Norwood by Charles Portis Page B

“Norwood?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTell me something.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat is your all-time Kitty Wells favorite?”
    â€œI’d have to think about it.”
    â€œMine is ‘Makin’ Believe.’”
    â€œYeah, that’s mine too.”
    â€œListen.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’d like to hear you sing sometime.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œWhy don’t you sing something now? I’d like to hear something now.”
    â€œNot on the bus.”
    â€œYou could do it soft.”
    â€œNaw, not on the bus.”
    â€œWhat is your singing style like?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYes you do. Who do you sing like?”
    â€œHave you ever heard Lefty Frizzell sing ‘I Love You a Thousand Ways’?”
    â€œNo, I never even heard of Lefty Frizzell.”
    â€œI don’t guess I can explain it then.”
    â€œYou got a scar back here on your neck. It looks awful. There’s not any hair growing on it.”
    â€œI fell off a water truck in Korea.”
    â€œDid you do any fighting over there?”
    â€œI got in on the tail end of it.”
    â€œDid you kill anybody?”
    â€œJust two that I know of.”
    â€œHow did you do it?”
    â€œI shot ’em.”
    â€œI mean but how?”
    â€œWell, with a light machine gun. They were out there in front of the barb war and one of ’em hit a trip flare. It was right in front of my bunker and they just froze. My gun was already laid on ’em, except I had to traverse a little and I cranked off about thirty rounds and dropped’em right there.”
    â€œDid they scream?”
    â€œIf they did I didn’t hear ’em. A bunch of mortars come in and when that let up me and a old boy from South Carolina name Tims went out there and throwed a plank acrost the war and brought their bodies back.”
    â€œI bet you got a medal.”
    â€œFor that? Naw. The skipper didn’t even like it much. He wanted a prisoner. He thought I should of run out there with my .45 and said ‘You two gooks are under arrest.’ ”
    â€œYou should of got a medal.”
    â€œYou don’t get medals for things like that. Unless you’re a officer. They give ’em to each other.”
    â€œIf I had killed anybody I don’t think I could sleep at night.”
    â€œThat’s what we was there for.”
    â€œI know that but still.”
    â€œIt didn’t bother me none. It wasn’t no more than shooting squirrels. Naw, it wasn’t as much because squirrels are not trying to kill you. With big one-twenty mortars.”
    â€œI never even seen anybody dead close up and I don’t want to either.”
    â€œThem two needed killing anyway. If they had dropped down flat when that flare went off I couldn’t of depressed my gun down far enough to hit ’em.”
    â€œCome on now, hon, and sit up a minute. I’m about to fall off this seat.”
    Norwood sat up and moved over to his side and lit a cigarette. Rita Lee didn’t exactly want this, a total disengagement, and she snuggled up against him and put his arm, dead weight, across her shoulders.
    â€œYou’re a lot heftier than Wayne is,” she said. “He’s tall and stringy. His best friend in the Marines is a nigger. What it is, he likes nigger music and nigger jokes. He can talk like one pretty good. After he got his car him and Otis Webb robbed every Coke machine in the county. People commenced rolling ’em inside at night. Otis had to go to reform school because he was sixteen and a nigger and the judge told Wayne he could either go to the pen or the Marines. Wayne took me out to eat at Otis’s house one time and their floor was as clean as any shirt you got in your drawer. You’re not even listening to me.”
    â€œYes I am.”
    â€œLet me have a drag off that.”
    â€œThis Wayne don’t sound like