Author: James Jones
Category: Literature
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While my friends are dying cursing God,
These people go to movies of
Nurses in Bataan—
And cry.
I saw that movie,
And I laughed—
I could not help myself—
And these people of America
Who were sitting near enough to hear,
Stared at me with hurt looks
In their eyes
And made me laugh the more.
These people of America
Knit sweaters
And ‘Do Their Bit’
By going to the USO.
They volunteer for Red Cross work,
And all the time my friends
Are dying
With curses in their mouths.
They live in the white;
We live in the black.
I; I am a mutation,
A lucky one.
I am back inside the white,
But my soul’s still in the black.
I am both
But neither.
And still the buses run—
The USO—
The ARC—
I am of the black
And anxious mothers say:
‘Keep our sons clean.
They should not drink
Or be allowed to patronize the whores.’ ”
After he finished reading, Johnny sat for a moment staring at the papers in his hand. He ran his tongue over his teeth pensively, then with an abrupt movement refolded the papers and jammed them back into his hip pocket.
“That’s good, now isn’t it,” Fanny said to nobody in particular.
Johnny took another drink from his glass and stared at Fanny over the rim of it without expression. George stirred his body and shifted the stump of his leg reflectively. His eyes were moist and he stared at Johnny with a crooked grin.
“That fits me, too,” he said in his rough voice. “That fits me, too. People don’t understand that part of it. It’s like a different life.”
Sandy felt she must say something, although Johnny did not appear to care whether she commented on the poem or not. Nevertheless, she felt he was watching her to see what she would say. The emotional effect the poem had had on both Johnny and George was obvious; it had nothing to do with good or bad poetry. It was a part of their lives that they had seen and understood in the poem.
“I liked it,” she said sincerely. “You gave me an insight into soldiers that I’d never had before. And more important, I got an emotion out of it. That’s the main purpose of poetry. Of course, I know you and George, but if I was touched emotionally without knowing either of you fellows—and without having shared your experience—then your poem has been effective. It’s good, because it’s effective—and that’s the only purpose of poetry, at least to me.”
Johnny took his eyes away from Fanny and looked at Sandy. He grinned suddenly with embarrassment. Sandy smiled kindly. “It seems to me too much emphasis has been placed on tradition and the subtle perfection of craft, without giving due credit to poetry’s real purpose: the creation of emotion in a reader and the giving of an insight into an experience of life that he has never had before. You don’t have to worry about meter or imagery, if your poetry is true to your experience and strikes some responsive chord of emotion in the reader. I think the poetic days of rose gardens and big full moons are about gone.”
Johnny shook his head. “I just fool around with it,” he said.
“Don’t let people tell you it must rhyme or have meter—or else sound like Whitman. If it’s something you feel inside, that’s what’s important.
“If you’d let me, I’d like to make a copy of it to send to Kirby. I think he’d like to read it.”
Johnny shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Sure.” He got the poem out of his pocket and handed it to her. She laid it on a small table beside the bed.
“How would you all like another drink?” she asked. Her answer was three nods. Everybody seemed to have settled into a semi-introspective relaxation.
“Sandy,” Fanny asked, “are you and Eddie going to the Thanksgiving Dance Wednesday?”
Sandy gave her a quick warning frown, but Fanny either did not see it or did not get it.
Fanny looked at Sandy.
“Yes, we’re going,” Sandy said, unable to avoid the question. “We’ve already reserved a table. My sister, Riley, is coming down from Chicago. She and George are going with us.”
“Wow, goddam it, Sandy,” George burst out. “I’m not going to any goddam dance. We’ve argued the whole thing out before.” He raised the stump of his leg gingerly and shifted his buttocks irritably in the chair. “I don’t give a goddam whether Riley comes down here from Chicago or not. I’m not going to any goddamned dance.” George’s big husky frame bristled stolidly with his angry determination. He laughed harshly. “I’d be a hell of a lot of use at a dance, wouldn’t I? The one-armed paperhanger.”
Fanny suddenly realized what Sandy meant by the warning frown. There had been talk of trouble between George and Riley since George had come home minus a leg. Fanny blushed quietly and wondered when she’d learn to keep her big mouth shut.
“All right, George,” said Sandy soothingly. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Nobody’s going to force you.” In spite of the soothing tone of her voice, there was as much evidence of strong will about Sandy as there was about George. “I don’t care what you do. But you’re only putting it off. Eventually, you’re going to have to start going out in public. The longer you wait to do it, the harder it’s going to be. You can’t spend your whole life hiding in a house without ever going out.”
George raised his stump and shifted again, angrily. “I’m not going,” he bellowed clumsily. “I’ll be goddamned if I’ll go to a goddamned dance with a leg off and on crutches.” Wilson looked at him and softly stroked the knee of his trousers with his long fingers. How would you do that? What minors and crescendos would one use to portray this? Moke Jones would know. What mathematical strings of notes could you use to show a man who shifted and squirmed and twisted, trying to feel a leg that was no longer there? The concerto of the man with one leg. There were songs that needed to be sung, songs the world needed to hear. Moke Jones who was a Negro would understand how to compose a song of a man without his leg to stand on.
Fanny sat still, feeling embarrassed, and wishing people had enough manners to keep their personal troubles private.
“What do you say we have that other drink, Sandy?” Johnny asked. “How about it, George?” Johnny turned his cold eyes on Sandy, and she felt their apathetic stare penetrate her.
“Sure,” George said with a morose grin. “I’m beginning to need another.” He settled back in his chair and took a long drink that finished his present one.
Sandy smiled quickly and rose from the bed. Fanny followed her out into the kitchen.
“You know,” Johnny said to George. “It’s a funny thing. Talking about writing made me think. I used to read all the books about war I could get my hands on. All those novels that came out after the last war. I read all of them and every one of them made me itch to get into a war. Even All Quiet on the Western Front seemed romantic to me. When I was a kid, I’d almost cry when I’d think there wouldn’t be a war for me to fight in when I grew up.” He laughed sourly. “Can you feature that?”
George laughed with him.
In the kitchen, Fanny watched Sandy go about mixing the drinks with a swift economy of movement that bespoke much knowledge and practice. It always amazed Fanny that someone who didn’t drink at all could make so many different drinks and cocktails, so well.
“I’m sorry about George,” she began lamely. Sandy laughed. “Forget it,” she said. “We go on like that all the time. It’s the best thing in the world to get him over the first stile. Yelling at me sort of takes the edge off.”
“I suppose so,” Fanny said, “but I feel as if I caused all the trouble.”
“No,�
�� Sandy said. “I’ve been talking up his going to the dance ever since he came. It’s only natural for him to be like that. He’s always been a fine athlete, and this is something strange to him. But he’ll have to learn to get over it. I know how to handle him.”
“Did you see that look Johnny gave you?” Fanny asked fretfully. “That’s what I meant over the phone. You can talk to him all day long and he’ll just sit and stare at you like that. Or else laugh.”
“What do you want him to do?” Sandy asked her.
“Well, I don’t know,” Fanny said. “But he ought to he more . . .” Her voice faded away into perplexity.
“Listen, Fanny,” Sandy said. “If you’ll only leave him alone and see which way he falls, you’ll be doing yourself more good, and him, too. Save your energy and stop worrying yourself into a stew.”
Sandy set the drinks on a tray. “I’m going to get George to that dance,” she said, “if I have to hog tie him and drag him. I’m going to call up most everybody who will be there and ask them to come over to our table and talk to George and have a drink with him. I want you to do me a favor. You bring Erskine over to our table for a while, will you? And tell everybody you see down there to come over and say hello to George. Okay?”
“Yes,” said Fanny. “Of course.”
“Is Johnny going to the dance with you and Erskine?”
“I don’t know,” Fanny said. “I never know what he’ll do.”
“Well,” said Sandy, “if he comes to the dance with you and Erskine, send him over to my table. He and George can talk and get drunk together and I’ll see that he gets home all right, so you won’t have to worry.”
“You know I’m not against drinking, Sandy,” Fanny explained. “But when people just drink themselves into a stupor and pass out, it’s time something was done to keep them from it.”
“What would you suggest?” asked Sandy blandly.
“Well, I don’t know,” Fanny said. “You know about his father, don’t you?”
“Not very much,” Sandy said. “Nothing except that he drank and shot himself.”
“Well, if Johnny doesn’t stop drinking so much, he’ll end up just like his father. Erskine and I have held up the Carter reputation after Joe tried his best to tear it down. We’re respected people in Endymion, and now, if Johnny goes on like he has been, I don’t know what Erskine will do. He can’t stand very much more. Why, honestly, Sandy, right now the boy is absent without leave! And he doesn’t make any bones about telling it to just anyone, either!”
Sandy looked at her for a moment, wondering what could make so many people so afraid of so many things. “Well, I don’t know very much about the army,” she said. “But I do know people don’t just become drunkards and commit suicide, simply because their fathers did. You’re building this whole thing up in your mind too much. You and Erskine will go along living your lives in this town. Whether the boy gets drunk and passes out or not. That won’t make one whit of difference to your friends or alter your lives or Erskine’s business. Surely, Fanny, you can see that?”
“You don’t know this town like I do,” Fanny said.
“Quit worrying about yourself for a minute and think about the boy. He’s much worse-off than you or Erskine will ever be. And he needs more thought than your reputation. If he wants to get drunk, let him. Get drunk with him. Let him do what he wants. He’s hunting for something, for all you know he may have to go back overseas.”
“Oh, he won’t go back overseas,” Fanny said. “Besides, you don’t understand.”
“Come on,” Sandy said. “Let’s go back in the other room. Remember what I said about the dance.”
The three men were talking earnestly about the army when Sandy and Fanny entered the little room. Sandy handed the drinks around and she and Fanny sat down on the bed. They listened to the soldiers talk for a while; Sandy quietly, Fanny nervously.
“I’ve really got to go, Sandy,” Fanny said. She collected her purse and car keys. “I’ve got to get home and cook dinner. Erskine will expect dinner ready for him when he gets home.” Fanny reminded herself to stop off at O’Mara’s and pick up some of those sausages.
“You stay here and enjoy yourself,” she said to Johnny. “You’ll want to talk to George.”
“Okay,” said Johnny dryly. “Thanks.”
“You’ll be home for dinner?” Fanny asked him.
“No,” Johnny said. “I think I’ll go down to the Caribou and eat me a steak. I’ve got a bottle down there.” The Caribou Club Grille specialized in steaks, and it was about the only place in town to get one now.
“You really ought to be home for dinner,” Fanny said tentatively. “Erskine likes to have you there for dinner, you know.”
“Why?” Johnny said. “What difference does it make? It doesn’t make the food taste any better if I’m there. Erskine’s appetite doesn’t depend on me.”
“No,” Fanny agreed, “but Erskine doesn’t get to see you very often.”
“He sees me all he wants,” Johnny said.
“Well,” said Fanny dubiously, still feeling that Johnny’s place was at home for dinner. “After all, you’re a Carter, too, you know.”
Johnny grinned at her. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right.” Fanny gave up, although she still felt his place was home at dinner time. Sandy saw her to the door, and Fanny remembered to ask her for the chiffon pie recipe. “Have you got any more poetry?” Will asked Johnny when Sandy and Fanny went out.
“Yeah,” Johnny said with a grin. “I got a bunch of them stuck around. I lose track of them after a while.” He paused to take a drink.
“You see, Will,” he explained, “I’m not like you are. I’ve got no talent, no training. I just fiddle around for my own amusement. I get an idea sometimes and I put it down on paper to get it out of my mind. Hell! I haven’t got any ambitions or delusions about being a poet.”
Wilson nodded. He was inclined to skeptical of Johnny’s words, but he said nothing.
“About the only thing I ever found them any good for was with women,” Johnny went on with another grin. “I bet I’ve made twenty women I couldn’t have made otherwise, just by reading them some of these poems of mine.” George and Wilson laughed. “I’ve got one I call Dirge to a Reluctant Virgin,” Johnny said grinning. “It’s infallible. Works every time. Most women think there’s something wonderful and romantic about a guy who is a poet. If they find out you write, and you can prove it by showing them some, they’ll push you over and beat you to the ground.”
“You’re a character,” Will said, laughing. “That’s the one line Esquire overlooked. Who ever heard of a poet who wrote poems just to make women.”
Johnny’s eyes took on a light of irony. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “Didn’t Rossetti bury his poems with his lover and then have to dig them up when he couldn’t remember them? If the truth were known, most poets wrote their greatest masterpieces—whether they were love poems or not—just to impress some dame. If they didn’t continue to do it, they probably started out that way.
“Anyway that’s not why I write them. I just said that was the only use I ever found for them.”
George listened to the conversation with wry enjoyment, although a little self-consciously. Women was a topic George had taught himself to put aside. Twice he had been out on pass since his last operation. Both times he had been downtown in Salt Lake City; both times he had been with buddies; both times he had been drunk. But he had not been drunk enough either time to have the guts to pick up a woman. The buddies he was with both times had found themselves women, and George had gone back to the hospital alone. He decided he would not again to go town with fellows who had all their parts.
Sandy came back and stood in the doorway, looking down at them. She made a graceful figure leaning against the door jamb.
“Come on, you guys,” she said, smiling. “Let’s adjourn this meeting to the kitchen. The kitchen is the hearthstone of this house. I’ve got to clean t
hose books up.” She led them through the next room into the living room and into the kitchen. George hoisted himself out of his chair awkwardly, and Johnny handed him his crutches.
Johnny followed him into the next room, carrying George’s drink and his own. A man on crutches was an awkward, ungainly thing. Johnny felt a little low, watching George, and he wondered how George would in the end adjust himself. The army was a long chain of succeeding links, each stronger and more binding than the last. There were no weakest links in this long chain of circumstances, at the end of which, for George, was the amazing experience of having no right leg to walk on. He wondered how strange such a vision must have seemed to George as he was being drafted into the first binding section of the chain. George was extricating himself from the very last link, for him, and Johnny wondered what would be at the end of his own succession of links. He shrugged the thought away, deciding he was becoming a little drunk. That was the way to do it. Getting drunk would always fix it up. The end of the chain of drinks could be foreseen: a bed where you could relax into sleep. And in the pursuit of that succession of links, you could forget the greater, more binding chain. You knew where you were going then. No questions asked or needed.
In the kitchen, Sandy sat them in the sturdy kitchen chairs around the table with its red-and-white checkered cloth. She fixed a cushion in one chair for George. “Make yourself at home,” she said. She opened one of the low cupboard doors. “Here’s the liquor cabinet,” she said to Johnny and Will. “The ice cubes are in the refrigerator, and if you run out of soda, there’re several cases more in the garage. If you want a sandwich, help yourself to what there is. If there’s anything else you want and can’t find, just holler. I’ve got things to do.” With that, she smiled brightly and left them.
Johnny began mixing drinks for the three of them.
“Not for me,” Will said. “No more, thanks.” Johnny looked at George. George nodded.
“Is she always like that?” Johnny asked curiously.
George grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s why I came down here. I couldn’t stand it up home with my mother. Three days there, and I was ready to go back to the hospital.”