The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates Read Free Book Online Page A

Okay?”
    â€œOh, Ralph. Don’t go. Stay.”
    â€œAh, I promised the fellas, Gracie.” He stood up and straightened his clothes. “They’re waitin’ fa me, out home.”
    She blazed to her feet, but the cry that was meant for a woman’s appeal came out, through her tightening lips, as the whine of a wife: “Can’t they wait?”
    â€œWhaddya—crazy?” He backed away, eyes round with righteousness. She would have to understand. If this was the way she acted before the wedding, how the hell was it going to be afterwards? “Have a heart, willya? Keep the fellas waitin’ tonight? After all they done fa me ?”
    After a second or two, during which her face became less pretty than he had ever seen it before, she was able to smile. “Of course not, darling. You’re right.”
    He came forward again and gently brushed the tip of her chin with his fist, smiling, a husband reassured. “At’s more like it,” he said. “So I’ll see ya, Penn Station, nine o’clock tomorra. Right, Gracie? Only, before I go—” he winked and slapped his belly. “I’m fulla beer. Mind if I use ya terlet?”
    When he came out of the bathroom she was waiting to say goodnight, standing with her arms folded across her chest, as if for warmth. Lovingly he hefted the new suitcase and joined her at the door. “Okay, then, baby,” he said, and kissed her. “Nine o’clock. Don’t forget, now.”
    She smiled tiredly and opened the door for him. “Don’t worry, Ralph,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

Jody Rolled the Bones
    SERGEANT REECE WAS a slim, quiet Tennessean who always managed to look neat in fatigues, and he wasn’t exactly what we’d expected an infantry platoon sergeant to be. We learned soon enough that he was typical—almost a prototype—of the men who had drifted into the Regular Army in the thirties and stayed to form the cadres of the great wartime training centers, but at the time he surprised us. We were pretty naïve, and I think we’d all expected more of a Victor McLaglen—burly, roaring and tough, but lovable, in the Hollywood tradition. Reece was tough, all right, but he never roared and we didn’t love him.
    He alienated us on the first day by butchering our names. We were all from New York, and most of our names did require a little effort, but Reece made a great show of being defeated by them. His thin features puckered over the roster, his little mustache twitching at each unfamiliar syllable. “Dee—Dee Alice—” he stammered. “Dee Alice—”
    â€œHere,” D’Allessandro said, and it went like that with almost every name. At one point, after he’d grappled with Schacht, Scoglio, and Sizscovicz, he came to Smith. “Hey, Smith,” he said, looking up with a slow, unengaging grin. “What the hell yew doin’ heah ‘mong all these gorillas?” Nobody thought it was funny. At last he finished and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “All right,” he told us. “My name’s Sahjint Reece and I’m your platoon sahjint. That means when I say do somethin’, do it.” He gave us a long, appraising glare. “P’toon!” he snapped, making his diaphragm jump. “Tetch— hut!” And his tyranny began. By the end of that day and for many days thereafter we had him firmly fixed in our minds as, to use D’Allessandro’s phrase, a dumb Rebel bastard.
    I had better point out here that we were probably not very lovable either. We were all eighteen, a confused, platoon-sized bunch of city kids determined to be unenthusiastic about Basic Training. Apathy in boys of that age may be unusual—it is certainly unattractive—but this was 1944, the war was no longer new, and bitterness was the fashionable mood. To throw yourself into Army life with gusto