A Special Providence by Richard Yates

meant Camp Shanks, New York, which was the port of embarkation and was said to be shrouded in secrecy.
    “No,” he said. “They don’t even let you make phone calls from there. But anyway, I’ll write. And listen, promise not to worry, okay? I’ll be fine.” The receiver was slippery with sweat in his hand.
    “All right, dear. But you
will
be careful, won’t you? I know that sounds silly, but I just—”
    “Sure I will. I’ll be fine. You just take care of yourself and –
you
know – promise not to worry. Okay?”
    When he’d hung up he had to sit quiet in the steaming booth for a few seconds, wondering why he had called her at all. And when he came out, stamping to arrange his pants over the boot tops, he found Quint waiting alone.
    “Where’s Sam?”
    “He took off. Ran into some friends of his who had a taxi, and he went along with them. Said he’d try to meet us later in town. You all set?”
    In the bewildering civilian disorder of Baltimore they found the hotel bar where Sam had said he’d try to meet them; but Sam wasn’t there, and their predicament was compounded when the bartender refused to sell Prentice a drink.
    “Oh, what the hell,” Quint said. “He’s in the
Army
, for Christ’s sake. He’s going
overseas
. What kind of bullshit is this?”
    “Watch your language, soldier. The law says twenty-one, and swearing don’t change it none. I serve him, I lose my job.”
    “Hell, go ahead, Quint; you have one anyway.”
    “No. The hell with it.” And they stood aimlessly near the barfor a while, gazing at tables full of civilians or of officers and girls, or of enlisted men and girls, until Quint said, “Let’s get out of here.”
    “To tell the truth,” he said when they were out on the street again, starting to walk without any idea of where they were going, “to tell the truth I didn’t really expect Sam to show up. I don’t think old Sam wants anything to interfere with the serious business of getting himself laid tonight.”
    And Prentice chuckled, but it disturbed him a little. He hadn’t fully dared to expect that they’d go to a whorehouse tonight, or pick up girls in a bar or whatever it was you did, but what else was worth the effort of doing on your last night of freedom in the States? Did Quint believe that only simple, “colorful” soldiers did things like that? Was it possible that Quint, for all his twenty-four years, was as shy of girls as he himself?
    Now they were in what seemed to be the garish, Times-Square part of the city; they were standing under the marquee of a burlesque theater, and Quint, with a frown and a shrug, said they might as well go inside. It was better than going to a movie, anyway; but the show was a disappointment. Most of the women didn’t look really desirable, and their stripping was a meticulous concession to police restrictions. The comedians weren’t funny, and the whole performance kept coming to a stop so that vendors could patrol the aisles with boxes of candy in which, according to the master of ceremonies, were secreted many valuable prizes including silver cigarette lighters and genuine leather wallets.
    “Well,” Quint said, when the tedious show was over and they were out on the freezing sidewalk again. “Hell, let’s get a drink somewhere. Maybe we can at least get a drink in this cruddy part of town.” And the first bar they tried served them bottled beer without a question. It was narrow and bleak, with green wallsand a smell of disinfectant, and they settled themselves into a booth just as the jukebox rumbled into the opening strains of “I’ll Walk Alone.” Most of the other customers were old men lined up at the bar, several of them hawking and spitting on the floor, but there were other servicemen too, and in one of the booths two sailors sat with their arms around two very young-looking girls, the only girls in the place. The beer was stronger than the stuff Prentice was used to in the PX, and by the third