Chapter XIX
XIX
and so it’s Popkin who plays valet to the gruesome luggage, Goodspeed’s head still grinning, mouth still chuckling, arms spasming around Popkin’s neck, a better brother in death than in life, and the lummox is bowed by the weight until Goodspeed’s organs begin unwinding from the chest like a bolt of fabric,
and the angel rolls down onto Arno, the kid’s huddled back breaks the fall, and Bagger skids to his knees in the black porridge and folds her into his arms, loath that one drop of mud might sully the red dress and blue cape, and he’s shocked, but also thrilled, at the singing of his skin and the chiming of his bones, the full-body exaltation to have her back, Alleluia, he’s whole again just as Goodspeed is halved,
and the German fusillade unrolls over the trench, a blanket of yellow flame, each tendril a hissing viper, something chemical in the mix, the steel of Bagger’s helmet going ice-hot against his scalp, and he crawls away on two legs and an arm, the other arm toting the angel, an elbow all he’s got left to whack Arno on the ear, get moving, stupid kid,
and Bagger launches to his boots and glances back to see Goodspeed’s bodiless legs, way up above, drop to their knees and tip forward, the pelvic bowl pouring steaming intestines into the trench, while Goodspeed’s haversack, bisected by the same shrapnel, pours salable goodies like signal whistles, pocket watches, insignia pins, campaign bars, and division patches, though the last item to tumble is none other than The Son of Tarzan,
and the book is inches from the hot offal when a hand plucks it from the air, Veck’s hand, and Bagger doesn’t know if Reis was correct and Veck is the finest Butcher Bird of all, or if he simply wants protection, Veck holds the book alongside his face and fire gnaws at it, the largest word on the cover promptly sizzled away to TARZ,
and here come the Boche, their hounddog blood bullwhipped by the smell of miracles, but the advantage of the Company P relics is that there’s only four of them, five with the angel, but to maintain those odds they need to move, so Bagger sprints down the trench, each footfall detonating a six-foot geyser of mud, and when he takes a southward turn, his side vision catches Arno, Veck, and Popkin in pursuit, their own cracking footfalls indistinguishable from Gewehr rifles,
and still Bagger believes he can hear Vincent Goodspeed’s lunatic giggle, you fools, giggle, you suckers, giggle, you doughboys all too ready to give up your dough, you’ll join me in hell soon enough, giggle, giggle,
and Bagger goes harder, if only to outrun the giggle, no fucking clue where he’s headed, he’s spent less time inside trenches than anyone, he tries to keep war’s false sun at his back, zigging right, zagging left, fleeing Jerry like he’s heard you ought to flee alligators,
and abruptly Bagger’s scaling the ramp of a trench exit, out of dank sewage funk into a troposphere of hot ash that burns a cigarette cherry into his every bronchiole, they are out in the open, boots scrunching through scorched grass, sitting ducks until Arno catches up and throws the hood over the angel’s face, hiding the halo, blotting out her illumination, and everything goes dark, like they have been stuffed into a giant’s pocket,
and Popkin gasps, “Woods,” but Veck gasps in dissent, “Stay by the trenches,” and Bagger thinks he agrees, if they get lost in the woods, lost from the 43rd, they will be a whole new kind of fucked, they will be the deserters Goodspeed wanted them to be, so Bagger hunkers down, the angel held to his chest like a baby, Arno shuddering close,
and he shouts, “We stick to the trenchline and we’ll run right into the division,” to which Popkin sputters “With her? You just want to hand her to Reis?,” and Bagger snaps, “Goodspeed lied! There’s no doctor in Nancy!
,” and Popkin says, “I don’t give a shit about any doctor!
That girl belongs to me!,” and Bagger’s astounded all over again by the lummox’s entitlement,
and more astounding is his willingness to fight Popkin over the angel, a devotion he’s only ever heard from new parents and young lovers, the two biggest categories of sucker that exist, but now he gets it, it’s a release to feel so strongly, this is the point of a purpose, the purpose his father wanted for him, the purpose Uncle Sam wants for him, too,
and before he can tell Popkin how many inches to shove it, Veck asserts, “She’s mine,” which draws flabbergast all around, what is wrong with this Negro, and Veck gestures in frustration and says, “You can see she’s mine, you can see it with your own eyes!
,” and though Bagger doesn’t have the first fucking clue what Veck means, he finds the same sense of possession in each man’s face, even Arno’s,
and the truth is, Bagger feels it, too, he envisions his fantasy farmhouse again and this time the angel’s there, too, they live together, nothing romantic, a blissful harmony, and he thinks of the last passage he read in The Son of Tarzan, further ahead than what he’s read to Arno, He did not even wonder that he was unafraid, for his mind was entirely occupied with thoughts of another’s danger, meaning the girl Meriem in the book, but for Bagger, here and now, it’s the angel, the angel,
and so he yells, “We need to keep our fucking heads and get this girl back to the division. This is bigger than us! Bigger than Reis! Bigger than John Fucking Pershing! This girl needs to go to the President. All of us know that!,” and the others stare at their boots, to voice opposition would be to expose themselves as Benedict Arnolds, although Bagger doesn’t want to give up the angel either, he wants the farmhouse, not the 43rd, but right now he needs to get these fractious fucks out of Dodge and he can’t think of a faster way,
and so he says, “We’ll take turns carrying her,” like she’s a burden, when they all know it’s the opposite, at least this way they will each have to suffer one another’s watchful suspicion, the glared warnings that if they try to ferret away the angel like Goodspeed, they will be violently stopped,
and another minnie blows the trench they just exited a hundred feet into the air, and Veck, as usual, dives for cover, face clenched, body in total contraction, while the rest of them Cossack squat to their feet and run,
and Bagger darts for a fringe of timber, a compromise, not the woods, but not the open trench either, and hears the other grunts follow, Veck included, because if there’s one thing the four of them agree on, it’s that possession of the angel elevates them to a higher rank, and if they can just stay alive, their days as Company P’s ingrates are finished,