The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [29]
He feels the sweet sick nausea. (Protestant girls like me, I will make much money.) Ysabel, when I am big I buy you many dresses.
Her wet velveted body relaxes. She lies down on her spread-out dress, her premature breasts lolling in the summer heat. Dresses? she asks. What color will they be?
Julio Martinez is big boy now, big financier; he works in a hashhouse. Counterman. The foul rich barbecue smell, the garlic molten in the hot dogs on the griddle. Joe and Nemo, Harry and Dick, White Tower. Grease on a sizzling plate and the crumblings, the rancid fat, all to be scraped with the spatula. Martinez wears a white jacket.
Texans can be impatient. Hey, you boy, hurry up that chili.
Yes, sir.
Prostitutes look through him. Lots of relish, boy.
Yes, miss.
The cars flare by in the electric night, his feet ache on the concrete floor. (I will make much money.)
But there are no jobs with much money. What can a Mexican boy do in San Antone? He can be counterman in hashhouse; he can be bellhop; he can pick cotton in season; he can start store; but he cannot be a doctor, a lawyer, big merchant, chief.
He can make love.
Rosalita has a big belly; it is almost as big as the belly of her father Pedro Sanchez. You will marry my daughter, Pedro says.
Sí. But there are prettier girls than Rosalita.
It was time you were married anyway.
Sí. (Rosalita will grow fat, and children will run through the house. Shlup-shlup, shlup-shlup, giggle in your pillow. He will dig ditches on the roads.)
You are the first with her in any case.
Sí. (It was not his fault. Sheik, Ramses, Golden Trojan. Sometimes it was even two dollars out of the twenty he made in a week.)
I will talk with Señora Martinez.
Sí. If you wish.
The night is dull with woe. Rosalita is sweet but there are girls sweeter. He walks along the dirt-impacted streets. They are beginning to pave them now.
Tired? Restless? Knock up a dame? Join The Army.
Martinez is a buck private in 1937. He is still a private in thirty-nine. Nice shy Mex kid with good manners. His equipment is always spotless, and that's sufficient for the cavalry.
There are details. You weed the officers' gardens, you can be houseboy at their parties. You groom a horse after you ride it; if it is a mare you swab out its dock. The stables are hot and fermy. (I will buy you many dresses.) A soldier strikes a horse across the head. That's the only way that dumb four-legged sonofabitch knows. The horse neighs with pain, lashes out with its feet. The soldier strikes it again. Sonofabitch kept tryin' to throw me today. Treat a horse like a nigger and it'll act up right.
Martinez steps out from his stall, is seen for the first time. Hey, Julio, the soldier says, keep your mouth shut.
The instinctive quiver. (Hey, you boy, hurry up that chili.)
The nod, the grin. I do that, Martinez says.
Fort Riley is big and green and the barracks are of red brick. The officers live in pretty little houses with gardens. Martinez is orderly for Lieutenant Bradford.
Julio, will you do a good job on my boots today?
Yes, sir.
The Lieutenant takes a drink. Want one, Martinez?
Thank you, sir.
I want you to do a real good job on the house today.
Yes, sir, I do that.
The Lieutenant winks. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.
No, sir.
The Lieutenant and his wife leave. Ah think yore the best boy we eveh had, Hooley, Mrs. Bradford says.
Thank you, ma'am.
When the draft starts Martinez makes corporal. The first time he drills a squad he is so frightened he can barely sound the commands. (Fugged if I'll take an order from a Mex.) Squad left, left by squads. To the rear, march; to the rear, march. (You men must understand your responsibility. There is nothing more difficult in the world than to be a perfect noncom. Firm and aloof, firm and aloof, those are the keywords.) COL-umn RIGHT. The shoes tamping on the red clay, the sweat drips down. Hut, hup, hip, hor, hut, hup, hip, hor. (I frig white Protestant girls, firm and aloof. I WILL BE GOOD NONCOM.)
Squad halt! PaRADE rest!
Martinez is in the cadre for General Cummings's infantry division, goes overseas as a corporal in recon.