About My Life and the Kept Woman by John Rechy

Author:John Rechy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2008-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

I still waited for orders in the jagged “holding company” in the dusty heat of Kentucky. For a short time—a few hours—the incident with Bailey had transformed me into a hero among the soldiers, who slapped my back, laughed. They did not know, nor did I tell anyone, about the encounter in the orderly room with the lieutenant, especially not that I had stayed informally, sitting in his office, talking about where we had attended college, where I had studied, what I had majored in. All that the others in the company knew, what they were reacting to, was that I was back in the holding company, not arrested, not put up for a court-martial.

Everything settled into the same routine. I did not read in the ranks any more, realizing how foolishly I had put myself in peril by heckling Bailey. If any officer other than the lieutenant who called me in had been involved, I would now be awaiting a court-martial, perhaps waiting to be taken to an army prison.

It was now the weekend after the incident. Since no one was granted a pass in a waiting company, most of the men rushed to the post exchange after the last reading of orders, trying to break the tense monotony.

I was alone in the barracks, lying in my bunk, my eyes closed, trying to relax from the tension about pending orders. Europe or Korea? Korea, mounting deaths, burned villages, bloodied bodies.

I opened my eyes.

Standing by my cot was Acting Corporal Bailey.

I sat up, apprehensive, certain he had come to extend the earlier conflict. “What the hell do you want, Corporal Bailey … sir?” I had added the last word to obviate a reason for his planned confrontation, hoping he would not interpret it as sarcasm.

“At ease, Private Rechy.”

Still tensely, I leaned back on the cot. He sat down near my feet.

“You don’t have to call me sir,” he said. “I’m not a real corporal, just like you said out there. These stripes are pinned on.” He touched the stripes, loose.

I didn’t relax. Would this passive mood shift into abrupt anger?

“What I did out there, to you, it wasn’t right, it was—” He shook his head, baffled.

“It’s over,” I said.

“Not for me.”

In siding with me, had the officer censured him? That wouldn’t have been fair. The lieutenant had allowed the scene to play out. Had he done so to humiliate Bailey?

“Heck, I’m no one, no one at all.” He seemed to be speaking to himself. He placed his hand on the cot. He looked so sad, so tired, as if feeling the weight of his harsh judgment on himself.

“That’s not true,” I said, “you’re—”

“Private Rechy—”

“Corporal Bailey?”

Silence.

I was tempted to touch his hand, so close to mine, to bring about some release from whatever he was feeling, trying to say.

He stood up abruptly, looked down at me. He reached for the pinned stripes on his sleeve as if about to tear them off. Instead, his hand fell, unable to finish the gesture.

“I just came to say good-bye.

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