Ice-Cream Headache (7 page)

“I’ve been an EM too long,” I said. “I’m too cynical.”

“You know, you could be shot for talking like this in the German Army.”

“I know it,” I said. “That’s why I don’t like the German Army, or the Japanese Army, or the British Army, or the Russian Army. I could get ten years in the American Army if you wanted to turn me in.”

Lieutenant Allison was leaning on the parapet. “If I didn’t like you, by god I would.”

“Trouble with me,” I said, “I’m too honest. They didn’t have indoctrinization courses yet when I enlisted,” I said.

“It’s not a question of briefing,” he said, “It’s a question of belief.”

“Yes,” I said. “And also of who manufactures it.”

“We have to be cruel now so we can be kind later, after the war.”

“That’s the theory of the Communist Internationale,” I said. “I hear their indoctrinization courses are wonderful.”

“They’re our allies,” he said. “When the enemy is defeated, why, it will all be set.”

“I could never be an officer,” I said. “I’ve not been indoctrinated well enough.”

He laughed. “Okay, Slade. But you think over what I said, and if you want me to, I’ll recommend you. You know, an intelligent man who refuses to use his intelligence to help win the war is a bottleneck. He’s really a menace. In Germany he would be shot if he didn’t use his intelligence to help win.”

“Japan too,” I said. “And in Italy and in Russia,” I said. “Our country we only lock them up as conchies, as yet.”

“Do you think I like being an officer?”

“Yes,” I said. “I would like it. At least you get a bath and hot chow.”

He laughed again. “Okay. But you think it over.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “I’ll think about all of it. But I never find an answer. Sometimes I wonder if there is an answer. The Greek is the man you ought to recommend.”

“Are you kidding?” he grinned. “Mazzioli is a good sergeant.”

“He believes the end justifies the means,” I said. “He’s been properly indoctrinated. I couldn’t turn a man in if I had to.”

Lieutenant Allison stood up from the parapet. “Think it over, Slade,” he said.

“All right, sir,” I said. “But I can tell you one thing. It’s damn fine I can talk to you. But I always remember you’re not all officers and I’m not all the EM,” I said.

“Thanks, Slade,” he said.

I walked on back down the road. I stopped every now and then to listen to the sea’s attack against the cliff. It would be nice to be an officer. The sea and the wind were like two radio stations on the same dial mark. You could even have a bed-roll and a dog-robber. The old Revolutionists in Russia, I thought, they really had it all figured out; they really had the world saved this time. I kicked a pebble ahead of me down the road.

I must have gone very slow because the three men from the top were on my heels when I reached the bottom.

“Hey, Slade,” one of them said. He came up. “I’m sorry we got you in trouble tonight. Nobody guessed this would happen.”

“Forget it,” I said. “All I got was a ass-eating.”

Mazzioli was sitting on the culvert. “I’m going to roll up,” he said belligerently.

“Okay, Greek,” I said. I sat on the culvert for a while, facing the wind. I liked to sit there at night alone, defying the wind. But a man could only do it so long. After a while a man got stupid from its eternal pummeling. A man got punch-drunk from it. Once before it made me so dizzy I fell down on my knees when I got up.

It was a wild place, the roaring sea, the ceaseless wind, the restless sand, the omniscient cliff.

I said good night to the man on post and rolled up myself. When I went under the wall it took my breath again. I lay in my blankets and listened to it howl just over my head.

It was three o’clock when the messenger from up on the hill woke me.

“What,” I said. “What is it? What?”

“Where’s the Greek?” he said.

“He’s here.”

“You gotta wake him up.”

“What’s up?”

“You’re moving back up the hill. Lieutenant’s orders.”

“Whose orders?” I said. “What about the demolition? What about the road-guard?”

“Lieutenant’s orders. The road-guard is being disbanded. Altogether.”

“What’s the story?” I asked.

“I dunno. We got a call from the Company CP; the cap’n was maddern hell. He just got a call from Department HQ; they was maddern hell. Told the cap’n to disband the road-guard immediately. The orders’ll be down in a couple days.”

I laughed. “Orders is orders,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Is the lieutenant still up?”

“Yeh. He’s in hole number one, with the telephone. Why?”

“I got to see him about something,” I said.

“I’m going back,” he said. “This wind is freezin’ me. You sure you’re awake?”

“Yes,” I said. “You take off.” I got up and woke the rest of the detail. “Get your stuff together, you guys. We’re moving out. One of you call Alcorn down.”

The Greek sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What is it? what’s up? what’s wrong?”

“We’re moving out,” I said. “Back up the hill. The road-guard is disbanded.” When I stood up the wind hit me hard. I got my pack and kicked my blankets up into a pile. I slung my ride and pack and picked up the blankets.

“You mean the
road-guard
?” Mazzioli’s voice asked through the darkness and the wind. “For
good
?”

I climbed up around the wall and the wind caught at my blankets and I almost lost them.

“That’s the way it is,” I said.

Esquire
published this one in September 1951, when
Eternity
was famous, after having turned it down at least twice before that. The character of George was drawn from a good friend of mine out in Illinois who had lost a leg in the Pacific, and this character was one of the major characters in the early novel I wrote and re-wrote for Perkins and which was never published. In fact, the scene here, much less well written and with almost no dialogue, formed part of a chapter of that novel.

“N
O,” SAID THE BIG MAN
in the dark blue suit, and his voice was hoarse with drunkenness. “I can’t stay. I’ve got some friends out in the car.”

“Well, why didn’t you bring them in with you, George?” the woman said in mock disgust. “Don’t let them sit out in the cold.”

George grinned fuzzily. “To hell with them. I just stopped by for a minute. You wouldn’t like them anyway.”

“Why, of course I’d like them, if they’re your friends. Go on and call them.”

“No. You wouldn’t like them. Let the bastards sit. I just wanted to talk to you, Sandy.” George looked vaguely around the gayness of the kitchen with its red and white checkered motif. “Jesus, I love this place. We done a good job on it, Sandy, you know it? I used to think about it a lot. I still do.”

But the woman was already at the kitchen door and she did not hear. “Hey out there!” she called. “Come on in and have a drink.”

There was a murmur of words from the car she could not understand and she opened the screen door and went outside to the car in the steaming cold winter night. A man and woman were in the front seat, the man behind the wheel. Another woman was in the back seat by herself. She was smoothing her skirt.

Sandy put her head up to the car window. “George is drunk,” she said. “Why don’t you go on home and leave him here and let me take care of him?”

“No,” the man said.

“He’s been here before.”

“No,” the man said sharply. “He’s with us.”

Sandy put her hand on the door handle. “He shouldn’t be drinking,” she said. “In his condition.”

The man laughed. “Liquor never bothers me,” he said.

“Poor George. I feel so sorry for him I could cry.”

“No, you couldn’t,” the man said contemptuously. “I know you. Besides, it ain’t your sympathy he wants.” He thumped the thigh of his left leg with his fist. It made a sound like a gloved fist striking a heavy-bag. “I pawned one myself,” he said.

Sandy moved as if he had struck her. She stepped back, putting her hand to her mouth, then turned back toward the house.

George was standing in the door. “Tom’s a old buddy of mine,” he grinned. “He was in the hospital with me for ten months out in Utah.” He opened the screen.

Sandy stepped inside with slumped shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me? I said something terrible. Please tell him to come in, George, he won’t come now unless you tell him.”

“No. Let them sit. We got a couple of pigs from Greencastle with us.” He grinned down at her belligerently through the dark circles and loose lips of an extended bat.

“Ask them all in, for a drink. I’m no Carrie Nation, George. Tell them to come in. Please, George. Tell them.”

“All right. By god I will. I wasn’t going to, but I will. I just wanted to see you, Sandy.”

“Why don’t you stay here tonight, George?” Sandy said. “Let them go and I’ll put you to bed.”

George searched her face incredulously. “You really want me to stay?”

“Yes. You need to sober up, George.”

“Oh.” George laughed suddenly. “Liquor never bothers me. No sir by god. I ain’t runnin out on Tom. Tom’s my buddy.” He stepped back to the door. “Hey, you bastardsl” he bellered. “You comin in here an have a drink? or I got to come out and drag you in?” Sandy stood behind him, watching him, the big bulk of shoulder, the hair growing softly on the back of his neck.

There was a laugh from the car and the door slammed. The tall curly-haired Tom came in, swinging his left side in a peculiar rhythm. After him came the two women, one tall and blonde, the other short and dark. They both smiled shyly as they entered. They both were young.

“Oh,” said the short one. “This is pretty.”

“Its awful pretty,” the blonde one said, looking around.

“You goddam right its pretty,” George said belligerently. “And its built for utility. Look at them cupboards.”

George introduced the girls by their first names, like a barker in a sideshow naming the attractions.

“An this heres Tom Hornney,” he said, “and when I say Hornney, I mean Hornney.” George laughed and Tom grinned and the two girls tittered nervously.

“I want you all to meet Miss Sandy Thomas,” George said, as if daring them.

“Sure,” Tom said. “I know all about you. I use to read your letters out in Utah.”

George looked at Sandy sheepishly. “A man gets so he can’t believe it himself. He gets so he’s got to show it to somebody. That’s the way it is in the Army.”

Sandy smiled at him stiffly, her eyes seeming not to see. “How do you want your drinks? Soda or Coke?”

“They want Coke with theirs,” Tom pointed to the girls. “They don’t know how to drink.”

“This is really a beautiful place,” the blonde one said.

“Oh my yes,” the short one said. “I wish I ever had a place like this here.”

Sandy looked up from the drinks and smiled, warmly. “Thank you.”

“I really love your place,” the blonde one said. “Where did you get those funny spotted glasses? I seen some like them in a Woolworth’s once.”

George, laughing over something with Tom, turned to the blonde one. “Shut up, for god sake. You talk too much. You’re supposed to be seen.”

“Or felt,” Tom said.

“I was only being polite,” the blonde one said.

“Well, don’t,” George said. “You don’t know how.”

“Well,” said the blonde one. “I like that.”

“Those are antiques, dear,” Sandy said to her. “I bought them off an old woman down in the country. Woolworth has reproductions of them now.”

“You mean them are
genuine
antiques?” the short one said.

Sandy nodded, handing around the drinks.

“For god sake, shut up,” George said. “Them’s genuine antiques and they cost ten bucks apiece, so shut up. Talk about something interesting.”

The short one made a little face at George. She turned to Sandy and whispered delicately.

“Surely,” Sandy said. “I’ll show you.”

“See what I mean?” Tom laughed. “I said they couldn’t hold their liquor.”

Sandy led the girls out of the kitchen. From the next room their voices came back, exclaiming delicately over the furnishings.

“How long were you in the Army?” Sandy asked when they came back.

“Five years,” Tom said, grinning and shaking his curly head. “My first wife left me three months after I got drafted.”

“Oh?” Sandy said.

“Yeah. I guess she couldn’t take the idea of not getting any for so long. It looked like a long war.”

“War is hard on the women too,” Sandy said.

“Sure,” Tom said. “I don’t see how they stand it. I’m glad I was a man in this war.”

“Take it easy,” George growled.

Tom grinned at him and turned back to Sandy. “I been married four times in five years. My last wife left me day before yesterday. She told me she was leaving and I said, Okay, baby. That’s fine. Only remember there won’t be nobody here when you come back. If I wanted, I could call her up right now and tell her and she’d start back tonight.”

“Why don’t you?” Sandy said. “I’ve got a phone.”

Tom laughed. “What the hell. I’m doin all right. Come here, baby,” he said to the blonde one, and patted his right leg. She came over, smiling, on his left side and started to sit on his lap.

“No,” Tom said. “Go around to the other side. You can’t sit on that one.”

The blonde one obeyed and walked around his chair. She sat down smiling on his right thigh and Tom put his arm clear around her waist. “I’m doin all right, baby, ain’t I? Who wants to get married?”

George was watching him, and now he laughed. “I been married myself,” he said, not looking at Sandy.

“Sure,” Tom grinned. “Don’t tell me. I was out in Utah when you got the rings back, remember? Ha!” he turned his liquor-bright eyes on Sandy. “It was just like Robert Taylor in the movies. He took them out in the snow and threw them away with a curse. Went right out the ward door and into the snowing night.

“One ring, engagement, platinum, two-carat diamond,” Tom said, as if giving the nomenclature of a new weapon. “One ring, wedding, platinum, diamond circlet—I told him he should of hocked them.”

“No,” Sandy said. “He should have kept them, then he could have used them over and over, every other night.”