Страница 22 из 76
“Now we’re talkin’!” Kris exclaimed. “We’re go
“FUBAR?” I said.
“Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.” He and Da
In their first parade in front of the troops the contestants came out in casual wear. Kris liked Number Two. She was dressed in a virtually see-through Budweiser hand towel barely stretched across her vital statistics. Sean liked Number Three. She was a nurse. She was into shopping, ta
After taking applause from the audience the contestants marched off to change into their bikinis. The boys in our corner started comparing notes. I voted for Number Nine. She identified herself as a writer and editor for a local newspaper, which I took as sufficient evidence that at least she could read and write. Later, when she came out in her swimwear, Number Nine wore a yellow bikini that was short, pert, and considerably more subtle than those of her fellow combatants. Suddenly Sean shifted from the nurse to her. “I like her, man. She’s about my height. She’s got some tight titties there. I could eat the spinach out of her shit.” It was the highest compliment he could pay.
After the wi
Sitting in a cab an hour later, everyone was upset. Kris was disappointed that Mademoiselle Neuf wouldn’t go home with him that night. “Hell, she didn’t even buy me a drink.” Sean was disappointed that nobody was interested in him. “Bunch of jarheads in there tonight,” he said to the driver. Da
Approaching the base, I told the driver to go straight. “Don’t listen to him,” Sean said. “He thinks he knows everything. Just take a left.” I encouraged the driver to continue on; Sean insisted he turn. Since Sean was closer, and louder, the driver agreed. “Now, how much do you want to bet?” Sean asked me.
“The fare is eight dollars,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, after twice losing our way, we finally located the tent. The fare had climbed to seventeen dollars. “How did that happen?” Sean said as he got out of the cab and walked away. “We got lost,” I said, handing the driver twenty dollars. “Look at that,” Sean called. “He’s got a twenty. He must be a Jew.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I’ve also got horns.”
The three of them stopped to relieve themselves. I headed back to the tent. At this point I was fed up, partly at Kris for being so young and aggressive he didn’t even realize he was violating his own rules, partly at Sean for being so loudmouthed and self-centered he managed to insult everyone he met. Earlier at the club he tried to make a pass at one of the bartenders. “So, Deb,” he said to the woman whose nametag identified her as Debbie. “What time do you get off?” Seven A.M., she told him. “That doesn’t leave much time for fun, now does it?” Guess not. “Well, honey, if you were my wife and you came home at seven o’clock in the morning, I would just be getting up and I would have one of those early-morning pop-the-tent kind of boners. You’d come home and be all tired and I’d just knock you up good. Then you’d just lay around the house all day, saying how tired you were but how good you felt.” Is that right? she said. “Yep, bitch. That’s right.” Well, then, she said, I’m glad we’re not married.
Back at the lot, the boys started shouting as soon as they saw me walking away. “Hey, where are you going?” Sean called. “Look, he’s mad at us ’cause we insulted him. ’Cause we made him pay.”
I walked around the tent and went back to my camper. Several minutes later there was a knock on my door.
“Hey, man, what’s wrong?” The three of them climbed inside and sat down. “Why are you so mad?” Da
“Who are you mad at?” Kris asked. “Me?”
“He’s fucking mad at me,” Sean said. “’Cause I made fun of him. Man, what’s wrong? We’re all men here. We can take it, though maybe not you.”
“I can take it,” I said, more snidely than I had intended. “I just don’t need to.”
“Don’t need to? Man, shit. This is the circus.” He picked up the white plastic brush he had left in my camper and started brushing his hair. I was sitting on the bed. The show’s generator had long been turned off, so we were without lights. “You want to be part of the circus, bitch, you got to take shit. That’s all we do is give shit to each other.”
They started telling stories. Remember the time we put a pile of shit on someone’s door? Remember the time we came in and trashed your trailer? Remember the time we drove that girl’s car down the stairs?
“So you see, that’s the rules,” Sean said when the recollections dribbled to a close. “I’m only teasing you because I like you. If you want to be friends with me, you got to learn to take shit. You’re just a little too sheltered. You’ve never been around people like us. You were over there in Japan and England. We’re real American men and we give each other a hard time.”
Perhaps he was right, I thought. Perhaps Sean, the Human Ca