilege of not participating.
It was a rough game. But then they were hard men in Number Two, they were the toughest of the tough, they were the cream. If the man at the mattress could stay up there clear through the entire line, he had won the game. As the prize, he got a free run at every man in the line. Not very many got to enjoy the prize. At the time Prew came into Number Two only two men had ever succeeded in staying up. They were Jack Malloy and Blues Berry, the two biggest; bigness helped, in the Stockade; and they were the only two, although Angelo The Wop Maggio had been knocked senseless several times trying it. The first time Prew played he made it up to the last man, which was Jack Malloy, the biggest. Then his belly and knees betrayed him, even though Malloy was the last man and all he had to do was stay on his feet to win, and after Malloy’s run he collapsed weakly and Malloy had to help him back to the commode to vomit, Prew cursing furiously and bubblingly weakly. His feat was considered quite an accomplishment for a little man, but he was not satisfied with it, and before he had been there a week he had managed to stay up past Malloy and win, although he had to drop out and let them go on playing for a while before he recuperated enough to claim his prize and take his free runs at the line.
Next to The Game, which had no other name, pitching matchbooks at a crack for tomorrow’s ration of Duke’s Mixture was the favorite sport in Number Two. There were other games, such as the one called Can-you-take-it where one man blocks his solar plexus with his left arm and his genitals with his right and allows his opponent to hit him as hard as he can in the belly, each taking turns at hitting until one man has to quit. Also, the old Indian-wrassles had been stolen from the Boy Scouts and given extra teeth to make them interesting. Indian-wrassle-on-the-table, where the two men place their elbows together and lock hands and try to put each other’s arm down, was played by putting lighted cigaret butts behind each man’s hand as added inducement. Indian-wrassle-on-the-floor, where the two men lie on their backs and lock legs and try to throw each other over, was played with pieces of 3/8ths slatting with 1/2-inch wire brads driven through them placed behind each man, and in spite of all the efforts to roll sideways when thrown more than one man wore blue-rimmed punctures in his knees out to work in the mornings. But of all the games, The Game itself, always took first precedence in popularity.
Jack Malloy had invented it during his first stretch and since then it had become an institution in Number Two. He had gone back to duty and forgotten it, and come back for