The Truth of the Matter Read Free Page B

who wanted to sculpt would suddenly turn to something as dry as accounting. But then Gipp was damn odd.
    For all the time the three of them had spent together Roebuck never got to know Gipp well. Even when talking about the most personal subjects Gipp seemed to be drawn into himself, as if there were something about himself that he would not share or reveal. Roebuck had always had the feeling that Gipp vaguely resented him.
    Eight months was all the time they spent at that miserably cold camp, with its lettered streets and its drab buildings with their hand-fired furnaces. The unit was transferred out then, just after Roebuck was given his discharge after cursing out that asinine colonel in the canteen.
    Roebuck smiled as he thought of that. What had been the colonel’s name? Tarkington, that was it. Colonel Tarkington had been surprised when Private Roebuck stepped right in front of him in the line to the cash register.
    “In a hurry, Private?”
    “If I wasn’t, sir, I wouldn’t have taken your place in line.”
    “That’s not the way we act in this man’s army, Private.”
    “Your army, sir, not this man’s army.”
    The canteen had suddenly quieted as everyone realized what was happening.
    “What’s your name, Private?”
    “Duck, sir. Donald Duck.”
    There had been no laughter, no reaction at all from the rest of the men in the canteen.
    The colonel had stared at Roebuck for a full half minute in disbelief and anger.
    It was Roebuck who ended the silence.
    “Screw you, Colonel.”
    The colonel started to answer, then spun and walked out the door.
    Gradually conversation picked up again, with a few brief uneasy glances at Roebuck. Well, Roebuck knew what he could do, he knew how to get out of this man’s army.
    At one of the tables sat a sergeant he had always disliked, a big, beefy ex-policeman with a tendency to bully. Roebuck purchased a chocolate malted milk, then he walked to the sergeant’s table, from an angle where he wouldn’t be noticed, and calmly poured the malted milk down the sergeant’s back.
    The sergeant sat very still for a moment, and Roebuck watched the back of his thick neck color. Then, with hardly a backward glance, the sergeant elbowed Roebuck once, hard, in the stomach as he stood. Roebuck crumpled.
    “Sorry, Private,” the sergeant said, standing over him. “I sure didn’t see you there.”
    The M. P.’s had to carry Roebuck out.
    There had been a long confinement and long sessions with a battery of army psychiatrists who didn’t know enough not to disagree among themselves. Roebuck had refused to cooperate with them, of course, and he’d derived a lot of pleasure from observing their ceaseless disagreements. Then there had been a quick and formal court-martial, a suspended sentence and a medical discharge. Roebuck had fooled them. He was free.
    Roebuck noticed suddenly that he was driving faster, and he slowed and pulled to the inside lane. After a while he turned down the ramp to the section of state highway that led to Atkins Road. A green roadsign told him he was driving toward the airport. The Crest Motel was very close to the airport. No doubt Ingrahm and Gipp had flown in from Little Rock.
    A jet roared overhead, and Roebuck caught a glimpse of blinking lights above him through the mist. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Driving the car was something like flying a jet, he thought, as he sat back in his bucket seat and read the softly lighted dials on the dashboard. He listened to the diminishing roar of the plane as he watched the wet road between swipes of the wiper blade. It was like flying on instruments, in a way.
    The exit ramp to Atkins Road loomed ahead of him as he flicked on his highlights and prepared to make a careful, precision turn.

3
    Roebuck backed the car into a space in the Crest Motel Lounge’s parking lot and walked quickly through the dampness to the side door. He looked about him as he entered. There were perhaps a dozen people