Author: James Jones
Category: Literature
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By the time the train pulled out of Memphis, Johnny was already tired of sitting. Looking around to see if the train MPs were near, he opened his bag and extracted one of the three quarts of whiskey in it and slid the bottle into the pocket of his topcoat and hung the coat over his arm. He grinned wryly, thinking that the suitcase contained everything he owned in the world and still had room for three quarts. Asking the young woman to watch his seat for him, he started making his way to the lounge car carrying the topcoat. The aisles were full of standing passengers and each rest room was so crowded with people who had no place to sit that it was next to impossible to get into one to use the toilet. The three Pullman cars were not quite so crowded. In the last one, four soldiers were playing poker. One of them, seeing Johnny’s ribbons, called to him; he was invited to sit in. The four of them, all overseas men and all drunk, were going to Indianapolis to report for duty. They had come from the hospital in Temple, Texas, and they had been playing poker all day, fifty-cent ante and a dollar to open on jacks or better.
Johnny played for an hour and won back the thirty he had loaned to Wilkinsson and Red, plus another ten. He quit and started back to the lounge car. They had drunk some of the whiskey, and the quart was over half-empty. He still had the half-pint bottle in his pocket and he calculated mentally, figuring he had enough to do the trick. He passionlessly intended to pick up a woman, preferably one with a Pullman berth, and he would need the whiskey. It all depended on how much the unknown wench liked to drink. If he needed more, he could always go back and get it out of the bag.
The lounge car was crowded and smoke filled. All the seats were taken, and extra passengers, mostly soldiers, were standing in all the available space. Johnny stood inside the door and looked around. The liquor he had drunk, on top of the beer, was beginning to make his head blurry; he felt a comforting relaxation stealing through his arms and legs; his lungs were free and seemed far away from him, as if it were someone else breathing this stale smoke-filled air into his lungs instead of himself. He looked around the bar until he saw a woman who seemed to fit what he wanted, a sophisticated-looking woman of about thirty-five who was sitting by a window next to a wizened old woman. There was no man with her, and Johnny watched her for a few moments, but she did not speak to the old woman. The setup seemed perfect.
He walked over to them and grinned at the younger woman. He had been like the actor who walks out upon the stage. The brief pause of orientation, the deep breath of the plunge, and suddenly he was completely another person. He was no longer Johnny Carter as he knew Johnny Carter. He was the man he divined this woman would like to see.
“Pardon me,” he said. “I’m a hero just back from the Pacific and I’ve got a bum leg. May I sit on your lap?”
The woman looked up at him coldly and she did not speak. Then, in spite of herself, she smiled.
“I don’t think you’d find my lap very comfortable; my knees are rather bony.” He felt she had accepted him. It was the gay boyish smile that did it. The gay boyish smile always worked for a starter. All he had to do now was play the tedious game through to completion. Of course, the completion didn’t always follow from the beginning, but usually it did.
“I don’t think your knees are bony,” he said gently, grinning. “They appear very rounded and beautiful to me. And I’m sure of all the laps I’ve seen, I think I’d rather sit on that one than any.”
“You have a very glib tongue, Corporal,” the woman countered, smiling. “To be honest, I’m the one that would be uncomfortable. You’re too husky-looking. But maybe there’s room for you between us.” As she spoke she glanced pointedly at the old woman, who looked back at her reprovingly but inched over so there was room enough for Johnny to squeeze in between them.
“What’s wrong with your leg, Corporal?” the woman asked as he sat down. “Were you wounded?”
“Twice,” Johnny grinned and nodded. “You may call me Johnny. I’m off duty now.”
“All right, Johnny, and my name is Carroll. Were you wounded very badly? Or maybe you’d rather not talk about it.”
“No, I don’t mind talking about it,” he said. “I love to talk about it. But it’s not very exciting. It really was nothing. I got shot in the leg with a dum-dum bullet. I went into enemy territory after a wounded major who was crying piteously for aid and carried him back to safety where the medics could give him plasma and save his life. I got hit on the way back, but that didn’t stop me because I knew that poor wounded major was vital to our winning the battle. If I got crippled or lost a leg, or even died, it didn’t matter, so long as I got that major back to where he could help direct and win the battle. That’s all there was to it. That’s not heroic or exciting. Just plain run of the mill newspaper stuff.” He made a deprecating gesture and looked at the woman very humbly.
The woman’s eyes twinkled. “Why I think that’s wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you get a medal for such a magnificent deed?”
Johnny made a disparaging face. “Well, yes,” he said, “I did get a couple. But I was lucky: Most of the guys don’t have an influential major to recommend them. But you know how it is. Medals don’t really mean anything. Of course, they’re nice to show to your grandchildren, but they don’t mean much to us fighting men. We know there’s a great job to be done, and we just try to do our bit.
“You know anything about these ribbons?”
“No,” she smiled seriously. “I really know nothing at all about them, but I’ve always wanted to learn what they meant; it makes one feel stupid not to know the various ribbons when all the boys are wearing them. Will you explain them to me?”
“Of course,” Johnny assented magnanimously, “of course. Now this one is the Distinguished Service Cross; I got that for saving the poor wounded major. I would have gotten the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I lost my nerve. I didn’t get killed and I don’t know how to write songs. After the dum-dum broke my leg, I let them carry me back to the hospital when I really should have stayed and fought some more. I’m really a coward at heart.”
The woman laughed softly. “That’s queer,” she said innocently. “I thought that purple one with the two white bands at the ends was the Purple Heart.”
Johnny looked at her for a moment and then grinned.
“Aha,” he cried. “Sabotage rears its ugly head. Are you going to believe me, a returned hero, or are you going to believe what you read in some silly propagandist magazine?”
The woman’s smile spread. “Why of course I believe you,” she protested. “How could you ever doubt that? But didn’t you get the Purple Heart for being wounded?”
“Sure,” he said. “I got it, but us real soldiers never like to wear a ribbon so many people have got. The Purple Heart’s a dime a dozen.”
“What does it look like?” she persisted.
“What, the Purple Heart? It’s green, a green ribbon with a little red heart printed in the center of the ribbon. That’s why they call it the Purple Heart, because it’s green. . . . I tried to hock my Purple Heart in Memphis, and you know what the guy in the hockshop offered me? Six bits. He took me in the back room and showed me a whole drawer full of medals from the last war. All kinds of medals, and Purple Hearts galore.”
A tall staff sergeant who was standing near the seat laughed out loud. Johnny looked up at him and grinned. “That really happened,” he said.
“I don’t doubt it a bit,” retorted the staff sergeant.
“Seventy-five cents?” The woman was shocked. “You’re kidding me. Surely they’re worth more than that.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Johnny said. “The general who pinned it on me at the hospital told me they cost twenty-seven-fifty apiece, but I’m inclined to think he was quoting inflation prices. Supply and demand, you know.” The tall dark staff sergeant laughed explosively.
“Here, Mack,” Johnny said, pulling the bottle out of his topcoat, “have a drink.”
The staff sergeant took the bottle and examined
it, grinning.
“To the end of the war,” Johnny said softly as the staff sergeant uncorked the bottle. The staff sergeant stopped in the act of raising the bottle to his lips and gazed at Johnny for a second. Then he dipped the bottle. “By God, I’ll drink to that,” he said.
After he drank, he handed back the bottle. Johnny took it and stared at it, thinking he needed one, too. His record was beginning to run down. If he was to keep the gay boyish grin from drooping, he’d need several. The wit was being drilled against the rock of sobriety, and the gay boyish humor was wilting: His smiling muscles were getting tired. He took a deep drink from the bottle.
“That’s a nice toast,” the woman Carroll said to him, “I’ve never heard that before. It’s so simple, you’d think I would have.”
“No,” said Johnny. “I guess it’s too simple for most people. They like high-sounding oratory with their liquor. We used to toast each other in the New Zealand hospital with that one; there was a bunch of guys from my outfit there together. All of us expected to go back up to the ’Canal.” He paused. Christ only knew where the rest were now; only two of them had come back to the States. What the hell was he crying on her shoulder for? “I never drink to anything else myself.”
“Does it have some special significance?” the woman asked.
Johnny surveyed her ironically. “Yes,” he said. “It does. It signifies about forty men in my company. They all got killed. That’s what the toast means: to the end of killing guys like them and like me. . . . Here,” he said. “Have a drink.”
The woman took the bottle from him and examined it closely, her eyes lowered to hide her embarrassment. She felt like an insensitive fool; for the first time, she had had a glimpse underneath the surface they wore. It was not a pleasant sight, and she wanted to avoid that part of the conversation, to steer it back to the light mood of a few minutes ago; tearing her hair with unhappy soldiers was no way to spend a holiday from her own unhappiness. She was intruding into something where she had no place or understanding, and she wanted to keep it out of her life. The staff sergeant also wore a Purple Heart ribbon and there was an odd look on his face, too. It seemed there were wounds for which there were no wound stripes or Purple Hearts.
“I can’t drink whiskey straight,” she said. “But I’ll order a round of old-fashioneds if you want one.”
“Sure,” Johnny said, “I can drink anything. We’re not very high class about our drinking in the army. After you get used to drinking Aqua Velva and torpedo juice, straight whiskey tastes pretty good.”
“Do you want one?” she asked the staff sergeant.
“I’ve never refused one yet,” he said.
The woman kept buying drinks, and as they got drunker, the light mood of before returned to them. They talked and laughed above the buzz and hubbub of the smoking car. The woman was expensively dressed in a British tweed suit and a violet sweater of Indian cashmere, and she carried a pair of soft French kid gloves. Her marriage rings were diamonds set in platinum; she wore a star sapphire on her right hand. She had an air of poise and authority that bespoke an environment of wealth and richness. Johnny watched her and sighed deeply; life was wonderful. He could feel a flood of lights as the liquor rose in him.
The porter returned and requested obsequiously if the lady wanted another drink. Johnny had not noticed the porter coming around to see if anyone else wanted another drink. Not unless he was called. This gal must really be Mrs Rich Bitch, he thought. He hoped she wasn’t so Rich Bitch that she had to watch her reputation.
“I don’t want any more,” Johnny said. “I’m going to have all I can take care of to drink this whiskey.”
“Then we won’t have anymore, George,” she told the porter.
“Sure,” said Johnny. “We can’t get drunk in uniform and bring disrepute upon the armed services. How did you know his name was George?”
“All porters are named George,” she said. “That’s an unwritten law of the railroad.”
“Well, well,” he sighed. “I used to know a bartender named George. . . . Come, let us leave this macabre place, this sink of iniquity. I am becoming depressed watching all these foolish people fritter away their lives eating and drinking and laughing hollow laughter. I would rather be alone. Well, almost alone.”
“Did you buy this lousy seat?” he asked her.
“Good God, no! I wouldn’t ride on a train if I had to sit up all night. I’ve got a berth in the second car up.”
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve been sitting here and taking this seat from some poor person who paid to ride in this bloody club car when you’ve got a berth? For shame. How the hell did you manage to get a berth? You must have had a reservation in for months.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You can get a berth any time you want one, provided you know who to see and have the pull. They always keep some berths back for the right people.”
Johnny sighed. “I thought I knew my way around. Well, let’s go. I’m bored with this low-class place. Let us adjourn to your berth and drink up my whiskey; whiskey is good for the soul. And then the sarge here can have your seat. He’s been standing up all night. Can you get some setups around here?” He looked at the woman, his blood rising in his ears. That was the pay-off. The buildup was always okay with the gay boyish grin, but you could never be sure till the pay-off. And you always had to cover your self-consciousness with banter.
The woman looked at him and smiled like a purring cat. The liquor made pinpoints of fire in her dark eyes. She had been expecting it for some time; she was surprised he hadn’t brought it up before. A woman could hold a man in the palm of her hand—if the man really wanted her—even a wild soldier like this, and make him nervous and bashful as an adolescent, “I’d rather drink than eat. I love the way liquor spreads out over your body and gives it such a mellow glow. It makes me all relaxed and sleepy. I get excited as hell when I drink. I just can’t get enough when I’m drinking.”
“Well,” said Johnny. “Well, well. What in hell are we waiting for? I can’t ever get enough.”
“Listen, Johnny. We can’t go to my berth together. I’ll go ahead and order some setups. You wait ten minutes before you come. It’s the second car up, lower five. And don’t forget the whiskey.”
Johnny nodded and watched the woman get up and leave. Well, well, he thought. Old lucky pants; you never can tell what you’ll run into till you try. “Looks like you hit the jackpot,” grinned the staff sergeant as he sat down in the woman’s vacated seat. “Yeah,” said Johnny. He winked at the staff sergeant. “Here, have another drink. I’ve got ten minutes yet.” The sergeant took the bottle. “Where were you?” he asked. “Guadalcanal,” said Johnny laconically. “You?” “Africa,” said the sergeant. “I was standing a full field inspection at the Battle of Kasserine Pass.” Johnny snorted; “I heard about that,” he said. They had another drink. At her car, the woman told the porter what she wanted and gave him a good tip. She got into her berth and began to undress. Her eyes were bright with anticipation. What would they say at home if they could see her now? Picking up a strange soldier on a train and taking him to her berth? She laughed a low excited laugh. An enlisted soldier! But he was clean-cut and decent-looking in a wild sort of way. This was the perfect adventure: no strings, no social alliances, not long enough to be tiresome or boring, like marriage. She finished undressing and lay on the top of the covers, waiting for the soldier.
The next morning at five Johnny was dressed and waiting for the train to pull into Evansville. He stood in the day coach where he had left his bag the night before and looked out through the grimy window at the lightening dark. The weary-looking captain’s wife was gone, and someone else was asleep in his seat. He didn’t mind. He had left the woman Carroll without waking her to say goodby. He did not even know her last name. It didn’t bother him. He had gotten what he wanted. Both had had a night of sex and liquor without any strings of sentiment, just what they wanted, he told himself, but he
was not as pleased as he thought he would be. He was at a low ebb, very tired from the night’s orgy, and he was still a little drunk. He shouldered into his topcoat as the train began to pull into Evansville.
He stood with his hands jammed in the topcoat pockets, watching the lights flash past, each light an asterisk of indication above the life of some house or some street, all clustered together like ants and their eggs under a big rock for protection and so seeing nothing and knowing nothing of all the vast life that goes on beyond and outside the rock. All around him the people in the car were asleep and he felt that strange sense of fascination and of wonder that a man feels when he alone is out and the world about him sleeps. He turned away slowly from the Hollywood technique of city-life-at-a-glance and watched the sleeping people in the car. The people slept. The people slept because they would get their techniques at the movies fresh out of the can because then it would be romantic and thrilling and not like now when in the flesh city-life-at-a-glance only bored them and they would rather sleep. They would rather sleep. They would rather sleep because their imaginations and their susceptibilities needed the hypodermic shot in the arm that only melodramatic plots fresh out of the can and trumpeting city-life-at-a-glance could give. Their life was a can and their ego was a lid and they were shut into the ego-can by the ego-lid and the only way they could get out was to climb out into fresh-out-of-the-can. His mind felt the wonder of prodigy at being awake and looking down at the sleeping people each in his can, each in his ego-can, while he watched the technique of city-life-at-a-glance in marquee asterisk lights. Rich men who wanted to be poor and simple farmboys; wives who wanted to be single women; unmarried women who wanted to be married women; waitresses who wanted to be chorus girls; movie stars who wanted to be waitresses; soldiers who hated the army; 4-Fs who hated hating the army. Everybody who hated being everybody and envied being somebody. And all because the ego can shut off everything beyond and outside of the rock and like an improperly canned can of peaches acquire the mold and fester and sourness of being in the can beneath the rock. And because of all of this the Hollywood technique of city-life-at-a-glance made each canned celluloid life a prodigious affair of nothing-at-all-under-the-screen. Two-dimensional life and each embryo that did not know it was an embryo slept in its can as city-life-at-a-glance-in-the-flesh flashed past.