HOW LIKE A GOD
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was wedged in a booth at the rear of a recently opened back room,
beneath a hideous, illuminated painting-on-glass of Niagara Falls. I
hailed him, went over to his table and sat down across from him.
We exchanged greetings, and I told him that I had been levied for
overseas; he had heard about it already and wished me good luck.
"Did you ever get the results of that exam?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"How did you do?"
"I failed." Distress still fluttered above his growl, though he
must have known the results for over two weeks. He studied the
depths of his beer glass, and I guessed he might be very slightly
drunk, though it is always hard to tell with someone like him.
"Ya know, I don't know why I took that test. What the hell,
I was screwed anyway. I mean, ya know the Army, they don't ever
do nothing right. Ya need a college education to pass that test. I
couldn't answer none of them questions. That's what pisses me off.
How do they expect ya to pass that test if ya never had an educa–
tion anyway? All this build-up and cock-and-bull, and then ya get
a kick in the ass."
"That's not true," I said. "You know you weren't prepared
for that exam. Even if it were easier you might not have passed it.
You're blaming the Army for something it's not guilty of. You know,
I hate the Army more than you ever will, but that doesn't mean it
purposely made you flunk or gave you an especially hard test. As a
matter of fact all the copies I've ever seen are quite simple.
If
you'd
been able to prepare yourself thoroughly you might have seen that
too.
"Besides," I went on, "I don't see why the test was so damned
important to you. I don't mean to be rude, but it doesn't make sense
that someone like you, with your own kind of experience, should be
interested in a high school diploma. Look at it this way: you're
actually past the age where you could do anything with it; you're
not going to go to college or anything like that, and it's not as
if
you were going to get out of the Army right away and go into
business or some kind of work where you would be asked for proof
of an education."
"Did I say I was? Why do you have to have that kind of
reason to want to take that test? Look, kid, I'm a soldier, and I
