From Here to Eternity (42 page)

either," he said to Angelo. Maggio winked at Prew. "No, I wouldnt. I cant leave my buddy." "Such sentiment is very touching," Tommy sniffed. Hal called the waiter and paid the bill, by check. "I always pay by check," he said to Prew while they were waiting for the change. "Just in case you get ideas, dear," he added, smiling that sweet smile that was more in his excited eyes than on his mouth. He tipped the waiter liberally. "That is all, garcon," he said. "We are leaving." "What do you always call him garsong for?" Prew said. "Thats French for waiter," Hal said. "Boy." "I know it," Prew said. "Thats about all the French I know. But it sounds affected. It sounds like you dont know French at all." "I don't give a goddam," Hal smiled. "I do it because I like it." He took Prew by the sleeve of his gook shirt and spouted out a stream of French that rose and fell and ran together like distant small arms fire. "There, you see?" he smiled. They walked out past the same hulking broken-faced bouncer who saluted Hal with one finger, bowing a little, and Prew heard coming from the lounge the same piano music he had listened to outside, as if that same piece had been playing all the time they were inside and was still going, going on forever. "Whats the name of that piece?" he asked. "What?" Tommy said. "That? Just a minute. I know it." "Its Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor," Hal said quickly. "Very common stuff. Its one of that old drunk's specialties. Some pseudo-intellectual is always asking for it. Tres chic," he said. "What is pseudo?" Prewitt asked. "It means half-assed," Angelo said. Hal laughed. "Yes. Thats it. Fake would fit it." "Its a prefix," Tommy said stiffly. "And it means unreal, illusory." "Pseudo," Prew said. "Half-assed."

CHAPTER 26

THE FOUR of them walked back down Kalakaua past the Moana. At Kaiulani they crossed over to the other side and walked past the single string of tourist shops whose display windows displayed water goggles, spear fishing outfits, the big rubber foot fins for better kicking. One shop was devoted wholly to beach robes and swimming trunks, all with a highly floral Hawaiian motif. Another shop was a woman's shop displaying dresses and coats, also with Hawaiian motif. There was a jewelry shop with expensive looking little figures carved from Chinese jade. Beyond the unbroken string of shops was the world famed Waikiki Theater that had living palms growing inside it, but this was closed now. It was almost midnight and most everything was closed now, and even the streets were beginning to get their late at night deserted look. The night air was cooling now and a small sea wind stirred and only a few clouds high up moved slowly east hiding a swatch of stars as they went. The palm trees that curved out over the sidewalk rustled in the small wind softly as they walked. Beyond the big white bulk of the Waikiki Theater, that was closed now, Hal turned north away from the beach into one of the little side streets full of whispering tropical plants that they could not see. "Isnt this a lovely place to live?" Hal called. "So beautifully simple. And what a lovely night." "Oh, isnt it though," Tommy said. "Simply exquisite." Hal and Maggio were walking ahead, the tall spare Hal bent almost double as he talked to little Angelo. "I'm glad you came," Tommy whispered to Prewitt. "I was deathly afraid for a while that you wouldnt." "Oh, I've heard a lot about this apartment of Hal's from Angelo. I want to see it." "Oh," Tommy said softly. "I had hoped it was because of me." "Well," Prewitt said. "Partly you." He listened to Hal talking softly also. "Where have you been so long, you little savage? You dont know how I've ached to see you. I never know when to expect you. All I can do is hope. I'd be afraid to call you, and I dont even know the number of your regiment anyway. Sometimes I dont think you come to see me except when you need money." "I been on extra duty all month," Maggio lied. "I couldnt get away. You can ask Prewitt." "Is that right, Prew?" Hal called. "Thats right," Prew called back. "He's on the shitlist." "You liars," Hal said roguishly. "One lies and the other blandly backs him up. You're all alike, you soldiers. Fickle as fate." "Hell," Maggio said. "You're just lucky I was broke this Payday, or I would of got drunked up and got on extra duty again." "It seems," Hal said, "that Tony is always on extra duty around Payday." "I am," Maggio said stoutly. "Seems I always get drunked up on Payday, and then I got extra duty two or three weeks. I always say I aint going to, but every Payday I do. Except this Payday I was broke. Its not that I dont come down because I got money, its just that when I got money I get drunked up. Then I get on extra duty. You see the difference?" Hal laughed. 'Thats rather a fine point, isnt it?" he said. "My simple child of the primitives," he said. "Thats why I love you. Please dont ever lose your ability to lie so convincingly." "But its the truth," Maggio protested. "I get drunked up and come to town to get a couple pieces of ass, and the goddam MPs pick me up, and then I'm on extra duty." "Dont you hate to go to a whorehouse?" Hal asked. "Well," Angelo said. "I dont say I like it as well as I would a local girl, but I dont hate it. On this Rock a dogface aint got much choice." Prew wondered if he always tangled himself up like this, wanting to laugh. But Hal did not seem to notice it. "My god," Tommy said suddenly. "I couldnt stand it. Being a soldier. I'd kill myself. I swear I would." "So would I," Hal said. "But then we arent primitives. We're abnormally sensitive." "I guess that is so," Tommy said. Hal laughed. "But do you see, Tony, how the moral scruples of the local women about soldiers is our gain, Tommy's and mine and the other members of the Third Sex? I think thats very sweetly ironic. It amuses me greatly, because it is indicative of a general turn of affairs that will someday give us the edge entirely." "I guess it is," Maggio said. "Your gain, I mean." "Did you hear that, Prew?" Hal called back. "Yes," Prew said stoically. "I heard it." "Because all these people hate the soldiers," Hal said, going on and developing the idea like a weaver working for his own amusement, "because they believe soldiers are scum - in fact believe all men are scum, women do, because of that my enemies the women are slowly but inevitably bringing about their own destruction." "How is that?" Prew said. "Isnt it obvious?" Hal laughed. "Look at yourself. For you soldiers there are no women, except the whores. The soldiers have to turn to us because we have no sense of sin, like the respectable women." "Oh, I dont know," Prew said, but he could hear the hollowness in his own voice because this was coming too uncomfortably near the truth. Hal laughed his sweet boyish laugh, but he did not press the advantage. "You see," he said gently, "I have a theory about that. My theory is that homosexuality is the direct result of chastity in women." "Then how do you explain the lesbians?" Prew countered. "Touche," Hal laughed. "I believe though, truly, that all homosexuality is the result of frustration and disappointment in life. The more topheavy and abortively respectable a society becomes, the more homosexuals it produces. Decadence, they call it. Did you ever stop to think why is it that it is always in its decadence that a society produces its greatest art? "Ah, you see? Homosexuality breeds freedom, and it is freedom that makes art. But, alas, with the coming of freedom the topheavy society always collapses. Falls into dust. Is gone. Destroyed. Utterly." Hal laughed merrily. "What art have you ever produced?" Prew said. "Who, me? Nothing much. I wrote a novel once, on the life of a bisexual. Nobody would ever publish it. However, everywhere I took it everyone in the office was most anxious to read it. I did not get it back from one publisher for seven months. But I am unimportant. Look at the Greeks, if you dont believe me. Look at the Romans. Look at the Holy Mother Church during the Renaissance." "Balls," Tommy said. "I've read a little about them things," Prew said. "I'd like to see your novel sometime." "Someday I'll let you see it," Hal said. "Well, here we are." He led them around a not old banyan tree, the gnarled above ground roots making them stumble in the darkness, the pencil-thin branch roots not grown into the earth yet and dangling free from the branches slapping them repeatedly in the face. "Isnt that a truly lovely thing to have in one's yard?" Hal said. "Watch your step now." They were at the side of a two storey frame house painted white, at the foot of an outside staircase, uncovered and with open stairs supported by white four by fours, all of it painted white. "We must continue this discussion after we have a drink," Hal whispered to Prew as they all stood on the little landing looking across into the dark bulk of the banyan, while he unlocked the door. He led them into a little entry hall. "Just make yourselves at home, you dears. I'm going to get my clothes off. You can take yours off too, if you want," he laughed, and disappeared into a doorway. "Aint this place somethin?" Maggio said to Prew. "How would you like to have a place like this here? Hunh? How would you? Just imagine it, livin in a place like this. Jesus!" The two of them stood just inside the little entryway, looking around at the neatness and the order and the niceness of the apartment. "I cant," Prew said. "I cant imagine it." "Now you see why I come down here," Maggio said. "Partly. In them goddam concrete barracks a guy forgets there is such places in this world." Tommy, standing behind them, growing impatient, shoved past and went across and sat in one of the big chrome and real leather modern chairs. It broke the spell. "I got to piss," Maggio said, "and by god I want a drink. The crapper's in here. I'll be back in a minute." Prew watched him go through the door where Hal had gone, and then saw beyond into the tiny hall with the bathroom on the left and the bedroom at the end. He turned back to look around the living room. To the left as you came in the door was a raised place one step up with a wrought iron railing where there was a dinette table and a door that led into the kitchen. Across the room was an enormous bay with small glass panes from floor to ceiling clear around its curve, with drapes half drawn across it, and in the middle set back against the wall a cabinet radio and record-player with two record stands of twelve-inch albums flanking it. On the right wall was a big bookcase that was full, and a well-desk. Prew walked around the room looking at the things, trying hard to think of something to say to Tommy. "Have you ever had any of your writing published?" he asked finally. "Of course," Tommy said stiffly. "I had a story in Collier's just a few weeks back." "What kind of a story was it?" Prew was looking at the records, all classical, symphonies and concertos. "A love story," Tommy said. Prew looked up at him and Tommy giggled in his deep bass voice. Story of an aspiring young actress and a rich young Broadway producer. He married her and made her a star." "I can't read them kind of stories," Prew said. He looked back at the records. "I can't either," Tommy giggled. 'Then why write them?" "Because people want to read them, and will pay for them." "They aint like real life though," Prew said. "Nothing like that crap ever happens." "Of course not," Tommy said, stiffly. "Thats why the people read them. You have to give the people what they want." "I aint so sure that they want that," Prew said. "What are you?" Timmy giggled bassly. "A sociologist?" "No. But I figure I'm about like most people. I don't know nothing about great literature, but I cant read them stories." "Its not the men," Tommy said. "Its the women. The stupid, romantic, filthy, moralistic women. They're the ones that like it. They are the book and magazine buyers. And they eat it up. They have to get their kicks some way, dont they? Their morals wont let them get their kicks in bed." "Oh, I don't know. I aint convinced of that." "Women and their moral concepts," Tommy said. "If they dont wake up they'll find themselves without any men at all, someday." "I can see that," Prew said. "You mean they'll drive all the men into being homos, like Hal said." "No, I did not say that," Tommy said stiffly. "I did not say that at all. The women have nothing to do with that." "Maybe they do," Prew said. "I never thought of it before tonight." He was passing by the well-desk. "What?" Maggio said, coming in. "Do what?" He walked over to where Prew still stood by the well-desk. Hal came in behind him, wearing a Tahitian pareu wrapped around him that was printed with flaming poincianas smothered in their deep green pinnate leaves. His thin spruce frame looked angular and flat and muscleless now, instead of debonair. The deep burned tan on the thick juiceless skin seemed unnatural, scaly, as if he had been painted with iodine. "Do have something to do with men becoming homos," Prew said. "I don't think they do," Angelo said. "I didn't either," Prew said. "But now, maybe I do." "Oh?" Hal said. He smiled the sweet boyish smile. "Well, you know some people actually are born that way. Unfortunately, or fortunately, all according to the way you see it. So I wouldn't say the picture was entirely that way." Prew shook his head, grinning. "I been in too many freak shows, from Times Square to Frisco, to swallow that born stuff." "You'd be a dear thing," Hal said distastefully, "if you didn't strain so hard to be filthy." "Filthy?" Prew grinned. "How can anything be filthy, if you dont believe in morals?" "Its not what you say. Its the manner in which you say it, that is filthy. To me such a tragedy is beautiful." "Not to me. To me its trick photography." Hal raised his brows, sweetly, and stared at him. "Sometimes," he said to Angelo, "your buddy almost irritates me." Prew could feel himself grinning and under the grin his face felt stiff, the way it always felt when he heard somebody use the old kill word. "Way I see it, your idea is just as much wishful thinking as the rich young Broadway producer in Tommy's story." "I can see I made a mistake about you," Hal smiled. "I can see now that you dont really have imagination at all, that in truth you are rather a dull clod." "I guess so," Prew grinned. "I guess between the Army and bein on the bum they kicked the imagination all out of me." "Wheres this champagne, Hal?" Angelo said. "Hunh? Come on, lets break her out, hunh? I'm gettin thirsty." "In a moment, my pet. Some day," he said to Prew, "as you grow older, you will find imagination sometimes produces a truth that is greater than any fact." "I can see that," Prew grinned. "But theres something else too, that I don't get. The more I talk to you the more you sound like a priest, for some reason." Hal smiled. "If you werent Tony's friend, I'd throw you out for that." Prew turned to grin at him, easily. "I dont think you could. But if you want me out, all you got to do is ask me." "Well," Hal smiled to Maggio. "Your buddy is a bravo." "Hell, dont mind him," Maggio said. "He's just hot headed. All's wrong with him is he needs a drink." "Is that all?" Hal asked Prew. "Well," Prew said. "I could use one." Tommy stood up from his chair and walked to Prewitt's side protectively. "Goddam you," he said to Hal. "Cant you leave the poor thing alone a minute? He's my date, not yours, you know. Quit tormenting him." "Dont do me no favors," Prew said. "If you dont like the way I treat my guests, Tommy," Hal smiled, "you can always go home. I dont know but what I'd like it better if you did. What time must you boys be back?" "Six o'clock," Angelo said. "For Reveille." He looked over suddenly at the clock on the desk, as if he had just remembered he would have to die someday. "Son of a bitch," he said. "Come on. For Chrisake lets have a drink." "Oh, you," Tommy was saying to Hal. "You bitch. You dirty filthy bitch. I've a good notion to walk right out, right now." Hal laughed merrily. "Suit yourself, Queenie." He turned on his heel and went up the step and into the kitchen. Tommy stood glaring after him, his great arms straight at his sides, his hams of fists clenched against his thighs. "You know I wont leave," he said. "You know I have to stay." Hal stuck his head out the kitchen door. "Of course I know it. Come up here and help me fix these drinks." "All right," Tommy said. He moved his big body stiffly, his hurt feelings on his face. "Come here, Prew," Maggio nodded, whispering. He led him around the corner and over by the record player in the glassed in bay. "Jesus, take it