Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

Part 5
about it was that he didn't even try to be funny--he just was funny." She turned her
head slightly toward Mary Jane. "Hey, how 'bout throwing me a cigarette?"
"I can't reach 'em," Mary Jane said.
"Nuts to you." Eloise looked up at the ceiling again. "Once," she said, "I fell down. I
used to wait for him at the bus stop, right outside the PX, and he showed up late once,
just as the bus was pulling out. We started to run for it, and I fell and twisted my ankle.
He said, `Poor Uncle Wiggily.' He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggily, he called it. . .
. God, he was nice."
"Doesn't Lew have a sense of humor?" Mary Jane said.
"What?"
"Doesn't Lew have a sense of humor?"
"Oh, God! Who knows? Yes. I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff." Eloise raised
her head, lifted her drink from her chest, and drank from it.
"Well," Mary Jane said. "That isn't everything. I mean that isn't everything."
"What isn't?"
"Oh . . . you know. Laughing and stuff."
"Who says it isn't?" Eloise said. "Listen, if you're not gonna be a nun or something,
you might as well laugh."
Mary Jane giggled. "You're terrible," she said.
"Ah, God, he was nice," Eloise said. "He was either funny or sweet. Not that damn
little-boy sweet, either. It was a special kind of sweet. You know what he did once?"
"Uh-uh," Mary Jane said.
"We were on the train going from Trenton to New York--it was just right after he was
drafted. It was cold in the car and I had my coat sort of over us. I remember I had Joyce

Morrow's cardigan on underneath--you remember that darling blue cardigan she had?"
Mary Jane nodded, but Eloise didn't look over to get the nod.
"Well, he sort of had his hand on my stomach. You know. Anyway, all of a sudden he
said my stomach was so beautiful he wished some officer would come up and order him
to stick his other hand through the window. He said he wanted to do what was fair.
Then he took his hand away and told the conductor to throw his shoulders back. He
told him if there was one thing he couldn't stand it was a man who didn't look proud of
his uniform. The conductor just told him to go back to sleep." Eloise reflected a
moment, then said, "It wasn't always what he said, but how he said it. You know."
"Have you ever told Lew about him--I mean, at all?"
"Oh," Eloise said, "I started to, once. But the first thing he asked me was what his
rank was."
"What was his rank?"
"Ha!" said Eloise.
"No, I just meant--"
Eloise laughed suddenly, from her diaphragm. "You know what he said once? He said
he felt he was advancing in the Army, but in a different direction from everybody else.
He said that when he'd get his first promotion, instead of getting stripes he'd have his
sleeves taken away from him. He said when he'd get to be a general, he'd be stark
naked. All he'd be wearing would be a little infantry button in his navel." Eloise looked
over at Mary Jane, who wasn't laughing. "Don't you think that's funny?"
"Yes. Only, why don't you tell Lew about him sometime, though?"
"Why? Because he's too damn unintelligent, that's why," Eloise said. "Besides. Listen
to me, career girl. If you ever get married again, don't tell your husband anything. Do
you hear me?"
"Why?" said Mary Jane.
"Because I say so, that's why," said Eloise. "They wanna think you spent your whole
life vomiting every time a boy came near you. I'm not kidding, either. Oh, you can tell
them stuff. But never honestly. I mean never honestly. If you tell 'em you once knew a
handsome boy, you gotta say in the same breath he was too handsome. And if you tell
'em you knew a witty boy, you gotta tell 'em he was kind of a smart aleck, though, or a
wise guy. If you don't, they hit you over the head with the poor boy every time they get a
chance." Eloise paused to drink from her glass and to think. "Oh," she said, "they'll