Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon Read Free Book Online

alike," he said.
    "I know, I know. R.A. all the way. But all the way to what?"
    A little blonde came over with a basket full of sandwiches and paper containers of coffee, and Levine said, "Just in time, honey. You have saved me from certain death." She smiled at him. "Oh you don't look so bad."
    Levine took three or four sandwiches and a cup of coffee. "You either," he said, leering. "They're making St. Bernards a hell of a lot cuter than they used to."
    "That's a pretty dubious compliment," she said, "but it's in better taste than any I've had today."
    "What's your name, in case I get hungry again," Levine said. "I'm called little Buttercup," she answered, laughing.
    "A comedian," Levine said. "Why don't you get together with Rizzo. He's a college kid. You can play Spot This Quote or something."
    "Don't mind him," Rizzo said. "He's just a plowboy."
    She brightened. "And how do you like plowing?" she said.
    "Later," Levine said and slurped coffee.
    "Later indeed," she said. "See you around the quad."
    Rizzo was singing Betty Coed in an off-key tenor, a crooked smile on his face. "Shut up," Levine said, "it's not funny." "Boy you're fighting it, ain't you?" Rizzo said.
    "Who's fighting?" Levine said. "Hey," Douglas yelled over, "I'm taking a jeep down to the pier. Anybody want to come along?"
    "I'll stand by the circuit," Picnic said. "Go ahead," Baxter said. "I'd rather stick around where there's broads." Rizzo laughed. "I got to keep an eye on junior," he said, "he might lose his virginity." Baxter scowled. "Your next'll be your first."
    Levine climbed in next to Douglas in one of the battalion jeeps and they jolted off. At the edge of the campus they hit a macadam road whose surface steadily degenerated as they got closer to the Gulf. There was not much indication that the hurricane had passed that way: only a few trees and signs down, a few roof tiles or clapboards scattered around. Douglas kept up a running commentary, mostly second-hand statistics, and Levine nodded absently. He was beginning to have a vague idea that Rizzo might not be such a Perennial Undergraduate after all — that occasionally the little sergeant did manage to get a glimpse of the truth. He was also starting to worry: to anticipate some radical change, perhaps, after three years of sand, concrete and sun. It might only be that this was the first college campus he had set foot on since graduating from CCNY — on the other hand maybe it was just time for a change. Going AWOL when he got back to Roach, or taking off on a three-day drunk might help to relieve what he was just beginning to recognize as monotony.
    The pier was as crowded as the quadrangle had been, but the pace slower, more obviously ordered. The oil company tugs would bring in a bunch of corpses, the work detail would offload them, the corpsmen would spray them with embalming fluid to keep them from falling apart, another detail would load them into deuce-and-a-halfs and the deuce-and-a-halfs would cart them off. "They're keeping them in some junior high gymnasium," Douglas informed Levine, "ice all over the place. Having a hell of a time identifying them. Water screws up their faces or something." The smell of decay hung in the air, like vermouth, it seemed to Levine, after you'd been drinking it all night. The death detail worked precisely, efficiently, like an assembly line. Every once in a while one of the offloaders would turn aside to vomit, but the work flowed on smoothly. Levine and Douglas sat watching them while the sky got darker, losing more of the sun which nobody could see. An old master sergeant came over to them and leaned against the side of the jeep and they talked for a while. "I was in Korea," he said after one of the bodies had disintegrated from clumsy handling, "I can understand guys shooting at each other, killing each other, but this - " He shook his head. "Jesus Christ." There were brass wandering around, but none of them bothered Levine or Douglas. Despite its