Mark Dunn - American Decameron

“Beats me. Beats me why these big league owners do any of the things they do.”

“How’d Borowy get his draft deferment? He’s what, twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

“They say there’s some kind of important off-season work he’s doing at one of the war plants. Sounds a little fishy to me. Sounds like the important work he’s doing might have less to do with putting bombs together and more to do with a certain high-pitch fast ball.”

“I wonder about some of these guys — you know, the ones who get to stoke the home fires while the rest of us Joes rally ’round the flag. Take the ‘Voice’ for instance. What’s kept that bony boy crooner in permanent civvies?”

“Something wrong with his eardrum when he was born — got punctured or something.”

“This sun’s killing me.”

“Huh?”

“The sun. The heat. I’ll take the cold. Just make that goddamned sun go down, Hillard.”

“Don’t think about it. Let’s try to think about something else.”

“What time do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. Three, four in the afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“You ever seen him? Sinatra? You ever seen him sing?”

“Went with my sister. He was performing at the Waldorf. Show was in the Wedgewood Room, I think.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I got a big sore in my throat. Hurts a little to talk.”

“Ask me if I care. Tell me about Sinatra. How does a string-bean kid like that get every thirteen-year-old girl in America to wet her pants just to look at him?”

“He does have a good voice.”

“Good as Crosby?”

“How should I know? I grew up in a house full of Rudy Vallee records.”

“Couple of weeks ago, they bring out this picture, Anchors Aweigh . Two sailors on leave in Hollywood: Sinatra and I forget the name of the other actor. I’m thinking: I never got shore leave in Hollywood. Did you ever get leave in Hollywood?”

“I didn’t even get leave in Guam. I was sick in bed with stomach flu.”

“How are you feeling now, Tork?”

“Oh, I’m over the flu. I’ve just got this little problem with being half out of my mind from thirst. Oh, and there’s this other little thing with the upper half of my legs — you know, where they got scalded in the explosion. They still feel like they’re on fire sometimes.”

“At least you can still feel your legs. I lost all feeling below the waist several hours ago. Anyway, they say salt water’s good for skin shit. Good for a lot of things, I hear. Just don’t fucking drink it.”

“I’m afraid I’m gonna flip my wig and start to hallucinate like some of the other guys.”

“What other guys?”

“Heard Boyd and DeMornay a couple of hours ago — when they floated by. They were talking about going down to the Geedunk and getting themselves a big drink of water out of the fountain. Talking like they were still on the Indianapolis .”

“Maybe they were just kidding around.”

“Uh-uh. Dead serious. Rory, sometimes I think we’re dead. I think we died already and we’re in some kind of purgatory because I can’t believe I deserve to be in hell.”

“Here’s how I know we aren’t dead, Tork: because hell can’t be half as bad as this .”

“Makes no fucking sense.”

“No fucking sense, you got that right.”

“Two days we been out here. It just doesn’t add up. They were expecting us in Leyte. You know there had to have been distress calls. How come nobody’s shown up?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it and thought about it and I just can’t figure it.”

“What time do you think it is?”

“You asked me that already. What am I, a floating grandfather clock?”

“I was just wondering because—”

“What did Sinatra sing? I mean, at the Waldorf?”

“I don’t remember. And it didn’t matter anyway. Where my sister and me was sitting, you couldn’t even hear him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Huh?”

“Why couldn’t you hear him?”

“Did you hear that?”

“It was nothing.”

“It was something. You heard it. Don’t say you didn’t.”

“Some fellow napping — woke up yelling from a bad dream.”

“You know that wasn’t it. It’s late afternoon, Hillard. They get hungry in the late afternoon. Then they feed through the night.”

“Why couldn’t you hear what Sinatra was singing? Was there a problem with the microphone?”

“No. The microphone was working fine.”

“Look at me. Turn around and look at me. Talk to me about Sinatra.”

“He’s a singer. Now he’s a big movie star — movie-star sailor. Movie-star sailor-crooners don’t get torn to bits by sharks, so don’t look for him out here. He makes a million dollars a year. That’s what I read. A million dollars a year, and you can’t even hear what he’s singing because all the bobby-soxers are yelling so fucking loud. Yelling right in your ear. Like you aren’t even there. Why don’t they know we’re here, Hillard? For Chrissakes, why isn’t anybody coming to get us? The ship had nearly twelve hundred men on board. How can you totally forget about a ship with twelve hundred men on board?”

“You rest your voice now, Tork.”

“Yeah, I’ll need it for when the shark pulls me under — the shark out there with my name on his fin.”

“They’ll be here. They’ve realized their error. They’re on their way.”

“We don’t deserve to win this war — a navy this incompetent.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“I’ll talk any way I fucking want to. We’re all going to die — we’re dying one by one already. Couple more days there won’t be any of us left.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“The sun’s killing me. I’m going to the Geedunk. Gonna get me a cool drink of water. Then I’m gonna get me a big vanilla ice cream cone. Sound good, Rory? You wanna join me?”

“No. I wanna stay right here. And you’re gonna stay right here with me.”

“Why?”

“You saved my life. I owe it to you to — to look after you.”

“Save your life? All I did was push this potato crate over to you. What’s the big deal?”

“I want us both to live, Tork. I want us both to get out of here and get married and have kids and tell the story to our kids and our grandkids about how we survived.”

“How did we survive, Rory? You tell me. What did we do so special? We just hung on and waited.”

“And kept our wits by talking. I don’t care if your throat hurts. You keep talking. If you start to sound a little screwy like all that hooey about going down to the commissary, I’ll pull you out of it. You do the same for me. Okay?”

“I don’t—”

“Okay? You tell me it’s okay, Tork — what I’m proposing. You say it’s okay or I bean you with this potato.”

“It’s okay or I bean you with this potato.”

“First-class comedian we got here.”

“How that elephant got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

“You wanna lick a potato?”

“Throat.”

“Just lick it. Think of it as an ice cream cone.”

“Sure.”

“Good.”

“It’s hot as hell out here.”

“Try not to think about it.”

“Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear nothing. Who was it liked Rudy Vallee so much — your mother or your father? Tork, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah. I’m listening. It was Ma. Ma was crazy for Rudy Vallee.”

“Your mother — now where were her folks from?”

“Uh. Kansas. Little town in west Kansas.”

“Born there?”