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The rain was heavier
now, drumming against the... |
9th September 2010, 01:28 |
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The rain was heavier
now, drumming against the walls and windows in
waves, and a wind had gotten up, clattering
through the palms surrounding El Palacio and
sending shadows flying across the wallsFor the
first time since I'd been coming there, I could
see no sense to the china figures on the long
table; there were no tableaux, only a clutter of
people, animals, and buildingsA unicorn and one
of the blackface guys lay side by side next to the
overturned schoolhouseIf there was a story on
the table today, it was a disaster movieNear the
Tara-style mansion stood a Sweet Owen cookie-tin
Wireman had explained the routine I should follow
if Elizabeth called for it
The lady herself was in her wheelchair, slumped a
bit sideways, vacantly overseeing the tiffany diamond disheveltry
on her play-table, which was usually so neatly
keptShe was wearing a blue dress that almost
matched the enormous blue Chuck Taylors on her
feetHer slump had stretched the boat neck of the
dress into a lopsided gawp that revealed an ivory368
colored slip-strapI found myself wondering who
had dressed her that morning, she or Wireman
She spoke rationally at first, calling me by my
correct name and enquiring after my healthShe
said goodbye to Wireman when he left for the
Baumgartens' and asked him to please wear a hat
and take an umbrellaBut when
I brought her her snack from the kitchen fifteen
minutes later, there had been a changeShe was
looking into the corner and I heard her murmur,
"Go back, go back, Tessie, you don't belong here
And make the big boy go awayI j12 chanel diamond watch used my thinkingsideways
technique, looking for associations, and
found one: a newspaper headline reading THEY ARE
GONETessie had been one of Elizabeth's twin
sistersWireman had told me thatI heard him
saying The presumption is they drowned, and a
chill like a knife slipped into my side
"Bring me that," she said, pointing to the cookietin,
and I didFrom her pocket she drew a
figurine wrapped in a hankieShe took the lid off
the tin, gave me a look that combined slyness and
confusion in a way that was hard to look at, then
369
popped the figure insideIt made a soft hollow
bonkShe fumbled the lid back on, pushing my hand
away when I tried to helpThen she handed it to
me
"Do you know what to do with this?" she asked I could see her strugglingThe
word was there, chanel vintage jewelry but dancing just out of reachI could give it to her, but I
remembered how furious it made me when people did
that, and waited"Did him tell you what to do
with it?"
"Yes
"Then what are you waiting for? Take the -bleep-
I carried the tin up one side of the tennis court
to the little pondThe fish were jumping at the
surface, a lot more excited by the rain than I was
There was a little pile of stones beside the bench,
just as Wireman had said there would beI tossed
one in ("You might not think she could hear that,
but her ears are very sharp," Wireman had told me),
being careful to avoid beaning one of the carp
Then I took the tin, with the figurine still
inside, back into the houseBut not into the
China ParlorI went into the kitchen, removed the
370
lid, and prada china pulled out the wrapped figureThis
hadn't been in Wireman's set of contingency
instructions, but I was curious
It was a china woman, but the face had been
chipped awayThere was only a ragged blank where
it had been
"Who's there?" Elizabeth shrieked, making me jump
I almost dropped the creepy little thing on the
floor, where it surely would have shattered on the
tiles
"Just me, Elizabeth," I called back, laying the
figure on the counter
"Edmund? Or Edgar, or whatever your name is?"
"Right I went back into the parlor
"Did you take care of that business of mine?"
"Yes, ma'am, I sure did
"Have I had my snack yet?"
"Yes
"Do you want something else? I'm sure I could-"
"No thanks, honI'm sure the train will be here
soon, and you know I don't like to travel on a
full omega pocket watches stomac |
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Pow, below the belt, down you go, and the... |
7th September 2010, 15:38 |
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Pow, below the belt, down you go, and the ref
just went out for a hot dogExcept the ones you
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love can really multiply that hurt and pass it
aroundPain is the biggest power of loveThat's
what Wireman says
"See anything green, sweetheart?" I asked
"No, I was just thinking again how glad I am that
I cameI pictured you rotting away between an old
folks' retirement home and some horrible tiki bar
featuring Wet Tee-Shirt ThursdaysI guess I've
been reading too much Carl Hiaasen
"There are plenty of places like that prada fairy down here,"
I said
"And are there other places like Duma?"
"I don't know But based on what
Jack had told me, I guessed that there were not
"Well, you deserve this one," she said"Time to
rest and healAnd if all this" - she waved to the
Gulf - "won't heal you, I don't know what will
"Ye-ess?" I said, and made a picking-out gesture
at the air with two fingersFamilies have their
own interior language, and that includes signlanguage
My gesture would have meant nothing to
an outsider, but Ilse knew and laughed
146
"All knock off chanel earrings right, smartyThe only fly in the ointment
is the sound the tide makes when it comes inI
woke up in the middle of the night and almost
screamed before I realized it was the shells
moving around in the waterI mean, that's it,
right? Please tell me that's itWhat did you think it was?"
She actually shiveredwas skeletons on paradeHundreds,
marching around the house
I'd never thought of it that way, but I knew what
she meant"I find it sort of soothing
She gave a small and doubtful shrugAre you ready to go back? I
could fendi spy bags scramble us some eggsEven throw in some
peppers and mushrooms
"I haven't seen you off your crutch for so long
since the accident
"I hope to be walking a quarter-mile south along
the beach by the middle of January"A quarter of a mile and back?"
147
I shook my headJust a quarter of a mile
I plan to glide back I extended my arms to
demonstrate
She snorted, started toward the house again, then
paused as a point of light heliographed in our
direction from the southThe
two specks were down there
"People," Ilse said, quilted chanel bag shading her eyesMy only neighbors, right nowAt
least, I think so
"Have you met them?"
"NopeAll I know is that it's a man and a woman
in a wheelchairI think she has her breakfast
down by the water most daysI think the tray is
the glinty thing
"You should get yourself a golf cartThen you
could buzz down and say hi
"Eventually I'll walk down and say hi," I said
"No golf cart for the kidKamen said to set
goals, and I'm setting em
"You didn't need a shrink to tell you about
setting goals, Daddy," she said, still tiffany toggle necklace peering
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Their will recovered enough for them to continue,... |
6th September 2010, 17:12 |
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Their will recovered enough for them to continue, but they moved at a frantically slow pace, refusing to step forward for seconds at a time before some minor obstacle, clinging to the wall ferociously wherever the ledge became narrow againAfter half an hour Croft finally brought them out, and the ledge widened and crossed the ridgeBeyond was nothing but another deep valley, another precipitous slopeHe led them down to the bottom, and started up the next ascent, but they did not follow himOne by one they sprawled down on the ground, looked at him with blank staring eyes
It was almost dark, and he knew he could not drive them any more; they were too exhausted, too frightened, and another accident might occurHe called a halt, giving approval to what was already a fact, and sat down in their midst
On the next morning there would be the slope, a few gullies to traverse, and then the main ridge of the mountain to be crossedThey could do it in two or three hours ifif he could stir balenciaga blue them againAt that moment he doubted himself seriously
The platoon slept poorlyIt was very difficult to find level ground, and of course they were overtired, their limbs too tenseMost of them dreamed and muttered in their sleepTo cap it all, Croft gave them each an hour of guard, and some of them awoke too early and waited nervously for many minutes before going on, found it difficult afterward to fall asleepCroft had been aware of this, knew they needed the extra rest and knew it was virtually impossible there would be any Japanese on the mountain, but he had felt it more important not to break routineRoth's death had temporarily shattered his command, and it was vital to start repairing it
Gallagher had the last shiftIt was very cold in the half hour before daylight and he woke up dazed, and sat shuddering in his blanketFor many minutes he was conscious of little, feeling the vast shapes of the mountain range about him as no more than a deeper border to the nightHe only cartier clock shivered and drowsed, waiting passively for the morning and the heat of the sunA complete lethargy had settled over him, and Roth's death was remoteHe drifted through a stupor, his mind almost inert, dreaming sluggishly of far-gone pleasant things as though deep within him he had to keep a small fire going against the cold of the night, the space of the hills, and the cumulative exhaustion, the mounting deaths of the platoon
The dawn came slowly on the mountainAt five o'clock he could see the top of the mountain range clearly as the sky became lighter, but for a long half hour there was little changeActually he could see nothing, but his body contained a tranquil anticipationSoon the sun would struggle over the eastern ramparts of the mountain and come down into their little valleyHe searched the sky and found a few tentative washes of pink streaming over the higher peaks, coloring the tiny oblong clouds of the dawn a purpleThe mountains looked very highGallagher wondered that the sun old omega watches could get over them
All about him now it was getting lighter but it was a subtle process, for the sun still remained hidden and the light seemed to rise from the ground, a soft rose colorAlready he could discern clearly the bodies of the men sleeping about him, and he felt a touch of superiorityThey looked gaunt and bleak in the early dawn, oblivious to the approach of morningHe knew that in a short while he would be rousing them, and they would groan as they came out of their sleep
In the west he could still see the night, and he recalled a troop train speeding across the great plains of NebraskaIt had been twilight then, and the night chased the train out of the east, overtook it, and passed on across the Rockies, on to the PacificIt had been beautiful and it made him wistful nowHe longed suddenly for America, wished so passionately to see it again that he could smell the odor of wet cobblestones on a summer morning in South Boston
The sun was close to the eastern ridge-line chanel shopping bag now and the sky seemed vast, yet fresh and joyfulHe thought of Mary and himself camping in a little pup tent in the mountains and he dreamt that he was waking with the velvet teasing touch of her -bleep- against his faceHe heard her say, "Get up, sleepyhead, and look at the dawn He grunted drowsily, nuzzled against her in his fantasy and then popped open one eye as a grudging concessionThe sun was clearing the ridge, and while the light in the valley was still faint, there was nothing unreal about it
In that way Mary ushered in the dawn with himThe hills were shaking off the night mists and the dew was sparklingFor this brief moment the ridges about him appeared soft and feminineAll the men scattered around him looked damp and chilly, dark bundles from which mist roseHe was the only man awake for a distance of many miles, and he had the youth of the morning all to himself
Out of the dawn, far on the other side of the mountain, he could hear artillery boomingIt shattered his prada china rever |
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There was meat in it, but not enough
I lurched... |
5th September 2010, 16:15 |
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There was meat in it, but not enough
I lurched into the house on my crutch, head
swimming from the Oxycontin, got a frypan from the
drawer under the stove, and slung it onto one of
the burnersI turned the dial to HIGH, barely
hearing the flump of igniting gasI was too busy
tearing the plastic wrap from a package of ground
sirloinI threw it in the frypan and mashed it
flat with the palm of my hand before scrabbling a
spatula out of the drawer beside the stove
Coming back into the house, shucking my clothes
and climbing into the shower, I'd been able to
mistake the flutters in my stomach for nausea - it
seemed like a reasonable explanationBy the time
I was rinsing away the soap, though, the flutters
had settled into a steady low rumble like the idle
of a powerful motorThe drugs had damped it down
a little bit, but now it was back, worse than ever
If I'd ever been this hungry in my life, gucci new bag I
couldn't remember when
55
I flipped the grotesquely large meat-patty and
tried to count to thirtyI figured a thirty-count
on high heat would be at least a nod in the
direction of what people mean when they say
"cooking meat If I'd thought to flip on the fan
and vent the aroma, I might have made itAs it
was, I didn't even get to twentyAt seventeen I
snatched a paper plate, flipped the hamburger onto
it, and wolfed the half-raw ground beef while I
leaned against the cabinetAbout halfway through
I saw the red juice seeping out of the red meat
and got a momentary but brilliant picture of
Gandalf looking up at me while blood and -bleep-
oozed from the wrecked remains of his hindquarters,
matting the fur on his broken rear legsMy
stomach didn't so much as quiver, just cried
impatiently for more food
xi
That night I dreamed I was in the bedroom I had
shared for so many years with PamShe was chloe bag asleep
beside me and couldn't hear the croaking voice
56
coming from somewhere below in the darkened house:
"Newly wed, nearly dead, newly wed, nearly dead
It sounded like some mechanical device stuck in a
grooveI shook my wife but she just turned overDreams mostly tell the truth,
don't they?
I got up and went downstairs, holding the banister
to compensate for my bad legAnd there was
something odd about how I was holding that
familiar length of polished railAs I approached
the bottom of the staircase, I realized what it
wasFair or not, it's a rightie's world - guitars
are made for righties, and school desks, and the
control panels on American carsThe banister of
the house I'd lived in with my family was no
exception; it was on the right because, although
my company had built the house from my plans, my
wife and both our daughters were right-handers,
and majority rules
But still, my hand was trailing dolce and gabbana bags down the banister
Of course, I thoughtBecause it's a dreamJust
like this afternoonYou know?
Gandalf was no dream, I thought back, and the
voice of the stranger in my house - closer than
57
ever - repeated "Newly wed, nearly dead" over and
overWhoever it was, the person was in the living
roomI didn't want to go in there
No, Gandalf was no dream, I thoughtMaybe it was
my phantom right hand having these thoughtsThe
dream was killing him
Had he died on his own, then? Was that what the
voice was trying to tell me? Because I didn't
think Gandalf had died on his ownI thought he
had needed help
I went into my old living roomI wasn't conscious
of moving my feet; I went in the way you move in
dreams, as if it's really the world moving around
you, streaming backward like some extravagant
trick of projectionAnd there, sitting in Pam's
old Boston rocker, was Reba the Anger-Management
Doll, now grown to cartier watches the size of an actual child
Her feet, clad in black Mary Janes, swung back and
forth just above the floor at the end of horrible
boneless pink legsHer shallow eyes stared at me
Her lifeless strawberry curls bounced back and
forthHer mouth was smeared with blood, and in my
dream I knew it wasn't human blood or dog's blood
but the stuff that had oozed out of my mostly raw
58
hamburger - the stuff I had licked off the paper
plate when the meat was gone
The bad frog chased us! Reba criedIt has TEEF!
xii
That word - TEEF! - was still ringing in my head
when I sat up with a cold puddle of October
moonlight in my lapI was trying to scream and
producing only a series of silent gaspsMy heart
was thunderingI reached for the bedside lamp and
mercifully avoided knocking it on the floor,
although once it was on, I saw that I'd pushed the
base halfway out over the dropThe clock-radio
claimed it was 3:19 mulberry bayswater bag A |
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He expands with admiration for LeftyHe does not... |
4th September 2010, 17:59 |
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He expands with admiration for LeftyHe does not know the words yet, but he shakes his head
Two years later, Polack's mother brings him back to her houseOne of the older sisters is married, and two of his brothers are workingBefore he leaves, Lefty gives him the secret handshake
You're okay, kid, I'm gettin' out next year an' I'll look ya up
Back to his street and the new sports fitting his ageHitching rides on trolleys is commonplace, stealing from stores is a source of incomeThe real sport is holding onto the tailgate of a fast freight truck and highballing it fifteen miles out of townHis mother makes him get a job working as delivery balenciaga motorcycle handbag boy in a butcher store, and he does that for a couple of years
When he is thirteen one of the women to whom he delivers meat seduces him
Oh, hello, she says, opening the door, you're MrsCzienwicz's son, lady
Yeah, I know your mother
Where you want the meat, lady?
Over thereHe puts it down, looks at her
Sit down, you must be tired
Naah, I got a lot of ordersYeah, all right, maybe I will
Afterward, he feels as if his education is completedHe has known for a long time that there is no man you can trust, but women have not concerned himNow he is positive that women too are as unreliable as the altering sands of mutual advantage
You can hermes borse call me Gertrude
He has not thought of her as possessing a nameSomething, a door at which he drops meat
It is only hours later that the advantages, the beauties, the absorptive recollections of this act he has known by name for so long catch up with himThe next day he drops in to see her, is there often for the rest of the summer
His years elapse, and he grows older, even wiser within the rigid gamut of his wisdom, but he hardly altersHe goes from job to job, becoming a butcher, working in the stockyards, even chauffeuring a car for some people who live on the North Side, but he exhausts the possibilities of the jobs very soon, knows gucci bangle watch their limitations almost before he has begun
In 1941, when he is eighteen, he sees Lefty Rizzo again at a ball game, and they sit down togetherLefty is putting on weight already, looks prosperousWith his mustache he looks eight years older than twenty-two
Ay, Polack, what the hell you been doin' with yourself?
Play in' the percentagesStill the same old Polack, boy, are you a cardWhy the hell ain't ya been around to see me? I coulda fixed ya up with something
Never got around to it, that's a fact(But it is more than thisHis code, never formulated, has been at workWhen a pal has hit it, y' don't touch him unless he asks ya
Well, I can use louis vuitton neo ya
Whah Novikoff, ya lousy RussianLet's see ya hit somethin' besides airPolack sits down after shouting, cocks his feet up on the seat in front of himWhat was that ya said?
I can use ya
Polack makes a face, purses his lipsMaybe we can do business, he says in dialect
He buys a car, using for the down payment his savings from the first two months' workHe drives around at night after supper going to the candy stores and barbershops to collect the numbers receiptsWhen he is done he rides over to Lefty's house and drops the receipts and cash, goes back to the new furnished apartment he has rented for himselfFor this he gets a hundred dollars a cartier roadster replica w |
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Willie Brown is very popularThe mothers of his... |
3rd September 2010, 16:38 |
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Willie Brown is very popularThe mothers of his friends always take to him, the teachers always make him a pet
But he has a knack for squaring itAw, that old crow, he says of the teacher, I wouldn't spit on her(Proceeding to spit on the dusty baked sod of the schoolyard I don' know why in tee hell she don' lea' me alone
And his family is niceThe father works for the railroad in Tulsa but he is an office man even if he has started in the yardsAnd they have their own house in the suburbs, a decent plot of ground behind itJim Brown is dependable, always improving his house a little bit, fixing the plumbing or planing the sill of a door that jams
Isn't the kind of man who runs into debt
Ella and me try to hold to one of those black chanel quilted bag budgets, he says deprecatinglyIf we find we're gone a little over, we jus' cut down on the liquor for the week(Half-apologetically) I kinda look on liquor as a luxury, especially now when you gotta break a law to get it, and you're never sure when it'll leave you blind
Keeps up with things tooThe Saturday Evening Post and Collier's and back in the early twenties a charter subscriber to Reader's DigestIt all comes in handy for small talk when you're visiting, and the only dishonesty people have ever noticed him in is that he has a habit of talking about the articles without crediting the source
Do you know thirty million people smoked cigarettes in 1928? he'll say
The Literary Digest keeps him informed on politicsI voted for louis vuitton diaper bags Herbert Hoover in the last election, he admits pleasantly, even though I've been a Democrat as long as I can rememberBut I think I'll vote Democrat in the nextThe way I look at it, one party's in power for a while and then you give the other a turnI allow Jim to show me the way for those political thingsShe does not add the business about keeping up her home, but you can guessNice people, nice family, church on Sundays of courseBrown's only violent opinion is on the New MoralityI don't know, people aren't Godfearing any moreWomen drinking in bars, doing God knows what else, it isn't right, isn't Christian at allBrown nods tolerantlyHe has a few reservations, but after all women somehow just are more religious, really religious, cambon chanel than men, he will say in a confidential talk
Naturally they're very proud of their children, and they'll tell you with amusement how Patty is teaching William to dance now that he's in high school
We were worried about sending them to the State University what with the depression and all, but I think we can see our way clear nowBrown, she'll add, always has wanted them to go, especially since he missed it
The brother and sister are good friendsIn the sun parlor where the maple sofa is flanked by the vase (which had been a flower pot until the rubber plant died) and the radio, the girl makes him lead her
Now, look, Willie-boy, it's easyYou just don' have to be afraid of holdin' me
Who's afraid of holdin' ya?
You're not gucci backpack such a roughneck, she says from the vantage of senior year in high schoolYou're gonna be dating soon
Yeah, he exclaims with disgustBut he feels her small pert -bleep- against his chestHe is almost as tall as herWho's gonna date?
You are
They shuffle along the smooth red stone of the floorHey, Patty, when Tom Elkins comes around to see you, lemme talk to himI wanna know if he thinks I'll be big enough to get on the football team in a coupla years
Tom Elkins, that ol' fool He looks at her in disgustWhat's the matter with Tom Elkins?
It's all right, Willie, you'll make the team
He never does get quite big enough, but by his junior year he is the head of the cheer leaders, and he has talked his father into buying him a used balenciaga bag c |
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There was a long pauseUnder his breastbone,... |
1st September 2010, 15:51 |
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There was a long pauseUnder his breastbone, Cummings could feel his heart grinding painfully"I hope, Robert, that you pick it up Once more he stared into Hearn's eye
And slowly Hearn was realizing that he meant itIt was apparent in his expressionA series of emotions, subtle and conflicting, flowed behind the surface of his face"If you want to play games," he saidFor the first time Cummings could remember, his voice was unsteadyAfter a moment or two, Hearn bent down, picked up the cigarette, and dropped it in an ashtrayCummings forced himself to face the hatred in Hearn's eyesHe was feeling an immense relief
"If you want to, you can go to chow now
"General, I'd like a transfer to another division Hearn was lighting another prada replica handbags cigarette, his hands not completely steady
"Suppose I don't care to arrange it?" Cummings was calm, almost cheerfulHe leaned back in his chair, and tapped his foot slowly"Frankly, I don't particularly care to have you around as my aide any longerYou aren't ready to appreciate this lesson yetI think I'm going to send you to the salt minesSuppose after lunch you report over to Dalleson's section, and work under him for a while Hearn's face had become expressionless againHe started toward the exit of the tent, and then paused"General?"
"Yes?" Now that it was over, Cummings wished that Hearn would leaveThe victory was losing its edge, and minor regrets, delicate little reservations, were cloying him
"Short of bringing in every man in the outfit, all omega ladies watch six thousand of them, and letting them pick up your cigarettes, how are you going to impress them?"
This was the thing that had sullied his pleasureCummings realized it nowThere was still the other problem, the large one"I'll manage that, LieutenantI think you'd better worry about your own concerns
After Hearn had gone, Cummings looked at his hands"When there are little surges of resistance, it merely calls for more power to be directed downward And that hadn't worked with the line troopsHearn he had been able to crush, any single man he could manage, but the sum of them was different still, resisted him stillHe exhaled his breath, feeling a little wearyThere was going to be a way, he would find itThere had been a time when Hearn had chanel purses resisted him too
And his elation, suppressed until now, stimulated him, eased to some extent the sores and frustrations of the past few weeks
Hearn returned to his own tent, and missed lunchFor almost an hour he lay face down on his cot, burning with shame and self-disgust and an impossible impotent angerHe was suffering an excruciating humiliation which mocked him in its very intensityHe had known from the moment the General had sent for him that there would be trouble, and he had entered with the confidence that he wouldn't yield
And yet he had been afraid of Cummings, indeed, afraid of him from the moment he had come into the tentEverything in him had demanded that he refuse to pick up the cigarette and he had done it with a sick replica tiffany jewelry numbed suspension of his will
"The only thing to do is to get by on style He had said that once, lived by it in the absence of anything else, and it had been a working guide, almost satisfactory until nowThe only thing that had been important was to let no one in any ultimate issue ever violate your integrity, and this had been an ultimate issueHearn felt as if an immense cyst of suppuration and purulence had burst inside him, and was infecting his blood stream now, washing through all the conduits of his body in a sudden violent flux of changeHe would have to react or die, effectively, and for one of the few times in his life he was quite uncertain of his own abilityIt was impossible; he would have to do something, and he had no idea what men's gucci wallet to |
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It represented security and permanence, and it... |
31st August 2010, 01:16 |
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It represented security and permanence, and it introduced a very dangerous change in their attitudesOnce they halted and stayed in one place long enough for it to assume familiar connotations, it was immeasurably harder to get them to fight againThey were dogs in their own kennel now, Cummings decided, and they would bark sullenly at orders
Each day that elapsed without any fundamental change on the front would only increase their apathy, and yet Cummings knew that he was temporarily powerlessAfter intense preparation, he had mounted a large attack with good artillery plotting, some Air Corps bomber support which had been granted only after much pleading, had thrown his tanks into it, his reserve troops, and after a day the attack had ground down to nothing; the troops had halted before the most insignificant resistance, had gained in one small sector perhaps a quarter mileWhen they had done and the losses been counted, the minor alterations in his front line established, he had all of the Toyaku Line still before him, unbreached, unthreatenedIndeed, it was terrifyingThe communications from corps and army were growing progressively impatientSoon, like a traffic jam, that pressure would be backed up all the way to Washington, and Cummings could imagine without difficulty the conversations that prada china must be going on in certain rooms of the Pentagon"Well, what's happening here, what's this, Anopopei, what's holding it up, whose division, Cummings, Cummings, well, get the man out of there, get someone else
He had known it was dangerous to rest the troops for a week, but it was a gamble he had had to take while he finished the road, and it had boomerangedThe shock cut deeply into the General's confidenceThe process at most times was unbelievable to him, and he was suffering the amazement and terror of a driver who finds his machine directing itself, starting and halting when it desiresHe had heard of this, military lore was filled with such horror tales, but he had never imagined it would happen to himFor five weeks the troops had functioned like an extension of his own bodyAnd now, apparently without cause, or at least through causes too intangible for him to discover, he had lost his sensitive controlNo matter how he molded them now the men always collapsed into a sodden resistant mass like dishrags, too soft, too wet to hold any shape which might be given themAt night he would lie sleepless on his cot, suffering an almost unbearable frustration; there were times when he was burning with the impotence of his rageOne night he had lain for hours like an epileptic emerging from a coma, his hands black chanel tote clasping and unclasping endlessly, his eyes staring fixedly at the dim outlines of the ridgepole of his tentThe power, the intensity of the urges within himself, inexpressible, balked, seemed to course through his limbs, beating in senseless fury against the confines of his bodyThere was everything he wanted to control, everything, and he could not direct even six thousand menEven a single man had been able to balk him
He had made furious efforts for a time, launched that attack, had kept the troops patrolling constantly, but deep inside himself, unadmitted, he was becoming frightenedA new attack on which he had had Major Dalleson and the G-3 staff working for days had been called off several times alreadyAlways there had been good superficial reasons -- a large shipment of supplies was due from a few Liberty ships in a day or two, or else he felt it tnore advisable to capture first some minor features of land which might seriously impede the attackBut actually he was afraid; failure now would be fatalHe had expended too much on that first attack, and if this one foundered, weeks and possibly months would accrue before a third major drive could be initiatedBy that time he would be replaced
His mind had become dangerously lassitudinous, and his body had been troubled for some time by a painful tiffany heart tag diarrheaIn an effort to scour his ailment he had had officers' mess suffer the most rigid inspections, but despite the new standards of cleanliness his diarrhea continuedIt was acutely difficult now to conceal his annoyance with the most insignificant details, and it was affecting everything about himHot wet days sloughed past, and the officers in headquarters snapped at each other, had petty quarrels and cursed the unremitting heat and rainNothing seemed to move in all the cramped choked spaces of the jungle, and it developed an attitude in which no one expected anything to moveThe division was going subtly and inevitably to pot, and he felt powerless to alter it
Hearn suffered the results in all their immediacyWithout the disturbing and fascinating intimacy the General had granted him in his first weeks as an aide, the job had become reduced quickly to its onerous humiliating routineA change had come about in their relationship, quietly achieved, but its end product left him in a formal and obviously subordinate statusThe General no longer confided in him, no longer lectured him, and the duties of his job, which had been treated between them until now as a tacit joke, had become demanding and loathsomeAs the campaign floundered along day after day, the General became stricter about the discipline louis vuitton white speedy in his headquarters, and Hearn suffered the brunt of itEach morning Cummings made a point of inspecting his tent, and almost every time he delivered a criticism of the way Hearn had supervised the orderlyIt was always a quiet rebuke, uttered slyly, with a sidewise glance at Hearn, but it was disturbing and finally harassing
And there were other tasks, silly pointless ones which assumed a galling character after they had continued long enoughOne time, almost two weeks after they had had their last long conversation on the night of the chess game, the General had stared at him blankly for a few seconds, and then had said, "Hearn, I think I'd like to have some fresh flowers in my tent each morning
"Fresh flowers, sir?"
And the General had given his mocking grin"Yes, it seems to me there're enough of them in the jungleSuppose you just tell Clellan to collect a few each morningGood God, man, it's a simple enough affair
Simple enough, but it added a further tension between Clellan and himself, which Hearn detestedDespite himself, he paid greater attention to the way Clellan made up the General's tent each morning, and it became a humiliating duel between themTo his own surprise, Hearn discovered that the General was making him vulnerable; he was beginning to care that the tent was made up costume chanel jewelry correctly |
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