The Temple of Gold (18 page)

He told me all about himself, about his whole life until his father had made him enlist. About how he wanted to be a farmer, how he had a green thumb and dreamed only of living his life out on his own farm some place, growing crops and doing whatever else you do when you live on one. About how his mother had died and his father had brought him up, shipping him from one military school to the next, seeing as he never did well at any of them. About the time when he’d been turned down from West Point and how his father didn’t speak to him for weeks after, even though they were living together at the time, alone under the same roof. I could have written Kelly’s autobiography inside of a week, I knew that much about him.

In training too, he was different. He still made the same mistakes, still screwed up the platoon as much as before. But now he didn’t care, didn’t yell and holler; now he only laughed, blushing, looking over at me. He was in a good mood from Irma on, Kelly was; just another happy slob fumbling his way through the Army.

Then one night, more than a week later, I was lying in my sack, half asleep, when all of a sudden there he was, standing over me.

“Trevitt,” he whispered. “I got to talk to you.”

“You are talking to me, Ulysses,” I whispered back.

“I got to talk to you,” he said again. “In private. Alone.”

Which is a hard thing to do around an Army barracks, so we left it and walked outside. It was a hot night, full of stars, cloudless, and we moved through it awhile, circling the company area. He was scared again, like he’d been that day on KP when the eggs went slopping. Still, I didn’t say anything but just walked quietly beside him, waiting for him to come out with it. Finally he started talking.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “After lunch. Major Sheffield’s coming down here. He’s a friend of my father, Major Sheffield. To talk about Officer’s School.”

“So what?” I said.

“We have to sign papers,” Kelly went on, whispering even though we were alone. “Applications. For OCS. I heard about it just now. In the orderly room.” He reached down and picked up a handful of dust, rubbing it in his hands. “What’ll I do, Trevitt?” he said after a little. “What am I gonna do?”

“Well, Ulysses,” I said, slapping him on the back, “I’ll tell you. Tomorrow we’ll go in there and we’ll listen to the Major. And then when he’s done, we’ll leave. We won’t sign a thing. Not you. Not me. But that’s tomorrow. Right now, we’re going to get some sleep.” And I started toward the barracks.

He didn’t budge. He just stood right where he was, rubbing that dust in his hands. I came back to him. “Come on, Ulysses,” I said. “Let’s stand tall. You got nothing to worry about. Not a thing. You want to be a farmer. Be a farmer. That’s all there is to it.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never have a farm,” he whispered. “I’ll never get to have one.”

“I don’t know why not,” I said, slapping him again. “Hell, Ulysses. I can see that farm right from here. I can see it plain as day, Ulysses, so I don’t know why you can’t.” I picked up a stick, sauntered over to the supply-room steps, and sat down. Then I started drawing in the dust.

“The farmhouse,” I began. “That goes here.” I drew a big square. “And then I suppose you’ll want a tractor. You want one, don’t you?” He didn’t answer. “Well, I’ll give you one,” I said, and I drew a smaller square next to the farmhouse. “And then you’ll have to have a car, Ulysses, because you’re such a slob you’d never walk into town.” I put the car next to the tractor. “And then, out behind the house, is the cornfield.” I started drawing a bunch of wavy lines and while I was doing that, he came over and sat down beside me, his chin cupped in his hands, watching. “And over here, to the right of the house, you’ve got some barley going.” I drew lines for the barley. “And here on the left, is wheat.” I sat back and looked at it. “That sure is some farm you got there, Ulysses,” I said. “I got to give you credit.”

He didn’t say anything, but bent over instead, looking at it carefully.

“Jesus, Ulysses,” I said then. “I forgot the goddam silo.”

“Silo goes here,” he said, taking the stick, drawing a circle.

“You put it right on top of the house, for chrissakes.” And I grabbed the stick, erased the circle.

“Then here,” he said, making another circle with his finger.

“Not in the cornfield,” I told him, erasing it. He bent down again, ready to put it some place else, but I grabbed his hand. “Ulysses,” I said. “I’m sorry. You can’t have a silo.”

“I got to have a silo,” he said.

“For what?”

“For fodder.”

“Don’t joke, Ulysses,” I said, starting to laugh.

“Fodder,” he said, louder this time. “To feed the animals.”

I stared down at the farm. Then I shook my head. “There’s no room for animals, Ulysses,” I told him. “Sorry.”

“I need animals,” he said, louder still, grabbing the stick out of my hand, erasing what I’d drawn. “Anyway, you got the whole thing wrong. The farmhouse goes here and the silo goes here,” and with that, he was off.

We stayed up all that night, talking about his farm, me asking questions, leading ones, to keep him going. He talked and he talked and every so often he’d reach down and pick up another handful of dust, kneading it in his hands as if it wasn’t dust at all, but rich black topsoil just aching to give birth.

Along about three in the morning he started pooping out, his eyes half closed. But I kept him going, nudging him every once in a while, joking around some, mostly just listening to him.

Then, when he was almost out on his feet, I started talking. About how that afternoon, when the time came, neither of us was going to sign any papers. And nothing his father or anyone else could do would make us do any different. He was so exhausted he began to believe me, sitting there on the steps, nodding his head, half in agreement, half because he was too tired to do anything else.

When reveille blew I got him back to the barracks splashed water in his face, herded him out for formation. He was really dragging all that morning, but around lunchtime he started snapping to. And when that happened, the fear came back. So there he was, just like he’d been the night before, except that now I didn’t have the time to talk him out of it.

I sat beside him at lunch, horsing with him, pouring salt in his coffee, hitting him, but it didn’t do any good. He just sat there, not touching his food, staring straight ahead. I stayed with him after lunch, doing what I could—not much, because now the minutes were ticking away and he was so scared I thought he might shatter apart, right in front of me. I knew I had to do something. But I didn’t know what.

At the start of training in the afternoon, Sergeant Muldoon called some names, Kelly’s and mine and a lot more, and we waited while the rest of the company marched away. Then he told Kelly to march us down to the auditorium at the end of the company street.

When we got there, the Major was waiting for us.

He was all smiles, the Major, grinning from ear to ear, nodding to each of us as we came in, calling Kelly by name. “Make yourselves comfortable, men, make yourselves comfortable,” he said, over and over as he stood up on the platform, leaning on the lectern, that smile still plastered on his face. I sat down in the front row, Kelly beside me, and waited.

We all got quiet and the Major started to talk. “Men,” he began, “I’m here to speak to you about something important, something that may make a world of difference in your lives.”

“Our discharges, Major?” I said, out loud.

He stopped and looked at me for a second. After which he chuckled. Something I’ve always hated. I mean, if you can’t go all the way and laugh, why bother?

“No, soldier,” he said. “I’m not here to talk about your discharge. I’m here to talk about the life you can have if you choose the Army for your career.”

I groaned.

This time he didn’t chuckle, but only smiled, hurrying on, getting to the main part of his speech. Telling us all about the benefits, the honor, the responsibility, the satisfaction of serving your country, of a job well done. And while he talked, I began to yawn, stretching out, sprawled in my seat, drumming my fingers on the armrest, my eyes closed. It wasn’t long before he noticed me.

“Am I boring you, soldier?” he snapped, not smiling any more.

“Not exactly, Major,” I said, standing up. “And no disrespect meant on my part either, but I don’t want to be an officer in the United States Army. I figure it’s a good life and all that, Major. Like you say, it’s just crammed full of honor and responsibility and the satisfaction of a job well done. But me, I don’t want all that responsibility. And all that honor would probably just go to my head. Because some people aren’t cut out to be officers, Major, and I guess I’m one of them. So it’s not so much that you’re boring me as you’re just wasting my time.”

“Then you better leave, soldier,” he said.

“Yessir.” I nodded. “I guess I better. But I’d sure hate to leave alone.” I looked down at Kelly. He looked away, then back, then at the Major.

Then he stood up.

We filed our way out of the auditorium, the silence thick enough to sit on. The minute we were outside, I turned and slugged Kelly on the arm.

“Hello, farmer,” I said.

We went to the barracks, laughing and joking, horsing around, waiting for the others. The Major must have talked for close to an hour, but then, when he had finished, the bunch of us marched out and joined the rest of the company for training. It was almost six o’clock before we got back to the company area.

And when we did, he was there.

I saw him the minute we turned into the company street. He was standing by his jeep, his back straight, his arms folded, waiting there in the afternoon sun, looking like a god.

When we broke formation, Kelly didn’t move. I waited alongside him while the others rushed by us, going this way and that, streaming past like ants from a burning hill.

He strode up to us, quickly, his swagger stick beating a tattoo against his trouser leg, those eagles glistening on his shoulders as they caught the sun. He strode up to us and when he got about two feet away, he stopped. He didn’t say a word, not one word, but just stood there, starring at Kelly, slapping his swagger stick into his open palm. All of a sudden there wasn’t a sound to be heard except the crack of his swagger stick against the hard flesh of his hand.

I started counting those cracks. One. Two. Three. Four. We stood there. Five. Six. Waiting. Seven. Still nobody talked. Eight. Nine. His eyes, almost a colorless blue, burned up into Kelly’s face. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Kelly stared back into those colorless blue eyes, held them with his own. Thirteen. Fourteen. They were coming faster now, sharper, snapping off his hand into the afternoon heat. And still neither of them said a word.

Then Kelly broke.

“O.K.,” he whispered, so soft I could hardly hear him. “O.K. O.K.”

With that, the Colonel wheeled, hurrying away, his shoulders set. And I think if I’d had a gun in my hands then, I would have shot him. I hated him that much. You work and you work to get something done, you try as hard as you can, and suddenly somebody comes along, snaps his fingers, and everything crumbles like a house of cards.

But I didn’t have a gun, so all I could do was watch as he vaulted into his jeep and sat back, straight, his arms folded in front of him. The jeep’s motor roared and it jumped forward, gathering speed. He didn’t so much as give us a glance as he whipped on by.

Kelly watched until the jeep was out of sight. Then he turned to me, a smile on his face. “What the hell,” he muttered. “What the hell. It’s not going to be so bad.”

And it wasn’t.

Not for a week or so anyway. Because during that week, Kelly talked to me all the time about going to Officer’s School, and how he was going to knock them dead. None of which I believed, naturally, seeing as Kelly wasn’t the kind of guy that knocks anybody dead at anything, most of all Officer’s School. But I let him talk, agreeing with him, making him feel as good about it as I could. We joked a lot together and when the weekend came, we went back in to see old Irma, me serving again as chaperon. He was a lot less nervous about it and walked into her room by himself, unaided. When he came out, he wasn’t excited or anything like he’d been before. This time he was calm, as if it was something he’d been doing for years, daily. And after a minute or two of horsing, we didn’t talk about it any more. So everything went along fine, without a hitch.

Until that afternoon on the grenade range.

It was a scorcher, 100° or more. During the morning, the whole company grumbled and moaned, sweating as we went through our paces, practicing with dud grenades, getting ready to throw the real thing in the afternoon.

At lunchtime, I turned to Kelly. “Let’s get in the chow line,” I said. “Come on.”

He shook his head. “I got to go to the latrine,” he told me. “You get in line, Trevitt. I’ll be with you in a while.” He started walking away.

“Sure, Ulysses,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

But I didn’t. I stayed right where I was, watching him as he walked over and talked to the Lieutenant in charge of the range. I saw what he did and when he left the Lieutenant, I followed him.

He walked as fast as he could, never looking back, me trailing some distance behind. He walked across the range and then onto the road in back of it and then past that, heading for the big field of weeds beyond.

Once he got there, I yelled to him. He didn’t stop. I broke into a run, tearing through those weeds full tilt, closing the gap.

“Hi, Kelly,” I said, coming up behind him. He didn’t answer. “You got some sense of direction, Ulysses. The latrine is back there. On the range.”

“You better get away,” he said.

I laughed. “Why? Just because you hocked a live grenade?” He turned and faced me then. I laughed louder. “I saw you, Ulysses. You’d make a hell of a thief, you would. Now, let’s go.” He fumbled around with his hands for a second.

Then he pulled the pin, his thumb pressing down on the release lever.

“Now will you go, Trevitt?”

I shook my head. “Not without you.”

We stood there, facing each other, standing waist high in the weeds, him with his thumb on that lever, pressing it down, his thumb white, his hands squeezed against his stomach.