From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [390]
“You’re only talking now,” Prew said. “You’re not saying anything. Fatso’s wrong. Too wrong. And there will be plenty of guys go through this Stockade after you and me are out.”
“Did you know Fatso was a Life Scout once?”
“I dont give a damn if he was President.”
“If it would do any good to kill him, I’d say go ahead, kill him. But all that will happen will be they will get somebody else just like him to take his place. Why dont you kill Major Thompson?”
“They’d just get somebody like him to take his place, too.”
“Of course,” Malloy said. “But he gave Fatso the orders.”
“I don’t know,” Prew said. “I’ve never felt about him like I’ve felt about Fatso. Major Thompson’s an officer; you expect that from officers; they’re on the other side of the fence. But Fatso, Fatso’s an enlisted man. And that makes him a traitor against his own kind.”
“I can see what you mean,” Malloy said. “And you’re right. But you are wrong to kill him—just simply because it wont do any good.”
“I got to do what I got to do,” Prew said impassibly.
“Yes,” Malloy said. “So have we all. So has Fatso.”
“Then thats whats the matter,” Prew said, falling back on the old phrase of finality.
“You love the Army, dont you?” Malloy said.
“I dont know,” Prew said. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’m a thirty-year-man. I’ve always been one. Ever since I first signed up.”
“Well, Fatso is as much a part of the Army you love as your 1st/Sgt, Warden, that you’re always talking about. One as much as the other. Without the Fatsos you couldnt have the Wardens.”
“Someday we will.”
“No. You never will. Because when that day comes you wont have any Armies, and there will be no more Wardens. You cant have the Wardens without the Fatsos, either.”
“You dont mind if I go on thinking we will?”
“No. You ought to think that. But what you want cant be achieved by killing off all the Fatsos. When you kill your enemy Fatso, you are also killing your friend Warden.”
“Maybe so. I still cant help what I got to do.”
“Okay,” Malloy said, and grinned. “And is this the end-product of all I’ve tried to teach you about passive resistance? You didnt understand it any more than Berry or Angelo did.”
“Passive resistance did them a lot of good, didnt it?” Prew said. “They both used it, and look where they are now.”
“Neither one of them used it,” Malloy said. “Their resistance was always active, not passive.”
“They didnt fight back.”
“They didnt have to. In their minds they fought back. They just didnt have access to clubs, that was all.”
“You can only expect so much of a man,” Prew said.
“Thats right,” Malloy said. “But listen. A guy named Spinoza wrote a sentence once. He said: Because a man loves God he must not expect God to love him in return. Theres a lot in that, in lots of ways. I dont use passive resistance for what I expect it will get me. I dont expect it to pay me back any more than it ever has. That isnt the point. If that was the point, I’d of given it up years ago as a flop.”
“I understand that,” Prew said, “and I was wrong. But I’m going to kill Fatso, just as sure as God made little green apples. I aint got no choice. Thats the only thing a fathog prick like him understands. Thats the only way.”
“Okay,” Malloy said. He shrugged and looked away, down the barrack. The lights had been out quite a while, and the others were already in their bunks. The two of them sat on their bunks facing each other talking, their expressions lit only by the glow of their cigaret ends. Prew had, by a common tacit consent, moved into Angelo’s bunk next to Malloy after the little guy went up to the hospital. Malloy kept on looking down the darkened aisle, as if debating something.
“All right,” he said finally, turning back. “Now I’ll tell you something. I hadnt meant to tell you. But maybe it’ll do me good; just like your telling me about Fatso done you good. Sometimes it helps to talk about something you’re going to do that you dont want to do. I’m going to bust out of here,” he said.
Prew felt a stillness that was not of the quiet night