Jeannie sank into the dusk, her body moving of its own accord as she grasped Lee’s hair and strained against her, Lee’s mouth cool and wet between Jeannie’s legs. And Jeannie felt it first in her skin—the detonation of a thousand tiny charges, then the blaze of fire, the suck of breath; and Jeannie closed her eyes, and let herself disappear.
They lay on the bed, legs tangled, Lee’s eyes closed, Jeannie winding Lee’s hair around her fingers—until the telephone rang, and the spell was broken. Twenty minutes, maybe a half hour if Billy decided to walk home. Lee shrugged on her blouse, pulled on her skirt, stretched and yawned; smiled blankly as Jeannie struggled to zip her own dress. By the time Jeannie had fixed her face and hair, Lee was already out of the room. Jeannie glanced in on Charlie—he was still sleeping, his fanny pushed into the air, his thumb tucked in his mouth—and went to the kitchen, where she found Lee standing at the stove, her back to Jeannie. Jeannie watched the muscles in Lee’s calves stretch as she leaned to taste the casserole that was cauldroning on the stovetop; and she felt a sense of loss, small and sharp as a needle, touch her skin. “I wish you could stay,” she said.
“I have to be somewhere,” said Lee, dipping the wooden spoon back into the casserole and ducking for another mouthful. “Well, he didn’t marry you for your cooking.” She turned to Jeannie, that same empty smile on her face, and wiped her mouth with her fingers. “Got to scoot.”
“Wait,” said Jeannie. “I have something for you.” She went to the kitchen table and picked up her copy of McCall’s.
“Raquel Welch isn’t my thing.”
“Open it.” Jeannie’s eyes sought the clock. Ten more minutes.
“’Would he marry you again?’ The crap you read!”
“Here.” Jeannie opened the magazine. A letter, headed Dr. William Harper, San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco; and in typing that didn’t quite meet Mrs. Harris’s standards, the details: Charles Henry Dewey is not qualified for military service for medical reasons—namely, that he suffers from the congenital heart condition of aortic stenosis.
Lee’s eyes widened. “He did it?” “I did.”
Kip / May 1968
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Grenade in the captain’s bunker.”
“Sir, we’ve searched the compound—nothing.”
“No cuts in the wire.”
“Fuck. Was he in there?”
“I’d say he’s burned up pretty crispy.”
“Shut up, asshole.”
“Captain Vance was in the bunker.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Sir—Sergeant Gross says he saw someone walking toward the captain’s hooch just before the explosion.”
“A Marine?”
“Sir.”
“You got to be kidding me.”
“This shit happens in the Army, not in the fucking Marine Corps.”
“Get everybody together.”
“This is bad.”
“Now.”
I was wrong. That dynamite jet-fuel fire that was raging inside me isn’t gone, it’s just simmered down, low and red and hot, and it’s blistering me on the inside. I keep my hands fist-closed, pocketed—if I open them up, they’ll fly like birds. The fire smokes and dies, a black smear where the bunker was; sandbags gashed, wood snapped, the stink of firecracker, barbecue, dust. In the half-light of the gasoline lanterns, I watch the corpsmen take Vance’s body, and my skin burns raw. I flap-steady my hand from my pocket to touch my face, but it’s smooth as a child’s: none of that fire touched me, it just stayed inside the bunker and gobbled everything up, and now there isn’t anything left. And my blood’s running and my heart’s dancing and I swear you could be getting lucky or getting fired on or riding a fucking roller coaster and that dumb throbbing piece of chest gristle wouldn’t know the difference.
It’s Fugate that’s herded us together—so much for the chain of command. Roper’s scampering in circles, wild-eyed and jumpy as a spooked puppy. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was him that threw the thing.
“Anybody knows anything, speak now,” says Fugate, and he’s furious, his fingers shaking like he’s got a jones for a drink. I feel my own fingers twitch in my pockets, and as I try to still them, those shakes jitterbug down to my knees. I squeeze my toes against my boot soles to stop my feet from dancing in the dirt.
“I saw somebody walking along the LZ around zero three hundred hours, Sergeant.” It’s Fucking New Guy, fat and clean as a plucked goose. “I was coming off watch.”
“Who did you see?”
I watch him, watch for the smallest twitch of his head toward me. A beat, and it swings on its soft neck, and my blood slides from my heart, down my arms and legs, like it’s going to run clean out of me. But the head swings back the other way—the kid’s just shaking his dumb skull, I don’t know. My blood gathers in my hands and feet, turning them numb.
“A Marine,” says Fucking New Guy. “It was too dark to see his face.” My guts are cold and dry. “He was walking pretty fast. Medium height, medium build . . .”
“Real useful, asshole,” says a voice—it’s Pederson—and there’s something in his voice, something I’ve never heard in him before: the thin-lipped sound of fear. I’m glad I’m not the only one freaked round here, else Roper might sniff me out.
“Anything else?” says Fugate.
I listen for the wet parting of lips, the clearing of a throat, my ears still bat-honed from the forest. My heart’s machine-gunning in my chest; but it knocks out two full magazines of heartbeats and I still don’t hear a mouth unstick.
Nothing.
“All right,” says Fugate. “Anybody who’s not due on watch, form a line in front of Lieutenant Roper. You’ll be divided into squads and questioned.”
“Sergeant—” Somebody’s coming, some six-foot black guy built like Woody Strode. I’ve never seen him before in my life.
Fugate ignores him. “Those who have duties, go to your posts—nobody else can leave, do you understand? There’ll be no sleep tonight.”
“We found a pull ring, Sergeant,” yells the brother.
This gets Fugate’s attention. “Where?”
“About five meters from the bunker, toward the LZ.”
Fugate turns to Roper. “We’re going to need to know about anybody seen near the bunker and the LZ after the incident, sir,” he says. Roper nods, dumb quiet, like the explosion sucked out all his words.
The chopper’s here—I hear its thump, catch the blare of its landing lights. I imagine them throwing the body bag into its belly, the sag and slosh of the rubber, and that damn vomit surprises me this time, burrows up from my belly fast as a rat and jumps from my mouth. I spit the drag-ends of the puke to my boots and lift my head to check, but nobody noticed—they’re too deaf and blind from the Huey, which is lifting away.
And while they watch the Dustoff disappear into the black sky, I see something they don’t—Big Brother Strode striding toward Fugate, and handing something over.
I watch Fugate as he burns his flashlight over it—it’s small and thin, the size of a playing card. Fugate jerks up his head, like the thing has the damn answer written on it. He stares at the crowd. I can’t figure out what he’s holding in his hand. Fugate shakes his head and holds the thing up to Roper, who barrels down his flashlight, his mouth moving in a curse.
The base has gone quiet, the noise of the rotor blades fading to a mutter, the engine whine thinned to vanishing. The men turn their heads back to Fugate.
“Nobody move,” he says.
He flares his flashlight over us, checking faces, stopping at the edge of the crowd, where I’m standing, my feet gripping the ground like a monkey. The light dazzles my eyes.
“Private Jackson,” says Fugate.
“Sergeant,” I murmur, close-lipped, afraid to open my mouth, afraid that if I do, my fear will leap out from inside me and sing.
“I ask you a question, you tell me t
he fucking truth, you understand?”
I nod, mouth clasped shut.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Sergeant.” I do it: I retch the word, loud and clear, and close up my lips fast.
“Where is Private First Class Esposito?”
I’m so bowled-over surprised by this question, Fugate might as well have asked me if I know the way to San Jose. My brain clunks and I swallow and I say, “I don’t know, Sergeant.” And I say it as sure and clear as I can, but it comes out like a question, like I’m guilty or dumb or both.
Heads are turning, looking at me, and I look back through the crowd, but Esposito’s nowhere to be seen.
“Search his hooch,” says Fugate, holding the card in his fingers, and Roper’s flashlight catches it and I see the long white seam down its center.
Esposito’s daughter.
“He was talking about doing a job on the CO,” says a voice. It’s Carter, standing beside me, and he must have seen that picture too because he’s looking right at me, straight in the face, his eyes smart with the truth—that it was me carrying that photograph, not Esposito. A smirk tweaks his mouth.
“Is that right,” says Roper, who’s found his words again, righteousness in his voice.
The men start jawblocking; I look straight ahead at Fugate. But I still feel them, those dank eyes resting on the side of my face—and I glance back to Carter, who’s still gazing at me, his lips curled up nasty.
A grumble and a yell—and we all turn to see him being dragged over: Esposito, stoned out and sore-assed, troubling over his footing like a toddler.
“What the fuck?” he’s saying, slurring his words. The light flashes over his face; his eyes are slow with sleep.
“Private First Class Esposito, where were you at zero three hundred hours?” hollers Fugate as Esposito is pulled toward the crowd.
“In my hooch, where else? What is this?” He eyes Vance’s blasted bunker. “What the—”
“Any reason you left this by Captain Vance’s hooch?” Fugate holds up the photograph; the light flashes off the picture.
“Another probe?” says Esposito; and Pederson, who’s pulled him from his rack across the firebase, shakes his head.
Esposito takes his shorn round skull in his hands. “Oh, man,” he says. “He was in there?”
“Answer the goddamn question,” says Fugate.
“What—” Esposito squints toward the picture, but his mind-cogs are jammed up with the dope, and he’s lost.
“Your damn photograph,” says Roper.
Carter nudges me—a girl’s nudge, light and bony—and I look and he’s offering me a cigarette. I shake my head, and he places one in his own mouth; and there’s something in the slow way he settles it between his fat lips, the care with which he lights it, that tells me he’s going to keep his information to himself.
Esposito’s shaking his head—he’s so doped up, Roper’s words didn’t get to his brain, just rolled right back out of his ears.
“Put him in the medical bunker, let him cool off,” says Fugate to Pederson. “Make sure he’s got no weapons, and watch him. He’s a fucking disgrace. They’re gonna fry you for this, asshole.”
Fugate’s holding his flashlight steady over Esposito’s face; and I can see Esposito’s skin is pulled white, his eyes dim and helpless: this is one bad trip he’s riding. I see him search the crowd for a friend, and he clocks me. And I’m thinking that this is just what Raffaele Alberto Esposito had coming—greaseball spent his life passing off his shit to other people—when Esposito’s face slackens, mouth upside-downing, eyes screwing; and he’s bawling, this big, torn-ass Marine kid blubbing in the dust, his fear and confusion so pungent you can nearly taste it; and it reminds me of my nephew and his wholesale surprise, his soft-limbed weakness when Jeannie took him for spanking, and my mouth drops open and the words fall out: “He gave it to me.”
“What did you say, Jackson?” says Fugate.
Carter sucks his smoke too hard, and bursts out coughing. I catch his face in the corner of my eye, sense his dark-eyed, flesh-lipped spite, and I feel the urge to slap him off me, like he’s some nasty, jungle-scuttling suckbug. I breathe deep, testing the words in my brain, like I’m running lines for a show.
“He gave me the photograph. Yesterday.”
Pederson lets go of Esposito; he staggers.
The base is turned down quiet. Over the mountains, the darkness is getting weak, and dawn is creeping. And my hands and feet get still, like whatever puppet master’s been jerking my strings has quit, and that fire inside me dims, and I feel the day fresh and ugly on my face, and I tell the bright, terrible truth.
Jeannie / May 1968
The flag was hanging outside the house; the windows shone clean. Jeannie knocked on the door, and turned to straighten Billy’s tie.
“Nobody here,” said Charlie.
Jeannie knocked louder; the door swung open and Frank Sinatra, the sound of men laughing, washed over the porch.
“Honey!” Jeannie’s dad was wearing a smart suit, pressed and well-fitting. He pulled in for a dry kiss. “You look tired. You okay?”
“She hasn’t been sleeping,” said Billy, shaking Jeannie’s dad by the hand.
“I’m fine,” said Jeannie. “My allergies acting up, is all.”
“You keep an eye on her, Billy,” said her dad, lifting Charlie into his arms and tickling him under the chin. “When she was a kid, only time she couldn’t sleep was when she’d done something bad. You better make sure she hasn’t been taking your checkbook for a spin in those fancy city stores of yours.”
“Daddy,” said Jeannie, but the word came out husked. She cleared her throat and glanced at Billy; he was grinning.
“Whatever it takes to keep the old lady happy,” he said.
“Too right, too right,” said Jeannie’s dad. He waved his arm. “Enough hanging around on the doorstep. C’mon in.” He tucked Charlie under his arm like a parcel and disappeared into the party. Billy raised his eyebrows; Jeannie took his arm and led him inside.
“I’ve never seen your father so excited,” murmured Billy as they removed their shoes in the hallway, setting them next to the dozen pairs of brogues and loafers that nosed the wall like boats.
“He’s always jazzed on Memorial Day,” said Jeannie. Feeling a little exposed in her stocking feet, she pushed her pumps back on.
“Hey, you track dirt on that carpet, you’re going to clean it up,” said Billy.
Jeannie gave him a smile. “He’ll hear you,” she whispered; then she smoothed down her dress, and stepped into the living room.
Before she left home, Jeannie saw these men together many times, on Memorial Days, Veterans Days, Corps birthdays—each year the group a little sparser, the guts a little fatter, the drinking a little greedier. Today she had expected a small knot of liver-spotted men with thin voices and weak handshakes, and was surprised to find they filled the room with their noise and their shining heads and their softening brawn. Hardly a woman among them—the wives dead, divorced, or excused. As she entered the room, she drew eyes and murmurs, a few nods; then, to her relief, she disappeared again, as anecdotes were resumed and drinks refilled.
“Here she is!” It was Bernie, pushing his way through the group of men that bunched by the record player. He funneled a fistful of potato chips into his mouth and licked grease from each finger before shaking Billy’s hand. “You must be the knight in shining armor,” he said. Billy grinned. “Happy to meet you.”
“You too, sir,” said Billy.
“You remember Bernie Garubbo?” said Jeannie. “He was my boss at the diner.” She heard the smallness of her own voice.
“Best hamburger I ever had in the city.” Billy swabbed his palm on the back of his pant-leg.
“You should come by again.”
“I moved across town to SF General, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to get rid of me. My father’s still at UCSF—I’ll send him your way.”
&nbs
p; “Do, do,” said Bernie. The two men nodded at each other in silence. Across the room, Charlie yelped with laughter as Jeannie’s dad turned him upside down and ran his fingers over his stomach.
“That your ankle-biter?” said Bernie.
“Sure is,” said Billy.
“Lively little fella. Looks just like Kip when he was a kid.”
“He’s naughty like Kip, that’s for sure,” said Jeannie.
“A kid’s got to have a little mischief. Here, Jeannie—looks like your husband could do with a beer.” Bernie drained his Schlitz and shook the bottle. “Another for me too.”
Jeannie went to fetch the beers from the kitchen, and she was straight back in the diner, Bernie’s Old Spice in her nostrils, her ears burning as she sassed him under her breath. Her heart flared with resentment, and she thought of how wrong he was about her, how she wasn’t the shy little good girl anymore, how she was as grown and guilty as the rest of them—guiltier, even. She felt a scuttle of fear. Returning with the beers, her hands sticky on the glass, she told herself that she was safe, that there would be no reason for the draft board to question the letter, that soon Charles Dewey would receive his exemption and it would all be done, forgotten. Billy and Bernie took the beers without looking at her.
“Garubbo.” It was Jeannie’s dad, grasping Bernie by his stout shoulder and beaming. “What do you think of my baby girl? A doctor’s wife now, living in the heart of the city.”
“The city’s not what it used to be,” said Bernie, shaking his head. “Full of faggots and wetbacks.” He took a long swallow of beer. “Tell me, how’s that boy of yours doing?”
“Still in country. North Central Coast. It’s—what?—eighty klicks from Khe Sanh.”
Bernie frowned. “It’s ugly out there. Kip seeing any action?”
Jeannie’s dad nodded. “Wrote me a couple of weeks ago, tells me they’re getting a lot of heat—getting probed every few days. They got some big guns up there—155-millimeter howitzers.” Bernie whistled. “I tell you, though, those slants don’t take no for an answer.”
The Outside Lands Page 14
