The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [239]
Minetta was sitting beside him. "What's the matter with you?" he asked sharply, his sympathy guarded for Goldstein had been Ridges's partner.
"Oh, I don't know." Goldstein sighed, "I was just thinking."
Minetta nodded. "Yeah." He stared down the corridor they had hewn out of the jungle. It extended in a reasonably straight line for almost a hundred yards before bending around a tree, and all along it the men in the platoon were sprawled on the ground or sitting on their packs. Behind him he could hear the steady chopping and macing of the machetes. The sound depressed him, and he shifted his position, feeling the dampness of the earth against his buttocks. "That's all you can ever do in the Army, sit and think," Minetta said.
Goldstein shrugged. "Sometimes it's not so good. I'm the type of man it's better for me when I don't think so much."
"Yeah, the same for me." Minetta realized Goldstein had forgotten how poorly he and Roth had worked, and it made Minetta like him. He ain't one of these other guys holdin' a grudge. That made Minetta think of his argument with Croft. The anger that had sustained him in his quarrel was gone and he could think only of the consequences. "That sonofabitch Croft," he said. To avoid facing them, he was generating his indignation again.
"Croft!" Goldstein said with loathing. He looked about warily for a moment. "I thought when we got that lieutenant, things would be different, you know he seemed like a nice fellow." Goldstein realized suddenly how much hope he had fabricated because Croft was no longer in command.
"Aaah, he don't do a fuggin thing," Minetta said. "Listen, I wouldn't trust an officer. They work hand in glove with guys like Croft."
"Only, he should take over," Goldstein said. "If you leave it to somebody like Croft, we're just dirt to him."
"He's got it in for us," Minetta told him. He had a spasm of doubtful pride. "I ain't afraid of him, I told him what I thought, you saw that."
"I should have done it." Goldstein was upset. Why couldn't he tell people what he thought of them? "I'm too easygoing," he said aloud.
"Yeah, you are," Minetta said. "You can't let those guys run right over ya. You got to tell 'em where to get off. When I was in the hospital there was a doctor tried to give me a pushing around. I told him off." Minetta believed himself.
"It's a good way to be."
"Sure." Minetta was pleased. The aching in his arms had dulled, and a weary gentle relief was spreading through his body. Goldstein was all right, a thinker, Minetta told himself. "You know I've fooled around a lot, dances and kidding around with the girls, you know. Back home I'm the life of the party, you ought to see me. Only I ain't really like that, 'cause when I'd be goin' out with Rosie, for instance, we'd have a lot of serious talks. My aching back, the things we'd talk about. That's what I really am," Minetta decided. "I go a lot for stuff like philosophy." It was the first time he had ever thought of himself in such a way and the classification pleased him. "Most of these guys when they get back are gonna do just what they were doin' before, just screwing around. But we're different, you know that?"
Goldstein's love of discussion roused him from his melancholy. "I'll tell you something I've often debated with myself, is it worth it?" The sad lines that extended from his nose to the corners of his mouth became deeper, more reflective, as he spoke. "You know maybe we'd be happier