78
"What's that you've got tattooed there?"
"Oh, it's something I got in Seattle."
PARTISAN REVIEW
He turned and extended his right arm. There, running up it
to the elbow joint, was written in indistinct, hair-sprouting gothic
print,
Sic.
Above the elbow, running into his biceps, was
Transit.
I
leaned across
him
and took his left arm. The remaining two words
ran down it:
Gloria Mundi.
"Is that the only tattoo you have?"
"That's right."
"Do you know what it means? I mean how did you happen to
get that tattooed on you?"
"It's in Italian, and it means 'The shit hit the fan.' Pretty
good, huh!"
I considered the novel translation a second. "Well, not exactly."
"What d'ya mean? Don't it mean 'The shit hit the fan'?"
"I suppose it does ... in away. I'm sorry . . . Yes, I suppose
it really does, now that I think of it."
And so I could not take advantage even of the perfect
and
coincidental exemplum that revealed itself to me from the surfaces
of Sgt. Niederweg's manly arms. Had Greatheart spent his time
teaching the Christian family how to pick mushrooms he could not
have felt more inane or wasted. It was impossible to go on talking
with him like this, so I decided to say nothing more.
"Look," he pressed on, "I think I've got a chance to pass. You
know how they are in the Army. I might just go up there that
night and guess all the right answers too. It's happened before. Any–
way, I've learned something. It was worth it. And I can do
all
the
mathematics too. Who do you think'll pass?"
"I don't know."
"Well, maybe I'll make it."
For a moment I thought he must be out of his mind. No one
could have command of his wits and believe what he believed. Like
many madmen he looked past reality into that other world where
aspiration has become assured fact-whatever he could not persuade,
whatever resisted him, he ceased to regard. But even so, there was
that in him which would betray, even to himself, his pretense; even
his inordinate will could not coerce his mind out of its narrow, sham–
ing orbit; even the scandalous oddities of Army testing were not
