SLPAD - 65 (2)

[Michael Bailey]

 A little blonde came over with a basket full of sandwiches and paper
containers of
               coffee, and Levine said, “Just in time, honey. You have
saved me from certain death.”
               She smiled at him. “Oh you don’t look so bad.”


            Levine took three or four sandwiches and a cup of coffee. “You
either,” he said, leering.
               “They’re making St. Bernards a hell of a lot cuter than they
used to.”


            “That’s a pretty dubious compliment,” she said, “but it’s in
better taste than any
               I’ve had today.”


Reading this, I thought of Pig Bodine’s comment in _V._ about Sartre’s
thesis that we are all impersonating an identity.

Sometime in the past, Levine decided to be disaffected, possibly because of
that relationship he tried to go back to? So now, his come-on is filtered
through a basic incivility he’s been working on with his Marlon Brando/ape
imitation, his drinking and beer belly, his grouping the young lady with
rescue dogs…and yet (like the Lieutenant and Rizzo) she perceives value in
him, if only by comparison to tasteless remarks from the other soldiers.