Bull stood again, joining in the applause for Colonel Conners's retort, then, when the noise subsided, began to introduce his second guest of the evening. He gestured toward a swarthy, hatchet-nosed man whose face betrayed not the smallest nuance of emotion. "The next guest I would like to tell you about is Lieutenant Colonel William Blitcher, better known as Apache Bill to us oldtimers. Apache Bill is a full-blooded Pawnee Indian and the reason we named him Apache is because it pissed him off so damn bad every time we called him anything besides a Pawnee. Apache Bill joined the Corps so he could screw white women and fly airplanes. He's a quiet man with a powerful temper. I'd like to tell a story to illustrate why it's bad news to piss off Apache Bill. When I was a new captain, long before I rose to the meteoric heights of light colonel, my squadron at Cherry Point, of which Apache Bill was a member, was simulating carrier landings on the runway and a senior captain was acting as the Landing Signal Officer, giving us cuts or wave-offs as we came in to land. Well, Apache Bill had a hot date that night with one of those monstrous things that passed for a female in his eyes and he was anxious to land his bird and go spooning. Well, he came in for his landing, made a perfect approach, and much to his surprise was waved off by the L.S.O. Now, Apache Bill was not getting along too well with the L.S.O. anyway and being a man with a legendary short fuse, he circled around and, instead of making another pass at the carrier landing, decided to cut the L.S.O. in half with his Corsair. He came in low on a strafing run and would have chopped the pogue in half had the L.S.O. not prudently flattened himself on the runway. Well, to make a long story short Apache Bill chased that poor son of a bitch all over that runway for an hour with most of the base watching and laughing like hell. And yes, gentlemen, there was a court-martial and yes, gentlemen, Apache Bill was found guilty. He was moved back two hundred numbers on the seniority sheet. One of the court-martial board said later that the board found him guilty for not catching the L.S.O. Gentlemen, I present to you with great pride and admiration Apache Bill Blitcher."
"Gentlemen," Apache Bill said when the tumult of his introduction had subsided. "I knew Bull Meecham long before he had his sex change operation."
Even in the midst of the whooping and hollering following his opening line, Apache Bill did not change expression, did not give even a hint that his face was not a mold or the image on a coin. When the shouting stopped, he continued," I love flying with a passion, purple. I love flying with good pilots, period. I love flying with Bull Meecham because he flies a bird the way it ought to be flown. He disproves the old saying that there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. Bull Meecham is an old bold pilot and so am I. Since he always tells that story about me and the L.S.O., I will tell the story about how he got his nickname. Do you know that story?" Apache Bill asked the pilots of the squadron.
"No," they screamed.
"He was a first lieutenant and he was taking a little R and R with a real young innocent kid. They went to a beach in Hawaii and upon seeing all those broads down on the beach sunning their gorgeous, willing bodies the young boy said, There's a field of cows down there, man. Let's make like young bulls, run down there real fast, and fuck one of them.'
"'No,' Meecham said after pausing for a moment, 'let's make like old bulls. Let's walk down there real slow and fuck 'em all.'"
Once again the full-throated hurrahs arose as the Marines began to cut through the membrane that enclosed the first half of the Mess Night and began to cross the threshold to where an institutional wildness became the final confirmation of brotherhood. The Mess Night was bridled by stiffness and form only in the first hours; now the evening was moving quickly toward a more visceral, more wanton kind of tradition. In the voices of thick-necked men was heard a rising quality of debauch, the baying of a collective id.
"Before I sit down, I would like to tell you who the Landing Signal Officer on that field was that I chased for an hour," Apache Bill said.
"You're gonna get me in trouble, Apache," Bull said.
"It was Colonel Joseph Varney, U.S.M.C., and I regret to this day I didn't cut his legs off."
When Bull arose to introduce the last guest, he winked at Butch Brannon, then pointed to a massively constructed lieutenant colonel who was pouring himself glasses of bourbon on the rocks from a bottle he had brought with him from the bar. The man was the largest and most physically imposing man in the room. He had soft places and was girdled with a ponderous stomach and huge buttocks, but the weight did not diminish his formidability.
"The final guest here on my right is this puny, frail-boned creature who goes by the name of Rabies Odum. Now I want you folks to be very careful of Rabies because he has a few peculiarities which will get you in trouble if he takes a keen dislike to you. He is known to hate grunts more than any aviator in the Marine Air Wing. Every time he sees a grunt, he acts like a mad dog, foams at the mouth, and if not restrained, eventually bites the grunt on the leg causing gangrene and death. He was an all-American football player at Alabama the year before they started taking boys on the team. He shot down two enemy planes in Korea and is one of the best air support pilots I have ever seen. He's proud of his fat body and he considers himself to be the strongest, toughest, meanest son of a bitch ever to don the uniform of a U.S. Marine. The only way I got him down here tonight was to tell him we got someone in this squadron who can chew him a new asshole."
"Brannon," someone yelled.
"Where's this Brannon?" Odum growled.
"Here, sir," Brannon said, rising out of his seat, egged on by the cheers of his squadron.
For ten seconds Odum stared at Brannon, silently measuring the man against old opponents. Finally he began to laugh and shake his head sadly. "Ha ha. This is the best you got, Bull? This muscle-bound abortion got me to Ravenel from the West Coast?"
Brannon straightened himself up, took a long drink from the bottle of port, set it down and said to Odum," Sir."
"Yes, son, what is it?" Odum said, almost yawning.
"Sir," Brannon said," you are fat."
Odum rose from his seat, walked around the table, grabbing a fresh cigar as he went, and pulled up a chair in front of Brannon. He straddled the chair backward and stared into Brannon's eyes as though he were a carnivore studying food. Brannon stared back and the two men hung suspended in a moment of unanimated hostility until Odum began to roar like a lion at Brannon. Again and again, louder and louder, Odum would unleash a thunderous feline howl, a cat sound, unbridled, fulminating from deep within the man until Brannon, a servant to the wishes and moods of his fellow pilots, began to roar back, and the waiters who were clearing silver and china from the table witnessed two Marines in full dress snarling and hissing at each other like animals.
Until Odum suddenly stopped and offered Brannon the cigar. Hesitantly, Brannon accepted and offered Odum a cigar from his section of the mess. Odum struck a match, lit Brannon's cigar, then threw the burning match into Brannon's lap. As Brannon extinguished the match, Odum began eating his cigar, taking large bites and swallowing the tobacco with the relish of a gourmand. Brannon, now bound to play out whatever mad charade that Odum wished, dutifully and with utmost gravity began to consume his cigar after he had carefully extinguished it in his water glass.
At this moment the gavel of the Mess President resounded through the room and Bull Meecham released all pilots from the strictures and controls of the formal Mess with these words:" Gentlemen, will you join me at the bar."
Now was the time of hard drinking, rising volubility, and the games of pilots. Bull was drinking martinis out of either hand. A projector started up and a stag movie flickered grainily on a wall opposite the bar. A naked woman smiling concupiscently at the camera fornicated with a donkey, a German shepherd, a Negro, and her own finger. Sitting at the bar, Odum and Brannon arm-wrestled while members of the squadron slapped down money on the bar betting on their favorites. Veins stood out in bas-relief on the necks of both men but neither arm moved more than
two or three degrees to the right or left of the fulcrum point. Four bartenders moved in an unrehearsed dance as they tried to provide drinks to the impatient Marines who screamed at them above the broadening dimensions of pandemonium loose in the Officers' Club. A line of young pilots were trying their skill at throwing down flaming hookers. They each ordered a glass of Courvoisier brandy, lit the fumes that rose invisibly above the lip of the glass, watched the blue flame until it was burning brightly, then, picking up the glass, they tossed the liquid down their throats. If they were good, a small blue flame would still be burning at the bottom of the glass when they slammed it down on the bar.
At midnight Apache Bill and Blue Balls Conners began wetting down a long slick black table with Coors beer and issued a call to all pilots with hair on their asses to prepare for carrier landings. A line of pilots began to form at the opposite end of the room, many of them removing their shoes and socks. Bull Meecham was the first in line, chugging what was left of his two martinis, then throwing the glasses the length of the room into the brick fireplace. Two dozen glasses followed his in a bright shower of crystal.
Several lieutenants rolled up tablecloths to act as landing cables and stood on either side of the far end of the beer-slick table. There were three landing cables that could stop a plane from rolling off the carrier deck into the ocean. Apache Bill found a huge summer fan which he placed at the very end of the carrier deck with the blades of the fan an added inducement for pilots to make sure they hooked onto one of the three landing cables.
"There's a bad fucking wind you have to land into, you bunch of Bull's pussies," Apache Bill yelled. "If you don't hook onto the last cable, then you get a bad case of the chicken shits."
Captain Johnson stood on the chair with two napkins in his outstretched arms. Blue Balls had designated him as the Landing Signal Officer. Blue Balls himself stood near the middle of the table with a bucket in his hands; opposite him stood Apache Bill with another bucket.
Bull straightened his arms out behind him in the angle of an F-8, then ran as fast as he could toward the table keeping his eye affixed on the arms of Captain Johnson. The noise was deafening as he neared the point where he would leave his feet and slide the entire length of the table, hooking his feet into one of the landing cables before being chopped up by the fan. Right before he jumped, Johnson gave him a cut. He catapulted to the center of the table, his arms behind him, and shot down the table with extraordinary speed, his eyes filling up with the vision of silver blades waiting for him like a mouth.
As he passed Apache Bill, a bucket of water was thrown on him. "Rain squall," the men screamed.
As he passed Blue Balls in a blur, he felt the sting of ice cubes flung into his face and the voice of Colonel Conners warning, "Hailstorm," and still he watched the blades and felt himself pass over the first cable, and the second, and lowering his feet quickly his toes dug into the table and his feet hooked into the third cable right before he slid into the teeth of the fan. The third cable stopped him dead. He rose, blowing kisses to his squadron, then hopped down to watch the next pilot racing at full speed toward the landing deck.
At three in the morning, Bull ordered his entire squadron to line up single file behind him. Three of the men had passed out and could not obey this direct if slurringly articulated order. When he looked behind him and saw a wobbling, pixilated mass of men doing their best to imitate a line, he barked," Follow me, hogs. Follow your C.O. and that is an order."
Bull marched them through the bar, past the dining room, out past the barbecue pits, the tennis courts, and toward the swimming pool. He led them to the deep end of the pool, mounted the diving board, and, still marching, shouting the cadences of Quantico, Bull marched off the end of the board followed by every pilot in 367 and the three guests who had flown to Ravenel for the celebration.
At four in the morning, Bull Meecham arrived home. Lillian awaited him in the kitchen.
Ben awoke and heard the unsteady voice of his father raised in a song that in the history of late-night homecomings was a traditional chant of warning. Over the house, the song hung from the ceiling, each word roach-faced and menacingly out of season.
"Silent Night, Holy Night,
"All is Calm, All is Bright."
And then he lay there as the danse macabre of the demons of fear that lived in his body began in earnest. And he heard his mother's voice, the voice of Lillian, the voice of the prettiest girl in Atlanta, Georgia, toughened, forged into a blade, a voice of a lady-in-waiting who had sallied forth to duel with the mailed knight crossing a moat that separated them. He heard the voice of the woman created by a marriage that had its own surprises and labyrinths, its own shadows and secret minotaurs. The song rose in volume, strangely bled of Christmas or of celebration. Now, at this moment, Ben thought, this song is a summons to battle, and as his senses sharpened in the dark, he could hear the forces of wrath gathering around the house and he knew that this would be one of the bad times. He girded himself and knew this would be a conflict that would extend the thresholds of his fear of his father and his cowardice before the plowman who had granted him life. He would act bravely; he would force himself to act bravely. But he knew. Even brave acts could not allay the fear: the consuming fear that ruled him whenever he had to face Bull Meecham boy to man. As he lay in his bed, he heard Karen's door opening and the sound of small, frantic feet on the stairs. Karen is first down, Ben thought. Good for Karen. And then Matthew's door and Mary Anne's door opened simultaneously and he could imagine Mary Anne straightening her glasses and Matthew's fury contained in that small body as they ran to help their mother, as they ran toward the song that always meant the same thing. But Ben knew that the only child who could influence the battle at all was lying in bed awaiting the gift of courage. Then he heard his mother begin to scream at his father and Ben thought," Don't, Mom. Don't fight him now. Let it go."
Then he heard Karen scream out," Quit hurting Mama," and Ben was out of bed, borne down the stairs by the old Irish version of the divine wind, by the blood of the kamikaze, and he was running now as he heard Mary Anne cry out his name, and he entered the kitchen in time to see his father hideously drunk and laughing. He had Lillian pinned against one wall holding her by the throat as she tried to scratch out his eyes. Matt was holding on to one leg, trying to lift it off the floor. Mary Anne was biting his wrist, trying to pull one arm away from her mother's throat and Karen was hitting his back with fists that could inflict no pain. Of the noises loose in the room, of the screams, of the words, Bull's laughter was the most ominous. And his eyes were wild with the drink. The dragon was loose in his eyes. And Ben came with momentum, driven by fear as he entered the kitchen as a footsoldier bound by the rites of a perverted chivalry written into the family's history. Each time he came to fight his father only one thing had changed: each time Ben was larger and stronger than he had been the time before. With his head down he drove one hundred and sixty pounds of sonflesh into his father's stomach. He pumped his legs hard and felt his father's weight shift and the man stumble. Bull's grip was wrenched loose from Lillian's throat and Ben saw Mary Anne and Matt fly off and away as he drove his father into the refrigerator. But then he realized that the moment of surprise had slipped away forever and that he could not take his father to the ground. And a new dimension entered the combat: a father's awareness of a growing son, the son as challenger, the son as threat, the son as successor, the son as man. But before Bull could turn to the business of Ben, Lillian came at him again, came for his eyes with a five-bladed hand, but he backhanded her and she slumped against the counter, blood spilling from her bottom lip, blood and tears commingling as in a sacrament. Then Bull turned on Ben and his hands went around Ben's throat, both hands tightened, gained control, and Ben was lifted off the floor by his throat. Then Mary Anne sank her teeth into her father's right arm, but Bull lashed out with his right arm, holding Ben suspended by one hand. Mary Anne crashed off the kitchen table, her glasses shattering on the
floor, but she came back across the room, running blindly, going into battle against a blurred enemy. Matt received a slap to the face that spun him to the floor where he lay for a moment crying because he was small and because he did not matter and because he could not hurt the man who was hurting him. Then, for a second, there were Ben and his father, eye to eye, as intimate as lovers, and the fingers tightened on the throat and Ben gagged. Slowly, Bull took Ben's head and began slamming it into the wall. Once. Twice. Three times. Then the family was on him again, resurrected by the sound of Ben's skull meeting the wall. They came at him from four sides and they came at him with teeth and nails and tears and the fury of four small nations who have nothing left to lose. Bull dropped Ben and stood there, his hands down beside him. He no longer tried to fight, but acted stunned as if for the first time there was some illumination, some comprehension of the enormity of the resistance in a once placid kingdom. Bull stood there accepting the small hurts of the border skirmishes waged on four frontiers of his body. Ben saw the dragon melt out of Bull's eyes and there came a moment when Ben could have hit his father in the face with a fist that was a lifetime in coming. There was nothing to stop him and he could feel the fist tighten and the punch being telegraphed for eighteen years and he almost sang for joy and through the membrane of his hatred he kicked like a fetus and he prepared to hit the face and make it bleed. But he could not. He would have if he could, but he could not. Though he wanted to hurt this man like he had been hurt, like he had known hurt, he could not hit him. He could not hit the father; he could not hit the face of the father that would be the face of his father for all time.