“Yes, honesty’s your long suit.”
“Don’t be cynical,” she said. “I don’t need a boy friend. I only need a friend.”
“I need a girl friend, but I’ll be glad to be your friend.”
“You don’t need me for a girl friend, Will. I promise you that.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You look like a perfectly respectable girl to me. A little weird the way you dress, but a fine specimen of womanhood.”
“It’s over for me, Will. My whole life is over,” she said as she rose from the bench and stood facing me.
She removed her scarf and her long blonde hair fell luxuriantly to her shoulders.
Carefully, she took off her sunglasses and I saw her eyes for the first time. They were blue, shining, and lovely. Tears were spilling out of them. She unbuttoned her raincoat, then flung it open with sudden violence, sudden liberation.
“My baby is due in February,” she said. “Would you like to be the father, Will?”
Chapter Fourteen
Cain Gilbreath poked his head in my room the night before the regular class schedule began. A guard on the football team, Cain was a native of Richmond, Virginia, and carried with him all the opulent aromas of Tidewater gentry gone to seed. His family once had money and it was the obsession of Cain’s life that they would have it again. Politically a conservative, he considered me a dangerous radical because I had supported Johnson in the 1964 election. At the Institute, being a Democrat was beginning to smack of sedition. Mostly Cain and I were friends for the single reason that both of us enjoyed the type of collegiate dialogue that began with insult and ended with threats on each other’s life.
“God is love,” Cain began. He always thought about his opening sally deep in advance. “Love is blind. Ray Charles is God. God’s a blind nigger.”
“Too much time on the football field, eh, Gilbreath? The brain is showing signs of softening.”
“It’s painful to be a genius, McLean.” He sighed, walking across the room and reclining heavily on my bed.
“Good to see you, Cain. Sure, go ahead and lie down on my bed.”
Cain had a massive torso and thick muscled shoulders and a neck that sloped imperceptibly into those shoulders. But his hands and feet were disproportionately small, delicate, and sensitively made. His legs were thin and hairless, like a girl’s, and his arms were short and stubby, hardly formidable weapons to bludgeon the chins of charging defensive linemen. In his face, one could trace the proud lineage. And in his tiny oriental hands and feet. His total appearance was as unlikely and surprising as a wildebeest’s.
“I said it’s painful being a genius. Thinking deep thoughts all the fucking time. There are times I consciously try to be shallow, to lower myself and frolic a bit with the herd, the banana-eating chimpanzees that make up the student body of this college, but it’s hard, Will. Extremely hard. Speaking of chimpanzees, where are your roommates, the two gorillas and the harmless fag?”
“I’d like you to do me a favor and call Pig and Mark chimpanzees when they’re present sometime, Cain. Or call Tradd a harmless fag when they’re present. You’d be thinking deep thoughts as you were airborne off the fourth division.”
“Let’s have a debate,” he said, rising up on one elbow and grinning at me. His finger unconsciously traced a long, ugly, centipede-shaped scar that resulted from surgery on his shoulder the year before. He was boyishly proud of the scar, and he walked shirtless around the barracks when the weather permitted.
“I don’t want to debate,” I said. “That’s all we ever do when we see each other.”
“Let’s debate Vietnam again. I murdered you the last time.”
I groaned and buried my head in my arms on the desk. “Everyone murders me when we talk about Vietnam.”
“That’s because you’re the only one in the school without a military contract.”
“Yeh, I’m a real asshole.”
“Do you want to know what I think, McLean?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ll tell you anyway. I think you’re against the war just because everyone else is for it. I think that you like to be different for no other reason than to be different.”
“That’s it, Gilbreath. Bingo. Bull’s eye. You figured it out completely. You’re giving me a rare new insight into my personality. Nothing I can say to that. You’ve defined me, boy. Wow!”
“About Vietnam, Will,” he said, enjoying me. “You ought to think of the war as an extension of your basketball career. A place for testing yourself. Aren’t you curious about how you’d react in battle? Don’t you think that it’s only in battle that a man really learns what he’s made of? I don’t care about Vietnam one way or the other, but I look upon it as my chance for the great test. My support of the war is simply an act of faith in America, and I’m delighted that my two years in the Army will be spent in battle and not in some dull stateside post where enlisted wives walk around commissaries in pin curlers. Tell me the truth, Will, aren’t you just a bit worried about missing the only war of this generation?”
“No, Cain, I’m worried about missing the only balls I have in this generation. And I already know how I’d react in battle. I’d be scared shitless. I’d be even afraid to walk around because of the land mines. I don’t care about the great test, and I hope this is the only war in our generation.”
“You must be the first pacifist this college has produced.”
“I didn’t say I was a pacifist, Gilbreath. There are wars that I would fight in joyously. For instance, I’d lead a goddam rebellion in Shenandoah Valley if you’re ever elected governor of Virginia. And I’d make a general out of the National Guardsman who brought your nuts to me in a Mason jar. But this just isn’t my war, Cain, and I’m not going to fight in it.”
“Surely, Will, you must be sympathetic to the cause of the South Vietnamese and their efforts to repel the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.”
“You sound like Radio Free Europe. Sure I’m sympathetic. I’m also sympathetic to the North Vietnamese. In politics, I find myself sympathetic with everybody. Every side has points for and against them. I just get confused. Do you remember what Mudge said last year in military science class, Cain, when we were studying communism? You must know the enemy before you can hate him. Well, that class affected me. We spent half a semester studying what total shits communists are and how they kill babies with pitchforks and bayonet virgins in the vagina.”
“They do those things, Will. These are simple facts,” Cain said.
“That’s not my point, Cain. I don’t know if they do those things or not. But what I realized is that I have never seen a communist in my whole life except on television. I have despised a whole segment of the human race and I’ve never even seen one.”
“Do you need to have the clap to know you don’t want it?”
“Cain, do you remember the military science class where you got so fired up about going to Vietnam?”
“That was when Mahaffy, class of ’64, came back to talk.”
“Yeh, Mahafly. You thought he gave a great talk, didn’t you?”
“It was by far the most stirring and patriotic talk I’ve heard while I’ve been at the Institute. The General never matched that speech, even though he has come awfully close. Hell, half of the room was crying after his talk. Of course, I’m absolutely positive you were belly-laughing on the floor during the entire thing.”
“Yeh. It was a great speech,” I agreed, “but that’s when I realized I was different from you guys.”
“Amen and praise the Lord for that difference.”
“When his speech was over everybody was talking about how keyed up they were to go to Vietnam.”
“That’s natural. Mahaffy believed passionately in the war and he was extraordinarily articulate in describing scenes of battles he had participated in.”
“Do you know what I noticed about the speech, Cain?”
“No.”
“Mahaffy didn’t have any legs.”
r />
“So what? That had nothing to do with the speech.”
“Mahaffy had legs when he left the Institute. When he came back after his tour in Vietnam, he didn’t have them. I related the two events.”
“It was a hand grenade.”
“I don’t care if it was from eating day-old rice. I didn’t hear his speech. I just stared at the place where his legs used to be. He ran track and was a pretty good miler in his day. He had nice legs. I’ve got nice legs, too. I want to keep them attached to my body, not have them tossed into a garbage bag and thrown into a Dempster-Dumpster.”
“He gave a great speech.”
“He gave up a great set of legs.”
“You can’t sentimentalize over a lost pair of legs.”
“I won’t sentimentalize if you lose yours. I’d give a party and start a scholarship in their name.”
“Are you a coward, Will?”
“Of the trembling, quivering, knees-knocking, teeth-chattering variety.”
“There has never been a coward in the history of my family. My father traced it back for centuries.”
“Speaking of your family, Gilbreath, I’ve always been too embarrassed to ask you this, and I know Southern families of distinction put some dreadful monickers on their offspring, but who named you Cain?”
“My mother was a Cain,” he answered. “Cain of Virginia.”
“That’s real swell. I’m beginning to like the aristocracy. Cain of Virginia, huh?”
“How’d you get your name, big fella? How do the lower classes name their children?”
“Haphazardly, son, haphazardly.”
Cain ignored me and strained to hear the voices of the cadre who were conducting a surreptitious “sweat party” in the fourth division shower room. Whenever the hazing was particularly barbaric, it was an intelligent command decision to conduct it far from the eyes of the Officer in Charge. I had become so accustomed to the shouts of the cadre that I no longer even heard them. But Cain was right in his perception that some innate change had taken place in the nature of the tumult down the gallery. Something had gone wrong. It was as if a wasps’ nest had been set on fire and thrown into the ranks of the plebes. The noise was chaos, not discipline, not training, not the institutional fear that was the darker constant of the plebe system. Cain and I looked at each other for a single uncomprehending moment before John Kinnell, the R Company commander, burst into the room.
“Will. Will. Here quick. Get out here in a hurry.”
“Why, John? What’s going on?”
“Poteete is over the rail. He says he’s going to jump.”
I sprinted out the door and was met by a great surge of freshmen being herded to their rooms, away from the pandemonium, away from the lone plebe who had in one moment of anarchy stepped out of the control of the system. Six members of the cadre formed a loose, indecisive semicircle around Poteete, who was hanging off the railing with one hand and foot suspended over the hundred-foot drop to the concrete quadrangle. He was shouting for them to keep back or he would jump at that moment.
“Get back, you motherfuckers!” he screamed over and over again. With each scream, the cadre retreated. The plebe had become commander.
“He said he wanted to see you, Will,” I heard John Kinnell say behind me.
On the quadrangle, upperclassmen ran out to get an unimpeded view of Poteete. Pandemonium cut loose in every square foot of the barracks; the Officer of the Guard tried to clear the quadrangle of cadets, but the surge of the crowd overwhelmed him. From every direction fingers pointed at Poteete. He was the single focus of a thousand eyes. Even the freshmen were peering out of their rooms for a glimpse of the plebe who had cracked.
“Get everybody out of sight, John,” I said. “It’s like a goddam circus down there.”
“All R Company men report to your rooms,” John called out. He had a marvelous voice for cadence, for the issuance of command. I heard the other company commanders ordering their men to the darkness beneath the galleries. Over the loudspeaker, I heard the voice of Jimmy Bull, the fourth battalion commander, say, “All members of fourth battalion report to your rooms immediately.” But though the cadets of fourth battalion would disappear into the shadows, they would not relinquish their roles as spectators, as rabid fans of the new barracks sport of suicide.
“Stop him, Will. He’ll listen to you,” John whispered as he withdrew.
“The plebe system builds men,” I whispered back, hoping that the sarcasm would help allay my trembling. The trembling increased as I faced Poteete and our eyes met. He was weeping. Tears and fury and despair had intermingled in a violent desperate trinity, and now he was hanging out over the quadrangle. He was the first freshman I had ever known to freeze the cadre into complete impotence. By this time, the chain of command had regained control, and a fearful, unnatural silence gripped the barracks. Beneath the galleries, I could see the glow of cigarettes betraying the presence of upperclassmen. Poteete had centered himself in an arch in the area between O and R companies. The sobs broke out of him in regular intervals, loud, and infinitely sad.
“Don’t come any closer, Mr. McLean,” he said.
I did not realize that I had been moving.
“Well, Poteete,” I said, with absolutely no sense or instinct about how to begin this confrontation. “What’s up in the old freshmen class?”
“You can shove this school up your ass, Mr. McLean!” The power of the system had not completely broken down. He was still addressing me as “mister.”
“It wouldn’t fit, Poteete.”
“How can you always joke about this place?” he said between sobs. “How can you think anything here is funny?”
“It was the only way I could make it through here. If I couldn’t have found this place hilarious then I would have done something silly like trying to jump off the fourth division. This is going to seriously hurt your chances for rank, Poteete.”
I leaned up against the arch nearest him. His eyes appraised my every movement. He had fixed a proper distance for me to remain, a zone of separation that he intended to honor.
“Don’t move any closer, sir. I mean it. I’m going to jump. I promise you that. You can’t do anything to stop me. I just wanted to talk to you. I wanted to find out how you could survive all of this. How could you survive such cruelty? You’re just like me, Mr. McLean. I could never do this to other freshmen. I know I couldn’t do this to anyone. I didn’t know this was such a hateful place. My daddy never told me it was hateful.”
“That’s not his fault, Poteete. I’ve seen that over and over again. Grads only remember the good parts of their plebe year. They even laugh like hell when they do remember the bad parts. What seems horrible to you tonight will seem hilarious a year from now. That’s the way it happens. That’s the way the system works.”
“Did it work that way for you?”
“No. The bad parts still seem bad to me.”
“Were they like this to you, Mr. McLean? Were they as cruel to you as they’ve been to me?”
“Will. Call me Will, Poteete. What’s your first name?”
“It doesn’t make any difference. No one’s called me by my first name since I’ve been here. Not even my roommate.”
“They weren’t as bad with me, Poteete. I told you that they would never let you alone if you cried.”
“I can’t help it, Will,” he said, breaking down again. “I just can’t help it. I’ve tried to stop. I’ve tried everything I know to stop. They scream at me all the time. They scream and scream and scream. They humiliate me. They humiliate me more than the other freshmen. My classmates want me to leave more than the cadre.”
“I’d like you to leave, too, Poteete, but for entirely different reasons.”
“You don’t think I belong here either, Will?” Poteete asked gently. “You don’t think I’m man enough to make it through the plebe system? Tell me how you made it. What was it like when you were a knob?”
“They were a
lways comparing me to Douglas MacArthur and the Duke of Wellington because of my incredible military bearing.”
He smiled and looked down from the dizzying heights where he stood, this sudden prince of the fourth battalion. I could see the red and white squares illuminated by eight floodlights on the top of the barracks. In the silence of the barracks, Poteete was trying to decide what to do. He had narrowed his field of vision down to two choices and two choices only He had reduced his life to the simplest common denominator. He was becoming extraordinarily calm, and I feared his calm as it settled over him more than I feared his hysteria. I had a thought that I should rush him now, while he was preoccupied with the casual study of the alien terrain where his spirit had broken up into irreversibly fragmented parts. I wondered how many boys had broken under the fearful pressures of the plebe system. I wondered if the grotesque phantoms of their damaged spirits haunted the alcoves of the barracks for all times, recruiting others into their defiled tormented ranks with howls of gratitude as they watched the others come apart at the soul. The ague of suffering raged unchecked in the eyes of the recruit. Behind Poteete’s eyes, the hive of terror was loose on him and each cell in his brain had become wasp-winged and deadly, each cell was hourglass-shaped, and each cell, tremulous with the diminutive thunder of hornets, felt the power of flight and the invulnerability of the swarm. His eyes blazed in the glare of the floodlights. I did not rush him when I saw his eyes look at me. All was madness there, and loathing for me and what I represented. He meant to jump.
“What does your father do for a living, Poteete?” I said when he did not answer me. “You told me he graduated in 1947, but you never told me what he did for a living.”
“He’s a banker. President of the First National Bank of Pickens, South Carolina. I’m majoring in business administration here. He wants me to go back and work in the bank when I graduate.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it made, man. Get out of college and walk into a bank you’ll own someday. Is your mother from Pickens?”
“She’s from Greenville. Her father owns a mill near Greenville. Greenville’s got more mills than pine trees, my mother used to say. She used to say that all the time. I’d always thought I’d rather work in the mill than try to get along with Daddy in the bank. Daddy’s a good man but I don’t think we could work together.”