Libra (15 page)

“Slam the gate,” Bobby said.

He wore faded utilities that still carried the imprint of long-gone sergeant stripes and he worked in the fields, clearing stones and burning trash. The guard wore a .45 and kept his gun side turned away from the prisoners. There was no talking or rest. They worked in the rain. There were great billowing rains that first week, rain in broad expanses, slow and lilting. Smoke drifted over the men, smelling of wet garbage, half burnt. Their useless work trailed them through the day. He thought there was a good chance he would go to OCS. He’d passed the qualifying exam for corporal before shipping out. He’d be in good shape if it wasn’t for the shooting incident and the spilled-drink incident. He could still be in good shape. He was smart enough to make officer. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was would they let him. He cut brush and cleared fields of heavy stones. The issue was would they rig the thing against him.

 

 

“I landed here like a dream,” Dupard whispered that night. “I figure I’m already dead. It’s just a question they shovel the dirt in my face.”

“What did they charge you with?”

“There was a fire to my rack, which they accused me. But in my own mind I could like verbalize it either way. In other way of saying it, the evidence was weak.”

“But you did it.”

“It’s not that easy to say. I could go either way and be convinced in my own mind.”

“You’re not sure you really wanted to do it. You were just thinking about doing it.”

“I was like, Should I drop this cigarette?”

“It just seemed to happen while you were thinking it.”

“Like it happened on its own.”

“Did the rack go up?”

“Scorch some linen was all. Like you fall asleep a tenth of a second, smoking.”

“Why did you want to start a fire?”

“It’s a question of working it out in my own mind, the exact why I did it. Because the psychology is definitely there.”

“Then what?”

“Mainly one thing. I deserted.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to book on out of here,” Bobby said. “I am not a Marine. Simple. They ought to see that and just call a halt. Because the longer it goes on, there’s no chance I deal with this shit. ”

In the prison literature he’d read, Oswald was always coming across an artful old con who would advise the younger man, give him practical tips, talk in sweeping philosophical ways about the larger questions. Prison invited larger questions. It made you wish for an experienced perspective, for the knowledge of some grizzled figure with kind and tired eyes, a counselor, wise to the game. He wasn’t sure what he had here in Bobby R. Dupard.

 

 

The next day he came back from a work detail and found two guards in the cell pummeling Dupard. They took their time. It looked like something else at first, an epileptic fit, a heart attack, but then he understood it was a beating. Bobby was on the deck trying to cover up and the two men took turns hitting him in the kidneys and ribs. One guard sat on Oswald’s bunk, leaning way over to throw short lefts like a man trying to start an outboard. The other guard was down on one knee, biting his lip, pausing to aim his shots so they wouldn’t catch Bobby’s crossed arms. Bobby had a look on his face like this is bound to end someday. He was working hard to keep them unfulfilled.

They called him Brillo Head. He showed a little smile, as if only the spoken word might perk his interest. They went back to pounding.

Oswald stopped at the white line outside the cell. He thought if he stood absolutely still, looking vaguely right or vaguely left, waiting patiently for them to finish what they were doing so he could request permission to cross the line, they might be inclined to let him enter without a beating.

He hated the guards, secretly sided with them against some of the prisoners, thought they deserved what they got, the prisoners who were stupid and cruel. He felt his rancor constantly shift, felt secret satisfactions, hated the brig routine, despised the men who could not master it, although he knew it was contrived to defeat them all.

When a man was returned to his unit from the chicken-wire enclosure, a man from the cells took his place.

When a man in the chicken wire fouled up, he got a cell of his own, C-rats to eat, close and horrendous attention.

When a man from the cells fouled up, he was thrown in the hole, a junior-size cell with a dirt floor and a cat hole to crap in.

Because of the overcrowding, there was constant shifting of prisoners, many ceremonial occasions at white lines, inspections, friskings, shakedowns, foul-ups.

The night of the beating, Dupard had nothing to say, although Ozzie knew he was not asleep.

 

 

He tried to feel history in the cell. This was history out of George Orwell, the territory of no-choice. He could see how he’d been headed here since the day he was born. The brig was invented just for him. It was just another name for the stunted rooms where he’d spent his life.

He’d once told Reitmeyer that communism was the one true religion. He was speaking seriously but also for effect. He could enrage Reitmeyer by calling himself an atheist. Reitmeyer thought you had to be forty years old before you could claim that distinction. It was a position you had to earn through years of experience, like winning seniority in the Teamsters.

Maybe the brig was a kind of religion too. All prison. Something you carried with you all your life, a counterforce to politics and lies. This went deeper than anything they could tell you from the pulpit. It carried a truth no one could contradict. He’d been headed here from the start. Inevitable.

Trotsky in the Bronx, only blocks away.

Maybe what has to happen is that the individual must allow himself to be swept along, must find himself in the stream of no-choice, the single direction. This is what makes things inevitable. You use the restrictions and penalties they invent to make yourself stronger. History means to merge. The purpose of history is to climb out of your own skin. He knew what Trotsky had written, that revolution leads us out of the dark night of the isolated self. We live forever in history, outside ego and id. He wasn’t sure he knew exactly what the id was but he knew it lay hidden in Hidell.

A naked bulb burning in the passageway. He watched Dupard in the shadows, sitting on the infested cot, showing an empty stare. His bony wrists dangled out of the faded shirt. He had a gangliness that made him seem sixteen, rompish and clumsy, but he moved well running—running in the compound, running to the head, eyeing those white lines. A long face, hangdog, sad-sack, and dusty hair, reddish brown. Eyes suspicious and hurt, quick to look away. Oswald lay still, aware of a drone in the block, a heaving breath, grimness, massive sleep. Dupard undressed, got under the blanket and began to masturbate, turned toward the wall. Oswald watched his top shoulder twitch. Then he turned to his own wall, closed his eyes, tried to will himself to sleep.

Hidell means don’t tell.

The id is hell.

Jerkle and Hide in their little cell.

 

 

Oswald stood at the white line in front of the urinal. A guard moved alongside, peering in that inquisitive way, like what do we have here to pass the time.

Oswald requested permission to cross the line.

“I’m looking at your hairline, shitbird. What is supposed to be the length of the hair in the area of the nape of the neck?”

“Zero length.”

“What do I see?”

“I don’t know.”

The guard pushed him stumbling across the line. When he turned to recross he looked directly in the man’s face. A long-headed type, half intelligent, small bright eyes.

Oswald turned to face the urinal, requested permission to cross.

“I’m looking at your sideburns. What am I looking at?”

“My sideburns.”

“The hair on your sideburns will not exceed what length when fully extended.”

“One-eighth inch.”

The guard extended the hair between his thumb and index finger, twisting for effect. Oswald let his head lean that way, not so much to ease the pain, which was mild, as to show he would not accept pain stoically in these circumstances. The guard released and then popped him in the head with the heel of his hand.

Oswald requested permission to cross the line.

“The length of the hair at the top of the head will not exceed how many inches maximum.”

“Maximum three inches.”

He waited for the guard to grab a handful.

“The fly of the trousers shall hang in what kind of line and shall not do what when they are what.”

“The fly of the trousers shall hang in a vertical line and shall not gap when they are unzipped.”

The guard reached around and grabbed him by the nuts.

“I know the type.”

“Aye aye sir.”

“I spot the type a mile away.”

“Aye aye sir.”

“The type that can’t stand pain.”

“Aye aye sir.”

“The sniveling phony Marine.”

A prisoner approached the second white line, requested permission to cross. The guard looked over, slowly. He let go of Oswald’s crotch. It was raining again. He detached the billy club from his belt and approached the second prisoner.

“What’s your name?”

“Nineteen. ”

“Don’t you know the code, Nineteen?”

“I requested permission to cross the line.”

“You didn’t request permission to talk.” The guard jabbed him lightly in the ribs. “Prisoners are silent. We observe the international rules of warfare in this head. This is my head. Nobody talks without my say-so.”

He jabbed the prisoner with the billy club.

“Prisoners run silent. They fall to the deck silent when struck. Do you know how to fall, Nineteen?”

The guard jabbed twice, then three more times, harder, before Nineteen realized he was supposed to fall down, which he did, crumpling slowly, in careful stages. His right shoulder touched the white line. The guard kicked him back over.

“We observe the principles of night movement in this head. What is the first principle of night movement, Nineteen?”

“Run at night only in an emergency.”

The guard swung the club without bothering to lean toward the prisoner, using a casual backhand stroke, grazing the man’s elbow. The guard did not look at the man as he swung. This was one of the features of the local style.

The guard looked at Oswald.

“Why did I hit him?”

“He recited principle number two.”

The guard swung the club, hitting the man in the shoulder.

“In this head we know our manual word for word,” the guard told the crumpled man, standing with his back to him. “We say nothing in this head that does not come from the manual. We kill silent and with surprise.”

Oswald needed desperately to piss.

“In the final assualt,” said the guard, “it is the individual Marine, with his rifle and his what, who closes with the enemy and destroys him.”

“Bayonet,” the prisoner said.

“A vigorous bayonet assault, executed by Marines eager to drive home cold steel, can do what, what, what.”

Silence from the man on the deck. He tightened his fetal knot a second before the guard stepped back half a stride and swung the club in a wide arc, striking the knee this time. Oswald was eager to be called.

The guard looked at Oswald, who said at once, “A vigorous bayonet assault, executed by Marines eager to drive home cold steel, can strike terror in the ranks of the enemy.”

The guard swung the club backwards once more, striking Nineteen on the arm. Oswald felt a slight satisfaction. The guard made a point of gazing into the distance as he struck his blows.

Oswald sensed the guard’s interest shift his way. He was ready for the question.

“Principle number one.”

“Get the blade into the enemy.”

“Principle number two.”

“Be ruthless, vicious and fast in your attack.”

The guard took half a step, switched the billy to his left hand and swung it hard, striking Oswald’s collarbone. He was genuinely surprised. He thought they’d reached an understanding. The blow knocked him back three steps and forced him to one knee. He’d thought he was through getting hit for the day.

“There are no right answers,” the guard advised, looking into the distance.

Oswald got to his feet, approached the white line, stood staring at the urinal. He requested permission to cross.

“To execute the slash, do what.”

“One, assume the guard position.”

“Then what.”

“Two, step forward fifteen inches with the left foot, keeping the right foot in place.”

The guard swung the club, hitting him in the arm. He was sweaty with the need to piss, his upper body moist and chill.