The Great Santini (24 page)

"Very funny, feces face."

Past the Palmetto Theater where they studied the stills of coming attractions, past Sarah Poston's dress shop, past the bookstore which contained almost no books, and the barbershop which was really a pool hall, and the bank, which was an old refurbished mansion, they walked toward home. When they reached" The Lawn," a large greensward that lent its name to their neighborhood, with its columned white houses arranged around it, Ben was the first one to hear the car doors slam behind them. As he looked around he saw four boys spilling out of a 1955 Ford. One of them was Red Pettus.

"Run, Mary Anne," Ben said, looking toward his house and seeing his father's car in the driveway. "Get Dad, quick."

Mary Anne dropped her books and ran with surprising speed for their house which was situated at the far corner of the rectangle formed by the Lawn. Dropping his books, Ben turned to face the four antagonists who now bore down on him.

"Don't drop those books, Twinkie. 'Cause that's the only way you can fight," Red snarled. "I thought you were gonna stop me with a speller this afternoon."

"Red, I don't have any bone to pick with you."

"Is this the one, little brother?" a heavy, narrow-eyed boy said, appraising Ben carefully and moving around to his left with an impatient caution. He was in his early twenties and his hands were calloused and hard from labor. He also had red hair, but of a deeper, less offensive color than Red's.

"Yeah, Mac. This is the Twinkie, O.K. I guess you don't have any bone to pick with me. I sure got a big one to pick with you," Red said, going for his knife again. "You got me kicked out of school for a whole year, Twinkie."

"Put that knife up, Red. Use your fists or nothin' at all," his brother warned. Red slipped the knife into his back pocket and advanced toward Ben. The other two boys, who had remained silent, moved behind Ben and waited for Red or his brother to make the first move.

"You need three guys to whip me, Red. You chicken shit," Ben said.

"I could tear you in half, Twinkie."

"Why don't you prove it, you carrot-topped bastard. Your hair is sure ugly. It looks like someone shit on the top of your head."

"Let's get him fast, boys, and get the hell out of here," Red's brother said. "That girl's probably got the cops coming already."

A fist burned into Ben's kidney from behind, dropping him down on his knees. Another blow caught him flush on the cheekbone. He dove at Red's legs and succeeded in bringing him to the ground. Ben began to swing and kick at everything until he himself was kicked in the solar plexus and he lay gasping for breath, tears rolling down his cheeks.

The station wagon backed out of the Meecham driveway, came down Eliot Street at an unobtrusive pace, then accelerated across the Lawn at fifty miles an hour, stopping between the combatants and the '55 Ford parked in the road. Two men wearing flight jackets jumped from the car, removing their jackets as they did so and slinging them behind them as they advanced forward toward Ben who had quit fighting and had rolled into a defensive crouch to minimize the damage inflicted by the fists and kicks.

Ben heard his father say," Which two do you want, Virgil?"

"Shit, Bull, let me kill all four of them by myself. You go back to the house and fix a couple of drinks. I might even break out into a sweat."

"No, Virge, that wouldn't be fair. I don't want you to have all the fun. I want to kill at least one of them."

The four boys were looking for possible routes of escape when Red's brother decided that in arbitration lay his salvation from this swiftly retrograding dilemma. He proffered his hand to Bull and with a sincere but uncertain smile he said," I've no quarrel with the Marine Corps. No sir. I've always admired and respected the Marine Corps."

"That's mighty nice of you, sir," Bull said, taking the boy's hand. "And I've got a real feeling your respect for the Corps is going to sky-rocket in just a few minutes. "Bull began to squeeze the boy's hand in a pincerlike grip until the boy attempted to pull away. Soon Bull began to work the bones of the boy's right hand against each other, applying more and more pressure, until the boy began to scream for his friends to pull Bull off. Then, without haste, Bull waited for the right opening and hit him with a left cross that jerked the boy backward as though he had been shot. He would have fallen but Bull had not released his hand.

His breath coming back to him, each new lungful of air a gift of infinite price, Ben rose to one knee and watched the fight with eyes that were clouded with pain. He saw Colonel Hedgepath crouched in a boxing stance weaving toward the two boys who had attacked Ben from behind. One of them began to swing wildly at the colonel, who stepped back and aimed a kick that landed solidly in the boy's scrotum. Then, with careful deliberation and without a wasted movement, he punched the other boy to the ground with two punches to the stomach and two to the face.

Red circled behind Bull, coming at his back carefully. Reaching for his knife but thinking better of it, he threw himself against the colonel's legs. Bull stumbled but did not hit the ground. Instead, he lifted his leg and brought his shoe down hard on Red's wrist. By this time Ben was up and game again, his sore places numb and his temper deepening into a white heat manifested by a low, animal whine emitted as he charged the prone figure of Red. He left his feet and came down on Red's back with his knees, the air rushing out of his lungs as though he were a beach toy. All four of Ben's assailants were stretched out in the grass in various postures of defeat and pain. Dancing like schoolboys, Bull and Virgil went from one boy to the other as though touching bases, pleading with them to rise and fight again. Then Bull, seeing their car parked on the road behind his, sprinted toward it and mounted the front of the car with a single leap. He began to leap up and down on the car's hood, caving it in to the loud accompaniment of crumpling steel and Virgil's hurrahs. Then, he danced on the Ford's roof, leaving footprints of steel in his truculent clog across the top of the car. As a final signature, he leaped from the roof to the trunk and finally back to the ground, then, still seized with a demonic energy released by the fight, began pulling Red and his friends off the ground and kicked them toward the car.

"If you punks ever mess with my boy again," Bull screamed," they'll find pieces of you all over town."

That night after dinner Ben came downstairs with Mary Anne to say good night to the adults.

"How's my godson?" Virgil Hedgepath said.

"He's sore, Colonel," Ben answered.

"I'll tell you one thing, Virgil. I didn't know Mary Anne could move so fast," Bull said. "She ran that hundred yards from Ben to the house in just under three minutes."

"You will notice, Poopsy, that I am not even vaguely amused by your juvenile sense of humor. I look on myself as the heroine of the entire episode. You were the minutemen. I was Paul Revere."

"Well, Mary Anne, I have you to thank then for one of the most enjoyable afternoons I have spent in many a year. That reminded me, Bull, of the first time we got liberty when our carrier docked in San Francisco after the war," Virgil said.

"We must have fought with half the Pacific fleet during that week and a half," Bull said.

"It looks like my godson, old Marine Junior here, can use his fists when it's necessary."

"I got a phone call from your principal, Mr. Dacus today, Ben. He told me about the Jew you and Mary Anne helped out. I was right proud of both of you. I bet the reputation is going to spread around that school real fast that screwing with Meechams is like playing with fire."

Lillian and Paige Hedgepath joined their husbands in the den. Lillian served coffee to Bull and Virgil, putting a shot of Irish whiskey in each cup.

"I was just trying to talk Paige into coming to the tea I'm going to give for the senior officers' wives in December, Virge. You work on her at home and I'll make a novena once a month."

"Honey," Paige said," it would take a lot more than God and Virgil Hedgepath to get me to one of those godawful boring teas where those dumb wives sit around counting each other's wrinkles."

"Behind every successful Marine officer stands his loyal and uncomplaining wife," Virgil joked.

"My tea will be stimulating, Paige. That's why I want you to be there so much."

"I've always admired you for not going to those silly things, Mrs. Hedgepath," Mary Anne said.

"You may wish everyone good night, sugah," Lillian said coldly to her daughter. "You too, Ben, my pugilist son whom I have failed to raise as a gentleman."

"C'mon, Mama. I was a victim of circumstance. I've explained the whole thing to you."

"Yes, you've explained it. You've explained that you behaved like a beast all day picking one fight after another. I thought I was doing a better job than that of making you into something a bit more civilized than a chimpanzee."

"Hell," Bull said to Virgil," I'd hate to be that civilized."

"You obviously have more of your father in you than I thought," Lillian said. "Now good night, you two. It's been a long day."

Mary Anne kissed Colonel Hedgepath on the lips. "Good night, demon lover," she said. "Good night, Godzilla," she said to her father. "Good night, Paige. Don't you think I'm old enough to call you Paige? We're both mature women."

"Hell no," Bull shouted.

"That's disrespectful," Lillian said disapprovingly.

"Call me Paige when they're not around, Mary Anne. That goes for you too, Ben. Give me a kiss, Ben."

"O.K., Mrs. Hedgepath."

"That's it golden boy. Get in a few brownies before you go to bed," Mary Anne said. "Good night, Paige."

"What've I gotta do. Write you a book? It's Mrs. Hedgepath to you," Bull said.

"Hush, Bull," Paige snapped back. "Good night, you two. Ben, when are you and I going to run off and get married?"

"Soon. Very soon," Ben said, smiling. His whole body ached and there was a sudden pain when he smiled through split lips.

"Those are two fine kids," Virgil said after Ben and Mary Anne had left the room.

"They still need to be whipped into shape," Bull said.

"Horseshit, Bull," Paige flared. "Appreciate what you have and be goddam glad that you have it."

"You know our children look on you as their second parents, Paige," Lillian said softly. "That must mean something."

"It does," Paige Hedgepath said, close to tears. "It means everything."

In Bull's mind, a rational structure that underwent analysis, change, decay, transfusions, and bright injections of insulin whenever he found a flaw undermining the whole system, he plotted out the course of how he would be the best squadron commander in the history of the Marine Corps. In his bones he could feel war with Cuba an inevitability and he constantly exhorted the young pilots to hone their skills because he felt that their day of fire was very near. He knew the mechanics of being a good commander: the tricks, procedures, requirements, and occasional gymnastics one had to employ to keep morale high and the higher echelons pleased. Much of it was natural to him; the rest he would pick up as he went along. Three weeks after he took command, he had talked to every man in his squadron and knew something personal about each one. He had a limitless capacity for being everywhere, for appearing on the flight line when he was supposed to be signing weekend passes. His methodology was simple. While he had inherited problems in 367, he was determined to purify it of difficulties, procedural or spiritual, within a short period of time. If he could not, he told his Exec," the squadron will bleed."

Part of this command superstructure that had accumulated over an entire career was not completely fleshed out but still had impact on the colonel's persona as a commander. One intuitive feeling he had that he could not trace to anyone or anything, except perhaps to some footnote in the
Marine
Corps
Officers
'
Guide,
was that a Marine commander should establish a good rapport with the civilian population of the local town. He had noticed that none of the other squadron commanders ever mentioned this secondary responsibility, but once Bull thought about it, he hunted about for a satisfactory solution. It was this extra attention to detail, a supernumerary zeal to approach perfection that led him to spend part of each weekday morning at Hobie's Grill.

Hobie Rawls was the mayor of Ravenel and was the size of a tight end gone to seed. His grill was the gathering place for the men of the town who liked to monitor the traffic on River Street or who wanted to hear gossip when it was still lean and stringy, before it developed the corpulence of passing between too many lips. Bull knew that every town had its Hobie's, a rallying place for both the withered and the bright pharisees who had a passion for assembly and a genuine need to keep a tab on the why's and wherefore's of their town.

It was no easy task for a stranger to become a regular at Hobie's. The men who peopled the grill in the early hours of morning were not just regulars to the restaurant, they were regulars to the town and their family names were on street signs and monuments. It was a closed and grandly intolerant brotherhood. But Bull had broken into the inner circle just by appearing at the restaurant one morning at 0715 hours. Routine was a powerful icebreaker with the boys who drank their morning coffee with Hobie.

He had liked the restaurant immediately. It was unpretentious, masculine, decorated with a nautical motif, and had a constant smell of fried bacon about it. Photographs of shrimp boats and fishermen with their splendid catches of blues and whitings lined the walls from top to bottom. One wall was lined with high-backed leather booths opposite a long counter with twelve stools. A huge beveled mirror gave a man sitting on the stool a view of the whole grill. Bull had chosen a stool in the middle of the counter on the day he first became part of the crowd.

Several men had turned to look and nod at him when he walked through the door. He perused the menu perfunctorily and listened to a conversation resume that he had interrupted when he walked through the door. He marveled at the slowness of their speech; words seemed to crawl from their mouths and drop like stones to the floor.