From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [410]
“Oh, sure,” Warden said. “All right,” he said, “what else has happened.”
“Thats all, I guess,” Baldy said blandly and got up from his chair. He always looked uncomfortable when he had to sit in a chair. “You care if I take the rest of the morning off?”
“Take the rest of the morning off,” Warden bawled. “What the hell for? What the hell did you do to rate a morning off?”
“Well,” Baldy said immovably, “its practicly noon already. Time I change uniforms and get out to the drillfield they be practicly ready to come in.” He paused in the doorway and looked back at Warden with a closed face. “Oh,” he said, as if just remembering. “Theres one other thing. You see the papers this morning?”
“You know I never read the goddam newspapers, Dhom.”
“Well,” Baldy said, looking at him, “Fatso Judson—you know? the Chief Guard of the Stockade?—he was killed the night before last down to the Log Cabin Bar and Grill. Somebody knife him in the alley.”
“Is that right,” Warden said. “And so what?”
“I thought you knew him,” Baldy said.
“I wouldnt know Fatso Judson from Buster Keaton. If I saw him in the middle of the street.”
“I thought sure you knew him,” Baldy said.
“Well I dont.”
“Then I guess thats my mistake,” Baldy said.
“It sure is.”
“Then I guess thats everything. I tole you Galovitch was busted, dint I?”
“You told me.”
“Then thats all,” Baldy said. “Do you care if I take the rest of the morning off?” he said. “I got to fix a bad faucet over to the house.”
“Listen Dhom,” Warden said in his official voice, taking a deep breath. He was conscious of the new clerk Rosenberry still sitting quietly at the filing table in the closet. “I dont know what kind of screwy ideas you got in your goddam head, but I know you’re old enough and got enough service to know you cant get by with carrying a goddam man present for duty when he’s over the goddam hill. Even in the goddam Air Corps they cant do that. It always comes out. I’ve had a lot of orderly rooms in my time, and I’ve seen some bad ones. But I never seen an orderly room get so completely 100% fuckedup in such a short goddam time. You may be worth a four stripe rating as a straight duty man. But as an acting first sergeant you stink. You wouldn’t make a good Pfc. You’re miserble. It’ll take me two months to straighten out my goddam orderly room and get it over your two weeks as first sergeant.”
He paused, for breath, and looked up at Baldy who was still standing impassively in the doorway. Warden tried to think up something else to say, something that would make it sound a little bit better, a little more stronger.
“I just want you to know I never seen such a lousy acting top kicker since I been in the goddam Army,” he said in summation. It still sounded thin.
Dhom did not say anything.
“Okay,” Warden said, “go ahead, take off. And you might as well take the rest of the morning off since you wouldn’t do no goddam work anyway.”
“Thanks, First,” Baldy said.
“Go to hell,” Warden said. Angrily he watched the big man go out, the massive shoulders brushing the door jamb on both sides, the huge head almost touching the top of the frame. Baldy Dhom, husband to a fat Filipino lardmama sow of a shrew, father to innumerable runny-nosed half-nigger brats, trainer to one of the worst boxing squads in the history of the Regiment, duty sergeant to one of the miserblest Companies. An old soldier with 18 yrs serv under his belt in his paunch along with 18 yrs beer, and condemned by his nigger family to foreign service for the rest of his natural life. The man who had loyally and sanguinarily led the pack in executing The Treatment that Dynamite had prescribed for Prewitt; and who now, just as loyally, led the attempt to cover up for him when he went over the hill and killed a man because of it. Probly he explained it to himself by some sentimental crap about us old-timers got to stick together, with so many draftees about to take over the Compny. And as he watched him go out, he watched with him, beyond and around him, the whole tacit network of the whole tacit conspiracy, nothing open,