Dirty Work

by Larry Brown

  “But He cain’t protect everybody. And bad things happen every day. Hundreds of times a day. Thousands of times a day. The thing that happened to me that day was just one thing that happened in the middle of a lot of bad things that happened that day. Shit, Walter. It was over three hundred killed some weeks. He ain’t responsible for all that. It ain’t no way. Man does all this stuff to himself.

  “But listen here. Innocent people always going to be killed. Children going to be killed in war. Ain’t no worse crime than that. But you’ve seen it, ain’t you? You know what it was like. Booby-trap anything they could lay their hands on. Pack of cigarettes. Can of beer. Piece of trash. And they was taught. Politicians get up on TV and talk about how bad war is. Don’t nobody have to tell people. People shooting other people is bad and don’t nobody have to tell you, you born knowing that.

  “What I’m saying is, now listen to me. I have done paid my price. I was unlucky and black and young and poor and they drafted me. But I believed in the American dream. Serve your country, do your part, come on home and take a active part in society. You know what I was gonna be? A schoolteacher. Yeah. I was gonna get me a college education, man, on the GI Bill, go to college. Woulda made my mama so happy. I was gonna build her a little house cause she ain’t never had one. Nothing but damn shacks. Have to patch the windows up with plastic. I was gonna take all them little black kids and teach em how to read and get em a job and a chance to break loose. Man, you don’t know what it was like. To be so damn poor. And have to live on welfare.

  “Shit. Listen to me raving. Naw, man, I was raving. It just pisses me off the way everything is. It don’t have to be like this. What would this country be like, man, if they never had brought none of us over here? But that’s history. You can’t change it. Just like this. Just like you. You can’t change what happened to you. But there ain’t nothing else I can do in this world, Walter. I can’t help it. My chance was gone twenty-two years ago. I ain’t doing nothing but waiting to die. I don’t want to get into it no deeper. I done spent enough time thinking about it. I know my life been wasted, but they’s a bunch of good men’s lives been wasted. Fifty-eight thousand and something for good. I don’t know how many more. Like me. Stuck in places like this. I’m sorry, man. I have to cry. I have to cry for all them wasted lives, man, all them boys I loaded up just like they loaded me up. I couldn’t believe it, man. I couldn’t believe it had happened to me. I laid on my back and I said it loud. I said Oh Lord, they have shot me all to pieces.”

  I wanted another beer, but no more grass. I wanted to tell him the rest of it without being messed up. I judged daylight to be about an hour away. So there wasn’t a whole lot of time.

  I didn’t want to think about him when I walked out the door. I didn’t want to look back at him just lying there, watching me leave. I wanted to go home and watch my movies and read my books and never see or talk to anybody like him again because he was the thing I had lived through, the thing that marched through my nightmares every night. Young and black and poor. 4-F, you lucky fuckers, you flatfooted fuckers with your high blood pressure. Blind sumbitches, can’t even see the damn rifle sights.

  Sir! My first General Order is! To take charge of this post and all government property in view! Stick it out if you want it, prives. Take everything you want but eat everything you take. Except for you fatbodies. You fat-bodies all you get is salad. TWENTY THIRTY EIGHT! MARCHING IN TO CHOW! AYE AYE SIR! GANGWAY!

  Port side make a headcall.

  PORTSIDEMAKEAHEADCALLSIR!

  Starboard side make a headcall.

  STARBOARDSIDEMAKEAHEADCALLSIR!

  Damn. Y’all don’t want to shit today, do you? I can’t even hear you. Port side make a headcall.

  PORTSIDEMAKEAHEADCALLSIR!

  Listen up. If you slimeball scuzbags of piss-complected puke want to shit today, you better do some screaming. I want you to scream until this squadbay rattles. I want you to scream until your lungs rupture. I was thinking about letting the smokers scream for a cigarette, but if you motherfuckers can’t scream any louder than that for a shit, we might just do some bends and thrusts. Many many of them motherfuckers. Starboard side make a headcall.

  STARBOARDSIDEMAKEAHEADCALLSIR!!!!

  Move.

  Then the sumbitch would walk up and down for a while in his boots in front of us, the ones who’d risked not going to the head until nightfall in hopes of getting a cigarette, the ones who hadn’t rushed madly into the head, knowing that he might call Clear The Head just as soon as they got their pants down, the ones who were still locked up tight in front of their footlockers, just waiting for that ten-second chance to spring to the combination lock, get it right in absolutely only one try, withdraw one cigarette and a book of matches, shut the lid, snap the lock, and be back at attention in front of the rack, every one, every one in ten seconds. At attention.

  Smokers draw one.

  SMOKERS DRAW ONE, AYE AYE, SIR!

  Shit. You people don’t want a cigarette. You people want to do some bends and thrusts. You people should have went in there and took a shit while you had the chance. Clear the head.

  CLEAR THE HEAD, AYE AYE, SIR! TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! (They’d be running out by then, pulling their pants up, hopping, trying to make it back to their bunks.) SIXFIVEFOURTHREETWOONE!

  Freeze!

  You had to stop where you were when he hollered freeze. And you had to freeze. In whatever position you were in.

  Smokers make a headcall. I mean smokers draw one.

  SMOKERS DRAW ONE, AYE AYE, SIR!

  Move.

  If everybody made it, then we had to get the bucket. The bucket man took care of that.

  Smokers outside on the grass across Panama Street.

  SMOKERS OUTSIDE ON THE GRASS ACROSS PANAMA STREET, AYE AYE, SIR!

  Move.

  We’d fly in a herd down the outside stairs, tripping, falling, holding onto that one cigarette, in a mad rush to get across there and formed in a circle before he changed his mind. In a circle at attention with the bucket man in the center. We wouldn’t look, but we’d know he was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs across Panama Street, watching us. We’d be hearing the ones who hadn’t made it out of the head on time doing their bends and thrusts. Many many of them motherfuckers. But we wouldn’t laugh. We wouldn’t do anything until he called, real softly:

  Let’s hear it.

  SIR! EVEN THOUGH THE SURGEON GENERAL! HAS DETERMINED! THAT CIGARETTE SMOKING IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! WE REQUEST PERMISSION TO SMOKE ANYWAY!

  And if he liked what he’d heard, he’d call again, real soft:

  Light em up.

  We all marched in the street. We’d been there a little over a week and the smoking lamp was lit. We were standing out there in a smoking circle and we heard this noise coming down the street. Something steady, regular, hard, stomping the street. Some kind of a disciplined herd of animals, it sounded like, and it was getting closer. Whop whop whop whop. Like stormtroopers, like something with incredible purpose that only death could turn aside.

  He called to us. You hear that? You know what that is coming down the street? It’s a platoon of U.S. Marines. Thirty seventy, they’re graduating tomorrow. You hear that? Snap. Pop. Go ahead and look.

  We looked. Forty third-phase recruits were putting two feet down together. Their black DI was singing cadence to them. The flag on their guidon was snapping in the breeze.

  You hear that? They’ll charge a machine-gun nest right now and not even think about it. Cause they’ve got discipline. Cause they love my Marine Corps. Tarawa. Okinawa. Iwo Jima. Tripoli. They’d rip your guts out and eat em if he told em to.

  He stopped while they passed. The noise they made with their feet covered us. Their boots were spit-shined. Their legs moved like one leg. The precision of the noise was enormous and it came beside us and went by and then it started to fade as they went on down the street. But it was something you could hear for a long way if you listene
d. We did. We listened until it was gone, until they were gone.

  We got an image to uphold here. The best in the world. There’s a bunch of them going over there in a few months that ain’t coming back. They’re gonna die for their country, they’re gonna die for their Marine Corps, for all the softass civilians like you guys used to be. The war ain’t getting better. It’s getting worse. Now you pay afuckin tention or your ass comes home in a plastic bag. Don’t die for your country! Make that motherfucker die for his! Do you understand me?

  And we roared when we answered him.

  Well, I’d done almost lost my faith. He was dead set against it and didn’t even want to hear it. He was just laying there, he wasn’t doing nothing. Looking at the ceiling. Thinking about his woman, I guess. About them legging down. I don’t know. I started talking to him. Told him I knew he thought I was crazy and everything but it was just that he was just now seeing what it was like. He left the war, he come home and tried to forget it. Which every man do. It ain’t nothing you want to dwell on. Just something you got to do and then try to forget it. Some can, some can’t. Wind up like this, they ain’t no way to ever forget it. And he didn’t say nothing, he just listened. Wasn’t no way he could ever forget it either. Knew that. But I tried to make him see what a long time it had been. How many days and nights. Told him about how they first had me in Bethesda, how young I was. When my mama first come to see me for the first time.

  She didn’t know nothing about riding no plane. Never had been on one in her life. Probably scared her almost to death to have to do that, drive up to Memphis and get on a big plane with a bunch of strange people and leave the ground for the first time.

  I didn’t want her coming. Didn’t want her to see me like this. Knew she was going to have to eventually. Tried to put it off long as I could. But the government made all the arrangements. Took care of all that shit. They told me she was coming. And wasn’t no way I could run. One morning I woke up and she was standing there looking at me. Holding her purse. My mama.

  She said How you doing, son? Voice just shaking. Didn’t know I’d lost my arms and legs. Somebody fucked up the paperwork. She was trying not to cry. Just standing there holding her purse. People walking all around us not paying attention. Which the ward was full of guys like me. Some worse, some not as bad. Some just missing only one leg or one arm. Lucky ones. Could still get around, get a job, make out. Go on with their lives. That was when I first started wishing I was dead. It woulda been a lot better for her to see me in my coffin laid out and watch them put me in the ground and blow taps over me than to see me like that. Cause she could have accepted that. It wouldn’t have killed her. This what killed her.

  They put her in a hotel room on the base. She come to see me every day. She’d feed me. Do other stuff for me. You know. Took care of me for about two weeks. But you could see her going down every day. Never knew my daddy. He run off a long time ago. All my brothers up in Michigan. Work in them car factories up there. They all older than me. Never did know some of them too well. They took off early too. Mama said they was like my daddy, never could stay in one place long. Said he stayed in Mississippi longer than anywhere.

  Aw a few of em been to see me a few times. They uneasy when they come, though. We try to talk and it like, you know, they got eyes for everything else but me. Hell, they getting pretty old now, some of em. Got grandchildren, some of em. You can’t blame em. Be a relief to them if I was dead, I told Walter. Then they wouldn’t have to think about me and feel guilty for not coming to see me too much. Just go on and bury me and come down here one last time and get it over with. Cause they ain’t none of em gonna come back down here and live. They got their own lives up there. They don’t need to have to feel guilty over me.

  He never said nothing. Just laid there and listened to me. I told him how she went on back after about two weeks, cause I had to stay. She’d left my little sister down there with some folks. Had to get on back and see about her. I think she was in like the third grade. And my mama was already old. She was old when she had me. I never saw my daddy. If you want to know the truth I don’t think my daddy was my daddy. Couldn’t have been. Been gone too long. Know he wasn’t my little sister’s daddy. Cause he never did come back.

  Hell, we growed up with the blues. I know them places in Clarksdale. Them hot summer nights. Streets full of people walking, music playing. Blues was all we had. That and a damn hoe handle.

  He never did say nothing. Finally I told him to go on talking. He was leaving in the morning, I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  Took him a long time to open back up. I don’t know what was going through his mind. I wasn’t through with him. There was still plenty of beer left. And I wanted him to keep on drinking it. Keep on drinking it. Keep on drinking it.

  “Aw, shit. I don’t know, man. I hate to keep bending your ear. But I just can’t figure out what the hell happened. You don’t know what I felt like waking up in this place. It scared the shit out of me.

  “You want anything? You sure? Well. It’s been a long night, hasn’t it? The most I’ve talked in a long time. Or the most I guess since I talked to her that night. What was the last thing I told you? I told you about the dog, and about her daddy. I didn’t tell you about us going down to the creek, did I? I don’t think I told you about that.

  “Well. The damn mosquitoes got bad all of a sudden. Started eating us up. We tried covering up with the quilt but you could hear them little sumbitches zmmm zmmm in there with us. So I said Hell let’s just go somewhere else. Go get in the car and go ride around or something. I told you about Moore Creek, didn’t I? And see, hell, it hadn’t rained in I don’t know how long. I know you’ve heard about the drought this year. People around home were cutting hay one week and having to feed it to their cows the next week. A bunch of farmers lost their ass. They even stopped them from irrigating down in the Delta. So hell, Moore Creek was dry. But even when it’s not dry there’s a place you can pull off in down there because they did away with the bridge. It’s not far from the house. But we went by the house first, just to look. And the light was on in my room. And I knew I’d turned it off when we left. What it was, Max was in there. Max. Hell yeah. See, I figured if everybody was asleep at my house, we’d just go back to my room. We could’ve watched a movie and turned the air conditioner on and just, you know, been more comfortable. But he was in there. If he thinks I’m gone and gonna be gone for a while, hell go in there and watch a movie. I’ve got a bunch of good ones. Hell, he may be smoking my dope, I don’t know. I think a lot of times he just looks at stuff in my room. Those Life pictures and stuff. I’ve got some other shit hanging up in there. I’ve got a big piece of exploded shrapnel that’s just jagged all over, razor-sharp edges. This colonel who was a friend of mine got it home for me. Colonel Bill. We called him the Supreme Chicken.

  “Anyway. I don’t mean to digress so much. It’s hard to get to talking about one thing without talking about another thing. But my brother was in my room. So we couldn’t go in there. But she wanted to know what he was doing in there. We were pulled up out on the road in front of my house. So I said Hell, let’s just go see what he’s up to. I didn’t mean to do it. But I was fucked up. Hell, I’m fucked up right now. I wouldn’t be talking all this shit if I wasn’t. But anyway the next thing I knew I had her by the hand and I was leading her across the yard. It was thundering. A bunch of big old black clouds had rolled up. Lightning was flashing way off. We just eased up to the window. The light was on inside, so I knew he couldn’t see us out there. I just wanted to see what he was doing. I didn’t care for him being in my room. Hell, he’s my little brother, I love him. He didn’t ask for everything to be the way it is.

  “This is my brother, now. Cuts pulpwood for a living. Loves to fight better than he loves to eat. Inherited that shit from Daddy, I guess. He was laid up in my BarcoLounger with a joint in one hand and a Budweiser in the other, watching Easy Rider. I mean he was laid back. We just stood there for
a minute and watched him. We could see the TV. We didn’t mess with him. We just watched him for a little bit. He was into it, man, I could tell. But I was so glad to be with her. I was so damn happy standing out there with her, holding her hand, looking in at Max. I wanted to take care of her. Protect her. I had all these feelings that I’d wanted to have for so long.

  “I mean, I used to hear guys talk all the time. Oh hell, I fucked so and so. I could never understand how they could tell that shit. I mean, if a girl is going to share something that intimate with you, it’d take an asshole to go out and tell the whole world about it. I whipped a guy bad over that shit one time. There was a girl who used to go to school with us, her name was Mary Barry. Don’t laugh, now. She had great big titties and great big glasses. Like Coke bottles. She couldn’t even hardly see her way around. I mean she had a bad eye problem. Damn, man. This is going way back. Do you want to hear this shit? All right. Well, Mary, now, she was sweet. Had them big humongus jugs. Couldn’t see a thing. Everybody’d help her with her papers and stuff. I used to help her. I was trying to help her on a biology test one day and the teacher said I was cheating on the son of a bitch and gave me a zero. So Mary felt bad, you know, because I got a zero from trying to help her. And she was like smart as hell, she just couldn’t see anything. And there was this bastard named Charles Chilton who started to school with us in the second semester of the tenth grade. His daddy was the plant supervisor at the factory. And most everybody else’s daddy worked at the plant. So he thought he was the supervisor of the school, too. There was a bunch of people wanted to whip his ass, it wasn’t just me. He had all these button-down collars and penny loafers and shit. He had a car. Hell, didn’t none of us have a car. We’d just have to hitch a ride. But that bastard started messing around with Mary Barry. I mean, she was kind of plain, you know? But she had this great body. And I think she’d had a hard life, she’d been through a divorce with her mama and daddy, and she was sweet. Hell. She used to come over to our house and study with me. Before that bastard got there.