PAYDAY

     As a rule, payday was one of the moments of highest individual importance for the lieutenant since it was his special duty to distribute our pay, which, among other things, meant that he could wear a pistol and black leather holster strapped around his waist, just like a gunfighter.  It was also a day of considerable ceremony.  Conspicuously the military thrives on pomp and payday was no exception.  Like nearly every official activity we were ever involved in, regardless of its size or its place of importance, the procedure of being paid had multiple rules and formalities to be obeyed to the letter, all of which served to transform the simple action of payment into an elaborate ritual. 
     As the people being paid, we had to make one long alphabetical line outside the day room where the lieutenant sat handing out pay envelopes and, one by one, we filed into it.  Once inside, we had to march within one meter of the pay officer, who was always seated at a cardtable strewn with tan-colored envelopes and pink sheets of paper, had to place our identification cards on the table just in front of the officer's eyes, then we saluted him and said, "Sir, Private _____ reports for pay," dropped the salute without waiting for him to return it, waited for him to count out the money we were to be paid, then counted the pay ourselves, and left with an abrupt about-face out the back door.  Again, the military preference for display and style was demonstrated, and again the emphasis on the ostentatious intruded into an operation's speed and efficiency.  But that did not matter really for time was of little importance, as I had first learned at the Induction Center then at the Reception Station.  Our time was no longer valuable because it was no longer ours, instead we were under the constant control of our superiors, which meant that our presence was always assured and our time theirs, completely, to do with as they pleased.
     Anyway, on the day in question, I had made a mistake about the positioning of "sir" in my required address to the lieutenant, making it a precedent rather than an antecedent, and so he routinely had me do thirty push-ups for such a breach of etiquette.  An hour after this happened, I was in the barracks preparing for a shower when the Huffer came running up to me and said that the lieutenant wanted to see me at once.  I was astonished.  At first, I thought he was joking, but quickly he convinced me of his seriousness.  Still, I had my doubts because I was sure the lieutenant did not even know who I was, either by sight or by name.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I became flattered that my presence, my identity, was actually known by the training officer, and at the same time I grew more and more curious about the reason for his demand to see me.  So I put on my boots and fatigues and hurried over to the day room where he was still distributing the pay forms and, after taking a quick breath, approached him as he was fingering through a thin stack of tan envelopes.
     "Sir," I said confidently, "my name is Mirmidon and I was told you wanted to see me."
     Blankly he looked in my direction and touched the portion of his glass frames which straddled the bridge of his nose, then said patiently, "Yes, I'll be with you in a minute."
     I stepped to the side and gazed, with fascination, at his hands.  On a finger of his left hand was a ring the size of a walnut.  So many of the officers I had seen in my short time in the military wore college rings like this one---big bold brass objects covered with swirling indentations and solemn, important-looking Latin quotations---that it almost seemed like a uniform signal of character, as if these men were the kind who needed to brace themselves on such signets, else they might fall of their own weight.
     He finished counting out the money for the trainee standing in front of him, gave him a thin stack of crisp green bills, then told the trainee waiting by the door to stay there a minute.  I stepped up to the cardtable, stopping when I felt its edge press against my thighs, and stood at attention.  "Well, Mirmidon, did you forget something?" he asked, with the hint of a smile forming across his evenly bitten lips.
     "No, sir," I said, puzzled at the meaning of his question.
     "Are you sure?" he persisted.
     "Yes, sir," I mumbled.  And then, suddenly, I realized what he was talking about.  "Oh, my ID card!  I must have left it here, sir."
     The suspected smile did not appear, instead there was a strange, almost whimsical expression on his face.  In a clear and quiet tone he said, "Yes, you did Mirmidon," and tossed my card onto the table.
     "Thank you, sir---"
     He went on, "You know, Mirmidon, the ID card is a pretty valuable piece of property."  Reflectively he seized the end of his long white king-sized cigarette and slowly inhaled.  "You know, if you didn't have this card, you couldn't get paid."
     "Yes, sir.  I realize that.  But you see, sir, I was doing some push-ups in here for you, and after I did them, I must have left the card on the table."
     Impervious to my feeble explanation, he said, "I'm afraid, Mirmidon, you don't understand the importance of your ID card or else you wouldn't have gone off and left it here.  You didn't even know it was missing until you got back in here, isn't that so?" His fingers were spread and his hands uplifted, as if he had just been put under arrest and was now dutifully raising his hands for the investigators.
     "That's correct, sir."  The game was old and I was tiring, but I answered his rhetorical question and waited for him to make the next move.
     "You're not in a cradle any longer."
     "Yes, sir.  I realize that."
     "No, I'm afraid you don't.  So I guess you're just going to have to be taught a lesson," he said matter-of-factly.  I assumed he was going to have me do fifty push-ups instead of thirty, which was all right with me just as long as he ended his drawn out maneuvers and hurried up and told me what he wanted me to do so I could do it and leave.  "Where's your wallet?" he asked.
     "In my back pocket, sir."
     "All right, then, I want you to go over there"---he pointed to a space along the wall nearest his table---"and get in the front leaning rest position."  He shoved the burning end of his cigarette into an empty paper cup and crushed it to death, like an ant, then shook loose another one from the tattered package he kept inside his shirt and set it, unlit, into his mouth.  "Right over there," he said a second time, motioning with his hand.  Mechanically, not grudgingly or angrily, I obeyed and walked over to the spot he was pointing to and dropped myself into the extended push-up position.  Then, in a flash, I saw my ID card fly down in front of me, landing just a few inches from my left hand.  I waited, curiously.
     "Now," he explained, "I want you to remain in this position and pick up your card and put it away."  He took a breath and lit his fresh cigarette.  "With your one free hand, right or left, it doesn't matter to me, take your wallet from your pocket, put the ID card into it, then put the wallet back into your pocket and make sure you button the pocket up.  You won't leave until this is done, is that clear?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "This way maybe you'll learn how valuable your identification card is and you won't be losing it by going off and leaving it somewhere."
     Kindergarten, I thought.  Yet, surprisingly, I was not upset.  Though I hated doing such trivial and ridiculous things such as this, by now I had grown to accept them as realities to be endured and passed and never taken seriously.  Besides, I found a certain childish challenge in the exercise.  Quickly I concentrated my energies on supporting myself with one hand and with maneuvering the pocket button, the wallet, and the card with the other.  It proved not to be difficult at all once I managed to undo the button and, I told myself, was probably one of the more enjoyable and interesting activities I was to participate in while training.
     Finished, I said to the lieutenant, "Request permission to get up, sir?"
     "Permission granted," he said after a long moment of silence, and as I got up he asked in a vaguely insistent tone if I had learned a lesson now, and I said yes; however, the lesson I learned had very little to do with my misplaced ID card, rather it reemphasized the position of impotence that I, as a trainee, was now in, and again made clear to me how, at will, I could be compelled to do things that, under ordinary circumstances, I would never even dream of doing.  Yes, I wanted to tell the lieutenant, I had learned a lesson, the lesson of power and the lesson of being without it.

© Thomas Healy