by Ken Babbs
Tables are set up with the chairs facing the bar. An aisle runs down the middle. The first pilots arrive, laughing and chattering and smoking stogies. They sprawl on chairs and call for drinks. The trio breaks into song, “Somewhere there’s music, how faint the tune. Somewhere there’s heaven, how high the moon,” in high plaintive voices, the guitar on full vibrato, bass line a solid thunk, rimshots and cymbal clashes, giving the song a Far Eastern slant.
The new pilot, Baptist John, surveys the scene from the door, beams and exclaims, “Truly the light is a sweet and a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold, the meek and the strong meet together and our Lord is master of all,” evoking handclapping and, “Amen, brothers,” and, “Set him up,” and, “Lest the meek take a tumble.”
Baptist John is shoved aside by Herbee Jenkins—“Make way there”—with Wee Willie Weems hard on his heels. Then a mob fills the club, grabs the chairs, and pounds on the tables. The barmaids are flustered trying to keep up. Mai Duc mixes and pours drinks fast as a dribble of fat skipping across a hot skillet.
I’m hunched near the bar, nursing a gin and tonic, eyeballing the room. Again the door swings open. Stepping proudly through, dressed to the nines in a sport jacket and pleated pants, light-blue shirt with a red tie, is our esteemed Admin Officer, Captain Miles Standish Briggs, and on his arm one of the four Army nurses flown in from the hospital at Nha Trang for the occasion. She’s dumpy, but sashays happily on her ample hips, a bright smile on her face, mascaraed eyes behind big rimmed glasses. “Somewhere there’s music, how near how far. Somewhere there’s heaven, that’s where you are,” the words drowned by handclapping and wolf whistles, banging of drinks on the tables, and then, entering the din, burning cigar leading the way, face puckered in mountainous valleys and craggy ridges, Pappy Lurnt, and on his arm the tiniest, the chippiest, bounciest bird to ever grace the club. “There is no moon above when love is far away too.” They are no sooner seated than stern-visaged Captain Beamus makes a stentorian entrance, impeccably dressed as always, and towering above him, an immensely tall, black-maned horse-faced woman, with a bray to match and a set of chompers Man of War would envy. “The darkest night would shine if you would come to me soon.” And finally, at the parade’s pinnacle, as befitting his rank, our esteemed commander, Colonel Arthur The Hammer Rappler, enters to raised glasses and, “See him,” and, “Call upon him,” and, “The mantle be upon his shoulders,” and, “Splice the main brace,” and other nautical inanities picked up from hanging around with squids at the Neptune Bar in town. The cries go unheeded by both the C.O. and his female companion, the Nha Trang Head Nurse, who is of similar age and rank as the Hammer, her militant shape covered with an austere skirt, blouse and jacket. “How still my heart, how high the moon.” The Colonel holds out her chair, and they take their places at a reserved table on the aisle.
The din rises to full pitch. Cigar smoke fills the room. Colored lights pulsate. The drum starts a Hawaiian beat and eight pilots wearing grass skirts dance into the club to a boisterous welcome for the autentico Hawaiian song and dance number. Doc Hollenden gyrates in the middle of the dancing line. Coconut-shell and parachute-cord phony bras dangle on hairy chests below phony fabric leis. Monkey fur hangs over their eyes. Garish red-painted mouths pucker in kisses blown to the audience, and the pilots respond with cat calls, guffaws, joke sneezes, laughs and foot stomping. Drink glasses are banged on the tables as the dancers gyrate wildly with their arms and hips, a fitting rendition of the obligatory dance ritual demanded by every party held on any island or land west of San Francisco. The hula line breaks into song. Doc Hollenden, standing in the middle, leads the chorus:
Hiu me ka nihi poi
Hiu me ka big-a-opu
A crushed lime splats against a hairy chest. Undeterred, the hula line repeats the song, in English, for the edification of el vulgo, la gente sin educación, those ignorant jerks, the uneducated hoi polloi:
Give me some poi, boy
Pass the seaweed, sneed
Give us some love, joy
You know what we need
The dancers hula down the center aisle toward the door. Hands grab at their skirts, pulling off chunks of fronds. Ignoring them, the dancers lean in and leer at the nurses, Hiu me ka big opu. Pappy Lurnt stabs them away with the lit end of his cigar, and they sashay out the door, Pass around the poi, to a standing round of applause and long lewd cheers.
The cheers no sooner die than a swaggering New York gangster bursts through the door. He’s sharp as a punji stake in his snap-brim hat, wide-padded shoulders, dangling key chain and pegged pants, Díos bendito, more of a cross between a hoodlum and a hipster, with a mean scowl on his face. Dum Dum Dumbert, in the Queens flesh. He grabs the microphone, “How’s it going, ladies, yah need anyting, youse jest give me dah woid, and as fer youse gents, back off der, mind yer manners lessen youse wants yer kissers bashed in.” With the jazz trio keeping pace, Dum Dum throws a hand sideways, and in a false Italiano accent belts out a romantic song:
In Napoli where love is king
When boy meets girl, here’s what they say
A pause, then he’s off, rollicking into the chorus:
When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie, that’s a-mor-ay
He drops to a knee, implores with outstretched arm:
When your balls hit the floor
Like a B-54, that’s a-mor-ay
The pilots jump to their feet and shout, A-mor-ay, Dumbert coming in over the top:
Bells will ring, ting-aling-aling, ting-aling-aling
Captain Beamus stands up and waves his arms, where’s your couth, you louts, he tries to stop them. What a laugh. If he’s worried the women will be offended, why doesn’t he clap his hand over the ears of the nurse sitting next to him, but no, she is laughing her ass off along with the others, except for the Head Nurse who watches stoically. She’s heard this kind of shit before, seen men making assholes out of themselves, have your fun boys, you’ll come crying to me in the morning for your pills, your potions, your enemas.
Dum Dum presses on:
When your cock is the size
Of a mama-mia’s thighs, that’s a-mor-ay
The guitar whangs, the bass thumps and the pilots sing along, but Dum Dum’s voice is stilled. He looks around with a belligerent glare, sees Mai Duc with his hand on the volume control. Dum Dum rushes the bar, but I grab him by the coat tail and yank him to the floor. Before he can get up, Emmett and Too Tall Tolliver have him by the legs and shoulders and are hustling him down the aisle and out the door, Dum Dum screaming.
Scuzza me, but you see,
Back in Napoli, that’s a-mor-ay.
The pilots salute with glasses raised, That’s a-mor-ay, down the hatch boys, followed by resounding crashes as they throw their glasses to the floor. Dum Dum’s back in a wink, “Gimmee a drink,” grabs one out of Baptist John’s hand.
“Crown ourselves with rosebuds,” Baptist John says. “Women may be the strongest but truth beareth away the victory.”
The trio plays a light instrumental number while drinks are replenished. I meander down the aisle, exchange insults with the pilots, nods with the heavies and smiles at the nurses, and stop up short, for, there, making a surprise appearance, is the Ice Queen, stone faced, hair piled high, long white ao dai embroidered with gold thread, and, alongside her, the biggest surprise of all, our old Tokyo friend, Spare Tire, dressed to the nines in a silk suit and shirt and tie, his black shoes a bright sheen. He gives me a wink as they pass by, making the rounds of the senior officers and nurses. After Spare Tire settles the Ice Queen in her chair, he joins me at the bar.
“You’re the last person in the world I thought I’d see in this place,” I tell him.
“And a very elegant place it is,” he says. “Kinda reminds me of Mama Toko’s in Pusan, except I never saw any American women in that dive. Where’s your buddy?”
“I don’t know. Probably off somewhere putting the finishing touc
hes to his poem. What happened after we left Japan, anyways?”
“I set those gals up in Kyoto and they’re doing great. I had to procure them though.”
“Procure? You mean, like buy them for sex?”
“Nothing like that. I had to pay T. Harry at the 500 Club a pile of yen to guarantee the gals their freedom. He was none too happy about his car, either, but he accepted the BMW I liberated from a company I sometimes do business with in Japan.”
“I knew you did okay but, holy shit, your job pays that much?”
“Ha. This pissant war is bringing in beaucoup bucks for me and it’s only gonna get bigger. As a procurer I’m in a prime spot. The military needs something from the natives, they come to me. Same goes for American companies setting up business. They need housing, transportation, shipyard docking, women of a higher class than the bars, they know who to contact.”
“So the Ice Queen isn’t just your date for the evening, eh?”
“That lady has her finger in every slice of pie in this country, so she and I are mutually beneficial to one another.”
“Say, just between you and me and the Chinese lanterns, I’ve got something you might be able to help me out on.”
“Sure, thing, Huckelbee. I owe you big-time for that outing we had in Japan. That was ichi ban in my book.”
I give him a quick update on Ben-San. The crash, the rescue, the hospital, and finally, Yoshika.
“Wait a minute.” He pulls out a notepad and pen. “Let me write this down.”
I give him the particulars, closing with where he can find Yoshika, if she’s still there.
“Okay. When I get back to Japan, I’ll see where she’s at on this thing, and get back to you.”
“Better if you deal with Ben-San himself. I don’t know how much longer he’ll be in the hospital before they fly him home.”
“Don’t you fret, I’ll … well, look who’s here.”
Doc Hollenden, changed from his Hawaiian rig into his party duds, walks up.
“Well, hidey, Doc, how come you aren’t packing that gun you were so scared of back in Japan?” Spare Tire asks.
“Ha ha. The only thing I’m packing is my scalpel.”
We’re interrupted by a long drum roll.
“Looks like the show is starting,” Spare Tire says. “I better get back.”
He puts the notebook and pencil away. A quick hand clasp.
“Oh my God,” says the Doc, staring at the door.
Cochran goose steps into the club, his arms swinging high, the band picks up the beat, thump, thump, thump, and the pilots join in, “Ay ay ay,” as he marches the length of the club, does a flamboyant about-face and gives us the flat hand to the forehead salute. He’s wearing a gold flight suit, crosshatched with scarlet paint. One pant leg is cut off at the knee. On his feet are high-top sneakers, one painted gold, the other scarlet. He hasn’t shaved for three days and his black beard is a bristle brush with a red glow in the middle from a cigar sticking out of his mouth. He has blackened both eyes and they punctuate his face like gun muzzles. A rubber basketball cut in half and painted scarlet and gold sits on his head like an inverted mixing bowl. A cluster of American and SVN flags stick out of the holes.
The jazz trio pounds, the pilots chant. Cochran raises his hand and holds it until the hubbub dies. He takes the cigar out of his mouth and bows to the women, the flags on his head dipping in respect. “Good evening, lovely ladies, our honored guests and my fellow comrades-in-arms,” hands extended, fingers pointed. “Happy birthday, number one hundred and eighty-eight to our glorious Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron One Hundred and Eighty-Eight, what you might call an auspicious numerical occurrence of the highest mathematical order, a congruence of digits never to be seen again on the planet, one I would like to honor with a little number, writ from the heart, with respect and insubordination to all, entitled, ‘Topping It The Max.’”
He reaches inside his flight suit and pulls out a thick sheaf of papers. “What are these? Frag reports, how’d they get in here?” Sheets flutter to the floor as he paws through them. “Ah,” he squints at a page, and wades in:
“In days of old when men were bold
And rubbers weren’t invented
They wrapped their cocks in dirty socks
And screwed until contented.
‘Balls,’ cried the Queen. ‘If I had two I’d be king.’
And the king laughed because he had two
As she lamented …
No no no, wrong poem, my ‘umble apologies.”
He crumples the page and flings it at the band.
“Here we go then:
The blades they were a-clattering
The peace they was a-shattering
Keep up your airspeed Harley
That farmer’s name is Charley
And don’t let his buffalo fool you
One just like it is the one that blew you
Full of holes and broke your window glass
With an RPG hid up its ass.”
“Har Har,” Cochran laughs, then scowls. “This is a tough crowd. I know, all this written shit is too stilted.” He throws the pages in the air and erupts in a spontaneous ejaculation, “I see Safety Officer Ed Ramshakle Pomfrey has finally accepted the reality of the transmission and its relationship to the rest of the chopper. He has discovered that all flights of imagination should be grounded in anchors of reality. Gives him an opportunity to be one of the boys, a good ol’ fella, here’s snot in yer eye.”
Cochran turns to the Chaplain. “Tell me, Father Sam, why did the Irishman wear two condoms? To be sure, to be sure, yas, better to be safe than to be Protestant. What kind of meat does a priest eat on Friday, anyways? None is the answer. Just remember, it all happens in the revival tent and what happens in the tent stays in the tent, held down by tent stays, of course.”
Ka-blam, bang of the drum.
“Thank you thank you. Reminds me of a rifle-powered grenade flying up your fuel tank, bound to increase your air speed by mach one or two. Remember, fruit flies like a banana but time flies like a greased winged weasel. The thread holding the scimitar is unraveling. Save yourselves. Take deep yogic breaths. I see my cigar has gone out.”
He whips out a stick match, strikes it on his flight suit zipper and holds it to the cigar. Flames shoot up his nostrils, the smell of burnt hair wafts across the room. “That’s the way you trim your nose hairs when you’re hunkered down in bandit country,” he shouts. “No time to mess with pussy-wimp scissors when Charley’s knives are slicing your balls.”
“Oh my, non sequitor,” Baptist John cries out. “The jungle is full of bones. Can those bones live? Weigh the balances.”
“Yes, and separate the clavicle from the neck bone, Reverend, you be speaking the word and the mama-sans are on the lookout for some stuff and believe me, they have the muff that’s tuff enuff to do the snuff. Make like the whale, it’s no fluke when you slap the water and scoop up the fishies. Where are the loaves, man? When the rapture occurs the choppers will be bouncing off one another like ten pins in a Tasmanian devil-dog bowling-ball tournament.
“I see our supply officer, Captain Samuel Squints Bigelow is wandering around the battlefield picking up detritus and reflecting upon the stuff of immortality, filling both his mind and rucksack. Wait! Hold your applause,” he cries, as the restless and antsy crowd rise to their feet and shout, “Shut the fuck up,” and “We’ve heard enough of this shit,” only to be hauled down by their tablemates eager to hear more of the heady stuff.
Thus reassured, Cochran plows on. “Captain Beamus failed celestial navigation in flight school, you know, but he can still locate true north by using a bolo knife and a scared Filipino shedding chicken feathers out the ass end of the helicopter while the good Captain bangs on a Vietnamese clapper drum and naked Montagnard women do the Charleston in the belly. Or is that the sound of Carl Emmett charging up Montezuma hill, sabre in hand, screaming through his meerschaum pipe, ‘I shall retur
n!’?”
Waving his cigar in the air, spittle flying out of his mouth, eyes red-rimmed and bugging out of black sockets, Cochran strides down the aisle. He stops at Pappy Lurnt’s table and gapes lewdly at the bouncy nurse. She titters. Cochran points his cigar at Major Lurnt.
“Pappy’s no chump
Not when he’s caught in nature’s way
And has to take a dump
He does it right in the Zone
Even when there’s hell to pay.”
Cochran leans back to avoid Pappy Lurnt’s swipe at his cigar, then skips to the Hammer’s table and picks up the verse.
“You wake in the morn’ to the sound of the horn
And the smell of the binjo ditch
To the taste of the mold on the side of the bread
And the coffee that’s blacker than pitch
You grab your gear and zip it up tight
And make damned sure your flak vest fits.
On every last mission it’s been your division
That’s been taking all of the hits
The engine is popping and the right mag is droppin’
About a hundred and fifty or so
But you’d go on report if you tried to abort
So out on the runway you go.
Skipper leads us aloft in a welter of spray
Everyone wondering if this is the day
When the guy in the sky throws a great fit
