“Hey, Ernie, tell me about it. Been there. You know, the other day, some bastard even painted the word ‘homos’ above my office entrance.”

“Yeah?” he said, suddenly sounding much more receptive. “I guess I saw that on CNN. That was you, huh?”

“That was me,” I said. “You can only guess how I got my butt reamed over that one.”

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“Shit, generals were standing in line to call me. You’d think I knocked up the President’s daughter. I’ll tell ya, Ernie, I’ve been catching some royal hell.”

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding suddenly much more chummy, proving once again that misery really does love company. “Try this one for size. I been married to my wife eight years, right? We date all through high school, all through my time as a cadet. I mean, hell, we got three kids, right? So, the other night, we’re layin ’in bed, and she turns to me and she gives me this real quirky look, and she says, ‘Hey honey, is there anything at all you want to tell me about? I mean, anything?’ You believe that crap? I almost jackslapped her.”

“Wow. Your own wife. That’s one for the books.”

“ ’Course I didn’t. Jackslap her, I mean. I just jumped on her ass and gave her a taste of the old power drill till three in the morning. Lady walked bowlegged for two days, no shit. She won’t be questioning my damned manhood again.”

“Heh-heh,” I chuckled, now that Ernie and I had bonded through our common woes. The ice was out of his voice, and he was getting relaxed, sounding much like one of those basic good ol’ boys from the South Bronx. The talkative type, at least once you get them going.

Still chuckling, I said, “So Ernie, what can you tell me about Whitehall?”

“Depends. What are you interested in?”

“What kind of guy was he?”

“Hell, everybody asks that. I don’t know. He’s just a guy, right?”

“Come on, Ernie, I’m not everybody. I’m the guy who has to convince ten hard-nosed sons of bitches they don’t really want to run fifty thousand volts through him. To do that, I have to know what kind of guy he really is.”

He seemed to weigh that a moment, because there was a fairly extended pause before he answered. I was taking a big risk. Maybe he really didn’t like Whitehall and wouldn’t mind one bit if fifty thousand volts cooked him like a Christmas turkey. But what choice did I have?

“This’s between us?” he finally demanded.

“Absolutely.”

“I mean, this isn’t the crap I tell reporters to keep my butt outta trouble, right?”

“Ernie, I swear. I won’t say a word.”

“Okay. Truth was I really liked Whitehall. I liked him a lot. We were pretty good buddies, y’know?”

He was backing into this tentatively, like a guy sticking his toe into hot water.

“Why?”

“Hell, I don’t know. He was just a great guy, y’know. A fantastic cadet, though. He played the game, right? Only don’t take that in no unfavorable way. He was a straight shooter. A guy you could trust in a bad moment.”

“No kidding?” I said.

“Yeah, no kiddin’. Tell ya a story. Freshman year, which they call plebe year here, right? There was this kid in my company who was a real screwup. Y’know the type, right? Couldn’t spit-shine his shoes, uniform always looked like shit, couldn’t pass a room inspection, couldn’t remember all that crap plebes have to memorize so upperclassmen can quiz ’em every day. This guy’s a miserable klutz, right? So the upperclassmen, they start coming after this kid. I mean, we’re talking like a pack of piranhas, giving him hell, hazing him every day, hazing him till late at night, so he can’t study, so he’s gettin’ so bothered and exhausted he’s on the verge of flunking out. ’Course, that was their game, right? They were trying to run him out, y’know. Either make him so friggin’ miserable he quits, or so friggin’ fried he flunks out. And right there in the same squad is Tommy Whitehall. We’re talking Mr. Perfect hisself. He’s just one of them gabbonzos that arrive at West Point and they’ve got the whole game figured out. You know the type, right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah, so the upperclassmen, they just adore Tommy Whitehall. Like he can turn Coke into Pepsi, right? Always they’re saying to this screwup, ‘Hey klutz, look over there at Mr. Whitehall. How come you ain’t like him, huh? What’s your friggin’ problem, huh?’ So one day, to everybody’s surprise, Whitehall shows up at formation, and his shoes look like he polished ’em with mud, and his uniform’s got smudges all over it, and suddenly he can barely remember his own name. So the upperclassmen, they jump on his ass a bit, not too hard, though, ’cause it’s him, Mr. Perfect, right? I mean, it’s only a freakin’ anomaly, right? A one-day thing, right?”

“Right.”

“Only it don’t get no better for Tommy Whitehall. Mr. Perfect seems to disintegrate. So these guys, they’re like sharks, they forget all about the klutz and go after Whitehall. I mean, it’s like one of them biblical things, like the only thing they hate more’n a common sinner is a saint who falls from grace. ’Course, what nobody knows is that Tommy’s staying up till midnight every night so he can sneak outta his room, go over to the klutz’s room, where Tommy spit-shines the kid’s shoes and gets his room ready for inspection, and even helps him catch up academically. I mean, he saved that guy’s ass. Tommy hadn’t helped him, that stupid klutz would of either flunked out or been thrown out, for friggin’ sure.”

Ernie had spit out the tale in that dizzying, rapid-fire way that only purebred New Yorkers can speak, only it was such a long-winded and convoluted tale that even he had to pause to catch his breath.

Then he said, “ ’Course, you’re a smart guy, right? You bein’ a lawyer and all. You probably already guessed who the klutz was, right? I mean, I wouldn’t be sittin’ right here wasn’t for Tommy Whitehall. I’m telling ya, nobody worked it harder’n Tommy.”

“Why’d he work so hard at it?”

“Shit, who knows? I just thought he was gonna be a really great officer. I mean, he was like that, y’know? More mature than most guys here.”

“More mature, like how?”

“Like driven. Never bitched, never whined, never acted stupid like most cadets do.”

“No kidding?”

“Hey, no kiddin’. Hands down. He was like pretty close to the top of our class academically. Guy’s smart as shit. And box? He took the freakin’ middleweight Golden Gloves down in New York City. You know anything about boxing, that’s like being the amateur national champ, ’cause the best kids from all over the country pour in for that one.”

“I had no idea,” I admitted.

“Yeah, well, Tommy’s not easy to know. He can come off like a real prick, least till he decides he likes you. There’s like this moat of ice around him, y’know? I never knew why that was. Least till now, anyway. Who’d of figured it, huh?”

Regarding that moat-of-ice thing, I would’ve figured it. I had him pegged on that one. Of course I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “So you never suspected it?”

“Hellll, no. Shit, we got communal showers up here. You’d think, if it was for real, you’d see a little pecker pop, wouldn’t ya?”

“Did anybody ever suspect him?”

“Nobody. I mean, lotsa guys are running around now, swearing they knew all along he was a pansy. That’s bullshit, though. He never let on. I’ll tell ya, he sure had lots of female cadets pantin’ after him. Could of got laid every night, if he’da wanted.”

“You ever see him date?”

“Nah. But I always figured it was, ah, y’know, one of them loyal-to-the-girl-back-home things. The whole four years, he kept this picture on his desk. I’m talking gorgeous, y’know? Dark-haired, big green eyes, face to melt your heart. I asked about her a coupla times, but he’d never let on. In hindsight, that picture, it was probably camouflage. Y’know, like one of those frames you buy with a picture of a model in it. Only he left the picture in so we’d all think… well, you know.”