The threatened lecture still
seemed distant to me, and I wanted him out of
509
thereI wanted to turn on The Bone, pull the
cloth off the painting on the easel, and go back
to work on Wireman Looks WestWant the dirty-ass
truth? The painting was no longer about some
hypothetical magic trickNow it was its own magic
trickI had become very selfish about it, and
anything that might come after - a promised
interview with Mary Ire, the lecture, the show
itself - seemed to be not ahead of me but somehow
far above meThe way rain on the surface of the
Gulf must seem to a fish
During that first week of March, it was all about
daylightNot sunset light but daylightHow it
filled Little Pink and seemed to lift itThat
week it was about the music from the radio,
anything by the Allman chanel wallet purse Brothers, Molly Hatchet,
FoghatCale beginning "Call Me
the Breeze" by saying "Here's another of your old
rock n roll favorites; shuffle on down to
Broadway," and how when I turned the radio off and
cleaned my brushes, I could hear the shells under
the houseIt was about the ghostface I saw, the
one belonging to a younger man who had yet to see
the view from DumaThere was a song - I think by
510
Paul Simon - with the line If I'd never loved, I
never would have criedIt
wasn't a real face, not quite real, but I was
making it realIt was growing around the brain
that was floating on the GulfI didn't need
photographs anymore, because this was a face I
knewThis one was a memory
xviii
March fourth was hot all day, but I didn't bother
turning on the air conditioningI painted in
nothing prada china but a pair of gym shorts, with the sweat
trickling down my face and sidesThe telephone
rang twiceThe first time it was Wireman
"We haven't seen much of you in these parts lately,
EdgarCome to supper?"
"I think I'm going to pass, Wireman
"Painting, or tired of our society down here at El
Palacio? Or both?"
"Just the painting partAny
change in the vision department?"
"The left lamp is still out, but I bought an
eyepatch for it, and when I wear it, I can read
511
with my right eye for as long as fifteen minutes
at a stretchThis is a great leap forward, and I
think I owe it to you
"I don't know if you do or not," I said"This
isn't the same as the picture I did of Candy Brown
and Tina GaribaldiOr of my wife and herher
friends, for that matterThis time there's no bam
Do you know spy bag fendi what I mean when I say bam?"
"Yes, muchacho
"But if something's going to happen, I think it'll
happen soonIf not, you'll at least have a
portrait of how you looked - maybe how you looked
- when you were twenty-five
"Are you kiddin, amigo?"
"No
"I don't think I even remember what I looked like
when I was twenty-five
"How's Elizabeth? Any change in her?"
He sighed"She seemed a little better yesterday
morning, so I set her up in the back parlor -
there's a smaller table there, what I call the
China Suburbs - and she threw a set of Wallendorf
ballerinas on the floor
Irreplaceable, of course
"Last fall I never thought it could get this bad,
and God punishes us for what we can't imagine
My second call came fifteen minutes later, and I
threw my brush down on my work-table j12 chanel diamond watch in
exasperationIt was hard to
stay exasperated after being exposed to his
excitement, which bordered on exuberanceHe'd
seen the slides, which he claimed were going to
"knock everyone on their asses
"That's wonderful," I said"At my lecture I
intend to tell them, 'Get up off your asses'
He laughed as though this were the funniest thing
he'd ever heard, then said, "Mainly I called to
ask if there are any pictures you want marked NFS
- not for sale
Outside there was a rumble that sounded like a big,
heavily loaded truck crossing a plank bridgeI
looked toward the Gulf - where there were no plank
bridges - and realized I'd heard thunder far off
to the west
"Edgar? Are you still there?"
513
"Still here," I said"Assuming anyone wants to
buy, you can sell everything but the Girl and omega seamaster replica watches Ship
se

She toured them
onceStopped, then toured them againIt was
night by then, my big upstairs window full of
darknessThe tide was all the way out; the only
way you even knew the Gulf was there was by its
soft continual sighing as the waves ran up the
sand and died
"You really did these?" she said at lastShe
turned and looked at me in a way that made me
uncomfortableIt's the way one person looks at
another when a serious re-evaluation is going on
"I really did," I said"What do you think?"
"They're goodMaybe better than goodThis one-"
She bent and very carefully picked up the one that
showed the conch white chloe bag sitting on the horizon-line, with
yellow-orange sunset light blazing all around itexcuse me, so damn creepy
"I think so, too," I said"But really, it's
nothing newAll it does is dress up the sunset
with a little surrealism Then, inanely, I
exclaimed: "Hello, Dal?!"
She put back Sunset with Conch, and picked up
Sunset with Sophora
"Who's seen these?"
140
"Just you and JackShe calls
them asustadorJack says it
means scary
"They're a little scary," she admittedthis pencil you're using will smudgeAnd
I think it'll fade if you don't do something to
the picturesBut I think you ought to show these coco chanel earrings to
someone who does knowSomeone who can tell you
how good they really are
I felt flattered but also uncomfortable"I wouldn't know who or where to-"
"Ask JackMaybe he knows an art gallery that
would look at them
"Sure, just limp in off the street and say, 'I
live out on Duma Key and I've got some pencil
sketches - mostly of sunsets, a very unusual
subject in coastal Florida - that my housekeeper
says are muy asustador'"
She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head
to one sideIt was how Pam looked when she had no
intention of letting a thing goWhen she in fact
141
intended to throw her cartier watches current argument into fourwheel
drive
"Father-"
"Oh boy, I'm in for it now"You parlayed two pick-ups, a
used Korean War bulldozer, and a twenty-thousanddollar
loan into a million-dollar businessAre
you going to stand there and tell me you couldn't
get a few art gallery owners to look at your
pictures if you really set your mind to it?"
She softened
"I mean, these are good, DaddyAll I've got
for training is one lousy Art Appreciation course
in high school, and I know that
I said something, but I'm not sure whatI was
thinking about my frenzied quick-sketch of Carson
Jones, alias The Baptist omega ladies watch HummingbirdWould she
think that one was also good, if she saw it?
But she wasn't going toNot that one, and not the
one of the person in the red robe
That was what I thought then
"Dad, if you had this talent in you all the time,
where was it?"
142
"I don't know," I said"And how much talent we're
talking about is still open to question
"Then get someone to tell you, okay? Someone who
knows She picked up my mailbox drawingit's nothing special, except it isWhy'd you put a rocking horse in the
picture, Dad?"
"I don't know," I said"It just wanted to be
there
"Did you draw it from memory?"
"NoI can't seem to do wholesale tiffany

Croft had been aware of this, knew they needed the extra rest and knew it was virtually impossible there would be any Japanese on the mountain, but he had felt it more important not to break routineRoth's death had temporarily shattered his command, and it was vital to start repairing it
Gallagher had the last shiftIt was very cold in the half hour before daylight and he woke up dazed, and sat shuddering in his blanketFor many minutes he was conscious of little, feeling the vast shapes of the mountain range about him as no more than a deeper border to the nightHe only shivered and drowsed, waiting passively for the morning and the heat of the sunA complete lethargy had settled over him, and Roth's death was remoteHe drifted through a stupor, his mind almost inert, dreaming sluggishly of far-gone pleasant things as though deep within him he had to keep a small fire going against the cold of the night, the space of the hills, and the black chanel tote cumulative exhaustion, the mounting deaths of the platoon
The dawn came slowly on the mountainAt five o'clock he could see the top of the mountain range clearly as the sky became lighter, but for a long half hour there was little changeActually he could see nothing, but his body contained a tranquil anticipationSoon the sun would struggle over the eastern ramparts of the mountain and come down into their little valleyHe searched the sky and found a few tentative washes of pink streaming over the higher peaks, coloring the tiny oblong clouds of the dawn a purpleThe mountains looked very highGallagher wondered that the sun could get over them
All about him now it was getting lighter but it was a subtle process, for the sun still remained hidden and the light seemed to rise from the ground, a soft rose colorAlready he could discern clearly the bodies of the men sleeping about him, and he felt a touch of superiorityThey looked gaunt gucci silver bag and bleak in the early dawn, oblivious to the approach of morningHe knew that in a short while he would be rousing them, and they would groan as they came out of their sleep
In the west he could still see the night, and he recalled a troop train speeding across the great plains of NebraskaIt had been twilight then, and the night chased the train out of the east, overtook it, and passed on across the Rockies, on to the PacificIt had been beautiful and it made him wistful nowHe longed suddenly for America, wished so passionately to see it again that he could smell the odor of wet cobblestones on a summer morning in South Boston
The sun was close to the eastern ridge-line now and the sky seemed vast, yet fresh and joyfulHe thought of Mary and himself camping in a little pup tent in the mountains and he dreamt that he was waking with the velvet teasing touch of her breasts against his faceHe heard her say, "Get up, sleepyhead, and look chanel jewelry necklace at the dawn He grunted drowsily, nuzzled against her in his fantasy and then popped open one eye as a grudging concessionThe sun was clearing the ridge, and while the light in the valley was still faint, there was nothing unreal about it
In that way Mary ushered in the dawn with himThe hills were shaking off the night mists and the dew was sparklingFor this brief moment the ridges about him appeared soft and feminineAll the men scattered around him looked damp and chilly, dark bundles from which mist roseHe was the only man awake for a distance of many miles, and he had the youth of the morning all to himself
Out of the dawn, far on the other side of the mountain, he could hear artillery boomingIt shattered his reverie
Gallagher swallowed, wondering with a dumb misery how long it would be before he would stop tricking himselfThere was nothing now to anticipate, and he was conscious for the first time of how tired he wasHis limbs omega constellation ached and his sleep seemed to have done him no goodThe character of the dawn changed, left him shuddering in his blanket, damp and cold from the night's dew
There was still his child, the boy he had never seen, but that did not cheer himHe believed he would never live to see him, and the knowledge was almost without pain, a dour certainty in his mindToo many men had been killedWith a sick fascination, he envisioned a factory, watched his bullet being made, packed into a carton
If only I could see a picture of the kidIt wasn't so much to askIf only he could get back from this patrol and live long enough for some mail to come with a picture of his kid
But he was miserable again, certain he had tricked himselfHe shivered from fright, looking about him uneasily at the mountains reared on every side
He knew he was guiltyHe remembered the momentary power and contempt he had felt as he bawled at Roth to jump, the quick sure pleasure of white prada bag it

And that pleased them tooThe final sustaining ironies
The song was still going on

"Ha' past six
I had her doin' tricks
Lay me down,
Roll me over,
Do it again

Croft stared at the mountainThe inviolate elephant brooding over the jungle and the paltry hills
It was pure and remoteIn the late afternoon sunlight it was velvet green and rock blue and the brown of light earth, made of another material than the fetid jungle before it
The old torment burned in him againA stream of wordless impulses beat in his throat and he had again the familiar and inexplicable tension the mountain always furnished him
He had failed, and it hurt him vitallyHis frustration was loose againHe would never have another opportunity to climb itAnd yet he was wondering if he could have succeededOnce more he was feeling the anxiety and terror the mountain had roused on the rock stairwayIf he had gone alone, the fatigue of the other men would not have silver handbags slowed him but he would not have had their company, and he realized suddenly that he could not have gone without themThe empty hills would have eroded any man's courage

Ha' past seven
She thought she was in heaven

In a few hours they would be back, pitching their pup tents in the darkness, getting a canteen cup of hot coffee, perhapsAnd tomorrow the endless routine of harsh eventless days would begin once moreAlready the patrol was unfamiliar, unbelievable, and yet the bivouac before them also was unrealIn transit everything in the Army was unrealThey sang to make a little noiseroll me over
And do it again

Croft kept looking at the mountainHe had lost it, had missed some tantalizing revelation of himself
Of himself and much more


Mute Chorus:
ON WHAT WE DO WHEN
WE GET OUT

(Sometimes spoken, usually covert, varying with circumstance
RED: Do the same fuggin thing I always didWhat else is there?
BROWN: When we hit cartier love Frisco, I'm going to take my pay and throw the biggest goddam old drunk that town ever saw, and then I'll shack up with some bitch, and I won't do nothing but screw and drink for two whole goddam weeks, and then I'm going to take it easy going home to Kansas, just stopping off whenever I damn feel like it, just throwing the damnedest old binge you ever saw, and then I'm gonna look my wife up, I ain't gonna let her know I'm coming, and I'm going to give her the surprise of her life, and have witnesses along, by God, and I'll throw her out of the house, and let people know the way you treat a bitch when we're stuck over here God knows how long, never knowing when you're going to catch something, just waiting and sweating it out, and finding out things about yourself that, by God, it don't pay to know
GALLAGHER: All I know is there's a fuggin score to be paid off, a score to be paid offThere's somebody gonna pay, knock the fuggin civilians' heads omega watches for sale in
GOLDSTEIN: Oh, I can just see it when I get homeI'm going to get back in the early morning, and I'm going to take a taxi from Grand Central, and ride all the way out to our apartment house in Flatbush, and then I'm going to come up the stairs, and ring the bell, and Natalie'll be wondering who it is, and then she's going to come, and she's going to answer it
MARTINEZ: San Antonio, see family maybeWalk around, nice Mexican girls San Antonio, big wad money, ribbons, go to church, kill too many goddam JapsDon't know, re-enlist, Army no goddam good, but Army okay
MINETTA: I'm gonna walk up to every sonofabitch officer in uniform, and say 'Sucker' to them, every one of them right on Broadway, and I'm gonna expose the goddam Army
CROFT: Waste of time thinking about itThe war'll go on for a while



PART FOUR
Wake



THE MOPPING UP was eminently successfulA week after the Toyaku Line had been breached, the remnants of the Japanese garrison sac kelly hermes on Anopopei had been whittled into a hundred and then a thousand little segmentsTheir organization broke completely; battalions were cut off, and then companies, and finally platoons and squads and little slivers of five and three and two men hid in the jungle, attempted to escape the flood of American patrolsToward the end the casualty figures were unbelievableOn the fifth day two hundred and seventy-eight Japanese were killed and two Americans; on the eighth day, the most productive of the campaign, eight hundred and twenty-one Japanese were killed and nine captured for the loss of three American livesThe communiques went out with a monotonous regularity, terse and modest, not wholly inaccurate
"General MacArthur announced today the official end of the battle for Anopopei
"American troops under Major General Edward Cummings announced capture today of five enemy strong-points and large concentrations of food and ammunitionMopping up is in women rolex watches prog

He was perfectly content at the moment to remain here; he did not think at all of what would happen to himHe knew only that he didn't want to be carried again, could not bear the agony of being jolted on the stretcher
Brown was tempted, so tempted that he did not dare to believe Wilson"What are you talking about, boy?"
"Lea' me, men, jus' lea' me Weaks tears came into Wilson's eyesRemotely, almost as if it did not concern him, he shook his head"I'm holdin' ya back, men, jus' lea' me behind It was all confused in his mind again; he thought they were on a patrol and he was lagging back because of his sickness"When a man gotta be crappin' all the time, it jus' slows ya up
Stanley had omega usa come up beside Brown"What does he want us to do, leave him?"
"Yeah
"Think we ought to?"
Brown generated some rage"Goddammit, Stanley, what the hell's the matter with you?" Again Brown was temptedA deep lassitude had filled his body; he had no desire to move on"Come on, men, let's go," he bawledHe saw Ridges lying asleep a few feet away and it enraged him"Come on, Ridges, will you quit dickin'-off?"
Ridges woke up slowly, almost leisurely"Jus' restin', that's all," he complained mildly"If a man wants to get some rest He trailed it off, hooked on his belt and walked over to the litter
They moved on again, but the rest period had been bad for themThey had lost the urgency, the chanel quilted handbag tension, that had driven them forward when everything else was goneNow after marching a few hundred yards they were almost as tired as they had been when they halted, and the heat of the sun made them dizzy and weakWilson began to moan quite steadily
This tormented themTheir bodies felt powerless and clumsy; each time he groaned they winced with guilt and empathy, and the torments of his wound seemed to pass through the handles of the stretcher up into their armsThey bickered constantly for the first half mile while they still had wind to speakEverything they did grated on everybody else, and they snapped at each other continually
"Dammit, Goldstein, why don't you watch it?" Stanley would louis vuitton white speedy shout after a sudden jar
"Why don't you men quit the fussin' and do some work?" Ridges would mutter
"Aaah, blow it out," Stanley would shout
And Brown would interfere"Stanley, you're talkin' too damn muchWhy'n't you do some goddam work?"
They struggled on, enraged at each otherWilson began to babble again, and they listened to him dully"Men, why don' you all lea' me, a man who cain't hold up his end ain't worth a goddamAh'm jus' holdin' you backJus' lea' me, men, that's all Ah askOl' Wilson'll get along, y' don' have to worry about him
"Jus' lea' me, men
It tickled in their shoulders, washed down to their fingertips, which seemed to loosen on the litter handles"What the hell 925 tiffany's necklace you talkin' about, Wilson?" Brown pantedEach of them was fighting his private battle
Goldstein stumbled, and Wilson shouted at him"Goldstein, you're a no-good bastard, you done that on purpose, Ah been watchin' ya, and you're no good The name twisted in Wilson's head; he remembered the handle at his right foot being called Goldstein, and when the litter had dipped in that direction, he had bawled out the name"Goldstein's no fuggin good, a man who won't take a drink He giggled weakly, a little blood welling stickily from the parched hollow of his throat"Goddam, ol' Croft never knew Ah got a free bottle off him
Goldstein shook his head angrily, moved forward sullenly, his eyes on the omega geneve automatic grou