From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [111]
“I’m going up,” Dining Room Orderly Maggio, who was done first, called in to him. “When you get through come up and we play some two-hand casino.”
“For how much?” Prew said.
“Well,” Maggio hedged. “How much you want to play for?”
“I’m broke.”
“You are? Then I guess we play for nothin. I’m broke too. Well, what do you know,” he said. “Both broke. I thought I could maybe make you for a couple bucks.”
“We could play for jawbone,” Prew grinned.
“I cant. I owe my payday out already. Unless you want to make it payday after next?”
“Okay.”
“I guess I better not,” Maggio reflected. “I owe part of that one too. All I want is when that loudmouth Bloom comes up to be doin something. I listened to him tell how he is the middleweight champ next year enough for one day. I be upstairs.”
“Okay,” Prew said. Willard had not bothered him any more and he finished up the pots and pans from dinner even before Bloom and Readall Treadwell got their dishes done. He wanted to talk to his friend Stark again, not about Negroes, not about anything specially, but just to talk, friendlily, about nothing, with another, who was a soldier, of his own category. But Stark was working so he went on upstairs and had a shower, exulting as the steamy scalding water beat the sickening grease off him, and put on a fresh suit of suntans, just to loaf around in and be clean in, until time to report back.
Angelo was stretched out on his bunk in suntans himself, his hair still damp and looking very clean and obviously enjoying it, reading a well rolled, long discarded comic book.
“I get my cards,” he said and handed Prew the book. “Man, I feel good. I been readin Tom Mix and the Ralston Straight Shooters. Pow! Pow!” he said, jabbing a forefinger and cocked thumb at the jockstraps and special duty men scattered around on their bunks. “Straight Shooters always win and a nuther thousand yowling redskins bit the dust.”
“The Mystery of the Haunted Ranchhouse, starring Tom Mix,” Prew read. “This aint the Ralston Straight Shooters. The Ralston Straight Shooters is an ad.”
“So whats the difference? I use to be a Junior G Man onct. Its the same difference. Me and J Edgar was like that. Them drawings really look like old Tom, dont they?”
“I wonder what happened to him? You never see him any more.”
“His horse died,” Maggio said, “and he had to retire.”
“Tony,” Readall Treadwell said, coming in from the latrine, a towel wrapped around his big, fat, but heavily muscled under the fat, belly with its navel like a dimple and the hair on it thick enough to comb. “His name was Tony.”
“Remember Buck Jones’s horse Silver?” Prew said. “There was a real horse.”
“Yes, man,” Maggio said. “Between Buck and his horse they had the two biggest chests in creation.”
“He was a deep sea diver,” Readall Treadwell said, sitting down, “before he got in the movies. I read it in a movie magazine. Our Lucky Stars, it was.”
“He was a sailor,” Maggio said scornfully. “You dont want to believe the crap in them magazines. Its propaganda. He was a sailor and he bummed around some, like Jack London.”
“Well anyway,” Readall Treadwell said, “when Buck Jones hit them they stayed hit. Deal me in.”
“Dont get my goddam blanket wet,” Maggio said, “or I’ll hit you so you’ll stay hit.”
“Remember Bob Steele?” Prew said, as Reedy moved to put a paper under him. “He was the one could hit. He was a natural hooker. He was good to watch when he fought, you could tell he been a fighter.”
“I seen him in Mice and Men,” Maggio said. “He was Curly, the boss’s brother-in-law. Boy, he was a mean son of a bitch in that one.”
“But he was a good guy in his own pictures though,” Readall Treadwell said.
“Sure he was, you jerk,” Maggio said disgustedly. “You dont think he’d be the villain when he was