Half of Paradise by James Lee Burke

guys took it to a newspaper when he got out. Soon as the paper come out Leander threw us in the tank for nine days. Nine fucking days, crowded up together like a bunch of pigs. We even set fire to them Bibles to get rid of the stink. There wasn’t none of us fit to piss on when we come out of there.”
    “It ain’t right to lock everybody up for what one guy does,” a man said. “He ought to put LeBlanc in the hole and let us be.”
    “You got no rights in here,” another said.
    Avery and LeBlanc were over by the window. Avery had his plate and cup on the sill. He was standing. LeBlanc sat on the floor against the wall with his knees pulled up before him. His black hair hung in his face.
    “We don’t have a lot of friends here,” Avery said.
    “I don’t give a damn for that. Bunch of white trash.”
    “Listen. If Leander locks us all in the tank, you and me aren’t going to be worth twenty-five cents.”
    “I got some people to pay back. It’s them that’s got to be on the lookout.”
    “There’re thirty of them. They’ll get started, and there won’t be any way to stop them.”
    “I ain’t afraid of no white trash.”
    “That isn’t it,” Avery said. “You’ve got to learn how to live in here if you’re going to make it.”
    “I ain’t got to learn nothing.”
    “Eat some breakfast.”
    “I don’t want none.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    “You’re good people, kid, but you ain’t got to watch out for me. I seen more stuff than you could think about.”
    “I was trying to keep you from getting your throat cut.”
    “I didn’t know about you back in the marsh, but you’re good people. There ain’t many people worth anything.”
    “Don’t start any more fights in here, and we’ll be all right.”
    “I got to even everything up.”
    “You’ll go back to the hole.”
    “Screw it.”
    “Don’t get us into more trouble.”
    LeBlanc stood up and jerked his shirt out of his trousers.
    “You see this scar on my belly?” he said. “A Jap bayonet done that. Look at my back. That’s what a army M.P. done. I got a lot of paying back to do
    Avery poured some of his coffee into LeBlanc’s cup.
    “Drink the coffee,” he said.
    LeBlanc tucked his shirt in and drank from the cup.
    “You ain’t been in a war. Don’t ever go to one, even if they stand you up against a wall,” he said. “I went over in ’43. They sent us in at the Marianas. The Japs pasted us on the beach, but we done our share of killing too. That’s where I shot my first man. I forgot what the rest of them looked like, but Christ I remember that first one. He was buck naked except for a strip of rag around his loins, up in the top of a palm tree. I cut him down with my B.A.R. and he fell out and there was a rope tied around his middle and he was swinging in the air and I kept on shooting and the bullets turned him around like a stick spinning in the water.”
    “I’m going to sleep for a while,” Avery said.
    “You ain’t finished eating.”
    “I was awake most of last night.”
    He went through the open door of the tank and lay down on his mattress. He put his arm behind his head and looked up at the top of the tank. He thought of his brother Henri who had been killed at Normandy. Avery could remember the day heenlisted. Henri was seventeen at the time and would not have had to go into the service for another year, but he volunteered with the local National Guard outfit that had just been activated for training. It was his way of leaving, Avery thought. He was getting away from the house and Papa and all the rest of it.
    Henri finished training and was shipped to England in February of 1944. They received one letter from him in the next three months. In late June a telegram arrived at the Broussard home. Mr. Broussard didn’t open it. He held the envelope in his hand a moment and dropped it on the table and went to the back part of the house. Henri had been attached to a rifle company as a medic. He was among