by Sapphire
“Say what?” Scott.
“I have this, I don’t know, vision of a human, breathing wall that speaks the name of every soldier that died. Maybe you’re assembling and taking apart your weapon, whatever the motion, you’d say the name on four, or maybe the eight count—”
“Or maybe something with a five count, then the spoken word would alternate: right-left. Mingus does that a lot.” Scott.
“I was thinking Ascension by Trane. Have you heard that?” My Lai.
“But it doesn’t have a rhythm I can count.” Scott.
“If you can’t come in on a beat you can hear, add a beat—come in on your own four or five or whatever.” Me.
“Everything we do in this piece should speak. Every choice is a sign, something that can be read just like they’re reading our bodies. Let me put some music on while you warm up.” My Lai.
Who is Mingus? One more thing to find out, I think, as I stretch out in second, grabbing both ankles and pulling myself down until my stomach almost touches the floor.
“You are stretched out, boy!” Amy whistles.
“Hey, I worked for this day and night, years.”
“Nobody said you didn’t; I was just looking. Can’t blame a girl for looking.”
What’s that spozed to mean? I raise up and stretch out in a split, yeah, I worked for this shit, I think, sinking down in my split, then rolling over on my back and pulling my left leg over my head while my right leg is stretched out on the floor.
“Who is that?” Snake asks.
“Lucky Dube, South African.”
Never heard of him, but he’s awesome.
My Lai reaches into a tote and pulls out a wooden spoon and a tin pie pan, which makes me laugh because I can’t imagine her eating a pie much less making one.
“One TWO sound OFF, three FOUR let’s kill some MORE! Charlie Company is mad frustrated, some of their boys have been hit, but they feel alike their hands are tied and they can’t retaliate. Last week they enter a minefield, guy lost both his eyes—powie WOW! Boom bang thank you ma’am—if your life don’t flash before your eyes, too fucking bad, ’cause nothing else in this life ever will. You’re blind!
“SINGLE FILE! Come on up, one behind the other, this is the Mekong Delta. It’s ninety-six degrees, eighty-five percent humidity. Here’s your friend Two-Step Sam, a snake, you had welfare spam in a green can this morning—K-rations. They call that snake in front of you slithering in the grass toward you Two-Step Sam because that’s how many steps you take after it bites you. Behind you is your platoon leader, who has a map he doesn’t know how to read, a pocket full of heroin and ’Nam weed. You must step forward, there is no place to go back to, you must put your foot down on the dangerous earth.”
I put my foot down on the wood floor, it feels like the hot jungle. I never really thought about walking before. Heel, ball, toes push forward activating calves and hamstrings? Or is it the reverse, the butt and calves activating—yeah, I think it’s the butt, the muscles in the back of my leg and the glutes that kick it off, raise the leg, then the heel connects.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! She slams the tin.
“Shrapnel explodes in your face, blood drips.”
“OK, OK, everybody, come back, but don’t lose that feeling, it was all over your body, I could see it, the fear and the doubt, not knowing what’s next. Take a look at the ‘scripts,’ if you want to call them that, that I’m passing out. The wall, black G.I. Joe, Lieutenant Calley, and Sergeant Medina. Snake is going to be coming in and out as a musician and a dancer. He’s got a harmonica and a, like—”
“It’s a washboard.”
What’s he gonna do with a washboard?
“Don’t worry, the main thing is listen to me; the text, the music is your backdrop, you hear it, see it, but you move to what I’m saying, go with it, whatever comes up. Don’t focus on the cameras. Just move.”
I look at the “script”:
“FROM HERBERT CARTER’S LETTER HOME”
Duckwiser got his hooks on a couple of reels of stag films and we’re watching those to get hepped up for the mission tomorrow.
It’s called Operation Muscatine and we’re supposed to pacify a sector or whatever, which means shoot up the gooks, smoke their tunnels, and burn down the village . . .
I think Scott has the physically hardest part to be moving for forty, fifty minutes or however long the piece is. So, like according to this script, I’m every nigger that ever went to Vietnam and Lieutenant Calley rolled into one?
“One TWO sound OFF, three FOUR let’s kill some MORE! ONE TWO SOUND OFF! THREE FOUR LET’S KILL SOME MORE! Rape that village! Kill that village!” My Lai yells.
She’s crazy.
“Hear the tape, but listen to me! Miles is gonna run it down, then that’ll fade into Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile,’ then Buddy Miles, and Hendrix will come with ‘Machine Gun’ rat-a-tat-tat-tat, and then I don’t know yet.
“You’re new to the unit; you’re young, black, from Mississippi.
“Mississippi to Vietnam.
“It’s another century.
“It’s 1968.
“We start out early in the morning. You want to run, but you—”
—I step cautiously. Excited, scared, I’m going to kill. I have never killed anybody before (at least I don’t think I have).
“So for now just improvise. We’re going to tape it and see if we can get some stuff we can use to jump-start some choreography. For now I’m going to read some text. Abdul, do whatever you want to do. Scott and Amy are going to videotape you. Tomorrow you and Scott will shoot Amy.”
It’s just me now, improvising to the sound of My Lai’s text, which she ripped from everywhere. I don’t know if my movements match their intense words: My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath, Bloods, and “Herbert Carter’s Letter.” I remember that man on a skateboard on the D train with a sign safety-pinned to his back, black guy, I used to see him when I was little with my mother, he’d be shaking this cup he’d pull out of his pocket. His hands in thick leather gloves propelling him along the subway train floor. The handwritten sign on his back: VIETNAM. Then he’d put the cup in his Levi vest pocket and he’d hurl himself off the skateboard with his big bare arms and his torso would hit the floor with a thud. He’d swing open the door between the cars, scoot his body out onto the steel floor between the subway cars, then open the door to the next car and swing his body that ended at his waist back up on his skateboard and be gone from sight when the door clanged shut behind him!
That’s as close as I can get to feeling this shit. I’m not feeling no sick niggers or Vietnamese people from thirty, fifty, whatever it was, years ago.
“You’re doing fine. Stop being a bitch, Abdul, and just go for it.”
Except for the thing with Amy, I haven’t been with anybody. I dream bizarre stuff, I’m fucking a dog with a big girl pussy—three times I had that dream, the last time I’m going in the dog pussy from behind and the dog turns its face toward me and it’s My Lai, I wake up and I’ve cum all over myself. It makes me sick, ashamed even. I’m so scared of women I rather fuck a dog? Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles “Machine Gun” rat-ta-tat-tat-tat the sound of a machine gun. I pummel my feet on the floor trying to imitate the sound of automatic gunfire. My Lai says something about bush and I think of Amy’s blond patch of hair, the juicy good smell. A well—Brother Samuel’s eyes, I always thought they were a well. Dark blue danger, well. What about it? Oh, I come to a well. He was a farmer. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a well. In places where ordinary table water doesn’t reach the surface, the ground water is reached by digging wells into the ground. Earth science! How long ago was that! Into the ground! In-to-the-GROUND! I pummel my feet harder, on Brother John’s face, on his fucking earth science.
Rat-ta-tat-tat-TAT! BAM! BAM!
I tune her out, all this G.I. Joe–in–the–jungle shit is boring, My Lai, do you hear me; My Lai, honey, I’m bored. I want her naked
on my bed, her black bush and buff nipples, taut body slick with sweat under me, umph! I thrust into her, she digs her purple-painted fingernails in my shoulders, umph!
My Lai shouts, listing more atrocities. “Good, Abdul!
“Let’s stay with what you started—”
I started something?
“The call-and-response thing, you were getting in deep there for a minute. I would say something and you would directly respond with your body—great!”
OK, whatever!
“ ‘Somebody brought in an old man. He was a farmer; there was no doubt in my mind.’”
“‘Grzesik questioned the man, quickly found that he had an identification card. ‘I told Lieutenant Calley I didn’t think he was a VC.’ ”
Why are we doing this? Does she think this is getting back at her parents? My Lai! Huh! Last week I was thinking about kids, a family even if it was a thousand years away, now I don’t want to have kids. This is a fucked-up world, always was, always will be, FUCKED UP!
“ ‘Hey! I don’t think
didn’t think
didn’t think
he was
was
was a VC’
VC VC VC V-V-V-CEEE!”
“‘Why are you going to kill him?’ I asked.”
A tisket a tasket a green and yellow basket I lost it I lost it. I start to skip. Nip that skipping shit in the bud, Rhonda said. Why? she said. You know. No, I don’t know, she said.
Mary Mack Mack Mack All dressed in Black Black Black
“‘Why why why
Why are you
Going going going to—Why
are you going to kill him?’”
I remember his brother asked about the rings. The body was never found, only that finger at McDonald’s. With no rings. Children? Like you was a child once?
“Calley told him to ‘get moving.’ But before Calley could fire, Herbert Carter moved forward. Carter hit the old man into a well, but the old man spread his arms and legs and held on and didn’t fall.”
Well? I freeze. Snake starts to blow harmonica, blues. Amy is beating on her thighs like quiet drums. Snake croons.
I start to thrash about the studio. I hear My Lai shout, “Get what he’s doing now from both angles!”
“‘Then Carter
Then Carter’”
Yemaja is the Orisha of the ocean. Imena said when an African woman wants a baby, she puts a bowl of water by her bed. Tell that to Herbert Carter, Imena! Is there an Orisha in the well?
“‘Then Carter hit the old man
in the stomach with his rifle stock’”
“What he’s doing now! Shoot him from the front and side, make sure all this is on the video!”
“‘The old man’s feet’”
Under the ground, permeable beds of rock layered between impermeable beds of rock can form a pocket, a “sandwich.” When rain enters the permeable bed, it’s trapped. Trapped rain! I remember the weirdest shit.
“‘Feet
Fell
His feet fell
In the well
His feet fell in the well
But he continued
To hold on with his hands.’”
“Dance Abdul dance!” Scott shouts.
“Yes!”
“‘Carter hit the man’s fingers trying to make him fall.’”
Did you get up at all during the night? Do you usually get up to go to the bathroom?
Mary Mack Mack Mack All dressed in black black black.
My Lai waves for me to slow down. I start moving like I’m in water. She reads:
Hey babe, just writing again real quick because I had to tell you this hilarious thing before I forget.
Right now I’m sitting next to roadside that is totally full of dead gomers. It’s hilarious. 1st Platoon totally wigged out, like LT just stood there and watched while everyone just was going buck wild. What really kicked things off was when this dude was just totally standing there with his cow out in the field and 2nd squad came around this hootch they were burning. The dude threw his arms up in the air like “hey” and Nichols lit him up good and LT didn’t bat an eye. Verona was the funniest, there was this dude standing with his hands up and Verona just totally stabbed the dude in the stomach with his bayonet. The dude was wheezing and Verona just BAM right in the head. I was in tears. It got better though. Verona just grabs this old guy who was doing a loaf in his shorts and took out his 45 and shot him in the throat. I was like “hahahaha!” and then he freaking throws the guy in a well. I was totally on the ground laughing by this point and Verona just turned to me and gave me that cockeyed grin of his and he dropped a pineapple right down the well. KABOOM! Oh man, I tell you, these guys are like Bob Hope times ten!
I stop moving. Sweat’s rolling off of me, I’m looking at Amy, My Lai, Snake, and Scott. Scott starts it, stamping his feet and clapping. My Lai is smiling, nodding her head, then she starts clapping and runs over to the windows, pulling up the shades. Light streams in the loft. Amy and Snake are whooping and stamping their feet as they clap. Crazy, man, crazy! Far out, far fucking out! Traffic sounds. Birds dart through the sky in front of the window.
“I’m so glad we had both cameras!” Scott says. “Do you remember what you did?”
“I did something?” I quip. But to myself I say, I did something!
He waves his hand and keeps talking. “I got most of it just straight on, Amy got a lot from the side and, it seems, a lot straight on. Am I right?”
“We’ll see,” she answers.
“Well, working off this or even re-creating this will be stronger if you remember.” Scott.
“Shit, if the video is near as astonishing as what he just did, we can have a split screen, the Vietnam shots, then him on another screen, while one of us recites the poem.” My Lai.
“You wrote that?” I ask.
“No, like I said, it’s from some stuff by Wallace Terry and Seymour Hersh. I don’t even know if they’re still on the set.”
“So what, motherfuckers like that got estates,” Snake says.
“Well, whatever, we put the Vietnamese clips on one side, this piece, the well, on the other—” My Lai.
“That’s a good title.” Amy.
“‘The Well’?” My Lai.
“Yeah, that’s great!” Snake.
I go sit down next to Amy, who’s moved to the bleachers. She kisses me on the cheek, her eyes wide. Hmm, something opening up I had thought was closed? Not sure, really.
“You were awesome out there! What’s on your mind when you’re dancing like that?”
“I don’t know.” I follow her down as she slips off the bleachers to the floor and gets in a lotus position. I lay my head down in her lap, breathe in her sweet pussy-sweat-perfume smell. My heart, which was ripping, slows down.
My Lai comes to sit by us. I stretch out my hand.
“Coffee?” Scott asks.
“I can get it.” The coffeemaker is in my room; I should have put it back in the kitchen.
“Don’t be silly.” Amy eases me off her lap. Soon the smell of coffee fills up where her scent had been. I lean over to My Lai, playfully tweak her ear. I wanted to tweak her nipple, but we’re working, and I don’t know how she might react.
“I feel like the piece should end with My Lai’s story.” Scott.
“Yeah, you know, and something from this century,” I say.
“Like the reconciliations?” Scott asks.
“That’s too corny,” Snake snaps.
“I don’t think it’s corny,” I say.
In each hand Amy has a steaming mug of coffee, one of which she hands to My Lai, the other to me.
“If God made anything better than coffee and chocolate, he kept it to himself,” Amy says with a sigh.
“Or herself,” Scott quips.
“Or herself, Mr PC. And I’ll have mine with milk, no sugar.” Amy.
“Gotcha,” he says.
The dark smell of the steaming coffe
e takes over my senses. I feel so peaceful now.
THREE
In the dream a tall, bald-headed man is struggling with a much smaller man. The small man pulls out a screwdriver. The bald man whips out a big butcher knife but right away realizes how superior his weapon is to the little screwdriver and thrusts his knife into the ground so the fight will be fairer. Straightaway the little guy picks up the butcher knife and starts to slash him, me, slicing open my scalp. I wake up clutching my bleeding scalp. I’m shocked when I pull my hands away and see there’s no blood. I start to cry. I’ve done bad things, bad, bad things. And I’m not through. I fall back on the bed, my fingers tracing the scar on my cheek. I press my hand to my head again. My hand fills with glass splinters that are growing from my head. I rub my eyes, and my eye sockets fill with dark slivers of glass that fall and fall to the floor. I scream, and my mouth begins to bloom with glass shards. My tongue has turned to glass. I’m like the Tin Man, except I’m made of glass—mirrors. I’m made of mirrors! I’m on top of a grassy hill. People are climbing up the hill and starting to gather around me. They’re peering at themselves in my mirrors. Then a little girl with yellow hair, four or five years old, tells everybody, “He can’t move!” What does she know? I think. Then I try. I can’t. My glass joints are totally frozen.
“He can’t move! He can’t move! Ha, ha, ha!”
She disappears down the hill and comes running back up with a baseball bat. She’s turned into a little boy? She, he, cocks the bat up over his shoulder like he’s on home plate. Terror floods through me. When he hits me, I think, I’m dreaming. Then I think I’m not really asleep! Let me hurry up and go back to sleep, go to another dream or something, anything but wake up.
My body and face are covered with ultramarine body paint. As I dance, I change colors, under yellow gels to green, under the orange ones I almost look like myself, brown. I slide into the split it took me three years to get. From my split I bend at the knee the leg that’s extended behind me, catch my foot in my hands, and pull it up to my head. The pose of Shiva! Some white Hare Krishna trying to pull me one night I was sleeping at Port Authority, a night I couldn’t take the sight of Roman one more minute, told me Krishna was so black he was blue. After that I started looking at Indian people, so far I seen a lot of them darker than me, some blue-black. I’m Lord Krishna—blue, I think, sinking deeper into the pose. SPLAT! Somebody threw something onstage. Shit? That’s fucked! “Come on, get up!” “What’s with the blue paint!” “Put some clothes on!” “Dance, nigger!” “We came to see you dance!” Who’s saying that shit? “BOO!” “BOO!” “BOO!” Why are they booing me? I look in the audience; the whole theater is empty except the front row; there’s some faces I don’t know, white; then there’s Ricky, Brother John, and sitting next to Brother John is my mother and Rita, and Scott, but he looks different, he looks like Amy. My Lai’s there; she has on red lipstick and a black lace bustier. When I look again, Ricky is sitting on a toilet. He’s shitting so he can throw more shit at me. But Rita says, “No, no! Not in this life, faggot!” and slices him with a razor blade. This life? I look at everybody. I can see through them. GHOSTS! They’re ghosts! Except My Lai. My Lai is bleeding; blood is dripping out and down the front of her bustier. Did Rita cut her? I’m a little boy again: I’m mad at Rita; I’m mad at my mom. Why isn’t she home? Her home is in the grass now. “Go home, Mommy! Go home, Mommy!”
