The Circle (22 page)

If he was right, this man had tried to kill him.

“Nice digs,” said the seaman, glancing around. “Got your own sink and everything.”

“You could have had a room like this.” Dan opened the folder. “Your combined GCT/ARI is one twenty. There are programs to send enlisted men to Officer Candidate School, the ones with leadership qualities.”

Lassard opened his eyes wide. Dan saw now that there was something wrong about their focus, as if the seaman was looking at something in the room only he could see. “You think Slick Lassard's officer material?”

“I only said he—I said, you had the potential. Can I bum a cigarette?”

The request seemed to take Lassard by surprise. He blinked, then reached down to fish a pack out of his sock. They were Kools. Dan took one, could not stop himself from checking the end. Lassard looked amused. After a moment, he shook one out for himself.

“You made third-class twice. What happened?”

“You've got the record there, boss. Man with your education ought to be able to read.”

“I'd like to hear it from you.”

“Slick had a little run-in with Allen the Wrench. He was LPO then. Got transferred off last year. Then Nigger Baby moved up from second.”

Dan decided to ignore the racist language for now. “What kind of run-in?”

“Allen was ridin' his shit, man, ridin' it into the ground. So one night outside the Acey-Deucey, Slick punches his face in. Busts his fuckin' nose. Then he goes over the hill for a couple months. Cops in Orlando caught him driving without a license. They sent him back under guard when they found Navy ID in his wallet. Then fuckin' Packer screws him to the wall at captain's mast. Breaks him to recruit.”

“Don't call him ‘fucking Packer.' He went light, Slick. You could have gotten a bad-conduct discharge for that.”

“What, the Big Chicken Dinner? Slick begged him for it. Fucker said he wouldn't give him the pleasure.”

“I told you, don't refer to him that way in front of me.”

Lassard shrugged and looked around the cabin again.

“That's not the first time you've been to mast. What about this thing in Scotland?”

“Dry dock in Holy Loch. Slick's first duty. Went to mast four times there.”

“It only shows two in your record.”

“That's 'cause they tried him three times for the same offense.”

“I don't think they can do that, Slick.”

“Did it on
Los Alamos,
Ensign. Captain was a Mormon, XO was a rummy. Slick's shacked up with this chick in Glasgow, and he forgets to come back for three or four weeks. Captain gives him ninety days restriction and nine days bread and water. Then he goes on leave. Soon as he goes off the brow, the exec—he's Slick's good buddy—he reconvenes the mast and gives him a week restriction. Then the CO comes back, reconvenes, and gives him ninety and nine again. So Slick takes this shit over to base legal, and they say he don't have to serve any of it and take it off my page thirteen.”

“And number four?”

“Oh, the fuckin'—see, you used to could make your bird, then come back and pick up your paycheck, then go over the hill again. Then they started lockin' it up, so Slick gets a friend of his to steal it. Then this fucker starts tearing it up soon as it comes in. So Slick cops his fuckin' gig and goes to Glasgow in that. Finds a nice shallow spot and run it up on the beach. Skipper didn't mind that too much, but his fuckin' leather jacket was in it. You ever been in a English pawnshop? It's droll, man, they—”

“This is all very entertaining, Slick, but I wanted to talk about your future in the Navy. Can we do that?”

Lassard sighed. “Ay, man, you—”

“That's ‘aye aye, sir.'”

“Oh, go to hell,” Lassard said suddenly, sitting forward. “What do you want, Ensign? Let's get to the fuckin' point. Or'd you just invite me up here for a two-man circle jerk?”

Dan controlled himself. “I wanted to find out what makes you tick, Seaman Lassard. From what I've seen, you don't give a rat's ass about
Ryan,
the Navy, or your shipmates. But apparently you were a good worker at one time. Somebody thought you rated a crow. I'd like to give you a chance to start over.”

“It's that routine? Got that from Sullivan, Norden, too. Fuckin' XO put it different. He told me to square my shit away or I'd spend the rest of my enlistment suckin' off the marines in the brig.”

“That sounds like Commander Bryce. Is that the only reason you're still with us?”

“That's it, man. Slick's got one year, three months, four days, and twelve hours—but who's countin'—before he torches his ID and blazes out of this chickenshit hole in the water. Uncle's a welder in Louisiana. He's making fifteen, twenty bucks an hour. Might do that. Or go to Mexico, see what's happening down there. Or back to Florida, if the bitch is still there. But none of that's important. The main thing's to get out.”

“Why did you join the Navy, Lassard?”

“The draft, man. That's the only—
fuckin'
—reason Junie Lassard's little Willie's here takin' tea with you.”

“There are other ways to avoid the army.”

“So he's stupid then.” Lassard laughed, a cold retrospection in his eyes; he could have been an old man talking of himself as a toddler. “See, he grows up in Elkhart, Indiana. Corn-fed middle America. He figures he can make something out of himself. The fuckin' recruiter guarantees little Willie electronics school. Then right out of boot camp they change his orders—they need him in the fleet. Right on! They need him to chip paint on this fuckin' shithouse.”

“Most men start out in the deck gang. That doesn't mean they stay there. You could put in for a rate change.”

“Yeah, way he thought at first, but after a while old Slick gets to thinking. Like, what is this all about? And finally he gets it together in his head.

“It don't matter what kind of alphabet you got in front of your name. The enlisted man's still shit. It's work like a dog and then fuck you, keep a-smilin' like a Carolina nigger and yessir, yessir, salute and get out of my way. Slick, he sucked up to Bloch for a while, but then he says fuck it. He finally seen behind the bullshit.”

“What do you mean, Slick? What do you think's behind it?”

“Mean, you can be led on to believe in things, or you can lead your own self on, make shit up, happy shit, sad shit, you know. But that's just kidding yourself, because, man, there isn't anything worth a shit you can't just buy. Cash and pull—that's Amerika. If you don't got it, only a few things worth doing for the rush. Wake up, Ensign. More and more people seein' through the bullshit. Pretty soon everybody's going to.

“So warning you here and now, don't get on Slick's case. He don't give a flying fuck about that duty, honor, glory crappolini. He's just doing his time. He paints and cleans up, has a little fun now and then, so how about you just get out of his face. And that's the way it is.”

Dan looked at his hands. Again he had that strange mix of feelings. That he hated Lassard, that he was dangerous, and at the same time the suspicion there was something beneath the cynicism; the hope, or delusion, that somehow he could make contact. He had to find some common ground. He tried. “The whaleboat looks good.”

“Fucking ay it looks good. That's the fastest, best-looking gig in the fleet. We won the squadron cup with her last year.”

“So you can still do good work. But I've seen you on deck, Lassard. You're sloppy, you get paint all over, you make more work for the other guys in the division. You're a bad influence on the new men. You want me to get off your case? Try putting out a little. Because right now, you're my number-one problem child.”

“Is that it? He's fucking up your little kingdom for you? Hey, pardon me, man!” Lassard leaned forward, his eyes lighted, innocent and wronged. “He begged Packer to let him go. Fuckin' Tricky Dick puts out all this crap about defending freedom. Who's defending Slick's fuckin' freedom? The fuckin' Navy's getting six years off his life. He'd rather be in prison, except once in a while we get some pussy. It's a motherfucking ripoff, man, they trick-fucked him into being here and they won't let him out. So Slick don't owe you or anybody else a fucking thing.”

“How about your shipmates? You owe them anything?”

“Why? They don't want to be here, either. We're all just dogs to you. It's simple, even a zero ought to get it. A free man can do what he wants, right? If you're not free, then you're somebody's slave. And you can't make a slave take responsibility. Anything Slick does wrong, it's your fuckin' problem, man, not his; it's the Navy's fault, not his, because he's here against his will. So don't lay that lifer ‘shipmate' chickenshit on me, man!”

Dan found himself staring at Lassard with an empty mind. For a moment he'd felt a curious identity. Without the single lucky break of the Academy, he might be sitting there himself in dirty dungarees.

But no matter what happened to him, he could never come to conclusions like Lassard's. This man radiated contempt and hatred like heat from a boiler.

And he had no idea how to answer. As far as he could see, Lassard was right, about the conditions aboard, at least. The wonder was that the men took the long hours and dirt and cold and cramped quarters as well as they did.

He decided to go on, get to the investigation. “So what about the marijuana?”

“Mari
huana,
man, not mari-jawna. Jesus. You mean weed? What you talking about, Ensign?”

“You know what marijuana. The word's all over the ship. The stuff we found up forward.”

“What you want Slick to say? It's his dope? No way, man.”

Dan thought for a moment of saying one of the other enlisted had fingered him. But a lie didn't strike him as a good path to the truth. Instead he said, “Well, let me put it this way. This guy Slick, does he smoke grass?”

“Hell no, man, the Navy puts you in jail for that.” Lassard smiled. “What you want, a confession? Far out. Go for it, Richard Tracy.”

“It was in a pack of Kools. You smoke Kools.”

“Ship's store only carries three brands, Ensign. Don't have to be no rocket scientist to notice that.”

“Whose were they?”

Lassard just smiled. With the freckles and unlined face, he looked every day of eighteen.

“I think it's yours,” said Dan. The smile deepened. “I think you and Greenwald and Coffey, Gonzales, too, maybe, smoke it in the gig. You were smoking it at GQ, and when you saw me coming, you all lit cigars to cover the smell.”

“Even if we did, Ace, so what? Shit ain't dangerous. Everybody uses it out in the world. It'll be legal in a couple years. The cigarette companies got the packs designed. Why's the Navy got this crazy hair up its ass about smoking a little herb?”

“We don't allow alcohol aboard ship, either. How would you like it if we were alongside an oiler and the helmsman was stoned?”

“Don't give me that shit. We got that lecture last month. You ever smoked a joint?”

“No.”

“Ever done any kind of shit? Speedballs? White crosses? Lemons? Black beauties? Blow? Ever tried any of that?”

“No.”

“Then don't make with the fuckin' lectures. You don't know what you're talking about. Slick knows people ashore never get straight, some of 'em drive trucks, one's a fuckin' ER nurse, she can't come without it. You gonna take that away from her?”

“We aren't talking about her or anybody else ashore. We're talking about you, here, aboard ship. I don't care what you do on the other side of the gangway. Do you smoke it ashore?”

“Already told you, Slick ain't admitting nothing. What he does's his own fuckin' business. You want to play games, we can do that all day. All it does is get this little E-One off cleanin' the forward head, man.”

Around them the ship slammed, hitting a sea. Dan looked around for an ashtray, saw one on Cummings's desk, and leaned across Lassard to put his half-burned cigarette out. The seaman had a strong smell, like a wet dog that's been into paint. “Okay. You don't like games? Let's cut out the games. No more third person. How about off the record, Slick, just you and me.”

“One of those man-to-mans, huh?”

“Precisely.”

“What kind of silly dickhead you think Slick is, anyway?”

“Why not? You got nothing to lose. You'll be out of here in a year and three months.” He thought of Packer's intention to put Lassard ashore when they returned. “Or less. Meanwhile, we'll be honest with each other. Maybe it would be good for you to be honest with somebody.”

“How does he know it's off the record?”

“I'll give you my word.”

Lassard nodded slowly, sticking out his lower lip. Dan saw that letters were tattooed inside of it.
FUCK YOU
, they read. The seaman looked around the cabin, at the empty bunks. He lit another Kool.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll play. Just between you and me.”

The anger, Dan saw, was suddenly gone. So was the craziness. A different Lassard sat in the chair. Calmer, without the grin and off-focus eyes.

And somehow, much more menacing.

“That grass we found. Yours?”

Lassard nodded once, eyes alert, drawing on his cigarette.

“Do you have more?”

“Enough for the cruise. It breaks up the monotony. You wouldn't know how monotonous it gets, being an enlisted boy.”

“Who else uses it?”

“I'll talk about me. That's all.”

“Do you sell it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I share. Want some?”

“What else do you sell?”

“Right now I'm holdin' ‘ludes. And speed, for when a guy's out on his feet and has to stand watch.”