Biloxi Blues

Biloxi Blues Summary | Act 1, Scene 1 Summary

The scene opens up in the coach of an old railroad train; the year is 1943. Four boys in their late teens and early twenties are stretched out on the seats, attempting to sleep. A fifth boy, named Arnold Epstein, is asleep in the baggage rack above the other boys. Two of the sleeping boys, Joseph Wykowski and Roy Selridge, get into an argument when Roy, in an attempt to get comfortable, puts his shoeless foot dangerously close to Joseph's mouth.

After they go back to sleep, we are introduced to our main character, Eugene Morris Jerome; he is one of the four boys attempting to sleep on the coach seats. Giving up on sleep, he writes in a notebook. After Joseph and Roy go back to sleep, he begins to address the audience; he tells them that he hates everyone and that the train stinks because no one has washed in three days. He then has a brief argument with Roy and Joseph; they are obviously no friends of his. Roy is from Schenectady, New York; he thinks he is funny; he smells bad and has 19 cavities. Joseph is from Bridgeport, Connecticut; he can eat anything, and he has a permanent erection. The other two boys are less hostile towards Eugene: Donald Carney, from Montclair, New Jersey who sings all the time, even in his sleep and has a very attractive sister, and Arnold Epstein of Queens Boulevard, New York who is incapable of eating any food stronger than hard-boiled eggs; he is intelligent and well read.

Eugene reveals that he is from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York and that he has never been away from home before. There are three things he is determined to do in the war: "Become a writer, not get killed, and lose my virginity."