The Barracks Thief Read online

  Lewis unfolds the paper and reads, Dear Son. He looks away, then looks back.

  Dear Son, I have some very bad news. I don’t think there is any way to tell you but just to write what happened. It was three days ago, on the Fourth. Norm and Bobby went down to Monroe to watch the drag races there. They were double-dating with Ginny and Karen Schwartz. From what I understand they and some of the other kids did a little “celebrating” at the track. Tom saw them and said they were not really drunk but you know how your brother is. Let’s just say he isn’t very observant. Norm was driving when they left for home.

  They don’t know for sure what happened but just the other side of Monroe the car went into a skid and hit a truck parked off the road. Norm and Bobby and Ginny were killed right away. Karen died in the hospital that night. She was unconscious the whole time.

  Dear, I know I should have called you but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to talk. Tom and I and Julie and even your father have been crying like babies ever since it happened. The whole town has. Everyone you see is just miserable. It is the worst thing to ever happen here.

  This is about all I can write. Call collect when you feel up to it. Dear, don’t ever forget that each and every person on this earth is a beautiful gift of God. Remember that always and you will never go wrong. Your loving Mother.

  Lewis sits in the stands and shakes his head because Hubbard’s mother is so wrong. She doesn’t know anything. He would like to know what she thinks when she hears what just happened to Hubbard. Hubbard probably won’t tell her. But if she knew, and if she knew about the woman in town and all the things Lewis has done, then she would know something real and give different advice.

  He throws the wallet into the shadows under the stands. He starts to drop the letter after it but it stays between his fingers and finally he folds it up again and puts it in his pocket. Then he walks out to the road and hitches a ride to town.

  She is not in any of the bars. Lewis goes to the bungalow and shakes the door. You in there? he says. The window is dark and he hears nothing, but he feels her on the other side. Open up, he says. He slams his shoulder against the door and the lock gives and he stumbles inside. From the light coming in behind him he can see the dark shapes of her things on the floor. He waits, but nothing moves. He is alone.

  Lewis closes the door and without turning on the light walks over to the bed. He sits down. Breathing the bad air in here makes him lightheaded. His arms ache from stacking oil drums all day in the motor pool. He’s tired. After a time he takes off his shoes and stretches out on the twisted sheets. He knows that he has to keep his eyes open, that he has to be awake when she comes back. Then he knows that he won’t be, and that it doesn’t matter anyway.

  It doesn’t matter, he thinks. He starts to drift. The darkness he passes into is not sleep, but something else. No, he thinks. He pulls free of it and sits up. He thinks, I have got to get out of here.

  Lewis can’t tie his shoes, his hands are shaking so. With the laces dragging he walks outside and up the sidewalk toward town. He can hear everything, the trucks gearing down on the access road, the buzz of the streetlights, and from somewhere far away a steady, cold, tinkling noise like someone all alone breaking every plate in the house just to hear the sound. Lewis stops and closes his eyes. Dogs bark up and down the street, and as he listens he hears more and more of them. They’re pitching in from every side of town. He wonders what they’re so mad about, and decides that they’re not really mad at all but just putting it on. It’s something to do when they’re all tied up. He lifts his face to the stars and howls.

  The next morning Lewis wakes up feeling like a million dollars. He showers and shaves and puts on a fresh uniform with sharp creases. On his way to the mess hall he stands for a moment by the edge of the parade ground. They’ve got a bunch of recruits out there crawling on their bellies and lobbing dummy hand grenades at truck tires. Sergeants are walking around screaming at them. Lewis grins.

  At breakfast he eats two bowls of oatmeal and half a bowl of strawberry jam. He whistles on his way back to the barracks. Then the first sergeant calls a special formation and everything goes wrong.

  Lewis falls in with the rest of the company. He knows what it’s about. Shoot, he thinks. It doesn’t seem fair. He’s all ready to make a new start and he wishes that everybody else could do the same. Just wipe the slate clean and begin all over again. There’s no point to it, this anger and fuss, the first sergeant walking up and down saying it gives him nerves to know there’s a barracks thief in his company. Lewis wishes he could tell him not to worry, that it’s all history now.

  Then Hubbard goes to the front of the formation and Lewis sees the metal cast on his nose. Oh Lord, he thinks, I didn’t do that. He stares at the cast. There was a man in Lawton who used to wear one just like it because his nose was gone, cut off in a fight when he was young. Underneath was nothing but two holes.

  Hubbard follows the first sergeant up and down the ranks. Lewis meets his eyes for a moment and then looks at the cast again. That hurts, he thinks. He will make it up to Hubbard. He will be Hubbard’s friend, the best friend Hubbard ever had. They’ll go bowling together and downtown to the pictures. The next long weekend they’ll hitch a ride to Nag’s Head and rustle up some of those girls down there. At night they will go down on the beach and have a time. Light a fire and get drunk and laugh. And when they get shipped overseas they will stick together. They’ll take care of each other and bring each other back, and afterwards, when they get out of the army, they will be friends forever.

  The first sergeant is arguing with someone. Then Lewis sees that the men around him are emptying their pockets into their helmets and unblousing their boots. He does the same and straightens up. Hubbard and the first sergeant are in front of him again and Hubbard bends over the helmet and takes out the letter that Lewis could not let go of, that he’s forgotten does not belong to him.

  Where’s my wallet? Hubbard says.

  Lewis looks down.

  The first sergeant says, Where is this boy’s wallet?

  Under the stands, Lewis says. While they wait Lewis looks at the ground. He sees the shadows of the men behind him, sees from the shadows that they are watching him. The first sergeant is saying something.

  Look at him, the first sergeant says again. He puts his hand under Lewis’s chin and forces it up until Lewis is face to face with Hubbard. Lewis sees that Hubbard isn’t really mad after all. It is worse than that. Hubbard is looking at him as if he is something pitiful. Then Lewis knows that it will never be as it could have been with the two of them, nor with anyone else. Nothing will ever be the way it could have been. Whatever happens from now on, it will always be less.

  Lewis knows this, but not as a thought. He knows it as a distracted, restless feeling like the feeling you have forgotten something when you are too far from home to go back for it.

  The sun is hot on the back of his neck. A drop of sweat slides down between his shoulder blades, then another. They make him shiver. He stares over Hubbard’s head, waiting for the next drop. Out on the parade ground the flag whips in a gust, but it makes no noise. Then it droops again. The metal cast glitters. Everything is still.

  6

  The morning after Hubbard got his nose broken the first sergeant called a special formation. He walked up and down in front of us until the silence became oppressive, and then he kept doing it. There were two spots of color like rouge on his cheeks. The line of his scar was bright red. I couldn’t look at him. Instead I kept my eyes on the man in front of me, on the back of his neck, which was pocked with tiny craters. Finally the first sergeant began to talk in a voice that was almost a whisper. It was that soft, but I could hear each word as if he were speaking just to me.

  He said that a barracks thief was the lowest thing there was. A barracks thief had turned his back on his own kind. He went on like that.

  Then the first sergeant called Hubbard in front of the formation. With the metal cast an
d the tape across his cheeks, Hubbard’s face looked like a mask. The first sergeant said something to him, and the two of them began to walk up and down the ranks, staring every man full in the face. I tasted something sour at the root of my tongue. I wondered how I should look. I wanted to glance around and see the faces of the other men but I was afraid to move my head. I decided to look offended. But not too offended. I didn’t want them to think that this was anything important to me.

  I composed my face and waited. It seemed to me that I was weaving on my feet, in tiny circles, and I made myself go rigid. All around me I felt the stillness of the other men.

  Hubbard walked by first. He barely turned his head, but the first sergeant looked at me. His eyes were dark and thoughtful. Then he moved on, and I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding in. A jet moved across the sky in perfect silence, contrails billowing like plumes. The man next to me sighed deeply.

  After they had inspected the company the first sergeant ordered us to take off our helmets and put them between our feet, open end up. Then he told us to empty our pockets into our helmets and leave the pockets hanging out. My squad leader, an old corporal with a purple nose, said “Bullshit!” and put his helmet back on.

  He and the first sergeant looked at each other. “Do it,” the first sergeant said.

  The corporal shook his head. “You don’t have the right.”

  The first sergeant said, “Do it. Now.”

  “I never saw this before in my whole life,” the corporal said, but he took his helmet off and emptied his pockets into it.

  “Unblouse your pants,” the first sergeant said.

  We took our pantlegs out of our boots and let them hang loose. Here and there I heard metal hitting the ground, knives I suppose.

  The first sergeant watched us. He had gotten his wounds during an all-night battle near Kontum in which his company had almost been overrun. I think of that and then I think of what he saw when he looked at us, bareheaded, our pockets hanging down like little white flags, open helmets at our feet. A company of beggars. Nothing worth dying for. He was clearly as disappointed as a man can be.

  He looked us over. Then he nodded at Hubbard and they started up the ranks again. A work detail from another company crossed the street to our left, singing the cadence, spades and rakes at shoulder arms. As they marched by they fell silent, as if they were passing a funeral. They must have guessed what was happening.

  Hubbard looked into each helmet as they walked up the ranks. I had a muscle jumping in my cheek. And then it ended. Hubbard stopped in front of Lewis and bent down and took a piece of paper from his helmet. He unfolded it and looked it over. Then he said, “Where’s my wallet?”

  Lewis did not answer. He was standing two ranks ahead of me and I could see from the angle of his neck that he was staring at Hubbard’s boots.

  “Where is this boy’s wallet?” the first sergeant said.

  “The parade ground,” Lewis said. “Under the stands.”

  The first sergeant sent a man for the wallet. Nobody spoke or moved except Hubbard, who folded the paper again and put it in his pocket. All my veins opened up. I felt the rush of blood behind my eyes. I was innocent.

  When the runner came back with the wallet Hubbard looked through it and put it away.

  “You stole from this boy,” the first sergeant said. “You look at him.”

  Lewis did not move.

  “Look at him,” the first sergeant said again. He pushed Lewis’s chin up until Lewis was face to face with Hubbard. They stood that way for a time. Then from behind, I could see Lewis’s fatigue jacket begin to ripple. He was shaking convulsively. Everyone watched him, those in the front rank half-turned around, those behind leaning out and craning their necks. Lewis gave a soft cry and covered his face with his hands. The sound kept coming through his fingers and he bent over suddenly as if he’d been punched in the belly.

  The man behind me said, “Jesus Christ!”

  Lewis staggered a little, still bent over, his feet doing a jig to stay under him. He crossed his arms over his chest and howled, leaning down until his head almost touched his knees. The howl ended and he straightened up, his arms still crossed. I could hear him wheezing.

  Then he dropped his arms to his sides and arranged his feet and tried to come to attention again. He raised his head until he was looking at Hubbard, who still stood in front of him. Lewis began to make little whimpering noises. He took a step forward and a step back and then he shrieked in Hubbard’s face, a haunted-house laugh that went on and on. Finally the first sergeant slapped him across the face—not hard, just a flick of the hand. Lewis went to his knees. He bent over until his forehead was on the ground. He flopped onto his side and drew his knees up almost to his chin and hugged them and rolled back and forth.

  The first sergeant said, “Dismissed!”

  Nobody moved.

  “Dismissed!” he said again, and this time we broke ranks and drifted away, throwing looks back to where Hubbard and the first sergeant stood over Lewis, who hugged his knees and hooted up at them from the packed red earth.

  For the rest of that day we did target duty at the rifle range, raising and lowering man-sized silhouettes while a battalion of recruits blazed away. The bullets zipped and whined over the pits where we huddled. By late afternoon it was clear that the targets had won. We boarded the trucks and drove back to the company in silence, swaying together over the bumps, thinking our own thoughts. For the men who’d been in Vietnam the whole thing must have been a little close to home, and it was a discouraging business for those of us who hadn’t. It was discouraging for me, anyway, to find I had no taste for the sound of bullets passing over my head. And it gave me pause to see what bad shots those recruits were. After all, they belonged to the same army I belonged to.

  Hubbard ate dinner by himself that night at a table in the rear of the mess hall. Lewis never showed up at all. The rest of us talked about him. We decided that there was no excuse for what he’d done. If the clerk had busted him at poker, or if someone in his family was sick, if he’d been in true need he could have borrowed the money or gone to the company commander. There was a special kitty for things like that. When the mess sergeant’s wife disappeared he’d borrowed over a hundred dollars to go home and look for her. The supply sergeant told us this. According to him, the mess sergeant never paid the money back, probably because he hadn’t found his wife. Anyway, Lewis wouldn’t have died from being broke, not with free clothes, a roof over his head, and three squares a day.

  “I don’t care what happened,” someone said, “you don’t turn on your friends.”

  “Amen,” said the man across from me. Almost everyone had something to say that showed how puzzled and angry he was. I kept quiet, but I took what Lewis had done as a personal betrayal. I had myself thoroughly worked up about it.

  Not everyone joined in. Several men kept to themselves and ate with their eyes on their food. When they looked up they made a point of not seeing the rest of us, and soon looked down again. They finished their meals and left early. The first sergeant was one of these. As he walked past us a man at my table shouted “Blanket party!” and we all laughed.

  “I didn’t hear that,” the first sergeant said. Maybe he was telling us not to do it, or maybe he was telling us to go ahead. What he said made no difference, because we could all see that he didn’t care what happened any more. He was already in retirement. The power he let go passed into us and it was more than we could handle. That night we were loopy on it.

  I went looking for Hubbard. A man in his platoon had seen him walking toward the parade ground, and I found him there, sitting in the stands. He nodded when he saw me, but he did not make me welcome. I sat down beside him. It was dusk. A damp, fitful breeze blew into our faces. I smelled rain in it.

  “This is where he went through my wallet,” Hubbard said. “It was down there.” He pointed into the shadows below. “What I can’t figure out is why he kept the letter. If he
hadn’t kept the letter he wouldn’t have gotten caught. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well,” I said, “Lewis isn’t that smart.”

  “I’ve been trying to picture it,” Hubbard said. “Did you ever play ‘Picture It’ when you were a kid?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was a game this teacher of ours used to make us play. We would close our eyes and picture some incident in history, like Washington crossing the Delaware, and describe what we were seeing to the whole class. The point was to see everything as if you were actually there, as if you were one of the people.”

  We sat there. Hubbard unbuttoned his fatigue jacket.

  “I don’t know,” Hubbard said. “I just can’t see Lewis doing it. He’s not the type of person that would do it.”

  “He did it,” I said.

  “I know,” Hubbard said. “I’m saying I can’t see him do it, that’s all. Can you?”

  “I’m no good at games. The point is, he stole your wallet and busted your nose.”

  Hubbard nodded.

  “Listen,” I said. “There’s a blanket party tonight.”

  “A blanket party?” He looked at me.

  For a moment I thought Hubbard must be kidding. Everyone knew what a blanket party was. When you had a shirker or a guy who wouldn’t take showers you got together and threw a blanket over his head and beat the bejesus out of him. I had never actually been in on one but I’d heard so much about them that I knew it was only a matter of time. Not every blanket party was the same. Some were rougher than others. I’d heard of people getting beat up for really stupid reasons, like playing classical music on their radios. But this time it was a different situation. We had a barracks thief.