From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [319]
Still lying on his bunk, Bloom heard the first few of the light eaters beginning to come out through the kitchen now and disgustedly listened to them come upstairs, expecting some of them to come squat on his bunk and start brownnosing him now he had made corporal. Instead, they scattered to their bunks. Bloom felt relieved. Thank God for small favors.
Three of them sat down together, pulled out dice and started shooting craps for tailormades. They each had two or three open packs filled with the various mixed brands from former games which they had gotten from their footlockers and which they did not smoke. When they wanted a smoke they rolled one. Bloom half sat up and made as if to go over and sit in, then decided not to. Anyway, he had no tailormades.
Bloom lay back down hoping they had not seen him look just as Cpl Miller passed by his bunk on his way in from the latrine and Bloom watched him waiting to see if he would maybe speak or offer to sit down but Miller went on to his bunk.
For a second Bloom was hurt but he reminded himself that Miller had done right. It was always bad policy for noncoms to get together in front of the privates and let them see you letting down and being human. That was SOP, but you had to get use to it when you were new. It was no soft cinch, being a noncommissioned officer, like you thought it was when you were a private.
Bloom fingered himself through the thinness of his fatigue pants pocket wishing he had enough dough to make a trip over to Big Sue’s in Wahiawa tonight. Then he remembered how Sue had called him Jewboy, to his face in front of all her girls, last time he was over there and his face darkened angrily. He had made himself a sworn resolution not to give that whorehouse any more of this Jew’s money, but he reminded himself that he had not been wearing those two stripes then. They wouldnt be so goddam wise when they saw those two stripes and that money—
—and dont forget that third stripe, kid, he told himself secretly, after that short-timer boat leaves next month, with the middleweight division in your pocket you’ve got that cinched, kid; old Dynamite practically told you in so many words himself, after that last knockout.
With that one, it really would be different then. Big Sue’s could whistle; it would be the New Congress downtown whenever Sgt Bloom wanted to get his differential overhauled; it would be nothing but Marlboros then, the ivory tips, nothing but the Ivory Tips, he said it over to himself slowly with relish, trying to work up some enthusiasm but the heavy heat would not let him, this goddam heat, Bloom thought, Marlboro Ivory Tips, the kind that goddam queer bastard Flora smokes all a time so highhat, let her stink in her own sweat, then, stew in her own juice, then, he thought metaphorically.
Bloom rolled over again savagely happily, to let his chest up for air again (at least he didnt have to fall out for Fatty-gyou this afternoon, he didnt even have to train if he dint feel like it, he could lay here on this bunk all afternoon), just in time to see Friday Clark come in past him from the PX eating a chocolate icecream cone. Bloom snorted disgustedly, feeling outraged that a dimwit Wop of a buckass private should have money for icecream while the corporals went broke. If he had money for icecream, maybe he could get back his appetite. A fighter needed an appetite. Especially a fighter. He suddenly felt panicky and hated his stomach savagely for having betrayed him in this crisis.
Friday Clark had gone to the PX for a much needed bottle of shoe-polish with fifty cents borrowed from Niccolo Leva. He was surprised to see so many up from chow already and their presence enhanced his loneliness, it was funny about loneliness, he never was so lonely when he was alone as when he was in the midst of people. That was one of the reasons he had deliberately missed chow. With Andy on guard again, and Prew in the Stockade, Friday couldnt eat in the messhall. When he thought of Prew in the Stockade, Friday had the same awful, empty feeling he use to have when his mother would tell him he would turn black like a nigger if he didnt stop playing with himself. It was days like these that made Friday almost wish he wasnt a Special Duty man sometimes. Besides that, he had not gotten the shoepolish he had gone for. He had spent 15c for an icecream sundae—chocolate whi