by Ken Babbs
“Don’t be so damned naïve. Of course they set us up. All this time I thought I was playing them along they’ve been conspiring against me. Ha. Think they’ve got the last laugh, do they?”
“Ah, for Christ’s sakes, let it go. In this crazy mixed-up mess one little poker game doesn’t mean a hill of beans.”
“Play that tune somewhere else, Sam the man. Ah, what do we have here?”
He stops and looks at two fire-fighting backpacks sitting next to the hangar. Metal cans with short hoses and nozzles; you pump them up, they spit out a fifteen-foot stream of water powerful enough to knock down a blazing wooden wall.
“Just what the good doctor ordered,” Cochran says, slipping his arm into a shoulder strap and hefting a can onto his back. “You grab the other one.”
“I’ve got a muy malo feeling about this.”
“You got a real bad feeling about everything. I’m feeling better, doctor. Come on.”
We slink back to the tents, talking over the plan. Cochran will sneak around back and I’ll stay in front. I’ll watch through the flap and when I see him let fly I do the same. We pump up the pressure as we’re walking.
I kneel down and look in at the game. A light hangs over the table illuminating the cards and the money and the players. Emmett’s back is to me and Rob Jacobs sits next to him. Then Ben-San. On the other side Captain Beamus and the Doc sit beside each other. Rob Jacobs is a religious freak and Emmett is bugging him about it, an obvious ploy to distract him from the cards.
“How can you possibly reconcile gambling and religion?” Emmett asks, blowing smoke from a big cigar.
“Life is a gamble,” Jacobs replies happily. “Fate deals the hands and faith steers you straight through the game.”
“Roger that,” Ben-San says. “Ante up. Five-card stud, nothing wild.”
Emmett shows an ace and opens with five dollars. Cards are dealt face up around the table and everyone folds except Rob Jacobs, showing a pair of sixes.
“See your five and raise another ten,” Rob says.
The tip of Cochran’s nozzle peeks through the flap.
“Call and raise you another ten,” Emmett says.
Jacobs taps his hole card.
“I’m reminded of the time,” he says, “Jesus was walking though a crowd and a woman suffering from her period for thirteen years without interruption couldn’t fight through the crowd to touch Him.”
“Play cards,” Emmett says.
Rob Jacobs looks at Emmett’s aces, tilts the corner of his hole card and peeks at it. He drops the corner and smiles.
“The woman dropped to her knees,” Rob says, “scurried between the people’s legs and managed to touch the hem of Christ’s robe as He walked by.”
“Shit or get off the pot,” Emmett roars.
“When I decide to pay that’s when I’ll play,” Rob Jacobs says calmly. He picks up a ten spot and waves it. “Not before.”
My hand tightens on the nozzle. The smoke from Emmett’s cigar swirls around the light like a dragon’s breath.
“She was instantly cured,” Jacobs says, pointing with his ten dollar bill. “As she fell to the ground in a swoon Jesus stopped and turned. ‘Who touched me?’ Her heart froze. ‘I, Lord.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘Go in peace. Give thanks at the temple.’ He walked on. ‘But how?’ Peter asked when he caught, catching up. ‘How did you know?’ ‘I felt virtue go out from me,’ Jesus told him. ‘I wanted to see who it went out to.’”
“Oh Christ on a cross,” Emmett yells. “You calling or not?”
“I’m thinking,” Jacobs says. “If he felt virtue go out of Him and knew how it was used, that means He had no healing power in or of Himself but acted strictly as a cosmic valve through which power benevolently flowed, and whenever anyone touched Him with urgent need the valve automatically opened. Get it?”
“I’ll get you by the nuts if you don’t shut up and …”
“I call,” Ron Jacobs interrupts. “What you got?”
Emmett reaches to flip over his hole card and the table explodes in a blast of water that sends cards and money flying. Emmett turns to look and I splatter his cigar. The doctor sits dumbfounded. Captain Beamus dives for the deck. Cochran blasts Rob Jacobs and sends him spinning. The chairs go flying. We rake the tent up and down and side to side. The light gets hosed and blows out, throwing everything into darkness.
“What the fuck? You sons of bitches. I’ll kill your asses!” Emmett yells and stomps drown the noise of the gushing water.
Water pressure gone, I scram out of there, Cochran right behind me. Panting and laughing we drop the backpacks against the hangar wall and then hear them crashing through the tent rows, screaming for revenge.
“Uh-oh,” Cochran says. “We’re cut off. We’ll never make it back to our tent.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“I was so intent on the attack I didn’t prepare for the retreat. Let’s get out of this light.”
We cut around the hangar and into the shadow. A jeep sits on the road, engine idling. Sergeant Soonto ambles out the backdoor of the hangar. A big smile lights up his face.
“Lieutenants. What brings you out this fine evening?”
“Exactly what I was going to ask you,” Cochran says. “You aren’t going anywhere in that jeep are you?”
“Yes, sir. I’m heading into the ville to buy fresh vegetables at the market. Someone makes the run every night.”
“Would you like some company?”
“Sure, hop aboard. What’s all the noise about?”
“Ah, some rats got into the cheese and crackers in one of the tents and they’re hunting them down. Pay them no mind. Let’s head out.”
He jumps in the front next to Soonto. I hop in the back and we slink down in the seats. Soonto gives us a puzzled look.
“Just drive,” Cochran says. “If they see us they’ll want to come along.”
We go past the ARVN sentry lounging at the gate, rifle held casually at his side, our protection from the Cong. Cochran sits up.
“Well, what do you think?” he asks. “Did Grits have that ace in the hole or not?”
“Probably, but question is, did Jacobs have another six?”
“I doubt it, otherwise he’d have bumped him again.”
“We’ll never know now.”
“No, we don’t know nothing about no poker game. We been in town all evening, right, Soonto?”
“Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”
The ville is dark in the outskirts of town. As we go in deeper, lights glow from open doors and windows. Soonto drives into the middle of a dirt-packed square and parks. Shops line one side, an open-air market on the other and, in between, a tavern with tables and chairs set up in front.
Soonto cuts the engine and jumps out. Kids come running and scurrying, hands outstretched, voices shrill. Loudspeakers blare tinkly clangy songs, adding to the din.
Locals stand arguing, excited, cutting loose with hysterical jabber and squawk. Neon signs flicker. Banners proclaiming the arrival of the new moon droop in the listless air, thick with the smell of nuoc mam fish sauce poured over rice. Young girls giggle and point at the jeep. Yellow bulbs hang from shredded wires, attracting moths, mosquitos and flies that have abandoned the binjo ditch for the warmth of the light.
We follow Soonto to a table.
“Beer. Beer. Ba muoi ba, Beer 33,” he hollers.
A boy comes out of the tavern. He carries a tray of the formalde-hyde-laced brew.
“Ice,” Soonto bellows with a grin. The boy rushes off, returns with tall glasses loaded with ice cubes.
“Local ice?” I ask.
Soonto nods. “They bring it in every day by sampan. Damned if I know from where. Ice is like heat. It kills all the bugs. Just don’t drink the water and you’ll be all right.”
Cochran raises his eyebrows. That’s not the way Doc Eversham put it. He says bugs live in the ice. What the hell. We pour the beer over the ice and
drink fast before it has a chance to melt and infect us all.
“That’s right,” Soonto reassures us. “If it melts it dilutes the beer, can’t have that.”
The beer picks things up. High piercing voices join in on the tinny-sounding songs blaring out of the loudspeakers. Soonto is well-known in the ville. All the kids come over and hit him for cash. Shoe shine. Peanuts. Hard candy. Sure, sure. We take it all in, one big blast.
“Where’s my number one?” Soonto bellows. “Where’s my lady?”
A boy scurries off.
“I’ve been teaching her English,” Soonto confides. “She’s picking it up pretty good.”
A woman dressed in silk pants and a long shirt, her mouth stained with betel juice, her demeanor regal, walks up to the table.
“These are Marines from the air base,” Soonto says. “They have come to visit your town.”
She smiles and nods. Cochran nods in reply. I give her a wave.
“Welcome,” she says. “Mister Soonto is a good friend.”
She motions and another tray of beer and ice-filled glasses appear.
“Would you like to join us?” Cochran asks.
“Oh, no. Mister Soonto and I must do his …” She searches for the word.
“Shopping,” Soonto says. “The supplies.”
“Ah, supplies, yes.”
Soonto stands up. “I’ll be back in a while. You Lieutenants enjoy yourselves.”
The beers keep coming. The noise and lights and people swirl. We’re flush, pockets full of money we saved for the poker game, and we throw American bills on the table, no piasters on hand.
A young woman approaches. She smiles and taps Cochran on the shoulder.
“Oh, howdy, ma’am, can I buy you a beer?”
She shakes her head and gestures with her hand.
“Huh? What’s she want, Huck?”
“You, I’d say.”
Cochran is suddenly fumble bumbled, unsure. “Well, hell, why not?”
He lurches to his feet. The lady beckons to me.
“What? Me? You mean, me, too? Both of us? Ay Jesus, oh, lordy.”
She smiles and nods. Whoa, boy, we’re living right, now. A little sloshed, but what the hell.
She leads us into a room at the side of the restaurant. It is cool and dark with a table and chairs. She indicates that I should wait and leads Cochran into another room.
I sit down and reach for a beer. I can either count the number of bamboo poles holding up the walls or else strike up a conversation with the lizard hanging on the ceiling or maybe count to a hundred backwards, make sure another beer won’t poke a hole in the crystalline puddle that used to be my mind. No, I’ll just sit here and peer through my fingers and turn those flies that are doubled up back into singletons, maybe grab one out of the air with chopsticks … now where are those chopsticks, there’s always chopsticks …
She reappears, not looking so chipper, goes to a tub in the corner, pulls her dress over her head and lays it on a chair and scoops a handful of water into her crotch. She grimaces. I’m getting my first full-bore look at a naked feminine body in way too many days to be the slightest bit cool. She catches my shit-eating grin, gives me a wan smile and shakes her head. “Too big,” she says, and splashes more water, dries herself, puts on her dress and comes over and takes me by the hand. Cochran walks out, buckling his belt with a sheepish grin.
“Go gittem, Tiger.”
Once again the dress slips over her head, her body is small, lithe, brown, with perfect breasts, a rounded belly, sparse bush and tight tush, oh my constricting throat but I gotta look ay Jesus she is helping me with my clothes oh what a wonder, she spreads her wings and envelopes me ay Jesus Rosie and Mommy and Auntie and Teacher too and all my loves and all my lovelies and all my beauties who have brought me to where love gushes and love explodes … a hand pokes me in the shoulder, insistent, poke poke, wha? Where did I go where was that place where I was lost where are my pants?
I stumble out to the table.
“How much did you give her?” Cochran asks, pulling on a beer.
“I don’t know, twenty, maybe? …”
“Whew, great night for—”
“Hey, Lieutenants!” Soonto calls. “We gotta skate, it’s getting late.”
The jeep is piled with crates of cabbages and leeks and lettuce and tomatoes and bamboo sprouts and lemons and sacks of rice and sides of water buffalo meat. There’s no room in the seats so Cochran and I sit on the front fenders, Soonto loops a rope around us and we lurch off top heavy and swaying to shouts and laughter, kids running alongside slapping the jeep, one false move and over we’ll go spilling our cargo into the canal where we’ll be trapped below water with Soonto gazing mournfully at the cabbages as black shapes rise and swallow the veggies as the jeep trundles through the night its headlights leading the way home.
The base is dark, the only signs of life two sleepy mess cooks come to unload the jeep. They untie the rope and we tumble to the ground. Soonto looks us over.
“You going to make it, Lieutenants?”
“When duty calls we will answer,” Cochran says, struggling to his feet. He trips over me. “Stand by to repel boarders. Sergeant Soonto, assume the command. Lieutenant Huckelbee and I will be in our quarters.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Soonto salutes, a big grin across his face.
“Carry on and much obliged. Scouting mission deemed total success, and no need to file a report but if you’re asked you might say we left a little earlier than scheduled.”
“You got it, sir.”
Arms interlocked we weave toward the tents. An ominous shape looms out of the dark. Cochran pulls up and yanks me back.
“Halt!” he calls. “Who goes there? What’s the password. Repeat your general orders.”
“Don’t give me any of that shit, you fucking gorilla. I knew you’d have to come out of your hidey hole eventually.”
“Well kiss my grits if it isn’t our esteemed colleague, Lieutenat Emmett. To what or to whom do we owe this honor at this late hour?”
“You know well goddamn well why I’m here. The whole camp’s on your case now, you rat-turd fuckup.”
“I beg your pardon. Have you been drinking, Mister Grits? Does he seem rational to you, Tomas?”
“Not really. What’s the beef, Grits?”
“Nice,” he says. “As if you have no idea at all what’s gone down. Just where the hell were you? You didn’t show up for our poker game after bending everyone’s ear for a week how you were going to clean our clocks?”
“Sorry about that,” Cochran says. “By the time I got showered and changed I was still so bummed out about making a jackass of myself over that water buffalo mess I didn’t have the heart to face anyone.”
“Yeah,” I say, “and when we saw Soonto heading for town on the supply run we decided to go along, get out of Dodge.”
Inexplicably, Emmett begins laughing. He holds his side and grabs a tent pole for support. “Town?” he splutters. “Town? No one’s allowed to go to town at night. No one’s even allowed past the perimeter.”
“Shhh, keep it down,” Cochran says. “You don’t want to get Soonto in trouble. He didn’t want us to go.”
“Yeah, right. I suppose next you stole a chopper and flew to Saigon?”
Cochran puts his hand to his heart, his sensibilites wounded.
“I can’t believe it. An officer and supposed gentleman, refusing to believe the word of another. Come on Tomas, this conversation is terminated.”
“No, wait, you can’t …” Emmett splutters, but Cochran and I brush past him and make it to our tent without tripping over our feet and once inside fall to the plank floor holding our hands over our mouths.
“Some of us take this mission seriously,” Emmett rails from outside. “We’re not here for the fucking around.”
Cochran fumbles around in the dark. “Get your dop kit,” he whispers. “We’re blowing this pop stand.”
> Shaving kits in hand we sneak out the back of the tent. All around us flashlights are clicking on, accompanied by grumblings and shouts, “What the fuck is going on … knock that shit off, will ya …” A rifle fires over in the enlisted men’s area. I follow Cochran, tripping over tent pegs.
“I didn’t realize we raised such a shit storm,” Cochran says. He slides along the back of the tents to the ready room. “We’re not on the flight schedule today. Let’s see what else is available.”
He walks up to the front of the ready room tent and looks at the schedule board.
“Here’s an open slot,” he says. “No one is signed up for R and R today. Let’s grab it.”
R and R. A flight out and back on the supply plane with an overnight stop in a foreign town. Anybody not flying that day can sign up. A gust of wind skips across the runway. The tent billows, the side flaps rise and through the openings vast vistas beckon from the other side of the concertina wire, from across flooded fields, the sand dunes, and the ocean: Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, Tokyo, alluring fleshpots replete with hotels, clean sheets, civilized food and drink and friendly companionship. Oooph, Cochran jabs me in the ribs.
“Wake up, dolt, you can sleep on the plane.” He writes our names in the R and R slot on the acetate board.
“There, we’re covered. Let’s vamoose, cowboy.”
We slip out of the ready room tent and over to the airstrip. Lights flash and voices call out. Something is going on back in the enlisted men’s area. Ahead of us a big gray shape sits on the edge of the runway. Vehicles are clustered around it and men move in and out. We go around to the back of the plane and up the ramp. Cochran grabs a seat along the bulkhead and I slump down next to him. The ramp rises and closes. There’s a whine outside, the APU coming on, followed by the engines turning. Cochran has a big grin on his face.
“Just the ticket,” Cochran says. “Grab some shuteye. We’ll be there before you know it.”
7. Escaped By The Four Skins
Lighten up, Doc, you need a softer touch with that needle … my girl Rosey could show you how to be gentle … like the night in the guard shack in California when I was the duty officer, staying up all night in the guard shack … Rosey sneaks in with a cup of coffee and we tussle on the couch, best two out of three and I’d have taken her except the enlisted man making the rounds surprises us and my offical retort is to ask him for his eleventh general order and when he says he only knows ten I hip him to the eleventh: never disturb an officer locked in amorous conduct … and the surly fella turns me in the next day … if I ever catch him with a dirty gun I’ll short-arm the fucker just like Daddy told me they did to each other in New Guinea … what’s irrational at home is perfectly normal overseas … Daddy comes on like a wealthy know-it-all philosopher but we never had any oil under our dusty scrub-grass ranch although we did harvest a few dollars they paid us to sink a dry hole before they realized it was a worthless endeavor … and did they apologize? … no, it was like when Marion Morrison, the most famous Hollywood Marine of all, said, “Never apologize, Pilgrim, it’s a sign of weakness” … you don’t have to punish yourself for your mistakes, Son, other people will do it for you … I know, Daddy, they are waiting in line … that thin line between sanity and insanity and I’ve crossed it, Doc … can’t even tell time, not when time lies around like ground fog on a wispy morning … what did the seer say, I can’t see him so good … oh yeah … when you’re in an insane situation the only way to keep your sanity is to act crazy … who’s acting, Doc … this is for real … and reality has wore me out, Doc … I need a rest …
