From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [171]
“Aw can it,” Prew said savagely and slipped into the seat of another loser who was checking out and grinning unhappily at The Warden with the look of a man who wants to do the right thing and be a good sport but finds it hard.
“Come on, come on,” Prew said. “Whats holding things up? Lets get this show on the road.”
“Man!” The Warden said. “You sound like you’re itchin for a great big lick.”
“I am. Look out for yourself. I’m hot. First jack bets.”
But he was not hot and knew it, he was only savagely irritated, and there is a difference and it took him just fifteen minutes and three hands to lose the forty dollars, as he had known he would. Where before he had played happily, lost in loving it, savoring every second, now he played with dogged irritation, not giving a damn, angered by even the time it took to deal. You dont win at poker playing that way, and he stood up feeling a welcome sense of release that came with being broke and able to quit now.
“Now I can go home and go to bed. And sleep.”
“What!” The Warden said. “At three o’clock in the afternoon?”
“Sure,” Prew said. Was it only three o’clock? He had thought they’d played Tattoo already. “Why not?” he said.
The Warden snorted his disgust. “Punks wont never listen to me. I told you you should of quit when you was ahead. But would you listen? A lot you listen.”
“Forgot,” Prew said. “Forgot all about it. Hows for loanin me a hundred, and I’ll remember.” It got a laugh around the table.
“Sorry kid. You know I’m behind myself.”
“Hell. And I thought you was winnin.” It got another laugh, and he felt better, but he remembered it did not put money back in his pocket. He elbowed his way out.
“What you want to awys be pickin on the kid for, First?” he heard Stark say behind him.
“Pick on him?” Warden said indignantly. “Whatever give you that idea?”
“He dont need you to pick on him,” the K Co topkick, a bald fat man with drinker’s hollowed eyes, said. “From what I hear.”
“Thats right,” Stark said. “He doin all right by himself.”
Warden snorted then. “He can take it. He’s a punchie. He’s use to bein hit. Some of them even like it.”
“If I was him,” the K Co topkick said, “I’d transfer the hell out of there.”
“Thats all you know,” Warden said. “He cant. Dynamite wont let him.”
“Come on,” Jim O’Hayer’s voice said nasally. “Is this a sewing circle or a card game? King is high, king bets.”
“Bet five,” Warden said. “You know, thats what I like about you, Jim. Your overwhelming sense of human compassion,” he said quizzically. In his mind Prew could see the eyes clenching themselves into those somehow ominous rays of wrinkles.
He let the shaky door swing shut behind him, cutting off the talk, wishing he could find it in him to hate that bitchery Warden but he couldnt, and remembering suddenly he had not even in his passion thought to get a sandwich and coffee from O’Hayer’s free lunch for the players. But he would not go back in there now.
He could also remember, suddenly, a lot of other things he had meant to do with part of that money before he risked it. He needed shaving cream and a new bore brush and a new Blizt rag and he had wanted to stock up some tailormades. It was lucky he had a carton of Duke’s still stashed away.
Because you are through, Prewitt, he told himself, your wad is shot, your roll is gone, you’re through till next month now, and there will be no Lorene for you this month. By next month she may have retired and gone back to the States already.
He jammed his hands in his pockets savagely and found some change, a small pile of dimes and nickels, and brought it out and looked at it, wondering what it was good for. It was enough to get into a small change game in the latrine, but the hopelessness of ever running that little bit back up to two hundred and sixty bucks hit him and he threw it down into the railroad bed viciously and with satisfaction watched it spread like shot but glinting silver, then heard with satisfaction the clink of it hitting the rails. He turned back to the barracks. Lorene, or no Lorene, poker or no poker, you are not borrowing any money at no twenty percent thats for sure. You aint borrowed any twenty percent money since you been on this rock and you aint starting now, school keeps or not.
He found Turp Thornhill in his own shed next to O’Hayer’s. Because there was nothing in O’Hayer, even at twenty percent, when he was playing. Turp was neith