Honor and Duty (55 page)

“Sir, I can beat you,” he hissed. Fulminating anger, bristling muscular tension. He was very angry. No one had spoken to him like this since Beast. I was picking on him and he wanted to fight.

“You calling me into the ring?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he said, barely repressing a smile. Triumph.

“I admire that, Mr. Fors. Must I employ further demonstrations to secure your understanding of the jeopardy of your cadet status?”

“No, sir,” he said.

“If we fight tonight, no full meal for me. Damn you,” I said. “Sir, Mr. Fors thanks Mr. Ting with all his heart for the warning,” he said, smiling through his big teeth.

“Oh, it’s great,” said Sonny. “Food probably comes from C-rats, mostly ham ’n’ eggs. Bedpan’s special.” He sighed and tried to shift his body, wincing everywhere. “Nurses are good. Competent.”

“What happened?” asked Mike.

“After wrestling. Had my ears bound up. Wind was hard. Think I slipped. Don’t remember much. Woke up here. Guess no concussion. Leg’s busted in two places, had to pin it.” He shook his head wearily. “Was havin’ a good season.”

Mike also liked wrestling. I detested its chance encounters with a sweaty foreign armpit in your nose. Boxing was clean and sanitary. There was a fundamental decency to it. Fors had boxed in the ranks. I was in shape and I had Tony’s rosary for good
foo chi.

Three other cadets were in the ward, all Plebes, uncommonly pleased to be fractured or ill. No bracing, full meals, and nurses.

“What can I bring you?” I asked.

“New head,” he said.

“That’s your prescription for me,” I said.

“Get yourself a new head too.”

“Want me to call Barbara?” I asked.

“No. You’d try to lure her west, be a California girl, an’ promise her lots of Chinese food. Loves … food.…”

“Who can blame her?” I asked. “Can you talk?”

“Grog,” he said.

“Gotta move, Kai,” Mike said. “Or we all end up here.”

“You ready, Sonny?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbled. “Ready. Readier. Gnorp.”

Mike and I looked at each other. He motioned me away.

“Kai,” he whispered, “forget the bus. Sonny’s too banged up. Let’s get them for the cheating. That’s what this is about.”

I shook my head. “Can’t let them get away with this.”

“Can you prove it?” he asked.

Recitations at math boards began with the words, “Sir, I am required to prove …” So far, I had proven that mathematics and I were not meant for each other, and that I could anger Plebes who were as surly as Mongols after someone had burned their huts.

“Don’t know, Mike. Think so.”

“Love your confidence. It’d be great to have more time,” he whispered, “but let’s do it Saturday.”

“Saturday … Sonny.” No reaction. I shook Sonny gently.

He opened an eye. “Ow,” he said.

“Saturday night 1900 hours. Colonel Smits’s Q, the Poker Society. Arch’ll help you line up your ducks.” I hoped we wouldn’t need them, because he didn’t have them yet. It wasn’t a matter of ducks. We needed artillery or Chinese gods, or both.

He squinted at me, then at Mike. “Saturday night, Smits. Be there … be square.…” He drifted off. Mike picked up Sonny’s uninjured right hand and placed it on top of his. He gestured to me, and I put my hand on top of Sonny’s. “Go, Rabble,” Mike said. “Rabble” was the nickname for the Corps. Sonny was silent. I thought of our friendly forces: Pearl, the perennial Vassar senior who made my heart pound, Elmer Scoggin, the scarred armor veteran, Captain Mark Martin, the Chicago JAGC, and Major Szeden, the modern version of Chingis Khan. “Go, Rabble,” I said.

I was down six bucks. When I swallowed, I felt the swelling in my neck where Fors’s long arm had caught me. It had taken three hard, vicious rights for me to figure out that he was aiming for my neck, trying to break it. I had grinned at him through my mouthpiece, feeling only fear, unable to swallow
spit in a dry mouth. Now my body hurt north to south, east to west, with red neon signs that resisted the hard and honest work of Army APCs, aspirin.

I reviewed tonight’s mnemonic, describing the plan: SSKSMAS—Star, Study, Key, Safe, Mike, Arch, Sonny.

It was Saturday night at the Poker Society, and the gang was here. KDET played “Turn, Turn, Turn,” with the volume knob set at four, and Mike and I studiously avoided eye contact. We were the conspirators, and the others were the chickens. The chickens had us outnumbered. It had taken a federal conspiracy to bring Mike to the Society, the center of bohemia and the war against perfection, ripe with inebriation and the criticism of women and minorities.

My floating ribs spoke to me, complaining that I had not protected them adequately. The fight with the long-armed Gabe Fors, a year older and twenty pounds heavier, had been the fastest three rounds in my life. I’d sit in the corner and the bell would ring. “How about a minute between rounds?” I had asked Mike.

“Been a minute,” he had said. “This is New York. Go get ’im.”

“Where’s your dago friend?” asked Duke.

“Pole-vaulting over fish turds,” I said.

Duke laughed. “Where’s that Vassar gentility, Ting? Or does ‘dago’ fit with your California anti-American bullshit?”

“Sorry. Forgot you’re an asshole,” I said.

Mike kicked me under the table. Cool it.

“Want something real to drink?” asked Colonel Smits gruffly.

“No thanks, sir. I’m on the wagon.” My mouth had a memory of his Glenfiddich. It had been artfully smooth. Could cure all ills, stitch my chest and torso wounds, cauterize my split lip.

“Hurtin’ my feelings, hero,” he said, as he dealt stud.

I started to laugh, and saw that he had been serious.

Bets went around, everyone in. Time to put “Q.E.D.” on the solution page of Operation Benedict Arnold.

Moose Hoggatt played Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66’s moody “Constant Is the Rain” on KDET. For this hairy moment I needed the Army Band and the Official West Point March and everything Beethoven had composed. Mike nodded at Bob Lorbus. Time for star.

“Duke,” said Bob, “remember asking me to get a circled star from Sonny Rappa? Remember I gave it to you?”

Duke looked at Bob, then at me. I was the doofus who ended up with that star and the paper—only when I got it, a whole bandit Juice whufer had been written around it. Bob’s future had been pitched, slow and straight, to Duke’s bat. Duke could implicate Bob as part of a cabal by saying no, or release him with a yes.

Duke leaned back in his chair, huffing, pursing his lips, studying me, then Bob. Oscar Wilde had said that a cynic knew the value of nothing, and the price for everything.

“Yeah,” said Duke. “I remember. I asked you for it. So what?”

“So thanks, buddy,” said Bob, “for remembering.”

That was it. Duke’s words had cleared Bob and Sonny. Troth looked at me: I freed Lorbus and Rappa. Now, pay my price: lay off.

Mike left, then returned. Study-key-safe was next. My turn. Toos had said, “Talk slow, and look ’em in the eye.” I cleared my aching throat. It was a Thayer kind of day. Tom Jones was singing.

“Worried about Juice?” I asked Duke.

Duke raised his eyes to me slowly. I saw Clint look at Duke, his eyes looking for something. No, Clint: don’t look to Duke.

“Hell no,” said Troth. “Strange shit coming from you. All you do is hive Vietnam and play Hardy Hardass on Plebes all over campus. Even knobs who aren’t yours. Still dee in Juice?”

“Yeah, I am. Duke, what’s the
key
to success in Juice?”

He started to answer, then looked hard at me. I wasn’t playing along for him. I now had king high, and led the betting, going slow. I felt the winds of chance bending to me.

“Nothin’ to it,” he said. “Juice is a breeze.”

“Feel
safe
,” I said, “with Juice whufers coming?”

“What are you getting at, Kai?” asked Clint, sitting tall.

“Pair of kings,” I said, “bets ten more.” Stay out, Clint.

Clint dropped out, looking tense, his deep dimples sallow. Duke stayed, showing jacks. My kings beat Miles’s queens and I gathered the chips. It was time. Duke was ready, and Smits would do what he would do. The Honor Committee would sort it out.

“Duke,” I asked, “how do you feel about the Honor Code?”

Duke looked at Colonel Smits, waiting for him to say something. Smits lit a cigarette and looked blandly back at Duke.

“Great—super,” Duke said, glancing at the colonel.

“Would you tolerate a violation?” I asked.

“Kai, what are you doing?” asked Clint.

“Would you report yourself for cheating?” I asked.

“You’re gonna get reported for fartin’ dingleberries in the wind,” Duke said.

“Duke,” I said. “Have anything to say to the Honor Committee?”

Cards went down and chairs pushed back in tunes of sour scraping. It was like Chinese music, deep, mournful strings of women’s lament bound by
gahng
to fathers, husbands, and sons. I felt something strong, old, and traditional, something like China itself, in my veins. A time for moral rectitude. I was on the path of the moral man. Even if I lost, I was in the right. place. “I do not worry about dying. I worry about a life not well lived,” said Uncle Shim.
Jacta alea est. P’o fu ch’en chou.
Break the pot and sink the boat.

Clint’s mouth had become a light crease in the lower half of his face. He had swallowed his lips.

I looked into Troth’s eyes.
“Do you?”

His eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “You’re crazy. Bad crazy. Stop this shit now, Ting.”

I pulled out a notepad and pen, which all good officers carry. “Bob. Help me out. Please note time and date.”

Bob looked at his Rolex. “2003 hours, 23 February 1967,” he said thinly. He and I cleared space on the table.

“Luther Darwin Troth,” I said, “I charge you with two Honor Code violations and one of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I charge you with violating the Code by participating in the theft of an EE 304A WFR from Electrical Engineering, on or about 9 December 1966, at West Point, New York, and of distributing copies of that WFR to other Second Classmen before the review.

“Under the provisions of the UCMJ, I charge you with violating Article 128, Aggravated Battery, in that on 18 February 1967 at West Point, you caused a collision between a bus and Cadet Santino Rappa, on Thayer Road, in order to discourage him from completing an Honor investigation on you. I am obligated to report these accusations and allegations to the Honor Committee, and to the Department of Tactics, for further disposition. Bob?”

“Wait one—got it,” said Bob, scribbling madly.

“How say you, Luther Troth, to these charges?” I asked.

“I say you’re full a crap. Who you tryin’ to be, the first chink Laurence Olivier?”

I thought of Chase Maher. “I don’t want to brag,” I said.

“I didn’t do a goddamn thing,” said Duke. “I’m
good
in Juice. You—you asshole—you couldn’t figure a Juice writ with Dago Rappa sittin’ in your chair. You’re the asshole who needs to cheat, not
me.
”

“You’re a thief in the night, ripping off brothers,” I said.

“Actually,” said Mike, “you’re a thief all the time.”

“You’re full a shit,” said Duke, turning on Mike.

Mike shrugged. “Not really. Your focus is misplaced.” He stood, his big chest filling the room, inviting Troth to swing: Clark Gable standing up to Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian challenging Julius Caesar. Troth blinked. “I need air,” Mike said.

He opened the door. A slender civilian with a bad GI haircut entered as if he had too many feet.

“Gentlemen,” said Mike. “First Lieutenant Tom Baker, an MIT doctorate and member of the Juice faculty. Sir, this is Lieutenant Colonel Smits, post staff, Messrs. Bestier, Brodie, Ting, Lorbus, and Troth. The lieutenant is a PhD draftee. The Pentagon calls him a McNamara Monument.”

“Hello,” said First Lieutenant Baker, waving. No sign of recognition of anyone.

“Lieutenant,” said Mike. “A cadet asked you to stow a ring in the exams safe. Is that cadet in this room?”

Lieutenant Baker studied us. He looked twice at Troth, thinking. He looked at Bob, and Clint, then back to Troth.

“LT, play some poker,” said Smits, hoarsely.

“Uh … no,” Baker said, trying to place Duke Troth.

Smiths banged down a glass, belched long and wet, smiling with his teeth, scratching himself. Baker seemed to see Smits in the reality of his disrepair for the first time. He sniffed the aromas of old food and anxious men. Baker looked again at Duke, then Bob. Both were tall and large. “He could be here.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Take your time, sir,” I said, smiling, panic in my guts. C’mon, you got a doctorate. You got a brain. Don’t freak ’cause you got Army all around you. The President made you an officer and a gentleman. I bet it was Troth who got you to pop the safe while he scoped the combination. Remember! The LT blinked at me, now trying to figure out why a Chinese guy was in the room. I had distracted him. He looked again, licking
his lips nervously, but it was over. He left. He had been our best shot, the strongest of our ducks in a wishful line. No one could’ve been smarter, and he was the only percipient witness that could put Duke in Maher’s office.

“Ting, what the fuck are you doing?” asked Colonel Smits, his voice filtered by the cigarette between his lips.

I tried to swallow the lump of cold defeat in my throat. “You know what I’m doing.”

Smits stood. “What do you mean, yellow soldier?”

I stood. “We got people making up their own rules. Rules for cheating and shoving classmates under buses.” I couldn’t keep my voice flat. “People can’t be screwed with like that—no more.”

“Listen, idiot, people get screwed every day. All you guys are gonna get it in the Nam.” He shook his head, ambled around until he found the Glenfiddich, and banged it on the table. “Ready to quit the bottle again, Ting?” I sat down and he laughed.

There was a thumping in the hallway. Arch Torres stuck his head in the door. “Guys,” he said. He helped Sonny hobble in on crutches. Sonny looked bad. I was afraid he was going to barf on Arch before he could reach Duke. I went to help him.