Free Better Times Than These by Winston Groom

it only long enough to motion Spudhead to the beer cache.
    “. . . So old Donovan here,” Sharkey said, “runs into the goddamn Eighty-second Airborne club, you see—where nobody knows who he is . . . and the goddamn assholes are lying all over the tables drunker’n goats, right?” There was a chorus of anticipatory laughter. Spudhead opened a beer.
    “. . . And as soon as Donovan hits the door he yells loud as he can, ‘When I drink, everybody drinks!’ and every asshole in the place runs up to the bar and starts ordering drinks, right?”
    Spudhead sat down next to Crump and DiGeorgio, who were enjoying themselves immensely.
    “. . . And Donovan, he orders a drink for himself right off, and drinks it down in a gulp, see, and when he’s through, he stands back and yells, ‘When I pay, everybody pays!’ and he throws a buck on the floor and runs out the door—and they’re still looking for him!” Sharkey was bent over almost double laughing, and there were tears in his eyes. He grabbed Donovan by the shoulder and clanked beer cans with him, and both officers drank deeply, and laughed until they fell down.
    This went on for another hour. First Sharkey, then Donovan would recount some escapade, about boxing at West Point or football at Notre Dame, about seducing girls on golf courses or living-room couches while their parents slept a few feet away. From Crump and DiGeorgio, Spudhead had learned that the two officers had roared into the barracks several hours earlier and rousted out everyone still there. They had formed them up in the Company street and marched them to the parking lot, where the beer was waiting.
    At last the beer and the stories petered out and the officers went on their way. Crump, DiGeorgio and Spudhead made their way with the others back to the barracks, Crump and DiGeorgio singing, Spudhead lingering a little behind. Finally Spudhead sat down on a curb and put his head in his hands. It was a few minutes before Crump and DiGeorgio came back and discovered him there, crying softly.
    “Hey, what’s this?—hey,” Crump said. “Hey, what’s wrong, man, you drunk?”
    “He’s fuckin’ stinkin’—lookit him,” DiGeorgio said, laughing madly.
    “Whataya fuckin’ crying about,” Crump asked. “Yer girl fuck you over?”
    “Nah, nah, just let me be a while . . .” Spudhead wiped his eyes, looking beyond the dim street lights to the darkened parade ground where they’d spent so many hours in close-order drills and bayonet practice and calisthenics and picking up every scrap of paper and cigarette butt on police detail . . .
    “Hey, say what’s wrong, man,” Crump said, squatting down in front of Spudhead. “We buddies, ain’t we?”
    “It’s nothing, Crump . . . It’s just . . .” He stopped. “I love her so much, and . . .”
    “And what—what in hell is it?” DiGeorgio said.
    “Oh, damn, I don’t know,” Spudhead said. “It’s . . . I don’t have any more money . . . I wanted to take her to breakfast, you know, and buy her lunch before she has to go back tomorrow, and . . . I bought that goddamned harmonica, and the dinner cost twelve bucks, and . . .”
    “Well, hell, man,” Crump said, “why didn’t you say so? We got some money left, haven’t we, Dee-Gergio? We got maybe twenty, thirty bucks between us—that’ll get you through sure.”
    “No, no, thanks, I don’t—”
    “Forchrissakes, Spudhead, don’t be an asshole—we’ll just lend it to ya till payday,” DiGeorgio said.
    “O Goddamn-shit-fuck! . . . Oh, I’m sorry, you guys . . . I don’t want to . . . I don’t know . . . I just don’t want to go now . . . I want to stay here and get married and go back to school and . . . Fuck the Army . . . FUCK THE ARMY!—I don’t care a shit about the Army—and fuck this war, and—”
    “Hey, cool it, man, you gonna wake everybody in the Company up,” DiGeorgio said.
    “Look here,” Crump said, “nobody wants to go over to that thing, but