From Here to Eternity (13 page)

Through the obscuring mist of anger in him, the stark nakedness of the raindrenched earth and muddy grass and the lonely moving figure of Holmes huddled in his topcoat made a picture in his mind of a ghost town street and a strong wind rolling along a tattered scrap of paper in the gutter to some unforeseen and unimportant destination, moaning with the sadness of its duty. From upstairs he could hear the shouts and splashings of the Company washing up for chow, and the dullness that swept in through the open window made him shudder and put on his field jacket that hung on his chair. He stared out the window, his rage disintegrated, replaced by an unutterable melancholy that had no reason he could find. Leva's bald head floated leisurely up the open window, heading for the kitchen where he and Warden ate, instead of with the Company in the messhall. "Whats for chow?" Warden called. "BS and C," stated the wryfaced Leva laconically, and strolled on. Roast beef hash and gravy! Again! Preem was getting worse and worse. It kept the Company Fund broke buying GI lemon extract for him. Warden sat down at his desk and reached into a drawer and brought out the regulation .45 pistol he always kept there, hefting the heavy weighted balance in his hand. Just like the pistol his father had brought home from the War. Same weight, same shape, same heavy blueness. He and Frankie Lindsay up the street had swiped it from his father's bureau, every now and then, and shot caps in it sticking them in the slot before the pinless hammer; they would drop pebbles down the muzzle too and shoot them out a foot or so, playing they were bullets. The Company was trooping down the stairs for chow. Warden leveled the pistol at the small doorless closet where the filing cabinets were and cocked it. The raising of the hammer made a dull metallic click that was an ominous expectant sound, and Milt Warden banged his other palm down flat on the desk. "Ha! you son of a bitch," he said out loud. 'Thought I didnt see you." He stood up, staring at the inoffensive closet, eyes narrowed, brows arched and quivering. "Re-enlist, will you? I'm Wolf Larsen, see? and nobody reenlists. Not without answering to old Shark.... No you dont!" He stepped around the desk and strode at the closet, chin thrust forward murderously, stopping in the doorway, pulling the trigger slowly, inexorably. The hammer fell, inevitable as a clock stroke. The dull click was flatly disappointing after the expectancy of the cocking. He tossed the heavy pistol on the closet table clatteringly. "Continued next week," he said, looking down at it. In its simple lines and solid gunmetal color it was an entity, beautiful and complete within itself as a woman's calf. But then, he thought, a woman's calf is only a symbol of the rest of it; what man would be satisfied with a woman's calf alone? Angrily he picked it up and jerked the slide back, letting it slam forward viciously, carrying a cartridge from the clip into the chamber, pointing the now loaded, cocked pistol at his own head and putting his finger lightly on the trigger. Just where is, he thought, the line that separates insanity? Any man who would pull mis trigger now would be insane. Am I insane? because I put it loaded to my head? or because I touch the trigger? He gazed raptly at the heavy death a moment, then he took it down. He released the magazine expertly and ejected the shell upon his desk. He slipped shell back into clip, clip back into piece, piece back into drawer; and leaned back in his chair listening to the sounds of eating in the messhall. After a while he rose and took a fifth of whiskey from the second drawer of his file cabinet and had a long, adam's-applebobbling drink. Then he went out onto the porch and into the kitchen where Leva was leaning against the cast iron sink, eating from a plate in his hand. Warden's chance came sooner than he had expected. The next afternoon it cleared a little, the rain stopped a while at noon and drew back to re-form its ranks before the next assault. It was hanging low and heavy-bellied, ominously, as Holmes came around the quad, staying on the street this time, wearing civvies, a soft brown tweed suit, and carrying his topcoat, to tell him that he was going down to town with Col Delbert and that he would not be back today. And suddenly Warden knew that he would have to do it. He didnt know why exactly, because this was more than just a woman, there were women enough downtown that he could have. This went much deeper. Up until now, while he had thought about it, he had only played with the idea. Always before it had been a point with him to steer clear of Army women, they were cold, with no more warmth in them than in a brilliant diamond, and there was no pleasure in them. They did their fornication out of boredom rather than desire. And from what Leva had told him and from what he had seen himself, he suspected Karen Holmes was one of them. Yet above all that he still knew that he would do it, not as vengeance, or even retribution, but as an expression of himself, to regain the individuality that Holmes and all the rest of them, unknowing, had taken from him. And he understood suddenly why a man who has lived his whole life working for a corporation might commit suicide simply to express himself, would foolishly destroy himself because it was the only way to prove his own existence. "Will you be back in time to take Retreat?" he said to Holmes casually, not looking up from the papers in his hand he had been reading. "Hell no," Holmes said happily. "Or Reveille either, probably. I told Culpepper to take them both for me if I dont show up. If he doesnt show up, you take them." "Yes, Sir," Warden said. Holmes was walking back and forth across the office, displaying an uninhibited joy and anticipation Warden had seldom seen in him. Under the burning lights that flickered out the window oilily upon the gloomy rainy day, Holmes's normally florid face was flushed a deeper hue of happiness. "All work and no play," Holmes said, and winked. It was a male wink, implying the turgid weighted pendulum that must be relieved, and it flung a momentary bridge across the gulf of caste that always separated them. "You ought to take a day off yourself," Holmes said. "All you do is sit around this gloom sweating over this paper and that. There are other, happier things in this world besides administration." "I've been considering it," Warden said thinly, exchanging the papers in his hand for some on his desk and picking up a pencil. This was Thursday, the maid's day off, it was just as good a time as any. He watched the beefy happiness on Holmes's face narrowly, surprised that now at this time he should like him better than he ever had. "Well," Holmes said. "I'm going. I'm leaving it in your care, Sergeant." There was great trust and feeling in his voice, and in his suddenly powerful emotion he clapped his hand on Warden's shoulder. "It'll be here when you get back," Warden said. But he was only playing out the role, and his voice was dead. You've got nothing to go on but your woman's intuition, Milton, Warden told himself, you better play it safe, you better really have it figured out. He watched Holmes leave and sat down at his desk to wait for Mazzioli to come back, because even now, in this big moment, he would not leave the Orderly Room with nobody but the CQ to run it. It began to rain again before the clerk came back, and Warden occupied himself with cleaning up some odd jobs that had been accumulating. There were a number of letters he had to write out for Mazzioli to copy up for Holmes to sign, and then he made out in the rough the next week's drill schedule, looking up the Field Manuals for the authorization. Alone in the damp air, he worked savagely, taking out his hatred on the paper, forgetting everything else but this before him, throwing himself headlong at it like a hopped-up Jap attacking a machinegun, and the power of his energy filled the room to bursting. Mazzioli, the company clerk, was dripping wet when he came in and trying to protect a half a dozen manila envelopes from the water. "Jesus Christ," he said, looking at Warden with his sleeves turned back. "Its cold enough outside. Shut that window before we both freeze to death." Warden grinned at him slyly, his eyes squinted up. "Is the poor little delicate baby cold?" he said. "Is him freezin?" "Aw," the clerk said. "Can it, will you?" He put his folders down and stepped to push it shut himself; "Leave it open!" Warden roared. "But its cold," the clerk protested. "Then freeze," Warden grinned. "I like it open." Suddenly his face hardened. "Where the hella yah been all goddam day?" he snarled. "You know where I've been," the clerk said primly. "I've been over at the personnel section in Regiment." Having attended a business college on the outside, he exercised his right to intellectual superiority; to this end he prided himself on his good grammar and always sat in on the discussions held by the clerks in Choy's. Now and then he even held a discussion with Pop Karelsen, the sergeant of the weapons platoon, who rumor had it once had been a rich man's son. "I've been working with Sgt/Maj O'Bannon," Mazzioli added bitterly, with a prissy mimic. "If I ever saw an old maid.. ." "Grant went to the hospital today," Warden' interrupted bluntly. He picked the Sickbook up and opened it and held it under Mazzioli's nose. "Did you know Grant was interned? He's got the clap. Know what that is?" The clerk stepped back, his armor pierced, looking guilty. Warden grinned sourly. "Yeh. Thats time lost under AW 107," he said, bludgeoning him with it. "Did you make up his individual sick record? did you make a note for the Morning Report? did you make a remark for your pay cards? did you fix my card index roster? The goddam Sickbook is your job. You're the clerk. I cant do your work, too." "I didnt have time when the Sickbook came back this morning," Mazzioli started. "Those medics never get it back before eleven. They.. ." "Dont gimme any excuse, collegeboy," Warden sneered. He split the plea apart and dealt with boths halves deftly. "The Sickbook was back at nine-thirty. O'Bannon didnt send the orderly around till ten. You sit around here all morning on your dead ass working a crossword. How many times do I hafta tell you? Keep your work up to date. Do everything the minute it comes in. Once you get behind you never get caught up." "Okay, Top," Mazzioli said, crestfallen, all his blandness gone. "I'll do it now. Let me have the book." He reached out to take it, but Warden did not relax his grip. Tall, deepchested, and disgusted he stared down at the clerk, a malignant expression in the ends of his eyebrows. Mazzioli looked at him. "Oh," he said, guiltily, and let go. "Soon as I finish filin these. I'll do it soon as I finish these." He turned from the silent sarcasm to his folders. Warden tossed the Sickbook on his desk. "I already done it," he said in a normal tone, disgustedly. "Its all fixed up already." Mazzioli shot him an admiring glance from the file cabinet. 'Thanks, Top," he said. "Go to hell," Warden said, violent again. "If you dont watch yer step, you're gonna find your ass busted back to private and do a little straight duty. Which would probably kill a college angelina like you. A classic example of the American educational system, thats what you are." Maziolli did not believe the threat, but he put a sad expression on his face, just in case. Warden saw completely through it. "You think I'm kiddin ya?" Warden said, with his overpowering violence. "Keep on like you're goin and watch. You'll find yourself divin for pearls in the kitchen. I'm the first sergeant here, not you, and if theres any leisure around here I get it, see? If there aint enough for two, then you work. And if you dont quit hangin around with them two-bit philosophers over at Regmint you'll be scrubbin this Orderly Room floor for me. "What was the discussion on today?" he said. "Van Gogh," Mazzioli said. "He's a painter." "Well, well," Warden said. "Do tell. A painter. Did you ever read Lust For Life?" "Yes," Mazzioli said, surprised. "Did you?" "No," Warden said. "I never read." "You ought to read it, Top. Its a good book." "Did you ever read The Moon and Sixpence?" Warden said. "Sure," Mazzioli said, surprised again. "Have you?" "No," Warden said. "I never read." Mazzioli turned to look at him. "Aw now," he said. "What are you doing, kidding me?" "Who, me?" Warden said. "Dont flatter yourself, kid." "I bet you read them," Mazzioli said. He laid down his filing and sat down and lit a cigaret. "You know, I've got a theory on Gauguin." "To hell with your theories," Warden said. "Lets get them files fixed up. I got some business to attend to myself." "Okay," Mazzioli said. He got up angrily and went back to work. Looking at the anger on Mazzioli's face, Warden laughed outright. "So Grant's got the clap, hey?" he said, conversationally. "I told him he should have taken a pro," Mazzioli said distastefully, but still angrily. "Or at least used a rubber." Warden snorted contemptuously. "Do you wash your feet with your socks on, kid?" "I've already heard that one," the clerk said aloofly. Warden snorted again. "Where'd Grant say he got it?" "At the Ritz Rooms," Mazzioli said distastefully. "Serves the son of a bitch right. He should of known better'n to go to that crummy joint. He'll be a goddam private in the rear rank when he gets out of the hospital. So he's payin for it." Warden stood up and banged his fist down on his desk so hard that Mazzioli jumped in spite of himself. "Let that be a goddam lesson to you, Corporal," Warden said violently, "if you dont want to lose those goddam stripes - you love so much." "Who?" Mazzioli said, astonished. "Me?". "Yes, you. Stick to your goddamned rubber glove and become a queer, like the sex hygiene lectures advise you." "Now listen," Mazzioli said indignantly. "You listen," Warden said. "I got some very, very important business to attend to, see? And I wont be back till probly four o'clock. You stay here in this Orderly Room till I get back, see? and it I hear of you even goin to the latrine, I'll bust you down tomorrow, see?" "Aw, for Christ's sake, Top," Mazzioli protested. "I got some things I have to do this afternoon." "This business of mine," Warden said, grinning to himself, "is strictly official. You had the whole goddam morning off to discuss art. You got a soft job; if you dont like it, you can quit any time. How many cupsacoffee you have in Choy's this morning, hah?" "I only went down for coffee once," Mazzioli protested. "Four o'clock. And' you better be here when I get back. Theres about six letters there to be typed up and next week's drill schedule to type up. Not counting all the filin that you've let get behind." "Okay, Top," Mazzioli said dejectedly as Warden shouldered himself into his raincoat and picked up a
sheaf of papers, seeing his afternoon sacktime departing on the black wings of tyranny. The Warden, and his prisoners. Anything to keep somebody from doing what they wanted. He was a manic-depressive, Mazzioli decided suddenly, happily, or a paranoiac. He stepped to the window to watch through the dim gloom of the rainy afternoon where The Warden might be going. Official business, my old fanny. But Warden had anticipated that, and he walked along the street around the quad, resolutely through the rain, it drumming boomingly on his sugar-stiff campaign hat and rustling in his raincoat that was already beginning to wet his back, and climbed the stairs to Regimental Hq above the sallyport. From the porch he looked back across the quad and saw Mazzioli's head and shoulders dark against the light from the Orderly Room window, almost as if he had his nose pushed against the glass. What a kid, he thought, no more conception of a soldier than a rabbit and taking it out in talking about art. He laughed out loud, throwing it out defiantly against the sound-blanketing curtain of the rain, feeling in him the smoking sparking pinwheel of the coming profanation of the sacred mark of caste. Maybe she wont even be home, he told himself. Yes she will, she'll be there. He took the papers out from inside his raincoat to see if they were wet. They were authentic letters, ones Holmes really should have signed before he left. Always be prepared, boy scout, he grinned. He stopped a moment, grinning more, before the bulletin board just inside the doorway. On the side that had been stencilled PERMANENT was a copy of McCrae's In Flanders Fields printed in red old-English type on vellum and with the margins adorned with tortured figures in the pancake British helmet of the War. Next to it was a poem called The Warhorse by an unknown general, Retired, of the World War, the first World War, comparing an old soldier to the old firehorse who came running every time the bell rang. Then there was Col Delbert's latest memorandum right beside it, complimenting the troops on their spirit and athletic prowess and esprit de corps, all tangible results, the memo said, of their high moral character, as propounded by the Chaplain and the Sex Hygiene Lectures, although this was more or less implied. Warden crossed the hall and started down the other stairs and then he saw the two colonels from Brigade standing in the dusky corridor with its varnished glassfront trophycases talking, the rest of the hall now at two o'clock deserted and the office doors, except for Sgt/Maj O'Bannon's who practically lived in his, closed. He had hoped there would be nobody around and he looked closely at the colonels to make sure they didnt know him. He looked just a little bit too long. "Oh, Sergeant," one of them called. "Come here, Sergeant." He came back up the three or four steps and walked over to them and saluted, restraining a powerful urge to look at his watch. "Where is Colonel Delbert, Sergeant?" the other one asked, the tall one. "I dont know, Sir. I havent seen him." "Has he been in today?" the fat one asked, his voice wheezing a little. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and unbuttoned the rainwet shiny gabardine of his topcoat that was identical to that of the tall one except in shade of color. "I'm sure I couldnt say, Sir," Warden said. "Dont you work here, Sergeant?" the tall one asked narrowly. "No, Sir," Warden said, thinking fast. "I dont work in Hq. I have a company, Sir." "What company?" the short one wheezed. "A Company, Sir," he lied. "Sergeant Dedrick of A Company." "Oh of course," the short one wheezed. "I thought I knew you. I make a point to know our noncoms in Brigade. You just slipped me." "Dont you know enough to report when you come up to an officer, Sergeant?" the tall one rasped. "Yes, Sir, but I have some business to attend to and I guess I had it on my mind." "Thats no excuse," the tall one rasped, militarily.. "How long have you been a noncom, Sergeant?" "Nine years, Sir," Warden said. "Well," the tall one said. Then he said, "You should know enough to watch things like that then. I'm certainly glad none of your men were here to see the example you just set." "Yes, Sir," Warden said, wanting to look at his watch. If he would just only brace me now, he thought. Thats all we need. We could play like back at the Point, upperclassmen hazing the Dumbjohn's. "Carry on, Sergeant," the tall one said. "And in the future be more careful." "Yes, Sir, I will, Sir." He saluted quickly and made for the stairs, before the other changed his mind. Holmes's wife might be going out this afternoon; if she was, and they made him miss her ... He laughed, inside, to think what those two would think if they had known what he was thinking. "He sure was in a hurry," he heard the fat one wheeze. "My god," the tall one said. "They dont care who they give rockers to any more. It didnt use to be like that." "Dedrick always was a dumb bastard," the short one said. "Thats how I remembered him, his dumbness." "Its a damned disgrace, what the service's coming to," the tall one said. "In the old days, a noncom would have been busted flat, to do a thing like that. It isnt like it used to be." "I wonder where the hell Delbert is," the short one wheezed. Warden, laughing silently, went on down the inside stairs and out into the sallyport past the folding iron gate that would be open until Retreat, in too big a hurry to be mad. Somebody called to him from Choy's but he only waved and went on, out the front of the sallyport, crossing Waianae Avenue to the officers' quarters, walking along it through the rain till he came to the alley behind Holmes's corner house. He stopped under the shelter of a big old elm, grinning to himself because he was breathing so heavy, feeling the autumnal chill creep up to him under his raincoat when he stopped, thinking this was a fine day for it and that if she had taken all the others there was no reason why she shouldnt take him too, before he went up finally and knocked on the door. Inside a longlegged black shadow moved across the dimness of the living room doorway cutting off the light, and he caught the scissor-flash of naked legs cutting the light and opening again in another step and his breath seemed to go very deep in his chest. "Mrs. Holmes," he called, knocking, his head pulled down between his shoulders in the rain. The shadow moved again inside without sound and stepped through the door into the kitchen to become Karen Holmes in shorts and halter. "What is it?" she said. "Oh. If it isnt Sergeant Warden. Hello, Sergeant. You better step inside or you'll get wet. If you're looking for my husband, he isnt here." "Oh," Warden said, opening the screendoor and jumping in past the water that ran off the eave. "And if I'm not looking for him?" he said. "He still isnt here," Karen Holmes said. "If that does you any good." "Well, I'm looking for him. You know where he is?" "I havent the slightest idea. Perhaps at the Club, having a drink or two," she smiled thinly. "Or was it snort? I guess it was snort you said, wasnt it?" "Ah," Warden said. ."The Club. Why didnt I think of that? I got some papers its important for him to sign today." He eyed her openly, traveling up the length of leg in the very short homemade-looking trunks, to the hollow of the hidden navel, to the breasts tight against the halter, to the woman's eyes that were watching his progress and his open admiration indifferently, without interest. "Kind of chilly for trunks, aint it?" he said. "Yes." Karen Holmes looked at him unsmiling. "Its cool today. Sometimes its very hard to keep warm, isnt it?" she said. "What is it you want, Sergeant?" Warden felt his breath come in very slowly, and go very deep, clear down into his scrotum. "I want to go to bed with you," he said, conversationally. That was how he had planned it, how he had wanted to say it, but now hearing it it sounded very foolish to him. He watched the eyes, in the unchanged face, widen only a little, so little that he almost missed it. A cool cool customer, Milton, he said to himself. "All right," Karen Holmes said disinterestedly. With Warden, standing dripping on the porch, it was as if he was listening to her but he did not hear her. "What are the papers?" she said then, reaching for them. "Let me see them. Maybe I can help you." Warden pulled them back, grinning, feeling the grin stiff on his face, masklike. "You wouldnt know anything about them. These are business." "I always take an interest in my husband's business," Karen Holmes said. "Yes," Warden grinned. "Yes, I sure bet you do. Does he take as big an interest in your business?" "Do you want me to help you with them?" "Can you sign his name?" "Yes." "So it looks like his own signature?" "I dont know about that," she said, still not smiling. "I never tried." "Well I can," Warden said. "I can do everything for him but wear his goddamned bars. At that I draw the line. But these papers go to Division and he's got to sign them himself." "Then I'd better call the Club," she said, "hadnt I? That is where he is." "Having a drink or two," Warden said. "But I'll be glad to call him for you, Sergeant." "To hell with that. I never like to disturb a man drinking. I could use a drink myself right now. Bad." "But if its business," Karen Holmes said. "Anyway, I dont think you'll find him at the Club. I got a faint suspicion he went to town with Colonel Delbert," Warden grinned at her. Karen Holmes did not answer. She stared at him unsmiling from a cold reflective face that did not know he still was mere. "Well," he said. "Aint you going to ask me in?" "Why, yes, Sergeant," Karen Holmes said. "Come right in." She moved then, slowly, as if her joints had got rusty from standing still so long, and stepped back up the single step into the kitchen to let him in. "What kind of drink do you want, Sergeant?" "I dont care," he said. "Any drink'll do." "You dont want a drink," Karen Holmes said. "You dont really want a drink. What you really want is this," she said, looking down at her own body and moving her hands out sideways like a sinner at the altar. "Thats what you really want. Isnt it? Thats what you all want. All all of you ever want." Warden felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. What the hell is this, Milton? "Yes," he said. "Thats what I really want. But I'll take a drink too," he said. "All right. But I wont mix it for you. You can mix it yourself or you can drink it straight." She sat down in a chair beside the enameled kitchen table and looked at him. "Straight's all right," he said. 'The bottle's there," she pointed to a cupboard. "Get it yourself. I wont get it for you." She laid her hand flat on the cool smoothness of the table. "You can have it, Sergeant, but you'll have to do the work yourself." Warden laid the papers on the table and got the bottle from the cupboard, thinking I can match that, baby. "You want one too?" he said. "You just wait," he said. "You'll help me." "I dont think I want a drink," Karen Holmes said. Then, "Yes, perhaps I'd better. I'll probably need it, dont you think?" "Yes," he said. "You probly will." There were glasses on the sink and he took two and poured them both half full, wondering what kind of a woman this one was anyway. "Here," he said. "To the end of virginity." "I'll drink to that," she raised her glass. She made a face from the liquor as she set it down. "You're taking an awful chance, you know," she said. "Do you really think its worth it? What if Dana should come home? I'm safe you know: my word is always better than an EM's word. I'd holler rape and you'd get twenty years, at Leavenworth." "He wont," Warden grinned, repouring in her glass. "I know where he is. He probly wont be home at all tonight. Besides," he said, looking up from filling his own glass, "I got two buddies from PI at Leavenworth, I'd be among friends." "What happened to them?" she asked, drinking what was in her glass, making another face at it. "They got caught in a buggy with a colonel's wife by one of MacArthur's gook boy scouts." "Both of them?" He nodded. "And with the same dame. She picked them up, they said, but they still got twenty years. The gook was the colonel's orderly. But I've heard it said he did it out of jealousy." Karen Holmes smiled tolerantly, but she did not laugh. "I think you're bitter, Sergeant." She set down her empty glass and lay back in the chair, sprawled. "My maid is liable to be home any time you know." Warden shook his head, seeing in his mind a picture of her lying on a bed inviting him, now that his first insecurity was gone. "No she wont," he said. 'Thursday's her day off. Today is Thursday." "You think of everything, dont you, Sergeant?" "I try," he said. "In my position you have to." Karen Holmes picked up the papers from the table. "I guess we can dispense with these now, cant we? They're nothing, are they?" "Yes, they are," he said. "They're letters. You dont think I'd bring something worthless, do you? so Holmes might see them? so you might use them as evidence when you turned me in? And you can call me Milt, now we're intimate." "Thats what I like about you, Sergeant: You have confidence. Its also what I dislike about you." Slowly she tore the papers into little bits and dropped them in the wastebasket behind her. "Men and their confidence. You can consider these as the payment you had to make. You always pay, dont you?" "Not if I can help it," Warden said, wondering again what all this amounted to anyway, not expecting anything like this. "I got carbons of those back at the office," he grinned, "so it wont be much work to fix them up." "At least your confidence is real," she said. "Not false confidence, or bravado - many men have that. Pour me another drink. Tell me, how did you acquire it?" "My brother is a priest," he said, reaching for the bottle. "Well?" "Thats all she wrote," he said. "What has that to do with it?" "Everything, baby. In the first place it isnt confidence, its honesty. Being a priest, he believes in celibacy. He has a very heavy beard shaved very close and he believes in mortal sin and he is worshipped by his adoring flock. Makes a very good living at it." "Well?" she said. "Whata ya mean, well? After watching him a while, I decided to believe in honesty, which means the opposite of celibacy. Because I did not want to hate myself and everybody else, like him. That was my first mistake, from then on it was easy. "I decided to not believe in mortal sin, since obviously no Creator who was Just would condemn His creations to eternal hellfire and brimstone for possessing hungers He created in them. He might penalize them fifteen yards for clipping, but He wouldnt stop the ball game. Now would He?" "You wouldnt think so," Karen said. "But where does that leave you? if there is no such a thing as punishment for sins?" "Ah," Warden grinned. "You went right to the heart. I dont like this