Chapter 56
You are alone in the hands of a recollection and they
caress your skin and beckon to the flesh while the
flesh beckons to the bone. And together they reach out
and build a wall out of sand in order to
imprison thoughts that would never make an effort to escape.
Well, what is there to remember? Of infancy? Of childhood?
An ordinary house with an ordinary tree in an ordinary
back yard. A broken toy and the bright penny in
the tight fist for the square of chocolate and the
bewildering necessity of putting the left shoe on the left
foot. Voices. Pleasant voices, scolding voices, entreating voices,
mmmimpatient voices.
Voices feeding you, voices fondling you, voices raised to spank.
A walk along a dusty road with hands thrust deep
in pockets and a shrill, tuneless whistle through air-conditioned
mmmteeth.
Schooling and the terrible shyness and the awareness of self.
A game, a book, a friendship, a hill and the
clamorous joy of running down it, and the knowledge of
a secret spot of cool shade. The darkness of night
and the silence and a special star to wish upon.
Years telescoping together and crowding themselves up
mmmand the abrupt
realization that no one had ever taught you how to
read the face of a clock. The clannishness of small
boys, the clubbiness, the teaminess, the togetherness of
mmmpuppy spirits.
Well, has it been any different with your coming of
age? An ordinary foxhole near an ordinary palm in an
ordinary jungle. A useless Tommy gun, a bar of dried
chocolate from a K-ration, and the utter compulsion to lie
on your right side because very little remains of your
left. Voices here, too. Japanese voices yelling in terror. American
voices cursing, growling, some voices striding onward in
mmmstalwart tones
other voices limping quaveringly along with stones in their shoes.
Muddy trails to walk upon, to crawl upon and to
sink down under, and hands that are raised in a
signal meaning stop or swept forward in a sign that
means go or stretched in postures more meaningful than all.
And there are whistles, also without tune, that signify retreat
to some and charge to others and let loose a
million acts of unthinking bravery. A Yank hears them and
he says, "Here goes nothing." A Jap hears them too,
and he cries, "Kimi ga yo!" (rule a thousand years)
and begs the Emperor to excuse the length of his
life as he hadn't time to live a short one.
There is schooling here, and you learn by doing, and
it is the best education there is because you can't
cut any classes. There is poignant introversion in which you
create new accessories to wear with the fears that are
currently in style. There are still the games of hide
and seek, with bullets to truculently declare, "Tag, you're it,"
and a book you surprise yourself quoting from, and the
thought of a friend's face autographed by pain stabs you
in your military secret. There is a hill that you
cannot run down, but must be carried, and cool shade
that subtracts its differential from the body's warmth,
mmmand darkness
that comes to blood when the sun dries it, and
a silence you do not break but fit right into.
Clocks are present, snapping their fingers at eternity, and men
who wonder if they were ever boys still think and
act and die together, and the star that you hung
your wishes on is still there somewhere in the sky.
Flat on your back, there's nowhere to look but up.
* * *
