The Great Santini (59 page)

Then Red screamed at him and entered a perimeter near the bus where the light gave him a surreal visibility. "I got to hurt you, Toomer. I got to hurt you bad."

"Get on n-n-now, Red. Get on home now 'f-f-fore somethin' else happen," Toomer said.

"We were just gonna scare your black ass, Toomer. For what you did to me today at Fogle's. A nigger's got to learn not to go touchin' a white man."

"You got what y-y-you ax for, Red," Toomer shouted over the noise of the dogs.

"It wouldn't-a hurt nothin' if you'd just let me have my fun. You made everyone laugh at me, Toomer. The whole town's laughin' at me. And now they'll laugh some more because of you and your fuckin' bees. I got to teach you, Toomer. I got to teach you that I'm a white man. I got to be treated with some respect. You ain't never respected me in your whole life, but you'll goddam respect me from now on. That's what I came back to teach you."

"G-g-get on, boy, before I get y-y-your m-m-mama on you."

One of the police dogs had mounted the small kitchen table and was barking in a blind rage, snapping his fangs at Red through the window. Red fired at him through the window and knocked the dog off the table and onto the small wood-burning stove that stood at the back end of the bus. The dog was dead when Toomer reached him.

When Toomer rose again to face Red his expression had changed and his eyes seemed akin to those of the pack for the first time.

Spittle flecked his lips as he screamed," I'm gonna get you, Red. I'm gonna hurt you for that, boy."

"You ain't never gonna do nothing to me again, nigger," Red said, squinting through his one blue eye that was still open and functional. He aimed the gun for the big Gray, but did not see Toomer coming over to pull the Gray from the window. The bullet caught the black man full in the stomach and for a moment the two men looked at each other in a suspended moment of horror, of incredulity.

"Did I get you, Toomer?" Red cried out. "I didn't mean to get you. Oh, God, I didn't mean to get you. "But he could hear nothing and Toomer could hear nothing but the scream of the dogs. Toomer stumbled toward the front of the bus, trying to keep his balance as he weaved his way through the dogs, trying to keep the blood in his body with his two hands. Unsteadily he fell against the front window of the bus and his right hand grasped for the handle to the front door. At first he could not find it, believed it was not there, that it was betraying him at this final moment, until finally he had it, cold, in his hand, and he slammed it back hard toward the window, opening the door, and freeing the dogs.

The dogs poured through the door with the Gray in the lead. Red had waited too long to interpret Toomer's harrowing walk down the center of the bus. When he saw that Toomer meant to set the dogs on him, he sprinted thoughtlessly toward the dirt road and the highway, passing the hives in a blur of recognition, and making it almost to the first line of trees before he heard the sound of a pack in full cry, and in one voice, pursuing him.

One hundred yards from the bus, the Gray pulled Red Pettus to the ground. The Gray, eyes yellow, man-hating eyes, went for Red's groin. The other dogs followed closely, going for the face, the throat, the arms, the stomach, anything that was flesh, anything that belonged to the man who had hurt Toomer. Red twisted and fought but every time he moved meat was torn from his body. He reached up to knock a dog from his ear and found he had no ear. The forest filled up with the screams of Red and the growling of the pack until gradually only the noise of the dogs was heard.

It was only because of the hair that Ben recognized Red Pettus. The face was torn in a dozen places. The entire corpse was covered with blood. Ben rolled down the window to get a closer look, fascinated by the first dead man he had ever seen. He did not see the Gray appraising him in silence and coming up from behind him, stalking him.

The Gray sprang and came halfway through the window, catching Ben's arm and tearing at the flight jacket. Ben punched at the dog with his right fist, punched at the throat, feeling the dog's teeth go through the jacket and sink into the sinew of his forearm. Then, he remembered the car was running and he stomped the accelerator and the dog slid off him but not before the teeth had torn up the sleeve of the flight jacket and raked through muscles and veins as the dog was jerked from the arm by the sudden acceleration of the car.

Ben drove to the bus, past the fallen hives and parked his car flush against the side of the bus, making sure that there was no way for a dog to challenge his presence again. He rolled down the window on the passenger side and climbed into the bus. He saw Toomer lying on his back, his two large hands clamped over a stomach wound.

"Toomer, Toomer, Toomer!" Ben cried, rushing over to the man.

"Hey, white boy," Toomer said. "L-l-l-looks like we can't go shrimpin' on F-f-friday."

"Sure we can, Toomer. You promised," Ben said.

"Dead men don't make too good a fishermen."

"We're going to the hospital. Doe Ratteree's gonna make you well, Toomer," Ben said, grasping Toomer under his arms and pulling him toward the door. Toomer screamed with pain and the dogs began to gather as a pack outside the school bus.

"I'm sorry, Toomer, but I got to get you to the hospital," Ben said. "Jesus Christ, you've lost a lot of blood!"

"I hurt," Toomer moaned. "Gawd, I hurt."

Ben backed into the car window, then struggled to pull Toomer down the steps of the bus and through the window without hurting him. He was sweating from the effort and grunting from bearing the weight of the injured man. But he was glad that Toomer was no longer moaning.

Finally he pulled Toomer into the front seat and propped him against the front door. Toomer's eyes were wide open but there was a strange depth to his stare. In a moment of measureless agony, Ben Meecham knew he was staring into the face of a dead man. He fumbled for a pulse, felt for a heart beat, prayed for a stutter, or a limp, or a song of flowers. He placed his hand against Toomer's stomach and covered it with Toomer's blood. There was nothing to do now, nothing to hurry for. He rolled up the window of the car, Toomer's side of the car, he thought. He removed the flight jacket and covered Toomer's wound with it. Then, very slowly, he drove back down the dirt road, the pack hurling themselves at the car, appearing before the headlights, snapping at the wheels, demonic and carnivorous once again.

He drove down that road he had come down so many times before and would never come down again. His brain flooded with images and memories. But the images broke up of their own accord, weightless chimeras routed by a numbness that ran through him unchallenged. It took several moments for it to register that there were headlights blocking off access to the highway. He slowed down and stopped in front of the car.

All fear had left him now and the numbness identified itself as a beleaguered, voiceless resignation. There was a disenfranchisement from both the present and the past, from the body beside him and the headlights in front of him; he was enclosed in a timeless realm without margins, outlines, or tense. And he saw a large man with a pistol walk between both cars.

Ben opened the car door, put his feet on the ground, and stood up.

"Dad," he said.

Bull rushed forward and stood before his son for a full five seconds before he slapped him with the back of his hand. The blow caught Ben on the mouth and small capillaries exploded against the teeth and Ben could taste almost instantly the salt liquor of blood, a marsh taste, like the aftertaste of oysters when Toomer would open them fresh.

"Hey, jocko," Bull screamed," when I tell you to stay in one goddam place, you better let grass grow out of your asshole before you move without my permission! You got it?"

"Yes, sir.

"You disobeyed a direct order, hog. A direct order issued by the head honcho."

"Yes, sir."

"You knew you were in deep trouble if you were caught, didn't you, hog?"

"Yes, sir."

"Therefore you expected to be punished if you were caught."

"Yes, sir."

"Why'd you do it?"

"I didn't think I was going to get caught, sir."

"I want the real reason, sweet pea. Because you've never had the guts to go against me before and I goddam want to know why the fuck you came out here tonight in defiance of Santini."

"Because I promised Arrabelle and I thought Toomer might be in trouble. And . . ."

"And what, sweet pea?"

"And because I was your son," Ben said, almost bitterly.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Because you'd have done it. Santini would have done it."

"Santini doesn't go around disobeying direct orders."

"You just did, Dad. Remember that you made me memorize the guard orders? I've always had trouble remembering them. But I never had trouble remembering the most important one. You deserted your post."

"I didn't desert my post. I was worried you would step into some deep shit coming out here. You made me come out here."

"No, sir, I didn't."

"I thought you might be in trouble, Ben. Can you get that through your thick goddam little southern boy skull?"

"I thought Toomer might be in trouble."

"I told you Toomer could take care of himself."

"Yes, sir. That's what you told me."

"Is that Toomer in the car?" Bull said, looking for the first time into the interior of the car but looking through the front window at the silhouette propped against the door.

"Yes, sir."

"Hey, Toomer. How you doin', sportsfans?" Bull said, walking to the other side of the car and peering into the window.

"Jesus Christ! Jesus H. Christ! Is he dead?" Bull asked his son.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, that's a good way to ruin a flight jacket, sweet pea. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. You better take him to the hospital, sportsfans. You got it? Jesus Christ. I'll go get the sheriff and tell Arrabelle. Jesus Christ. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say something?"

"It wouldn't have made any difference, Dad," Ben said, getting back into the car. "It just wouldn't have made any difference."

Mess night was a formal dinner, a rigidly proper genuflection toward the stiffest and most chivalrous origins of the Marine Corps and one that Bull Meecham believed to be the single most efficacious ceremony for stimulating esprit de corps that a commanding officer had at his disposal. It was a night when Marines could celebrate their identity and their origins as Marines; it was a night to sustain and honor the transcendence of their history by a return to the essences, to the latticework of ritual that tied them to the brotherhood of warriors that had gone before them and the men who would bear the scarlet and gold in their wake. Mess Night was a testament of linkage, an evening that allowed for the lyrics of both form and ferocity. Mess Night for the thirty-eight pilots of 367 began at 1920 on the first Friday in March.

The aviators were resplendent in full dress as they drank cocktails in the anteroom before the call to dinner. Part of the Marine Band from Biddle Island played light classical music as the pilots mingled and took their first drinks. Several of the pilots had made a Coors run to the West Coast the previous week and many of the Marines were beginning the long evening of institutionalized drinking by slowly sipping on a Coors beer. In the Marine Corps a passionately articulate school of thought had arisen that Coors was the finest American beer; its unavailability on the East Coast made it de riguer for any Marine aviator who made it to the Coast to return laden down with all the Coors an F-8 could carry. It was an unwritten law in Bull Meecham's squadron that anyone who neglected to bring back a shipment of Coors from the West Coast would be court-martialed upon his return and probably shot.

There was a caution to the early evening drinking, almost an abstemiousness, for the Mess Night that began with the dignity of a coronation often ended with the survival of the species as a major concern. Many of the younger lieutenants and several of the captains had never attended a Mess Night; they had only heard.

But in this beginning hour, there was only a glittering retinue of officers and gentlemen, a low and decent murmur of conversation, an uncommon restraint among the slim, muscular, seemingly invulnerable men who, slightly titillated by the light that could dazzle off cordovan and the understated correctness of the full dress uniform, seemed to Bull Meecham to represent everything that was right with the United States.

The wives of the 367 braced themselves for the uncertain homecoming of their spouses. They were neither invited nor welcome at Mess Night. Since its origins in the deckrooms of British warships, the Mess Night had evolved as a gathering of men. At the Meecham house, Lillian told Ben that if necessary he might have to ride out to the air station to drive his father home. Bull had promised Lillian that he would not get drunk, but she was not a young wife and she had heard such promises before.

At 2000 a drummer and fifer began to play" The Roast Beef of Old England" and pilots began filing into the dining room where gleaming candelabra reflected off both the silver service and the finely polished mahogany tables. But before any pilot entered the dining room, he made a last strategic run to the head, for the Mess Night dinners sometimes lasted over two hours during which time wine was consumed in a limitless flow. But one of the most entrenched traditions of Mess Night was that a man could not exit to relieve himself until the dinner was completed unless the president of the Mess granted permission. As President of this Mess Night, Bull Meecham had spread the word that he would grant permission for no head runs during the course of the evening, knowing full well that this one arbitrary rule would become a serious test of manhood before the ceremony was done.