by John Hart
“What? Are you kidding? That’s great!”
Even as he said it and forced a smile, Gregg felt so empty that his stomach gnawed.
A jeep honked outside. Gregg made himself salute them all, give K.O. a last pat on the head, then commanded himself to leave—
Only to see Izzy waiting in the jeep for him.
Gregg hopped in, feeling lighter than he had since receiving his draft notice, and together he and Izzy waved goodbye until they rounded a corner and saw the sign: 8th Field Hospitalmarking the entrance they had just exited.
For Gregg, it would be the last time.
36
The flight to Tan Son Nhut was the usual transport; a big, ugly, noisy no frills MACV. Even so, as it lumbered down the boiling hot tarmac both Gregg and Izzy slapped hands and grinned like kids on a Ferris wheel. They sat on Gregg’s duffel, deafened by the huge propellers seemingly inches from their ears. There could be no hearing so they both settled in for the relatively short flight and leaned back into their own thoughts.
Izzy was eagerly anticipating the trip to Hawaii and reunion with Margie. He could hardly believe his luck in getting this special R&R arranged by J.D. through high command, disguised as a “Combat Stress Diagnosis and Treatment” training seminar at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu. All Izzy had to do was check in, sign his name, and then have a blessed week in The World with his dream girl.
He wondered if the nightmares would go away, or at least be less intense. He knew Margie had the same problem. Gregg, too. He wondered if J.D. ever suffered from dreading to sleep. Probably not. In all Izzy’s studies and dealings with others, he had never known anyone quite like J.D. In some ways he was like an elite athlete or artist who moved through the world in their own way with their own rules. However, in another way he was like an elegant kind of thug or rogue who imposed his will and rules on those around him. Even, perhaps, on Peck? His reported “suicide” and note of confession might have been good for his soul but clearly not for the remains that were rumored to have been found in Ghost Soldier shape.
From an intellectual and psychological perspective it was often hard to differentiate between J.D. and Rick. Each moved like another kind of species or predator animal in their own worlds. One apparently did the bidding of the US government in the shadows and the other was a true denizen of the shadows and dark.
Upon arriving at the air base, Izzy checked in at the BOQ and got the news that his Pan Am flight to Honolulu was leaving at midnight. He and Gregg both rode the jeep over to the processing station where Gregg would begin the usual army tedium. As Gregg handed over his papers with his orders for his DEROS, the Specialist looked up sharply.
“Captain Gregg Kelly? Eighth Field Hospital, 99KO?”
“That’s right,” Gregg said uneasily.
Gregg glanced at Izzy and like couples who finish each other’s sentences, they knew they were thinking the same thing. Had this all been an elaborate ruse to rope them up together and send them on a fast rail to no telling where?
“You are to report right over there, sir, and the sergeant will take care of you. You’re being expected, as well as your company.”
Izzy and Gregg moved as a reluctant unit to the imposing Master Sergeant.
“Captain Gregg Kelly reporting.”
The sergeant came to attention. “Captain Kelly, sir. Let me get your bags, sir.”
“What?” Gregg asked suspiciously. “Why?”
“Why, sir, you must know that you are going out VIP, First Class, right through that door there with the admirals, bird colonels, generals, and you are all processed, sir.” He glanced at Izzy’s name patch. “The orders say to admit your friend here, too. Both of you go right in now.” And he held open the door to what looked like a board room for a top Fortune 500 corporation.
The air conditioning was another level of coolness to match the walnut paneled walls with silk oriental scrolls, a splashing fountain, and a navy steward in white manning the bar who made them the tallest gin and tonics they had ever seen. On the buffet table was a silver tray with anything you could want from home.
“Oh man, are you kidding me?” Izzy filled his plate with lox and cream cheese and bagels while Gregg loaded up on prime rib that looked almost as delicious as what Sergeant Washington had grilled up on the beach.
“Apparently it is good to be a general or an admiral or a spook,” Izzy noted as they got settled into the huge, comfy leather club chairs. “This must be the upside to making the team.”
“It is definitely an excellent sendoff that I never expected from him. I wonder how he knew. . .” Gregg put down his G&T and turned suddenly serious. “It was unexpectedly hard for me to leave the 99 today and having you with me means the world. Promise me when you go back, you be careful, man, keep your ass down, no heroics, go out to the mission and look out for Kate—hell, you know all this. You know you better write me back. You’re the only one that…”
“I can ever talk to,” supplied Izzy.
“Yeah, don’t you know it, buddy.”
As they shook on always being a team, another steward in white approached the table, bearing a silver tray. On the tray was an envelope. The delivery made to its recipient, Gregg picked it up. His hands felt cold.
Gregg did as instructed on the outer envelope and did not open it until he was well on his way on the plane taking him home. He half expected the contents to self-destruct and take him out, only to be greeted by the unexpected yet again:
Dear Gregg,
I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying the sort of ride back home that you deserve and earned. We might not have seen eye to eye and maybe we never will but I wanted to give you my personal thanks for everything you have done. I’m sure you will understand when I say that our friend is at a “special” facility that is not on a map and does not exist and do not be surprised if your expertise is sought out again for a particular type of research. To that end, I have enclosed a little something you requested and ask that you keep as confidential as I know I can count on you to keep everything else.
In closing I would just like to say that this was the most difficult assignment of my career. Not only given the sensitivity of the issues involved, but because it became more than a job for me. You and Izzy taught me more than I ever expected to learn about human nature, including my own.
I wish you sanctuary and peace, Gregg. Read and enjoy. Until we meet again, I remain
Respectfully yours,
John Doe
NOTES FROM HELL
They say that war is hell. It is not. This is hell. The locked ward for the criminally insane. There are actually two locked doors at every EXIT. You need keys for both. I have one already. Every day the same walls, the same people, the same medications to slow down your brain to the pace of a snail. Medications that you can feel are altering your nervous system and destroying your speed and coordination. The blandness and sameness makes you crazier and crazier. The ones that have been here a long time are walking zombies. They shuffle along the halls, some of them actually drooling. Some wear helmets all the time because they seizure so often and are banging their heads all the time.
Oh, they are still dangerous, the walking zombies. They go off now and again and attack the staff. They mess them up pretty bad sometimes. If there is one thing crazy people and I have in common it is knowing who is dangerous. They stay away from me. The ones I know are dangerous I treat like very, very bad dogs. I always let them know where I am and never scare them or threaten them. If I have extra candy I give it to them. They remember. They remember the candy just like they remember who is mean to them. Milton managed to actually completely chew off the thumb and gouge out the eye of the tech that was mean to me before they subdued him. Only cost me a Mars bar. Old man Smith they say has bitten and disabled 5 techs in the crotch in his time here. He likes Snickers bars. He will help me get out for 3 bars when the time comes.
I am getting adept at faking the meds and hiding them to use later. I always know when a blood test is coming so can get blood levels where I need to. I got stupid once in Nam and got caught and then taken out of the war which was, as far as I was concerned, a great place. It will not happen again. I have a plan and it is a good one. It should be; I have gone over it several thousand times since I have plenty of time. I will get back again and this time I will be a new person with a new life and will develop my skills totally to another level. I know just what I want to do and what I want to be. I am highly motivated, gung ho as they say.
Everybody has a dream job says the vocational counselor and I agree with her. What can be better than a place they pay you to kill people for a living?? Almost everybody I knew over there was messed up by it. You go in there they say and all of you never comes back out. Me? I found myself. I felt better and better.
I can hardly wait to go back.
*
Gregg carefully folded the pages and returned them to the envelope. If only he could put away the snakes in his head just as easily, he would gladly close the door and never look at any of it ever again.
Hours later, he opened his eyes, and remembered sanctuary and peace. Looking out the window, Gregg smiled.
He could see the lights of San Francisco.
EPILOGUE
If Kate had started as Audrey dancing, she now felt like Sophia Loren in some hot Italian movie. She stood in the dusky light by the tatami floor mattress, looking down at J.D. He was sleeping. His lithe brown, muscled body was naked and sprawled like a big jungle cat over the sheet. The breeze from the fan rustled his hair. His body had slick old scars scattered like some ancient swordsman’s across his chest, arms, and legs. The sweat from their lovemaking was still on him. If this was what chemistry felt like then she had an all-time reference point for heat level. The last five days and nights were a blur of being entwined and sliding over each other’s sweat slicked bodies and swimming and snorkeling in the South China Sea.
She went out to the hammock and pulled down the filmy mosquito netting and then lazily swung back and forth, watching the tropical dusky sky turn dark and the stars begin to come out. Kate took a deep breath. Steady girl, she thought, steady. And then she thought, what the hell, am I talking about “Steady?”
She was as far from steady right now as she was from San Diego County and Katherine Lynn Morningside was too far gone to care. She knew that the guy on the sheets was about as likely to be domesticated as a panther, and what he did professionally was just as dangerous. She did not know precisely how he fit in with the government beyond their liaison with Phillip, nor had she probed since J.D. had a way of eliciting information himself. At this stage, she really thought it best he not know that Phillip was the would-be father who had arranged the abortion that didn’t go quite as expected.
C’est la vie. Such was life. And she had far more to be grateful for than most.
Certainly more than Shirley who had urged her to take a little time off, grab her chance at happiness while she could, because life was too fleeting to wait for assurances or second chances. Go, go! Shirley had waved her away, and away Kate had gone to join J.D. at his private dwellings.
There was a slight breeze coming up and Kate could hear some waves breaking on the shore. She had lit a candle before stepping outside and could see the main room’s interior as if for the first time. The small desk, portable typewriter, various books, most on Asian philosophy. The paintings were Chinese brush on rice paper and some on silk with poems in elegant Chinese calligraphy. J.D. had translated their words and told her how the painting, the poem, and the interaction of those and the observer was a way of communicating deep feeling and beauty that had been developed over six thousand years.
When she asked him who had painted them, he smiled and just said, “Me. Let’s go snorkeling.”
Under the water was another whole wet world that was just another kind of exploring of sensuality like their lovemaking.
“Hey,” he said next to the hammock. She had not even heard him move. “Are you receiving visitors in there?”
“I am,” she said. “At least the kind that can behave themselves since the last time you joined me we flipped out of here like a circus act.” Kate laughed.
So did J.D.
They canoodled side by side in the hammock, head to foot, looking at one another in the light from the lantern he had lit.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Mmmmm,” she said. “Yes, hungry, hungry.”
“The Headman’s sister is bringing over a special crispy fish, rice, and veggies. Fresh pineapple.”
“I am calling the front desk and extending my stay.”
“I hope so. Want to go on a river cruise?”
“Sure. Mississippi, Nile?”
“No, the Mekong.” J.D. caught her wrist. The matching silver bracelet on his glinted in the moonlight. “I have a little work, combined with a family visit with my brother. He is, shall we say, a bit of a mystery?”
“Must run in the family.” Kate pretended to think about it but they both already knew she couldn’t resist an adventure any more than she could the lover in the hammock. “Actually, I think I would like that. A Mekong mystery. I know you have mysteries, but I did not know you had a brother.”
“No one does, except you now.” He kissed her then. “We leave in the morning.”
The Island Dreaming
A man with outward courage dares to die;
A man with inner courage dares to live.
—Lao Tzu
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Anyone who writes stories of war knows how important support and encouragement is to getting through the darkness.
No one could have a finer or more gifted and giving co-author than Olivia Rupprecht, my writing partner.
With gratitude to our publisher, Lou Aronica, whose immediate belief and enthusiasm for this story meant everything.
My thanks to early readers and dear friends Nuala Vermeiren, Anne Algard, Sonja Kamber, Steven Smith, Berger Hareide, Nancy Gold, Nick Torokvei, and my brother Joseph Hart. Nora Tamada’s and Glenna McReynold’s early editorial feedback proved invaluable; Olivia and I are indebted to you both, as well as to Scott Rupprecht for going the distance. Much gratitude also to Michele Matrisciani and her father Dan, a Mekong Delta Vet whom I value for his endorsement of the authenticity and reality of the book.
My respect and gratitude to master calligrapher, artist, and teacher John Nip. And to Gerry Lopez for her art expertise, a special thanks.
I would like to especially mention the late P.J. Torokvei who loved the original story and with whom I wrote the screenplay from which this novel evolved. She provided support, dear friendship, encouragement, and SpiritBearArtFarm, the best sanctuary in the world for writing this story.
Love and gratitude to my children Kelly, Nick, and Caitlin.
A simple thank you is not enough for Andrea Jane who has been through the dark nights and brought me back and always believed.
Finally to the brave and dedicated women and the men of the 98th (KO), the Red Cross, and the mission hospitals in 1969–70 for all you did and all you gave.
– John Hart
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOHN L. HART, Ph.D. has been a practicing psychotherapist for more than forty years, starting in Vietnam where he was a psychology specialist, then studying with James Hillman and receiving his doctorate from the University of Southern California. John is an internationally respected lecturer, has been a consultant to the nation of Norway for their Fathering Project, and maintained a private practice in Los Angeles for twenty years. He is the author of Becoming a Father from HCI Books, co-author of Modern Eclectic Therapy (Springer), and was mentored by the renowned poets Robert Bly and William Stafford. John’s poetry has appeared in many literary journals and magazines such as Verve and Rivertalk. He has co-authored three
screenplays with veteran screenwriter P.J. Torokvei whose credits include Caddyshack II, Guarding Tess, Back to School, Real Genius, and many more. In addition to his professional achievements, John won the small college World Series and is in three Oregon sport halls of fame. His photography is featured in Sooke Regional Museum and his Chinese brush paintings, which appear in There Will Be Killing, can be found in Hawaiian art galleries. John divides his time between Hawaii and Vancouver Island, B.C., where he is Executive Director of Spirit Bear Art Farm and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
OLIVIA RUPPRECHT (aka Mallory Rush) is an award-winning, best-selling author who began her career as a novelist with Bantam Books in 1989. After seventeen published novels with extensive foreign translations from Bantam, Harlequin, and Doubleday, Olivia has gone on to manage fiction and nonfiction projects for major publishers as a copywriter, ghostwriter, book doctor, and developmental editor. She has served as editor for NINK, the official newsletter of the international authors’ organization Novelists, Inc., and in 2009 assumed the position of Series Developer for the groundbreaking reality-based novel series from HCI Books, True Vows. Olivia’s moveable feast of a desk is presently near Madison, Wisconsin.
