From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [118]
“Sure,” Prew said, “and if he can win four fights next year, he’ll be a fucking sergeant.”
“He’ll win them, too. He aint a bad fighter.”
“He aint a good one.”
“I never saw a Jew that was, including Barney Ross. But he’ll make it plenty tough on you and Angelo though, when he gets them stripes.”
“Not too tough.”
“It never gets too tough,” Stark mocked. “For a good man.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “But theres lots better men than future corporal Bloom ridin my tail in this outfit, tryin to scare me into going out for fighting. And they aint done it.”
“Thats right,” Stark said. “You dont scare, do you?”
“All right,” Prew said. “Okay. But a man cant let himself be pushed around by a bunch of pricks like that.”
“No,” Stark said, “a man cant do that.”
Prew shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But thats still the way I feel. Why not say it? I aint bragging.”
“I know yore not. But I never seen any sense in a man goin out of his way to ask them for it.”
“I dont go out of my way to ask them for it.”
“You dont think so,” Stark said. “They think so.”
“All I want is to be left alone.”
“In this world,” Stark said, “today, nobody is left alone.”
He sat down on the table beside the sink and got his sack of Golden Grain out, slipped a paper free, opened the sack with his teeth, and poured tobacco delicately and with great absorption into the curl.
“Take a break a while,” he said offhand. “Theres no hurry tonight. Listen,” he said, “how would you like to come to work for me in the kitchen.”
“You mean cooking?” Prew said, laying down the spatula. “Cook for you?”
“What else?” Stark said, without looking up. He offered Prew the sack.
“Thanks,” Prew said, taking it. “Well I dont know. I never thought about it.”
“I like you,” Stark said, absorbedly smoothing the tobacco away from the middle so it would be thick on the ends and not hump in the middle when he rolled it. “I reckon you know you can expect a rough time of it, when the Compny moves back into field training after the rainy season’s all done, along with Ike Galovitch, and Wilson and his boyfriend Henderson, together with Baldy Dhom, Dynamite, and all the rest the jockstraps; and with the Compny Smoker season drawin nearer all the time. Unless, of course, you change yore mind and decide to go out for Compny Smokers.”
“I suppose you want me to tell you all about why I dont go out?”
“Not me. I heard it all already. Plenty times. Old Ike dont talk about nothing else. If you was in the kitchen, Prewitt, they couldnt none of them get at you.”
“I dont need anybody to protect me,” Prew said.
“I aint asking you because of charity, buddy,” Stark said, suddenly clearly distinctly, no longer hesitantly. “A kitchen dont run on charity. If you couldnt do the work you wouldnt stay. If I dint think you could I wouldnt of ast you.”
“I never much liked to work inside,” Prew said slowly, seeing he meant it seriously now, and carefully thinking over how good it really would be to work under a man like Stark. Chief Choate was like this too, but in this outfit the corporals didnt run their squads, the platoon guides who couldnt speak English ran them. But Stark really ran the kitchen.
“I been wantin to get rid of Willard quite a while,” Stark said. “I could kill two birds. Sims would make First Cook and I’d start you off as Apprentice, so nobody could kick, then move you up to Second Cook and First and Sixth as soons you been there long enough to keep anybody from accusing me of favoritism.”
“You think I could do the work?”
“I know damn well,” Stark said, “or I wouldnt of ast you.”
“Would Dynamite okay a deal like that? When it was me?”
“He would if I promoted it. I’m the fair-haired boy right now.”
“I like to be outside,” Prew said, saying it very, very slowly. “And its messy in a kitchen. Food’s all right on the table, but its too sloppy for me in the pan. I lose my appetite.”
“Men got to eat.”
“B