But then Donny returned, ignoring Peter.
'Hi. It's stupid, but Crowe wants to go to another party and I think I ought to go with him. I can't .. . It's just .. . I'll get in touch with you as soon as .. .'
But then he turned, troubled, and before she could say a thing, he said, 'Oh, shit, they're leaving. I'll get in touch' and ran off, leaving the girl he loved behind him.
The next morning, waking early in his room in the barracks, almost an hour before the 0530 alarm, Donny almost went on sick call. It seemed the only sane course, the only escape from his troubles. But his troubles came looking for him.
It was a boneyard day, he knew. His team was up. He had stuff to do. He skipped breakfast in the chow hall, and instead re-pressed his dress tunic and trousers, spent a good thirty minutes spit-shining his oxfords. This was ritual, almost cleansing and purifying.
You put a gob of spit into the black can of polish, and with a scrap of cotton mixed the black paste and the saliva together, forming a dense goo. Then you applied just a little dab to the leather and rubbed and rubbed. You should get a genie for your troubles, you rubbed so hard.
You rubbed and rubbed, a dab at a time, covering the whole shoe, and then the other. You let it fry into a dense haze, then went at it again, with another cotton cloth, went at it like war, snap pity-snap. It was a lost military art, they said they were going to bring in patent leather next time because the young Marines couldn't be trusted to put in the hours. But Donny was proud of his spit shine, carefully nursed through the long months, built up over time, until his oxfords gleamed vividly in the sun.
So stupid, he now thought.
So ridiculous. So pointless.
The weather was heavy with the chance of rain and the dogwoods were in full bloom, another brutal Washington spring day. Arlington's gentle hills and valleys, full of pink trees and dead boys, rolled away from the burial site and beyond, like a movie Rome, the white buildings of the capital of America gleamed even in the gray light. Donny could see the needle and the dome and the big white house and the weeping Lincoln hidden in his portico of marble. Only Jefferson's cute little gazebo was out of sight, hidden behind an inoffensive, dogwood-and tomb-crazed hill.
The box job was over. It had gone all right, though everybody was grumpy. For some reason even Crowe had tried hard that day, and there'd been no slipup as they took L/Cpl. Michael F. Anderson from the black hearse to the bier to the slow-time march, snapped the flag off the box, folded it crisply. Donny handed the tricorn of stars to the grieving widow, a pimply girl. It was always better not to know a thing about the boy inside. Had L/Cpl. Anderson been a grunt? Had he been a supply clerk, a helicopter crew member, a military journalist, a corpsman, combat engineer? Had he been shot, exploded, crushed, virused or VD'd to death? Nobody knew: he was dead, that was all, and Donny stood at crisp attention, the poster Marine in his dress blue tunic, white trousers and white cover, giving a stiff perfect salute to the wet-nosed, shuddering girl during 'Taps.' Grief is so ugly. It is the ugliest thing there is, and he had fucking bathed in it for close to eighteen long months now. His head ached.
Now it was over. The girl had been led away, and the Marines had marched smartly back to their bus and climbed aboard for a discreet smoke. Donny now watched to make certain that if they smoked they took their white gloves off, for the nicotine could stain them yellow otherwise.
All complied, even Crowe.
'You want a cigarette, Donny?'
'I don't smoke.'
'You should. Relaxes you.'
'Well, I'll pass.' He looked at his watch, a big Seiko on a chain-mail strap he'd bought at the naval exchange in Da Nang for $12, and saw that they had another forty minutes to kill before the next job.
'You ought to hang your coats up,' he told the team.
'But don't go outside unless you're buttoned and shined.
Some asshole major might see you, put you on report and off you go to the 'Nam. You'd be back for the next box job. Only, you'd be the one in the box, right, Crowe?'
'Yes, Corporal, sir,' Crowe barked, ironic and snide, pretending to be the shave tail gung-ho lifer he would never even resemble.
'We love our Corps, don't we, Crowe?'
'We love our Corps, Corporal.'
'Good man, Crowe,' he said.
'Donny?'
It was the driver, looking back.
'Some Navy guys here.'
Shit, thought Donny.
'Donny, are you joining the Navy?' Crowe asked.
'You could make & fortune giving jelly rolls in the showers of a nuclear sub. You could--' Everybody laughed. Give it to Crowe, he was funny.
'All right, Crowe,' said Donny, 'I just may put you on report for the fun of it or kick the shit out of you to save the paperwork. While I talk to these guys, you give every man on the team a blow job. That's an order, PFC.'
'Yes, Corporal, sir,' said Crowe, taking a puff on his cigarette.
Donny buttoned his tunic, pulled on his cover low over his eyes and stepped outside.
It was Weber, in khakis.
