Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

The surface of the mirror was dotted with flecks of shaving cream. Leaning forward, bringing into view the stubbled underside of his jaw, Major Holly drew the razor rasping across his skin. “Outstanding!” The razor plopped into a sink of milky water. A hand reached for the damp washcloth. Third nick this morning.

“You okay, Major Marty?” called a voice from the other room.

“Yes, yes, damnit.”

He inspected the wound. Minor but noticeable. He was certainly going to look like hell at today’s Numbers Conference. If The General asked he’d say Anh had scratched him, accumulate points early in the game. The General encouraged hints of sexual activity among his subordinates. When Holly was on the staff he used to make up tales for The General’s pleasure. Iron cocks, hot pussies. The General slept like a baby. Days later Holly would hear details he had invented stuck like cloves to The General’s overdone accounts of his own fictitious exploits.

Holly swished the razor around in the water, leaned into the image of his face. He couldn’t look any worse than Captain Fry this morning. Break your nose and sometimes both eyes would blacken. Those carrier deck landings. He’d have banned them the first week had not Lieutenant Peary, the earnest morale officer, assured him such antics were absolutely necessary to the flight crews’ emotional well-being—“Take away belly landings, sir, and you might as well ground the planes.” And there were The General’s last words as Holly departed for this command: “Remember, my boy, there’s the army and the army and then there’s aviation.” Pilots did seem to operate out of an excess of spirits even combat missions couldn’t fully dissipate. So each evening, regular as the 2100 artillery barrage, they’d line up, once a proper altitude of intoxication had been achieved, to take turns leaping, chest thrust defiantly forward, arms spread defenseless as wings, from the top of the bar onto the unit emblem, that screaming woman’s head painted in garish color on the hard tile floor of the O club. Shouting, crashing, sliding into tables and chairs. Shirts sopping with spilled beer. Cigarette butts mashed to their chests. An insane business. Obviously too late for him to apply brakes. O club injuries honored with an aluminum heart: a pop-top pinned to the pocket. Captain Marovicci of the white silk scarf and gleaming silver bars—he refused to wear the standard combat subdued black—still strutted about, right arm encased to the shoulder in plaster, the result of a “miscalculation” that occurred before Holly’s arrival. “Forgot to drop my landing gear, sir.” Compound fracture. For which he had put himself in for a genuine purple heart. The orders had already been cut.

“Like meel-lows,” said Anh. She stood in the doorway, hands buried to the elbows in the boots she held up for inspection. Round leather paws. Holly nodded.

“The General give you more leaves now,” she said, gesturing toward his lapels.

“Yes,” Holly replied, amused by the pun she wouldn’t understand. “I may have to apply for another branch.”

“I can see my face. Can you see yours?” She thrust a boot under his lathered chin.

“Like chrome fenders,” he said. “Like mirrors. How about the pants?”

“This time you cut youself on crease for sure,” she replied, obviously pleased at using the expression correctly before the major.

Holly laughed. “What would I ever do without you?”

“Have someone else,” she answered. “I put boots by bed.”

He turned back to the mirror, saw himself still smiling. He’d like to take her with him, show her off to The General. Classified or not, what could she understand? He often had difficulty himself. A Numbers Conference, ostensibly a meeting to coordinate hard data on enemy activity in I Corps, was in fact a complicated game in which all participants attempted to guess the numbers already written on a piece of paper concealed in The General’s pocket. The first person to guess correctly and prove his own figures matched The General’s won the game and The General’s grace until the following month when the competition started all over again. This ritual had been amusing when Holly sat behind The General. The view from the other side of those stars was not so funny. The General gave away nothing, silent and expressionless throughout each presentation, sucking patiently on his pipe, the closed air of the briefing room gradually filling with the vapors of his special aristocratic blend of Egyptian tobacco—a reek of smoldering mummy wrappings. He’d wait, noncommittal to the very end, when, leaning back in his seat, the leather squeaking like chalk on a blackboard, he’d speak with magisterial finality into the expectant silence: “Bullshit.” The sound echoed in a tomb. Captain Danzinger, paling to his boots, looked at Holly. Holly shrugged. The tip of Danzinger’s pointer began to tremble. The last slide, frozen in the projector, burned a graph into the wall. Holly shifted position in his seat. “Well, sir,” he said at last, “perhaps if you’ll give me a moment to clarify the…” “What’s this five-thousand-odd figure here?” gesturing toward the screen with tooth-scarred pipe stem. “We don’t have anything like that.” The General turned to his left. A hand clutching a sheet of paper appeared from behind his chair. “What figure is that, sir?” asked Holly. “I’m afraid I…” “Right there, of course, in the last damn column,” the pipe stem quivering. “Aren’t you people familiar with your own damn numbers for Christ’s sake?” “Yes, sir, but allow me to…” “What is that, anyway, number of rounds expended per gook?” A titter traveled through the darkness across the back rows. Holly knew there was no way out now. “No, sir, I believe that’s the total of service personnel.” The General snorted, a cloud of smoke exploding around his head. “How many g.d. gooks do they need to change a frigging bicycle tire?” He turned again to his left. “What’s our figure?” “Three hundred and eight,” answered a disembodied voice. The General nodded, eyes resting on Holly like weights. “Bit more realistic, eh, Marty?” Holly went through the motions, he defended his numbers, his men, unsure of both, but playing the game to its proper conclusion. The General was enjoying himself immensely. “I used to think this young man had a future in the United States Army.” On cue the staff chuckled. “I like to think I still do,” Holly replied. The General nodded without comment. Then The General went on to speak of the virtues of systems analysis, the sanctity of the data base, the effective utilization of common sense, he talked about the program, getting with it; he elaborated on progress, the correct tallying of figures, the latest consensus upon which everyone should clamber aboard or be left at the dock with the gooks. The General’s rebukes occupied only the median ground of subtlety. Holly remained polite, attentive, his deodorant melting under his fury. Today, he was afraid, there’d be more of the same. His latest numbers were even less “realistic.” He had gotten to know his men since the last conference, unreliable soldiers, superb technicians; no reason to doubt the results of their work and despite their cavalier attitude and slovenly habits he had yet to behold a single one of them in the pitiable condition achieved last night by Major Brand, the executive officer, who dumped a Black Russian on his head, crawled under a table, and made sounds like a pig. When Holly ordered him to his feet, he demanded a refill, and, before the glass touched his lips, collapsed to the floor, almost cracking his skull against the bar. Hewitt and Patch carried the inert body out to a jeep where it sat, the skin pale and cold as cemetery marble, the facial expression so oddly fixed it resembled a Halloween mask, eyes wide, unblinking, unseeing, the trunk of the body propped in the front seat like a tailor’s dummy all the way to the 92nd Evac where the stomach was pumped. Not the first time either, Lieutenant Tremble thoughtfully informed Holly. A colorful lot.