You could smell southern Italy, Sergeant Silkworth had told the mortar squad, long before it came over the horizon. He had described the flies, the heat, the sewage that fouled the soft crystalline air.
And then, relishing the open-mouthed attention of the privates, he had described its pleasures.
Sweating that morning at formation, Private First Class Willard Staunton Givens, U.S. Marine Corps, slid his eyes beyond the flight deck of the Spiegel Grove. Past Corporal Cutford’s broad back, beyond the life nets, to where a line of palest blue trembled in the early light. He sniffed.
Once again, the sergeant had been right.
“Ten-hut!” bawled the Top, and the two hundred marines of Bravo Company came to instant and complete attention. They stared out over the starboard side, ranks swaying with the roll of the old landing ship as the officers strolled out. Givens watched the back of Cutford’s neck darken. It happened whenever the assistant squad leader saw brass. He glanced sideways at Harner, but the Kentuckian was looking straight ahead, his narrow face as still and empty as a worked-out mine.
“Have them stand easy,” he heard one of them say.
“Bravo Company. At … ease!”
With two hundred other men, Givens went back to parade rest with the joint-cracking snap that every marine carried from boot camp and never let decay. Above them, looking down from a crane, two sailors snickered, then went instantly silent as a score of eyes swung up to memorize their faces. The company executive officer—Will could never remember his name—stepped forward and raised his voice over the omnipresent whine of the ship’s ventilators.
“Got a message from the colonel last night,” the exec began. “A ‘well done’ on the practice landing yesterday. The movement inshore was expeditious. Units hit the beach in good order, with an aggressive spirit. Specific comments on Bravo Company: generally good, but battalion staff heard too much undisciplined chatter on the portable radios. In battle, reports have to be short, military, and to the point. You’ll hear more from your noncoms, but in general, a good exercise.
“Today, I figure this is no news to you, we’re slated for some well-deserved liberty. We’ll be in Palermo for four days. For those who haven’t seen the country on previous floats, you can have a good time here. But you can get really screwed up, too. The way to enjoy yourself ashore is to keep a few simple precautions in mind.…”
As he talked on, Givens stared at the back of Cutford’s head. A rifle butt, he thought idly, would fit it so fine. Even the plastic Mattel toy shoulderpiece of the M-16 would fit so nice right behind the main gunner’s chocolate-dark ear.
These six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief. A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.…
His eyes drifted down to the lance corporal’s hands. At attention, they rested curled against the seams of his utilities as if asleep, black-haired, pale-palmed, the index finger of the left hand nicotine-brown over brother-brown.
A good swing, and then the satisfying chunk as the rifle butt hit …
“This off-limits area extends from just beyond the railway station, the Estazione Ferroviaria. Under no conditions are military personnel permitted to cross into it. The Shore Patrol will point the limits of this area out to you, should this be necessary.”
Ess-tossy-onay Fairy Veahria, Givens repeated in his mind. The exec sounded like a pansy.
No. That wasn’t right. For a moment he felt scared. Thinking about hitting another marine—being disrespectful, even in his mind, to an officer—that wasn’t him. His lips moved, calling for strength to resist the unrighteous. He was letting Cutford and Silky get to him. Make him like them, in their own different yet like images of power. So what if the exec knew some Italian. Maybe he could learn some himself. It had been easy enough to pick up a couple of words in Spanish at Rota. Hernandez said he sounded like a real “raza,” whatever that was.
No, he had to discipline his thoughts. The exec was all right, for a officer. For an officer. Maybe, he thought guiltily, I better start listening up.
“… Palermo has been a center of historical events and military campaigns for centuries. In A.D. 835 the Saracens captured the town, and held Sicily for two centuries, till Roger the Norman recaptured it. It was taken by Allied forces under General Patton in 1943, in the largest amphibious assault in history.…”
“Jee … sus,” he heard Liebo mutter to his right, his round face outthrust so that Will could see him even with his eyes straight ahead. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Dippy,” came Sergeant Silkworth’s rasping murmur down the line.
Where do they learn all that? Givens wondered. Was that college, too? Or did all the officers get briefed, before they hit a port? Read it out of some manual?
“… And remember, as in any Catholic country, women are respected. Make no advances until you ascertain their status. A lot of the men here carry knives, and they know how to use them.
“That brings up one last point: politics. The Italian Communists are active here. They’d love to embarrass the Marine Corps and through us the United States. Don’t be drawn into arguments. We don’t want any international incidents, and we don’t want any of our troops hurt, either.
“Any questions?… Top, take over and dismiss the men.”
As the formation broke Givens let his knees sag for a moment. He looked around. The land was nearer, a hazy stroke of pastel across a blue-gray morning. The snickering sailors were gone from the crane. Cutford was talking to another brother. He looked dangerous, as he usually was after being subjected to an officer’s lecturing. Will moved toward the rail to avoid hearing, to avoid being drawn in. His boots scuffed on the nonskid of the deck.
The ship was turning, the wind shifting to the starboard side, and as he reached the nets the land came suddenly into full view, much closer than he had thought. He dropped to sit, dangling his legs above the wake sixty feet below, and looked out.
Low, blue, the flattened hills were hazy and contrastless, curved in a sweep of sea and morning-pure sky. Other marines were looking on, saying little. One of them was Washman, clicking away with an Instamatic. Givens stared out. He was a long way from Carolina. For a moment he wished he had never come.
“Where you planning on going, Will?”
“Oh. Hey, Washout.” He looked behind him to make sure Cutford was out of earshot, then turned back to the squad rifleman. “I guess, just ashore. You heard the stories Silky been telling. Be fun to see the town, wouldn’t it?”
“Shit, yeah. I never been here, either. That off limits, that sounds like the place to go. ‘Everything past the railway station.’ We could spend all fucken four days there.”
“We could go there for a little while, yeah,” said Givens cautiously.
“And all the other stuff, too. The castles and the volcano and the mummies.”
“Mummies?”
“Wa’n’t you listening? Lieutenant said they buried ’em in a cave, dressed and standing up. Said they scared the piss out of him. Well, he didn’t say ‘piss.’ But it’s going to be on that tour they set up.”
“Yeah. Sure. The tour.” Givens paused, knowing that what he really wanted, every waking moment and most achingly at night, was forbidden. “Well—I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go ashore, look around a little.”
“I know one of the squids,” said Washman, twisting his pimpled face nervously around the deck; he was afraid of Cutford, too. “One of the gunner’s mates. We was talking about the mortars. He wanted a round of eighty-one and I told him no way, José; Butterbars counts them fuckers every time we open the ammo locker. But he said he been to Palermo lots of times. He’s an old guy, thirty. I bet he’d tell us the places to hit.”
“So let’s go find him, man,” said Will, thrusting his thumbs under his web belt and scowling. It was easy to act tough around the Washout.
“In your pack, man.”
They found the gunner’s mate coming out of the mess decks with a mug of coffee. He didn’t seem to recognize Washman, but when they asked about town he nodded. They followed him up to the after three-inch mount and sat on a ready service locker. Washout borrowed his ball pen and got the essentials down on a torn-out page of his Guidebook for Marines.
The rest of the morning oozed by, slow as promotion, like all the time they spent on shipboard. He and Washman wandered up to the bridge and watched the coast draw clearer until a lookout chased them off. They wandered down to the first-class mess, attracted by the sound of a television, and were ordered to move along. They went by the ship’s store, hoping for pogey bait, chocolate or gum, but it was closed. So after that there was nothing to do but go back to the berthing space. Two decks down into the hull, it was as hot and smelly as any cavern inhabited for months on end by two hundred prehistoric men. They sat at the card table and watched Dippy and Hernandez in their endless game of spades. Harner was there, sitting beside the Chicano rifleman, chain-smoking Marlboros like he always did; he never touched the cards, never kibitzed, volunteered nothing. He was the tallest in the squad and never complained, even on forced marches. Cutford was there, but he seemed to be on safe for the moment. Lying in his bunk, eyes closed, earphones over his stocking cap, he was nodding to his stereo. Silkworth, Liebo muttered, was in a meeting with the Top. A fly droned among the slowly tilting bunkframes, the drowsing men:
A little after lunch they heard the squids man up for sea detail. The squad played one more hand and then drifted off to their lockers. Givens pulled a set of fresh Charlies from the wrappers they had been stowed in since the States. Liebo dimpled his tie in the mirror by the hatch. Hernandez patted on cologne, and tropical flowers filled the compartment. Harner meditated in the head, his straight razor dangling in his hand, sucking silently at a bloody lip.
Givens checked himself in the polished glass. His garrison cap sat straight on short, wiry hair. The collar of his khaki shirt was straight with starch, his globe-and-anchors a dull and warlike black. He pinned his ribbons level with the deck, conscious of their paucity. Someday, he promised himself for the hundredth time, there would be more. A whole chestful. He bared his teeth at his image and wrinkled his nose, wishing it were not quite so wide, wishing he did not look quite so young—
“What the fuck you doin’, Oreo?”
“Nothin’, man.” He moved aside as Cutford shouldered his way into the mirror. “Uh … you goin’ on libs, bro’?”
Cutford said nothing. He stared into the mirror, then shifted his narrow eyes to Will’s. He’s so much darker than I am, Givens thought.
“Jesus, you stink,” said the corporal.
“That’s Hernandez.”
“Why don’t you put some on, too?”
“I don’t like the smell. It’s too strong.”
“Hey,” said Cutford. “Dap, brother.”
Givens dapped him unwillingly. He felt clumsy doing the rhythm. He missed one and Cutford sneered and turned back to the mirror, flipping out a comb. There were gray wires in his hair. “Oreo, you fucked-up ofay-lover, you can’t even pass power right.”
“Cutford, nobody goes for that power stuff anymore.”
“That’s what they been tellin’ you. Where you think you’re goin’?”
“Out on liberty, like everybody else.”
“‘Like everybody else.’ Yeah, that’s just your tune, Oreo. You just want to be one of the boys.” He accented the last word. “And where you plannin’ to go on this sweet liberty the big man give you?”
“I don’t know. Just go ashore, walk around a little.”
“Who with?”
“Nobody. Just us pees in the squad.”
“You referrin’ to your swan friends, of course.”
“The whole squad’s goin’, man.” Will sounded plaintive even to himself. He looked around, hoping someone else needed the mirror; but the compartment was emptying, men pushing by them, stepping carefully up the ladder to keep their starched O.D. trousers from bagging at the knees. He wanted nothing more than to get away from this man, but he was part of the squad; the offer, at least, was a necessity. “Why don’t you come with us?”
The corporal’s face came closer. Givens dropped his eyes to his gold chain, the twisted-carrot trinket Cutford wore without explaining even under his uniform, even in the showers, and the invitation died on his lips.
“Private Givens. Will, baby.” The corporal’s voice became soft. “Listen. You don’t need to go out with those people. You don’t need to suck up to them and buy them beer. You don’t need to snake their dirty whores in some enlisted man’s off-limits craphouse, then cover your ass with that Jesus talk of yours. You’re a black man, a black king, every place but in your head, man.”
“Get off my case, Cutford. We bunk with them and eat with them and we’re supposed to be ready to fight with them. You’re the main gunner, man. Why can’t you figure you got to live with them, too?”
“Fuck you, then, Oreo. Someday you’re going to see the light. Till then—”
He tensed, expecting violence, but the corporal disappeared from the mirror. He hadn’t touched him, even. When he was sure he was gone Will breathed out. He removed his cap, ran his comb through the stubble again, and ran up the ladder to the main deck.
From sixty feet up he could see all of Sicily. From the pier back the city lay like a pastel carpet. Miles of buildings festered between the hills and spread beyond them. Far inland a massive volcanic cone thrust upward like a thunderhead. In the afternoon brightness of the Mediterranean, Palermo seemed endless, immense, the largest city on the planet, and after weeks at sea or on barren maneuver areas the honking, dog-barking murmur of land, the chuffing of a rusty tugboat, the rich smells of exhaust and sewage and pasta were intoxicating. He joined ten score other marines and a few sailors at the rail and leaned his elbows on the warm metal, breathing deep. Silkworth was right, he thought again. He had smelled it from far at sea; had smelled it, stronger and deeper, all through the morning. Even the stink of the compartment, soap and ship, starch and cologne had become part of it, natural, like the perfume of a beautiful, unwashed woman, a naked woman who spread her legs from hill to hill before him.
To ease his sudden excitement he leaned forward, looking down at the pier.
Below them, on the outstretched sterngate (the ship had moored stern to), sailors in dungarees shouted and jumped back. The gangway had broken loose. It tilted, balanced for an instant, and then slid gracefully into the brown murk at the foot of the pier. The marines groaned. The sailors stared stupidly into the water. A fish circled belly up in sluggish scum, drink cans, oily rainbows. A fat chief in whites came out from inside the well deck and began giving orders. The marines shouted suggestions. A couple of linehandlers, a policeman, and a priest in hot-looking black watched from the pier. The sailors fished cautiously off the sterngate. The grapnel snagged something, they hauled away together, and the end of the gangway crept up into view, dripping slime.
“Don’t drop it again,” Will shouted down, and beside him Washman laughed. “These friggin’ squids kill me,” he said. The priest caught a heaving line and the policeman and two linehandlers joined him on it. When the far end of the brow banged on the concrete, the chief ran across and began lashing it to a bollard.
“Let’s head on out,” said Hernandez, with a deep sigh of anticipation.
On the pier, free at last, they ranged themselves in swaggering line abreast. Past two passenger liners the quay ended at a modern-looking concrete building that as they neared it became flaking, prewar. Its walls flapped with posters in fading greens and reds. He looked back once. The Spiegel Grove looked small, moored among the liners; small and old, graceless and dirty. It had carried him in her guts for three months, and every minute of it he had hated her.
He did not look back again.
The six of them—Givens, Washman, Hernandez, Sergeant Silkworth, Liebo, and Harner—stopped by common accord at the first bar beyond the gate, on a cobbled street as full of diesel fumes as traffic. The proprietor grumbled at their dollars, but took them. After two or three beers apiece to take the edge off they headed uphill at a more leisurely pace. Silkworth declined to lead. He said he had been drunk every time he’d been here and he could never remember the way. They strolled uptown, conspicuous in starched Charlies amid the thronging, swift-talking Sicilians. Givens stared open-mouthed at the shabby, crumbling buildings, the mobile-junkyard cars, the hammer-and-sickle posters six to every wall. He felt conscious of his uniform, his foreignness, his skin. He closed up on Liebo and Silky and Washman, in the lead.
“Be careful of your watches,” Harner said, startling them all.
“Left here?” said Liebo, turning halfway around. Washman pulled out his page and they studied it on a corner, looking for an orientation point. Several boys offered to guide them. When the marines ordered them away they left, slapping their arms in a gesture Will thought picturesque. The smallest, a shaven-headed runt of five or six, tagged after them, making motions for a smoke. At last Harner gave in and tossed him a Marlboro. Then he wanted a light.
“Aren’t you a Wop, Dippy?”
“Fuck, no, man. Liebo’s a good Portuguese name.”
“Think we turn left here, huh?”
“Why didn’t you get some street names from the squid?”
“Let’s ask this kid where the station is.”
“Hey, man, where’s the station? Railroad?”
“Compre’?”
“He don’t talk English, man.”
“The railroad, kid. Choo-choo. Ding, ding,” said Liebo. When the others laughed he reddened. “Hey, you fuckers try to talk to him, then.”
“Estacion-ay fairo-veree,” said Will, on an impulse. The boy brightened and pointed to the left. Harner gave him another cigarette.
They turned left. “Pretty slick, there, Will,” said the sergeant. “Where you pick that up?”
“The exec said that at formation this morning.”
“He did? I dint remember that. You must have a natural gift for languages, Private Givens.”
“Ah, I just picked it up,” said Will, pleased.
“Marlboro,” said the boy. Harner looked at Silkworth, who shrugged, as if to say, if we don’t some other guys will. He ain’t our responsibility. He shook one more loose and held it out. The boy snatched the pack, his motion so quick he left Harner holding out his hand, and melted toward an alley. “Eh, fuck you, marines,” he said.
“Jesus Christ,” said Washman.
“They grow up fast back here,” said Dippy.
“Maybe he’s one of the sergeant’s,” said Washman. They laughed. “No, too goddamn polite,” said Silky solemnly, and they laughed again, louder because it was Silkworth who said it.
“That must be the station.”
“And there’s the Shore Patrol,” Liebo said. “Just like the man said. Fade, Sarge?”
“Stand easy,” said Silkworth. “We’re still legal. They can’t touch us on this side of the line.”
Harner pulled a spare pack from his sock and they lit up, standing on a corner, watching the two sailors roll back and forth in front of the station. They wore white bellbottoms and caps cocked forward, white belts slung low against weighted nightsticks, and blue brassards like mourning on their sleeves. They glanced at the marines, but made no move toward them. After several minutes they strolled on, past the station, and disappeared around a corner.
“Let’s go,” said Silkworth, flipping his butt to the pavement.
“They won’t come back?”
“Not if they know what marines eat for lunch, Will.”
Past the limit the streets looked just the same, or maybe a little narrower. They came to the T the gunner’s mate had described and headed right. A little grocery was just where he had described it, and a bar, Judito’s, was across from it, as he had said. Two women leaned against the entrance, looking toward them. “Here?” said Liebo, brushing at his shoulders, straightening his tie.
“No,” said Silkworth. “I remember now. I went in there once on my first float. I didn’t know nothing then. Those babes were all over me, back in this dark booth. Real jealous bitches. I didn’t figure it out till I tried for a feel. Man! I like to shit. She had a bigger dick than mine. I was just a private then. One of them kissed me, too, before I caught on.”
“Did he kiss good, Sergeant?”
“There was no goddamn difference, Dippy. None at all. That was what was so fucken weird about it.”
Now the street became an alley. Their footsteps bounced off old stucco, off cobblestones strewn with trash, broken glass, a kid’s doll. Givens thought: We’ve left Palermo. This was a place all to itself. Not even the junkyard cars came by, only once in a while a battered, mufflerless Vespa, piloted by boys in black jackets who did not look at them. Over their heads, outside shuttered windows, lines of clothing hung motionless in a dim cathedral light. A baby wailed somewhere, and tinny music beat time to their steps. He looked over his shoulder, and caught Washman doing the same thing. They grinned at each other uneasily.
“That’s it,” said Silky. “Lily’s. Was that the place he told you guys about?”
“I think so, Sarge. He dint remember the name but he said—”
“Yeah, good steer. I been here before, too. It ain’t cheap, but it’s clean, and they don’t rip you off. At least that’s the way it was then. Must be four, five years ago now. Jesus. Here, it’s this green door.”
Will paused. He had not meant to come here. Walk around, see the city, that was all he had intended. He had not wanted to start drinking, but all the others had. He had promised himself not to participate in anything worse. But he did not feel like waiting alone in the empty street. Not in this part of town.
He joined the others inside the door.
He had expected a stinking interior, but they had stepped into a garden. Real grass, trimmed and wet as if it had just been watered. Four wrought-iron chairs sat round a glass-topped table. In the middle of the lawn a blue-and-white Virgin stood in a grotto decorated with marbles and bits of mirror. He looked suspiciously at the statue. A Catholic country, the lieutenant had said.
“Hey. Nice,” said Liebo.
Will had thought the walk was cement, but when he looked carefully it became mosaic, hundreds of square tiles, red and blue and white, glazed porcelain, set with care. Not a square was missing or even cracked. He felt awkward walking on it, even with polished shoes.
When he looked up the others had gone on ahead, and he hurried to catch up. At the end of the garden a stone stairway curved up to the second floor of a house, stucco like the outer wall, but unchipped and clean. Silky led them up it. On the porch he raised his hand to knock, then paused.
“You men armed?”
“What’s that, Sarge?”
“You bring your shit?”
They looked at him blankly. After a moment he unbuttoned his blouse and reached inside, shaking his head. “Here, children,” he said, and handed them out the flat packs of prophylactics, two each.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” said Harner.
Silkworth knocked. The marines shuffled their feet and looked down at the garden, the statue; then the door swung open.
The Italian was old, white-haired, and unimpressed with them. He motioned them in wordlessly.
It looked like a living room. A dark television sat against the wall. Four rubber plants stood around it, as if it had been camouflaged. The old man shut the door and they became abashed, as if their grandfather had met them. “Who’s he?” Liebo whispered. Silky shrugged.
He came back to them as they stood half at attention, and stepped up close to Will. Givens looked down at the opaque eyes, the pink scalp that showed through thin hair. The old man said nothing, just stood close for a moment and then moved to Liebo. When he came to Hernandez he looked up for the first time.
“You go,” he said.
“What? Hey, why, man? I’m okay.”
“He don’t like the way you smell, Hernandez,” said the sergeant.
“Well, so what?” The private took a step back, toward the wall. “I’m stayin’, man.”
“You leave,” said the old man. “Or everybody goes. Sergeant, you tell him.”
“He thinks you been drinking, Hernandez. Guess you bite the wiener. Don’t wear so much cologne next time.”
“Shit, man!” said Hernandez. He stared around at them belligerently, then seemed to wilt. “Okay, okay. You guys have a good time. Can I wait in the garden?”
“Sure,” said the old man. “Just leave here.”
“Here, man, hang on to my camera for me, will you?” said Washman.
“Okay now,” said the old man. “Wait here. I get the girls.”
“Oh, man,” muttered Liebo. He shifted from leg to leg, looking toward the curtain at the far end of the room.
“Uh, I better go,” said Givens then.
“What? We just got here, Will.”
“No. I mean … I’m going to wait, too.”
“You’re okay. He passed you.”
“It ain’t that. I—”
“Come on,” said Silkworth. “Don’t get cold feet now, Givens. Just stay put.”
He was about to protest, but something held him. He stared helplessly at the curtain. I should leave, he thought. I should leave now.
But he didn’t. His knees began to tremble.
There were four girls in nightgowns. He was suddenly glad he’d had the beers at the pier. The fattest one picked out Silky at once. “Hey. I know you?”
“You know me,” said Silkworth, grinning.
“You come for short time?” she asked him. “Twenty dollars, short time. For you, old customer, fifteen. You men pay me.”
“This here is Lily.” Silkworth grinned. “She wants the money now. Lil, you still got wine in back?”
“Sure. Got nice Chianti. All cold. You want some?”
“You bet,” said Silkworth. He reached for his wallet. “And the same for my men, here.”
“You bet.”
It seemed to him that he had spent a long time in the blue bedroom, on the sagging, too-soft bed. But when he staggered out, with a headache from a bottle of wine on top of the beer, he found he had finished before the others.
He sat drained in one of the plastic chairs, waiting. Gradually it dawned on him that he should have stayed for seconds. He still had one of the rubbers in his sock. Lita had been nothing to write home about, but his last time had been too long before to remember. It was—no, it was even before they’d convoyed down to Morehead for onload, way back in April. He remembered now, through the alcohol haze, better than he could have sober. A chick he’d met in a dance place outside the LeJeune gate. He got up twice, half-minded to go back, but sat down again. The others would be out any minute.
No, that wasn’t really it. He was afraid she might ask for another twenty dollars. He hadn’t taken much cash ashore. He was still paying off a dead horse he’d drawn for his PFC drunk. And then, there was his secret. It was something he had never told the others, but he was saving money for school.
He slumped, studying the glossy toes of his shoes and wishing he’d had either more to drink, or less. He realized now, too late, how far he had fallen. He felt sick and sad. No, he thought, There is none righteous, no, not one.
At least she hadn’t said anything about his color. Maybe Italians didn’t care. She had smiled when he showed her the rubber. He wasn’t taking any chances, not with all the scuttlebutt. But the Navy condoms were thick as fire hoses. You had to work, and work … he had to repent, cease following the way to damnation … his mind droned on like an uncoupled motor, fueled by alcohol.
A while later Washman came out, face flushed, and sat wordless beside him. They stared together at the dead television. “You make out okay?” Will asked him.
“She was awful fat. But I needed that bad, man.”
“It isn’t our fault. They keep us at sea too long.”
“No shit, man. Any longer and I would of butt-fucked one of those whimpy squids.… You got your other one, Will?”
“Other what?”
“You know. Your rubber.”
“Oh. No, I used ’em both.”
“Me too. If I had another one I could go back.”
They stared at the television and the potted plants. Will suddenly got up. “I’m going down and keep old Hernandez company.”
“Yeah. Good idea.”
They found the small marine squatting on the grass. They sat at one of the tables for half an hour before Silky and Liebo and Harner came down the stairs, their ties loose, laughing. Silkworth saw them and came over. “Well, is my squad satisfied? Bores clear?”
“Rounds complete, target destroyed, Sarge.”
“Let’s get something real to drink, then.”
Suddenly noisy, caps canted and ties loosened like Sergeant Silkworth’s, they ambled down the street. Liebo suggested Judito’s, but after a couple of turns they discovered that they were lost. Silkworth seemed unworried. “The whole fucken Med’s built on a slant,” he told them. “Any port in it, you get lost, just walk downhill and you’ll hit water. It’s real convenient when you’re shit-faced.”
“But we ain’t drunk nothin’ yet,” said Harner.
“We’ll get you screwed up as a sprayed roach, Kentucky Buck. How about that place on the corner, there?”
“With the commie posters all over it?”
“They’re all over Italy, my man. Don’t sweat it. Wops love marines.”
There were a dozen men in shirtsleeves and black trousers outside the bar. They stared at them as they approached, taking their hands out of their pockets.
“Wait a minute,” said Will, stopping. “This don’t look right.”
“It’s a bar, fella. These guys are just waiting around for something to do.” Silkworth seemed to be right; as he approached the door the loungers parted, glancing at one another. The other marines followed him. Just inside, though, the sergeant paused. Past him, in a smoky light, Givens saw a man speaking in front of a red flag, saw sweating faces turn. When he looked back the Sicilians were closing in.
“I think we just fucked up,” muttered Liebo.
Givens never saw who swung first. Two men came for him, he was hammerlocked and punched. Hernandez was shouting in Spanish. The street staggered; there was a crunching sound, and he tasted bricks. Then combat training took over. He kicked out, hooked a man, and got halfway up before Harner tripped over him, knocking him down again. A Sicilian tried to run and he grabbed him around the waist and got a couple of shots to his back before he broke free.
A flurry of shoving, a sweaty face above him, the smell of garlic. He battled viciously now, hitting as hard as he could. A hand jerked him round and he found himself back to back with the others, facing a hostile but now wary ring of men. Two of them lay on the street. They were moving to retreat when Liebo said, “The Sarge. He’s still in there.”
They looked toward the tavern. The Italians, seeing them pause, moved in again. “Jesus,” said Hernandez. “Will, go get him.”
He took one step forward, and then the door opened and Silkworth came flying out. They pulled him into the circle. He looked undamaged, but confused.
“You better get out of here,” said one of the Sicilians, in quite good English.
“We’re going.”
“Don’t fuck with the Corps, buddy,” shouted Washman.
“Fuori, Americano. Go on, get out.”
“Come on, Sarge.”
“My fucken cap’s still in there.”
“Come on, man,” said Liebo. “There’s a dozen of these bastards waiting to take us. I saw a knife.”
They retreated in good order. As the range opened, the alley rang with shouts, but no one followed them. They rounded a corner as soon as they decently could. Will thought Silkworth looked strange without his uniform cap. Naked, more so probably than he had been back at the house. He took off his own and held it out. “You need it,” said Silkworth, looking at it and then at him.
“Take it, Sarge. You got stripes to lose.”
“Well, okay. Thanks, Will.”
“Jesus, what was with those guys? All we wanted was a drink.”
“I don’t think they wanted to drink with us, Dippy.”
“Yeah, I got that impression, too.”
Considerably sobered, they took stock. Harner was unhurt, except for his pride; Hernandez had taken a shot to the crotch, and was walking doubled over. Silkworth was okay, but Liebo had a bad limp. Givens found that aside from a bloody nose he was all right. He held his handkerchief to it as they walked downhill. There was no Shore Patrol in sight at the station, and they did not stop till they reached a place Liebo had noticed on the other side. It was tiny, about ten feet frontage on the street, but inside was a spotless stainless-steel bar, an immense nickel cappucino machine, and two tables. They settled in with deep sighs, counting their money.
The barmaid added to their impression that everyone in Sicily spoke English and had cousins in Brooklyn. Looking at her as she bent over the beer tap, Givens wished again he had gone back for seconds.
It was funny. Growing up back in Carolina he had never dared look at a white girl. At LeJeune no one said anything, but somehow blood tended to stay with blood. Here, it was different again; it did not seem to matter, perhaps because they were all foreigners anyway.
Except, he thought, to nuts like Cutford.
The beers came and he drank his off in one go, realizing only now how much the fight had taken out of him. Thinking of the main gunner, probably still back in the compartment, listening to his tapes and reading Soul on Ice, made him mad again. “Man, you know that corporal of ours?” he said recklessly to Silkworth.
“What about him?”
“Nothing. But why doesn’t he come out with us on libs?”
“He was in Nam,” said the sergeant. “He might’ve got himself fucked up a little there. Not too many of them dudes left.”
“So why is he only a E-4?”
“Cutford kind of has a e-motional problem.” Silkworth lifted his beer in a slow way that said let me think about how to say this. “Now, that’s his lookout, I figure. The Corps got no business inside a man’s head, messing with his opinions. They tell you, treat everybody the same, but treating ain’t the same as thinking. Know what I mean?”
He nodded. Silkworth finished the beer, called in another round, then went on, not looking at him. “Now, I don’t mean things ain’t improved. Hell, I remember when you didn’t see a splib dude and a white guy out in town together. You did, they’d find one of ’em in an alley in the morning. You seem like a good head, Will, seem to want to get along more than a lot of—more than some guys. But maybe outside the Corps, you don’t like the Man, either. An’ maybe old Moonshine Breath here wouldn’t care to have you sniffing around his sister. I don’t know. An’ frankly I don’t give a shit.”
Harner smiled slowly at Will, but didn’t say a word.
“Thing is, you and Buck here manage to get along in the squad, whatever you think about each other. Now Cutford—I don’t know why, but he can’t do that. He’s a damn good soldier, don’t get me wrong, but he just can’t keep his mouth shut. That’s why he’s still a corporal.
“Why is he like that? I can’t say. Maybe it was Nam, maybe it was where he grew up—or maybe he just turned mean one morning, like a Angel-of-Death pops up out of the ground. But there it is, and I don’t think he’s going to change anytime soon.”
The six men sat in wrinkling uniforms, the marine edge of neatness gone, and drank beer. The sharpest thirst was off now, the dryness of the cruise broken, and they settled themselves to get slowly, thoroughly, permanently drunk. Silkworth switched back to wine, extolling its taste and cheapness to the rest of them. Buck Harner drank Jim Beam steadily, laying bills out on the table to pay for each double shot. The rest drank beer. Givens tilted his chair against the wall, nursing the long-necked frosted bottle, and looked out past the others to the window, to the street. Two Navy officers passed in short-sleeve whites, carrying briefcases. An Italian policeman, sauntering in the heat.
The bargirl brought a tray with little cookies, amoretti she called them, and they drank and talked idly through the late afternoon. About what teams would go to the playoffs this year, and what they would do when they got back to the States. Then they discussed the bargirl, and from there the conversation went back to Lily’s, but only Liebo and Silkworth wanted to talk about that, so that didn’t last. Then they talked about the last exercise, Valiant Javelin, and about one of the men in the platoon who had drunk all his water in the first two hours of the march, and how the second lieutenant had gotten his map coordinates wrong and took them east instead of north, and the fourth squad had to go around a mountain just to get back to their jump-off point, and then complete the march, which had been planned for a full day even if they hadn’t gotten lost; and how the man had gone nuts from thirst, and that night went looking for the lieutenant with his Ka-bar. The end of the story was how the gunny had to jump him and hold him down until the medevac copter came. He was back in the States now. “Three months ahead of us, the bastard,” Liebo grunted. “The screw-ups always have it easier. Ever notice that? Do your job right and they crap on you, but fuck up and you’re money ahead.”
“Yeah man,” said Hernandez solemnly.
“Sarge, where we going after here?” Will asked Silkworth, noticing that the sergeant was looking gloomy again.
“Greece again.”
“How long will that be for?”
“Couple weeks. Course, most of it we’ll be at sea. Four, five days ashore at Gythion, I guess.” Silkworth stretched, rippling muscle beneath his ribbons. “You guys want to try someplace else?”
“What’s wrong with here, man?” said Liebo.
“You all want to stay?”
“Good as anyplace.”
“This Maria, she treats you nice.” The girl behind the bar smiled to hear her name mentioned. “And you get to see that fantastic ass every time she bends over,” Hernandez added, in a low voice.
“Cowboys like fat calves,” said Harner deadpan.
It was dark when they left, reeling as if the street were Spiegel’s deck in a storm. They were going down the last street, the fine smell of the sea was growing beyond the city stink, when Will had to stop for a minute. He leaned against a storefront, waiting out the dizziness. He’d barf if he had to—Liebo already had—but a marine had to learn to hold his beer. He was telling himself this when he saw the guitar.
“Man, look at this six-string,” he said to Washman.
“Nice. I like the pearly stuff there on the handle. You play guitar, Will?”
He stared at it. There on the narrow street, he seemed to smell, just for a moment, fresh-cut loblolly pine. “Oh … used to. I wonder how much it is.”
“It’s a pawnshop. Can’t be that much. But it looks new.”
“Yeah.”
“You boys all right?” said Silkworth, not weaving very much as he came back to get them.
“Sure, Sarge. We’re just going in here for a minute.”
“We’ll be down this alley. I got to piss so bad my socks are tight.”
Inside the shop, amid racks of used shoes, cases of cheap watches and red-gold rings, he received the guitar from the hands of the owner. He turned it to examine the neck, then tucked it and tried a “G” chord. It was slack and he tuned it clumsily, feeling Washman’s eyes on him. He brushed another chord from it, and it sounded good; it sounded real good. He swayed and caught himself against a rack. Records cascaded to the floor. “Sorry—I’m real sorry. Guess I must’ve—”
“You want? Thirty thousand lire.”
“Thirty thousand—” but then slowly he figured the exchange rate, and it was not that bad; in fact, that was cheap for a good Gianelli. “Twenty thousand,” he said thickly.
When Harner and Silkworth came in, the owner came down a few thousand. Then he stuck. “Think we can swing this,” said Givens, and then found his wallet almost empty. Hell yes, he was saving his pay. What for? It didn’t seem important now. “Washout—how about a loan? Ten more bucks would float it.”
“I only got five, but you can have it.”
“No, keep a couple for a last beer. Sarge, you got—”
“I got more balls than I got dollars,” said Silkworth. “But got a pocketful of change here … lemme count.”
Harner coughed up three bucks, and Hernandez produced the last, a beer-soggy, torn old bill that Silkworth handed to Will by its corner. He laid it all on the counter, then suddenly staggered back. The store twirled, his stomach prepared to abandon ship. He flung out a hand to brace himself, and pulled down a rack of shoes. Washman grabbed for them in midair and knocked over a bookcase. The owner began shouting and gesticulating.
“Let’s clear out of here,” said Silkworth, who had drunk more than any of the privates, but seemed unaffected, except that his eyes were glassy. He steered the suddenly inanimate Givens onto the street and leaned him against a lamppost. A ship’s horn boomed out from the harbor as the sergeant examined the guitar, then handed it back. “Nice,” he said. “But where you going to keep it? There ain’t a lot of room in the troop space.”
“Fin’ someplace,” said Will, with some difficulty. His face was going numb. “Maybe one of the squids’ll keep it.”
“They’ll keep it all right. For good,” said Silkworth.
And now the harbor, the bay, sparkling with the lights of anchored ships, opened out from the foot of the street. The pier stretched into darkness; laughter and rock from the bar mixed with a dance band on one of the liners. At the pier bar sailors and marines sat under Campari umbrellas, drinking wine and aperitifs. Two Shore Patrol, the men from the station, sat sullenly in front of Cokes. Fourth squad occupied the last empty table, and ordered beer. “My las’ one,” explained Washman, his hand missing the bottle by a full five inches. “I’m signed up for the cameo trip tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re goin’ right to where they make them. Say they’re real cheap. Like to get one for my mom. You guys going?”
“No,” said Liebo, holding his hand over his mouth.
“’M broke,” said Givens.
“I’m going back to Lily’s,” said Silkworth. A group of women walked past the tables and heads turned to follow them. When they went aboard the liner the marines lost interest; officer pussy. “I’m going to fuck ’em all, one at a time. Give you my profess’nal evaluation.”
Will Givens lifted his glass. The green light shimmered through the dark liquid, turning cheap glass to sapphire, turning the drops of moisture to beads of cloudy jade. He knew he was drunk. But the dizziness was gone, backed off, and now he wanted the next drink and then the next after that, as much as the world held. He was with his buddies, and their color did not matter.
“The Corps,” said Sergeant Silkworth solemnly, and they all, none of them seeing the necessity to add a word, raised their bottles and drank them down to the gurgling end.