PARTISAN REVIEW
were few ways to
kill
time. The corpsmen who operated our make–
shift X-ray laboratory were busy every afternoon reproducing by
the hundreds every pornographic snapshot they could find: a picture
of some giggling Wacs using a field latrine, photo reproductions of
old-fashioned etchings of Turkish soldiers in quaint Napoleonic uni–
forms raping overly-dressed Bulgarian women, just plain nudes, any–
thing. My job while on duty was to handle the daily medical exam–
inations of the groups (like flocks of disturbed birds) of Filipino
boys who were trying to enlist in the Navy. The work made me
nervous because, when they were rejected, they wore such bitter
and yet polite expressions of heartsickening doom. In my free time
I wrote letters, or played chess when I could find a partner, or I just
talked with Emesto.
Emesto was trying to get into the Navy, too, but I kept him on
as a civilian worker because he had learned something when he had
worked for the Army medics and with his high-pitched, chirping
Tagalog curses he could whip the physical examinations into a sem–
blance of order. The men, and he did himseif, called him Ernie, and
he seemed mildly insulted whenever I priggishly insisted upon calling
him Emesto. I began to use the name only when I wished to appear
stern, like the time he was screaming, "Theeze freegin' Flips, theeze
goddamn Flips...." "Ernesto," I warned. "Yes," and it was a mean,
sibilant sound from his girlish face. "They are Filipinos, you say
Filipinos." He blushed quickly, averted
his
eyes, and he would neither
look me in the face nor speak very much for several hours after that.
Ever afterwards I suspected dimly that he carried a small, cherished
hatred for me for that. He walked fragilely with his arms held up
and before him like a young girl entering a strange room, and it was
a teasing shock to hear him chatter away proudly at the long list of
heterosexual and scatological profanities he had learned from us.
That afternoon, which even now returns and clogs in my mind
and peace, I was talking with Emesto about his favorite subject, life
in the States, and
his
attention had turned to the large dance bands.
He was eager to impress me with
his
knowledge.
"They will have great buildings, is it not, to which the people
may come for dancing, and a great polished floor, large as a rice field
in the valley, my seester tells to me in her letters, .and in California
they will for one American dollar permit you to attend the dancing,
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