“That’s it,” said the red-headed one. “She’s the finest little woman in the world.”
“Listen,” said the other, “my old mother is O.K., too.”
“That’s right.”
“She’s dead,” said the second Vet. “Let’s not talk about her.”
“Aren’t you married, pal?” the red-headed Vet asked Richard Gordon.
“Sure,” he said. Down the bar, about four men away, he could see the red face, the blue eyes and sandy, beer-dewed mustache of Professor MacWalsey. Professor MacWalsey was looking straight ahead of him and as Richard Gordon watched he finished his glass of beer and, raising his lower lip, removed the foam from his mustache. Richard Gordon noticed how bright blue his eyes were.
As Richard Gordon watched him he felt a sick feeling in his chest. And he knew for the first time how a man feels when he looks at the man his wife is leaving him for.
“What’s the matter, pal?” asked the red-headed Vet.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t feel good. I can tell you feel bad.”
“No,” said Richard Gordon.
“You look like you seen a ghost.”
“You see that fellow down there with a mustache?” asked Richard Gordon.
“Him?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?” asked the second Vet.
“Nothing,” said Richard Gordon. “Goddamn it.
Nothing.”
“Is he a bother to you? We can cool him. The three of us can jump him and you can put the boots to him.”
“No,” said Richard Gordon. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
“We’ll get him when he goes outside,” the red- headed Vet said. “I don’t like the look of him. The son-of-a-bitch looks like a scab to me.”
“I hate him,” said Richard Gordon. “He’s ruined my life.”
“We’ll give him the works,” said the second Vet.
“The yellow rat. Listen Red, get a hold of a couple of bottles. We’ll beat him to death. Listen, when did he do it, pal? O.K. we have another one?”
“We’ve got a dollar and seventy cents,” Richard Gordon said.
“Maybe we better get a pint then,” the red- headed Vet said. “My teeth are floating now.”
“No,” said the other. “This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with the beer. Let’s go and beat this guy up and come back drink some more beer.”
“No. Leave him alone.”
“No, pal. Not us. You said that rat ruined your wife.”
“My life. Not my wife.”
“Jese! Pardon me. I’m sorry, pal.”
“He defaulted and ruined the bank,” the other Vet said. “I’ll bet there’s a reward for him. By God, I seen a picture of him at the post office today.”
“What were you doing at the post office?” asked the other suspiciously.
“Can’t I get a letter?”
“What’s the matter with getting letters at camp?”
“Do you think I went to the postal savings?”
“What were you doing in the post office?”
“I just stopped by.”
“Take that,” said his pal and swung on him as well as he could in the crowd.
“There goes those two cell mates,” said somebody. Holding and punching, kneeing and butting, the two were pushed out of the door.
“Let ’em fight on the sidewalk,” the wide-shouldered young man said. “Those bastards fight three’ or four times a night.”
“They’re a couple of punchies,” another Vet said. “Red could fight once but he’s got the old rale.”
“They’ve both got it.”
“Red got it fighting a fellow in the ring,” a short chunky Vet said. “This fellow had the old rale and he was all broke out on the shoulders and back. Every time they’d go into a clinch he’d rub his shoulder under Red’s nose or across his puss.”
“Oh, nuts. What did he put his face there for?”
“That was the way Red carried his head when he was in close. Down, like this. And this fellow was just roughing him.”
“Oh, nuts. That story is all bull. Nobody ever got the old rale from anybody in a fight.”
“That’s what you think. Listen, Red was as clean a living kid as you ever saw. I knew him. He was in my outfit. He was a good little fighter, too. I mean good. He was married, too, to a nice girl. I mean nice. And this Benny Sampson gave him that old rale just as sure as I’m standing here.”
“Then sit down,” said another Vet. “How did Poochy get it?”
“He got it in Shanghai.” “Where did you get yours?” “I ain’t got it.”
“Where did Suds get it?”
“Off a girl in Brest, coming home.”
“That’s all you guys ever talk about. The old rale. What difference does the old rale make?”
“None, the way we are now,” one Vet said. “You’re just as happy with it.”
“Poochy’s happier. He don’t know where he is.”
“What’s the old rale?” Professor MacWalsey asked the man next to him at the bar. The man told him.
“I wonder what the derivation is,” Professor MacWalsey said.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “I’ve always heard it called the old rale since my first enlistment. Some call it ral. But usually they call it the old rale.”
“I’d like to know,” said Professor MacWalsey.
“Most of those terms are old English words.”
“Why do they call it the old rale?” the Vet next to Professor MacWalsey asked another.
“I don’t know.”
Nobody seemed to know but all enjoyed the atmosphere of serious philological discussion.
Richard Gordon was next to Professor MacWalsey at the bar now. When Red and Poochy had started fighting he had been pushed down there and he had not resisted the move.
“Hello,” Professor MacWalsey said to him. “Do you want a drink?”
“Not with you,” said Richard Gordon.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Did you ever see anything like this?”
“No,” said Richard Gordon.
“It’s very strange,” said Professor MacWalsey. “They’re amazing. I always come here nights.”
“Don’t you ever get in trouble?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Drunken fights.”
“I never seem to have any trouble.”
“A couple of friends of mine wanted to beat you up a couple of minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“I wish I would have let them.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference,” said Professor MacWalsey in the odd way of speaking he had. “If I annoy you by being here I can go.”
“No,” said Richard Gordon. “I sort of like to be near you.”
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
“Have you ever been married?” asked Richard Gordon.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“My wife died during the influenza epidemic in 1918.”
“Why do you want to marry again now?”
“I think I’d be better at it now. I think perhaps I’d be a better husband now.”
“So you picked my wife.”
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
“Damn you,” said Richard Gordon, and hit him in the face.
Someone grabbed his arm. He jerked it loose and someone hit him crashingly behind the ear. He could see Professor MacWalsey, before him, still at the bar, his face red, blinking his eyes. He was reaching for another beer to replace the one Gordon had spilled, and Richard Gordon drew back his arm to hit him again. As he did so, something exploded again behind his ear and all the lights flared up, wheeled round, and then went out.
Then he was standing in the doorway of Freddy’s place. His head was ringing, and the crowded room was unsteady and wheeling slightly, and he felt sick to his stomach. He could see the crowd looking at him. The big-shouldered young man was standing by him. “Listen,” he was saying, “you don’t want to start any trouble in here. There’s enough fights in here with those rummies.”