The Great Santini by Pat Conroy Page B

front lawn. It is often difficult for military officers to grasp the fact that the civilian world does not hold them in shivering awe. Bull's family also remembered that Ben had been the victim of his father's frustration at the end of the three previous settling-in days, receiving backhands on two of those occasions, and a semi-strangling on the third. Wiser now, Ben had told his mother that he would disappear for the day if she did not devise a plan to keep the colonel out of the maelstrom of this ill-omened day. He was not offering his body as a human sacrifice again just because his father could not exist in the center of chaos.
    "Let's face it, Mom," Ben had told her," Dad ain't exactly priestlike when we move into a new place."
    At nine o'clock, Bull pulled a clean uniform from a clothes bag that hung in the car. He took the uniform directly to Ben and told him to prepare it for use by the sharpest Marine officer in the Corps. Ben took the uniform from his father, smoothed it with his hand, spread a blanket on the lawn, then laid the uniform reverently on top of the blanket. Then he pinned the ribbons, insignia of rank, and appropriate decorations onto his father's blouse. It was a ritual he could perform in his sleep, one for which his father had trained him from childhood.
    "Are you going to wear your inspection shoes or your work shoes, Dad?" Ben asked.
    "Use your noggin, sportsfans," Bull snapped. "I'm not gonna be waltzing through a field of shit flowers this morning. This is a pretty important meeting. Do you get it?"
    "Aye, aye, sir. Inspection shoes it is," Ben said. He walked to the front seat of the car and lifted a pair of shoes whose toes were covered by white sweat socks from under the seat. Gingerly, Ben removed the socks. He stared deeply into the gloss on the shoes.
    "You scratched these shoes badly, Dad, the last time you wore them. You got to be more careful with these babies."
    "I don't have to be careful as long as I have you around to shine 'em up," his father retorted, not gruffly, but as a statement of irrefutable fact.
    "What did you do without me when you were sailing around on that aircraft carrier last year?"
    "I got hold of a real ambitious corporal," he replied.
    Under some road maps in the glove compartment, Ben retrieved a rusty can of cordovan polish and a thin silken handkerchief spotted with dried circles of polish. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw his father lift the uniform off the blanket, inspect the angle and position of the silver leaves, eyeing the placement of ribbons, then grunting approval without acknowledging his son. There are some things you can never forget, Ben thought. Finding a shady place on the veranda, he leaned up against a column and began to shine his father's shoes. Even though he resented the way his father took this duty for granted, he derived a guarded satisfaction from his custodianship of his father's shoes. With him rested the basic responsibility for his father's military appearance. The shoes were Ben's greatest challenge and most enduring joy. Bull was hard on shoes. Some Marines could make a good spit shine last for a week, but Bull's shoes would look as if they had been on a forced march after only several days' wear. Ben loosened the top of the can of Kiwi with a dime, wrapped the handkerchief tightly around his middle finger, put some water into the top of the polish can, dabbed a small amount of polish on the rag, then in a circular motion lightly applied the polish to the shoe. It delighted him always to find the mirror in the shoe's face, to rediscover the dark reflection released as the finger thinned the polish on the hard, good-smelling leather. Touch was the thing, lightness in the finger, the sparing use of water, never spit, the thinness of the rag, and a stingy use of polish. Once a shoe had a good base, it was a simple matter to restore its brilliance when the shine faded. As his finger moved, Ben watched his face appear as if he