THE FOUR OF THEM walked back down Kalakaua past the Moana. At Kaiulani they crossed over to the other side and walked past the single string of tourist shops whose display windows displayed water goggles, spear fishing outfits, the big rubber foot fins for better kicking. One shop was devoted wholly to beach robes and swimming trunks, all with a highly floral Hawaiian motif. Another shop was a woman’s shop displaying dresses and coats, also with Hawaiian motif. There was a jewelry shop with expensive looking little figures carved from Chinese jade. Beyond the unbroken string of shops was the world famed Waikiki Theater that had living palms growing inside it, but this was closed now. It was almost midnight and most everything was closed now, and even the streets were beginning to get their late at night deserted look. The night air was cooling now and a small sea wind stirred and only a few clouds high up moved slowly east hiding a swatch of stars as they went. The palm trees that curved out over the sidewalk rustled in the small wind softly as they walked.
Beyond the big white bulk of the Waikiki Theater, that was closed now, Hal turned north away from the beach into one of the little side streets full of whispering tropical plants that they could not see.
“Isnt this a lovely place to live?” Hal called. “So beautifully simple. And what a lovely night.”
“Oh, isnt it though,” Tommy said. “Simply exquisite.”
Hal and Maggio were walking ahead, the tall spare Hal bent almost double as he talked to little Angelo.
“I’m glad you came,” Tommy whispered to Prewitt. “I was deathly afraid for a while that you wouldnt.”
“Oh, I’ve heard a lot about this apartment of Hal’s from Angelo. I want to see it.”
“Oh,” Tommy said softly. “I had hoped it was because of me.”
“Well,” Prewitt said. “Partly you.” He listened to Hal talking softly also.
“Where have you been so long, you little savage? You dont know how I’ve ached to see you. I never know when to expect you. All I can do is hope. I’d be afraid to call you, and I dont even know the number of your regiment anyway. Sometimes I dont think you come to see me except when you need money.”
“I been on extra duty all month,” Maggio lied. “I couldnt get away. You can ask Prewitt.”
“Is that right, Prew?” Hal called.
“Thats right,” Prew called back. “He’s on the shitlist.”
“You liars,” Hal said roguishly. “One lies and the other blandly backs him up. You’re all alike, you soldiers. Fickle as fate.”
“Hell,” Maggio said. “You’re just lucky I was broke this Payday, or I would of got drunked up and got on extra duty again.”
“It seems,” Hal said, “that Tony is always on extra duty around Payday.”
“I am,” Maggio said stoutly. “Seems I always get drunked up on Payday, and then I got extra duty two or three weeks. I always say I aint going to, but every Payday I do. Except this Payday I was broke. Its not that I dont come down because I got money, its just that when I got money I get drunked up. Then I get on extra duty. You see the difference?”
Hal laughed. “Thats rather a fine point, isnt it?” he said. “My simple child of the primitives,” he said. “Thats why I love you. Please dont ever lose your ability to lie so convincingly.”
“But its the truth,” Maggio protested. “I get drunked up and come to town to get a couple pieces of ass, and the goddam MPs pick me up, and then I’m on extra duty.”
“Dont you hate to go to a whorehouse?” Hal asked.
“Well,” Angelo said. “I dont say I like it as well as I would a local girl, but I dont hate it. On this Rock a dogface aint got much choice.”
Prew wondered if he always tangled himself up like this, wanting to laugh. But Hal did not seem to notice it.
“My god,” Tommy said suddenly. “I couldnt stand it. Being a soldier. I’d kill myself. I swear I would.”
“So would I,” Hal said. “But then we arent primitives. We’re abnormally sensitive.”
“I guess that is so,” Tommy said.
Hal laughed. “But do you see, Tony, how the moral scruples of the local women about soldiers is our gain, Tommy’s and mine and the other members of the Third Sex? I think thats very sweetly ironic. It amuses me greatly, because it is indicative of a general turn of affairs that will someday give us the edge entirely.”
“I guess it is,” Maggio said. “Your gain, I mean.”
“Did you hear that, Prew?” Hal called back.
“Yes,” Prew said stoically. “I heard it.”
“Because all these people hate the soldiers,” Hal said, going on and developing the idea like a weaver working for his own amusement, “because they believe soldiers are scum—in fact believe all men are scum, women do, because they have that ghastly thing dangling between their legs—because of that my enemies the women are slowly but inevitably bringing about their own destruction.”
“How is that?” Prew said.
“Isnt it obvious?” Hal laughed. “Look at yourself. For you soldiers there are no women, except the whores. The soldiers have to turn to us because we have no sense of sin, like the respectable women.”
“Oh, I dont know,” Prew said, but he could hear the hollowness in his own voice because this was coming too uncomfortably near the truth.
Hal laughed his sweet boyish laugh, but he did not press the advantage. “You see,” he said gently, “I have a theory about that. My theory is that homosexuality is the direct result of chastity in women.”
“Then how do you explain the lesbians?” Prew countered.
“Touché,” Hal laughed. “I believe though, truly, that all homosexuality is the result of frustration and disappointment in life. The more topheavy and abortively respectable a society becomes, the more homosexuals it produces. Decadence, they call it. Did you ever stop to think why is it that it is always in its decadence that a society produces its greatest art?
“Ah, you see? Homosexuality breeds freedom, and it is freedom that makes art. But, alas, with the coming of freedom the topheavy society always collapses. Falls into dust. Is gone. Destroyed. Utterly.” Hal laughed merrily.
“What art have you ever produced?” Prew said.
“Who, me? Nothing much. I wrote a novel once, on the life of a bisexual. Nobody would ever publish it. However, everywhere I took it everyone in the office was most anxious to read it. I did not get it back from one publisher for seven months. But I am unimportant. Look at the Greeks, if you dont believe me. Look at the Romans. Look at the Holy Mother Church during the Renaissance.”
“Balls,” Tommy said.
“I’ve read a little about them things,” Prew said. “I’d like to see your novel sometime.”
“Someday I’ll let you see it,” Hal said. “Well, here we are.”
He led them around a not old banyan tree, the gnarled above ground roots making them stumble in the darkness, the pencil-thin branch roots not grown into the earth yet and dangling free from the branches slapping them repeatedly in the face.
“Isnt that a truly lovely thing to have in one’s yard?” Hal said. “Watch your step now.”
They were at the side of a two storey frame house painted white, at the foot of an outside staircase, uncovered and with open stairs supported by white four by fours, all of it painted white.
“We must continue this discussion after we have a drink,” Hal whispered to Prew as they all stood on the little landing looking across into the dark bulk of the banyan, while he unlocked the door.
He led them into a little entry hall.
“Just make yourselves at home, you dears. I’m going to get my clothes off. You can take yours off too, if you want,” he laughed, and disappeared into a doorway.
“Aint this place somethin?” Maggio said to Prew. “How would you like to have a place like this here? Hunh? How would you? Just imagine it, livin in a place like this. Jesus!”
The two of them stood just inside the little entryway, looking around at the neatness and the order and the niceness of the apartment.
“I cant,” Prew said. “I cant imagine it.”
“Now you see why I come down here,” Maggio said. “Partly. In them goddam concrete barracks a guy forgets there is such places in this world.”
Tommy, standing behind them, growing impatient, shoved past and went across and sat in one of the big chrome and real leather modern chairs. It broke the spell.
“I got to piss,” Maggio said, “and by god I want a drink. The crapper’s in here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Prew watched him go through the door where Hal had gone, and then saw beyond into the tiny hall with the bathroom on the left and the bedroom at the end. He turned back to look around the living room.
To the left as you came in the door was a raised place one step up with a wrought iron railing where there was a dinette table and a door that led into the kitchen. Across the room was an enormous bay with small glass panes from floor to ceiling clear around its curve, with drapes half drawn across it, and in the middle set back against the wall a cabinet radio and record-player with two record stands of twelve-inch albums flanking it. On the right wall was a big bookcase that was full, and a well-desk. Prew walked around the room looking at the things, trying hard to think of something to say to Tommy.
“Have you ever had any of your writing published?” he asked finally.
“Of course,” Tommy said stiffly. “I had a story in Collier’s just a few weeks back.”
“What kind of a story was it?” Prew was looking at the records, all classical, symphonies and concertos.
“A love story,” Tommy said.
Prew looked up at him and Tommy giggled in his deep bass voice.
“Story of an aspiring young actress and a rich young Broadway producer. He married her and made her a star.”
“I can’t read them kind of stories,” Prew said. He looked back at the records.
“I can’t either,” Tommy giggled.
“Then why write them?”
“Because people want to read them, and will pay for them.”
“They aint like real life though,” Prew said. “Nothing like that crap ever happens.”
“Of course not,” Tommy said, stiffly. “Thats why the people read them. You have to give the people what they want.”
“I aint so sure that they want that,” Prew said.
“What are you?” Timmy giggled bassly. “A sociologist?”
“No. But I figure I’m about like most people. I don’t know nothing about great literature, but I cant read them stories.”
“Its not the men,” Tommy said. “Its the women. The stupid, romantic, filthy, moralistic women. They’re the ones that like it. They are the book and magazine buyers. And they eat it up. They have to get their kicks some way, dont they? Their morals wont let them get their kicks in bed.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I aint convinced of that.”
“Women and their moral concepts,” Tommy said. “If they dont wake up they’ll find themselves without any men at all, someday.”
“I can see that,” Prew said. “You mean they’ll drive all the men into being homos, just to get their gun off, like Hal said.”
“No, I did not say that,” Tommy said stiffly. “I did not say that at all. The women have nothing to do with that.”
“Maybe they do,” Prew said. “I never thought of it before tonight.”
He was passing by the well-desk. Prominently displayed on one corner was a photograph in a washed gold frame. It was a snapshot of a naked woman, standing on the outside solid staircase of a stucco house, her long blonde hair reaching to her shoulders. His eyes moved over it and passed on, then startled, came swinging back. He stopped involuntarily, then stepped over to look at it more closely. Behind him he heard Tommy laugh.
“His masterpiece,” Tommy sniggered. “Isnt it filthy?”
Prew picked the picture up. Where there should have been a woman’s flattened crotch hung the genitals of a man. It made a very startling effect. He set it down and stepped back to study it. A closer inspection showed the hips were narrow like a man’s and the belly flat and hard. The breasts were woman, so was the hair, so were the arms, but there was a subtle masculinity in the jawline. There was, absolutely and utterly, no evidence of any overlay or trick photography.
“It really shocked you, didnt it?” Tommy sniggered.
“Yes,” Prew admitted. “Yes, it did.” He looked at the picture, feeling his mouth go dry and his palms begin to sweat in the old way.
Then from the bathroom he heard Maggio flush the toilet and then he heard his voice.
“Aw, Hal, cut it out. . . . Not now, Hal. I want a drink. . . . No, goddmn it, Hal. I wnt a fucking drink, god damn it. I’m going in.”
Prew turned away from the picture quickly and looked at Tommy, feeling in his belly as if he’d had too many drinks.
Tommy giggled again, the same bass giggle, something Prew had never heard before, and that in its own right was somewhat of a peculiarity.
“Make you hot, dear?” Tommy sid. “The picture?”
“No,” Prew said. “It didnt.” He picked the picture up again, feeling for some reason he had to pick it up.
“Well,” Tommy grinned disbelievingly. “You’re the exception. But I think you’re lying.”
“Frankly,” Prew said, “I dont give a fuck what you think, buddy.”
“What?” Maggio said, coming in, “dont give a fuck what who thinks?”
He walked over to where Prew still held the picture. Hal came in behind him, wearing a Tahetian pareu wrapped around him that was printed with flaming poincianas smothered in their deep green pinnate leaves. His thin spruce frame looked angular and flat and muscleless now, instead of debonair. The deep burned tan on the thick juiceless skin seemed unnatural, scaly, as if he had been painted with iodine.
“Aint that the damdest thing?” Angelo laughed over Prew’s shoulder. “I thought sure I was goin blind the first time I seen it.”
“Ah,” Hal said. “I see you’ve found my picture. Wasnt it you who was asking about what art I had produced?”
“Yeah, that was me.” Prew put the picture back on the desk. “You know, me and Tommy just been talkin about how women are romantic,” he grinned, “how they live in their fantastic dreams, to escape reality.” He looked back at the picture.
“Oh?” Hal smiled the sweet boyish smile. “Well, you know some people actually are born deformed that way. Unfortunately, or fortunately, all according to the way you see it. So I wouldnt say the picture was entirely idealistic.”
Prew shook his head, grinning. “This aint no morphidite, if thats what you mean. I been in too many freak shows, from Times Square to Frisco, to swallow that. They don’t have perfectly developed breasts. Or cocks.”
“You’d be a dear thing,” Hal said distastefully, “if you didn’t strain so hard to be filthy.”
“Filthy?” Prew grinned. “How can anything be filthy, if you dont believe in morals?”
“Its not what you say. Its the manner in which you say it, that is filthy. To me that picture is beauty.”
“Not to me. To me its trick photography, and good too. But its not beauty because it aint true”
Hal raised his brows, sweetly, and stared at him. “Sometimes,” he said to Angelo, “your buddy almost irritates me.”
Prew could feel himself grinning and under the grin his face felt stiff, the way it always felt when he heard somebody use the old kill word. “Way I see it, your idea is just as much wishful thinking as the rich young Broadway producer in Tommy’s story.”
“I can see I made a mistake about you,” Hal smiled. “I can see now that you dont really have imagination at all, that in truth you are rather a dull clod.”
“I guess so,” Prew grinned. “I guess between the Army and bein on the bum they kicked the imagination all out of me. What’d you do? Superimpose the breasts? and the hair?”
“You’ll never know, dear.”
“Wheres this champagne, Hal?” Angelo said. “Hunh? Come on, lets break her out, hunh? I’m gettin thirsty.”
“In a moment, my pet. Some day,” he said to Prew, “as you grow older, you will find imagination sometimes produces a truth that is greater than any fact.”
“I can see that,” Prew grinned. “But theres something else too, that I don’t get. The more I talk to you the more you sound like a priest, for some reason.”
Hal smiled. “If you werent Tony’s friend, I’d throw you out for that.”
Prew turned to grin at him, easily. “I dont think you could. But if you want me out, all you got to do is ask me.”
“Well,” Hal smiled to Maggio. “Your buddy is a bravo.”
“Hell, dont mind him,” Maggio said. “He’s just hot headed. All’s wrong with him is he needs a drink.”
“Is that all?” Hal asked Prew.
“Well,” Prew said. “I could use one.”
Tommy stood up from his chair and walked to Prewitt’s side protectively. “Goddam you,” he said to Hal. “Cant you leave the poor thing alone a minute? He’s my date, not yours, you know. Quit tormenting him.”
“Dont do me no favors,” Prew said.
“If you dont like the way I treat my guests, Tommy,” Hal smiled, “you can always go home. I dont know but what I’d like two bedfellow tonight anyway. What time must you boys be back?”
“Six o’clock,” Angelo said. “For Reveille.” He looked over suddenly at the clock on the desk, as if he had just remembered he would have to die someday. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Come on. For Chrisake lets have a fucking drink.”
“Oh, you,” Tommy was saying to Hal. “You bitch. You dirty filthy bitch. I’ve a good notion to walk right out, right now.”
Hal laughed merrily. “Suit yourself, Queenie.” He turned on his heel and went up the step and into the kitchen.
Tommy stood glaring after him, his great arms straight at his sides, his hams of fists clenched against his thighs.
“You know I wont leave,” he said. “You know I have to stay.”
Hal stuck his head out the kitchen door. “Of course I know it. Come up here and help me fix these drinks.”
“All right,” Tommy said. He moved his big body stiffly, his hurt feelings on his face.
“Come here, Prew,” Maggio nodded, whispering. He led him around the corner and over by the record player in the glassed in bay. “Jesus, take it easy, will you? You want to mess everything up for me? Lay off for a while.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I dont know what got me started. That ‘born’ stuff, I guess. I dont want to upset your applecart, Angelo. Its just theres something about these guys gets my goat. Always picking at you, just like a goddam chaplain insisting that you come to church and worship God. Why do they have to make you listen to a Salvation Army sermon before you get your sinkers and coffee? Why do they have to convince everybody being a homo is wonderful?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Just let them talk. Thats what I do. You think I argue with them? Like hell I argue with them. I just listen and nod my head and let it go and ask them for me a nuther drink.”
“All right. I’ll try that. You know what I feel like?”
“No. What?” Angelo said indifferently. He was leaning on the radio cabinet, tapping nervously with his fingers, his black eyes snapping with the liquor.
“I feel just like some young dame that a cocksman has been working on. I know how a woman feels now. I can sympathize with them.”
Angelo laughed explosively. “Would that make me a whore then, wouldnt it?”
Prew grinned. “Listen, dont tell me if you dont want to, but did this guy ever try anything else on you? He ever try to pogo you?”
Angelo nodded sideways and looked away. “He said something about it a couple times, just kidding sort of, but I got pissed off and blew my top and threatened to beat him up. He quit that.” The tiny Maggio scowled fiercely, but there was no comedy in it. “I could do it too, buddy. I pick me up a chair or a pool cue like with that fucking Bloom.”
“I guess I just aint cut out for this kind of life,” Prew said.
Angelo shook his head. “Sometime I feel like I’m livin on top a powder keg their gonna blow any minute. You pay for everything you get in this world, man.”
“I’ve heard a lot of talk about ‘great love’ between homos, but I aint never seen it. I think its more like hate, probably.”
“I dont care what it is. Long as I can keep that income. So take it easy, will you?”
“Sure. I dont want to mess you up.”
“Boy,” Maggio said, “I’m going to get drunkern a fiddler’s bitch. I mean.” He looked over at the clock. “Reveille,” he said. “Reveille or no Reveille,” he said.
Hal came in then from the kitchen, carrying two crystal champagne glasses. Tommy came behind him, carrying two more.
“Sorry we have no tray,” Hal smiled. “But at least the glasses are right. You cant drink champagne cocktails from a water glass.”
Maggio took a glass and winked secretly at Prew.
“I suggest,” Hal said, “that you all get out of those clothes and be comfortable. Since we are all among friends anyway. Arent we?”
“I agree,” Tommy said fervently. He handed Prew a glass and set his own down and began to take his clothes off. He took off everything but his shorts and then sat down and picked up his drink. In contrast to Hal’s deep tan Tommy was as white as milk except for the rings of tan above his collar and on his forearms. It gave him an unpleasant half-fried look.
“I know you dogfaces never wear shorts,” Hal smiled. “I have a pair of trunks I keep for Tony to go swimming, but I havent anything for you.”
“Thats okay,” Prew said. “I’d just as soon keep my pants on.”
Hal laughed merrily, quite good humored again.
They sat around that way, four men baring their bodies to seek what coolness that came through the outside screen door. Someone looking through the glassed in bay would probably have felt a renewing sense of human warmth at seeing four bare-chested men, relaxing, holding glasses, talking in a friendly way.
“This is what I always wear at home,” Hal said, flicking a fold of the pareu idly. “Its in keeping with the Hawaiian tradition, dont you think? Of course, the beachboys all wear trunks now, but they used to wear the pareu. That was before the missionaries, of course. In Tahiti they still wear it, but, alas, there is as little use for a French tutor there as there is in France.”
“When was you in France?” Prew said.
“I’ve been in France off and on for fifteen years,” Hal smiled. “When I tutored in New York I used to save all my money until I had enough for an extended trip, then I’d go to France and stay, until my money ran out. That was before the war, of course. I came out here after the war started. I decided this would be about the least likely place to run into war. Dont you?”
“I guess so. But I reckon any place in America will be about the same, when we get in the war.”
“I’m too old for the draft.” Hal smiled.
“I meant restrictions and like that.”
Hal shrugged. It was very much a Frenchman’s shrug. “At one time I seriously considered becoming a citizen of France. Its the most wonderful country in the world. However,” he smiled, “I’m rather glad I didn’t, now.
“Its odd. The very traits of freedom that made living there so wonderful are the very things that in the end defeated la belle France,” Hal smiled, but he looked as if he were about to cry. “That seems to be a law in the very nature of life, I guess,” he said.
“It looks like a man’s rooked either way, dont it?” Prew said. Finally now, at last, under these last few drinks, he was sitting in the shade of the old on-pass feeling again, finally now he had recovered it again, as he had had it climbing the stairs to the New Congress. He felt very sad. The sun was finally going down now, the heat was moving on, the shade was getting longer now, it was time to rest now. He looked over at Angelo and Angelo was in the deep shade too, mumbling to himself.
“Are you in the deep shade, Angelo?” he said. If they would only let us drink up their shade, he thought, and then leave us alone, not exact their pound of flesh. Why was it you always had to pay for things?
“I dont think the word freedom’s got any meaning any more,” he said to Hal.
“I think I’m free,” Hal said.
Prew laughed in the shade. “How about a nuther drink?”
“All right.” Hal took the glass and went out into the kitchen. “Don’t you think I’m free?”
“Bring me too one,” Angelo said. He got up vaguely and carried out his glass.
“Are you afraid of anything?” Prew called to Hal.
“No,” Hal said, coming back with the glasses. “I fear nothing.”
“Then you’re free,” Prew said. He watched Angelo sit down and empty off his glass.
“I’m free,” Angelo yelled. He leaned back in the chair and kicked his heels up in the air. “I’m free as a fucking bird. Thats what I am. You aint free,” he yelled to Prew. “You goddam thirty year man. You’re a goddam thirty year slave. But I’m not. I’m free. Till six o’clock in the morning.”
“Quiet down,” Hal said sharply. “You’ll wake up my landlady downstairs.”
“Gothell,” Angelo said. “Fuck her. And you gothell.”
“I think its time you went to bed, Tony,” Hal said sadly. “And slept it off.”
“Sure,” Angelo said. “Sing for your supper. Okay, lets go to bed.”
“Thats not a very nice thing to say to me,” Hal said.
“Sorry, old boy. I can’t help it. Its the truth, aint it?”
“Yes,” Hal said. “But one doesnt always have to mention the truth, does one?”
“No,” Angelo said. “I guess one doesnt.”
“Come on,” Hal said. “Let me help you up.” He went over to Maggio’s chair and offered to put his arm around the narrow bony shoulders and help him up. Maggio waved him away.
“Not yet. I’ll get up by my goddam self.”
“Do you want to stay out here with me?” Tommy asked Prew coyly.
“Sure,” Prew said. “Fuck it. Why not? What the hell?”
“Well,” Tommy said stiffly. “You dont have to, you know.”
“Dont I? Well thats good.”
“I’m drunk,” Angelo yelled. “Whoopee! If you wasn’t a thirty goddam year man, Prewitt, I’d really like you.”
Prew grinned. “You said yourself it wasnt much diffrnt from Gimbel’s Basement.”
“Thats right,” Angelo said. “Thats what I said, didnt I? Listen,” he said. “Before my hitch is up we’ll be in this fuckin-war. You know that? I hate the Army. Even you hate the Army, Prewitt. You just wont admit it. I hate it. O god how I hate the fucking Army.”
He leaned back in his chair and hung his arms over the leather, rolling his head and repeating his passion to himself.
“Do you write under your own name?” Prew asked Tommy.
Hal was standing beside Maggio’s chair, looking anxious and wringing his hand a little.
“Of course not,” Tommy smiled reasonably. “Do you think I want to put my own name to such stupid stuff?”
“You’re sober, aint you?” Prew said. “I bet you never do get drunk. Why dont you get drunk? Why do you want to write it for, then?”
“You dont know my own name anyway,” Tommy said. His deep-set eyes swung suddenly, wildly at Prew. “You dont, do you? Do you?”
Prew was watching Hal trying to get Maggio up on his feet. “No. I dont. You’re ashamed of that story, aint you?”
“Of course,” Tommy said, relievedly. “Do you think I’d be proud of it?”
“I hate it,” Angelo said. “The whole mother fucking deal.”
“And yet you wrote it,” Prew said profoundly.
“Of course. But only for the money. Thats why I used a pen name. Someday, when my novel is done . . .”
“Is it on queers?”
“No it is not,” Tommy said stiffly.
“I wouldnt play a bugle call unless I was proud of it,” Prew said. “Thats one thing I got, see? If I did do it, it would never be the same again. I’d never have it any more.”
“Oh,” Tommy smiled. “A bugler. We’ve got an artist in our midst, Hal.”
“No,” Prew said. “Only a bugler. But I dont even bugle any more. And you’ll never write no book. You only want to talk about it.”
He stood up, feeling the release of the liquor pounding in him, wanting to smash something that would stop the cogs from rotating in tomorrow and Reveille at six o’clock. The self winding springs. He looked around dimly. There was nothing to smash.
“Lissen,” he said. He stabbed his finger at the big white bulk of Tommy. “You’re queer as a three dollar bill. How did you get to be queer? What made you queer, anyway?”
Tommy’s dark eyes that behind the deep purple circles never seemed to focus on anything at all, were on him now and focused, and they became brighter and brighter as he watched them.
“I’ve always been that way,” Tommy said. “I was born that way.”
“Like to talk about it, dont you?” Prew grinned. He felt the silence of both Hal and Maggio behind him and knew that they were watching him.
“No,” Tommy said. “I hate to talk about it. It was a tragedy, being born that way.” He was smiling now and breathing fast, smiling painfully the way a broken dog does when you pat him.
“Balls,” Prew said. “Nobody’s born that way. When was the first time you went down on anybody?”
“When I was ten,” Tommy said, talking swiftly now, almost joyously. “I was going to a military school in New York, my parents were divorced and my mother sent me there, a bunch of upperclassmen got,—oh a whole bunch of them, there must have been twelve at least,” Tommy’s eyes were brighter and his voice was going faster, hardly space between the words to breathe, “—they got me out and tied me up, and beat me, they made me go down on all twelve of them, one right after another, and they beat me till I did it.”
Prew watched him talking, his big body jerking nervously in the chair, as if under a whip.
“I dont believe that,” Prew snarled. “I bet that wasn’t the first time. Because lissen, they could of killed me and I wouldnt of ever done it. If they did it, they did it because you wanted them to do it. No matter how much you tried to fight. You wanted to be beaten, and you wanted to be evil.”
Hal moved from beside Maggio and stepped toward the other two. “Thats a lie,” he said.
“Its true,” Tommy whispered. “It wasnt the first time. But it was the first important time. I did want it. Do you hate me?”
“No,” Prew said, contemptuously. “Why should I hate you?”
“But you do. You’re contemptuous of me. Arent you? Arent you? You think I’m evil.”
“No. You’re the one that thinks you’re evil. Thats what I think. I dont think you’re evil. I think you like to do anything you think is evil, the eviller the better, and the better you will like it. Maybe its because you can show how much you hate the church.”
“Thats a lie.” Tommy was sitting pushed way back in the chair. “I am evil, and I know it. You dont have to make it easy for me. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Hell, buddy, I wouldnt make it easy for you. You dont mean nothing to me.”
“I know I’m evil,” Tommy said. “I know I’m evil.”
“Who made you believe that?” Prew said. “Who taught you that? Your mother?”
“No,” Tommy said. “No, no, no. My mother was a saint You dont understand. My mother was a saint.”
“Shut up, Tommy,” Hal said narrowly.
Prew swung on him. “If you guys like being queer, why dont you be queer with each other? Instead of all a time trying to cut each other’s throat? If you believed that crap about true love you been putting out, why do you get your feelings hurt so easy? Somebody’s always hurtin your feelings. Why do you always pick up somebody who aint queer? Because if you’re with another queer, you dont feel evil enough, thats why.”
“Stop!” Hal said. “This quivering hulk of jelly can say whatever he wants to say. But I am none of these things. I stand as a rebel against society. I hate its falseness and I’ll never knuckle down to it. It takes courage to stand by what you believe.”
“I dont like it very much myself,” Prew grinned. He could feel the warmness and the fumes, rising in his head, the urge, urge, urge, the smash, smash, smash, six o’clock, six o’clock, six o’clock. “Its never done much for me, society. What has it given me? It aint done near as much for me as it has done for you. Look at this place, look at it.
“But I dont hate it like you hate it. You hate it because you hate yourself. You aint rebelling against society, you’re rebelling against yourself. You aint rebelling against anything, you’re just rebelling.”
He stabbed at the tall man with his finger.
“And thats why you’re like a priest. You got a gospel to preach. The true gospel. The ony gospel. Thats all you got, a gospel. Dont you know life dont fit no gospels? Life makes gospels—afterwards. Gospels dont make life. But you, you and all the fucking priests, you gunna make life fit your gospel. And nobody elses. You wont even admit anything exists but what you say.”
He paused. The brightly lighted revelation was surging up now again, in his mind. He could see it. But how to say it? How to express? How to mold it and make it plain? Life was enough, in itself. All men should see life in itself was enough, was all, because it was there. Why did you climb the mountain, Mr Mallory? Because it was there. Life was there, it had been put there, for a purpose. That was enough. That was everything.
“If thats courage,” he concluded lamely, subduedly, “maybe you got it, buddy. If thats courage.”
“Hey, hey,” Angelo yelled suddenly. “I got courage. All the courage in the goddam world. I’m free and I got courage. All I want. A dollarn a half at any liquor store.”
He struggled up vaguely from the chair and started for the door in desultory tackings.
“Where are you going, Tony?” Hal said. All the rest was forgotten. “Please come back, Tony. Please come back here, I say. You’re in no condition to be wandering around.”
“Going for a fucking walk,” Angelo yelled. “Need some fucking air.”
He went out and slammed the screen. They could hear him stumping down the outside stairs in his bare feet. Then they heard a stumbling falling crash and Angelo’s hearty cursing of the banyan. Then silence.
“Oh my god,” Hal said. “Somebody must stop him. Somebody must do something. He’ll get picked up, wandering around like that.”
“You do it,” Prew said. “He’s your boyfriend.”
“You go after him, Prew,” Hal said. “Wont you? You dont want him to get picked up. He’s your friend. Isnt he.”
“He aint my boyfriend,” Prew said. “You go get him.” He began to grin a little and sat down heavily on the couch, bouncing a little with drunken resolution.
“But I cant,” Hal cried. “Truly I cant. I’d go after him if I could. Why, as drunk as he is, if he got picked up he might bring the police right up here.”
“Let him bring em,” Prew grinned. His face felt stiff from the liquor and someplace in his head a bell tolled. He was very very drunk and suddenly very happy.
“Oh he cant,” Hal said, wringing his hands. “They know us all by report. All they’d need is something like this to make a case against us.”
“Thats a shame,” Prew said contentedly. “Dont worry about it. You’ve got courage.” He watched Tommy get up from his chair and begin to put his clothes back on.
“Where are you going?” Hal asked sharply.
“I’m going home,” Tommy said, with dignity. “Right now.”
“Listen, Prew,” Hal said. “I’d go get him. Truly I would. You dont know what the little fellow means to me. But if I was picked up, I’d be ruined. And if I’m just seen with him, in his condition, I’d be picked up because they’re looking for a chance at me. I’d be thrown out of my tutoring, thrown out of here.” He waved his arms around the room. “Thrown out of my home.”
“I thought they knew about you,” Prew said.
“They do. Oh believe me, they do. But getting picked up by the police and prosecuted in a public scandal is another thing altogether. You couldnt expect them to stand up for me with it in the hands of the police.”
“No,” Prew said. “I guess not. Life sure is tough, aint it?”
“Please go and get him,” Hal begged. “Look. I’ll even get down on my knees and ask you. Look. See? Now, please. Please. He is your friend.”
Prew began to put his shoes and socks on. He fumbled with one shoelace and Hal, on his knees, tried to tie it for him. Prew slapped the tall man’s hand away and tied it for himself.
“You’re not too drunk, are you?” Hal said.
“No,” he said. “I’m not too drunk. I’m never too drunk.”
“You’ll get him, wont you, Prew? And if you get picked up you wont bring them back up here, will you?”
“Where I come from its bad manners to even ask that. You take that for granted.” He stood up, looking for his gook shirt.
“Goodby, I’ve had a nice time,” Tommy said from the door. “I’ll see you later, Hal. And I hope to see you again sometime, Prew,” he said. He went out and slammed the door.
Prew sat down on the couch again and began to laugh.
“Polite fella, aint he?” he said to Hal.
“Please go, Prew,” Hal said. “Please dont waste any time. Tony’s too drunk to know what he’s doing. Take him back to the Post and put him to bed.”
“His clothes are here.”
“Take them with you,” Hal said. He began to go around gathering up Maggio’s clothes. “If you bring him back here, he may cause trouble, drunk as he is.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “But I havent got any money for cab fare.”
Hal ran into the bedroom for his wallet. “Here,” he said, coming back. “Heres a five. That’ll be enough for car fare down town and a cab home, wont it?”
“Well, I dont know,” Prew grinned. “Its too late for the buses, you know. We’ll have to take a cab down town.”
“Heres ten then.”
“Well,” Prew said. He shook his head sorrowfully. “You see, the Schofield cabs stop running at two o’clock I think it is. Its almost two now.”
“On Payday?” Hal said.
“Sure,” Prew grinned. “Every day.”
“All right,” Hal said. “Heres twenty then. Please hurry, Prew.”
Prew shook his head slowly reluctantly. “Trouble with that Angelo, every time he gets drunked up he wants a piece of ass. If he dont get it, he gets mean and causes trouble. Thats the reason he gets picked up, usually.”
“All right,” Hal said. “Heres thirty.”
“Look,” Prew grinned. “I hate to take your money. You just put it away. I’ll get him home someway.”
“God damn it,” Hal said. “Heres forty. Four tens. Thats all the cash I have. But you must hurry. Oh, please hurry, Prew.”
“Well, I guess that’d be enough to get us home,” Prew said. He took the money and started slowly for the door.
“You’re not too drunk, are you?” Hal said anxiously.
“Never too drunk. To do what I got to do. I dont want him picked up any more than you. But for a different reason.”
Hal shook his hand at the door. “Come back and see me,” he said. “Come back some time when Tony’s not along. You dont have to wait for him to bring you. You have a standing invitation.”
“Why, thanks, Hal,” Prew said. “I may do that. I always like to associate with persons who got the courage of their convictions, you know.”
At the corner he looked back. The door was shut and the lights were already out. He grinned hazily. In his pocket, under his hand, the four tens felt very crisp and good.