James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

If, as they say, the writer's duty is to force order on the chaos, then the historian must force chaos wherever he finds order.

Perhaps this is all a personal reaction to the fact that I never did find out who broke all those damned Coke bottles, and I'm merely hesitating in my narrative because I hate to go on with that kind of loose thread bleeding behind me. If it bothers you, then say I did it because I was punished for it and must be guilty. Nothing worth having is easy to get.

So despair then because history is no thread to be cut, no chain to rattle, no string to be wrapped in a ball. Eat your blueberries; keep the toilet paper close at hand.

My ill-temper must have rubbed off on the men, particularly on Morning who acted as if I had stolen his thunder, his lightning and tears. I didn't find it easy in the weeks between the end of my tour of punishment and the beginning of football season to keep the self-disgust I felt out of my face. There were several bad scenes. Novotny finally received the long-feared Dear John from his girl back in Wyoming. He stayed sick and drunk for a long time – through a set of days, the Break, then a set of swings – then during the Break he and Morning nearly came to blows, as they regularly did, over the presence of Toni, Morning's queer friend, at the apartment. Morning felt sorry for him, as everyone did. Poor Toni, half in, half out of drag, short hair and make-up, high heels and levis, painted fingernails and a sport shirt, always waiting for a chance to seduce Novotny, Novotny always ready to kill him if he tried, and Morning, it seemed, also waiting for the explosion. I often felt that Morning wanted to see this double-humiliation so he could feel superior (not afraid?). He and I hassled when I told him this, for in my mood I bluntly told him, and we tangled another time when Quinn wanted to stay in town AWOL from work. Morning said it was only Quinn's business, but I made it mine. Then Dottlinger began his campaign to get Morning who, of course, was more than willing to be a martyr to this sort of injustice. And I… always with my crooked nose strained out of joint to get between the back and the whip…

On the way to the beginning of a set of mids, I found Tetrick sitting in the chow hall waiting for me. As I ate, he told me that Dottlinger knew that Morning had organized the Great Coke Bottle Mutiny.

"How do you know?" I asked. This could be bad, I thought. Capt. Saunders still wasn't back from the States.

"I know, that's all. But the lieutenant ain't going to do anything right now. He's waiting. Make sure Morning don't get out of line, not even a little bit," Tetrick said.

"How?"

"You tell me," he said, shaking his head over a cup of coffee. "You tell me. These kids are driving me to drink. You know Hendricks, that little blond kid on Trick Four?"

"I think so. Why?"

"He's in the stockade – excuse me, confinement facility, that is," Tetrick snorted.

"How come?"

"How come? He's a lover. That's why. Girls in Town aren't good enough for him. No, he's got to have a captain's wife. He got caught, then she screamed rape like they always do when an enlisted man gets between their legs. She screams rape from the middle of her bed and Hendricks crashes out the window carrying his clothes. It's bad enough to run off, but then the Air Police catch him over behind the Kelly Theatre, and what's he do? Pulls a knife, yes, cuts two APs, which is bad enough, but now when he can get away, what's he do? Yeah, he climbs a telephone pole. They have to cut the pole down to get him. Smart kid. Now the least he'll get is five years and a DD. A real lover." Tetrick couldn't have looked more unhappy, he couldn't have had more wrinkles running back across his forehead up his tan scalp if he were the one on his way to Leavenworth.

I remembered Hendricks. A small, quiet boy from Kansas who worked part-time out at the riding stables, the kind of kid who preferred horses to people. "Damn, you wouldn't think he would be the type, do you? Can he beat any of the charges?"

Tetrick sneered at me, but then he paused, chuckled to himself, and said, "Speaking of people who don't look like it. Listen, keep this to yourself; don't make me more trouble. Guess who's shacking up with Sgt. Reid's wife?" Reid was chief of Trick One, a pale, thin, thirtyish guy who looked more like a shoe clerk than a soldier.

"Who," I said, "Dottlinger?" A joke.

"That's right, smart guy."

"You're shitting me."

"Wish I was. Reid doesn't know who yet, but he knows. She's always been that kind. His last CO shipped him out to get rid of her. I'll get her sent home when Saunders gets back, but can you see me going to the lieutenant and saying, 'I got this slut, see, for you to send home.' " Tetrick grinned, but I think in defense.

"Listen," I said, "next time you have some good news, be sure to tell me."

"You just tell Morning to stay straight." The grin was quickly gone. "If he makes waves, I'll bust his ass. He won't have to wait for the Lieutenant to think up something."

"Ain't it the truth."

I left Tetrick with his bad coffee and troubles; I had my own; he had given them to me my first day in the PI. On the way to work I was tempted to tell Morning that Dottlinger knew, but I was afraid that, in his mood, he would take the warning as excuse for action against the enemy, and I guess I was a little afraid, too, that in my mood I might egg him on.

Two nights later I had the OD and the Trick went to work a mid without me. Most of them were more than a little drunk at midnight chow, but Novotny was assistant trick chief and I trusted him to keep them working. At least they trooped out toward the motor pool on time, so I went back to the quiet Orderly Room and the novel Morning had forced on me, The Wanderer, which I managed to read until the phone rang about forty-five minutes after midnight. The CQ looked up at me and said, "Sgt. Reid." Now it was my turn to wander, lost again.

"What the hell's he want?"

"Didn't say."

"Reid?" I said into the receiver.

"Sgt. Krummel?" he said. He always called me "Sgt. Krummel" out of military courtesy. "Ah, where's the relief?"

No rest for the weary, I wanted to say, his voice was so tired. "Why? Aren't they there? Where are you? What?" My rush of questions silenced him. I heard a sigh slip over the wire.

"Ah, where's your Trick? They didn't, ah, show up, and it's, ah, an, ah, hour past relief now. Ah, my guys are, ah, complaining." He never would have complained, but would have stayed at the desk at Operations working on through eternity with an occasional guilty glance at the wall clock, knowing that if he complained they would only shove the dirty end of the stick at him again. The note of resignation in his voice seemed to say, Yes, I know my wife is fucking around; don't all of them.

I assured him that the Trick had left the mess hall on time, reassured him that it was merely a broken down three-quarter or something so simple, and promised to check it out right away. I hung up in the middle of one of his "ah's"; there could be no relief for a man like Reid.

The night driver in the motor pool, a mongoloid from Alabama, had refused to let the Trick use two jeeps in place of a, yes, disabled three-quarter because motor-pool policy specified only, one "vehickle purr trick." "They gave me some shit, man, but I tole 'em to hop their little ole Yankee asses in a cab or somethin'," he said to me.

"Thanks a lot."

"Motor-pool policy," he said, waving his arm at the dew-shining green metal and black asphalt, the dull canvas, the flood lights so quickly absorbed by the dank, dark air.

"Motor-pool policy," he said again, as if that explained the world.

"If there is any trouble out of this, soldier, I'm going to have your ass in a sling by noon tomorrow," I said, savoring for a moment the amazement lighting, as best anything could, that peckerwood face. "Shut up and get me a jeep real fast," I said as he started to answer, "Now." Rank does have its privileges, but only seldom do the privileged have the rank.