GOODBYE, SOUL BROTHER 2 - cont

2.108.  Another important fact is that Major Treat is not a bold ruler.  Definitionally naive, he lacks critical judgement skills and spends his time ruminating.  Becomes near compliant with the boonifying green instead of trying to uplift the troopers into a calm easy purple feeling.  He should pilot them to a purple twilight, instead he supports their stagnation by doing nothing and nothing inbetween.  It isn’t all his fault and he is not faultless.  He is prematurely balding and facing a critical moment.  When the colonel’s death becomes squadron-wide knowledge he will have a big crisis on his hands, some real big drama, maybe even stunning drama, either way, some kind of dramatical situation.  Will the troopers revolt, maybe demand that the squadron sue Washington for deploying them to Fusaichi?  Crazier things have happened.  Like, say, when Kilroy sent a poetic piece of prose or a prosey bit of poetry, some kind of blend of poetry to Yank, the Army Weekly espousing the colonel’s what?  vibrancy?  regal majesty?  whatever it was Kilroy wrote 

 

    Horses come closer to being a living flame

        than anything else on Earth and 

            The colonel came closer

        than them all

 

and all the troopers thought Kilroy must be gotta be has to be Trooper John Henry Bowers, the stable sergeant.  

 

2.109.  We’re cavalry, damn it, Zev declared, we’re keeping horses.  The squadron keeps eight:  two bays, two greys, two dark bays, two chestnuts.  Whatever their color they all shine like a buffed and polished copper penny much obliged to Trooper Bowers, a very intent one when it comes to the hosses.  Jangling with his dog tags is a cross of gold and before every meal he thanks God that he’s blessed again.  Blessed with the hot chow of the bean king, yes, but still blessed.  Built the stables with Little Mike, took prime advantage of the green timber country to erect shelter for all eight living flames, head, heart, hoof.  There is something about him that is gorgeously divine, yet without divinity.  He greets Capt. Shuvee Oh, captain, my captain  and welcomes him always as a beloved visitor at the stables where he sleeps eats prays reads the literature that Capt. Shuvee lends him.  

 

2.110.  What about Capt. Shuvee?  He’s finished reading a particularly favorite purple poem and he’s accepted that the dispatch delivered the truth, all too hard as it is:  the colonel is dead.  His flame has been extinguished.  Snuffed out.  The colonel is gone and the major sits on.  Doing nothing.  Someone needs to lite the fuse under his ass.  Maybe the colonel’s death is the much needed explodent?

 

2.111.  Where’s his copy of Perelandra?  He feels like reading it but puts it aside in search of his death bed edition of Leaves of Grass.  He searches and acknowledges that Trooper Bowers is gentle on my mind and decides to visit the stables of Fort Marcy, Fusaichi, lef rye lef hada lef rye lef in a melancholy purple mood.  

    Wan tup

He encounters FuPegs.

    Three fower

FuPegs smile and bow

    And he imagines a perelandric purple tinge cooling through the hot green.  For the first time since his arrival at Fusaichi he feels obscene.  A breathing walking wan tup threep fower living obscenity.  He must engage with an invincible spirit, Trooper Bowers.  He must de-escalate himself.  Reinvigorate and de-escalate.  Or maybe make an escalation in a Fusaichian jungle savage fashion with an imported woman.  One equipped with the hip berth to take him.  The captain isn’t a vigorous man but he has sexual vigor and it’s too impatient for courtship.  

    Once had a very artful art teacher, Ms. Martha Louise T something or other, he doesn’t remember because the memory of her full name has been supplanted by the strong memory of an enchanted evening when at the witching hour she told him so proudly a charming story, a really appealing story about how she came to love the color purple.  Purple.  Puerile and pleasant, that color.  Her story had something to do with fantastic light and a dust storm.  

    A storm of dust remembered and the captain makes dubious and integrally solid connection with Trooper Bowers, he-with-the-perpetually dusty legs.  The dust and dander of hay and animals. 

 

2.112.  The dust of life.

 

2.113.  Suddenly

 

2.114.  Out of the blue (or green) and in the purple (of his twilighted imagination) there is a shaft of light that is kind of sort of maybe perhaps hopefully absolutely (in his imagination) purple.  Sudden and abrupt.  Undeniable as the colonel and not a single doubt about it.  Somewhat and whatnot twilighted the captain smoothly makes his way to the stables, stable and smooth he makes his way, with perfected stability and smoothness his makes his way through the green now perceived twilighted purple.  

 

2.115.  Are they really truly in green Fusaichi?

 

2.116.  Is anything really true now that the colonel is dead?

 

2.117.  The real truth is, generally speaking, under no circumstances has anything really kinetically changed.  Fusaichi remains perpetually green.  FuPegs remain perpetually, well, FuPegese.  The Fusaichian stink still stinks and Zev remains AWOL.  The troopers keep boonifying and Doc Fager keeps dosing them with candy which the candyman keeps providing.  Time after time.  Lef after rye after lef rye lef hada lef rye left steadily toward the stable and Trooper Bowers with the dust forever on his tree trunk legs.

    Time after time and time again the captain goes to the stables for a visit.  A tete a tete, a man to man with one of many men without women.  Back in the world, understand?  A dedicated woman way back there, just a single one, would make a festival of magic.  

    Understand?

 

2.118.  Understand that the colonel is dead?

2.119.  Dead and gone to the promised land, as Papa Clem would put it.  Papa Clem, classy ‘n smart man and with him, when it comes to God there’s no fiddling.  Your game with God, Papa Clem always says and Capt. Shuvee remembers en route to the stables, is a losing game and your troubles in war or in Fusaichi will not guarantee that you will be reaping reward.  And what is the squadron’s reward?  Outliving the colonel?  The colonel is in memoriam and the squadron is in Fusaichi.  Without their original commander who declared anchors aweigh! and they must remain until forever and ever despite the green humid hot weather and the FuPeg shit and the unrelenting stink and the death of the colonel.

 

2.120.  All kinds of hay for the horses, much obliged to the candyman.  Fifty shades of hay and oats and the troopers are reliant on the cuisine of the bean king.  They’re too boonified to give a damn.  Capt. Shuvee keeps a full pocket of mints for the horses.  What a pleasure, a true honest pleasure to treat them.  For the captain pleasure of any kind arouses and intoxicates his super senses, makes him hard, so to speak.  The keen pleasure of reading of walking with precision, wan tup threep fower lef rye lef hada lef rye lef, of being a much admired captain.  Of the deep secret of meeting the colonel before he shipped off for the war.

 

2.121.  At his departure he said three words.

 

2.122.  As he nears the stable he doesn’t know that he will repeat them.

 

2.123.  Repetition, that’s life at Fort Marcy, Fusaichi.  Every day is just another day without battle paint.  Another day with no hope and no argument against the hopelessness.  Though there is a vague far off in the future hope that a dramatic futuramatic return to America will be achieved.  Believed and achieved.  But the consensus is - count the votes - that Fusaichi will be their home everlasting and they must be ever faithful.  Fort Marcy, Fusaichi does, after all, have an endearing quality despite the pervading stink and the free-shitting FuPegs and the humidity and heat and encapsulating green there is something endearing that must be somewhat randomly selected like in a game of uni duni te.  There is a strong hope shining through in a purple shine.  It is purple and lustrous, hope is always lustrous because it is lusted after.  All this hope and lust and shining and still the colonel is dead.