The Great Santini Part 36

"That's right. It turned out to be your wife dressed in your flight suit. We recognized her by her mustache," Major Reynolds, Bull's executive officer, shot back.

"Why don't you p.u.s.s.ies from 367 go buy yourself some Kotex and leave this room to some real fighter pilots?"

"We're afraid if we leave ol' 234 might have a circle jerk here."

Finally Cecil Causey stepped to the center of the room, slapped a twenty dollar bill on the table and announced, "I'll bet drinks on the house that Captain Clifford Strait of 234 has the hairiest a.s.s of any pilot in this room."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Bull growled.

"He's right, Colonel," Captain Johnson said. "Strait's got an a.s.s on him like an ape."

"I know that, Johnson," Bull answered in a loud voice. "The only reason Strait ain't cla.s.sified as an ape is 'cause he has an opposable thumb. The same goes for all those ape b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in 234."

"s.h.i.t," Captain Brannon said, "I know a lot of apes who have too much f.u.c.king pride to join 234."

"I know one that didn't, sure enough," someone from the 234 crowd said.

"Where's Strait?" Brannon said. "I'll match my a.s.s with any man's. Get him out here."

Captain Strait swaggered out from the ranks of 234 as though he had a long and distinguished history of victory in contests of this ilk. He was swarthy, dark haired, and one of those men who always look as if they need a shave no matter what the time of day. Slowly, he unbuckled his pants and dropped his trousers to the floor. Brannon removed his trousers at the same time. Then, dropping their skivvies, both men bent over to allow their a.s.ses to endure the careful scholarship and unoccluded scrutiny of the two squadrons. Soon there was heavy laughter coming from 234.

"Brannon ain't got a hair on his a.s.s compared to Strait," Causey said to Bull. "You buy the first round."

"Well," Bull replied, conscious that every pilot from both squadrons was listening for his reply, "it's good to know that 234 is first in something. They can't fly, they can't f.u.c.k, and they can't drink. But they are the G.o.ddam champs when it comes to hairy a.s.sholes. Now let's get serious, and get to the beer chugging contest. Of course, after looking at Strait's a.s.s, I think we ought to have a banana eating contest, and let Strait start it off."

A bartender brought a phone into the room with a long extension cord. He walked through the Marines and handed the phone to Bull. "It's your wife calling, Colonel."

An explosive cheer went through the room as all the pilots headed for the bar to order their free round of drinks. "I'll have Wild Turkey on the rocks," shouted Cecil Causey, leading the charge to the bar. Bull was blushing as he took the phone, and spat savagely, "What in the h.e.l.l are you calling me for at happy hour, Lillian. Have you gone out of your G.o.ddam bush?"

"p.o.o.psie," Mary Anne's voice said, "I just wanted to call you and tell you how much I appreciate your love and affection for me, and how I will dedicate my whole life to being worthy of your blind worship of me."

"Mary Anne, this little prank has cost me over fifty dollars," Bull said, controlling himself with effort. "I would advise you to start running now. I would suggest you go south toward the swamps because when I find you, I'm going to break every bone in your body."

"I think I'm in love, p.o.o.psie," Mary Anne continued. "I think I'm going to marry a Ubangi."

"You ain't gonna be in any position to marry a Ubangi or anyone else when I get finished with you."

Some of the pilots were drifting back from the bar, still laughing at the rare faux pas of a colonel's wife calling her husband at happy hour. Normally, this heinous breach of decorum was the pitfall of young lieutenants' wives. Bull grabbed Cecil and put him on the phone. "This is my daughter, not my wife. Here, talk to Mary Anne, Cecil."

"Oh sure," the pilots laughed.

"h.e.l.lo," said Colonel Causey.

"Hi, Colonel Causey, this is Mary Anne. Please pretend that you're talking to my mama. My brother and I have been planning this for a long time."

"That's right, Colonel. This is Ben. I'm on the upstairs phone."

"h.e.l.lo, Lillian. How are ya doing, honey? Why sure I'll tell him," Colonel Causey said in an extravagant, generous voice. His eyes were dancing from pilot to pilot. "You want him to bring home paper towels and a bottle of Ivory Liquid. Bobby pins, cigarettes, and what? Oh Lillian, I can't tell him that. No, he's my friend. And so are you. Oh, if you insist. Bye-bye, honey," Cecil said, putting the phone down, his forehead wrinkled as though something of great urgency was weighing upon him.

In a sepulchral voice filled with concern, Cecil said, "Lillian said she wanted me to send a pilot from 234 home with Colonel Meecham tonight. It seems as though Lillian ain't had none in a year or two. She did say that she didn't want to do nothing immoral with one of my pilots. She just wanted to lay her hand down there beside it, and dream of those days when Bull could get it up."

For thirty seconds, both squadrons whooped and hollered in an obstreperous rally that was becoming more paleolithic in nature in direct proportion to the number of drinks consumed. Some pilots had drinks in both hands. Others were making discreet but frequent runs back to the bar to replenish empty gla.s.ses. Bull and Cecil sparred with each other, both landing pulled punches to the body, then backing off to begin the beer chugging contest.

"Are your four pilots ready, Colonel?" Colonel Causey asked.

"That is affirmative, Colonel," Bull replied.

A neutral lieutenant from an A-4 squadron quickly and efficiently snapped the caps off each bottle of beer. The two C.O.'s would begin the contest, followed by the squadron executive officers, then followed by the youngest lieutenant in each squadron. The real warhorse among the contestants drank last; this position of honor was reserved for the best chugger in the squadron.

The rules were simple. When a pilot had finished a beer, he would slam it down on the table, step quickly aside, and let the next pilot continue the chugging. Each pilot would chug six beers. The squadron that emptied their twenty-four bottles first would be declared the victors, provided that when the judge poured the residue of beer and foam from the twenty-four bottles into a shot gla.s.s, the gla.s.s did not overflow.

"If anyone pukes, the other squadron wins," Bull shouted above the din.

"If one of my boys pukes, he's gonna lick it up himself," Cecil said.

"My boys ain't gonna puke unless one of them accidentally looks at that f.u.c.ked up looking face of yours," Bull teased.

Captain Brannon, lining up in his position as premiere chugger, shouted to Captain Strait, who was nursing a drink in the crowd, "Hey, Monkey a.s.s, you ain't drinking with the men?"

"Leave him alone, White America," Bull growled. "Strait's a specialist. He only enters hairy a.s.s contests."

Major Reynolds, the exec, was giving last-minute instructions to Lieutenant Snell, the youngest man in 367, and fresh from flight school. He had been in the squadron less than a month and was noticeably unnerved by being thrust into compet.i.tion so early in his tenure with the squadron.

"Throw your head back, close off your wind pipe, and just let the beer flow down your throat. Don't gulp, and G.o.ddammit, don't try to breathe."

"I was in a fraternity, sir," Snell said.

"Who gives a s.h.i.t?" Captain Brannon observed.

"Give the kid support, Butch," Reynolds said.

"If we don't win, kid," Butch said, "I'm going to be awfully p.i.s.sed."

"Colonel," Bull said to Cecil, "if any of your pilots need to go potty during the contest, some of my boys will take them to the men's room and hold their hands."

"You sure that's all they'll hold?"

"Stand by, fighter pilots," the A-4 pilot barked, as Bull and Cecil grasped their first bottle. Out of the corner of his eye, Bull saw Beasley for the first time, and the only mystery to him was how he had gone so long without at least capturing a glimpse of the man. Beasley had pulled up another table and was standing on it, shouting encouragement to the gladiators who drank for him. His face was unlined and innocent to the point of being virtuous, a Botticelli in a flight jacket. His voice carried above the general disharmony and virile hum of the squadrons. But the voice was not what had attracted Bull's attention to Beasley. It was his dress. He spied the ascot beneath the flight jacket, the cartridge belt criss-crossing his torso, the Bowie knife, and the crowning touch, a World War I Von Richtofen flying cap. Bull turned to Brannon and received a thumbs down signal.

"Start your engines," the A-4 pilot's voice resounded through the room. "Taxi down the runway, and take the f.u.c.k off."

Bull finished his first beer a full second faster than Colonel Causey, stepped quickly aside for Reynolds, who had sucked down three large swallows before his opponent's hand had touched gla.s.s. The din created by the two squadrons was deafening, and it rose in volume as each bottle was emptied and the new man stepped in to attack a full bottle of beer, his neck muscles straining as the liquid horizon in the bottle plunged downward like a thermometer thrust in cold water. Soon, foam flecked upper lips of all eight men and thin lines of beer and saliva ran like threads of light from mouths to flight jackets. The lieutenants received the loudest hosannas, for the veterans knew these contests were won and lost through the lips of these lieutenants. But 367's most puissant weapon in this frothy olympiad was the prodigious guzzling powers of Butch Brannon. An audible hiss of disbelief arose from the pilots of 234 every time he a.s.saulted a beer.

Beasley grew more animated as it became apparent that 367 was pulling into a tenuous lead. He pointed his arms behind him like the wings of a plane and made stacatto sounds like a jet on a strafing run, shooting imaginary bullets at the pilots outdrinking his comrades.

Three-sixty-seven won by a single beer. The A-4 judge poured the contents of the twenty-four bottles into a shot gla.s.s, and it did not overflow. The winning squadron broke into a chant of victory. Whistles stung the air. Hand clapping and rebel yells filled the room. With a stiff sense of formality, but with a flair for ceremony, his carriage soldierly, his demeanor proud, Cecil Causey walked up to Bull Meecham and poured the last beer over Bull's head.

On cue, Bull punched Cecil in the stomach, and drove his shoulder into his chest, knocked him over a table, and onto the floor. In that instant, lieutenants dove for lieutenants, and captains clawed their way toward captains. In the first tumult of bodies, the first instinct was to punch someone of your own rank. But soon fists were swinging without making discreet distinctions of rank, and a simple desire to throw a memorable punch and to survive the melee became the common standard. Fists flew at any visible jaw. Every unpinned arm flailed away at every visible a.s.sailant. Beer bottles broke at intervals around the room. Two captains fell across a chair, and splintered it. A man screamed in the center of the fray and tried to free his arms to pound the man biting his thigh.

In the first seconds of the brawl, Captain Brannon had pulled Beasley from the table where he was making his strafing runs and tried to strangle him with his ascot. Pilots from the other squadron were pulled into the center of their fight simply by their proximity to the maelstrom. The X.O. of 234 found himself punching the genitalia of his own wingman. A body flew over an unused bar at the back of the room, and disappeared from view. Bull and Cecil had rolled under the heaviest table in the room and watched the fight without being devoured by the fury in the storm's center. They took turns getting on top of each other, trading ineffectual blows with inharmonious sound effects that made it seem as though they were fighting to the death. Once Bull was kicked in the side of the head by a free-swinging captain from 234 who had gone berserk and was teeing off on anything that moved. Bull excused himself from Cecil's embrace long enough to send the captain directly over an indistinguishable pile of flight jackets with a backhand across the mouth. Then he dove at Cecil again, both of them giggling like schoolboys.

The fight lasted less than a minute and a half. The sirens of M.P. trucks heading for the club ended the brawl. Bull barked orders at 367 to straighten up quickly. Cecil shouted for the lieutenants to get brooms and for every officer to clean the blood off himself or fellow officer.

"Get rid of the broken gla.s.s, the broken chairs, and all the dead men killed by the studs of 367," Bull shouted.

"I want this room in inspection order when those M.P.'s barge through that door," Cecil snapped to his men. "And I want everyone to be at the bar enjoying a drink."

Bleeding pilots disappeared into the head. Others handled brooms and sent shards of gla.s.s leaping across the room. Two pilots were carrying a dazed pilot out the back door.

"Who's that?" Cecil asked one of the lieutenants.

"It's Captain Beasley, sir. He got coldc.o.c.ked pretty good."

"He must have slipped on this waxed floor, don't you think, Colonel?" Bull asked.

"No doubt about it, Colonel, this floor is slippery as h.e.l.l," Cecil replied.

When the M.P.'s arrived, they discovered the cla.s.sic scene of pilots hovering around a bar, drinks in hand, enjoying the fellowship and camaraderie of their fellow officers. The M.P.'s looked for the senior officers in charge. They found them sitting at the bar smoking cigars and seemingly deep in conversation with a well built captain who was wearing an ascot, a Bowie knife, a cartridge belt, and World War I flying cap.

"Typical flyboys," the M.P.'s thought. "They're not really Marines at all. No discipline."

A group of pilots had gotten together around the piano of the bar and were singing their squadron song. Soon every member of the squadron was singing, turning toward each other with lifted gla.s.ses, their voices rising powerfully on the last four lines: Stand by your gla.s.ses ready, Let not a tear fill your eye, Here's to the dead already, And hurrah for the next man to die.

Chapter 27.

Bull Meecham had grown fond of being in Hobie's restaurant in those early morning hours before the sun had time to penetrate the deep winter shadows that hung between the buildings of River Street. Only in its external serenity was life abnormal there, but Bull felt comfortable as he claimed the middle stool each weekday morning and entered into the matrix of warm wood colors, breakfast odors, and a gla.s.s window where the history of Ravenel could be un.o.btrusively charted on any given day by the voluble fauna who formed its early morning cadre. He had been a regular for over six months now and as he drove toward Hobie's at 0710 hours, he knew the ceremonies that had taken place only minutes before. Ritual had a tang of divine law and was strictly adhered to by the boys of Hobie's.

At seven a.m., Ed Mills entered the restaurant the moment Hobie Rawls turned the lock. The two men nodded to each other ceremoniously, a wordless salutation that had not changed in twenty years. Ed walked to the first stool nearest the window and sat down. Even though he was not carrying his mailbag, he listed to his right as though he were. It was unwritten protocol that neither of the men would speak until Ed had consumed his first cup of coffee.

At five after seven Zell Posey, the one-legged lawyer, walked through the door, the bells announcing his entry. He walked slowly with a constrained dignity, hoping to conceal the presence of his artificial limb. He was followed by Johnnie Voight, Cleve Goins, and Doc Ratteree but the order of their entry was subject to caprice and alteration. A man could set his watch by the arrival of Ed and Zell; he could sort of set his watch by the arrival of the next three.

Bull was dressed in his dark green winter uniform when he parked his squadron car in front of the bank and walked the six storefronts to Hobie's. It was the first Tuesday in February and his breath was visible as he tightened the belt around his blouse.

"Good morning, grits," Bull roared as he entered the restaurant and proceeded to the middle stool.

"Oh, Jesus. Here comes Douglas MacArthur," Ed Mills said.

"Smiley, how you doing? Ed, your face is sunshine itself, but that's because you're just a slaphappy southern boy."

"A man used to be able to enjoy a cup of coffee in here, Hobie. Before the General came to town, that is," Ed lamented.

"Good morning, Colonel," a couple of men said.

"Hey, Doc," Johnnie Voight said, "I been having a bad cough for about a week. What expert advice do you recommend?"

"For you, a frontal lobotomy, you G.o.d-blessed dimwit."

"Doc's just sore because Willis Taylor strangled to death in Doc's office the other day. The Doc killed him by checking his throat with a tongue depressor," Hobie said pouring Bull a cup of coffee.

"By the way, you guys going to the big game tonight?" Bull asked.

"What game?" Ed Mills asked.

"Is there a game tonight?" Doc Ratteree said, smiling.

"I don't know about no game," said Hobie.

"O.K., sportsfans, don't give me a hard time. But you better get there early if I'm gonna be able to save any seats around my family. A couple of pilots from my squadron will be at the game, too."

"Does Ben think Calhoun's got a chance?" Cleve asked.

"Chance? Calhoun's gonna eat 'em alive tonight."

"Peninsula's got some tall boys coming down here tonight. Built like marsh birds," Johnnie added.

"Zell, you ain't seen the general's boy play yet, have you?" Hobie asked.

"I've never liked spectator sports."

"He prefers opry and ballerine shows," Cleve teased.

"Zell's a man of culture."

"Zell, it'd do you good to come to that game tonight," Bull said. "You're starting to get the smell of stacks about you. You've been hanging around that law office too long."

"General, you know ol' Poyster at the hardware store?" Ed Mills asked.

"He comes in here some mornings, doesn't he?" Bull said.

"Yeah, the tow-headed so-and-so with two busted A-holes for eyes. Well, he was in here the other day running his mouth about how good Peninsula was and how they were gonna beat the stuffing out of Calhoun."

"What'd you say to him, Ed?"

"I just walked up to Poyster and gave him a chance to shine his b.u.t.t in front of everybody. I said, 'Poyster, I'd like to make you a little bet about that Peninsula-Calhoun game.' He looked at me kind of funny and said, 'How much you willing to bet, Mills?' I looked back at him and without blinking an eye I said, 'One hunnert d.a.m.n dollars' and you can ask anyone in here if that ain't the New Testament Truth."

"It's true, O.K.," voices said.

"What'd he say then?" Bull asked.

"He put the emergency brake on that motor mouth of his."