The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [115]
Hearn shook his head. "Hell, no, my father can't even read or write. All he can do is sign checks."
They laughed. "Wait a moment," Conn said, "Bill Hearn, Bill Hearn, by God, I know him, has some factories in the Middlewest, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota?"
"That's right."
"Sure," Conn said, "Bill Hearn. You look like him, come to think of it. I met him when I was out of the Army in 'thirty-seven, organizing the stock for a couple of companies. We got along fine."
It was possible. His father would throw back his straight black hair, and clap Conn on the back with one of his meaty moist hands. "Hell you say, man," he could hear his father booming, "either you throw your goods on the table, and we talk a little turkey, or you can admit you're just a goddam fraud" -- then the twinkle, the charm -- "and we can just get potted together, which is what the hell we want to do in the first place." But, no, Conn wasn't right; Conn didn't quite fit it.
"I saw his picture in the papers about a month ago. Have about ten papers sent to me regularly. I can see your old man's putting on a little weight."
"Keeping about even, I guess." He had been sick in the past three years and was down to almost the normal weight for a man his size. Conn didn't know his father. Of course not. Conn wasn't even a first sergeant in 'thirty-seven. You didn't quit the Army to organize companies when you were a staff sergeant. Abruptly Hearn realized that Conn had not whored with Generals Caldwell and Simmons in Washington, oh, possibly once he'd had a drink with them, or more likely he'd served under them as a noncom before the war but the whole thing was pathetic, and a little disgusting. Conn, the big operator. Even now the watery sagging eyes, the paunch, the mottled bulbous nose, were staring at him with sincerity. Sure he knew Bill Hearn. If they put Conn on the rack, he'd die swearing he knew him, believing he knew him.
"I'll tell you what, when you see Bill Hearn again, you tell him you saw me, or write to him, tell him that."
What had gone on in Conn's head for twenty years in the Army? Or particularly the last five when he had discovered he could swim as an officer?
Pop! went Dalleson's carbine.
"I'll tell him. Why don't you look him up? He'll be glad to see you."
"I might. I'd kinda like to see him again. They don't make them more sociable than your father."
"Sure." With a delicious effort Hearn restrained himself from saying, Maybe he can give you a job at the gate, keeping people out.
Instead he stood up. "I'm going in for a dip," he announced. He sprinted down the beach, hit the water flatly, and coasted under, feeling his mirth, his disgust, his weariness wash away in the delight of cold water against his heated flesh. When he came up he spouted some water gleefully, and began to swim. On the beach the officers were still sunning themselves, playing bridge or talking. Two of them were throwing a ball back and forth. The jungle looked almost pretty from the water.
Some artillery boomed very faintly over the horizon. Hearn ducked under again, came up slowly. The General had said once, savoring the epigram, "Corruption is the cement that keeps the Army from breaking apart." Conn? Cummings hadn't applied it that way, but Conn was still a product.
All right and so was he. What was corruption but knowing virtue and eschewing it? All very neat. And where did General Cummings fit in? That was a bigger question, that was one which couldn't be tied up in a package. In any case he was going to stay away from the General. Cummings had left him alone, and he would return the compliment. He stood up in shallow water, and shook his head to clear his ears. It was good swimming, damn good. Clean. He did a somersault underwater and then struck out with a steady stroke parallel to the shore. Conn was probably still beating his gums, still elaborating the myth that had become the man.
"Wakara, what does umareru mean?" Dove asked.
Lieutenant Wakara extended his slim legs, and wiggled his toes thoughtfully. "Why, it means, 'to be born,' I think."