Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

“ ‘That’s once,’ He said. ‘You aint got but three times. You, the Top Soldier, saying cant. At Château-Thierry and St-Mihiel the company would have called you the Top Soldier. Do they still do that in the Corps on Guadalcanal?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I says.

“ ‘All right, Top Soldier,’ He said. ‘Fall in.’ So I got up. ‘At ease,’ He said. ‘You see?’ He said.

“ ‘I thought I couldn’t,’ I says. ‘I didn’t believe I could.’

“ ‘Sure,’ He said. ‘What else do we want with you. We’re already full up with folks that know they can but dont, since because they already know they can, they dont have to do it. What we want are folks that believe they cant, and then do it. The other kind dont need us and we dont need them. I’ll say more: we dont even want them in the outfit. They wont be accepted; we wont even have them under our feet. If it aint worth that much, it aint worth anything. Right?’

“ ‘Yes sir,’ I says.

“ ‘You can say Sir up there too if you want,’ He said. ‘It’s a free country. Nobody gives a damn. You all right now?’ ”

‘Yes sir,’ I says.

“ ‘TenSHUN!’ He said. And I made them pop, mud or no mud. ‘About-FACE!’ He said. And He never saw one smarter than that one neither. ‘Forward MARCH!’ He said. And I had already stepped off when He said, ‘Halt!’ and I stopped. ‘You’re going to leave him laying there,’ He said. And there he was, I had forgot about him, laying there as peaceful and out of it too as you please—the damned little bastard that had gone chicken at the exact wrong time, like they always do, turned the wheel a-loose and tried to duck and caused the whole damn mess; lucky for all of us he never had a.…ing bar on his shoulder so he could have.…ed up the whole detail and done for all of us.

“ ‘I cant carry him too,’ I says.

“ ‘That’s two times,’ He said. ‘You’ve got one more. Why not go on and use it now and get shut of it for good?’

“ ‘I cant carry him too,’ I says.

“ ‘Fine,’ He said. ‘That’s three and finished. You wont ever have to say cant again. Because you’re a special case; they gave you three times. But there’s a general order coming down today that after this nobody has but one. Pick him up.’ So I did. ‘Dismiss,’ He said. And that’s all. I told you I cant tell it. I was just there. I cant tell it.” He, Mink, watching them all, himself alien, not only unreconciled but irreconcilable: not contemptuous, because he was just waiting, not impatient because even if he were in Memphis right this minute, at ten or eleven or whatever oclock it was on Sunday morning, he would still have almost twenty-four hours to get through somehow before he could move on to the next step. He just watched them: the two oldish couples, man and wife of course, farmers obviously, without doubt tenant farmers come up from the mortgaged bank-or syndicate-owned cotton plantation from which the son had been drafted three or four or five years ago to make that far from home that sacrifice, old, alien too, too old for this, unreconciled by the meager and arid tears which were less of tears than blisters; none of the white people actually watching as the solitary Negro woman got up from her back bench and walked down the aisle to where the young woman’s soiled yellow hat was crushed into the crook of her elbow like a child in a child’s misery and desolation, the white people on the bench making way for the Negro woman to sit down beside the young white woman and put her arm around her; Goodyhay still standing, his arms propped on the closed fists on the plank, the cold seething eyes not even closed, speaking exactly as he had spoken three nights ago while the three of them knelt on the kitchen floor: “Save us, Christ. The poor sons of bitches.” Then Goodyhay was looking at him. “You, there,” Goodyhay said. “Stand up.” Mink did so. “He’s trying to get home. He hasn’t put in but one full day, but he needs ten dollars to get home on. He hasn’t been home in thirty-eight years. He needs nine bucks more. How about it?”

“I’ll take it,” the man in the officer’s cap said. “I won thirty-four in a crap game last night. He can have ten of that.”

“I said nine,” Goodyhay said. “He’s got one dollar coming. Give him the ten and I’ll give you one. He says he’s got to go to Memphis first. Anybody going in tonight?”

“I am,” another said.

“All right,” Goodyhay said. “Anybody want to sing?”