by Robert Roth
“When’s this story gonna end?” Childs cut in.
But Chalice said, “Shut up, man. I’m interested.”
“Okay, to make it short he finally gave up and let me plead innocent because it didn’t make that much difference anyway — ‘the principle was the same.’ So when my trial came up I pleaded innocent and he had all kinds of notes and looked real confident and I figured everything was gonna be all right. Then the first narc took the stand. He starts telling all kinds of ridiculous lies, and I’m writing ‘he’s lying’ all over this yellow pad and shoving it in front of my lawyer and he’s nodding his head real confident like. But when it was his turn to cross-examine, he said, ‘No questions, your honor.’ I almost shit! And while the second narc is getting on the stand I’m telling my lawyer he’s crazy and everything, and all he says is, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it all figured out.’ I told the dude I’d just about had it with the way he had everything figured out, but he said they’d never take my word against two narcs anyway. . . . Maybe he was right, but I almost went batshit when the second narc starts lying his ass off too.
“So then the judge tells the defense to call its witnesses, and of course we didn’t have any, and I’m sitting there nervous as hell, all ready to get carted off to jail. But then my lawyer gets up and starts talking. I gotta hand it to that dude, it was the coolest speech I ever heard in my life — all about the rights of the individual, oppression of the state, trying to legislate morals, and something about capitalism too. Just listening to the dude calmed me down. It was like watching Perry Mason on TV, only a hundred times better. It didn’t even seem like I was the one on trial. The whole rest of the trial I just leaned back in my chair and took it all in. Even when the verdict was ready, and the judge said, ‘Will the defendant please rise and face the jury,’ I just sat there looking around calm as can be. Then the judge said it again and my lawyer poked me in the ribs. Man, I was shocked as shit when I saw that judge staring at me. But it wasn’t until I was standing up looking that jury foreman in the eye that it really hit me — I was the defendant! . . . That’s when I knew it was all over.
“That fucked-up lawyer of mine was more surprised than I was when the sonofabitch said, ‘Guilty.’ He looked like somebody was chokin’ him to death. And when I heard the jerk mumble, ‘I knew we should of pleaded guilty,’ I almost did choke him to death.”
Childs cut in, “I’m gonna choke you to death if you don’t finish this fucked-up story and tell us what it has to do with joining the Marine Corps.”
“Take it easy, man. I’m getting to it.”
“I’ll believe it when you do.”
“Well it turned out the judge wasn’t such a bastard after all. Because it was my first offense, he said I could go in the service instead of going to jail. Believe it or not, that sounded pretty good at the time. I was probably about to get drafted anyway. My lawyer starts raving about how we’re gonna appeal and everything, so the judge has a conference with him. I couldn’t hear much of it, but I think he asked, ‘What are you trying to do to this kid?’ But my trusty lawyer wouldn’t have any of it. He starts giving his speech all over again while I’m standing there wondering if it’s all just a bad trip. The judge finally holds up his hand to shut him up, then looks at me and says, ‘Jail or the service?’ And here the fuck I am.”
“Took you a hell of a long time to get here,” Childs commented.
“But why the Marine Corps?” Chalice asked.
“The Crotch was the only one that would take me. That’s why a lot of guys join. There were about ten of us in my PI platoon alone. One guy had been arrested a dozen times. When you fill out the forms, the recruiters tell you to say you’ve never been arrested. By the time they find out you lied, you’re already halfway through Parris Island. And if you haven’t been in any trouble since you’ve been in, they usually let you stay.”
“I bet you wished you were in jail when you got to PI.”
“Naw, that place was just like home — three fathers yelling at me instead of one. . . . The fucking truth is I needed something like the Marine Corps — people ordering me around, no time to think, no choices to make. One thing about drugs is they fucking disorient you. You don’t know whether you’re up or down. They take all the fucking order out of your life — which ain’t as good as it sounds. That’s why the Crotch wasn’t such a bad thing. I mean I didn’t need this much fucking discipline, but I needed some of it. Besides, like Tony 5 said, I’ve met some of the best motherfuckers I’ve ever known in the Crotch, better than Berkeley. . . . They seemed cool at first, but then they started looking phonier and phonier, always screaming about revolution, calling everybody a fascist. You should of heard some of the speeches, all the same bullshit, as bad as Johnson or any of those politicians. . . . I gotta admit I’ve never seen so many intelligent people in one place, but they’re even better at fooling themselves than a bunch of holy rollers. Berzerkley’s the only place I’ve ever been where political fantasies are more important than sexual fantasies.”
“I thought you liked the freaks,” Chalice asked.
“I did . . . but they weren’t real, not like the guys you meet in the Crotch.”
“You call this real?”
“No — well yeah. I know it’s like we’re playing cowboys sometimes, but at least we know it. They don’t.”
“But they don’t go around killing people,” Chalice argued.
“That’s what he means,” Childs cut in.
Forsythe ignored Childs and said, “I’m not sure they wouldn’t if they could. When they call themselves revolutionaries, they really believe it. They think the whole world is gonna change if they just keep pulling mass temper tantrums.”
“But they don’t go around killing people,” Chalice insisted.
“No, not like us, not as many. But a lot of them don’t mind getting people killed. One time we had this demonstration that turned into a riot. I did my part —knocked a cop on his ass with a brick. We trashed his ass. I’d seen those pigs do the same thing to us, so it didn’t bug me a bit.… Then they started shooting. . . . The guy right next to me got killed. I couldn’t believe it. Two days later we had this memorial service for him. I’d never seen so many people on the same street. They started giving speeches about how the pigs were out to kill us, how he was an unarmed demonstrator. We all got real excited, yelling, ‘Off the pigs! Off the pigs!’ Pretty soon we had another riot going — smashing windows, beating up cops. I never felt so great. Then I saw this cop backing away from us. He was scared shitless, more scared than I was, everybody yelling, ‘Off the pigs! . . . ’ The cops started shooting again, and another one of us got killed.”
“Sounds great,” Childs commented.
Forsythe ignored him and continued. ”We got up another big funeral, even bigger than the first. When they started giving speeches again, blaming the cops and trying to start another riot, that’s when I realized they wanted the same thing to happen again, to get even more people for their next riot. Sure it was the pigs that shot him, but they wanted it to happen. They didn’t care how many of us got killed, screaming as if they had nothing to do with it. . . . Most of the freaks were all right. It was just the speechmakers. From then on I stayed away from the screamers and stuck to dope. I —”
“How do you know you won’t go back to drugs when you get out of the Crotch?” Chalice asked.
“No chance, not like before. Dope can make the world a lot nicer, but too much of it makes things worse.”
“What are you gonna do when you get out?” Hamilton asked.
“I want to go to Europe, see —”
Chalice cut him off by saying, “That’s what I was planning! . . . But most of my friends have already gone.”
“You and me, we can go together.”
“Great! . . . But you get out way before I do.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“No shit?”
“Sure, Professor. I’ll wait for you.�
�
“That’ll be cool. We can go halves on a Volkswagen camper with our separation pay.”
“Yeah. . . . Maybe motorcycles ’ud be even cooler.”
Hamilton said in a left-out tone, “Sounds like it’d be fun.”
“You can come with us,” Forsythe replied.
“Yeah! . . . But I’d have to check with my girl.”
“I know what that means,” Childs cut in.
“How about you?” Chalice asked.
“I’ve already been there. Europe’s just as fucked up as any other place.” Still excited, Forsythe turned back to Chalice. “I knew a dude in Berzerkley, best motherfucker I met there, he used to tell me all about when he was in Europe. He had a project: to get laid in every big city on the continent. Name any city and he could tell you where the whorehouses were: Paris, start at the Eiffel Tower, go down Rue de Whatshisfuck, make a left at Rue Joan of Arc or something, then a right; Hamburg, anywhere, they’re all whores; Zurich, corner of Jeckyl and Hyde; Stockholm, you —” Excited far more by Forsythe’s tone than the idea itself, Chalice cut him off. “Great! Maybe we can take him along.”
“He OD’d."
There was hardly a day that it didn’t rain; nor a patch of ground not covered by at least four inches of soft, orange mud. As soon as a man was able to put his boots on, he had to begin standing lines and going on working parties. This caused a good deal of griping, but being able to sleep in dry tents at least two nights a week did a lot to help the men to appreciate An Hoa. As soon as enough of them had recovered from their cases of immersion foot, the battalion resumed normal operations. Every platoon sent out a patrol each day and an ambush each night. Occasionally there would be platoon and company-size patrols, but they always returned to the battalion area before dusk.
The men realized that as soon as enough replacements had arrived, they would be ordered back to the bush. As always, there were just as many rumors about where they would be sent as possibilities — Phu Loc 6, Dodge City, the Phu Nons, and of course the Arizona. However, there was now one difference in these rumors, and this was the approach of the lunar new year, Tet. Everyone knew something big was going to happen, and the only speculation was about how big and where. Soon a new rumor became far more prevalent than any of the others. It involved a place very few of the men had ever head of, and was based upon facts they had read in service newspapers and heard over the radio, added to by news clippings sent from home, and often greatly expanded when retold. It concerned something they could understand far better than the type of war they were now fighting. The men knew that even if only a portion of this rumor were true, it still portended the greatest single event of the war; and no one doubted that he would be involved. Ominous as it seemed, most of the men viewed this event with anxious anticipation, for this would be it, in one place and at one time, huge and devastating, the final battle — Khe Sanh.
It was an hour before dusk, and Second Platoon was just returning from an all day patrol. Since dawn, the rain had been coming down in a steady, unvarying drizzle. Each man’s trousers were covered up to the knees with a thick coating of foamlike mud that made their legs appear encased in bright orange plaster casts. This sight would have been humorous to them if it hadn’t been such a common and bothersome occurrence. The men gathered in front of the platoon tent waiting for their turn to scrape the mud off their trousers and boots with one of the sticks that was being passed around. The master sergeant stuck his head out of the office long enough to call Pablo to get the mail. This was welcome news for all the men, all except Kramer.
He entered the officers’ hootch and sat down on his cot. Three times since he had returned from Da Nang, Pablo had approached him holding a letter. Each time he was sure it was the one he feared. It hadn’t been. Kramer knew that every day made less likely the chance that he would receive it; but sometimes he doubted the truth of this — thinking, ‘Maybe she just threw it away.’ He could never really accept this thought. It seemed impossible that she would decide without letting him know.
Again Pablo walked through the door of the officers’ hootch with a letter. Kramer reached out for it, thanking Pablo before he could leave. This time Kramer was sure, positive. Without looking at the envelope, he watched Pablo go out the door. Kramer had no need to look. The parchmentlike paper had a strange, foreign feel. He finally lowered his eyes and saw an ornate and unfamiliar handwriting on the envelope. The absence of a return address was more expected than surprising. There seemed little need to open the envelope or to wonder about what it contained. Instead, Kramer’s mind turned back to those hours when he had been with her. This was not the first time he had tried to convince himself that they could not have happened. What were these few moments that they could take the entire remainder of his life and make it a self-destructive farce. He no longer tried to belittle the things she had said, to pass them off for their simplicity, now admitting what he had realized then — that there was truth in this simplicity. It was impossible for him to think about her except as someone within a dream. Yet he knew that she was more real than he himself, and that his only hope was to somehow be able to forget her.
Again he looked down at the letter. Opening it seemed unnecessary — nothing more than a ceremony. His fingers moved across the characters of his name, as if reading them by braille. He actually thought about burning the letter without reading it, thus preventing himself from ever really knowing. The childish, wishing nature of this thought began to seem more pathetic than embarrassing. Kramer took his bayonet and carefully opened the letter. The piece of paper with his address on it was the first thing he saw, then a note.
Only now have I been able to do this. I will always remember. Some day you will understand.
Tuyen
Kramer read these words with a sense of acceptance, telling himself no other conclusion would have been possible. Still, as he watched, it wasn’t his hands that flicked open the lighter and began burning the note. While the flame did its work, Kramer remembered the Polaroid photograph in his wallet. He hesitated taking it out, and was finally prevented from doing so by footsteps upon the stairs of the hootch.
Colonel Nash entered, followed by Lieutenant Howell. They had come looking for Lieutenant Forest, the new company commander. Instead of leaving, they decided to wait for him. Kramer was glad to have something to take his mind off the letter. Solely for this reason, he asked Nash if he had any news about Khe Sanh.
“Just the same news: more mortar barrages and more men.”
“What about casualties?” Kramer asked.
“More of those, too.”
“Do you think we’ll end up there?” Howell asked.
“They’re not gonna stop the buildup now. It’s just a question of who gets tapped.”
“It kind of reminds you of something else,” Kramer commented.
“Too much like something else.”
Kramer was surprised by this answer. “You really think there’s a chance it’ll be the same thing?”
“No. It’s too much like Dien Bien Phu — the concentration of troops, the artillery, even the zigzag trenches. They’re too smart. It can’t be that simple.”
“But what if it is that simple?” Howell asked. “Can they pull it off?”
“It’s not a question of that. They know we’ll make them pay. It depends upon how many men they think it’s worth.”
“That’s what I don’t understand.” Nash nodded to Kramer to indicate the same thing was bothering him. “It’s not worth a damn thing, just a piece of ground.”
“I know,” Nash agreed. “They’ve never tried to hold anything yet.”
“Our air power could level the place,” Howell pointed out.
“If they can’t hold it, why —”
Nash cut Kramer off. “There’s only two ways you can look at it: either it’s Dien Bien Phu all over again, or it isn’t. If they think it is, then they’ll risk everything in one shot. I can’t believe they will. They’ve kept fi
ghting the same type of war for twenty years. Why would they suddenly lose their patience? They must know that no matter how bad the defeat, we’ll never pull out because we’ve lost a few square miles of jungle.”
“Maybe they just want us away from their supply trails,” Howell suggested.
“That’s bullshit. We’ve got a lot less control over the area than we think we have. Besides, supply routes can be changed. It isn’t worth the price they’d have to pay.”
“But if they don’t want Khe Sanh, what do they want?”
“The only way they’d pay the price is if they thought it would end the war; and if we know it won’t, so do they.”
“How else can you explain it?” Kramer asked.
“I can’t. I can only guess. . . . They’ve done something, and we’ve reacted to it. They do more of the same, and so do we. We must be doing exactly what they want.”
“But what do they want?” Howell asked.
“I don’t know. I just have the feeling that whatever we’re doing is wrong, and we won’t have to wait any longer than Tet to find out why.”
It was twelve o’clock and for the first time in a week it hadn’t rained since dawn. A perfectly clear sky promised at least a few more hours of sunshine. Sugar Bear entered the platoon tent and told everyone to fall out for a company formation. First Platoon was on a patrol, and the master sergeant began speaking as soon as the remaining three platoons quieted down.
“Men, this is the first sunny day we’ve had in a week, so I decided we should take advantage of it —”
“They’re gonna fuck with us.”
“We’re gonna have a parade.”
“We’re all gonna run around nude.”
“— The master sergeant from Echo Company and I made a little bet between us —”
“How many men they can get killed.”
“— I told him there wasn’t anything Hotel Company couldn’t do better than Echo —”
