Free Not Exactly What I Had in Mind by Roy Blount Page B

know … the truth of the matter is, gettin’ shot by people, and burnin’ ’em alive … It’s a tougher dollar than bringin’ ’em home with you for … intimacies and … considerations. And — dag burn it, it’s less savory. Now, I’m not sayin’ what you do is right, but …”
    And Mary had seen his point, and then … I believe The Sands of Two Jima would have had a healthier formative effect on me if John Wayne had petted the cat, and exchanged looks with it, and done the same with Mary, and she had undressed. I like it when women undress in movies — okay, it has been run into the ground, but I’m glad it got started.
    And John Wayne had said, “I’ve got something else to get off my chest. You know how, a lot of times, I am aware of something that other people aren’t, something that can’t be told, so that I have to appear less caring than I am? And a lot of times … like in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I let it be believed that Jimmy Stewart shot Liberty Valance, when actually I did, but that’s all right; but I also let Jimmy have the woman I love, because … well, because even though he can’t handle a gun, he’s better for her than I am.”
    “Oh, who says?”
    “Well, the thing of it is … Here’s the thing: I can’t get over the notion that honchos and women aren’t right for each other.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Oh, no? Why do you think I gravitate toward raw recruits? You can get on a raw recruit, that’s why. The way you can’t with a nude woman. You can bark at a raw recruit — in such a way that it’s tougher’n hell but six months later the raw recruit, well, he realizes it was for his own good. To a raw recruit you can say — excuse me — you can say, ‘You better shape your ass up, mister!’ That doesn’t work with a nude woman.”
    “Well …”
    “Yeah, and nude women always want you to say such obvious things! Things that kinda go without saying: ‘You have beautiful breasts and I love to touch them!’ Well, I’m touching them, aren’t I?”
    “Mm …”
    “Nude women think it’s easy to talk to a nude woman. It’s not! It’s so personal! And there’s a woman present!”
    “Yes, but …”
    “It’s hard.”
    “I know. Shhh. I know.”
    And after a while Mary had added, “Isn’t this better than bashing and being bashed by MPs?”
    “Well … yeah. Sure it is.”
    And still later Mary had made the observation that people should not enter upon a family (“or a war,” John Wayne had put in) until they have talked nude with enough members of the opposite sex (“or nationality”) to dispel some of that virulent defensiveness that cats don’t have.
    I know what would have happened the next morning, though. Because it happened to me in civilian life, with a brand-new leather jacket, not long after I got divorced. John Wayne and Mary would have waked, stretched, smiled a little abashedly at each other, reached for their clothes, and found that Mary’s cat had sprayed foully — and that stuff will not come out — on John Wayne’s Marine Corps tunic.
    Frankly, having been in the situation myself and having given some thought to what he would do in it, I don’t think John Wayne could have come up with an expression in the corners of his eyes potent enough to return that salute. I think he would have tried to murder the cat, and Mary would have screamed and the baby would have waked up and screamed and John Wayne would have screamed and the cat would have screamed, lap dissolve to beachhead, projectiles shrieking.
    What is the problem?

Getting to the Bottom of Women’s Underwear
    I SN’T EVERYONE INTO WOMEN’S underwear? In some sense. Reaching out toward it, wearing it, designing it, something. Women have now even managed to make men’s underwear interesting. By adopting it. After a fashion. Yes, women are wearing little brief Jockey-type shorts, and boxer-type shorts (which they call “tap pants;” a term that may have