1968 Page 5

  He liked Beverly immediately, but then he tended to like every potential sexual partner immediately, occasionally boys as well as girls. (He stayed away from boys on the East Coast, though; too many people were uptight about it.) He walked her back to her dorm after they’d been rebuffed at the Starlight Lounge. She gave him her phone number and a goodnight kiss and politely avoided his hands.

  Her roommate Sherry had been watching from the window. “So who’s your new hippy hunk?”

  “He’s just a guy I met at the rally, Lee. He’s a folksinger from San Francisco.”

  Sherry watched him through the window, walking away. “He give you a wide-on?”

  “Sherry!”

  “I mean like really. You said you don’t love Spider anymore. It’s not healthy to suppress your sex drive.”

  “You must be a regular Charles Atlas, then.” Sherry was always full of lurid details about what she had done with her dates. Beverly was still a virgin, though she’d never said so. She and Spider had progressed as far as “heavy petting,” fast and furtive mutual masturbation. That was about as much fun as she wanted to contend with for the time being.

  She looked at Spider’s dust-stained letter on her desk. “I never said I didn’t love him.”

  “Yes, you di-i-id. Night before last.”

  “What I meant was like he’s so far away, and I haven’t seen him since before Thanksgiving, and before that he was away at Basic for four months and I just, I just don’t know how to feel. He’s not even the same guy anymore. God, they fired him from his clerk job and they’ve got him out in the jungle, in a firing base, whatever that is.”

  “You just don’t want to send him a Dear John letter.”

  “I don’t know. That would be pretty shitty, wouldn’t it?”

  Sherry pulled down the blind and started undressing. “Well … maybe it might be the best thing. What if you keep leading him on, and when he comes back, you’re doing it every night with the San Francisco Kid?”

  “Sure, fat chance.” She went over to look at Spider’s letter. Sherry’s casual attitude toward nakedness made Beverly uncomfortable. Bad enough that you had to do it in gym. Beverly took her shower at night and changed into pajamas in the relative privacy there.

  “I saw you give him like your phone number, didn’t you?”

  “You aren’t nosy or anything.”

  “So you’re gonna see him again.”

  “Sure, maybe.” In another week, Lee was going to see more of her than Spider ever had.

  First contact

  After he finished his letter to Beverly, he wrote a short, neutral one to his mother. Her letter had been a long and scrawled ramble. One or two highballs too many. Dear old Dad had done three hundred dollars’ worth of damage to the car in a “parking accident”; sure. One of those highspeed parking accidents you’re always hearing about.

  He’d been stopped for drunk driving two times that Spider knew of. How could he make a living if they took his license away?

  Spider sealed both letters into dusty envelopes and franked them, writing “free” where the stamp would normally go. Other than lots of fresh air and exercise, that was the only advantage Spider had found to living in Vietnam.

  He heard a helicopter coming in and he and Killer went around the hill to meet it. There was a “natural LZ” there, a clearing large enough for the chopper.

  All the helicopter brought were two old guys, a major and a bird colonel. It waited on the LZ, blades idling, while they walked around in a kind of surprise inspection. Spider put his letter in a mailbag made of fluorescent-pink polyester—for easier spotting in case it fell out of the helicopter—and then followed Killer back to their hole.

  The officers walked by their bunker without looking at it or them, which disappointed Spider, since he was rather proud of their handiwork. The colonel walked with his hands in his pockets, frowning, while the major whispered importantly and sliced diagrams in the air.

  The chopper left and Batman came by with the good news that since they hadn’t brought any extra Cs, the company wasn’t going to hump more than another day, back to the fire base.

  While he was talking, another chopper came, loaded down with C rations. The engineers split two boxes; six meals each.

  “Shit,” Spider said. “Does this mean we’ll be humpin’ for two more days?”

  Batman shrugged. “Don’t mean nothin’. Still might go back tomorrow; might be out for a month. Bet the captain don’t know any more than we do. Give me one of them Luckies.” He took a cigarette from Spider, lit it up, and coughed. “Jesus. You gonna die with this shit, man.”

  “So smoke your own.”

  Batman waved at a tall black man approaching, a buck sergeant who’d been on the left flank during the morning walk. “Hey, fool. What’s happenin’?”

  “Hey, nigger.” They slapped palms and he looked at Killer. “You the fuckin’ new guy?”

  “That’s me,” Spider said as Killer pointed.

  “Oh.” He hunkered down in what Spider recognized as a Vietnamese squatting position, feet and knees together, shoulders thrust forward. It took hours of practice, but definitely proved you weren’t an FNG, fuckin’ new guy. “Just makin’ sure you don’t kill none of us, okay?”

  “Don’t shoot at me,” Spider said.

  “Ha ha. Look. My guys gonna be right down the hill in front of you here, in a LP, listening post. You don’t shoot or throw no grenade till they come back here, no matter what kinda shit’s goin’ on.”

  “Okay. My sixteen doesn’t work anyhow.”

  “Oh. That’s good.” He pointed in a line. “Gonna have a tripwire all along there. You get up to take a leak in the middle of the night, don’ trip it. Magnesium flare, somebody shoot you.”

  “They’d think I was a gook?”

  “Shoot you for bein’ dumb.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Batman said, “You pop a flare by accident, yell ‘friendly!’ loud as you can, wave your arms. You can put it out by beatin’ it with a shovel. Ambushes out yet?”

  “They got two, Bravo and Charlie. Bravo’s coverin’ that little stream we crossed; Charlie’s someplace on the other side of the hill, down past the LZ someplace.”

  “They really think we’re gonna get some action?” Killer said.

  “Naw, just Big Bird come out, we gotta act strack for a day or two.” He straightened up and cracked his knuckles loudly. “Go an’ get my shit together. Be cool, fool.”

  “You be cool.” Batman watched him go. “Funny thing, we knew each other back in the World.”

  “Before Basic?” Spider said.

  “’Way before, junior high.”

  “Never heard of that,” Killer said. “Maybe guys from the same city.”

  “Me neither. I wouldn’t’ve known him, but I saw the name on a TO before I came out from base camp, Abraham Q. Westlake. Can’t be too many of them. He was a year in front of me but we both played baseball; he must’ve pitched to me a hundred times. He was a long tall motherfucker even then.”

  There was a tearing sound of artillery coming in and Killer and Spider hit the dirt. The shell made a relatively quiet pop sound. “Just a smoke round,” Batman said. “Be another one in a minute.”

  “They’re laying down a smoke screen?” Spider said.

  “No, they just do that to check our position, calibrate the guns. We get hit tonight, they can respond real fast.” Another round popped on the other side of the hill. “If they do respond.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes we won’t have priority. Sometimes the VC and NVA get cute, set it up so they hit several places at once. If the airfield at Pleiku is gettin’ hit, they probably can’t spare anything for us.”

  “Same with air support,” Killer said. “We don’t get artillery and air support, we might could get overrun.”

  “People talk about that,” Batman said, “but I ain’t never seen it. Never talked to anybody that went through it.”

>   “Maybe they don’t talk because they’re all dead,” Spider said.

  “All you guys from Graves so cheerful?” Killer said.

  “We’re more cheerful when we have nice fresh meat.” Spider licked his lips and stared at Killer. “Napalm especially. Crispy Critters.”

  “Anybody ever tell you you’re one weird motherfucker?”

  From the jungle below them came a muffled bang. “Oh, shit,” Batman said. “Grenade.” He picked up his rifle and put the steel pot on his head. Spider followed suit; Killer was already wearing his.

  “That the LP?” Killer said.

  “Maybe the ambush, I don’ know. Maybe somebody’s fuckin’ around, or had an accident.” Then there was a sustained burst of automatic-rifle fire. “No, that’s an AK-47. We’ve got contact.”

  Somebody started screaming, an eerie wavering ululation. There were several bursts of M16 return fire and another grenade blast, then two more. The screaming man stopped, and then started again.

  “What’re we supposed to do?” Spider said.

  “Keep down,” Batman said. “Wait an’ see.”

  Four artillery rounds rushed in, spaced about two seconds apart. Then three came in almost simultaneously. “Quick work,” Killer said.

  “Still zeroed from the smoke rounds,” Batman said. “Just drop it a cunt hair and fire for effect.”

  Moses came scrambling up the hill. “Know anything?” Batman shook his head.

  An M60 machine gun started up, a constant manic chatter to accompany the screaming. When the machine gun stopped, the screaming stopped, too. “Wonder if that’s one of us who got hurt,” Moses said.

  “Oh yeah,” Batman said. “Charlie don’t scream.” In the distance they could hear the thumping blades of a helicopter approaching. “Medevac already.”

  For a minute there was no sound except the helicopter, louder and louder. Then four men struggled up the hill by their bunker, carrying a casualty by the armpits and ankles. The wounded man had his pants pulled down to his knees and clutched a bloody pile of bandages over his crotch. His eyes were clenched shut and he kept repeating “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.”

  One of the carriers was a short black man whose skin was gray with shock or fear or empathy. He recognized Batman. “Fuckin’ dick shot off, Jesus. Shot clean off.” He held out his hand, displaying a small scrap of bloody meat. “Jesus.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Huh uh. Dead gook.”

  They watched them stagger toward the LZ. “Might as well throw it away,” Spider said. “No way they can sew it back on.”

  “What makes you an expert?” Killer said. “You sew on a lot of dicks?”

  Spider grabbed his crotch. “Sew this, motherfucker.”

  “Let’s get down to the LZ, assholes,” Batman said, moving. “Might have to offload some stuff.” Medevacs weren’t always done by medical helicopters. If someone was in the air nearby and not on a fire mission, he’d drop in for a pickup if that would move the casualty to help a little faster.

  This time it was a medevac chopper, a red cross in a white square painted on the nose. There was one other wounded man aboard, his arm in a makeshift sling and his hand bandaged. He looked annoyed at the interruption.

  They watched the helicopter leave. “That’s gotta be about the worst,” Killer said. “I’d rather lose both legs. Both arms.”

  “You lose both arms, you wouldn’t have any sex life anyhow,” Spider said.

  “Don’t be such a fuckin’ hard case, okay?” Killer said. “That guy just had his dick blown off!”

  Spider reddened and looked at the ground. “Yeah, it’s really bad. I guess I’d rather get killed.” He kicked twice at a rock that stayed imbedded in the ground. “I’ll try to watch my mouth. It’s Graves, you know? You had to joke about everything.”

  “Guess so,” Batman said. “Drive you fuckin’ nuts if you couldn’t.”

  Three men came down to the LZ dragging a poncho with a dead body. Another man carried a bloody field pack. “Top said somebody wanted this,” one of them said. “Another slick comin’ in?”

  Batman shrugged. “We just work here. That’s the slope?”

  “Yeah.” He flopped the poncho open. It looked like a boy of fifteen or sixteen, wearing the standard black pajamas, with a bolt-action rifle lying next to him on the plastic. There were bloodslick patches on his abdomen and chest, from bullet or fragment wounds, and an ugly exit wound through his mouth. The bullet had blown out his upper teeth and split his nose. His mouth was a big red hole full of splintered bone and brains, his bottom row of teeth intact, white and small. His eyes were open, slightly rolled back. The shape of his face had been deformed by the force of the bullet, but his hair was neatly combed.

  “He hardly looks real,” Moses said.

  One of the men who’d been carrying the corpse kicked it hard in the side. “Bitch!” He kicked it again. “Fuckin’ bitch!”

  “That does a lot of good, Chap,” the first man said quietly.

  “Does me some fuckin’ good.” He kicked the corpse again and stalked away.

  “Just got the one?” Batman asked.

  “I don’t know. We hit another one; there’s a pretty clear blood trail.” He looked at the setting sun. “No way we’re gonna go after him this late. Let the motherfucker bleed to death.”

  Spider was still staring at the corpse. He’d never seen a dead Vietnamese before. “Top say why they want this guy?”

  “I don’ know. Stuff him and mount him. Put ’im in the officers’ club.”

  “Couple of months ago they collected a bunch of them,” Batman said. “Never did say what they did with ’em.”

  “Cut their assholes out and ship ’em to Lyndon,” Killer said. “He likes rim jobs.”

  “That must be it,” Batman said. “Not like they have enough assholes in Washington.”

  They went back to their bunker and got ready for the night, giving their weapons a once-over and blowing up air mattresses. They used C-4 to heat up some C rations—it bums with a bright yellow flame; a piece the size of a walnut will heat a whole can—but nobody had much appetite, even before Moses ate half a can of Ham & Limas and barfed. He joked about it not being kosher.

  Spider’s sex life (1)

  It was not going to be a good night for sleeping, or for anything. After all the artillery had come and gone, a Vietnamese sniper fired one round into the camp, just to prove he’d survived. The bullet grazed a man on the cheek, a superficial wound only a little more serious than a shaving cut, except that no shaving cut would ever come so close to causing cardiac arrest.

  That twenty-five-cent bullet precipitated several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of response. The 155-millimeter cannons at the fire base blasted a widening circle around their search-and-destroy camp as darkness fell. Then the 8-incher threw in a few rounds for dramatic effect. Then a jet flew over and dumped two canisters of napalm, and then made a U-turn and dropped a few cluster bombs for good measure. Then a four-deuce platoon, 4.2-inch mortars, decided they could use some practice, too, and did a firing exercise that tore the hell out of the jungle about two hundred yards to the north of where the LP had reported the sniper. If their mistake had been two hundred yards south, instead, it would have vaporized Spider and the other engineers, and they knew it. That would not have made for good sleep even if you could sleep, with illumination rounds popping every couple of minutes. They floated down on parachutes, and they didn’t turn night into day, actually; it was more like night-into-a-dim-black-and-white-TV-picture. But it was bright enough to give you exactly no privacy.

  Spider had been looking forward to night. There had been no privacy at the fire base, either, and he had gone far too long without jerking off. His testicles ached and he kept having spontaneous erections, to no end.

  Early in the evening he wasn’t thinking about sex because he was more worried about survival, with all the explosions marching around the camp and the jet dropping fiery hell. But af
ter a couple of hours it settled down to the random pop of the illumination rounds. They were fiendishly timed. Sometimes there would be fifteen or twenty minutes of darkness, and he would start to think about Beverly, her humid slickness and the musky smell of her sex in the car when he made her come, and her shy stroking of him afterward, and the one time she’d licked him, and Spider would just start to reach for his aching dick and pop!—you’re on Candid Camera. Around midnight he invented a no-hands technique, lying on his stomach in such a way that the sensitive frenum of his penis lay against the rough texture of the inside of his fly. By rhythmically clenching and unclenching his anus, he could make the delicate bit of flesh move back and forth about a millimeter each second, and in a surprisingly short time he was rewarded with a mild but prolonged orgasm. There seemed to be an embarrassingly copious flood of semen, but he was long past caring about appearances. He closed his eyes and slept like a dead man.

  He anxiously checked in the morning and realized that his fatigues were so profoundly besmirched, anyway, that the stain from a tablespoon or three of ejaculate would escape notice. The other men’s uniforms looked about the same.

  Spider and the other men didn’t know about the Viking bands who had begun their voyages into battle by standing on the beach in a line as the sun came up and pumping together, spending a sacrifice into the sea. Perhaps it’s just as well.

  Moving on

  A small patrol of seasoned veterans crept out as soon as it was light enough to follow the blood trail. They found the body about a hundred yards away, untouched by the fortune spent on artillery and air support. The Viet Cong guerrilla had quietly bled to death from a bullet wound in his side, having propped himself into a firing position behind a fallen log. His rifle magazines and four grenades were in a neat row in front of him. The soldiers took the AK-47 and the ammunition and grenades and searched the body for identification, but he wasn’t carrying anything except a plastic bag of fish heads and rice, and a small image of Buddha on a golden chain in his pocket. They left the body in place. Back inside the perimeter, they reported to the captain and then disarmed and buried the grenades. They kept the rifle and ammunition for the point man to carry, and cut a deck for the Buddhist good luck charm.