The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [129]
Jeez, it's beautiful out. A play of yearnings, lost and never articulate. Makes ya think. He sighs. Real beautiful, makes ya think. The woman with whom he could share this. I'm gonna be something.
Awe. Night like this makes you know there's a God, dumb atheists. Jeez, it's beautiful, really beautiful, it makes ya think things are gonna be okay.
He sits there, absorbed in the night. I ain't like the other guys, theah's somethin' special in me. He sighs again. Boy, to. . . to. . . He fumbles for his thought as though his hand were groping for a fish in the water. Jeez to. . .
Roy, you're okay with us, I don't have to tell ya that, you know that we're gonna be givin' ya somethin' special real soon, and to show what the boys think of ya, we got a little outfit you're gonna be working with for a while, it ain't tied up to us exactly [Macnamara moves his hand deprecatingly] but mentioning no names theah's a couple of the big boys kinda like the way they work against the international plot, you know the one the rich kikes got all figured out to bring us communism.
On the payroll at ten dollars a week even though he is only working nights. The office is on the top of a two-story loft, a desk and a room filled with pamphlets and magazines tied in bundles. Behind the desk there is a large banner with a cross and an interlocking C and U.
Christians United, that's the name of this here outfit, Gallagheh, CHRISTIANS. . . UNITED, you get it, we're out to break the goddam conspiracy, what this country needs is some blood, y'afraid of blood? the big guy behind the desk asks. He has pale-brown eyes like panes of dull glass. We gotta staart mobilizing and get ready, the International Jews is tryin' to get us to war, an' we gotta get them first, ya see the way they take away all the jobs, we let it go an' we won't have a fuggin chance, they're high up but we got our friends too.
He sells magazines on street corners (READ ABOUT THE BIG FOREIGN PLOT! GET FATHER KILIAN'S MAGAZINE AND LEARN THE TRUTH!), he goes to secret meetings, drills for an hour a week in a sporting club which uses old Springfields.
What I wanta know is when we gonna staart, I wanta see some action.
Y' got to take it easy, Gallagheh, it takes time, we gotta get everything set up and then we can come out in the open, we're gonna get this country run right, you come in with us at the bottom and you're in.
Yeah. (At night sometimes he cannot sleep, the thick lusting dreams, the quick ache in his chest.) I swear I'm gonna bust up if we don't. . . we don't get goin'.
But. . .
The girl friend at last, the hormones no longer distilled into vinegar.
You know, Gallagher says to Mary, you're really a swell kid, I. . . I get a bang outa talkin' to ya.
This is a swell night, Roy. (Looking off across the beach, searching the lights of Boston Harbor, which flicker like star formations in an uncertain clouded sky. She picks up a handful of sand, and pours it on her shoe, the glare from the bonfire making her hair seem golden. Her slim long face, freckled and sad, seems pleasant, almost lovely.)
Ya want me to toast a hot dog?
Let's just talk, Roy.
Around them, the couples with whom they have come have deserted the fire and are giggling in the shadowed hollows of the beach. A girl screams in mock fright, and he strains at the noise; uncomfortable, he thinks he hears the liquid slapping sounds of love.
Yeah, it's been a swell night, he repeats. He wonders if he can make love to her, and becomes suddenly shy. (She ain't like that, she's the pure kind, a good religious girl.) He feels guilty with his desire.
There's lots of things I'd like to talk to you about.
Sure, Roy.
Well, you know, we been goin' out for a coupla months, you know, what do ya think of me? He flushes at the crudeness of it, at the part of his mind that hopes for a physical issue. (The giggles become louder on the beach.) I mean do ya like me?
I think you're really swell, Roy, you know you are a gentleman, you're not fresh like all the other fellows.
Oh, yeah. He is disappointed, vaguely humiliated, and yet he generates some pride. I got other things on my mind.