by Ken Babbs
“I’ll sleep better knowing that.”
Cochran turns off the light and we undress in the dark. I rub myself with my clothes and throw the stinking mess in the corner. That’s where you can put your spirit of reconciliation.
22. Axes of Responsibility
I can see, Doc, by your Hippocratic oath you are a learned man … well versed in Latin … that must be the indecipherable inscription writ upon your script … the very prescription … I am not a total ignoramus, you know … of all the pilots in the squadron I was the only one familiar with the name, Tregaskis … I did a book report at Texas Military Academy on “Guadalcanal Diary,” his first-hand account of a World War Two battle … a Marine flyer came wandering in … he’d been in the jungle for seven days, dodging Japs and existing on red ants and snails … medics used a penknife to amputate a Raider’s arm … Marines singing “Blues in the Night” with a chorus about how my mama done tol’ me a woman was two faced … then the shouting of a man in trouble … yama yama … then machine-gun fire … the shouting stopped … enemy landing parachute troops … snipers popping from all sides … one man wounded in the leg … suicide attack with bayonets … mortar and artillery fire ends the attack … this same Richard Tregaskis … of gangly frame, slouched shoulders, eyeglasses slipping down his nose, clothes wrinkled and awry … has come to visit our squadron to research material for a new book … and the other pilots don’t recognize the learned man, Doc …
He stands in the back of the ready room, notepad in one hand, pen in the other, scratching away. After the briefing we break into individual groups and Richard Tregaskis walks over to Cochran and me and Emmet and Wee Willie Weems. We’re hauling rice to a coastal village, an hour down the coast, and he’d like to come along. He’s cleared it with the C.O., he says, and it’s fine with us, glad to have his company.
“You go with Cochran and Huckelbee,” Emmett tells Tregaskis. “I’ll take the larger load of supplies.” Emmett turns to us. “That’ll give you more room in your chopper.”
Tregaskis sports a floppy hat, work boots, brown pants and shirt. His safari vest pockets are jammed with pens, a small flashlight, knife, first-aid kit and other protruberances. Calm and reticent, he writes our names and hometowns in his notebook, pauses at the door of the helicopter to get Soonto’s info, “Somoa, that’s interesting,” straps in, we fire up and take off, circling over the North China Sea, then head south, the beach on our right, fishing boats beneath, teardropped fishing nets visible in the shallow water.
“Check that out,” Cochran says over the intercom. He banks the chopper so I can get a look.
“Shark, alongside that fishing boat.”
A big one, as long as the boat. Cochran straightens and flies a loose wing on Emmett. Overhead, wispy cirrus clouds skim by. Inland, where the ocean spills over the dunes, fishing nets droop above the water like hammocks hanging on willow poles.
“Take her, Huck,” Cochran says. “I’m going to snap a pic. When I give you the word, bank it to the right.”
“Aye, sore.” I shake the stick, let him know I’ve got it. I glance over. He has his camera in one hand and in the other‚ Díos bendito—he’s got a grenade. What’s that nutcase up to? He pulls the pin with his teeth, throws the grenade out the window, keys the intercom, “Now, Huck,” I lay the chopper on its side, there’s a thump and a big flash. “Got it,” he says.
“What was that, for Christ’s sakes?”
“Willie peter. Pretty great, huh?”
Yeah, real great. White phosphorous. If that grenade didn’t make it out the window we’d be melted toast.
“Number Two, what’s going on?” Emmett calls over the air. “Are you taking fire?”
“Negative,” Cochran answers. “Just taking a picture.”
“Lieutenant,” Soonto comes up on the intercom. “This reporter just keeled over down here.”
Cochran keys the radio. “One. Our passenger is having a medical problem. He’s passed out. We’re returning to base.”
“Roger that. We’ll carry on.”
“Pour the coals to her, Huck.”
Doc Hollenden is waiting on the apron. When he gets to the chopper, Tregaskis is sitting up, groggy. The Doc checks him over.
“What’s the prog?” Cochran asks.
“Nothing too serious. He’s diabetic and didn’t take his insulin this morning. It’s in his bag in the ready room.”
They head off in that direction. Soonto secures the chopper. “What about this rice?” he asks.
“Leave it for now,” Cochran says. “I’ll find out if we’re delivering it or not.”
We go over to the line shack and write up the hop. Cochran calls the ready room and, after checking with the schedules officer, goes to the door and yells, “Sergeant Soonto, the flight is scratched. Someone will come and get the rice.”
Soonto’s cur pokes his nose out from behind the counter.
“Oh, he’s coming, don’t get your paws in an uproar,” Cochran says, then turns to me. “No joy on flying for us, Tomas, let’s get shunt of this gear and revel in a G and T.”
When we get back to the Frog House, the other new guy is in our room, stowing his gear. He looks up, sets his clothes on the bed and walks forward, extending a hand. A T-shirt is glued to his skin, and his abs are like xylophone keys. He’s a buffed-out burrhead, sleek as a bullet.
“Daryl Dumbert from Queens,” he says, out of the side of his mouth like a Cagney gangster. His extended hand forms a pistol, “Pow pow, and what’s youse guys monikers?” A bone crushing shake. “What’s the action, do I hang around this joint all day or do I get to mount the sky, show old Charlie what’s for?”
“We just got bounced so we’re going to change and go over to the club and hoist a few. Want to come along?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Better wear a shirt,” I tell him. “We’ve got a dress code forced on us.”
He rears back, exaggerated look of surprise. “Check weapons at the door? Sounds like home. What the fuh, when in Rome …”
His short-sleeved shirt is covered with illustrations of New York Yankees baseball caps. He walks with a heel-and-toe bounce, points his gun finger at Mai Duc, our Vietnamese barman. “Set ’em up my man, this round’s on me.”
We no sooner get settled than a clerk sticks his head in the door.
“Lieutenants Cochran and Huckelbee, you’re wanted in the squadron office. Pronto.”
“Maybe that’s our good conduct medals finally arrived,” Cochran says. He gulps his drink. “Sorry to abandon ship but duty calls.”
“Hey, don’t let it rattle yer cage.” He makes with the gun finger.
“That Dumbert’s a head job,” I say.
“Yep, a real Dum Dum.”
We go in the office and stand at attention in front of Captain Beamus. He looks up. “Not me, this time. The Colonel wants to see you two.” He motions with his thumb. “Go on in.”
The Hammer is writing at his desk. He keeps us waiting for a minute then turns in his chair and looks at us, pressing the fingertips of his hands together.
“Have a seat, no sense in standing.”
He pulls his chair around the desk and faces us. I shift nervously; what’s he up to? This isn’t his usual method.
“I’m sure you know what this is all about.” He holds out a pack of cigarettes. Cochran and I shake our heads. He lights one up. “Things have gotten to the point where we need to have a talk, nip this situation in the bud.” He blows out a mouthful of smoke and lifts his eyebrows, waiting. When Cochran and I don’t say anything he abruptly snuffs out his smoke and points his finger at me.
“I’ll take care of you first, Huckelbee. I don’t know what part you played in this hand grenade business but any more tricks like that and I’ll have you standing the duty for a month, you understand?”
This is the old familiar Hammer. I leap to my feet. “Yes, sir.” Standing stiffly at attention.
“Sit down for
Christ’s sake, sit down.” He turns to Cochran. “As for you. Frankly I don’t know what to do. You’ve got the ability and the brains, there’s no doubt about that, but you can’t seem to put them to proper use. Don’t you realize you’re not the only one involved when you pull some crazy stunt like today? There are other lives at stake besides your own. If you want to go off by yourself and fool around with grenades that’s one thing, at least you’re not dragging along your copilot and crew chief. Plus the fact you were carrying a passenger, a very important passenger I might add.”
The Hammer slams his hand on the arm of his chair.
“I realize that, sir,” Cochran says.
“You damn well don’t show it.” The Hammer gets up. “We’ll never get anywhere this way.” He walks over to the refrigerator. “How about a beer?”
“Sure, why not.”
“Huckelbee?”
“Thank you, sir.”
He opens three cans and passes them around. “I know you think I’m a heartless old fart,” he says, sitting down, “but I used to have the reputation of being a rebel, doing things my own way, pretty much as I pleased and having a good time while I was at it. But that all had to change. Just as it will for you.”
He leans forward in his chair. “Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t lose my individuality. But I realized what it meant to take on the mantle of responsibility, and that’s what you’ll have to do. You keep pulling borderline stunts, right on the borderline, keep it up you’ll get in so deep you can’t back out.”
The Hammer goes to the refrigerator and opens more beers. I swill down the dregs and take a new can.
“You’re always pushing. Pushing the Operations Officer, the Schedules Oficer, the Supply Officer, and pushing me too. Well, one day, you’ll push too far.” He gives Cochran the glare eye. “This might have been the day.”
“Colonel, you’ve got me all wrong. You figure I’ve got it in for you, a personal grudge, that I set out to deliberately provoke you.”
“Not just me. Anyone who gives you orders.”
“No sir, that’s not right. I do things completely without malice. I don’t hate anyone so much I go out of my way to aggravate him. Things that happen to me happen completely on their own.”
The Hammer snorts. “You behave just like a little kid who thinks only about himself, disassociates his behavior from others.”
“More like the way the Chinese behave, sir.”
Uh-oh, I’m thinking, now it’s coming. I never should have hipped Cochran to that Lapsong Chung shit.
“Chinese? How’s that?”
“They believe the spook of misfortune is constantly dogging their heels, so they make a special effort to dislodge him. For instance, whenever they cross the street they purposely dawdle so cars will pass close by, the closer the better, figuring the car will knock the evil spirit off their backs. A rough way to lose the evil spirit because the car has to pass close enough to hit the clutching spook but not so close the Chinaman gets banged up in the process.”
“I’ve never heard such a load of horseshit in my life. What’s that got to do with your childlike behavior?”
“Chineselike behavior, sir. You can imagine those people piss off the car drivers to no end. How’d you like every person walking past your car to dawdle and invite you to carom him into the gutter? You’d love to but you know it would be your ass so you honk and swear and take it out by banging your hand on the steering wheel.”
Cochran leans forward.
“I’ve got a bigger spook on my back than any Chinaman and I’m trying to knock it off every chance I get. You’re like the driver of that car, who’s shit sure I’m in your way on purpose, expressly to give you a hard time. Not true. Everyone’s got his personal evil spirits bugging him and most of us aren’t trying to compound someone else’s. Unless the person driving the car just happens to have an extra fifty or sixty pounds of foul-smelling, stomach-rumbling, tongue-lathering evilness he’s trying to unload on me. If that’s the case, then I am apt to raise a deliberate hassle.”
Babbling sweet tongue better you should bite off before it’s your head, I think. The Hammer remains calm.
“Wait a minute,” he says, “I’m not sure I understand all this.”
He fetches more beer. I’ve lost sensation in my legs. When did we last eat? My thoughts spiral on. Piddling jobs wear a man down with their grindstone efficiency. Triviality kills the spark. Mother dear, am I to quit doing anything and just sit on my ass complaining? No, son, how can you expect to get a better grip on life if no pegar o dar ni golpe, you’ve done fuck-all?
The Hammer’s voice intrudes on my mental prattle.
“You attack the military system as being wrong, but what about yourself? What have you done that’s so wonderful, what have you shown …”
“But those jobs are meaningless, they’re nothing …” Cochran starts to say.
“I know I seem hard to you,” the Hammer interrupts, “but I’ve preserved my individuality, while at the same time taking on a responsibility for all I have to live up to.”
“I can’t be two people, the real me I’m saving up for the future, and the other me putting up a front until that golden day, “Cochran retorts.
“You get the responsibility, you have to act differently,” the Hammer says.
Cochran jumps to his feet.
“Don’t let the bastards keep you down,” he hollers, close to the edge. Shit, he’s always on the edge, and the heavies are both fearful and at the same time egging him on, the hangman’s noose is waiting. Beer cans clutter the floor. Cochran starts to fall forward, steadies himself on the arm of the Hammer’s chair, they are bleary-eye to beery-eye.
“Which all due respeck, sir, could I suggestion a making?”
“What are you trying to say? Spit it out, man.”
“When we flying back from squadron full up troop lift whyn’t we make a victory pass over the runway, let the men huzzah the op a success?”
“That’s kid stuff, Lieutenant.”
Cochran stiffens. “If there’s nothing else, sir, I think I better get something to eat.”
The Hammer waves his hand, get out of here. Cochran hauls me up and we kick through the beer cans, sending them spinning. I turn around.
“Con su permisso, Colonel?”
“Beat it. I don’t want to hear any more of that Mexican peon crap.”
Got it. We walk out the door, leaving the Hammer sitting in the rubble.
“The word, peon, means pedestrian, you know,” I tell Cochran.
“So, what’s your point?”
“Just shows to go you the gringo’s superior attitude. Big cars, they look down on pedestrians, to the peril of the peon. Tell that to Lapsong Chung.”
Cochran stops and glares.
“All my life I’ve had some old molded fart, paunch-bellied and secure in his sinecure, lecture me, and I’ve had to listen. Someday I want to laugh in that old fart’s face. All this bullshit about responsibility.” He smacks his hand with his fist. “I tell you, Huck, a man, a real man, has the hot blood surging, he can outdo anyone, he’s the number one stud bull of the lot. Head high, he sings out, dances, plays great licks on his sound box, bops like no else. Life’s a keyboard with a limitless number of songs waiting to be played. And you know something? I figure my best bits are stoppered. I’ve learned the scales, now it’s time to start playing my tunes.”
He looks at me suspiciously bleery-eyed. “You’re not fooling me, you runt. You’re like the rest of the moles. Covering up the thing you’d really like to do because you’re afraid of the ridicule, figuring it’s better to let a dream die untried than chance having it fail.”
He stares, out of focus. “Why the hell you so dry and wizened, anyway?”
“Because I’m from Locos, Texas, the driest, scrubbiest, most desolate patch of scrub and sand in the world.”
He shrugs. “Well, I guess every man has the right to be as big as it’s in him to be.”
“You lost me on that one, slick tongue. Let’s hit the sack.”
23. Topping It The Max
Doc, can’t you cool the yammering … why don’t you answer, Doc? … you being an obtuse goose or a plain ignoramus?… there was a newspaper clipping stapled to the Hot Scoop board … our son came home from Vietnam and has done nothing but sit around the house and teach our parrot to swear and every time a visitor comes to the house he makes the parrot swear while he sits there and laughs and now I can’t ask the parson to tea, what should I do … get your parrot a mate, lady, once they start fucking they won’t bother talking, but as for your son, have you tried paregoric, it blasts you right out of your skull, I’ve used it for years after answering these stupid questions … ha ha … Daddy’s deliberately evasive … harping on that bull roar again … it’s all bull roar, son, and the sooner you know it the better … but, Daddy, it can’t be ALL bull roar, can it? … well, maybe not all bull roar, son, but so much so that you might as well call it all bull roar … okay, he says, I’ll hedge a little … cut through the bull roar and maybe you’ll find a tiny kernel of the nut of truth that ain’t been crushed or spoilt or burnt in the fires, but you got to dig real deep, boy … or else you’ll be a shallow garcon, like the frogs say: knee-deep, knee-deep … Daddy was of the 4-F generation … find ’em, feel ’em, fuck ’em, forget ’em … those days are gone, Doc, we’re the Get It generation … get it on, get it up, get it in, get it out … whatsamatter, you don’t get, it, Doc … well, you’re a medical man, and that’s what’s important …
The club is decked out like an Oriental whorehouse. Chinese lanterns hang from the ceiling. Streamers crisscross the beams like kaleidoscopic spider webs. The walls are adorned with scarlet and gold flags. Behind the bar, a big banner proclaims: HAPPY BIRTHDAY USMC. The biggest day of the year for the Corps, a traditional full dress dinner at the mess hall followed by an all-night party in the club, replete with live entertainment, the whole shooting match overseen by Mai Duc, attired in white pants and shirt with a black bow tie. He gives rapid-fire instructions to the nervous bar maids, resplendent in ao dais, then he rushes over to harangue the band, a Vietnamese jazz trio called The Self Defense Corps, electric bass and guitar, full drum set, one microphone, the musicians dressed in black with bright-red scarves tied around their necks. They noodle on their instruments, adding a light din to the preparations.
