Page 6 of Angel Down

and so Bagger says, “The kid’s right. So’s Veck. We don’t mop up this mess, Reis is going to find out. If he gets replaced, that only makes it worse. He’s not going to drift peacefully out to sea, you know? He’ll drag us down with him. He’ll make his last act sticking us with court-martials,” a threat that descends until Popkin hurls it away like the tongue,

and Popkin grunts, “No one’s gotta know what we do or don’t do. Nobody’s gotta tell nobody nothing about nothing. You hear me, darkie?,”

and Bagger smiles big, lets the ash turn his teeth as gray as Popkin’s, and says, “Your belief in us is downright touching, Private Popkin. You’re right. There’s no way any of us would ever turn against our bosom pals. Or talk about how one private wanted us to just hunker down till the guy out there stops screaming. Nah. We wouldn’t dream of it. We’re all-American heroes, all five of us, fresh off the assembly line,”

and Arno concurs with a single-word moan, “Nantillois,” mispronounced but with enough dread for Veck to agree, “Uh-huh. Those blinded Germans at Nantillois. Reis told Company K to question them. Instead they killed them. Reis found out and there was hell,” but Popkin butts back in, insisting, “Company K did right. They did what ought to be done,” and he makes a finger gun, aims it at Veck, and goes, “Bang,”

and Goodspeed, high-pitched as rifle fire, says, “Hold on, everyone just hold on. Maybe you’re right, Bagger, maybe we gotta do what Reis said, but it’s cockamamie for all five of us to go over the top like we’re a whole brigade when we’re not even a platoon, not even a squad, just a piss-poor five-man detail, couple of pop-guns and a flamethrower. You have to be honestly joking,”

and Popkin aims his finger gun at Goodspeed and goes, “Bang,”

and this is rich coming from Vincent Goodspeed, Bagger closes his cold hands over the cocking piece of his Springfield, one quick twist and he could crack Goodspeed’s jaw in half, but instead, Bagger strokes his chin and says, “Only one of us should go, is that right? I wonder why that would be so important to Private Goodspeed? Why he’d want to be alone with our dead bodies,” to which Goodspeed’s squinty face unclenches into gasping offense,

and it’s an act, they all know it’s an act, Goodspeed combs over battlefields like a prospector, harvesting every tradable object so the men who do the actual fighting have to visit the Goodspeed General Store for war souvenirs, he’s got German slouch hats and pickelhaube covers, ideal playthings for stateside sons, and horse gas masks that look like the heads of nightmare stallions, and epaulettes your girl can sew into a quilt, and weapons, they say Goodspeed lugs around an arsenal of saw-toothed bayonets, Mauser cartridges, brass-topped gas shells, even German officer pistols,

and because carrion birds aren’t choosy, Vincent Goodspeed, also known as Vincent the Vulture, also robs the American dead, or so they say, as well as the American dying, there’s a corporal who swears he saw Goodspeed cut the thumb off a dying doughboy to get his wedding ring, not that Goodspeed could ever trade such contraband to fellow Americans,

and that might explain why Goodspeed has gone AWOL during battles only to return from the direction of a village, pockets larded with francs, which isn’t even the ugliest hearsay, that’d be the rumor that Goodspeed makes his best deals during night visits to the German trench, he’s been seen humping across No Man’s Land at dawn, fingers shiny with the military-issue butter he trades to Huns reduced to eating their horses, and it’s fitting he licks those fingers clean, Vincent the Vulture has no morals, only appetite,

and though Bagger knows his own morals aren’t much better, he regrips his Springfield, aware that if he swings it hard enough, Goodspeed’s whole head, including that exaggerated look of insult, will pop right off, but Hugh Popkin is the faster draw, pointing his finger-gun at Bagger, lips peeled back to reveal the overripe fruit of his gums and the long roots of teeth as gray as chicken bones,

and he says, “Bang, Bagger. Right in the balls,”

VIII

and Bagger’s patience tears away like a pair of old britches, there’s no question which of these men he’d condemn to crawl out there if he had the power, and that’s the thing, he does have the power, part of what makes him the Hawkeye Hustler is his ability to spin a yarn, it’s how he lures a fellow into horse betting, how he convinces widows their dead husbands had nearly finished paying for a surprise jewelry gift, how he coaxes men into believing he’s a stockbroker, please read my brochure, How A Modest Fortune May Be Made From A Small Investment In Wheat And Corn,

and it’s a skill he picked up from his father, Bishop Bagger’s sermons made the obscurest Bible tales as suspenseful as photoplay serials, and Bagger has learned it’s easiest to swindle the rich or sophisticated, who despise admitting that they have been rooked, which means getting through to Hugh Popkin won’t be easy as there’s no intellect to manipulate,

and the laughing lug appears to read the shift in Bagger’s demeanor, Popkin takes hold of his own Springfield with a defensiveness Bagger thinks he can capitalize on, the lummox is childlike, after all, and children love stories,

and so Bagger begins, carefully, “All that bang-bang. You’re good at it,” and Popkin warns, “I told you, I’ll make boots of you,” and Bagger says, “I know. But hear me out first,” and Popkin says, “You ain’t good enough for boots. Rags to wipe my dick,” to which Goodspeed giggles and interrupts, “Show him, Popkin, show him your pork and beans, wait till you see, Bagger, the worst case of clap you ever saw!,” and Popkin’s lip curls up as he gamely holds open the front of his pants,

and Goodspeed says, “Get yourself a gander, Arno, here’s a lesson in social hygiene,” and the kid looks terrified, he saw the same VD posters, they all did at Camp Winn, HE PICKED UP MORE THAN A GIRL! and BOOBY TRAP!, neither of which worked as the Army intended, for the poster artists couldn’t help but draw the tainted girls as absolute knockouts worth any VD risk, though now Bagger hopes the posters’ small-print curses come true for Popkin, insanity, blindness, heart disease, sterility,

and after Popkin’s pants snap back to his gut, Bagger says in his father’s doxological tone, “I want you to listen, Popkin. I want you to imagine. You’re out there. Zero hour. Over the top,” to which the lummox snorts, “Is this storytime?,” and acts like it is, closing his eyes and leaning into the clay, so Bagger says, “Storytime, sure. Now, in this story, you’re belly-crawling over No Man’s Land. Jerry’s bullets zipping through your hair,”

and Popkin snorts, “Oh, good, I got my hair back,” and Bagger goes with it, “You and your big head of hair crawl till you find the shrieker,” and Popkin singsongs, “I told you, I ain’t going,” but Bagger soothes, “It’s just storytime. All right. So you find the shrieker. He’s caught in barbed wire like a steer. It’s bad. It’s bad like we all know it’s going to be. But you do your duty. You do what you’re so good at,” and sure enough, Popkin hits his cue, forming his finger gun and going, “Bang,”

and Bagger says, “Correct. You help him. Like Reis said,” and Popkin laughs, “Yeah. With élan,” and Bagger dares a glance at the others, even amid the death rumbles and offal stink, perhaps because of it, they have the translucent look of Bishop Bagger’s rapt congregation, because stories are hope, stories have all sorts of fantastical twists, underdog victories, and heavenly interventions, all things soldiers yearn for,

and Bagger continues, “Then you crawl back here. The rest of us greet you like a hero. Because you are a hero. Finally, the hero you always knew you could be. You did what the rest of us couldn’t. And we vow to give you all the credit you’re due,” and Popkin says, dreamily, “Lift me on your shoulders,” to which Goodspeed protests, “You might get your block shot off,” but Popkin warns, “I’m the star of this story,”

and, sure, whatever, “We lift you on our shoulders. We carry you all back to the division. Hollis sees us first. Can’t believe his eyes. Sends for Motta. Motta’s beside himself. Greisz shows up. Greisz gets the whole story. Greisz calls you ‘son.’ Now word reaches Reis. The Generalissimo’s never looked so shocked. Forget a court-martial. Reis shows you off to Bullard. Bullard shows you off to Pershing. You’re the best thing to ever come out of the 43rd, and the honors? They’re only beginning,” and Popkin murmurs, “Medal of Honor. I get one before Reis,”

and Bagger’s on a roll, “Here’s the best part, Popkin. Tonight, as early as tonight, a few hours from now, you’re cozied up in the driest spot of the camp because heroes don’t sleep in mud, and you ask for pencil and paper, and I know writing’s not your strong suit, but you get your point across, I bet,” and Popkin says, “Figure I do. Who’m I writing?,” and Bagger pauses long enough for artillery blasts to tenderize the lummox’s heart before he forks it, “Effie,”

and here we go, Effie Inez Barbeau, Darling Inez, Effie Weffie, Effie My Hart’s Desire, Hart pronounced with a seal’s arf to mock the misspelling the recruits saw on letters Popkin let slip to the floor, where men were pissing into brand-new boots to soften them overnight, and had it been only one soldier teasing him, Popkin probably would have murdered the guy, but the whole damn barracks razzed him,

and though Popkin tried to hide his future letters, as well as the girl’s replies, he’s always failed, and thus his tragicomic relationship with Effie Inez Barbeau became Company P legend, how Popkin had enlisted at Effie Weffie’s request, or at least that was Popkin’s understanding, as Effie Weffie, in her imitable, playful way, wrote repeatedly that she hadn’t asked Popkin to join the army specifically, rather that she could only love “a fighting man,” a distinction that, at this point in the war, feels really fucking important,

and Popkin’s letters sop with obsessive accounts of the times Effie Weffie let him hold her hand and how his loins burned, a different burn than the clap, Bagger assumes, and of the times Effie Weffie spurned his kisses, which always lead to the same list of questions, why did she refuse to kiss him after he signed up, why does she still refuse to say she loves him, does she know he fantasizes about her every night, P Company sure knows, the lummox can’t keep Effie Weffie’s name from his masturbatory sighs,

and it’s probably fair to mention all the boys are obsessed with Effie Weffie, the girl is trouble, a real minx, and yet, like the VD vixens, she inspires lust through her painstaking descriptions of the boys she dates back home, boys who aren’t “fighting men” at all, each detail a bullet into Popkin’s chest, a feminine barrage from four thousand miles away, she’s driving the lummox insane, a different shell shock than Veck’s,

and Popkin’s eyes twitch behind his lids as he asks, “Why’m I writing Effie?,” a justified suspicion particularly when it comes to Bagger, as it was Bagger’s rigged blackjack game that unloaded Popkin of the diamond ring he’d intended to present to Effie upon returning home,

and so Bagger replies quickly, “All your letters have been complaints. That’s no way to win a lady. This time, you’ll have something to brag about,” and Popkin asks, “Yeah?,” and Bagger says, “Tell her about the letter of commendation you’re getting. About the medal you’ll show her when you get back. The medal you’ll show all the girls when you get back. That ought to do it, don’t you think?,” and Popkin licks his lips of tobacco and blood, and growls hungrily, “Yeah,”