Kings of Infinite Space

THIRTY-ONE

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER Paul was drunk and singing his second song. This one he got to pick himself, and he was trying to keep up with a syncopated arrangement of “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” His first song, half an hour earlier, had been selected by Colonel, and Paul had hunched over the microphone and mumbled the theme song from Branded, while on the screen behind him the words crawled below the craggy, bleached-out visage of Chuck Connors.

“ ‘What do you do when you’re branded,’ ” he had droned tunelessly, “ ‘and you know you’re a man?’ ”

Now, however, he managed a rhythmic little sway that had more to do with Glenlivet than with the song. He tried to hang back from the beat for a more sexy delivery, but he lost the thread of the crawl and tried to catch up, stumbling over the words.

“ ‘I never cared much for moonlit skies,’ ” he crooned, “ ‘I never cared much for. .’ No, wait. ‘I never winked back at. .’ Oh shit. Can we back this thing up?”

From the loveseat, with his wife wrapped around him like a squid, Colonel roared with laughter. Bob Wier nodded encouragingly from the chair where he perched with the same can of Sprite he’d had all evening. He’d sung only once, clutching the microphone and lifting his watery eyes to the suspended ceiling and singing, “ ‘If I give my soul to Jesus, will she take me back again?’ ” in an unsteady tenor. “I’d like to dedicate this song to my wife, and to my kids, Brian, Bitsy, and Bob, Jr.,” he’d said during the intro, with a catch in his throat.

“Where’s his wife?” Callie had asked, already half drunk. “Why ain’t she here?” Paul pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “I’ll tell you later.”

After Bob Wier, J.J. had charged the stage, stumbling over the edge of the platform. He’d moved his martini glass in a circle and slurred into the microphone, “How’d all you people get in my room?” Then he hogged the machine for three songs in a row—“Summer Wind,” “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” and “Mack the Knife,” which he performed complete with finger snaps and Bobby Darin ejaculations—“Hut! Hut! Hut!” When it was Olivia’s turn, she had whispered her request to Colonel, who mounted the platform to work the console. As three Gilbert and Sullivan geishas appeared on the screen behind her, Olivia stiffened her backbone, put one foot forward, and, holding the mike with both hands, warbled a well-drilled rendition of “Three Little Maids from School Are We,” hitting each word with sharpshooter precision.

After that, Colonel had chugged through “The Gambler” in a growly baritone, but the star of the evening so far had been Callie. Colonel had insisted on picking Callie’s song, but she rose to the challenge, planting her bare feet wide on the stage, gripping the mike as if her life depended on it, and belting out “Me and Bobby Mcgee” in a smoky, sultry alt-country drawl. Well into his second scotch — or was it his third? — Paul got a little aroused watching her. She shook her head and cocked her hip and balled up her fist for emphasis, and during the end of the song, during all the “na-na-na-na”s, she did a sexy little dance in place with her eyes closed, and Paul’s heart lifted like a party balloon. Afterwards she blushed bright red and peeked through her hands as J.J. hooted and Colonel slammed his hands together and Yasumi jumped up and gave her a hug. Bob Wier clapped politely, while Olivia didn’t clap at all, watching evenly from her end of the couch with her chin propped between thumb and forefinger.

After that, Colonel had suggested a break, but Paul had lurched onto the platform and insisted on doing another song, partly to out — Bobby Darin J.J. and partly to catch up to Callie. He slurred his words and giggled and lost track of the lyric, but towards the end he finally got the hang of it—“ ‘Now that your lips are burning mine, I–I-I–I-I’m beginnin’, dah dah dah dah dah, to see the light’ ”—and Callie bit her lip and leaned towards him, her eyes alight. Then the song ended, and Paul bent at the waist in a floppy bow. The room erupted in applause; even Olivia clapped. Callie gave another Oklahoma holler, and J.J., who had passed out in the recliner — head tipped back, mouth wide open — lurched awake in the La-Z-Boy, crying, “Patton?” Paul staggered from the platform, and Callie wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the ear.

“Take five, folks!” Colonel announced, pushing himself up from the loveseat. “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

Paul had no memory of disentangling from Callie, but he found himself being escorted down the carpet by Colonel towards the door in the partition at the far end of the room. Behind him he heard Yasumi saying something, though he couldn’t tell what, and he heard Callie laughing loudly. Colonel clutched him round the shoulders, half leading Paul, half holding him up, and he let go when they got to the door so he could dig in his pocket for the key. The next thing Paul knew he was sitting in a stiff, straight-backed chair in a cramped little office, still clutching his glass, and Colonel was closing the door. The office was windowless and dank, lined with gray metal shelves full of books and papers and videocassettes; the only light came from a humming fluorescent desk lamp on the rigorously ordered blacktop of a huge old Steelcase desk. Colonel placed his hand, one, two, three, on three tall, neatly stacked piles of manuscript on the desk.

“The others don’t even know I’m working on this,” Colonel said, settling into a creaking wooden office chair. “They wouldn’t understand.”

Paul craned his neck from his seat and saw that each stack had a title page, “Volume I,” “Volume II,” and “Volume III.”

“It takes a person of some sophistication and erudition,” Colonel went on, “to appreciate what I’m doing here. Not everybody would see the point of an epic poem about my Vietnam service.”

Each stack was at least a foot high. There must be thousands of pages, Paul thought in his Glenlivet haze. Oh dear God, what if he asks me to read it?

“You were in Vietnam?” Paul felt the blood draining from his face.

“No,” Colonel said, narrowing his eyes, “but I served during Vietnam.”

“As a pastry chef?” I’d be handling this better, Paul thought, if I were sober.

“An army travels on its stomach, Paul.” Colonel didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. “It’s an underrepresented topic in the canon of military literature.”

“You’re not a real colonel, are you?” Paul heard himself ask.

Colonel dipped his head and smiled grimly at the floor. “I was — I am — Master Sergeant Colonel Travis Pentoon, United States Army, retired.” He lifted his gaze to Paul. “I say that with real pride, Professor. The heart of any army is its noncommissioned officers. It was the color sergeant who built the British Empire, not Lord Kitchener. The Roman Empire stood on the back of the centurion.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

“No apology necessary!” Colonel lifted his palm. “It’s an obvious question. But they also serve who only stand and bake.” He laid his hand gently on the middle stack of the three. “That’s what this is all about.”

Paul sagged back in his seat. Seriously, he prayed, to Whoever might be listening, kill me now. Please.

“Now I can see by your eyes, Paul, that you’re eager to dive into this manuscript.” Colonel leaned forward in his creaking chair and folded his hands between his knees, his Hawaiian shirt billowing over his thighs. “But you’re not ready for what’s in here yet. There’ll come a time when you are, but not yet, son, not yet. And anyway,” Colonel continued, “I mention my magnum opus only as a means to an end.”

“Sorry?” said Paul.

“Now Bob and J.J., they’re good old boys, and I absolutely trust them with my life. As they do me.” Colonel looked up at Paul from under his bushy eyebrows. “But I think of myself not just as a proud master sergeant, not just as the best goddamn baker on the Pacific Rim, but as a warrior-philosopher, Paul, in the great tradition of the samurai, or the magnificent Prussian soldiers of Bismarck’s army.” He leaned a little closer. “And what I’m hoping to bring into our brave little company is someone who is closer to my intellectual equal, my peer, as it were. Someone with a sophisticated appreciation of the higher things in life.”

Don’t say it, thought Paul.

“We’re exactly the same, you and I,” said Colonel.

Oh boy, thought Paul.

Colonel lifted a finger. “Don’t say anything. Just listen.” He lowered his voice. “I know you’re not where you want to be. You didn’t set out all those years ago in graduate school to be writing technical documents for the Texas Department of General Services. But what if I told you, Paul,” he continued, inching his chair closer, “what if I told you I could guarantee you lifetime employment? And not just lifetime employment, Paul, but a job that left you free to pursue almost anything you wanted to do?”

The room was very quiet, though Paul heard laughter and music from the other side of the door. He lifted his drink, but the glass was dry.

Colonel waved his hand over the three heaps of epic poem. “When do you think I wrote this, Paul? In my free time?” He grunted with laughter, his eyes bright. “Not bloody likely.”

Paul could scarcely breathe. Colonel had literally backed him into a corner of his cramped little office. Paul couldn’t stand without pushing Colonel out of the way, and he couldn’t even lean back any farther in the chair.

“You gonna let life, that bitch, grind you down, Paul? You gonna stay whipped for the rest of your days?” Colonel’s eyes burned. “Are we not men?”

Someone rapped loudly on the door of the office, and Paul hiccupped in surprise. Colonel rolled back in his chair. He closed his eyes, drew a breath, and mastered himself. Then he laid his arm casually along the desk, lifted his chin, and raised his voice. “Come in.”

The door swung open, letting in a puff of air-conditioning from the rec room. Bob Wier stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the far end of the room. He glanced from Paul to Colonel.

“He’s here,” Bob Wier said.