Chapter Thirty-nine
Two days later, Cain Gilbreath, representing The Ten, made the approach for terms after military science class. His face was more swollen than mine, even though we both looked like we had used our faces to chop wood. We greeted each other with elaborate formality, exchanging pleasantries about our families and the baseball team, and both of us assiduously avoided any acknowledgment of the scene on the beach. The bandages on our faces and our half-closed eyes were enough acknowledgment. We arranged to meet in his room before evening formation that night to discuss “certain subjects,” as he put it.
He was sitting at his desk when I entered his room, his neck and shoulders dominating the alcove. He was barechested and I saw again the scar’s angry engraving in his flesh. He smelled of soap and English Leather. He was shining his belt buckle with Brasso and an old shine cloth. Grinning ironically, he gestured to a seat in front of him, and I sat down to talk. He avoided my eyes, and I thought about the terrible sadness in the death of our friendship.
“Let’s have a debate,” he said, beginning the talk with an old strategy between us.
“What about?” I said, taking my cue.
“Let’s debate Vietnam.”
“You always beat me when we debate about Vietnam,” I said. “Let’s pick another subject.”
“Current events,” Cain said, looking at me.
“Name the event.”
“It happened yesterday in Columbia. A guy named Bobby Bentley had an accident up at Carolina. He fell down a flight of very steep stairs and broke both his arms. It’s a theory of mine that guys who wash out of the plebe system are clumsier than guys who stay in and take the heat.”
“That’s a fine group you belong to, Cain,” I said, controlling my anger.
“I don’t belong to any group, Will,” he said.
I laughed and said, “The name of the group is The Ten and I know the names of five or six members. And I might know the names of a lot more.”
“I’ve never heard of that group, Will,” he said, polishing his brass with renewed vigor. “It must be new on campus.”
“Cain, I don’t know why you wanted to talk to me today. But don’t bullshit me anymore. I saw what went on at the General’s house the other night.”
“Nothing went on, Will,” he said, holding the brass up to the light. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s important that no one ever hear about what you saw the other night. Very important. And it’s for your sake and not mine.”
“I don’t know, Cain,” I said. “I’ve got this big mouth and I just love to hear it run.”
“Bobby Bentley suffered a terrible accident,” Cain said coldly. “It could have been worse.”
“Get off it, Cain. Am I supposed to start trembling when you make your stupid little threats? Am I supposed to beg your forgiveness? You mess with me and I’ll go to the newspapers faster than you can throw gasoline on a kid tied to a chair.”
“Pearce has made it, Will,” Cain said. “That’s the only thing your interference accomplished. Pearce stays if you can keep your mouth shut. I’m authorized to tell you that.”
“I thought you didn’t belong to The Ten.”
“Never heard of it,” he answered. “It’s obviously a product of your overworked imagination. But Pearce is going to breeze through the rest of the year. In fact, Pearce claims he never left his room the other night.”
“I’ll remind him of the honor system, then I’ll ask him the same question. If he lies, court will be in session just the way it would be for any other cadet.”
“Go ahead, Will. Be a star. But if Pearce does go up before the honor court, which I seriously doubt, he will be found innocent. Of that, there’s absolutely no doubt.”
“So you’ve got someone on the honor court, too.”
“Bobby Bentley was very badly hurt, Will. Very badly,” Cain replied.
“So if I promise to keep quiet and Pig and Mark also promise, then we’ve reached a stalemate. We haven’t told Tradd anything,” I lied.
“How do we know that, Will?”
“I give you my word,” I answered. “Now do we have a deal?”
He rose from his desk and walked to the door. He looked out onto the gallery, making sure no one was listening to our conversation.
“I don’t know, Will,” he answered enigmatically. “You don’t understand how angry you’ve made some very important people. I called you here today as a friend, not as a member of any club. I was told that if you keep quiet, everything will be all right. But I’m not so sure. I don’t believe that.”
“Why, Cain?” I asked, suddenly feeling both nervous and vulnerable.
“There’s danger, Will,” he whispered. “I don’t know what kind. I don’t know what anyone can or will do. But there’s danger and I can’t help you. I wouldn’t help you if I could. If I were you or Mark or Pig, I would resign from school today. Today! I wouldn’t wait another minute. Get the fuck out of here and take an extra semester to graduate from Carolina. They’re going to be watching you, Will. They’re going to try to get you.”
“Who shall I look out for, Cain?”
“Everybody,” he said desperately. “Get out of this school, Will. Please get out of here.”
“They can’t do anything, Cain. I know too much.”
“Maybe you do know too much,” he answered.
“I’m not worried about those assholes, Cain,” I asserted. “I’m really not.”
“I would worry, Will, if I were you. You think you know a lot, but I’m telling you that you really know very little.”
“I’ll go to the Bear. I’ll see what he has to say about all of this.”
When I mentioned the Bear I saw a change come into Cain’s flat, disengaged expression. He went to his locker and retrieved from it a small, badly focused photograph. He handed me the photograph and again checked the door for uninvited listeners.
It was a picture of four masked cadets surrounding a bound and naked freshman. In the background was a figure estranged and disembodied from the others, the unmistakable figure of the Bear, smoking his cigar and overseeing the proceedings with a malevolently inappropriate grin. The chandelier I had ruined hung above the freshman. I was trembling as I studied the face of the naked prisoner bracing against the ropes. It was Poteete. I took the photograph and put it in my shirt pocket. At first, I could not unbutton the pocket.
“How do I get out of this, Cain?” I asked. “As my friend, tell me how I get out of this. Do I have to go to the newspapers?”
“If you go to them, Will, people will think you’re crazy. Pearce will swear he never left the barracks. I’ll swear I never left the barracks. Pig and Mark never saw Pearce. It will be ugly. You’ll be kicked out of school for lying and for reflecting discredit on the Institute.”
“I’ve got friends on the honor court,” I said. “They’ll believe me.”
“You’ll be kicked out for lying,” he repeated.
“I need time to think. I need time to plan. I’ll go see Pearce today and make him admit he was at the house.”
“You won’t know when they decide to move against you, Will.”
“Thanks for warning me, Cain. At least, I know there’s danger now,” I said, getting ready to leave. “By the way, you haven’t apologized for hitting me the other night.”
“I didn’t hit you, Will,” he said seriously. “I was in my room all night. You must have dreamed that.”
“I must have dreamed that Mark hit you, too. And you must have dreamed the same thing. Your face looks like shit.”
“Being funny isn’t enough anymore, Will,” Cain said. “It’s time to be serious. One last piece of advice.”
“What’s that, Cain?”
“Watch who’s behind you when you go downstairs and keep away from the railing on fourth division.”
“Good-bye, Cain.”
“We’re never going to talk again, Will,” he said, shaking hands with me. “I’
ve enjoyed knowing you, but it’s over between us. It’s gone too far and I can’t help you anymore. I just feel sorry for you.”
Pearce was asleep in his second battalion room when I found him in the late afternoon. His room was flooded with rays of direct sunlight in which numberless motes of dust rose and fell like colorless, microscopic balloons. I heard the lion roar in Hampton Park as his feeding time approached. As I studied Pearce’s face before I woke him, I wondered about his mixed and untraceable bloodlines, wondered what abducted tribes had combined to produce such furious handsomeness. I was sure that Pearce had descended from men and women unafraid of lions. He had proven that to me by walking into second battalion and into history on that first day of plebe week earlier this year. I shook him awake and he stared at me through the dusty sunlight. His brown eyes fixed me with their strength. A knob was not supposed to have strength in his eyes, especially one doused with gasoline and hurt with electricity only a couple of days before. His eyes alarmed me.
“Last time I saw you, Pearce, you smelled like a Texaco station,” I said.
“Pardon me, Mr. McLean,” he answered, warily standing at attention and bracing before me.
“Hey, at ease, man,” I said. “You know what I mean. When they threw gasoline on you the other night.”
“No one threw gasoline on me the other night, Mr. McLean,” he answered.
“So they got to you, Tom, my good man,” I said.
“I’ve slept in my room every night this week. Just like always, sir,” he said.
“You know I’m on the honor court, Pearce,” I warned him.
“I’ve been right here in my room, Mr. McLean. You can ask my roommate.”
“You can help me now, Tom,” I whispered urgently. “You’re home free. They won’t bother you anymore. They won’t hurt you, but I’m afraid they’re going to try to hurt me and my friends. If you back me up about the other night, they won’t be able to make a move against me. Without you, my roommates and I are out there all alone, Tom. And it’s cold out there. You know how cold it is.”
“It’s warm in here, Mr. McLean,” he said flatly. “I’m never going to let it be cold again.”
“Will you just tell the truth if I need you?” I pleaded. “If it’s absolutely necessary to call on you?”
“The truth is that I haven’t left this room at night all week,” he said. “I never went to any house and don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“I didn’t mention any house,” I said. “How did you know there was a house?”
“You mentioned a house when we met on the dock at the yacht basin,” he replied quickly.
“Yeh, I did, Pearce,” I said angrily. “Do you remember how frightened you were that night? Do you remember the two guys who came up to you at formation? Who wrote the number ten on your back? Who tied you naked to a chair? Who sent electric current through your dick? Who threw gasoline on you? Do you remember breaking the other night, Pearce? It wasn’t that long ago. They had you, my friend. You’d cracked and you were gone when that brick came through that window. You’d be sleeping at home right now if I hadn’t followed you to that plantation. That was a lynch mob that had you, Pearce. That was rape, man. And they’ll keep doing that to kids year after year. Just what they did to you. And they’ll make liars out of people. And if you’re not careful, Pearce, you’ll become just like them. You’ll wear the goddam ring and lose your soul in the process.”
A voice from the gallery behind me said, “My, but that was a very pretty, highfalutin speech.”
I turned and saw John Alexander and his Siamese twin, Braselton, entering the room. Their belt buckles gleamed like jewels above their groins; their shoes sparkled when they reached the sun in the middle of the room; their shirt tucks were impeccable. The crispness of their appearance was so flawless that they looked like something cultivated, vegetables grown for refinement instead of nutrition. At that moment I hated it that I was a slob, a gross senior private with grunge on his brass and lusterless shoes. With his overzealous grooming and relentless attention to every extraneous detail of military dress, Alexander had always made me feel that I did not bathe enough. I could feel dirt form under my fingernails whenever he came into view. Alexander’s eyes performed a silent inspection of me. He looked at me like he wanted to holler for a can of Raid.
Then he looked at Pearce and smiled warmly.
“At ease, Tom,” Alexander said to the freshman. “We just came in here to make sure Will wasn’t hazing you or violating any of the rules of the fourth class system. A lot of cadets are afflicted with racial prejudice, Will, and we’ve had to take extra precautions to protect Pearce here.”
“You’ve got some business with Pearce, Will?” Braselton asked me, grinning.
“Yeh, Braselton, me and Pearce are thinking about opening up a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise outside the Gates of Legrand.”
“Hey, that’s good. That’s really a good joke, isn’t it, John?” Braselton said, turning to his friend for approval.
“No one ever said McLean wasn’t a riot,” Alexander said. “Do you think Mr. McLean is a funny guy, Tom?”
“Yes, sir,” Pearce said.
“I think he’s the funniest guy I ever met,” Alexander said. “I laugh every time I think of Mr. McLean.”
“Me, too,” Braselton agreed. “He’s hysterical.”
“How have you been sleeping, Tom?” Alexander asked. “How did you sleep last Monday night, for instance?”
“Very well, sir. I didn’t wake up once, sir.”
“I wish I could say the same,” he said with a laugh “That damn train wakes me up every night as it crosses the campus. You’d think Id be used to it after four years. Then that damn lion started his roaring about three and kept me up for an hour. Yep, that was on Monday night, all right.”
“Man, I slept like a log,” Braselton said. “Howd you sleep, Will?”
“Not so good,” I said, turning away from them and facing Pearce directly. “I had bad dreams. I dreamed that I got a note that said a friend of mine had been taken off campus. I dreamed that I broke barracks and found my friend tied to a chair with men in black masks dousing him with gasoline. Two of the men are in this room now. I dreamed I checked the parking stickers of two cars, and these two men, wearing masks, started walking toward my friend with fire in their hands. My friend started screaming.”
“Sounds like a terrible nightmare, Will,” Pearce said, and the two cadets behind me exploded with laughter.
“It’s Mr. McLean to you, dumbhead,” I screamed, pounding my fist on his chest and throwing him against the wall. “Now rack your fucking chin in, knob.”
“Oh, dear, it looks like a sweat party,” Alexander said mockingly.
“McLean’s bucking for rank,” Braselton said, in the only amusing aside of his mediocre and emulative life.
“Hit it for fifty,” I shouted at Pearce, who dropped instantly to the floor and began counting out the pushups.
“One, sir, two, sir, three, sir . . .” he counted.
“Faster, dumbhead,” I ordered.
“Five, sir, six, sir . . .”
“Where were you Monday night?” I screamed in his ear.
“In my room, sir.”
“Is that an official statement, dumbhead?” I asked. “As a member of the honor court, I’m asking you: Do you swear you never left the room on that night?”
Pearce looked up at Braselton and Alexander. Looking at them, not at me, he said resolutely, “Yes, sir, I swear it.”
Rising, I faced the two cadets near the doorway. “So you can’t even leave the honor system alone.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, McLean,” Alexander responded.
“You sound paranoid, McLean,” Braselton added.
Pearce was still doing pushups when I knelt beside him and whispered into his ear, “Thanks, Tom. Thanks for everything. If I ever need you, I’ll leave a note in The Decline of the West by Oswal
d Spengler, between pages three hundred eight and nine.”
Chapter Forty
The meeting we held in the room that night was both dismal and funereal in tone. I had lost the aggressive cockiness I had brought back to the room from the General’s house. I had begun the day all feisty, unconquerable, and eager for the fracas; I had ended it timorously, defeated by a superior strategy. There were six weeks before June week and graduation. I suggested to my roommates that we become invisible until that time. I told them of my visits to Gilbreath and Pearce, of my rising awareness that we were helpless before the inspired, solitary malignancy of the intrigue against us. Their conspiracy was vast and all-enveloping; it included generals and commandants; it controlled the honor court; it co-opted its victims; it was spectral, incorporeal, and evil.
I spoke distractedly in a nervous dispirited voice, which had an alarming effect on Tradd and Mark. They instantly perceived the vulnerability of our position and its maddening elements of uncertainty. But on Pig, it had no effect at all. He was immune to the terrors of the unforeseeable future. He lacked all capacity for sustained worry or the distraught vigilance that comes from paranoia. I told them my greatest fear was that I did not know for sure that there was danger. We could not know until they either moved against us or did not.
“I thought I could beat them,” I admitted to my roommates. “I thought I was smarter than they were, that I could outwit them and make them come to me, accept my terms. I wanted to make them crawl. I wanted to humiliate them. Because they were secret and special and elite, I wanted to prove to them I was just as special as they were. They beat me.”
“They beat all of us,” Mark said, trying to make me feel better.
“You’re always nosing around in places and situations where you have no business at all,” Tradd scolded. “This was silliness in the first place and it’s pure silliness now. All of us should be studying for exams, but instead we have to waste our energies on this juvenile nonsense. I don’t think this tacky club has either the power or the inclination to waste their good time thinking about the members of this room. I think we should ignore the events of the past week, mind our own business, and get over it. We must put our trust in the fact that those ‘enemies,’ as Will calls them, are also our classmates. I don’t think we have anything to fear from classmates. But I think we owe this entire unfortunate turn of events, Will, to your gigantic ego.”