The Naked and the Dead (42 page)

            Might have been.

            The wife wanted me to quit 'em.

            How is she?

            Okay. (He thinks of her sleeping now, hears the rough surprisingly male heartiness of her snoring.)

            Married life gone okay with ya? What're ya doin' now?

            Yeah, it's fine. I'm drivin' a truck. . . like my old man. (Mary has bought a lace cover for the table.)

            Listen, these Reds who are runnin' M'Gillis, aw, M'Gillis a Black Irishman if there ever was one, imagine a guy givin' up his religion, well, anyway the big boys ain't worryin' about him for the primaries, but theah's a bunch of union men in this district and Mac says we got to make a good showing right here so they won't be buildin' up.

            We bringin' over any repeatehs? Gallagher asks.

            Yeah, but I got me own little idea. (He removes several bottles of ketchup from a paper bag, and begins to pour them on the sidewalk.)

            What are ya doin'?

            Oh, this is neat, this is gonna take the cake. That's good, get it. You stand here and give out the pamphlets for Haney, and give 'em a spiel with it, we can't miss.

            Yeah, that's a good one. (Why didn't I think of it?) Your idea?

            All mine, Mac was really tickled when I told him, he called up Nolan who's the saargeant for the two bulls in this poll, and they ain't gonna cause us no trouble.

            Gallagher stands by the ketchup, and begins to talk as the first voters get in line for the polls. TAKE A LOOK, SEE WHAT HAPPENS. THIS IS BLOOD, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO DECENT AMERICANS WHEN THEY TRY TO VOTE AGAINST A RED. THEY GET BEAT UP BY THE FOREIGNERS THAT ARE BEHIND M'GILLIS. THIS IS M'GILLIS'S WORK, BLOOD, HUMAN BLOOD.

            During a lull he examines the ketchup, which seems too red. He sprinkles a little dirt on it. (Work and work and then some smart guy gets a bright idea and gets all the credit, those goddam Reds, they're causin' me all the trouble.)

            HERE Y'ARE, TAKE A LOOK, he shouts as some voters approach.

            Where you goin', Roy? Mary asks. Her voice has a whining nagging quality and he turns in the door, and shakes his head. I'm just goin' out. She cuts her boiled potato in half, and puts a big portion in her mouth. A few flakes of potato stick to her lip, which angers him. Don't ya ever eat anythin' but potatoes? he asks.

            Roy, we have meat.

            Yeah, I know. Questions tug at his mind. He wants to ask her why she never eats with him at night, but always serves him first; he wants to tell her that he doesn't like to be asked where he is going.

            You're not going to be at a CU meeting, are ya? she asks.

            What do you care? (Why don't you ever put a dress over that slip?)

            Roy, you're going to get in trouble there, I don't like those men, you're only going to hurt yourself at the club, you know now the war's on they have nothing to do with them.

            There's nothing wrong with the CU. Leave me alone, goddammit.

            Roy, don't swear.

            He slams the door, and walks into the night. It is snowing a little, and at the street corners his shoes crunch icily through the slush. He sneezes once or twice. A man's gotta get out and have some. . . some relaxation. Y'get some ideals to fight for in the organization and a woman wants to stop ya. I'm gonna be up there someday.

            In the meeting hall, the air is hot and metallic from the heaters, and the smell of wet clothing is sour. He grits a cigarette butt into powder with his foot.

            All right, we're in a war, men, the speaker says, we gotta fight for the country, but we don't want to be forgettin' our private enemies. He pounds the speaker's table over which a flag with a cross is spread. There's the foreign element we got to get rid of, that are conspiring to take over the country. There are cheers from the hundred men seated in camp chairs. We gotta stick together, or we'll be havin' our women raped, and the Red Hammer of Red Jew Fascist Russia WILL BE SMASHING YOUR DOOR DOWN.

            That's tellin' him, the man next to Gallagher says.

            Yeah, Wat's okay. Gallagher feels a pleasurable fury forming in him.

            Who takes away your jobs, who tries to sneak up on your wives and your daughters and even your mothers 'cause they wouldn't stop at nothing, who's out to get YOU and YOU 'cause you ain't a Red and a Jew, and you don' wanta bow down before a filthy goddam no-good Communist who don't respect the Lord's name, and would stop at nothing.

            Let's kill them! Gallagher shrieks. He is shaking with excitement.

            That's it, men, we're gonna clean up on 'em, after the war we're really gonna have an organization, I got telegrams here from our com-
pat-
riots, patriots as well as friends, and they're all stickin' with us.

            You're all in on the ground floor, men, and those of ya that are goin' into the Army gotta learn to use your weapons so that afterward. . . afterward. . . You get the idea, men. We ain't licked, we're gettin' bigger all the time.

            When the meeting is over, Gallagher drifts into a bar. The dry throat, the painful tension in his chest. As he drinks, his rage diffuses and he grows sullen and bitter.

            They're always cheatin' ya at the last minute, he says to the man beside him. They had come out of the meeting together. It's a plot.

            That's all it is, it's a goddam mother-fuggin plot, and they ain't gonna break me, I'm gonna get out on top.

            On the way home he slips in a puddle, and wets his pant leg up to his hip. Fug you, he roars at the pavement. Plot, always fuggin a guy, well, you ain't gonna get me.

            He lurches into his flat, and pitches off his overcoat. His nose is bitter. He sneezes raspingly, and swears to himself.

            Mary wakes up in her chair, and looks at him. You're all wet.

            That all you got to say? I'm. . . I'm. . . what the hell do you know about it?

            Roy, every time you come back you're like this.

            Trying to keep a man down, all you're interested in is the goddam dough I bring back, well, I'LL GIVE YOU ALL THE DOUGH YOU WANT.

            Roy, don't talk to me like that. Her lip wavers.

            Staaart crying, go ahead, staaart crying, I'm on to you.

            I'm going to bed.

            C'mere.

            Roy, I'm not going to hold it against you, I don't know what's the matter with you, but there's something in you I just don't understand, what do you want of me?

            Lea' me alone.

            Oh, Roy, you're wet, take off your pants, honey, why do you drink, it always makes you so bitter, I've been praying for you, honest I have.

            Oh, lea' me alone. He sits by himself for a few minutes staring at the lace doily on the table. Aaah, I don' know, I don' know.

            What's in it for a guy?

            Work tomorrow.

            (He would defend the lady in the lavender dress with his sword.)

            He fell asleep in the chair, and in the morning he had a cold.

10

            Gallagher's numbness continued. In the days that followed the news of Mary's death he worked furiously on the road, shoveling without pause in the drainage ditches, and chopping down tree after tree whenever they had to lay a corduroy. He would rarely halt in the breaks they were given every hour, and at night he would eat his supper alone and curl into his blankets, sleeping exhaustedly with his knees near his chin. Wilson would hear him shuddering in the middle of the night, and would throw his blanket over him, clucking to himself at the misery Gallagher was undergoing. Gallagher showed no sign of his grief except that he became even leaner and his eyes and eyelids were swollen as if he had been on a long drinking bout or had played poker for forty-eight hours at a stretch.

            The men tried to feel sorry for him, but the event had given a variation to the monotonous sweep of their days on the road. For a short time they sustained a quiet compassion when he was near and spoke in soft voices, uncomfortable in his presence. They ended by feeling merely uncomfortable and were resentful when he sat by them, for it inhibited their speech and made them acutely uneasy. Red felt a little shame and brooded over it one night on guard, deciding there was nothing he could do about it. It's tough, but I can't change it. He looked off into the night and shrugged. To hell with it, it's Gallagher's bloody nose, not mine.

            The mail began to come in almost daily, and a frightening thing happened. Gallagher continued to receive letters from his wife. The first one came a few days after Father Leary had told him about her death; it had been mailed almost a month before. Wilson collected the letters for the platoon that night from the orderly room, and he debated whether to give it to Gallagher. "It's gonna make him feel mighty funny," he said to Croft.

            Croft shrugged. "You can't tell. He may want it." Croft was curious to see what happened.

            Wilson's voice was casual when he gave it to Gallagher. "Some mail for ya, boy." He felt embarrassed and looked away.

            Gallagher's face whitened as he gazed at the letter. "That ain't for me," he muttered. "Some mistake."

            "It's your letter, boy." Wilson put an arm on his shoulder, and Gallagher shook it off. "You want me to throw it away?" Wilson asked.

            Gallagher looked at the date on the envelope. He shivered a little. "No, give it to me," he blurted. He walked away a few yards and ripped it open. The words were indistinguishable to him, and he could not read it. He began to tremble. Holy Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said to himself. His eyes were able to focus on a few lines, and their meaning seeped into his mind. "I been worrying about you, Roy, you're allways so angrie about everthing, and I pray for your safety every night. I love you so much when I think of the baby, only sometimes I can't beleive that its going to come so soon. Only three weeks now, the doctor said." Gallagher folded the letter, and walked around blindly. The purple lump on his jawbone twitched dully. "Oh, Christ Saviour," he said aloud. He began to tremble again.

            Gallagher could not accept Mary's death. At night, on guard, he would catch himself thinking of his return, and he would imagine what it would be like with Mary to greet him. A dull despair would settle on him, and he would say automatically, She's dead, she's dead, but he did not believe it completely. He had numbed himself.

            Now, as the letters from Mary kept coming every few days, he began to believe that she was alive. If someone had asked him about his wife, he would have said, She died, but nevertheless he was thinking about her the way he always had. When she would say that the child was due in ten days, he would count off the time and pick the date that fell ten days after he read the letter. If she told him that she had visited her mother the preceding day, he would think, That was about the time yesterday we were eating chow. For months he had known of her life only through her letters and the habit was too deep for him to break now. He began to feel happy; he looked forward to her letters as he always had done, and he would think about them at night before he fell asleep.

            After a few days, however, he came to a terrifying realization. The date for her confinement was approaching closer and closer, and finally there would come a last letter and she would be dead. There would be nothing more of her. He would never hear from her again. Gallagher varied between panic and disbelief; there were times when he believed completely and simply that she was alive -- the interview with the chaplain was part of a dream. But sometimes, when several days went by without a letter, she became remote, and he realized that he would never see her again. Most of the time, however, the letters moved him superstitiously; he began to think that she had not died but that she was going to, unless he could find some way to prevent it. The chaplain had asked him several times if he wanted a furlough, but he was incapable of considering that; it would have made him admit the thing he did not want to believe.

            In contrast to the first frenzy with which he had worked, he began to wander away from the details, and go for long walks by himself along the road. He was warned several times that some Japanese might be waiting in ambush but he was unable to worry about that. Once he walked all the way back to the bivouac area, a distance of seven miles. The men thought he was going mad; occasionally they would discuss him at night, and Croft would say, "That boy's goin' to flip his lid." They felt helpless; they had no idea of what they could say to him. Red suggested they didn't give him any more letters, but the other men were afraid to meddle. They felt the awe and absorption they would have known at watching any process which was inevitable. Gallagher no longer embarrassed them; they would study him morbidly as they might stare at a sick man who they knew had not much time to live.

            The mail clerk was told about it and he went to see the chaplain, who spoke to Gallagher. But when Father Leary suggested that it might be best if he didn't receive any more of the letters, Gallagher pleaded with him, and muttered, "She's gonna die if you take the letters away." The chaplain did not understand his words, but he recognized the intensity of Gallagher's feeling. He was disturbed, and he debated with himself whether to recommend that Gallagher be sent to a hospital, but he had a horror of mental wards and a prejudice against them. Secretly he made out an application for a furlough for Gallagher, but it was refused by Base Headquarters, who notified him that the Red Cross had investigated and the child was being cared for by Mary's parents. He ended by watching Gallagher too.

            And Gallagher wandered around, absorbed in things he did not talk about, and the men would see him smile occasionally at some secret knowledge he held. His eyes had become redder, and his eyelids looked raw and angry. He began to have nightmares, and Wilson was awakened one night by Gallagher moaning, "Please, God, you can't let her die, I'll be a good guy, I swear I'll be a good guy." Wilson shuddered, and clapped his hand over Gallagher's mouth. "You're havin' a nightmare, boy," he whispered.