“This will go hard on you,” I was told. “Your ass has had it.”
I thought the best thing for me to do was not to say a word until I learned what the charges were. Two guards in black were taking me to the orderly room. I thought of making a break for it, of making a sudden dive into the brush, which might be thick enough to conceal me.
“It would be good shit if he tried to run,” one of the guards said in a Southern drawl, “’cause then I could make a few holes in his back and get transferred off this mother-forsaken post. You don’t kill a prisoner, you spend the rest of your time on this post.”
“You’ll be doing him a favor,” the other said. “You go ahead and shoot him if you like, Schuyler. If anyone asks, I’ll say he looked to me like he was about to run.”
“I couldn’t do it unless he actually made a motion to run,” the first one said. “I go by the book, man. I don’t do nothing without consulting the book.”
“Hey, buddy,” the second guard whispered to me, “listen ass carefully what I tell you. I’m your friend, buddy. When I say to Schuyler, ‘Look what shit’s coming from the supply room,’ you take off and run for your life. It’s your only chance, old buddy. Trust the old man.”
(How could he expect me to trust him?) We were walking along what must have been a parade grounds, goal posts on both ends, a rocket launcher in the center, the two guards joking about something that made no sense to me. A major came by and stopped us. “Why are you men out of uniform?” he bellowed at the guards. “What do you think this is, a tea party we’re running here? Let’s see your authorization, soldier.”
“We ain’t got any authorization, sir,” Schuyler said. “We’re intelligence men, we go by the book.”
“When I ask for authorization,” the major said, his face a deep red, swelling, “you better shit some if you don’t have any. I don’t care if the general himself gave you your orders; nobody goes by here without I say so. Am I making myself clear, gentlemen?”
Schuyler held out his gun for the major to inspect. The second guard saluted. Their attention diverted, I took off for the woods, head down, running as fast as I knew how, the distance deceptive. The woods a fake, another open field on the other side. I kept on, any progress better than the risk of standing still. If the world is round, I reasoned, in the long run it doesn’t matter which way you go. Night now. The cries of birds. My chest hurts from running. An officer calls to me to stop. I can’t now even if I want to — the mechanism self-perpetuating, outside the authority of will. I trip on something, fall. There are men, bodies, around me — asleep or dead. Someone hands me a rifle. I am told to fire a round every five seconds. “I’m a pacifist,” I tell them. “A pacifist and a civilian.” “We’re all just men here,” the chaplain says. “The ways of war are mysterious.” The piece kicks back as I fire, punishing my shoulder. “Squeeze softly,” the chaplain whispers, “like a lover.” There is no light. How beautiful it is to fire at what can’t be seen. Somewhere I have been wounded. I have the sense that if I fall asleep, I will not wake up. I am too tired to care — past caring. Fight to stay awake. Will kill anyone who gets in my way.
The inspection has started. The team of inspectors (1 major, 1 captain, 1 lieutenant, and the first sergeant) are studying the display of the man whose bed is closest to the door; my bed, the third in the row, is separated from his by one other bed.
“Captain,” the major said, “do you have a copy of the latest inspection manual in this barracks? It is my impression that this year the item Α-five tent pegs are to be displayed to the right and not to the left.”
“Lieutenant,” the captain said in a voice a shade louder than the major’s, “it is my distinct impression that the item Α-five, to wit, tent supporter pegs, are to be displayed to the right and not, as in the display of Private Komanski, to the left.”
“Sergeant,” the lieutenant bellowed, “in the latest Manual of Field Display, Article Twenty-four, paragraph sub one, it is stipulated that when there are more than two inspecting officers, the item Α-five, to wit, tent supporter and maintainer pegs, are to be displayed to the right and not, as in the display of Private Komanski, to the left.”
“Private Komanski,” the sergeant whispered in a mock-gentle voice, “your fucking Α-five tent pegs are pointing in the wrong asshole direction. Disciplinary action will be taken.” He turned and, stiffening to attention, saluted the lieutenant. “It has been verified that Private Komanski’s tent supporter pegs are in violation of Article Twenty-four, paragraph sub one, sir,” he chanted. “Disciplinary action, as deemed proper and necessary, will be taken.”
(I suspected, unable to see without turning around, that my tent pegs were facing in the same direction as Komanski’s.)
The captain saluted the major. “The violation has been duly noted, sir. Correctionary action will be taken.”
“Then let’s go on, gentlemen,” the major said. “By all means, let’s go on.”
They lined up, in order of descending rank, in front of Private Gatchel’s bed, the second bed in the row. “This is what I like to see,” the major said. “This man is to be commended, captain.”
The word was passed back through the chain of command to the first sergeant. “You’re shaping up, soldier,” the sergeant barked at Gatchel.
And then they were in front of me. I prayed, superstitious about my fate, holding my breath, that nothing was wrong.
“Hmm,” I heard the major say. “Hmmm.”
“Uh huh,” the captain said. “Uh huh, uh huh.”
The lieutenant cleared his throat. The sergeant belched. “Is this the best you can do, Steiner?” the sergeant said.
“Excellent,” the major said, “but not excellent enough. Is that in line with your observation, captain?”
“My feeling is that it’s good,” the captain said. “But that there is room for improvement.”
I stifled a belch.
“I want to go on the record and say that it’s not up to snuff,” the lieutenant said. “A little more effort and desire was needed here.”
The sergeant said nothing, looked at me with disappointment, with contempt.
“I’ll do better next time,” I said. A belch escaped.
The inspecting team went through the rest of the barracks quickly and disappeared into the john, where they remained for what seemed like days. Komanski made a joke about the major having to take a shit. In an agony of sickness, I threw up on the polished barracks floor.
“If I were you,” Gatchel whispered to me, “I’d make a run for it before they get back.”
“Where can I go?”
“If you can get over the border,” he said, “they can’t touch you. I’d go myself if I didn’t have a reputation to maintain.”
“Tennnnnn-shunnn,” someone yelled.
I rushed for the door, tripped, got up, crawled under one of the beds and through a loose floorboard into an underground tunnel, which was, Gatchel had told me once, the only way out of the fort. Though I was tired — it had been days since I had been to sleep — I crawled, using my elbows to propel me, with what seemed, under the circumstances, exceptional speed. Crawling through the tunnel, elbows, knees, arms, wounds, I wanted a woman — I began in the dark of the tunnel to lust for a woman. It was what one lacked in the Army: tenderness, sex, affection, the touch of a woman, softness, ease, the taste and smell of love, breasts, cunt, love — a good fuck. I tasted the possibilities of freedom, the exhaustive opportunities. I would go from woman to woman with the impartial grace of a dedicated soldier, making up for all the ascetic wasted years. As I crawled I imagined a woman crawling with me, underneath me. I pressed up against her. “Not here,” she whispered, coming to life. “Not here.”