From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [334]
“Of course,” he said, “there would be two more just like them the next day and we would have to start over again, but the Toughest Jail in the US Army would soon become also the Toughest Assignment in the US Army. And if we sent enough of them along after Father Thompson and Fatso, eventually they would have to close up this shop in despair and let us all go home.”
The ever-present thirty-year-man that was always there in Prewitt wondered if he meant home to their outfits or home to civilian life, but somehow he did not feel like asking.
Jack Malloy let the silence ring on for another minute. He had said it all loudly, and nobody said anything this time either. There seemed to be a general feeling that he could do just exactly what he said.
There was another feeling, too, Prew noted, here in Number Two. It was a feeling that had not been in Number Three. The only way he could describe it was that it was a feeling that you could say anything loudly, absolutely anything, loudly. It was a good feeling.
“Have a smoke, citizen,” Jack Malloy said, lowering his voice back to normal, and offering him from a full pack of tailormades. It was like a signal and the men on the floor who had been chastened began to smoke and talk again.
“Hey,” Prew said, embarrassedly, “tailormades. Thanks.”
“I got plenty more,” Jack Malloy said. “Any time you want one. If this little son of a bitch,” he nodded at Angelo, “with all the pure unadulterated guts he’s got, would follow my advice half as well as you did, he could have pulled off his plot and been out of here a month ago.”
“Thats all right,” Angelo countered, taking the offered cigaret, “you just wait. I can do it anyway. I know I can.”
Prew watched his eyes go a little crazy again, hungrily, like they always did at the mention of his great secret plan, but this time his eyes did not get the murderous suspicion in them that they always got out on the rockpile.
“I’m just biding my time,” he said craftily. “I can do it all right. Dont worry about that.”
“Sure you can,” Jack Malloy said gently. “Sure you can, citizen. But you could do it a whole lot easier, and save yourself a whole lot of nasty bumps, if you’d listen to me.”
“I listen to you,” Angelo said violently. “More than once’ve I listen to you. And I’ve tried it. Not ony Passive Resistance, but the other in the Hole. I just cant do it, Jack. Either one.”
“The citizen here did it,” Jack Malloy nodded at Prew, “he did both of them.”
“I still dont know how though,” Prew put in.
“That doesnt matter,” Jack Malloy said. “I dont know either. You still did them.”
“Okay, so maybe he can do them,” Angelo said hotly. “For him thats fine. For me thats from nothing. What a use for me keep on trying I cant do them?”
“None,” Jack Malloy said, in the same gently tender tone that his voice never seemed to get out of, even when he spoke loudly. “Thats why I told you to stop. But you could do it—if you only believed you could strong enough, so that you didnt knock yourself out trying so hard.”
“That tells me a lot,” Angelo said. “That tells me a hell of a lot. Maybe Prew can do it. Well, I told you he was your kind of a guy. But nobody else around here has ever been able to do them.”
“That doesnt mean they cant do them,” Jack Malloy said. “The same thing is in every man’s mind. My mind’s no different than your mind, citizen.”
It was a habit of his, Prew found out later, he never called anybody anything but citizen. Once, the story went, he had even called Major Thompson citizen a couple times. It had earned him four extra days in the Hole. Prew wondered why he did things like that, and then all the time told everybody else not to?
“Like hell it aint differnt,” Angelo grinned. “I had your mind, I wount never of been in this fucking place in the first place.”
“You had my mind,” Jack Malloy grinned ruefully, one of those rare flashing grins of his, always rueful, that were different from his smile which never quite reached clear up into the vague unlistening eyes, “you had my mind, citizen, you’d been in here a hell of lot sooner than you were.”
“I guess thats no lie,” Angelo grinned with a great