The Lords of Discipline (66 page)

“Objection, your honor,” Jim Rowland said, an expression of pain and annoyance on his face. “This is irrelevant and a complete waste of the court’s time.”

“How is this relevant, Mr. McLean?” the chairman asked.

“Because of words, Mr. Chairman,” I said earnestly. “Because of the way we are trained to think by the Institute when we are members of the honor court. We are trained to ignore nuances. When I told that story, all of you made a note that Cadet Kersey was obviously guilty of stealing a vegetable. They found that onion in his pocket and the storekeeper had seen him take it. I thought he was guilty too when I studied the history of that case today in the library. But the honor court of 1928 found Cadet Kersey innocent. They found him innocent because of words, gentlemen. Cadet Kersey had not stolen a
vegetable;
he had stolen an
herb.
The honor code did not cover the stealing of herbs and because of that case the honor code was amended and improved to cover the theft of anything, be it animal, vegetable, or mineral. But it was not amended in such a way that it covers cases such as this present one. When Mr. Pignetti was apprehended, he had no vegetables and no herbs and no gasoline. He had not yet stolen anything.”

“I rule that your line of reasoning has absolutely no merit, Mr. McLean,” Gauldin said, hammering the table once again. “And I think you are hurting your case much more than helping it.”

Before I could respond, Pig angrily muttered a slurred, barely audible word that caused every eye in the room to fix on him in amazement. The word did not register with the court, but it registered instantly with Tradd, Mark, and me. Pig had called Gauldin Grace a motherfucker in Italian.

“I would like to request a brief recess before Mr. Rowland calls his first witness, your honor.”

“Granted,” Gauldin said, looking at Pig.

I walked to the table where Pig sat, red-faced, anxious, and sweating profusely. Sweat was pouring off his face, and Tradd was wiping him dry with a white linen handkerchief monogrammed with his initials. The gesture moved me and reminded me of Bo Maybank massaging me with his towels.

We gathered around Pig solicitously. Mark tenderly rubbed Pig’s thick, taut shoulders, trying to get him to uncoil and relax; his entire body was flexed and his breathing came hard.

“Pig,” I whispered to him, “it won’t help your case to call the chairman of the honor committee a motherfucker. I know you’re under enormous pressure, but we can’t afford any more outbursts. We’ve got to keep the faith, paisan. That bullshit I just slung all over the court probably didn’t work, but all we’ve got to do is convince one of those guys. Just one of them, Pig. It has to be unanimous to throw you out of here. You just concentrate on staying cool. We’re not going to call you to testify so you don’t have to worry about blowing up on the witness stand. But don’t piss these guys off by muttering under your breath every rime a ruling goes against us.”

“Be cool, meatbrain,” Mark said softly.

“They’re going to kick me out of here,” Pig said, staring wildly at us. “They’re going to kick me out of this school. I can feel it. I can feel it in this room, man. It’s like I’m attending my own funeral.”

“We haven’t finished blowing smoke,” Mark said, his mouth close to Pig’s ear.

“It’s just disgusting how copiously Italians perspire,” Tradd said, wrinkling his nose and continuing to wipe the sweat from Pig’s forehead. “American bodies are simply incapable of producing such moisture.”

It was the first time Pig had smiled since the night before. It loosened all of us, and we went back to our chairs and awaited the moment when Jim Rowland would call his first witness. As we listened to the testimony of the OG, I placed my right hand on Pig’s shoulder and squeezed it, as we endured the flat, monotonous testimony, which damaged Pig grievously with its assuredness and its utter simplicity. Mark continued to massage Pig’s neck and shoulders while Tradd dried the sweat on his face. All of us were holding on to Pig, protecting him; by touching Pig, we were touching each other, felt the connection of our time together, the depth and awful brevity of our common history, and the dazzling intensity of our friendship. We had gathered in an indissoluble band around our endangered friend, and we touched him because it was the only form of speech or communication available, our only way of telling him that we were with him at the lowest and most vulnerable hours of his life. A transcendent feeling of superhuman, perfect solidarity with my friends overwhelmed me at that moment. I was dizzy with love and dread. I was connected to the heartbeats and pulses of my roommates by a benign, vital symbiosis, and I felt that I depended on them for blood and oxygen, and if one of them had abandoned the rest of us at that very instant, my spirit and my body could not have absorbed such trauma, such loss.

The OG’s testimony was brief and flawless. Jim Rowland led him through his lines with admirable economy. The defense table did not object once to the testimony nor did we cross-examine the witness when Jim had finished.

Major Mudge entered the courtroom with an imperious leanness and stride. He was sworn in and repeated the exact testimony of the OG. Only the phraseology and the emphasis differed at all. Mudge had a surprisingly dramatic flair as he spoke, stabbing the air in front of him with a perfectly manicured index finger, which moved as thoughtlessly and precisely as a metronome. To be fair, his testimony pained him deeply. Though as the tactical officer of R Company he had always cheerfully loathed me, he had liked Pig a great deal.

When he finished speaking, Mark rose for the cross-examination. He approached Mudge with brio and hunger, stealthy and quick-limbed.

“Major Mudge,” he said, “I have no problems with your testimony at all. But I would like you to describe the automobile from which Mr. Pignetti was about to steal the gas.”

“Certainly, Mr. Santoro,” Mudge answered, consulting his notes. “It was a gray 1959 Chevrolet badly in need of a wash.”

“Whose automobile was it, sir?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know who the car belonged to, Mr. Santoro. I considered that irrelevant. But the sticker number on the car was 16407.”

Mark removed a sheaf of papers from the clipboard he was carrying. “Would you please look up that number, Major, and tell the court the name of the car’s owner?”

“Objection, your honor,” Jim Rowland protested. “I also find this line of questioning completely irrelevant, but that should come as no surprise to the court, since the entire defense we have heard tonight has been completely irrelevant.”

“I assure you, your honor,” Mark said quickly, “the ownership of the car is extremely relevant.”

“It can’t hurt anything to know who owned the car,” Gauldin ruled. “If you would be so kind as to enlighten the court, Major.”

“The vehicle is owned by . . .” Mudge said, going down the numerical listing of all the automobiles registered on campus. Then he stopped, confused, and looked over at me. “The car is owned by Cadet McLean,” he said. “I should have known. It was really in need of a wash.”

There was a bewildered murmur among the members of the honor court. The faces of the individual members registered surprise and even anger. They looked at Pig, at me, and each other as it occurred to them that if Pig was, indeed, the thief, then I was the victim.

The victim kept his hand on the thief’s shoulder and the thief in a natural, unconscious gesture placed his hand over mine.

“I have no more questions for the Major,” Mark said.

“Then call your first witness,” Gauldin ordered as Major Mudge made his exit.

“I would like to call as my first witness Mr. Will McLean, your honor,” Mark said.

“Objection, your honor,” Jim Rowland shouted. “Mr. McLean is a member of the defense. He cannot be both a member of the defense and a chief witness.”

“There’s nothing in the honor code that says that, your honor,” Mark shot back.

“Overruled,” Gauldin said wearily. “Swear the witness in and let’s get on with this.”

It was a lesson in perspective for me to take the witness stand and face the same honor court on which I had served my entire senior year. These were all my good friends; yet, on this night, their collective gaze was harsh and malevolent. The members looked at me as they were required to do, as a witness and not as a friend.

As I waited for Mark to question, an abstract, disjointed thought began troubling me. Pig’s dilemma had demonstrated that the concept of honor meant very little to me at all or at least not when it involved my friends and their security. If I could help Pig get out of this room unharmed and safe, I would tell any lie I could and I would tell it under oath. I would commit an honor violation as easily and simply as I adjusted my uniform belt in the morning. But the realization was troubling only because it was worthless. We had reached a critical juncture where not the wildest, most egregious falsehood could help Pig. Our only chance was to confuse the honor court. That was the strategy we had evolved in an all-night vigil in our room as Pig’s last and only chance. But we had also decided, the four of us in a secret vote, that a lie might help Pig and I was the one selected to tell it under oath. The honor committee would never question the veracity of one of its own members. Anything I swore to would be above suspicion. I had voted guilty on three separate occasions during the year in cases involving lying. I had felt no sense of remorse whatsoever when I heard the drums echoing across the campus for those three cadets. Now I was going to lie and I had premeditated that lie for several hours. I tried not to think about lying as I faced the blameless countenance of Gauldin Grace; I tried not to think about hypocrisy. I tried to concentrate on looking as if I were telling the truth. Only threeother people would ever know I was lying, and according to the honor code they too would be implicated in the lie by their toleration of it. Our entire room was entering into the dark country of honor and there were no maps to guide us, no stars on which to fix our sextants, no bells to alert us to the dangers of cities overrun by our enemies. In this country, there were only drums and the drums were waiting, hostile and silent.

“When did you discover that Mr. Pignetti was apprehended while taking the gas cap off your car?” Mark asked me.

“Last night after Major Mudge brought Pig back to the room.”

“Were you disturbed when you heard it was your car, Mr. McLean?” he asked.

“Irrelevant,” Jim Rowland said. “Irrelevant and a complete waste of time.”

“Overruled, Mr. Rowland,” Gauldin said. “I am curious about what they are trying to prove by this line of questioning. I’ve been curious the whole evening about the nature of the defense.”

“No, it did not disturb me,” I answered. “It relieved me.”

“Would you tell the court why it relieved you, Mr. McLean?” Mark said, fixing me with his expressive dark eyes.

“Because if it was my car, there could be no question of its being an honor violation. If it had been any other cadet besides one of his roommates, then it was probable that Pig was about to commit an honor violation. But because of the code that exists in our room, Pig could not commit an honor violation against me even if he had taken every drop of gas in my car.”

“Objection, objection, objection, your honor.” Jim rose, shouting above the attendant murmuring that ran through the court. “That is the most preposterous suggestion I have ever heard delivered between these four walls. To suggest that the honor system does not exist among roommates is preposterous.”

“I don’t understand what you’re driving at, Mr. Santoro,” Gauldin agreed.

“We are trying to explain how a code developed in our room, your honor. It was a code among the four of us. It was as important to us as the honor code and we have lived by it.”

“This is the honor court, Mr. Santoro.” Gauldin spoke, his voice an accurate gauge of the court’s rising exasperation with our line of defense. “We did not come here to discuss the code that happened to have developed in your room. I’m very happy that y’all developed a code, but it has nothing to do with this trial.”

“If Mr. Pignetti did not break the code of the room then we can prove he did not break the honor code of the Institute, Mr. Grace,” Mark said, and he raised his hands in a sign of entreaty, of subordination.

“Get on with it,” Gauldin said with a sigh.

Mark turned back to me and said, “Why do you say that it was impossible for Mr. Pignetti to commit an honor violation against you, Mr. McLean?”

“Because the four of us had made a pact together. It began in our freshman year. The pact worked like this: If I had money, then they had money. If they had food or clothing, then I had food or clothing. If I was in trouble, then they were in trouble. It was an imperfect system, but we worked on it for four years. We helped each other out and supported each other with the system. Pig could not steal gas from my car because it was his gas, too. He could not steal the car because it was his car. He could not steal money from my wallet because it was his money. If he needed gas from my car, then it was his for the taking and he did not have to ask my permission.”

The court groaned in a collectively annoyed chorus and Jim Rowland jumped to his feet with a vociferous objection.

“This is madness, Mr. Chairman,” Jim said amidst the hubbub. “This has nothing to do with the honor system of this school. This is a pitiful attempt to subvert the system and make this court forget what brought us here tonight. Cadet Pignetti was caught in the parking lot of fourth battalion with a gas can and a siphoning hose, unscrewing a gas cap from an automobile. Those are the facts and that is why Mr. Pignetti is up before the honor court. To suggest that Mr. Pignetti is immune from the honor system if he is lucky enough to be caught stealing from his roommate is absolutely ridiculous. These arguments are not worthy to be heard by this court.”

“If it was my car, then it was his gas,” I said.

“I have not ruled on that last objection,” Gauldin snapped at me, flustered.

“And I strongly suggest that you rule in my favor,” Jim said peremptorily. “I think the honor court has had enough of this.”