“Let me finish,” Jimmie answered. “I know, the most savage and scientific military machine of all time has got its eye, and its hate, glued on you and me. But that isn’t why I want to fight. I know we all love things, and have a lot of ’em; and I know we might lose ’em all, in a year—or two—or five. You sit here and think you know. But I do know! I’ve seen the other guys’ show. You haven’t.” Jimmie pulled up his pant-leg and raised his knee. From his kneecap to his sock ran a corded, scarlet scar. “I’ve even felt it a little. But that isn’t why I want to fight, either: not my own, personal hatred. It takes two to make a quarrel, gentlemen. But only one to launch a conquest. That’s what’s going on! My enemy isn’t an idea, or a nation, or an economic system. It’s the rottenest thing in man-in you-in me. It’s greed. Greed that reaches out with no mercy, no humanity, no law-for the purpose of feeding itself. Stuffing itself. I fight thai, wherever, whenever, and however I see it. I fight it in Hitler. I fight it in you.”
He lowered his voice. “You say, America should defend itself. Show me where there is a defense on earth left—except attack! You say, we should mind our own business. I say, we never did and never will! When the American people built up this continent from edge to edge, and even before, Americans went to every cockeyed end of the earth—Timbuktu and Samarkand—and sold the natives sewing machines and phonographs, built oil refineries for ’em, taught ’em to play baseball! And still more Americans were sent—by you—and still are—to teach the heathen to wear breeches and sing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ Hundreds of thousands of Americans! Millions, over the decades—meddling with every man and woman and child on earth! Not meddling them into some bloody empire. Just meddling for trade and the right to teach. Isolation?
We’re the most interventionist damn’ people in the history of time! Only thing is—have we still got the guts to intervene in Hell?”
That was when his father rose, sweaty, shaking, and cleared his throat three times before he could speak, and said, “Son, you can leave my house, now. I won’t stand for any of that sort of corrupt talk any more. Nor your mother. She said so the other night.
Get going!”
Most of the men applauded Jimmie’s father. Not all—but most.
So Jimmie walked out of the living room, through the hall, out the front door, and down the street.
He rented a guest room at the club—and he sent for his things.
CHAPTER X
HE WAS SITTING, one evening, in the library of the club, when Mr. Wilson entered. Jimmie was certain that Audrey’s father saw and recognized him, but Mr. Wilson did not stamp out of the room, as some of the members had. Instead, he leaned on one of the periodical tables, his long arms stretched crutch-stiff, and he seemed to glance, covertly, at Jimmie in the corner with his book. To Jimmie—who could not help watching, because he believed he was being watched—it seemed as if the old man’s lantern jaw wobbled a little, as if his skin was whiter, as if his falcon eyes were only pretending to read the headlines scattered along the table. Because such behavior was surely foreign to Mr. Wilson, and because Jimmie himself was blue and lonely in this exile, he tried to look accessible. He lighted a cigarette and crossed his legs casually and nodded when the old man glanced at him again. Mr. Wilson immediately came over to the corner and sat down. He said, not too truculently, “Hi, there, Jimmie.”