Run With the Hunted (11 page)

“You sit here, you gotta drink.”

“O.K. Water.”

The bartender went off, came back, set down a glass of water.

“Two bits.”

I paid him.

The girl at the bar said to the bartender, “He's queer or scared.”

The bartender didn't say anything. Then Becker waved to him and he went to take their order.

The girl looked at me. “How come you ain't in uniform?”

“I don't like to dress like everybody else.”

“Are there any other reasons?”

“The other reasons are my own business.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

The bartender came back. “You need another drink.”

“O.K.,” I said, slipping another quarter toward him.

We found another bar near the bus depot. It wasn't a hustle joint. There was just a barkeep and five or six travelers, all men. Becker and I sat down.

“It's on me,” said Becker.

“Eastside in the bottle.”

Becker ordered two. He looked at me.

“Come on, be a man, join up. Be a Marine.”

“I don't get any thrill trying to be a man.”

“Seems to me you're always beating up on somebody.”

“That's just for entertainment.”

“Join up. It'll give you something to write about.”

“Becker, there's always something to write about.”

“What are you gonna do, then?”

I pointed at my bottle, picked it up.

“How are ya gonna make it?” Becker asked.

“Seems like I've heard that question all my life.”

“Well, I don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. The first car I own I'm going to take it completely apart! Then I'm going to put it back together again! I want to know about things, what makes them work! I'd like to be a correspondent in Washington, D.C. I'd like to be where big things are happening.”

“Washington's crap, Becker.”

“And women? Marriage? Children?”

“Crap.”

“Yeah? Well, what do you want?”

“To hide.”

“You poor fuck. You need another beer.”

“All right.”

The beer arrived.

We sat quietly. I could sense that Becker was off on his own, thinking about being a Marine, about being a writer, about getting laid. He'd probably make a good writer. He was bursting with enthusiasms. He probably loved many things: the hawk in flight, the god-damned ocean, full moon, Balzac, bridges, stage plays, the Pulitzer Prize, the piano, the god-damned Bible.

There was a small radio in the bar. There was a popular song playing. Then in the middle of the song there was an interruption. The announcer said, “A bulletin has just come in. The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. I repeat: The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. All military personnel are requested to return immediately to their bases!”

We looked at each other, hardly able to understand what we'd just heard.

“Well,” said Becker quietly, “that's it.”

“Finish your beer,” I told him.

Becker took a hit.

“Jesus, suppose some stupid son-of-a-bitch points a machine gun at me and pulls the trigger?”

“That could well happen.”

“Hank …”

“What?”

“Will you ride back to the base with me on the bus?”

“I can't do that.”

The bartender, a man about 45 with a watermelon gut and fuzzy eyes, walked over to us. He looked at Becker. “Well, Marine, it looks like you gotta go back to your base, huh?”

That pissed me. “Hey, fat boy, let him finish his drink, O.K.?”

“Sure, sure … Want a drink on the house, Marine? How about a shot of good whiskey?”

“No,” said Becker, “it's all right.”

“Go ahead,” I told Becker, “take the drink. He figures you're going to die to save his bar.”

“All right,” said Becker, “I'll take the drink.”

The barkeep looked at Becker.

“You got a nasty friend …”

“Just give him his drink,” I said.

The other few customers were babbling wildly about Pearl Harbor. Before, they wouldn't speak to each other. Now they were mobilized. The Tribe was in danger.

Becker got his drink. It was a double shot of whiskey. He drank it down.

“I never told you this,” he said, “but I'm an orphan.”

“God damn,” I said.

“Will you at least come to the bus depot with me?”

“Sure.”

We got up and walked toward the door.

The barkeep was rubbing his hands all over his apron. He had his apron all bunched up and was excitedly rubbing his hand on it.

“Good luck, Marine!” he hollered.

Becker walked out. I paused inside the door and looked back at the barkeep.

“World War I, eh?”

“Yeh, yeh …” he said happily.

I caught up with Becker. We half-ran to the bus depot together. Servicemen in uniform were already beginning to arrive. The whole place had an air of excitement. A sailor ran past.

“I'M GOING TO KILL ME A JAP!” he screamed.

Becker stood in the ticket line. One of the servicemen had his girlfriend with him. The girl was talking, crying, holding on to him, kissing him. Poor Becker only had me. I stood to one side, waiting. It was a long wait. The same sailor who had screamed earlier came up to me. “Hey, fellow, aren't you going to help us? What're you standing there for? Why don't you go down and sign up?”

There was whiskey on his breath. He had freckles and a very large nose.

“You're going to miss your bus,” I told him.

He went off toward the bus departure point.

“
Fuck the god-damned fucking Japs!
” he said.

Becker finally had his ticket. I walked him to his bus. He stood in another line.

“Any advice?” he asked.

“No.”

The line was filing slowly into the bus. The girl was weeping and talking rapidly and quietly to her soldier.

Becker was at the door. I punched him on the shoulder. “You're the best I've known.”

“Thanks, Hank …”

“Goodbye …”

—
H
AM ON
R
YE

and the next I remembered I'm on a table,

everybody's gone: the head of bravery

under light, scowling, flailing me down …

and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar:

“Kid you're no fighter,” he told me,

and I got up and knocked him over a chair;

it was like a scene in a movie, and

he stayed there on his big rump and said

over and over: “Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit

you?” and I got up and dressed,

the tape still on my hands, and when I got home

I tore the tape off my hands and

wrote my first poem,

and I've been fighting

ever since.

Harry awakened in his bed, hungover. Badly hungover.

“Shit,” he said lightly.

There was a small sink in the room.

Harry got up, relieved himself in the sink, washed it away with the spigot, then he stuck his head under there and drank some water. Then he splashed water on his face and dried off with a portion of the undershirt he was wearing.

The year was 1943.

Harry picked some clothing up off the floor and slowly began to dress. The shades were down and it was dark except where the sunlight slipped in through the torn shades. There were
two
windows. A class place.

He walked down the hall to the bathroom, locked the door and sat down. It was amazing that he could still excrete. He hadn't eaten for days.

Christ, he thought, people have intestines, mouths, lungs, ears, bellybuttons, sexual parts, and … hair, pores, tongues, sometimes teeth, and all the other parts … fingernails, eyelashes, toes, knees, stomachs …

There was something so
weary
about all that. Why didn't anybody complain?

Harry finished with the rough roominghouse toilet paper. You can bet the landladies wiped themselves with something better. All those religious landladies with their long-dead husbands.

He pulled up his pants, flushed, walked out of there, down the roominghouse stairway and into the street.

It was 11 a.m. He walked south. The hangover was brutal but he didn't mind. It told him he had been somewhere else, someplace good. As he walked along he found half a cigarette in his shirt pocket. He stopped, looked at the crushed and blackened end, found a match, then tried to light up. The flame didn't catch. He kept trying. After the fourth match, which burned his fingers, he was able to get a puff. He gagged, then coughed. He felt his stomach quiver.

A car came driving by swiftly. It was filled with four young men.

“HEY, YOU OLD FART! DIE!” one of them screamed at Harry.

The others laughed. Then they were gone.

Harry's cigarette was still lit. He took another drag. A curl of blue smoke rose. He liked that curl of blue smoke.

He walked along in the warm sun thinking, I am walking and I am smoking a cigarette.

Harry walked until he got to the park across from the library. He kept dragging on the cigarette. Then he felt the heat from the butt and reluctantly tossed it away. He entered the park and walked until he found a place between a statue and some brush. The statue was of Beethoven. And Beethoven was walking, head bowed, hands clasped behind him, obviously thinking of something.

Harry got down and stretched out on the grass. The mowed grass itched quite a bit. It was pointed, sharp, but it had a good clean smell. The smell of peace.

Tiny insects began to swarm about his face, making irregular circles, crossing each other's paths but never colliding.

They were only specks but the specks were searching for something.

Harry looked up through the specks at the sky. The sky was blue, and tall as hell. Harry kept looking up at the sky, trying to get something straight. But Harry got nothing. No feeling of eternity. Or God. Not even the Devil. But you had to find God first in order to find the Devil. They came in that order.

Harry didn't like heavy thoughts. Heavy thoughts could lead to heavy errors.

He thought a little bit about suicide then … in an easy way. Like most men would think about buying a new pair of shoes. The main problem with suicide was the thought that it might lead to something worse. What he really needed was an ice cold bottle of beer, the label soaked just so, and with those chilled beads so beautiful on the surface of the glass.

Harry began to doze … to be awakened by the sound of voices. The voices of very young school girls. They were giggling, laughing.

“
Ooooh, look!
”

“
He's asleep!
”

“
Should we wake him up?
”

Harry squinted in the sun, peeking at them through nearly-closed eyes. He wasn't sure how many there were but he saw their colorful dresses: yellow and red and blue and green.

“
Look! He's beautiful!
”

They giggled, laughed, ran off.

Harry closed his eyes again.

What had that been about?

Nothing so refreshingly delightful had ever happened to him before. They had called him “beautiful.” Such kindness!

But they wouldn't be back.

He got up and walked to the edge of the park. There was the avenue. He found a park bench and sat down. There was another bum on the next bench. He was much older than Harry. The bum had a heavy, dark, grim feel about him which reminded Harry of his father.

No, thought Harry, I'm being unkind.

The bum glanced toward Harry. The bum had tiny blank eyes.

Harry gave him a slight smile. The bum turned away.

Then some noise came from the avenue. Engines. It was an army convoy. A long line of trucks filled with soldiers. The soldiers brimmed over, they were packed in, they hung out over the sides of the trucks. The world was at war.

The convoy moved slowly. The soldiers saw Harry sitting on the park bench. Then it began. It was an admixture of hissing, booing and cursing. They were screaming at him.

“HEY, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”