“Yeah, I had a letter from her yesterday. Down in my room. Show it to ya later,” Clay said, listlessly. He sat up straight on the edge of the bed, held his breath, and issued a long, resonant belch. Looking just semi-pleased with the achievement, he relaxed again. “Her goddam brother’s gettin’ outa the Navy on account of his hip,” he said. “He’s got this hip, the bastard.” He sat up again and tried for another belch, but with below-par results. A jot of alertness came into his face. “Hey. Before I forget. We gotta get up at five tomorrow and drive to Hamburg or someplace. Pick up Eisenhower jackets for the whole detachment.”
X, regarding him hostilely, stated that he didn’t want an Eisenhower jacket.
Clay looked surprised, almost a trifle hurt. “Oh, they’re good! They look good. How come?”
“No reason. Why do we have to get up at five? The war’s over, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t know—we gotta get back before lunch. They got some new forms in we gotta fill out before lunch…. I asked Bulling how come we couldn’t fill ‘em out tonight—he’s got the goddam forms right on his desk. He don’t want to open the envelopes yet, the son of a bitch.”
The two sat quiet for a moment, hating Bulling. Clay suddenly looked at X with new-higher-interest than before. “Hey,” he said. “Did you know the goddam side of your face is jumping all over the place?”
X said he knew all about it, and covered his tic with his hand.
Clay stared at him for a moment, then said, rather vividly, as if he were the bearer of exceptionally good news, “I wrote Loretta you had a nervous breakdown.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She’s interested as hell in all that stuff. She’s majoring in psychology.” Clay stretched himself out on the bed, shoes included. “You know what she said? She says nobody gets a nervous breakdown just from the war and all. She says you probably were unstable like, your whole goddam life.”