From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [399]
Well, he told himself, I guess we might as well go on and get started. The sooner we get started, you know, the sooner we get there.
It was hard to make himself leave the false security of the alley. He had to remind himself he would have to get moving before it started to stiffen up on him, now while it had not started to hurt bad yet. Already it was beginning to have the nightmarish quality of a dream where you know you will wake up pretty soon, and that was dangerous. You take it easy in dreams because you always know you will always wake up. But this wasnt a dream. This isnt a dream, Prewitt, he reminded himself, this you wont wake up from. And whatever else happened he did not intend to ever go back to the Stockade.
At the next corner he was very careful to check the street sign and make sure it was Vineyard, before he turned east. You’re really over the hill for good, this time, Prewitt. Your days as a thirty-year-man are over. When you dont show up tomorrow, and then they find old Fatso and start checkin, they wont be no doubt who it was done it. This time there wont be no getting back to the Post before you’re picked up, so as to get off with company punishment. This time its desertion. He did not know how far east Vineyard went, but it was the only street around here that went more than a block or two and he turned down it.
Below Beretania and King Streets toward the beach he knew the town like the back of his hand, but he did not know it up here. He knew enough to know that when you got out as far as the University all the east-west side streets stopped and then you had to either use Beretania or King to keep going east, or else cross over both of them to the beach side. That was going to be the hard part, crossing Beretania and King. The only chance was to find a straight street that ran down through both of them, so you would not have to walk along either one of them under the lights. They were not as populous out near the University as they were back in town, but they were still the main streets.
He followed Vineyard down to Punchbowl Street, then up Miller to Capt Cook, and back down Capt Cook to Lunalilo. There was a straight stretch on Lunalilo of over half a mile, but then it deadended at Makiki. From the corner he could see the Masonic Temple, so he knew there were no through cross streets here, because this was just a block from Kalakaua Ave that cut off toward Waikiki. Beyond Kalakaua there were wide streets on the beach side, but here there were only a few dead end lanes and then nothing, clear down to the KGHB radio station on Kapiolani Boulevard. He had to go up Makiki till he hit a street east and go clear across Punahou and then cut back down.
Complicated. Very complicated. Why was it everything was always so goddam complicated? Even the simplest things was so goddam complicated when you come to doing them.
It was over a quarter of a mile up Makiki before he hit Wilder Ave east. He followed Wilder half a mile before he found Alexander Street that cut clear down to Beretania, but when he got down there he found Alexander did not cross it. It was beginning to get into him by then, and he was having to keep a very tight hold on his mind. He scouted up and down above Beretania half an hour, looking for a street that went clear through. But by then it had become all nightmare and wasnt so bad. From Alexander Street on he was laughing all the time.
He crossed Beretania and King on McCully Street that ran clear down to Kalakaua. There was Fern Street and Lime Street and Citron Street and Date Street and he remembered from somewhere that Date Street crossed Kapiolani Boulevard and the Territorial Golf Course clear into Kaimuki. It was over a mile across the golf course to Kaimuki and after that he did not remember the streets he used to angle up through Kaimuki