From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [93]
Looks like you need another drink, he thought, you arent getting mad enough yet apparently. This one this time apparently is going to be more than a one drink job. Personally, I think its more than a two drink job, even. Personally, I think this job is going to be one of those that calls for a workout punching on the heavy bag. Yes, I think thats what it is, he decided, running his tongue over his mustache to see if it was short enough to keep from tickling him and, satisfied, stepped back and raised his arm and tossed the scissors over his shoulder like a rich man giving a bum a dollar, listening happily to the clashing clatter of their fall. There was plenty money in the Company Fund, let them buy some new ones. Let Dynamite take care of it, that was about his speed. He picked them up and laid them, with a full inch of one point broken off, on Holmes’s desk on top the transfer letter, in the box marked Urgent, and went upstairs to corner Karelsen, his punching bag, in the room they shared together off the first floor porch. Pop Karelsen, being one of Mazzioli’s intellectual confreres, but smarter, made the best heavy bag anywheres around. Mazzioli would serve for a light bag, speed workout, but there wasnt enough weight to him to make a heavy bag that developed power.
“Pete,” he bawled, charging in and blowing apart the quiet rainy-day privacy that had been in the little room, “I’m sick of it. I’m turning in my stripes. This is the goddamnedest fuckedup outfit I was ever in. Man like Dynamite’s a goddam disgrace to the goddam uniform he sports around. Him and that punk Culpepper.”
Pop Karelsen was undressing, sitting on his bunk to ease the aching joints of his arthritis that was so familiar to him now it had become almost a friend, had just taken off his hat and denim blouse, and was disengaging his false teeth, both plates. He looked up noncommittally, irritated that his privacy was invaded, afraid Mad Milton was off on another of his rampages though hoping he was not, but still not wanting to involve himself in anything, until he knew just where he stood.
“In the Old Army,” he said profoundly, but discreetly, “an officer was an officer, not a clothes horse,” and dropped the teeth into their glass of water on the table, hoping for the best.
“Old Army, my bleeding ass,” raged Warden joyously, pouncing on the platitude. “You bums and your Old Army make me want to puke. There never was any Old Army. The boys from the Civil War told it to the Indian War Recruits, just like the oldtimers from the Revolution told it to the boys of 1812. And all of them only tryin to excuse themself, for being bums and taking the shit they’ve always taken.”
“You know all about it, I guess,” Karelsen said stiffly, in spite of himself, because he knew now for sure that Milt was off again, and that the only way to handle him when he was a madman like this was to keep your equanimity. “You served with Braddock, didnt you?” The only trouble was, he could never do it.
“I served long enough to know enough not to be snowed with this Old Army shit,” Warden bawled at him. “I re-enlisted once myself.”
Karelsen only grunted, bending down over his belly to untie his muddy field shoes, trying to keep his equanimity, but Warden plumped down on his own bunk and banged his fist down on the castiron bedrail.
“Pete,” he bellowed at the other man accusingly, “I dont have to tell you about this Company. You’re no punk. I’m too good a man to waste my talents in this outfit. They’re killin me off, slow but sure. Jockstraps! Boys from Bliss! And now a new one.”
Old Pete’s face opened up vainly into a smug grin, as it always did when he conceived a mot. “This man’s Army,” he said distinctly, his equanimity recovered, “has always been a jockstrap Army, ever since Tunney first started fighting for the Marines in France. And it’ll probably stay that way.” The kid, he thought, Mazzioli, would really have enjoyed that one.
“What do you mean, new one?” Pete said, equanimously slipping it on the