From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [80]
“Yeah?” Bloom said, accusingly. “What’re you doing? workin partners with the Wop? I lost two bucks in this goddam game. A right guy dont quit winners on his friends. I thought you was a straight joe, Prewitt; even when all the boys told me you wouldnt go out for fightin. I told em no, you was a straight joe when they all said you was yellow. Looks like I was wrong.”
Prew put the few dimes and nickels he had left in his pocket and stood up, his hands hanging loosely in readiness at his sides, his lips tightened into bloodlessness, his eyes flat as eyes painted on a board.
“Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said, feeling an icy calm that was a flaming rapture of abandon. “Keep your big yap away from me, or I’ll sew it shut for you. And I wont get in any ring to do it. And I wont need no chair.”
“Yeah?” Bloom said, stepping back. “I’m right here. Any time you say.” He began to unbutton his shirt and pull it out of his pants.
“When I do,” Prew grinned tautly, “you wont have no time to take your shirt off.”
“Talk is big,” Bloom said, still pulling out his shirt.
Prew started for him, would have hit him while his arms were still tangled in the shirtsleeves, but Maggio stepped in front of him.
“Wait a minute. You’ll only get yourself in trouble.” He opened his arms in front of Prew. “This is over me, not you. Just take it easy now.” He talked soothingly, doing for Prew now what Prew had done for him a while ago, still holding his arms outspread.
Prew stood passively, his arms hanging straight against his sides now, relaxed. “All right,” he said, feeling ashamed now for the cold murderousness that had been in him, for the wild ecstasy, wondering what it was in Bloom that made men want to smash him. “Take your arms down,” he said to Maggio, “for Christ’s sake. There aint nothing going to happen.”
“Thats what I figured,” Bloom said, sticking his shirt back in and buttoning it, grinning triumphantly as if the stopping of the fight had been his personal victory.
“Take off,” Maggio said disgustedly.
“Sure,” Bloom grinned. “You dont think I’m goin to donate you guys any more dough, do you? I dint know you was a bunch of sharpers,” he said, having the last word. He slammed the door back loudly, to show his contempt for cheaters.
“Straight shooters always win,” Maggio said. “Nobody ask you to play,” he called after him. “Someday I’m goin to bust that guy wide open. Someday he’s gonna make me mad.”
“I aint got anything against him,” Prew said. “But for some reason or other he always gets my goat.”
“I’ll get his goat,” Maggio said. “He’s a nogood son of a bitch. And I dont like him.”
“I guess we didnt treat him very friendly,” Prew said.
“You dont treat a guy like that friendly,” Maggio said. “Wait’ll he makes that corporalcy, he’ll treat you and me friendly. He’ll make us sweat, buddy.”
“I guess,” Prew said thoughtfully, wondering what it was, what trait, what quality, what difference of character that made one man likeable and another so dislikeable. He would take things off of Maggio he would never take from Bloom, even when he knew they were meant in joke. You couldnt talk to Bloom without him twisting it around to look like you had insulted him; he always seemed to need to put the other guy in the wrong. Thinking about it, he was suddenly angry again. He wished he had gone ahead and punched him, at least it would have broken the monotony. He wished he had gone on winning. He wished a lot of things. He hadnt had a woman now since before last payday, since the last time he was at Violet’s. He wished he had a woman.
“Well,” Maggio said, looking at Prew’s face, “I’m goin over to the sheds and win me a fortune with this change.”
“You better take what you got and go to town,” Prew said, “while you got it.” He turned and walked back by himself to the big double sink of zinc where they always scrubbed the web equipment and stood there, rubbing his hand over the slimy surface. Just like a woman, he thought.