Better Times Than These (8 page)

“Well, hello, Lieutenant Brill,” Trunk said—politely, but not rising or showing any other sign of deference; much in the way a police desk sergeant might react at the appearance before him of an expensively dressed lawyer.

“So, you guys having a little game here, huh, Sergeant Trunk?” Brill said nastily, shoving his hands into his pockets and walking across the cabin to an empty place on a bunk.

“Ohh . . . wellll . . . Lieutenant—we was just discussing what we gonna do with the men tomorrow. You know how it is—gotta plan ahead,” Trunk said drily.

The other sergeants shifted in their places and coughed.

Trunk didn’t really like Lieutenant Brill. He thought he was crazy and consequently unpredictable, which was worse. The other officers in the company didn’t care much for him either, which Trunk knew because he sometimes heard them talking about Brill behind his back. Lieutenant Sharkey, whom everybody liked, had once called Brill “deranged” after he made Hepplewhite, the Company Clerk, run three miles in full pack and weapon for spitting in ranks.

Trunk remembered that day—it was 90 degrees, and Hepplewhite had nearly died of exhaustion. Brill had personally followed behind him in his own car—down the streets of Fort Bragg—yelling at him whenever he slowed down.

First, that wasn’t an officer’s job, and second, that wasn’t the way things were done around here—not Trunk’s way; the punishment should always fit the crime was his way.

Brill was always telling people about how tough it was in military school. Well, shit on military school, this was the goddamned United States Army, and that wasn’t the way things were done here. He had tried gently explaining this to Brill afterward.

“That’s what
I’m
here for, sir—to take care of problems like this.” But Brill had brushed him off. “Sergeant, what you should have done was stopped that fucker before he spit. After he did it, that’s where I step in. His ass won’t do it again, I’ll bet.”

Trunk had never forgotten that conversation.

“I thought you guys might be shooting dice and drinking down here, Sergeant. Did you know that gambling ain’t permitted on this ship?” Brill said, testing the charade further.

“Why, sir, I’m surprised at you for thinking that of us,” Trunk said. “Matter of fact, we
was
rolling some dice—but just to see which one of us is going to lead the company in the calisthenics in the morning; we do it all the time—but not gambling, Lieutenant,” Trunk said.

The sergeants nodded their heads in mock agreement.

“Well, Sergeant, that sounds like a good way of doing things—sort of democratic, you know. You mind if I sit in a while just to see how it works?” Brill said.

“Why, okay, sir, if you want to. Now, one of the things we do in this little game is to sweeten the pot some while we’re deciding who’s gonna lead the calisthenics—you don’t mind if we do that, do you?” Trunk replied.

“Not if you let me sweeten it some myself,” Brill said.

“Of course, sir, you being an officer and all, we couldn’t deny you that.”

“What’s the ante—dollar?”

“A greener to you, Lieutenant,” Trunk said.

They drank and gambled until nearly 2
A.M.
, and in the end Brill was relieved of his money. Trunk had never seen a worse crapshooter than Brill—he was so bad he didn’t even know how to roll the dice, and often as not they wound up under a bunk, so that everyone would have to crawl under it to get a look at the lie.

But Brill was having a grand time with the sergeants, most of them ten years older than himself, sharing their whiskey and stories as though he had forgotten that he was an officer and that they were of a different class. But neither Trunk nor the others had forgotten this, because it was something a man did not forget in the Army. His station. Occasionally there was a misfit of some kind, like Crump’s hermaphrodite human or the three-titted woman, born out of place so they couldn’t help it; or other freaks of nature, like the orphaned rabbit raised by a bitch hound, so it didn’t know what it was and thought it was something else. Maybe that was where Brill fitted in; Trunk didn’t know. What he did know was that Brill should have been taught these things at officers’ school: that you ought to leave sergeants alone, and that a man was entitled to his privacy. Brill, he thought, wouldn’t even be a Pfc. in this outfit if he hadn’t of been an officer.

They continued gambling for a while after Brill staggered off, until Trunk decided to call it a night. As they were leaving, Sergeant Groutman thumbed through his winnings.

“The old lieutenant really throws it around, huh, Top?” Groutman said.

Trunk liked Groutman even less than he liked Brill. In fact, he thought he was crazier than Brill, but he’d let him into the game anyway because they needed another player.

“Screw it, Groutman. He don’t belong in here any more than them shitheads in troop bay do. Let him play up on officers’ deck if he wants.”

“Shit, Top, ol’ Brill’s all right. He must be—’cause them other fucking officers won’t have nothing much to do with him.”

“Hell, man,” Trunk said, “don’t you think I know that. That’s
his
problem. I don’t need no damned nutty lieutenants hanging around here—it ain’t natural.”

“Aw, Top, the lieutenant ain’t nutty. I know him. He just likes to think he’s tough, that’s all.”

Trunk sat on his bunk and began unlacing his boots. “The hell he ain’t nutty—you remember what he did to Hepplewhite that day. I thought the poor bastard was gonna have sunstroke. He could of, too.”

A sneer crossed Groutman’s pudgy face.

“Hepplewhite deserved it. Besides, you ain’t seen anybody spitting in ranks after that, did you?”

“Ain’t the point, Groutman,” Trunk said. “The point is,
I
should of been the one to take care of that. It ain’t dignified for officers to go driving down the street chasing after men.”

“What ain’t dignified?” Groutman exclaimed. “Since when you worrying about officers being dignified?”

“I’m not talking about officers, damn it. I’m talking about noncoms,” Trunk barked. “What ain’t
dignified
is for people to see officers dealing out Company punishment. Makes it look like we can’t do it ourselves.”

Groutman stuffed a wad of bills into his pocket. “Well, I tell you what, Top, I kind of like old Lieutenant Brill—’cause I know what makes him
tick.”

“Listen, Groutman, you got a lot to learn about this man’s army—and one of ’em is, don’t fool around with officers,” Trunk said, shooing Groutman out the door.

9

P
rivate First Class Harold N. Miter, Jr., was lying in his bunk playing his harmonica and waiting for the shift buzzer that would send him out onto the decks again. He finished the last bars of “My Old Kentucky Home” and slapped the instrument against his palm, remembering the trouble it had caused him, but still not feeling sorry he’d bought it—though at the time he would gladly have traded it back for the nine dollars and ninety-five cents he had paid for it at a pawnshop just off post.

It had been a sweltering North Carolina night and the barracks had been almost deserted, since almost everyone had gone away on leave for the Fourth of July weekend. He had spread out all the money from his wallet and pockets and beneath the stark overhead light counted exactly thirty-two dollars and eighty-six cents—all he had in the world until the next payday.

Outside in the dusty Company street there was the glow of a cigarette and the sound of men laughing. He put the money away and stepped into the freshly starched khaki trousers he had laid out, wishing he’d been born a millionaire and silently cursing himself for buying the harmonica when Julie was going to arrive at the bus station in half an hour and he didn’t know if the thirty-two dollars was enough to pay for her room and for supper and breakfast in the morning too.

He also remembered finding the letter in his footlocker when he opened it to replace his shoeshine polish, and taking it out and reading it again. Outside, someone must have told a dirty joke, because several men started laughing hysterically.

A large brown sweat stain stretched from “Dear Harold” across the top of the page to the letterhead, which was the great blue seal of the United States Congress.

I was happy to hear from you last week and I am most encouraged that you are doing well and have been promoted to private first class.

He hated to be called Harold—it sounded pompous and silly. He didn’t even mind the rest of the company’s calling him “Spudhead,” because anything was better than “Harold.” Why couldn’t his parents have given him a nickname of their own?—a nice one, like “Chipper.”

I do not have to tell you I am pleased to have a son in the service of our country. The news that you are going overseas leaves me with a certain feeling of pride, because you finally seem to have found a place for yourself in our fine Army. Also anxious, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, your mother and I are leaving for a three-week fact-finding tour of Eastern Europe, and will not be in Washington during the time you wanted to come home. As you know, I prefer to keep the house empty when your mother and I are away, so it would be best if you remain where you are until we return.

As I understand it, you do not leave until the 26th and we will return on the 22nd. We would like to stop by and see you on our way to the district, so please let me know when it would be convenient for us to arrive.

Your mother sends her love.

Best regards,
Dad
Harold N. Miter
Member of Congress

HNM:sj

Spudhead tucked the letter under some socks at the bottom of the locker. He was disappointed they wouldn’t let him come home when he could get his leave, and he was also disappointed that his father had dictated the letter instead of writing it himself. It made him feel like a constituent instead of a son. And he felt funny that some office girl now knew his parents didn’t want him in their house while they were away.

Once, when he was home from college, some of his friends had gotten into his father’s liquor cabinet and accidentally broken a chair, and since then they hadn’t allowed him to stay home unless they were there—but the office girl knew none of this and he wondered what she must have thought.

Spudhead walked to the big mirror by the weapons rack and straightened his shirt.

He wished plaintively his hair hadn’t been shaved so close, because it emphasized the size of his head . . . and he wished he were six inches taller and there weren’t pockmarks in his face and that he had blue eyes . . . What he really wished, though he ordinarily avoided thinking it, was that he had been born handsome. It wasn’t that Julie cared, because she didn’t, but he always felt his father had.

The Company street had been deserted when Spudhead walked into the soft summer evening across the parade ground, past the infirmary, toward the bus station. Surprisingly, the bus was on time, and Julie was the first one off, lugging her big beat-up suitcase down the steps. She was wearing the pretty flowered dress he’d always liked best, and during those first few minutes he was so thrilled to see her again he felt he was in a dream.

They took a local bus into town to the women’s rooming house run by Mrs. Jordan—pronounced Jer-den—where he’d rented a room for thirteen dollars. He had wanted to take Julie in a taxi, but he’d worried about the money . . .

He’d also wanted to put her into a proper hotel, where they could spend the night together, but there hadn’t been enough for that either, so he’d decided on Mrs. Jordan’s because he knew it was neat and clean. There were any number of fleabags in town where they could have gone, but he didn’t want it that way with her. They had never made love, though they’d come close a few times, and Spudhead knew she was ready—but he wanted it to be perfect, to happen in a place that was fitting for a nice Midwestern girl.

She snuggled up to him as the bus lurched down Anzio Drive past row after row of wooden barracks and intermittent groups of post housing projects. “You look so healthy,” she said. “You look so good.”

“How do you like my haircut?—It looks funny, huh?” He squeezed her hand, almost petting it.

“Oh, Harold, you look just beautiful; you’re the most beautiful man in the world,” she said, and for once he didn’t mind being called Harold.

They stopped at the corner near the rooming house and dropped off Julie’s bag. They walked down gaudy Fayetteville Main to the Vista-View Italian Restaurant in a motor lodge, where they sat by a window looking out on the pool. The waitress lit the candle in a red bowl between them, and Julie reached over and took Spudhead’s hand.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“I love you too,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”

She was beautiful, too, he thought. Not pretty, like some of the girls at the university. Not like the cheerleaders and prom queens and sorority girls. But she
was
beautiful, and as he said it, he realized it was the first time he had ever told her that because up till now he had confused being beautiful with being pretty or being handsome and he knew neither of them would ever be that. But they were terribly in love and it made them beautiful. Perhaps only to each other, but it really didn’t matter about anyone else.