JC2 The Raiders (16 page)

He was also required to take a class in physical education, and in
order to avoid the strange American games of football and basketball,
he concentrated on swimming and learned to play tennis. His coaches
were pleased, though they knew they would have him for only one year.

The swimming coach had great difficulty finding boys willing to
compete in the butterfly. It was, guys said, a "hairshirt"
way to swim. To Jonas, who had first learned to swim at Culver, all
the competitive strokes but freestyle seemed unnatural, no one any
more so than any other. When the coach asked him to swim the
butterfly, he agreed. Within a few weeks he was the freshman
butterfly man. He won the intramural competition, then won a
war-diminished inter-mural competition. He sent his blue ribbons to
Cordoba.

He received two letters a week from his mother, one a month from his
grandfather, an occasional letter from his stepfather, and one
occasionally from his half brothers and sisters, usually writing
together. He wrote to his mother in English, the other letters in
Spanish. His roommate marveled over his ability to write easily in
two languages. In truth, Jonas could have written in French or German
almost as easily.

His roommate's name was Jerome Rabin, a Jew from Brooklyn and the
first Jew he had ever met. Jerry was in the same situation as Jonas.
He would be draft-eligible early in 1944.

They talked about it. "I'm going to apply for a naval officer's
commission," said Jerry. "What they call the
ninety-day-wonder program. Ninety days after I enlist I'll be an
ensign. But, say, do you have to go at all? You're Mexican."

"I am a citizen of the United States," Jonas said soberly.
"My father is a citizen, which makes me a citizen. It is
important to me to keep my citizenship."

"They can't take it away from you," said Jerry.

"But I don't want to be known later in life as one who evaded
his military obligation. That could become a great impediment."

"You've thought this through," Jerry remarked dryly.

"And discussed it with my mother and my stepfather and my
grandfather."

"With your father?"

"I've never met him."

"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I shouldn't have asked. I
didn't mean to pry."

"I am not offended."

"Well — Let's change the subject," said Jerry. "Since
both of us will be going away next year, we have only this year to
get our wicks dipped."

"I ... don't understand."

Jerry Rabin grinned. He was a lighthearted boy who would later
confide to Jonas that when they first met he found his roommate
formidably solemn. He was not as tall as Jonas and was slight of
build. His features were delicate. Girls envied his dark eyes. He had
a Mediterranean complexion.

He opened a drawer in one of the two small desks in the room and
pulled out a quart bottle and two small glasses. He poured and handed
one glass to Jonas. "A shot of rye," he said. "It will
put us in a better mood to plan our campaign."

Jonas sipped cautiously. It was his first taste of distilled spirits.
He had drunk wine with dinner since he was ten years old, but his
stepfather and grandfather had never invited him to share in their
after-dinner brandy — nor, for that matter, to smoke cigars
with them. The rye whiskey tasted terrible. He swallowed it with
difficulty.

"Your English is perfect," said Jerry. "Apparently,
though, somebody neglected to tell you a few words. Do you know what
'fuck' means?"

Jonas nodded. "Yes." His attention was focused on the rye
remaining in his glass. He did not want to seem unappreciative;
neither did he want Jerry to guess this was his first taste of
whiskey.

"Have you ever done it?"

"No."

"Well, neither have I, and wouldn't it be a tragedy if we went
off to war, maybe even got killed, and hadn't ever done it? That's
why we've got to plan a campaign to get girls up to this room. And,
incidentally, getting your wick dipped is a politer way of saying
fuck. We have all kinds of ways to avoid using the word. Don't ever
use it. You'll shock the eyeteeth out of people. We say" —
he raised his voice a register and spoke through pursed lips —
"we say, 'have sexual intercourse.' We say, 'make love.' We say,
'go to bed.' Or we say, 'get our rocks off.' Anything to avoid saying
'fuck.' "

Jonas grinned. "I've been denied an essential element of my
education," he said — although it wasn't true, because he
had heard much talk of this kind at Culver. He tipped his glass and
finished his drink. "I will be grateful to you for more
instruction."

Jerry refilled their shot glasses. "What's between our legs is a
penis. Isn't that a terrible word? Guys call it 'cock' or 'peter' or
'dick.' What girls have is a vagina, another terrible clinical word.
Guys call it a 'cunt,' chiefly. But don't ever use any of these
words, the polite ones or the other ones, to girls. They'll go ga-ga.
In fact, don't talk about these things at all. Except to guys."

Jonas laughed. "We have all these funny words and can't use
them."

"Anyway," said Jerry, "we're virgins. I don't know
about you, but I intend to remedy that as soon as I can."

"Why didn't you remedy it before?"

"The family. The neighborhood. Why didn't you?"

"The same, I suppose. Actually, I don't even know very many
girls."

"Well, tell me, what did you put down on your card as your
religion?"

"I wrote nothing. It was optional."

Jerry clapped his hand to his forehead in mock grief. "Why
couldn't you have put down Catholic? Then you'd have been invited to
a church and a Catholic youth club, where you could have met not only
girls but naive girls."

Jonas shrugged. He had begun to learn something of what rye whiskey
did to a person.

"
Girls
, Jonas! Nooky. Poontang. Don't
you enjoy seeing their tight little asses twitch when they walk?"

"Well ... I haven't watched ... that much."

"
Start
watching! Start looking. Look
at asses. Look at boobs. Concentrate on the job at hand, which is get
our wicks dipped before we have to go into uniform."

When Jerry learned that Jonas could not go home for Christmas break —
the journey was too far, and wartime restrictions on transportation
might have made it impossible — he invited Jonas to come home
with him. Jonas accepted the invitation, went home with Jerry Rabin,
and lived for two weeks with a Jewish family in Brooklyn. It was a
rewarding experience. He even learned a bit of another language:
Yiddish.

Neither Jonas nor Jerry had by then gotten his wick dipped. They
remained virgins. But at Jerry's prompting Jonas had begun to look
more closely at girls: appreciatively, speculatively. Ironically, he
looked that way at Jerry's sister, Susan. He noticed the size of her
breasts. He studied the way her backside twitched when she walked. He
studied that so closely he realized he had to be careful not to be so
obvious. Lying in his bed in the guest room, he fantasized a faint
knock on the door, then Susan coming in, undressing, slipping into
his bed. In real fact, he would not have touched her. She was his
friend's sister! But he found the fantasy delicious.

Spring break came, and they hadn't hauled their ashes.

It occurred to Jonas that they were too obvious. Girls they met knew
what they wanted. The girls didn't want the same thing.

Finally, in April, Jerry succeeded in persuading two girls to visit
the dorm room. They were not supposed to be there, so they had to
climb up a fire escape, enter the dorm through a window, and slip
along the hall to the boys' room — which process alone had
discouraged several girls from accepting an invitation.

They were town girls. That is to say, they lived in Cambridge. One
was still in high school. The other had graduated and worked as a
waitress. Both lived with their parents and had to be home by eleven.

Neither was exquisitely beautiful. Helen was dark-haired, brown-eyed,
and chubby. Ruth was blond and thinner. Her face was marred by
pimples — only two that evening, but the marks of others
remained on her cheeks.

None of these four young people had any doubt why the two girls had
come to visit the two boys in their dormitory room. Only two
questions remained: Which girl would be intimate with which boy, and
what were the terms of this visit?

The two girls, it turned out, expected to be paid five dollars
apiece. Jerry shook his head firmly. Maybe two, he said.

Jonas seized Jerry by the sleeve of his gray tweed
jacket and shoved him out into the hall. "Listen, goddammit,"
he said. "Didn't you ever read
Innocents Abroad
by Mark
Twain?"

"What's that got to do with —"

"All their lives the 'pilgrims' had dreamed of going for a boat
ride on the Sea of Galilee. When the boatmen asked for eight dollars,
they offered four, and the boatmen rowed away. Those 'pilgrims' never
did get to sail on the Sea of Galilee. Because of four dollars
divided among eight men. I'm going to give one of those girls five
dollars and get my wick dipped. I suggest you give five to the other
one."

Jonas strode back into the room and handed a five-dollar bill to
Helen, the dark, chubby one. For his decisiveness he got his choice.
Jerry would later complain of that, but for now he grudgingly counted
out five one-dollar bills to Ruth.

Once again decisive, Jonas led Helen to the maroon-plush-upholstered
sofa that was the centerpiece of the living room. His eyes shooting
annoyance, Jerry took Ruth into the bedroom.

Helen undressed, directly without diffidence or hesitation. When she
was naked, she helped Jonas undress. "Y’ know," she
said, "I bet this here's your first time."

"Not really," he said.

She lifted his penis in her hand. "Well," she said. "Y'
got what it takes, anyway. Y' ready?"

"Sure." He didn't know the term foreplay but had supposed
there would be something before the act. But he didn't want her to
suppose he didn't know what to do. "Sure. Let's do it."

She opened her purse and took out a Coin-Pak. Stripping the foil off,
she pulled out the rubber and stretched it on her fingers. "Not
circumcised," she muttered. "Bet y' friend is. Anyway, y'
want it skinned back?"

"No."

She rolled the condom onto his erect penis. Then she lay on her back
and spread her legs. "C'mon."

It was purely mechanical. Yet the satiation was so complete that it
exhausted him. When he was finished and dropped his weight on her
hips, Helen tousled his hair and patted his back: the first sign from
her of anything like affection. He became conscious that his skin and
hers were wet and their sweat was mingling. Their odors mingled. It
had not occurred to him until then to kiss her, and she had not
offered herself to be kissed, but he kissed her now and felt her
tongue coming between his lips and into his mouth.

When Jerry and Ruth came out of the bedroom, Jonas was on his back
under Helen, he was in her, and she was moaning quietly as she
rotated her hips. His eyes were closed. So were hers. They were not
aware that the other couple stood gaping, watching them.

"Well, Jee-zuss Christ!" said Ruth.

HE RETURNED TO CAMBRIDGE IN THE FALL OF 1943. in February 1944 he
registered for the draft, using as his address the dormitory where he
had lived the past year with Jerry Rabin. Then he enlisted in the
United States Army.

The first thing the army did was give him a new name. The army was
no-nonsense about names. Everybody had a first name, a middle
initial, and a last name. The sergeant who handled the matter took
his first name as Jonas, his middle initial as E. (for Enrique), and
his last name as Batista. What "Cord y" meant, he didn't
know and didn't care. So far as the United States Army was concerned,
Jonas Enrique Raul Cord y Batista was Private Jonas E. Batista.

Within a few days his name was changed even further. The guys in his
outfit didn't like the name Jonas. It sounded too much like the guy
that was swallowed by the whale, one man said. Or like Judas, which
was a jinx. Anyway, he didn't look like a Jonas. They tried calling
him Joe, but there were too many Joes. Batista? So, okay, he was Bat.
The nickname stuck. Bat. Men called him Bat who had no idea his last
name was Batista.

Two weeks after he arrived at Fort Dix he was summoned to the office
of a Captain Barker.

"Where you from, Batista?"

"Cambridge, Mass, sir."

"Graduate of Culver."

"Yes, sir."

"Fluent in German. And French."

"Yes, sir."

"Shit, Private. The army's got better things for you to do than
basic infantryman. I'm transferring you. The army's got ninety-day
wonders, not just the navy."

"Captain's looking for you, Lieutenant. He's in the beer hall up
the street."

First Lieutenant Jonas E. Batista nodded at Sergeant David Amory and
walked off toward the beer hall, a hundred yards up the street. He
had just finished interrogating three German civilians, without
learning anything he needed to report to Captain Grimes. A cold
drizzle had been falling all morning, and he walked on slippery
cobblestones.

"Hey, Bat." Another lieutenant, named Duffy, came across
the street. "Grimes is calling in the platoon leaders."

"Yeah, I just got the word."

"What's up, ya know?"

"Change of orders," said Bat.

"How ya know?"

"Hell, there's
always
a change of
orders."

Duffy was an older man, almost thirty. He was in fact older than
Captain Grimes. Bat was the youngest platoon leader in the company.
He was the youngest first lieutenant in the battalion. He had six
months of combat experience and had suffered a flesh wound in the
left armpit in Belgium — wound enough to merit a Purple Heart.
He had killed a German soldier — that is, killed him
one-on-one, not just by directing platoon fire. Still almost a year
short of his twentieth birthday, Bat had acquired the reputation of a
tough, effective, aggressive infantry officer.