“LISTEN TO THIS ONE,” Andy said.
“Hit it,” Friday said, palming his strings dead.
They all stopped talking and casually, in this attentive silence that it was his right as an accomplished craftsman to demand, Andy ran through a chord progression in diminished minors that was the latest addition to the series he had been making up all evening.
It rose out of the box like a delicately intricate filigree, then ended falling off on a diminished ninth that seemed to hang, leaving the whole thing suspended weirdly melancholy, a single unit fading off into the upper air like a rising hydrogen balloon.
From under it, Andy stared at them indifferently, very boredly wooden-faced, sitting on his legs tucked under him in that way he had when he was playing. In the silence he ran through it again.
“Hey, man!” Friday said worshipfully, like the student manager talking to the football captain. “Where’d you drag that one up from?”
“Ahh,” Andy said lazily. He pulled his mouth down. “Just stumbled onto it.”
“Play it again,” Prew said.
Andy played it again, the same way, looking at them bright-eyed but boredly wooden-faced, the same way. And they stopped talking again, as they had learned to always stop whatever they were doing and listen when Andy had been fiddling around and stumbled onto something, listening to this one now fading off the same way as before, seemingly still up in the air unfinished, so that they wanted to say Is that all? yet knowing that was all because this was more finished and complete and said all there was to say, than if it had been ended. He had been doing it all evening, cutting out to experiment and fiddle with something he had stumbled on to, then calling a halt while he played it to them if it satisfied him, or else if he was not satisfied cutting back in and picking it up from Friday, until now finally he had come up with this that was better than any of the others, which were all good, but could still not touch this now with its haunting tragedy that was so obviously tragedy that it became the mocking ironic more heartbreaking travesty of its own heartbreak, so that now he could relax a little on his triumph.
“Who’s got a cigaret?” Andy said boredly, laying the guitar aside. Friday made haste to hand the great man one.
“Man,” Slade, the Air Corps boy, said. “Man, thats reet. You talk about blues, man, thats really blues.”
Andy shrugged. “Gimme a drink.” Prew handed him the bottle.
“Thats blues,” Friday said. “You cant beat blues.”
“Thats right,” Prew said. “We got an idea for our own blues,” he told Slade. “An Army blues called The Re-enlistment Blues. Theres Truckdriver’s Blues, Sharecropper’s Blues, Bricklayer’s Blues. We’ll make ours a soljer’s blues.”
“Hey,” Slade said excitedly. “That sounds fine. Thats a swell idea. You ought to call it Infantry Blues. Christ, I envy you guys.”
“Well, we aint done it yet,” Prew said.
“But we’re going to,” Friday said.
“Hey, listen,” Slade said eagerly. “Why dont you use what Andy just played for your blues? Thats what you ought to do. That would make a great theme for a blues.”
“I dont know,” Prew said. “We aint quite worked it all out yet.”
“No, but listen,” Slade said enthusiastically. “Could you do that?” he asked Andy eagerly. “You could make a blues out of that, couldnt you?”
“Oh, I reckon,” Andy said. “I reckon I could do it.”
“Here,” Slade said excitedly, “have a drink.” He handed him the bottle. “Make a blues out of it. Finish it up. Repeat the first line with a little variation and then bring it all down to a third line major ending. You know, regular twelve bar blues.”
“Okay,” Andy yawned. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and handed the bottle back and picked up the guitar and went back into the private sealed communion with the strings.
They listened while he fiddled with it. Then he played it for them. It was the same mock-haunting minors, only this time set into the twelve bar blues framework.
“You mean like that?” Andy said modestly. He laid the box down again.
“Thats it,” Slade said excitedly. “Thats a terrific blues. I bet I got five hundred records back home, and over half of them are blues. But there aint a blues I ever heard could touch that blues. And that includes Saint Louis.”
“Oh, now,” Andy said demurely. “It aint that good.”
“No, I mean it,” Slade said. “Hell, man, I’m a blues collector.”
“You are?” Andy said. “Say, listen,” he said, forgetting to be bored, “have you ever heard of a guy named Dajango? Dajango Something.”
“Sure,” Slade said expansively. “Django Reinhardt. The French guitarman. You pronounce it Jango. The D is silent. He’s the best.”
“There!” Andy said to Prew. “You see? You thought I was lyin. You thought I was makin it up.” He turned back to Slade excitedly. “You got any of this Django’s records?”
“No,” Slade said. “They’re hard to get. All made in France. And very expensive. I’ve heard a lot of them though. Well what do you know,” he said. “So you know old Django?”
“Not personally,” Andy said. “I know his music. Theres nothing like it in the world.” He turned to Prew. “Thought I was kiddin you, dint you?” he said accusingly. “Thought I was ony makin it all up. What do you think now?”
Prew had another drink and shrugged defeat. Andy did not even see it. He had already turned back to Slade and launched into his story.
Andy only had one story. It was as if it was the only thing in his whole life that had ever happened to him, the only experience that had impressed him strongly enough to provide a story. Prew and Friday had both heard it a thousand times but they listened now as intently as Slade while Andy told it, because it was a good story and they never got tired of hearing it.
It was a story of Frisco and low hanging drifts of fog, the kind of fog a Middle-Westerner or Southerner half expected a Chinese hatchet man to step out of in front of you as you walked up and down the steep rain-water-running rough-brick-cobbled streets. It was a story of Angel Island, big sister of Alcatraz, the Casual Station in Frisco Bay where you waited for the transport that would ship you over.
Andy’s story brought Angel Island back to all of them: The President Pierce, the little launch that would take you over and deposit you at the foot of Market Street to go on pass; it brought back the Rock with the East Garrison of concrete barracks built in tiers up from the dock, and West Garrison of tar paper and wood where they put the Casuals and that you took the road that wound up through the officers’ quarters and then ran fairly level off across the flanks of the hills to get to, the West Garrison, a two mile walk you had to make three times a day for chow, two miles over and two miles back, getting up chilled by the fog at dawn and hungry for coffee with that two mile walk ahead of you before you could eat; it brought back the high steep hills that you were free to climb up through the sparse trees to the timber line of light second- and third-growth woods at the top because the Casual had no duty beyond policing up in the morning and an occasional KP, the Casual was only waiting on a boat and the permanent-party-men at Angel were superior and contemptuous and worked them like niggers on KP, and from the light timber you could look down across to the gray man-factory the steep-walled soul-assembly-line and shudderingly at the callous grayness decide you werent so bad off after all, here where you would walk the gravel road clear around the Island every day, past the Immigration Quarantine Station on the other side where they had the six Germans who had given up off of an injured merchant vessel interned and you could talk to them and give them cigarets and they seemed human just like you but you never knew how they would have been if the situation was reversed.
It was a story of Telegraph Hill, Andy’s story. Or was it Knob Hill, in Andy’s one and only story. It was a story of steep-streeted Chinatown and the Chinese tonks and tourist nightclubs, and of a green recruit from the Mississippi Valley who looked in awe and wonder. It was a story of the fabulous Eddie Lang, and of the mythical Django the Frenchman the “Greatest Guitarman In The World” whose last name, something German, Andy could never remember.
A rich queer had picked Andy up in one of the Chinese nightclubs, a slightly effeminate, very sad, quite rich queer. And learning that Andy was a guitarman, had taken him up to the very expensive and exclusive apartment house that he derided, but still lived in, to hear the “Greatest Guitarman In The World.” It was a lovely bachelor apartment, so lovely Andy had felt transported to some unreal other earth, because surely Andy had never seen an earth like this earth before, a place so rich and beautiful and harmonious and clean. It even had a den, and the den even had a bar, and the bar even had pyramids of glasses under colored lights, and the dark wood panelled walls lined from floor to ceiling with books and record albums. Oh, he remembered all of it, every last detail.
But when it came to describing for them who had never heard it the poignant fleeting exquisitely delicate melody of that guitar, memory always faltered. There was no way to describe them that. You had to hear that, the steady, swinging, never wavering beat with the two- or three-chord haunting minor riffs at the ends of phrases, each containing the whole feel and pattern of the joyously unhappy tragedy of this earth (and of that other earth). And always over it all the one picked single string of the melody following infallibly the beat, weaving in and out around it with the hard-driven swiftly-run arpeggios, always moving, never hesitating, never getting lost and having to pause to get back on, shifting suddenly from the set light-accent of the melancholy jazz beat to the sharp erratic-explosive gypsy rhythm that cried over life while laughing at it, too fast for the ear to follow, too original for the mind to anticipate, too intricate for the memory to remember. Andy was not a jazzman, but Andy knew guitars. The American Eddie Lang was good, but Django the Frenchman was untouchable, like God.
They were all foreign recordings, those of this Django, all made in France or Switzerland. Andy had never heard of him before, and never heard of him again, until Slade. He tried, but the record clerks had never heard of Django, they did not handle foreign recordings, and Andy could not tell them his last name. Just that one night remained, a half-dream half remembered, that he was not even sure any more was real. He had told and retold it so often, elaborating this or that, that he no longer knew where memory stopped and imagination started. He was glad to prove by Slade that it really had existed.
The queer said he was a real gypsy, a French gypsy, and he only had three fingers on his left hand, his string hand. Incredible. They had sat almost all night, Andy and the queer, playing them and replaying them, and the queer expanded and began to talk, how he had seen him once in the flesh in a Paris bistro, how Django had quit without giving notice, leaving a thousand francs a week to go off with a third-rate gypsy band that was touring in the South, the Meedee, he called it. The queer thought that was wonderful. The queer did not offer to proposition Andy. Either he forgot all about it in the excitement of the music, or else he wanted to keep his real love and his business separate. It was as if this queer only propositioned men who were too dull and insensitive to appreciate guitar, so he could degrade them for their lack, and himself for associating with them. He had driven Andy down through the fog to the dock to catch the last launch, and in the fog Andy could not even remember where he had been. He tried to find the house again, once later on, when he found he could not buy the records anyplace. But he never could find it. He could not even recognize the street. He was not even sure which hill it was. It was as if street and house had vanished from the earth, and he was pursuing the fading ghost of a long dead dream. He shipped out without ever seeing the man again.
That was the end of Andy’s story.
Nobody said anything for quite a while.
“Thats the kind of a story I like,” Slade said finally. “That poor lonely queer. All that money and nobody he could talk to.”
“Queers never have anybody they can talk to,” Prew said bitterly, remembering Maggio. “They like it like that. Poor little rich boy,” he said bitterly. But still, it was the kind of story Prew liked too, weird and unreasonable and senseless, almost occult, yet with a thread of hope still running always through it that maybe his theory that all men were basically alike, all hunting the same phantasmal mirror, was true.
“You dont know where I could find some of them records, do you?” Andy asked.
“I wish I did,” Slade said. “I wish I could help you. All I know about him is his name,” he told them guiltily. “I didnt know it meant so much to you. I lied to you a while ago, I’ve never even heard any of the records.” He looked at them anxiously. Nobody said anything.
“Gimme a drink,” Andy said finally.
“I’m sorry,” Slade said. “Listen,” he said, “play that blues again, will you?”
Andy wiped his mouth and played it.
“Jesus,” Slade said. “Hey, listen,” he said embarrassedly. “Now that you’ve got the melody for them, why dont you write your blues right now?”
“Oh, he’ll remember that all right,” Prew said. “We can always do it some other time, when we get back in garrison. He wont forget the tune, will you, Andy?”
“Oh, I dont know,” Andy shrugged disconsolately. “It aint much good anyway, is it?”
“No!” Slade said. “No, listen. If you put it off, it’ll end up just like your story about Django. A half forgotten memory,” he said, “of something you were going to do once, when you were young.”
They all of them looked at him.
“Never put things off,” Slade said, almost frantically. “You’ll wake up and find them gone.”
“We aint got no paper nor pencil,” Prew said.
“I got a notebook and a pencil,” Slade said eagerly, getting them out. “Always carry them. To write down thoughts, you know. Come on, lets write it now.”
“Well, hell,” Prew said embarrassedly. “I dont know how to start.”
“Figure it out,” Slade said eagerly. “You can figure anything out. Its about the Army, aint it? Its about re-enlisting. Look,” he said. “Start it with the guy getting discharged, paid off.”
Andy picked up the guitar and began to play through the minor melody slowly thoughtfully. Slade’s almost frantic enthusiasm was catching. He was high and pouring out the energy on them, like Angelo Maggio used to work himself up to when he wanted to win at poker, Prew thought.
“Here,” he said, “give us your flash so we can see.”
“You think its all right to have a light?” Slade said.
“Sure,” Prew said. “Hell. The lootenant and them all had their lights on, dint they?” He trained the light down on the notebook.
“How’s this for a start?” Prew said. “Got paid out on Monday. Write that down. Then we can start with Monday when the guy gets paid off, and then work right on through each day of the week, until the next Monday when he re-enlists.”
“Thats fine!” Slade said excitedly. He wrote it down. “Got paid out on Monday. What next?”
“Not a dog soljer no more,” Andy said softly, still playing.
“Swell!” Slade said. He wrote it down. “What next?”
“They gimme all that money,” Friday grinned, “so much my pockets is sore.”
“More dough than I can use. Re-enlistment Blues,” Prew said.
“Fine!” Slade cried. “Swell! Wait’ll I get it down. You’re going too fast for me.”
Andy went on playing softly, the same haunting three lines, over and over, as if his mind had gone a way off into them.
“How about Went to town on Tuesday?” Slade said.
“Say: Took my ghelt,” Prew suggested. “Took my ghelt to town on Tuesday. Sounds more like Army,” he said, thinking of Angelo Maggio.
“It doesnt rhyme,” Slade said. “I mean rhythm. You know.”
“Thats all right,” Andy said softly. “You can run the first three words together.”
“Okay then,” Slade said. He wrote that down.
“Got a room and a big double bed,” Friday said excitedly, suddenly high.
They were all high now, pulled up by Slade’s excitement. It was like they were four statues standing wide-legged in an electric storm with spatulate spread fingers emitting sparks that jumped from one of them to another, then back again.
“Find a job tomorrow,” Prew said.
“Tonight you may be dead,” Andy said softly, playing.
“Aint no time to lose. Re-enlistment Blues,” Slade laughed delightedly, scribbling faster.
“Hit the bars on Wednesday,” Prew said. “My friends put me up on a throne.”
“Found a hapa-Chinee baby,” Friday grinned. “Swore she never would leave me alone.”
“Did I give her a bruise?” Andy said softly, almost sadly. “Re-enlistment Blues!”
“Wait. Wait,” Slade cried delightedly. “Let me get this down. God damn. Its coming too fast now.”
They waited while he scribbled frantically. Then they went on, holding themselves up high by the bootstraps of their own creativeness that they had not believed they had, looking at each other a little astonishedly that it could be so easy.
They finished two more verses, in rapid fire, before Slade called another halt, his round face and the barrel of his pencil gleaming ecstatically in the light from the flash.
“Let me get it now,” he pleaded. “Wait’ll I get it down. There,” he said, “now. Let me read it to you. Before we go ahead. See just what we’ve got.”
“Okay, read it,” Prew said. He was snapping the fingers of both hands nervously. Andy was still chording the melody softly, as if to himself. Friday had got up and was moving around.
“Okay,” Slade said. “Here goes. The Re-enlistment Blues——”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Friday said, looking down toward the bivouac. “Aint that somebody comin up here?”
They all turned to look down the hill, watching like balcony spectators of a drama. The little cluster of lights had appeared again around the deeper blackness of the truck. One of them had detached itself from the cluster and was rocking and bouncing toward them, up the path.
“That’ll be old Weary Russell,” Andy said. “Come to get me to go back to the goddamned CP.”
“Oh, hell,” Friday said anxiously. “Aint we goin to get to finish it?”
“You guys can finish it,” Andy said. “After I’m gone,” he said bitterly. “You can show it to me tomorrow.”
“Oh, no,” Prew said. “We all started it. We’ll all finish it. Old Weary wont mind waitin a little.”
Andy looked at him sourly. “No, Weary wont. But the lootenant sure as hell will.”
“Thats all right,” Prew frowned nervously. “You know how they are. They always hang around for half an hour or so before they take off. Come on,” he said nervously to Slade. “Come on, read it.”
“Okay,” Slade said. “Here goes. The Re-enlistment Blues— ” He held the notebook and the flash up to his face. Then he dropped the notebook and slapped savagely at his neck.
“Mosquito,” he said guiltily. “I’m sorry.”
“Here,” Prew said urgently. “Let me hold the fucking flash. Now read it, goddam it. We aint got much time to get it finished.”
“Okay,” Slade said. “Here goes. The Re-enlistment Blues—” He looked around at all of them. “The Re-enlistment Blues.”
“The Re-enlistment Blues,” he said again.
“Got paid out on Monday
Not a dog soljer no more
They gimme all that money
So much my pockets is sore
More dough than I can use. Re-enlistment Blues.
“Took my ghelt to town on Tuesday
Got a room and a big double bed
Find a job tomorrow
Tonight you may be dead
Aint no time to lose. Re-enlistment Blues.
“Hit the bars on Wednesday
My friends put me up on a throne
Found a hapa-Chinee baby
Swore she never would leave me alone
Did I give her a bruise? Re-enlistment Blues!
“Woke up sick on Thursday
Feelin like my head took a dare
Looked down at my trousers
All my pockets was bare
That gal had Mowed my fuse. Re-enlistment Blues.
“Went back around on Friday
Asked for a free glass of beer
My friends had disappeared
Barman said, ‘Take off, you queer!’
What I done then aint news. Re-enlistment Blues.”
“There!” Slade said triumphantly. “I dont give a flying fuck what anybody says,” he said proudly, “I say thats pretty damn good. What next now?”
Prew was still snapping his fingers. “That jail was cold all Sa’day,” he said, “standin on a bench lookin down. Make it like that, see? Sa’day. Two syllables.”
“Okay,” Slade said, writing.
“Hey!” Friday interrupted. “Thats not Weary!”
They stopped, and all of them looked at the figure coming toward them on the path. It was not Weary Russell. Andy kicked the almost empty bottle down over the embankment quickly. Slade brought his flash to bear on the coming figure. The beam reflected back at them from two gold bars on the shoulders. Slade turned questioningly to Prew, not knowing what to do.
“Attennsh-Hut!” Prew yelled. It was automatic.
“What the hell are you men doing up here at this hour of the night?” asked Lt Culpepper’s voice sharply, sharp as his Culpepper nose or his ramrod Culpepper back.
“Playing the git-tars, Sir,” Prew said.
“I surmised that,” Lt Culpepper said in a dry droll tone. He came up to them. “What in fuck do you mean by turning a flashlight on up here?”
“We were using it to copy out some notes, Sir,” Prew said. The other three were looking at him as the spokesman. He went on, trying to keep the rage of frustration out of his voice. There would be no more blues writing this night. “There were flashlights on all over the bivouac area, Sir,” he said. “We dint think having one on here for a few minutes would hurt anything.”
“Now you know better than that, Prewitt,” Lt Culpepper said in a dry droll tone. “You men are supposed to be on a field problem approximating actual war conditions. That includes a full blackout.”
“Yes, Sir,” Prew said.
“Those lights below were inspection lights,” Lt Culpepper said. “The only time they are ever used is to inspect the posts.”
“Yes, Sir,” Prew said.
“Would they use lights to inspect posts under actual war conditions?” Slade said. His voice was trembling.
Lt Culpepper turned his head without moving his straight Culpepper shoulders or stiff Culpepper back, in the traditional Culpepper military style, developed over many Culpepper generations. “When you address an officer, soldier,” Lt Culpepper said crisply, “it is customary to either precede or conclude your question with the title Sir.”
“Yes, Sir,” Slade said.
“Who is this man?” Lt Culpepper said, in a dry droll tone. “I thought I knew everybody in the Company.”
“Private Slade, Sir,” Slade said. “17th Air Base Squadron, Hickam Field, Sir.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came over to listen to the music, Sir.”
Lt Culpepper turned his light from Prew to Slade. “Are you supposed to be on post, soldier?”
“No, Sir.”
“Why havent you reported in?”
“When I’m off post my time’s my own, Sir,” Slade said in a kind of abortive outrage. “I broke no rules by coming over here when I got off post.”
“Perhaps not,” Lt Culpepper said in a dry droll tone. “But in the Infantry, soldier, we do not allow men from other outfits to hang around our bivouac area. Particularly in the middle of the night. Got it?” he popped.
Nobody said anything.
“Prewitt,” Lt Culpepper popped.
“Yes, Sir.”
“You are the senior man here. I hold you responsible for all this. There are men down in camp trying to sleep. Some of them have to go on post—” he peered at his chronometer, “in thirty-seven minutes.”
“Thats why we came up here, Sir,” Prew said. “Nobody has complained about it that I know of.”
“Perhaps not,” Lt Culpepper said in a dry droll tone. “But that does not alter the fact that it is against regulations generally, and against my orders specifically, as of right now. It also does not change the fact that you were up here on the skyline with a lighted flash during a total security blackout.” Lt Culpepper turned his light from Slade back to Prewitt.
Nobody said anything. They were all thinking of the unfinished blues that were still in Slade’s hand, and that might not ever be finished now, that you could not just run off like a mimeograph, that you had to get the mood right for, and that the right mood for might not come again soon. They all felt Lt Culpepper was to blame for this. Still, they did not feel like saying anything.
“Now if there are no more arguments or discussions,” Lt Culpepper said in a dry droll tone, “I suggest we end this interview. You may use your light going down the path, if you wish,” he said.
“Yes, Sir,” Prew said, and saluted. Lt Culpepper returned it formally. Andy, Slade and Friday saluted too then, as if suddenly remembering. Lt Culpepper returned them formally and collectively. He waited until they had gone on ahead and followed them down the path at a distance with his light. They did not turn their light on.
“God damn,” Slade muttered thickly. “God damn. They always make you feel like a schoolboy who has had his hands slapped with the ruler.”
“Forget it,” Prew said loudly. “How do you like the Infantry now?” He said it bitterly. His little farce was over.
Nobody else said anything.
Weary Russell met them at the truck.
“I dint have a chance,” he whispered. “He started right up as soon as he seen the light. I couldnt even give you a yell. I couldnt do a thing.”
“Yeah?” Prew said dully. “Ats all right. Forget it. What the hell are you whispering for?” he said angrily.
Lt Culpepper came up behind them to the truck. “And Prewitt,” he said in a dry droll tone. “I thought I’d tell you it wont do you any good to plan to go back up after we are gone. I’ve already given the corporal on duty orders to keep an eye out up that way.”
“Yes, Sir,” Prew said, and saluted. “I think we’re all through anyway, Sir,” he said. It sounded very pompous. He cursed himself. Lt Culpepper grinned. Lt Culpepper climbed in the truck.
“Wheres the First Sergeant, Russell?” he said.
“Dont know, Sir,” Weary said. “I guess he aims to stay over here.”
“How’ll he get back?”
“I dont know, Sir,” Weary said.
“Well,” Lt Culpepper grinned happily, “thats his tough luck, isnt it? He has to be back for Reveille. I guess he’ll have to walk. Come on, Anderson, lets go. Lets get the hell out of this sinkhole,” he said to Russell.
“Yes, Sir,” Weary said.
The truck backed and turned and pulled out, leaving a large empty hollow behind it. They stood by the opening through the wire and watched the truck pull out grindingly over the rough ground. In the light from the headlights they could see Andy sitting in the back holding his guitar.
Friday laughed, trying to fill the hollow. “Some fun, hey? A good time was had by all.”
“Here,” Slade said. He handed Prew the sheets of paper from his notebook. “These are yours. You’ll want them.”
“Dont you want a copy?”
Slade moved his head. “I’ll get one from you some other time. I guess I better get going. I’ve got to walk back to the Field.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “Take it easy.”
“You better watch it,” Friday said, “after this. Not let him catch you over here no more.”
“I know it,” Slade said. “You dont have to tell me. I’ll see you all, sometime.” He started off across the truck tracks to the road.
“You think he’ll transfer in?” Friday said.
“No; I dont,” Prew said. “What do you think? Would you? Here,” he said, and thrust the papers at him. “These are Andy’s. Its his tune.”
“We’ll finish it sometime,” Friday said, taking them and buttoning them down in his pocket carefully. “We’ll finish it later. When we get back in garrison.”
“Yeah,” Prew said. “Sure.”
“We could finish it now,” Friday said eagerly. “You and me. Do it in the kitchen tent. We wont need no music now.”
“Do it yourself,” Prew said. “I think I’ll take myself a little walk.”
He went out through the gap in the wire and across the truck tracks toward the road.
“But dont you want to do it now?” Friday called eagerly after him, “finish it now?”