THE FEAR OF INNOCENCE
799
detail of landscape from the frames of the windows. We inherited
the train, homecomers, strangers from battles with names and name–
less islands, our Discharges folded in our pockets. Only the aisles,
defined by the inhuman smell of the green baize curtains, linked our
car-end brightnesses; the weary porters dozed beside us, and the oc–
casional sleeper aroused for pissing, blinked in dazed hostility, knew
he was in another country.
Very late, after the whiskey was gone and the last bottle broken,
we would fumble along the cramped swaying corridors toward sleep,
and the whores would be after us, stretching between curtains their
restraining hands from upper berth and lower. "Come on in, Honey!"
"Up here, Dearie!" "Oh, stay away from her, she's no good!" "Try
me,
Honey!"-louder and louder until the M.P.'s were all around
us, nudging us on, "For God's sake, hit the sack, we gotta sleep too,"
and inspecting the girls' bunks just to be sure. And the whores would
scream after them, "What is this, a
jail?
Son-of-a-bitches!"
In the morning, we would wake from the begrudged few hours
of sleep, flush down the drain our last night's joy and regard briefly,
among the suspenders, the toothbrushes, the litter of crushed paper–
cups, our lathered images that rocked from sight and the razor to
the gut-bucket rhythm of our onwardness.
In a matter of two days we achieved customs, almost a profane
morning ritual. "How'd you do last night, Sam?" we would yell to
the Porter who was tucking away with agile trembling arms our
linen, "Get in, Sam?" and he would make the invariable response:
"I feel like the wrath of God. I feel like the wrath of God." Just
at that point, the large reddish Marine who slept above me would leap
to the floor with a thwack of his bare feet. "Glad my mother didn't
have no daughter," he'd say and wait, blinking in his green skivvy–
shirt, for some stooge to
ask
him why. "Cause she'd be a whore!"
and he'd wallop his thigh with such animal, innocent astonishment
at his own wit, that we could never forebear laughing, our day's first
laughter, without geniality but short of malice.
As
the last day of our trip darkened, I had an intolerable urge
to talk; for four days I had scarcely said more than, "That beats,
take the money!" or "Skip the water in mine this time," the un–
dangerous predications of one who belonged, and I was tired of my
disguise, ashamed of the cowardice that prompted it.
