Copyright by Richard Seltzer
1989
In the summer of 1970, (the
summer after the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State
shootings) a group of reservists and national guardsmen are on
basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Many of the recruits
who pass through here are destined to be shipped to Viet Nam.
This group is an exception. For them, basic is "unreal”. For
them, this isn't preparation for war, but rather a demeaning
and painful, but blessedly brief respite from their ordinary
lives. They have schools or jobs that they'll return to very
soon. They've lived in an atmosphere of anti-war protest, and
they take many of those slogans and attitudes for granted.
Most of them are opposed to "the system" and "the
military-industrial complex" as well as the war. But they have
made certain compromises, and they have been very lucky to
find slots in reserve and national guard units. They know they
are lucky, and don't want to risk their fortunate positions.
On a Sunday, in the barracks,
their behavior toward each other shows the degree to which
they have internalized much of the
"system” they presumably
hate. There is no need for the drill
sergeant to impose his will.
They do it all themselves, playing the game as they know it
must be played. They no longer have the luxury of blaming the
ills of the world on someone else.
Characters (in order
of appearance) —
All are soldiers in basic
training. Roberts and Armstrong (and two others who need not
appear) are black draftees, who want nothing to do with the
war and who have deliberately failed basic in order to avoid
being shipped out. The rest are white reservists or national
guardsmen on active duty for training.
Frank Arnold: the narrator; a
grad student who is an army reservist on active duty for
training
Hathaway: the leader of the
first squad and the real leader of the platoon;
football-playing college boy from Alabama
Beaulieu: tall National Guard
trainee from the University of Maryland
Schneider: fat farm boy from
Iowa
Roberts: a tall thin black
boy from Mississippi; a draftee who has been "recycled"
(forced to go through basic training a second time)
Waslewski: beer-belly
Alec: a short, tough ex-cop
from Chicago,
Cohen: a college kid from
Berkeley
Rawlings: the platoon leader;
an outcast, the victim of repeated practical jokes, a
convenient symbol of hated authority that could be mocked and
mildly abused with impunity
MacFarland: the assistant
platoon leader
Vassavion: taller than
Hathaway, has the flabbiness of a natural athlete who had
given up exercise in favor of beer and repose
Sullivan: bigger than
Hathaway
Powell: powerful build;
bigger than Hathaway; quiet; commands attention and respect
when he speaks; often has a Bible in his hand
Sanderson: athlete
Evans: little
Delaney: cynical, political
activist
Armstrong: Roberts’ bunkmate;
a black draftee who has been "recycled"
Alvardo: Squad Leader from the Second Platoon
A barracks at Fort Polk,
Louisiana, on a Sunday in the summer of 1970. There are sets
that could be visible at the same time (if the stage is large
enough):
o the bunkroom, (to the left
of the stairs) with rows of bunkbeds on either side of the
highly polished center aisle;
o the latrine, (to the right
of the stairs) with a row of toilets (not separated by
partitions), one or two washing machines and dryers and stacks
of full laundry bags;
o the room of the platoon
leader and assistant platoon leader at the top of the stairs.
(Inside the empty bunkroom. A
Sunday at basic training.)
FRANK'S VOICE (pre-recorded
speech played in the background):
Building 3926, Fort Polk,
Louisiana, was a "temporary" structure — a white clapboard
oblong rectangle, hurriedly thrown together, like hundreds of
other army barracks.
Its first tenants were
recruits and draftees bound for the Pacific in World War II.
Cycle after cycle were trained and shipped. Then the war
ended, and the barracks fell silent, except for the bats that
nested under the eaves, like ghosts returning to curse drill
sergeants who had not pushed them hard enough, and not taught
them what could have kept them alive.
Later, when a "temporary" war
broke out in Viet Nam, the "temporary" barracks was reopened.
Exterminators were called in to eliminate the bats, but while
Individuals could be killed, their kind was indestructible. At
dawn and at sunset, their eerie forms hovered high above the
eaves, and vanished one by one into the depths of the
building.
Aside from the bats, the
barracks was now in better shape than when it was first built.
Cycle after cycle of trainees had kept it in shape for
inspections. Some had even made Improvements to get bonus
points.
For instance, there was a red
rack for the red helmet liner that the fire guard wore each
night. Two magazine racks hung
on the latrine wall beside
the toilets. And on the wall above the water fountain, hung a
home-made plaque that one group of trainees had presented to
the drill sergeant they reviled and respected.
Downstairs, between two long
rows of parallel bunks, was the masterpiece of the barracks —
the red linoleum center aisle. Thanks to the special efforts
of cycle after cycle of trainees, it shone mirror-bright. No
other barracks in Echo Company could hope to match it. As long
as they continued to take care of it and didn’t get gigs for
foolish oversights, the third platoon would always win
inspections. That was a source of pride and confidence —
feelings that were hard to come by in basic training.
Everyone in the platoon took
their boots off at the door, but even in stocking feet no one
in the platoon crossed the yellow lines that defined the
center aisle -- nobody but the chosen few entrusted with
taking care of it.
In this cycle of trainees,
Evans did the buffing upstairs□ The all-important downstairs
floor was in the keeping of Powell. Tagliatti helped him with
the buffer cord. Schneider tended the plug.
At first it had been a
continual annoyance having to walk all the way around to get
to a bunk that was just three feet away across the aisle. But
by now it was second nature. If anyone forgot, there was
always somebody else around to shout a reminder and preserve
the sanctity of the center aisle.
(The screen door slams, and
Beaulieu shuffles in. He’s in his stocking feet and is
obviously tired. The latrine lies to his
right, the staircase straight
ahead, and the downstairs bunkroom stretches out far to his
left. Hathaway is writing letters while stretched out on his
belly on a bunk at the far end. Schneider is on the bunk next
to him.)
BEAULIEU (shouts): Where's
Roberts?
HATHAWAY (shouts back): How
should I know?
BEAULIEU: You're his squad
leader, aren't you?
HATHAWAY: Yeah, but not his
nursemaid.
BEAULIEU: He's got CQ from
four to six.
HATHAWAY: Big deal.
BEAULIEU: Somebody's got to
take it. Shit'll hit the fan if only one guy's on CQ.
HATHAWAY: If you're so
goddamned uptight about it, do it yourself. You can't go
anywhere anyway.
(Hathaway turns away and goes
back to his letter writing.
Beaulieu turns back and steps
toward the door.)
HATHAWAY (shouts, without
looking up): Keep your goddamned feet off that center aisle.
(Beaulieu stops short of the
yellow line, kicks a footlocker, turns and plods and shuffles
behind the bunks.
HATHAWAY (shouts): Pick up
your feet.
(Beaulieu stops, then
continues to shuffle. The screendoor slams again.)
HATHAWAY (mumbles): Goddamned
trouble-maker.
SCHNEIDER: He's only trying
to do right.
HATHAWAY: No, I don't mean
Beaulieu. I mean Roberts. Why the hell'd they ever put
draftees in this company? And why did
they have to stick us with
them?
SCHNEIDER: You know damned
well — they were recycled.
HATHAWAY: Yeah, four fucking
fuck-offs, and we got all of them. (Hathaway keeps writing.
Schneider lifts his huge bulk,
carefully lowers it to the
floor, then waddles quietly behind the bunks, past the stairs
and into the latrine.)
(Inside the latrine. Straight
ahead are the platoon's two washing machines, with dozens of
bags of laundry lined up waiting their turn. Beside them
stretch a row of sinks, leading to the showers. Along the
other walls are urinals and a line of toilets, about two feet
apart, without partitions.
All but one toilet is
occupied, like seats in the reading room at a college library
just before exam time. Although everybody has his pants down
to justify his presence in these plush accommodations, most
are reading books, newspapers, or magazines, or writing
letters home.
Roberts is standing by a
sink, staring at himself in the mirror as he carefully shaves
the top of his head.)
SCHNEIDER: Hey, Roberts,
aren't you supposed to be on CQ? ROBERTS: May be.
SCHNEIDER: Well, what are you
doing then?
ROBERTS: Giving myself a
haircut. Got to look pretty for the sergeant. (He keeps
shaving his head.)
SCHNEIDER: Well, they're
looking for you, Roberts. Don't say I didn't tell you.
ROBERTS: Yeah, everybody's
looking for the old Bob tonight. I got me a date. Got me a
couple of them. I'm going to have me a big night.
SCHNEIDER: You're going to
have big trouble is all, if you don't hightail it over to CQ.
(Schneider lowers himself on the only empty John, between
Tagliatti and Waslewski. Tagliattl is reading a newspaper.)
Hey, Tag, are you through with the sports?
TAGLIATTI: Yeah, but it's
four days old.
SCHNEIDER: Well, that's two
days better than anything I've seen.
(Alec enters the latrine.)
ALEC: Ah, shit.
COHEN: Yeah, Alec, it's a
full house. Maybe you can catch the next show.
ALEC: Bunch of damned
exhibitionists. Got to spend the whole day with your pants
down, in full view of the world.
COHEN: A good crap's one of
the few pleasures allowed us.
ALEC: Then shit and get done
with it. This place looks like a fucking library.
COHEN: I say, sir, are the
libraries like this in Chicago?
ALEC: Get off it, Cohen.
COHEN: When I'm done, I will,
indeed, get off it. But right now that's a bit premature. I
might risk staining this immaculate concrete, the pride of the
third platoon latrine crew.
ALEC: Cut the bull.
COHEN: Me Big Chief Shitting
Bull.
SCHNEIDER: Tag, can you toss
me the toilet paper, please? (He catches it, circus-style, on
his big toe.) Thanks.
(He uses some, then tosses the roll to
Alec and stands up.) Here you go, Alec. It's all yours.
COHEN: Just shit right down
and write yourself a letter.
SHOUT FROM OUTSIDE:
Formation!
ALEC (groans): Ah, shit.
COHEN: No, my boy,
self-control, self-control. That's the first lesson of the
Army. Self-control. Potty-training 101. It's all part of basic
training. We must learn to adapt to the shituation.
ALEC: Well, you don't seem to
have learned it -- with that goddamned diarrhea of the mouth.
(Everyone clears out
quickly.)
(The empty bunkroom, a little
while later.)
FRANK'S VOICE (pre-recorded):
All five platoons of Echo Company lined up quickly on the
exercise field. There were forty-seven men in the third
platoon. Forty-three were National Guard and Reservists — all
white. Four were draftees — all black -- Roberts, Armstrong,
and two new guys, recently recycled, that nobody knew by name.
In the summer of 1970, the
Viet Nam War was being scaled down. Fort Polk, which had been,
as the big welcoming sign still announced, "Birthplace of
combat infantrymen for Viet Nam," was starting to train
National Guardsmen Instead. This was the summer after the
Cambodian Invasion and Kent State.
These trainees came from all
over the country, from all walks of life. They were given
uniform clothes and uniform poverty. Their uniform haircuts
even seemed to wipe out age differences. It was like an
experiment in elemental democracy.
They were a surprisingly
well-educated group. Several had been to grad school. Most had
some college. Most of the rest Intended to go to college as
soon as this was over.
There were no real
trouble-makers in the group. No National Guardsman or
Reservist would want to get into trouble. They Just wanted to
get out of the Army as quickly as possible; and, if nothing
out of the ordinary happened, they'd all be out, after basic
and AIT or MOS training, in two to four months.
An artificial hierarchy had
been imposed on this realm of social equality. The drill
sergeant picked a platoon leader, an assistant platoon leader,
and four squad leaders. It seemed he deliberately chose a
pompous, overweight coward as platoon leader, to teach the
trainees to obey someone Just because of rank, not because of
personal respect. This way they'd be learning to follow the
system, to obey any stranger with rank, rather than a specific
individual.
But the group was so small
that they knew each other too well for artificial distinctions
to matter. When the drill sergeant was around and when they
were with the rest of the company, they observed the forms.
But in the barracks, the platoon leader, Rawlings, was a joke,
an outcast, the victim of repeated practical jokes, a
convenient symbol of hated authority that could be mocked and
mildly abused with impunity.
MacFarland, the assistant
platoon leader, was exempted from fireguard, KP, etc. He had
no responsibilities, and did nothing.
Hathaway, the leader of the
first squad, was the real leader of the platoon. Vassavlon,
Sullivan, and Powell were bigger than he was, but ordering
people came naturally to Hathaway. When something needed to be
done, he took it upon himself to make the decisions that had
to be made. Without debate or hesitation, he simply gave
orders, and he was obeyed or evaded, but never overtly
disobeyed.
Sanderson and little Evans
always backed Hathaway, without his ever having to ask for
help.
Powell was an exception to
every rule. Nobody in the platoon ever told him what to do.
And he never ordered anyone else about, unless they asked his
advice, as they sometimes did, even Hathaway, when the
barracks was a mess and they had little time to get it in
shape for Inspection.
At formation, the Captain of
Echo Company presided as the drill sergeants read their
rosters and checked off the names quickly and mechanically. At
the name "Roberts," several voices sounded off "CQ," and one
voice said "KP." The sergeant moved on to the next name
without a pause. The roll completed, most raced to the mess
hall to line up and wait fo dinner.
(Soldiers enter the
previously empty barracks. Frank Arnold and
Alec head straight to the
latrine. Tagliatti, Waslewski, MacFarland, and Delaney stretch
out on their bunks. Halfway down the aisle, Powell sits on his
bed, his powerful frame bowed, a Bible on his lap.)
WASLEWSKI (spits): Goddamn
piss-assed shit-hole. They treat prisoners of war better than
this. I’d like to shove that Blll-of-Rights crap right up that
mother-fucking drill sergeant's ass.
DELANEY: That's the system
for you. Here we are, supposedly free citizens, and they've
revoked our civil rights and subjected us to this torture
without there ever having been a declaration of war, without
the express consent of Congress.
WASLEWSKI: All I want's a
goddamn beer. It's piss-assed hot, and there's a PX a block
away.
MACFARLAND: Have a drink of
water.
WASLEWSKI: Water? You call
that piss 'water?' All I want's a goddamned beer. Is that too
much to ask?
MACFARLAND: Okay, Waz, okay.
We're all in the same boat. You don't have to remind us.
TAGLIATTI: I don't see how
that Sanderson does it, running laps in this heat.
WASLEWSKI: He's nuts.
TAGLIATTI: He thrives on this
shit.
WASLEWSKI: That's what I
said: he's nuts.
MACFARLAND: Good thing that
Dietz can’t count. Sounded awful funny three guys on CQ."
WASLEWSKI: And somebody
claimed he was on KP, too.
DELANEY: Where the hell is
Roberts?
WASLEWSKI (licking his lips):
Maybe he just slipped over to the PX for a beer.
TAGLIATTI: Yeah if nobody
sees him, it'll be all right.
MACFARLAND: Don't anybody
tell Rawlings. That bastard would turn him in.
WASLEWSKI: Here comes
Rawlings.
(Everybody but Powell leaves
in a hurry.)
RAWLINGS (laughs, weakly):
They sure got hungry fast. (Powell smiles, then goes back to
reading his Bible. Rawlings looks like he wants to say more,
but he turns to the water fountain instead, takes a swallow,
and spits it out.) The water ought to get cool while
everybody's at supper. It needs a rest. We all need a rest.
(Inside the latrine, twenty
minutes later, Vassavlon comes staggering in, leaning on
Waslewski.)
VASSAVION (announces to
himself in the mirror) : At great personal risk, and
exercising considerable self-restraint, I have brought you a
six-pack — six bright, sparkling, lukewarm, unopened,
certified virgin cans of Schlitz. (Waslewski grabs a can.)
Drink up, my boy, drink up. I feel the thirst coming on me.
Man lives not by bread alone. Give me one of those cans. Booze
and broads — it takes taste, refinement, and years of
education to properly wallow in such shit. You must be a
connoisseur, a kind of sewer. They have fine sewers in this
city, full of certified grade A, government-inspected shit.
The whole world is shit. But few are those with taste refined
enough to enjoy it, to savor the taste, the odor, the warm
moist feel of it. Shit. (He throws down his half-empty can.)
It tastes like shit. Lukewarm diarrhetic shit." (He stumbles
to one of the empty johns and vomits). I do believe my
constipation is over. Now I can even shit through my mouth.
WASLEWSKI (opens the last
can): You lucky bastard. I'd give my right ball to get out of
this place.
(Tagliatti enters, carrying
his four-day-old newspaper.)
TAGLIATTI: Where's Evans?
VASSAVION: Evans? He was with
me a minute ago. While I was painting the town, he was looking
for paint. The man has the soul of an artist.
(Rawlings enters in the
latrine and nearly trips over a beer can.)
VASSAVION (greets Rawlings
magnificently): Welcome, Prince Hal.
RAWLINGS: You're drunk.
VASSAVION: Then be ye crowned
king already? A hollow crown and an empty noodle, 'tis true
'tls pity, and pity 'tis 'tis you.
RAWLINGS: You're drunk.
VASSAVION: Amen. And hallowed
be thy name. And hollowed be thy head. Howl, howl, howl, the
beer is foul. A foul ball. We had a ball, and the beer was
foul. Out of line, your highness, most definitely out of line.
But I'll go straight from honest to goodness. Just don't 'arry
me, me boy; I'll do it at me own speed.
RAWLINGS (while pissing Into
a urinal); Please stay out of sight. (Rawlings quickly buttons
up his fatigues and leaves.)
VASSAVION (shakes his head):
I do believe the old boy's pissed off. He has no sense of
humor, no sense at all.
(The bunkroom. As Rawlings
quietly climbs the stairs, Delaney, Armstrong, Alec, and Cohen
storm in and gather by the water fountain.)
DELANEY: Okay, Armstrong,
where's Roberts? You're his bunkmate. You should know.
ARMSTRONG: Said he was going
home.
DELANEY: Home? Is something
wrong at home? Somebody sick or something? He should have told
somebody. They'd call the Red Cross and have them check it
out. If it was really bad, they'd give him a pass.
ARMSTRONG: Nobody's sick. He
said nothing about being sick. Just said he was going home.
ALEC: Freedom. Delaney, you
talk a lot about freedom. Well, there's your fucking freedom.
He wants to go, so he goes. And what can they do to him? Send
him to Nam? He's fucking eleven bang-bang. Fucking mortars.
He's going to Nam all right. No place but Nam. There's your
fucking freedom — being so low you've got nothing to lose.
COHEN: That's fucking
profound, Alec. (Cohen starts to sing softly.) "Freedom's just
another word for nothing left to lose ..."
DELANEY: Is he coming back?
Did he say he was coming back?
ARMSTRONG: He'll be back.
When he's good and ready, he'll be back.
ALEC: He's got thirty days. I
heard a hold-over talking about it. One of
the ones waiting for court-martial. Thirty days and you're
still AWOL. But one minute more, and you're a deserter, and
they'll have the FBI after you.
DELANEY: Fuck the FBI. These
days there are so many deserters the FBI can't hope to touch
them. But when the drill sergeant finds out that Roberts is
gone, he'll have the whole lot of us low-crawling from one end
of the company area to the other. And we can forget about ever
getting PX privileges or passes. Shit. I can't take five more
weeks of this fucking hell-hole.
ALEC: You're not going to rat
on him, are you, Delaney?
DELANEY: Hell, no. What's to
gain by ratting on him? As soon as they know he's AWOL, we've
had it. But if we can cover it up till he gets back, we'll be
all right.
ALEC: That little bastard.
DELANEY: How long do you
figure he'll be, Armstrong?
ARMSTRONG: Don't know. But I
do know that Jackson, Mississippi's a long ways from here. And
he don't have no money.
COHEN: Shit almighty.
(In the latrine, a little
while later. Frank is alone, sitting on a John, writing in a
notebook. His tape-recorded voice in the background reads what
he is writing.)
FRANK’S VOICE: Delaney is a
self-centered ass. He talks about principles, but he has none
himself. What he says is unrelated to what he does. If he
thought he could get anything out of it, he wouldn’t hesitate
to turn Roberts In. But what bugs me most is that he wouldn't
bother to rationalize it. He'd just do it and keep making the
same speeches about freedom and human rights.
When I first got here, I
thought I'd found moral simplicity. The world was reduced to
just this barracks and the barren sandy ground around it. We
were all confronted with direct and simple rules and orders:
you obey or disobey; you cross the line or you don't; you are
forced to act — to submit or rebel — in full knowledge of the
immediate consequences. The setup was artificial, but it
resembled a scientific experiment — take away all class
distinctions; and, in a limited, controlled environment,
examine human nature. But there's nothing natural about
Delaney — his words and his acts simply don't match.
(The door slams and stocking
feet slowly shuffle toward the bunkroom. A little while later,
Beaulieu enters the the latrine with pen and paper in hand. He
sits on a john across from Frank and writes a letter to his
wife Debbie.)
BEAULIEU'S VOICE
(pre-recorded): Dear Debbie,
I just got off CQ. It's a bit
early, but Sullivan can cover for me, say I'm at supper. Damn
that Roberts. He'd never cover for me, you can be damn sure.
But I had to cover for him or we'd all have been screwed.
That's the way they work things here: everybody gets punished
for what one guy does.
But Roberts doesn't give a
damn. With no sweat at all, he got perfect scores in all the
PT events but the mile. The mile he did in ten minutes,
Jogging and walking beside Schneider. Poor Schneider was
huffing and struggling every inch of the way, his heavy lard
bouncing up and down and nearly throwing him off balance. And
there was Roberts taking his Jolly good time, laughing and
Joking. The drill sergeant blew his top; put Roberts on night
KP for a week. I'm sure he didn't go. He Just doesn't give a
damn, the bastard.
I'm still sore all over.
Never thought I'd live through it.
We had those damned plague
shots the day before, and I could have sworn I couldn't move
my arm or swallow any food. But the bastards had us out there
doing another PT test and laughed at our moans and groans;
wouldn't let anybody go on sick call, the bastards
Needless to say, I didn't do
well. And they'll probably have me doing extra PT all week
because of it.
Damn those bars. I can do the
bars. Enough of them, at least. If you give me half a chance.
But that first time, they took us to a field where the rusty
bars spun free so you couldn't get a grip on them, and they
ripped your hands apart. Mine had Just healed by yesterday,
and then they got ripped open again on another stinking set of
bars. Nobody could do them right, not even the guys who show
off back at the company area. Nobody, that is, but that
bastard Roberts and that runt Evans .
Everything’s topsy-turvy
here. It’s the big guys that are hurting, guys like Hathaway,
Sullivan, and Vassavion — the football player types.
Waslewski, too. They're strong all right, but they've got a
lot of weight to lift, and they have to struggle to pass that
damned test. And, of course, the fat ones, like Schneider,
take a beating.
It's the little guys that
have it easy. That runt Evans got a 490 on the PT test. Just
missed a little on the grenade throw and the rifle, or his
score would have been perfect. It doesn't take any muscle to
squeeze a trigger.
So Evans came out tops. He
and Vassavion. Evans with ease and Vassavion in agony. They
got the first two passes. They just got back. Late. Little
Evans was leading the lumbering Vassavion. We covered for
them, all right. It's hard to get mad at them. Vassavion's so
magnificent in his drunkenness. I've never seen him in better
spirits. And Evans was lucky to have gotten him back so close
to on time.
That Evans is quite a guy.
Like a monkey the way he swings through those bars. Delaney
nearly exploded when he heard the runt was getting a pass. I
forget what he said exactly, but somehow it was an example of
the absolute injustice of the system, the topsy-turviness of
rewarding the weak and tearing down the strong. However he put
it, it hit home — how they're breaking us in mind and body,
reducing us all to a general anonymous mass of weaklings. And
something about runts being in collusion with them, being
taken in and used. He says that's how the system perpetuates
itself — putting runts and cowards in positions of authority,
people who know damned well that their authority comes to them
not for any merit of their own, but just because of the
system.
Listening to Delaney, I found
myself hating little Evans and Rawlings, too. Rawlings isn’t a
runt. On the contrary, he’s just as big and has just as much
trouble at PT as Waslewski and Sullivan. I guess I lump him
together with Evans because he’s so self-effacing, so meek and
retiring that you never notice his size. You naturally think
of him as a weakling or a coward.
I’ve got nothing personal
against Evans or Rawlings, but the frustration and anger and
hurt and sleeplessness all build up. And all the groveling in
the dirt. You've got to let it out sometimes. It’s easy for
you to focus all that hate on somebody, almost at random, to
take it out on him. And Delaney has such a way with words.
I'm glad Hathaway was around
then. Hathaway treats Evans like a kid brother, joshes him,
knocks him around a bit, and looks out for him. I'm glad
Hathaway was there then, or I might have taken a
not-so-frlendly poke at the kid.
(Sanderson enters. He sits
down on a john and stares off into space.)
BEAULIEU'S VOICE (continues
after a brief pause): Here comes Sanderson. He takes it all in
stride, as if this were pre-season football training, or as if
all his life he'd wanted to break the five-minute mile in
combat boots. When they pack a hundred or a hundred and twenty
of us in a school bus or cattle truck and the rest of us are
groaning, Sanderson coaxes Cohen to start up a song, and he
sings with all his heart and lungs. And, God, he has quite a
set of heart and lungs from all that running.
It's a crazy world, Deb, that
makes such crazy places as this, reducing men to chunks of
sweating, aching flesh. Even trying to shit hurts. If you were
here, or, rather, if you were near and I could see you, sleep
with you, it would be tolerable. With you, I could tolerate
most anything. We could just lie there and laugh about it.
This shit should never be taken seriously. It's just one huge
practical joke. I'm sure that's the way the drill sergeants
take it — like a fraternity initiation. Cohen manages to see
it that way too, manages to bring out the humor in things.
But it's degrading. The only
way to release all this pressure, aside from taking a poke at
somebody (which would land you with an Article Fifteen or a
court martial and get you recycled and stuck in this damned
army another month or two) is to masturbate. There's just no
other way, and it's so damned degrading. In a barracks full of
guys, the bunks no more than three feet apart, the firelight
on all the time, the fireguard pacing back and forth, and
somebody else in the upper bunk getting shaken by your every
move. And you try to do it quietly, as unobtrusively as
possible — one hell of a way to get a release, lying there
stock-still, squeezing yourself with a sheet; but it works,
after a fashion.
The imagination takes charge,
and I'm far, far from here, this place never existed, and I'm
holding you so warm and close. Damn it, I'm horny as hell, and
it'll be at least three months before I see you again. You
can't Imagine what this place does to a guy. I think of you
constantly, whenever we get a five minute break, and I can
lean against a tree and shut my eyes (they won't let us
stretch out, ever), or even running laps around the block at 5
AM, before breakfast, and the thought of you gets me away from
this place, and it's something to look forward to — the next
moment when I'll be able to let my mind drift to you.
Or maybe it's the body that
does the remembering. Our minds have been reduced to pulp by
no sleep, maybe four hours at most. (As Delaney points out, a
soldier is entitled to eight hours of sleep. But the drill
sergeants always cover for themselves. Officially it's always
eight hours from lights-out to lights-on. Officially, it's our
own doing if we don't get enough sleep. But there's always a
half dozen chores that still need to be done after lights-out.
And then they wake you up for fire guard or CQ, and you have
to break the rules again, getting up an hour before lights-on
to clean the barracks or we'd never make it through
inspection).
Without sleep, the mind loses
the power to control what it's thinking, to tie thoughts
together by anything more than simple association. It becomes
a passive inert mass.
It’s the body that does the
remembering. My muscles stop aching as they remember your
shape, the pressure of you close to me, the texture of your
skin, the delightful, unexpected ways you move. My eye muscles
relive with my hands the fullness of your breasts. I remember
directly, completely, not like before, the electric touch of
your fingers, the playful flip of your tongue, the way you
toss back your head to toss back your hair, your buttocks as
you climb the stairs ahead of me (that's why it's always
ladies first -- so men can watch them as they move), your long
legs rubbing softly against mine.
Damn it. I want you. I ache
for you. These aches have nothing to do with ten mile hikes
and PT and lying prone in the dust and the 90° sun for endless
hours. No, it's my every muscle longing to be with you,
straining to break away from these stupid bones and rush home
to you. These bones are so stupid. This mind is so stupid.
This nation is so stupid for having Invented such a thing as
basic training. How could anybody or anything ever sanction
anything that might keep me away from you? My body can't
understand. But here I sit and shit and write you endless
letters.
My bunkmate, Frank, is on the
john here across from me. There are no partitions. He's
writing too. Maybe it's a letter. He doesn't talk much to me.
Hangs around with that Delaney character. But I know he
probably feels the same as I do. I can feel the bed shake at
night. That's not nightmares.
We're all reduced to a common
denominator.
It may well be that in the
real world this Frank is an intelligent guy, but here he
spends his every free moment sitting on the john, shitting and
writing. I guess it’s diarrhea of the mind. Everything here
seems to get diarrhea on Sunday. That's the only time we can
afford the luxury.
I slept till noon, shat till
two, had CQ till four, filled in for that damned Roberts till
5:40, and now I'm shitting again. It's been a luxurious day of
self-indulgence. But in about two and a half hours the lights
will go out, even though it's still light outside. And we'll
all toddle obediently to bed. And it'll all begin again.
Damn it. I need you. My body
needs you. The pulp that was my mind needs you. Hell.
You know how I always bitch
to you and get it out of my system, then I forget it as we
laugh together. It's great the way you make me realize what a
fool I am for bitching all the time. You'd hate me the way I
am now. I hate myself the way I am now. I can't even write you
a decent letter. All I do is write about the shit around me.
But damn it, darling, I'm caught up in this shit. All those
stupid rules they threw at us five weeks ago are now a part of
me. I take this nonsense seriously. My joys, fears, hopes, and
miseries all stem from this world they've thrown me in.
Somehow Sanderson and maybe Powell (I don't know much about
Powell) have managed to keep living in their own worlds. But
my world has been torn down.
My body remembers your every
move vividly, but it's hard for me to Imagine the world we
used to live In. It’s all unreal and far away. The only world
I've got Is this shit. And I hate this shit. And I hate myself
for letting myself be reduced to this.
Damn it. I love you and miss
you, and I'm sorry this is the way I write and the way I
think, but they've done it to me, damn it. They've reduced me
to this. When I get back it'll be different, and I'll be
different. And I'll be able to forget all this and go back to
being me — whoever that was. But wherever I am and whoever I
am, I love you.
(Waslewski tumbles into the
latrine, picks up the empty beer cans, pours the few remaining
drops down his throat, then absent-mindedly crushes the cans
in his hand, as if they were paper cups .)
WASLEWSKI (bellows); Evans,
would you believe that Evans? Never so much as tasted a beer.
A weekend pass. Thirty-two hours of freedom. That runt had
thirty-two hours in the land of bars and brothels, and he
spent it chasing after paint so he can pretty up the barracks.
What a waste.
BEAULIEU (looks up from his
letter) Paint?
WASLEWSKI: Yeah. And that
ain't the half of it. You know what color he got?
BEAULIEU: What?
WASLEWSKI: Yellow.
BEAULIEU: What the hell can
he paint yellow?
WASLEWSKI: The lines. The
fucking lines for the center aisle. Those fucking lines we're
not supposed to step over. He wants to repaint them so they'll
be nice and neat and pretty. He thinks It'll be worth bonus
points for inspection. Bonus points. God, that runt's out of
his ever-fucking mind.
(Waslewski trips on a laundry
bag, then sits down on it and stretches out on the long line
of laundry bags, swallowing the last drop of the last can with
a cherubic grin on his face.
(The bunkroom. Hathaway,
Schneider, Delaney, and others are on their bunks. The
screendoor slams, and Alec walks in.)
HATHAWAY: Take your damned
boots off.
ALEC: Don't be a pain in the
ass. It's Sunday. Cool it.
HATHAWAY: I don't give a damn
if it's Doomsday. Take off those fucking boots.
SCHNEIDER (gently
persuading): Go ahead, Alec. We all do it.
HATHAWAY (snarls): And get
your damned foot off that center aisle. What do you think you
are? Special or something? If everybody else can walk around,
you can too."
(The barracks door slams
again. Rawlings enters.)
RAWLINGS: Where's Roberts?
Has anybody seen Roberts? He isn't on CQ.
DELANEY: KP. Remember. He got
night KP for a week.
(Rawlings heads upstairs.)
ACT
II, SCENE 3
(The latrine. Frank,
Beaulieu, and Sanderson are still on the johns. Delaney is
sitting on a washing machine. Waslewski is sitting on a stack
of laundry bags. Alvardo comes in, kicks aside a crushed beer
can, and takes a look at the washing machine.)
ALVARDO (shouts): Sullivan!
Sullivan!
BEAULIEU: He’s still on CQ.
ALVARDO: Then fuck him. I've
got to get this wash done tonight.
DELANEY: Cool it, buster. My
bag's ahead of yours.
ALVARDO: Fuck. All my
fatigues stink. The sweat's been fermenting on them for weeks.
Sometimes I think they're more alive than I am.
DELANEY: Well, don't blame Lt
on me. Mine stink just as much as yours do. It's the fucking
system's fault, giving us one washer for forty-seven stinking
guys.
BEAULIEU: When I get out of
here, I'm going to write a book about this shit-hole.
FRANK (looks up from his
notebook): Just remember not to make a big deal about all
this. It isn't like we've got a bad deal. Afterall, we're
Reservists and National Guard. It isn't like we're going to be
shipped to Nam. We aren't that low in hell. We all have homes
and jobs or school we expect to get back to in a few months.
We've got to be careful because we've got something to lose.
This isn't your usual basic training."
DELANEY: Yeah, we've got it
easy. The system has given us a few advantages, and we've
taken them, so we've got a stake in the system. We don't have
as much of a stake as the runts and cowards, but we can be
counted on not to shout too loud, not to be too violent.
That’s how the system perpetuates Itself — by giving us things
we'd be afraid to part with. We have to be willing to lose
everything, to destroy everything, if we ever hope to attain
freedom.
That’s what’s holding us
here, you know — our little compromises with the system. There
aren't any walls or armed guards -- just imaginary lines. One
step beyond the line from this tree to this building and
you're AWOL. One step over that yellow line into the center
aisle and...
We don't worry about the
drill sergeant anymore. It isn’t a question of what he’d do to
us. We’ve Internalized it all. We react automatically. It’s
like they took out our minds and replaced them with machines.
Or rather, we did it to ourselves so we could be good little
boys without having to think about it. We form ’good habits,’
like good little boys.
(Waslewski casually crushes
the last beer can, raises himself from the laundry bags, and
stumbles out of the latrine toward his bunk.)
(The bunkroom. Hathaway,
Powell, and others are on their bunks. Waslewski enters and
nearly bumps into Alec and Evans by the water fountain.)
ALEC (to Evans): What the
hell's this paint crap?
EVANS: If you’ve got to play
the game, why not play to win?
ALEC: God, I don't see how
you can take this crap seriously.
EVANS: But I don't So they
say, don't cross that line. What the hell should I care? Do I
really need to cross that line? Hell no. If it were something
important, that would be different. But this is all nonsense.
So why not play along and beat them at their own game?
ALEC: Don't you have any
guts? You just buckle under and do everything they tell you.
Don't you have any self-respect? Damn it, why don't you stand
up for yourself sometime. Rebel.
EVANS: Rebel? What the hell
for, Alec? Why the hell should you want to walk there? Why
make a big deal of it? It only takes a minute to walk around.
If they're dumb enough to want to make a rule about it, okay —
humor them a bit. If you see it as a game and get into the
swing of it, you can have some fun, instead of just griping
all the time. You sound like you want to break rules just
because they are rules. Whatever anybody said not to do, you'd
want to do it. There's nothing more childish.
ALEC: Whatever anybody said
to do, you'd do it. There's nothing more childish.
EVANS: Hell, Alec, get the
old team spirit. With freshly painted lines, we'll be sure to
win the Monday Inspection by a wide enough margin to win for
the week. That'll give us three weeks we've won and two ties.
One more win after that, and we'll have clinched the barracks
competition. The second platoon will probably take the PT
competition. But we have a good shot at the rifle and the G3,
and a damn good chance to come out best overall platoon.
ALEC: Maybe you've got a
stronger stomach than me. Maybe you can eat more shit than I
can without getting sick. Maybe you can even learn to love
eating shit. But I've reached my limit. Just one bit more and
I'll... I'll..."
EVANS: Gripe some more?
(Alec clenches his fist,
glances toward Hathaway's bunk, leans over the water fountain,
takes a swallow, spits it out with a grimace, and stomps to
the latrine, sliding a bit in his stocking feet.)
(Rawlings' and MacFarland's
room, upstairs.) Rawlings sits up in his bunk, and stretches
his arms. There is too much noise in the barracks to sleep,
even with the door to this room shut. It is so loud that it
would be easy to believe that the other soldiers are yelling
and stomping about on purpose to annoy Rawlings. Rawlings
takes paper and pen and writes a letter.)
RAWLINGS' VOICE
(pre-recorded): Dear Madeline,
I know it must seem funny
getting these letters from me .
Sure we parted as 'friends.'
I haven't forgotten. There's no way I could forget it. But you
have no idea what it's like here, what hell it is. I need
someone to write to, someone to dream of. Just to keep my
sanity, I need it. Please let me delude myself a bit. Please
don't keep hitting me over the head with a sledge-hammer.
Afterall, how can either of us know what things will be like
in three months? People change. Just let me believe there
might be a chance.
Sometimes I regret ever
having gotten myself into this mess. I should have paid some
dentist to put braces on my teeth and avoided the military
altogether. But I've always planned to go into politics after
law school. I hate the Army. I know there's no moral
justification for Nam. But to get elected to a position of
authority so I can do something to prevent future Nams, I have
to have served in the military. It's one of the unfortunate
facts of politics, one of the compromises that have to be
made.
There's nobody here I can
talk to, except maybe Powell. And there are very few occasions
I feel free to talk to Powell.
The rest of the platoon hates
me for not standing up to the drill sergeant, for not voicing
their wants and opinions. They have little direct contact with
him or with the senior drill except for receiving commands.
They have little notion of what those sergeants are like, how
they think and react, how you have to deal with them.
Friday night while I was
sleeping, someone sprayed shaving cream in my open mouth.
They've played pranks before, but that one shook me up. I
might have smothered to death or gone into shock. I think it
was MacFarland, the assistant platoon leader who shares this
small room with me. It took so long to wake him that he must
have been faking that he was asleep. It gives me a creepy
feeling knowing that the guy I've been living so close to
could do such a thing.
I've been on my guard since
then. So many of them have it in for me. Delaney, especially,
hates me; and he makes no attempt to disguise it. I wouldn't
trust Alec or Waslewski either.
There's no way for me to find
out who got me with the shaving cream. I'm sure all the others
know who did it, but none of them would tell me. I knew they
wouldn't and that it would be best not to say anything. If
they thought they'd gotten my goat, it would encourage them to
do more of the same. So I pulled myself together, told
MacFarland — 'It was nothing, go back to sleep, just some
practical joke.'
Then at Saturday morning's
Inspection I got a gig for shaving cream on my bedpost. I
hadn't noticed it. If I'd told the drill sergeant how it got
there, he'd have made trouble for everybody. He's had it in
for me lately. I've gotten several gigs — just little things
I'd absent-mindedly overlooked, like forgetting to hang a
towel at the base of the bed or not displaying a laundry bag.
It’s bad enough when we don't win an inspection, (he'd put
anybody with a gig on night KP for a week), but when the
platoon leader gets gigged, he blows his top.
He's been riding me for not
being more strict, for not asserting my authority, for not
giving him the names of slackers so he can punish them. He
claims there's no excuse for me getting a gig, that I should
have two or three of the others make my bed, straighten my
area, check and recheck. But
I can't see burdening the
others with my problems. They've got little enough time to do
their own work.
Anyway, the sergeant has
clearly reached his limit. If anything more goes wrong, no
matter how minor, there's no telling what torture he might put
us all through.
(The bunkroom. Hathaway and
others are on their bunks. Delaney and Beaulieu stand near the
water fountain. The screen door slams. Sullivan enters.)
SULLIVAN (shouts): Has
anybody seen Roberts?
DELANEY (whispers): Keep it
down. He's AWOL, but he might come back. If Rawlings hears
about it, he'll rat on him and we'll all get screwed.
SULLIVAN: But what if he
doesn't come back? We can't cover for him forever, and it's a
serious offense if they find out we've been covering for him.
DELANEY (whispers): Cool it.
Just cool it. (He turns to Beaulieu and speaks louder.) What
were you just saying Beaulieu?
BEAULIEU: Just that somewhere
there's got to be a good place to live, where you can really
be yourself.
DELANEY: No, don't kid
yourself. It's Catch-22. The world of business and the world
of the army. Milo Minderbinder runs the whole show. The army's
just a big business, an equal opportunity employer — with all
the bureaucracy and waste and impersonal cruelty of a big
business.
Read the papers, man. They
want junior officers for management positions. The foremen are
no different from old sergeants. They are sucked in by the
gradual increments in pay, the pension plans, and all that
crap.
From the outside, the Army
looks like a bunch of guys who shoot and get shot at. But from
the inside it's padded with bureaucrats trapped in a web of
slowly accruing benefits. All you've got to do to be able to
cash in your chips at age 65 is cover your ass. You never have
to do anything that might tax your mind or your energy. Just
never make a blunder without covering up for it.
The whole setup breeds
paranoids, security-hungry paranoids spending all their time
trying to divest themselves of responsibility, following the
letter of the regulations and passing the papers to the next
desk. It's dangerous to make a decision. Any change is
dangerous, shifting the rhythm of covering up activities. You
might miss something.
The Army's probably the most
conservative institution in the world. It has carried the
Inherent tendencies of big business to their natural extreme.
It's the epitome of business.
If you feel crushed and
oppressed here, if you feel they've torn down your world and
thrown you naked and helpless into a world of their making,
well, it's just a model of what goes on out there -- what
you're going to go back to.
(Rawlings'
and MacFarland's room upstairs. As Rawlings is licking and
sealing the envelope, he glances down at the floor beside his
bed. His boots are missing -- his second pair of boots, the
ones that he never weaers, the ones with the special glossy
shine for inspections, the ones that every morning he has to
remember to dust off or he'd get a gig.
He stands up suddenly, drops
the letter on his bunk, gets down on his belly and crawls
under the bed. He reaches again and again through empty space.
He checks MacFarland's boots.
They have MacFarland's name tag.
He checks under MacFarland's
bed.
He checks his own wall
locker.
MacFarland's wall locker is
locked.
He checks his footlocker. He
knows the boots couldn't be there, but he checks under the
underwear he's never worn, so carefully rolled for Inspection.
He checks under the handkerchiefs he's never used, behind the
shaving cream, under the razor he's never used, under the
shaving brush that he wouldn't even know how to use.
He can't find his boots.)
RAWLINGS (bellows): Where the
hell are my boots?
(The whole barracks falls
silent. Rawlings stands at the top of the stairs as half a
dozen puzzled trainees gather below.)
RAWLINGS: This has gone far
enough. I want my boots back.
(More soldiers gather at the
foot of the stairs to hear him.)
RAWLINGS (his voice is
getting shrill): Where are they?
TAGLIATTI: Where are what?
RAWLINGS: My boots, you fool.
TAGLIATTI: On your fucking
feet. Why didn't you leave them at the door like the rest of
us?
(Everybody but Rawlings
breaks out laughing. Attracted by the laughter, the crowd
grows larger. Rawlings slowly and deliberately comes down the
stairs.
RAWLINGS: Where the hell is
MacFarland?
MACFARLAND: Right here, Fats.
(A few soldiers laugh.)
RAWLINGS: Well, give them to
me.
MACFARLAND: What?
RAWLINGS (stands face to face
with MacFarland. The rest of the platoon crowds close around.)
The boots. Give me the fucking boots!
(MacFarland stares him hard
in the eye. Rawlings starts shifting his weight from foot to
foot and clenching and unclenching his fists .)
WASLEWSKI (shouts, mockingly
from outside on the front steps, where all the boots are
left): Give him boots! The boss wants boots!
(Suddenly, a hall of boots
come flying through the door at Rawlings. One hits him hard on
the side of the head. He loses his balance and falls backward.
Rather than catch him or cushion his fall, the crowd moves
back. His back hits the floor. His head hits the bottom step.
He grabs the banister and pulls himself to a sitting position
on the stairs.)
RAWLINGS: Where are my boots?
COHEN (shouts mockingly): I
bet Roberts has them.
ALEC: Or maybe the boots have
Roberts.
COHEN (shouts): Yeah, I hear
the boots went AWOL and took Roberts with them.
RAWLINGS: Just where is
Roberts, anyway? (He pulls himself to his feet and tries to
reassert his authority.) Where is he?
(Cohen starts humming the
tune "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.")
WASLEWSKI (whispers): Yeah,
man, he's free, free as a bird.
VASSAVION (shouts): Down with
the king! Give me liberty, or give me MacBeth!
RAWLINGS: Shut up!
VASSAVION: Now is the summer
of our discontent.
RAWLINGS (shoves Vassavlon
while shouting at him): I said -- shut up!
(Vassavlon shoves back.
Rawlings shoves Hathaway by mistake. Hathaway swings wildly.
Rawlings ducks and rams his shoulder into Hathaway's belly.
Waslewskl punches Rawlings in the back. Rawlings falls,
swinging his legs wildly, tripping Vassavion, Hathaway and
Waslewski. They all roll and slide onto the sacred center
aisle.-
The whole platoon gathers
round, standing and leaning on the bunks, watching the fight.
They are a mob ready to erupt, to release its pent-up hate and
fear and frustration on this
petty platoon leader.
Delaney jumps up on a
footlocker and raises high a fist, like a lightning rod.)
DELANEY (shouts): Power to
the people!
MANY: Power!
OTHERS: Power!
DELANEY: Down with all pigs!
MANY: Right on!
VOICE IN THE CROWD (mumbles):
Kill the fucking bastard.
(Many laugh nervously.
Rawlings tries to stand up, is tripped by Waslewskl. Hathaway
dives on top of Rawlings, pinning arms with knees, and starts
slapping his face back and forth, harder and harder.)
VOICE IN THE CROWD: Give him
one for me!
ANOTHER VOICE: And for me.
ANOTHER: And me.
COHEN: Give him one for the
Gipper!
(Everyone laughs, so Cohen
continued, clapping his hands.)
COHEN: Go team, go!
CROWD TOGETHER: Push him
back, push him back, way back.
(Cohen grabs two of the many
boots lying on the floor, pulls them on untied, and starts
jumping and dancing like a cheerleader. DELANEY: Power!
CROWD TOGETHER: Power!
(Vassavlon stumbles to his
feet, waving his arms drunkenly.)
VASSAVION (yells): For mine
is the power and the glory!
CROWD TOGETHER: Go get him,
Vass!
VOICE IN THE CROWD: Give him
that boot he wanted.
ANOTHER VOICE (throwing a
boot):"give him this one!
(Vassavlon pulls the boot on
his right foot, and stands, unsteadily between Rawlings'
spread-eagled legs, his toe near Rawlings' crotch.)
VOICE IN THE CROWD: Give him
a Vass-ectomy.
(Suddenly, the room is quiet,
except the slap of palm against cheek, as Hathaway keep
hitting Rawlings, mechanically and rhythmically. Everyone
watches, both hoping and fearing that Vassavlon -- the drunken
giant with the boot — will kick. The quiet becomes
oppressive.)
COHEN (chants loudly): Hold
that line! Hold that line!
(When no one responds to his
attempt to get attention, Cohen takes three running steps and
slides heels-first down the center aisle, tumbling into
Waslewski, who knocks over Vassavlon. He leaves a long ugly
gash down the middle of the floor.)
DELANEY (shouts, raising his
hands high): The time has come!
(The attention of the crowd
focuses on Delaney.) The time has come! Now we must...
(Suddenly, he is lifted high
in the air by Powell who grabs him from behind by the seat of
the pants, and dangles him, like a rag doll, over the center
aisle.
DELANEY (gasps): Help!
POWELL (softly, but firmly):
Enough.
(Powell tosses Delaney on the
floor, like throwing a bag of garbage in a dumpster. Hathaway
stands up. Schneider helps Rawlings get back on his feet.
Delaney, crouches by a footlocker.)
DELANEY (murmurs quietly and
cautiously): I told you so. I told you about the system...
(The screendoor slams. A
squad leader from second platoon enters .)
SQUAD LEADER: Half an hour
till lights out! (Silence falls. Pause.) God. What the hell
happened?
HATHAWAY: Nothing, buddy.
Nothing at all. Just turn yourself around and get the hell out
of here.
SQUAD LEADER: God, looks like
you had an explosion or an orgy. Somebody sabotage the place
or something?
HATHAWAY (roars): Get your
goddamned boots off that center aisle .
SQUAD LEADER: You've got to
be kidding. There's nothing I could do to it that hasn't been
done already. Whoever did that sure did a hell of a job. Was
it the first platoon? Did they sabotage you? It sure is a
break for us. You guys used to be unbeatable. But believe me,
it wasn't us, who did it.
(Hathaway picks up the squad
leader by the shoulder of his fatigues .)
SQUAD LEADER: Okay, okay, I'm
going. It wasn't me that did it. You don't have to take it out
on me.
(The screendoor slams behind
him.)
ACT
III, SCENE 2
(Bunkroom. Quiet, subdued,
without anyone having to give the orders, the soldiers push
the bunks back to the walls and get on with their chores.
Powell, Schneider, Tag, and three others get on their hands
and knees rubbing a new coat of wax on the floor, while Evans
carefully repaints the yellow lines.
Frank and the latrine crew
start to work on the Johns and urinals.
MacFarland keeps washing and
rewashing the same clean, easily reachable windowpane, Just
trying to look busy. Now and then he glances about guiltily;
and when he thinks someone is looking, he makes a show of
putting tremendous effort into the cleaning of that one clean
windowpane.
Alec, Alvardo, and Delaney go
to work on the stairs with toothbrushes, scrubbing away at the
corners and crevices. Delaney looks weary. There is a bad
bruise under his left eye. It is swelling.)
ALEC (whines): Those damned
shitheads have closed off the latrine again. One damned urinal
and one damned John is all they ever leave us. Shit. When I
have to shit, I have to shit.
DELANEY (mutters): That’s the
system for you. They have barracks Inspections theoretically
for the sake of hygiene. But in the Army, what matters is the
looks, not the facts — Just what can be neatly filled in on an
official form. That latrine will be clean. It'll be spotless.
But to keep it as spotless as we have to, we can only use it
half the time. The rest of the time we've got to go piss under
the trees.
There's no place on the
official form to indicate whether the latrine Is used or not
or to indicate the level of the stench out there under the
trees. So we pollute the one bit of shade where we can rest
for a break, and we end up sitting on our own piss.
They told us to keep the
latrine spotless. That's how the system works. We wind up
seeming to do this to ourselves. And we are, afterall, guilty
— guilty of going along with the game, playing by their rules.
And every time we do, we wind up sitting In our own piss.
ALEC: That's sounds fine,
Delaney. But let's face It — we all can't be Roberts. We were
born comfortable, and we're going to want to stay comfortable.
We sold our souls long ago. And cheap, too, goddamn it. Of the
whole bunch of us, only Roberts is free .
(Rawlings is alone in his
room upstairs. He tends to his wound, to try to make the
scratches and bruises as inconspicuous as possible. His
display boots have miraculously reappeared, with a few minor
scuffs. They sit on top of his bed. He buffs them
meticulously.)
RAWLINGS' VOICE
(pre-recorded): At least the boots are back — the damned
boots, the blessed boots, the useless, never-to-be-worn boots,
the boots that are Just for show. So much of this Army routine
is just for show. So much of life is Just for show. Just or
unjust — the show Is real. Is
anything else real?
I wish I could remember that
poem now, that poem I wrote last May in frustration at
Cambodia and Kent State. I wish I could have remembered it,
could have recited it before, to let the other guys know that
I feel the same frustrations they do, that I'm one with them,
not with the system, that I want to be one of them.
I have to clear my head, to
pull myself together. I’d like to be able to think again like
a rational human being, to be a college student among college
students. This complex and baffling world was painted in such
bright colors — right and wrong, good and evil. It would feel
so good to once again be able to demonstrate against war in
unison with thousands of others.
(He grabs paper and pen and
starts to write from memory).
RAWLINGS' VOICE (pre-recorded
voice):
In May the bombs blossom.
The sweet aroma of gas fills
the air.
The sing-song
Mekong
May song
me
doe
ray
me lie
me down to sleep,
and pray the Lord
(what else can one
two
three
four,
right face
the press of the crowd,
shouting, men giving orders
on the borders
of insanity,
a neutral nation,
at least officially,
but everyone knows
thyself
is an archaic term
in Jail,
waiting for trial,
by hook or by crook,
we’ll pull this
impotent giant
to a hard
line on
and on and on and onward,
Christian humility
in defense of freedom is no
situation
mad
comedy,
featuring
Nixon, Mitchell, Agnew,
and a fourth horseman of the
Apocalypse
to be announced,
so stay tuned
to loony tunes,
on most of our network
stations,
brought to you by,
bye
happiness
is a warm gun,
in the age of hilarious,
who cannot wash away our sins
with a flood
of tear
gas,
for there was a limited
supply
of war,
one day
in May
the bombs blossom.
(He picks up the boots again,
then his voice continues.)
I used to think that was so
clever. Ever since I first wrote it, I was proud of how clever
It was. Now I’ve been at Fort Polk, slept in the same
barracks, shat in the same johns, low-crawled over the same
gravely field as men who had died in that war I wrote so
cleverly about. God, it sounds hollow. Thank God I never said
it aloud to these guys.
Here I am, sitting on easy
street. What right do I have to write self-righteous crap like
that? What right do I have to feel sorry for myself? Just a
few more weeks of hell and I and the rest of the platoon — all
but Roberts and Armstrong and those two new guys -- will be
going home.
Who can blame Roberts for
running? Chances are that in a few months he’ll be in the
jungle waiting for the booby trap or bullet that'll turn him
into rotting meat. And, by then, I’ll be starting law school.
(He crosses himself, then
goes over to the window and stares out at the row of barracks
and the scrub pine forest beyond.)
(Bunkroom. Everyone continues
their cleaning and polishing. Polishing the water fountain,
Sullivan talks aloud to himself and anyone who will listen.)
SULLIVAN: I
wonder what the folks back home are doing to my car. I bought
it new, and from the very beginning there was some crazy link
between that care and me.
It was a bright red
convertible. I bought it the summer I thought I was going to
marry Diane. Whatever it was in me that urged me to buy that
car knew damn well that I wasn't ready to get married. And
when Diane saw it, she knew too, and it wasn't long before we
went oui’ separate ways.
That car — it's a '53 Chevy
with an exterior in mint condition — it always broke down when
I was supposed to go some place but really didn't want to go.
Those times, I'd go to great lengths to try to get it running,
but much to my relief, it was mechanically impossible.
There's some intermittent
problem with the electrical system. I've gotten a new battery,
a new generator, a new voltage regulator, a new solenoid — but
it still dies on me like that, without warning. I'll turn the
ignition and get a feeble click. Then the next day, it's good
as new.
Whenever I really want to go
somewhere, without fall, that gem of a car turns right over.
That's happened so many times
-- the car refusing to start when I have to go someplace but
don't want to — I don't get mad at it anymore when it won't
start. I just sit and think for a while and try to figure out
why I really didn't want to go where I was going since the car
is telling me I don't.
When I had to go to basic
training, I really hated leaving that car behind. I've grown
to depend on it not just for getting me places, but for
helping me figure out what I really want and don't want.
I can't help but wonder what
my parents are doing with it. It seems so much a part of me,
it's almost obscene giving my parents control over it. But I
had no choice but to leave it. That's one of things about
basic training — like Delaney says — they make you surrender
body and soul, every parcel of your dignity and freedom.
(Cohen starts singing again,
softly, until others Join in. Even Sanderson joins in. They
sing pieces of such songs and parodies of songs such as "I got
to get out of this place", "Oh Lord how I want to go home",
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose", "On
the first day of Christmas my drill sarge gave to me:, "Fuck
the army, fuck the army, fuck the army", "For he's a jolly
good fuck-off", "Power to the people".
(Alvardo does some drill
sergeant imitations on the staircase.)
BEAULIEU: He sounds more like
a drill sergeant than the drill sergeant does.
(Sullivan takes down the
plaque to polish it and looks it over.)
SULLIVAN: Shit! It's all
here. The same damned wisecracks. They scribbled them here on
the back with all their signatures. This
thing must be twenty, twenty-five years old, and they were
making the same dumb wifecracks we are.
ACT
III SCENE 5
(Same place, a few hours
later.)
FRANK'S VOICE (pre-recorded):
Everybody knew what they had to do, and they all did it,
quickly and efficiently, like a well-drilled team. The floor
still has to be buffed, but first the wax will have to sit for
a while, and the paint will have to dry.
While waiting, Tag is reading
his four-day-old newspaper. It appeals to his imagination that
it's old. Everything could have changed in the meantime, like
we're in a time warp: living in the same world as everybody
else, but four days behind. The rest of the world might
already be a better place.
(Beaulieu is lying on his
bunk and writing to Debbie.)
BEAULIEU'S VOICE
(pre-recorded): Debbie, I want to put it all down while it's
still fresh in my mind, even though I don't know what it
means. I just want to get it down on paper before I forget it.
I forget so fast here.
Usually, that's a God-send, but this time I want to remember,
so maybe later when I look at it, when my head's rested and
clear, when I'm me again, I'll be able to make sense of it,
rework it into a story, maybe learn something so all this
hell won't have been for nothing.
God, we get used to it quick. Just
five fucking weeks I've been here, and half the time I forget
I've got a fucking uniform on. Five fucking weeks and I have a
hard time imagining myself back home in civies, going to work
in the morning, sleeping with you at night. Seems like some
fucking dream, doesn't it. Something far, far away. Just five
fucking weeks, and it's like I've never been anything but a
fucking sollder.
Delaney was right about the
system and what it does to people. But there's something else
going on here, too.
Through all this muck and
shit, it had been damned good hearing Cohen cut up the drill
sergeants and hearing Alvardo imitate them to a tee. We had
them pegged. We knew who they were, knew how petty and
mechanical and predictable their minds were. No matter what
they might do to us, we had that
knowledge, that feeling of
superiority.
But now we see the same damn
crap on a World War II plaque. Some originality. Wind up the
toy soldier and listen to the noises they make. Hell.
Schneider, (he's been hanging
around with Powell a lot), said something about there's
nothing new under the sun.
Vassavion sobered up a bit in
the shower. He said something pompous about history. And he
was right. All along we've been acting like this was something
new, like nobody'd ever been through basic before. This was
our drill sergeant, our barracks, our army, our country. But
we're Just here for a little while. We're Just transients.
There have been millions before us, and there will be millions
after us, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy about us
and what we've said and done. It's all been said and done
before.
Our 'revolution' was no big
deal. We scuffed up the floor a bit. By the time Powell gets
done with it, It'll all be good as new, almost — all but that
Jagged mark down the middle. He can't get rid of that. The
linoleum was scratched.
And we should be proud of
that? That's what we'll leave for posterity: a Jagged scratch
on a piece of linoleum.
Silly though this competition
business is, it is a shame to leave a blemish like that for
the next cycle of trainees. The guys that came before us did
such a good Job on it that we hardly had to touch that center
aisle for it come out shining unbeatable. I wonder how much
work went into that, how many
years of work by generations
of trainees that never met each other, that knew that they
would never meet each other, but who left this as a legacy to
whoever might come after them -- this so fragile shine that
was, ridiculously, such a source of comfort and security and
pride.
Even though we had done
nothing for it, or practically nothing, except refraining from
messing it up, it was 'our' floor; it was 'our' barracks. We
did take pride in it.
I hope that Powell can do
something. He has such a way with that buffer. If anyone can
do it, he can. And I certainly do hope he can erase or at
least hide it.
We've got four weeks left.
Maybe by then it'll be all right, and the next cycle will get
it good as new, as good as we got it, as good as if we'd never
been here and messed things up. Maybe a little better, with
those yellow lines repainted.
Yes, it looks really sharp
with those bright yellow lines.
(The screendoor slams.)
SQUAD LEADER: Five minutes to
lights out! God, it looks good now. Shit! When the buffing's
done, you guys could be in good shape again. How the hell did
you do it? (Nobody answers. He leaves.)
SCHNEIDER: Maybe there won't
be an inspection.
ALEC (whines): Yeah, you can
count on it. If we get the place in shape, they won't inspect
it.
EVANS: And if we didn't, they
would. We'll be ready. I just hope those damned bat
exterminators don't come again.
HATHAWAY (laughs): Have you
grown to like the bats?
EVANS: We can live with bats.
I just don't want the exterminators messing the place up. We
can still win tomorrow.
(Bunkroom. Long after "lights
out,” the barracks still hums with the sound of the buffer and
clanks with the sound of opening and closing lockers.
Everybody has something that still has to be done.
The screendoor closes softly,
almost imperceptibly. A whispered, "The drill sergeant's
coming,” echoes and re-echoes through the muffled scrambling
of feet and creaking of bedsprings. Whispers follow, racing up
and down both sides.)
COHEN: He's going upstairs.
WASLEWSKI: It's Rawlings he's
after. Rawlings. He's ging to bawl out Rawlings.
ALVARDO: Now the shit's going
to hit the fan.
BEAULIEU: He probably heard
all about our little party here tonight.
FRANK; Quiet. I can almost
make out what he's saying. It's something about Roberts.
DELANEY: Roberts?
VASSAVION: Shit.
DELANEY: You say Rawlings is
ratting on Roberts?
WASLEWSKI: That goddamned
Roberts.
ALEC: Goddamned my foot.
Roberts is the only one of us with an ounce of guts .
(Footsteps echo on the stairs
again. The screen door closes again, softly. A full minute of
absolute silence.) "God! It’s Roberts, Roberts himself," comes
a loud whisper from the bunk nearest the door. "Roberts!" is
repeated up and down the aisle. In the conflicting shadows of
the fire light and the stair light, Roberts appears and slowly
rubs his freshly shaven head with his towel.)
DELANEY: Quick, Roberts,
catch the drill sergeant. Rawlings just ratted on you. You're
in a heap of trouble. Catch him, and let him know you're here.
ROBERTS: He knows I'm here
all right. What's this bit about ratting, man? What've I done
that somebody's ratting on me?
DELANEY: This is the Army.
You don't just go home when you feel like it.
ROBERTS: Home? Who the hell
went home?
COHEN: Well, where've you
been?
ROBERTS: Taking a shower.
BEAULIEU: Yeah, but where've
you been all night?
ROBERTS: Look, man, cool it.
I just got off KP.
DELANEY: Well, then what was
the sergeant pissed off at?
ROBERTS: Me. He saw me in the
shower. You know, man — no showers after lights out. But I'll
be damned if I’m going to bed stinking of garbage and shit.
Hell no, man.
COHEN: There's your freedom,
Alec. There's your dignity.
ROBERTS: Yeah, damn it. I
didn't have guts enough to take a shower .