flab, put me in mind of new boys at summer camp—chafing with homesickness, eyes roving in quest of friendship, altogether unstrung.
But whatever our situation, we were all bound to each other by a single shocked awareness, and this was that for the second time in less than a decade we were faced with the prospect of an ugly death. In an abstract way it was possible to say that it was our own fault we were here. Yet suddenly, as my gaze wandered from face to face among this sullen, murmurous assembly of misplaced civilians—these store owners and office managers and personnel directors and salesmen—I was gripped by a foreboding about our presence in this swampy wilderness that at once transcended and made absurd each of our individual destinies, and even our collective fate. For it seemed to me that all of us were both exemplars and victims of some uncontrollable aggression,a hungry will for bloodshed creeping not only throughout America but the world, and I could not help but abruptly shiver in that knowledge.
I recall having felt sleepy and in need of a nap before dinner, and I’d arisen to go to my room upstairs when Lacy put a hand on my arm and said: “There are many fives and sixes and sevens on the misery scale—chaps with lots of kids, and those who’ve had to lose their jobs, and combinations of these. They have misery aplenty. But there are only a few authentic nines and tens. Look over there if you want to see Mr. Misery himself.”
Morose and balding, a mesomorph of thirty with well-developed biceps, thick wrists, and wire-rimmed spectacles that made him look disarmingly professorial, Mr. Misery sat with a single companion at a nearby table, sunk in obvious despair. He had a large, dark drink before him and it was clear that he had worked his way through many others.
“The guy’s name is Phil Santana, whom you might have heard of if you read the sports pages. He was a big amateur golfer a few years ago, won several famous championships, and then became a pro. He caught a lot of shit on Iwo, last war. A captain. Wife and three kids, was a pro at some fancy club near Cleveland and owned a very successful golf shop. A chap like that, his livelihood depends almost entirely on his direct, personal contact with people. He can’t leave it to someone else to run. It took him three or four rather strenuous years to build up the kind of business he had, and once he leaves it the whole thing dissolves—a bubble, finished. But he had to sell out, poor joker. I truly pity him.”
“What’s he going to do?” I asked.
“There’s only one thing he can do now,” Lacy said. “Andthat’s to ship over into the regular marines—for life. And that’s what he told me that he’s sure he’s going to have to do.”
I was silent for a long moment, brooding on this Procrustean fable. Then I said: “That’s terrible. That’s just terrible.” I meant it.
“Fortunes of war,” said Lacy.
I excused myself and rose to go, just as the jukebox exploded again into life, a garish, winking rainbow, and “My Truly, Truly Fair” filled the bar with its synthetic rapture. I had a last glimpse of the ex–golf pro, whose face—bereft and etched with panic—seemed for an instant to make incarnate the mood of each man in the forlorn, oppressive, temporary room.
II
One afternoon about three weeks later I had my first encounter with Paul Marriott. The occasion was a uniformed cocktail party—a “wetting down”—at the main officers’ club given by Lacy’s battalion executive officer, a regular who had just been promoted from captain to major. I didn’t know the new major; in fact, I had gotten to know few regular officers, sidestepping them as everyone else did during after-duty hours. There was, I suppose, little of what might be termed hostility existing between us reserves and the professional officers—the demands of order and discipline precluded that—but we did regard each other with mild constraint
But whatever our situation, we were all bound to each other by a single shocked awareness, and this was that for the second time in less than a decade we were faced with the prospect of an ugly death. In an abstract way it was possible to say that it was our own fault we were here. Yet suddenly, as my gaze wandered from face to face among this sullen, murmurous assembly of misplaced civilians—these store owners and office managers and personnel directors and salesmen—I was gripped by a foreboding about our presence in this swampy wilderness that at once transcended and made absurd each of our individual destinies, and even our collective fate. For it seemed to me that all of us were both exemplars and victims of some uncontrollable aggression,a hungry will for bloodshed creeping not only throughout America but the world, and I could not help but abruptly shiver in that knowledge.
I recall having felt sleepy and in need of a nap before dinner, and I’d arisen to go to my room upstairs when Lacy put a hand on my arm and said: “There are many fives and sixes and sevens on the misery scale—chaps with lots of kids, and those who’ve had to lose their jobs, and combinations of these. They have misery aplenty. But there are only a few authentic nines and tens. Look over there if you want to see Mr. Misery himself.”
Morose and balding, a mesomorph of thirty with well-developed biceps, thick wrists, and wire-rimmed spectacles that made him look disarmingly professorial, Mr. Misery sat with a single companion at a nearby table, sunk in obvious despair. He had a large, dark drink before him and it was clear that he had worked his way through many others.
“The guy’s name is Phil Santana, whom you might have heard of if you read the sports pages. He was a big amateur golfer a few years ago, won several famous championships, and then became a pro. He caught a lot of shit on Iwo, last war. A captain. Wife and three kids, was a pro at some fancy club near Cleveland and owned a very successful golf shop. A chap like that, his livelihood depends almost entirely on his direct, personal contact with people. He can’t leave it to someone else to run. It took him three or four rather strenuous years to build up the kind of business he had, and once he leaves it the whole thing dissolves—a bubble, finished. But he had to sell out, poor joker. I truly pity him.”
“What’s he going to do?” I asked.
“There’s only one thing he can do now,” Lacy said. “Andthat’s to ship over into the regular marines—for life. And that’s what he told me that he’s sure he’s going to have to do.”
I was silent for a long moment, brooding on this Procrustean fable. Then I said: “That’s terrible. That’s just terrible.” I meant it.
“Fortunes of war,” said Lacy.
I excused myself and rose to go, just as the jukebox exploded again into life, a garish, winking rainbow, and “My Truly, Truly Fair” filled the bar with its synthetic rapture. I had a last glimpse of the ex–golf pro, whose face—bereft and etched with panic—seemed for an instant to make incarnate the mood of each man in the forlorn, oppressive, temporary room.
II
One afternoon about three weeks later I had my first encounter with Paul Marriott. The occasion was a uniformed cocktail party—a “wetting down”—at the main officers’ club given by Lacy’s battalion executive officer, a regular who had just been promoted from captain to major. I didn’t know the new major; in fact, I had gotten to know few regular officers, sidestepping them as everyone else did during after-duty hours. There was, I suppose, little of what might be termed hostility existing between us reserves and the professional officers—the demands of order and discipline precluded that—but we did regard each other with mild constraint
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