Nam-A-Rama

by Phillip Jennings

  Then he turned back to me. “These guys aren’t as dumb as they look. But if the soldiers get back to the village and find out we took their fathers, we’re probably going to get the shit shot out of us when they catch us.” He paused and looked at the gunny, the girl, and the midget, then back at me. “But this is going pretty well except for that and the damn U.S. Air Force trying to blast us, don’t you think?” He ducked his head back through the canvas flap.

  In a moment he reappeared.

  “Jack, I promised these guys we’d stop and pick up some beer. What do you say?”

  I adjusted the midget on my knee and looked back at him. Uncle Sam, now off the roof, stuck his head through the flap alongside Gearheardt.

  “No way, Gearheardt.”

  He disappeared again, and I heard the unmistakable sounds of pissing and moaning in English and in Vietnamese. I tuned it out just as we plunged into the mother of all potholes and hit bottom with spineshattering force. The midget queen of England’s head drove back against my teeth with a crack. The driver laughed out loud and drool flew from his mouth. The girl’s leg rubbed against mine as we careened out of the hole. This was the most romantic moment of my life.

  I fell asleep just after we stopped to get beer for Gearheardt and his pals in the back of the truck. When I woke up my head hurt like a bastard.

  The gunny was talking to the girl.

  “She says that we are nearing Hanoi, Captain. How are you feeling, sir? I think you must have taken a bit of a bump in the shootdown. Your eyes were dilated this afternoon, and to tell you the truth you seemed a bit goofy, if you’ll pardon me.”

  I drifted off again, the headache blissfully disappearing in a foggy half sleep. It was almost gone when I awoke and looked through where the windshield should have been.

  We had seen bomb damage in the countryside, but now it became increasingly evident. Crater upon crater around burned out buildings, and rings of berms that looked to be anti-aircraft gun emplacements.

  When we heard the air-raid siren we knew that we were nearing Hanoi proper. The sound was faint, but moments later we heard the thump, thump of bombs exploding in the distance. Our driver grew somber, and the gunny quieted as he listened to the departing American aircraft that came over us. I had filled him in on all that I knew about our mission and Barbonella. He took it the way that Hannibal’s men took the decision to cross the Alps on elephants; nothing was too bizarre for officers and politicians to dream up for the grunts. Finally he had said, “Well, I’m proud to be part of it.”

  I sat up suddenly.

  “What happened to the midget? And the girl?”

  “They hopped off just when we hit the outskirts of Hanoi, Captain. You don’t remember all of that?”

  “Did she say anything? The girl, I mean. Did she—”

  “For a Vietnamese, she spoke pretty decent Spanish. She lambasted you and Gearheardt pretty well. She knew I was just a poor pawn of the rich.” The gunny smiled.

  “Spanish? What in the hell—”

  “You’d better hope that you don’t run into that one again, Captain. She’s a girlfriend of a Cuban, Juanton something, and tough as nails.”

  Late in the afternoon we stopped alongside the road. The gunny, seemingly the only one of our entourage with a lick of sense, felt we should wait until darkness to enter Hanoi. Gearheardt and his new best friends sat in a small circle passing around a huge bottle of Vietnamese beer. I sat with my back against a tree and tried not to think about the folly of rolling into the enemy city armed only with an M-60, a vague sense of mission, and a crazed Marine pal who believed in himself more than he believed in all of the dangers in the world. It was almost peaceful.

  Gearheardt, more alert than I would have thought, heard it first.

  “Jack,” he said, “do you hear that? I swear it sounds like a C-123 coming overhead, low and slow. Do you suppose it’s some kind of rescue mission for us?”

  “We have no one wanting to rescue us, Gearheardt.”

  He stood and made his way to the edge of the trees where he could look up toward the southeast. After a moment, he pointed.

  “That, my pessimistic friend, is a C-123. And, if I’m not mistaken, it has Air America painted along the side.”

  I moved to see where he was pointing. The silver aircraft was cruising as if it were flat-hatting over an Iowa cornfield. Although it was too high for me to read the letters, I could see the outline of an insignia where I knew the Air America logo usually was painted.

  “Those CIA pilots may be rotten bastards, but they have some balls,” Gearheardt said, respectfully. “If they aren’t looking for us, what in the hell do you suppose they’re doing up here in the land of the ack-ack?”

  —which at that time opened up all around us with a roar that sent me to the ground and the villagers under the truck.

  Gearheardt held his ground, watching the tracers arc over and behind the C-123.

  “Jack,” he shouted above the din of the 88s and 37mms, “they aren’t shooting at the damn thing. It’s like they’re giving a salute. A major fix is in, Jack. Major.” Rather than being curious, Gearheardt sounded in awe.

  I joined him at the treeline in time to see the rear cargo door of the aircraft fall open as it passed overhead. A lone figure catapulted from the door and a parachute popped open almost immediately. All of us, villagers, the gunny, the idiot truck driver, and Gearheardt, watched openmouthed as the paratrooper drifted slowly downward.

  Gearheardt grabbed the Japanese binoculars that hung around the neck of the village chief. After a moment of adjusting and swearing a smile came to the lips below the eyepiece.

  “Naked as a damn jaybird, Jack. Those straps must be hell on her crotch, but that is one fine pair of tits.”

  Although he supposedly spoke no English, at the sound of “tits” the ancient villager grabbed the binoculars from Gearheardt’s hands and jerked them to his face. After a moment of adjusting and even more apparent swearing, a smile came over his lower face that exposed his molars.

  We watched the woman—she was decidedly that, even without binoculars—drift near the dry rice field, touch down with her feet, fall on her face, and bounce over onto her butt, on which she was dragged a few yards until the parachute collapsed.

  She rose and unbuckled, looked at the hordes of North Vietnamese bearing down on her, and spoke loudly enough for us to hear, two hundred yards away. We couldn’t understand much, although Gearheardt said he could make out “motherfucker” and “agent” in the late-afternoon blue air.

  In one of the only times he retreated from a naked woman, Gearheardt turned and grabbed the truck driver, whose shirt front was soaked with drool.

  “Everybody get your asses into the truck. We still have a few miles to go and two beers to drink before we get to Hanoi.”

  The gunny herded all aboard. As Gearheardt jumped up into the back he looked at me. “She’s got legs all the way up to her ass, Jack. This is our chance.” He closed the cover, and I heard him uncapping more beer bottles. His seriousness had lasted almost a minute.

  It turned out to be more than a few miles in to Hanoi. As we drove, we observed troops and civilians streaming toward the area we had departed as if a giant Vietnamese-magnet had landed. We drove two or three miles, having no one challenge us.

  “Damn, Gunny,” I said, “maybe something is finally working like it was supposed to.”

  At that moment, a troop of little angry men in green uniforms and pith helmets stopped us. My heart raced as they surrounded the truck, waved their weapons, and shouted. Indicating that we should get out of the truck, they gave us no chance to further the ruse that we were prisoners already under control of some authority—which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. Gearheardt and three of the villagers were standing pissing out on the road when we looked around back of the truck.

  Gearheardt grinned when he saw me and said, “Are we almost there?”

  We got the whacking that we evident
ly deserved before a semblance of order was restored and we convinced them that we weren’t a crew shot down in the just-completed air raid. It seemed to make a difference in the general hubbub, which included some pummeling of the villagers also. Finally the gunny got a conversation started with one of the officers. He argued that Gearheardt and I were on a special mission and that we needed to be taken to see Ho Chi Minh.

  That brought about another round of whacking and kicking while the soldiers stripped us of our flight suits and boots. We stood in our skivvies beside the road. By this time a crowd of cranky Vietnamese had gathered, and it was evident that they thought we hadn’t had near enough abuse. Gearheardt didn’t help things by his constant grin and tiger-striped skivvies. I could have whacked him myself as he continued to antagonize the soldiers and the gathered crowd.

  The soldiers found the letter from the President in Gearheardt’s flight suit, and the gunny tried to point out the presidential seal, but the troops didn’t seem to be impressed. The gunny turned to me.

  “Didn’t you gentlemen have some sort of plan?” he asked.

  “You mean besides flying all the way up here to get beaten to death by this crowd?” I replied.

  One of the soldiers stepped forward and raised his rifle to strike Gearheardt. Gearheardt’s look stopped him for a moment, and behind us we heard the soldiers that had been rifling our gear let out an exclamation. The one who was in charge came over to me and held up a photo. He looked at my face, back at the photo, and then spoke to the gunny. The photo was from my wallet. It was a picture of Penny and me, with Penny in full Mickey Mouse regalia, enormous head and all. The North Vietnamese seemed unsure of themselves now.

  “They want to know if you know Mickey Mouse personally,” the gunny said in a low voice. “That’s you in the picture, isn’t it?”

  It was getting dark and I was getting cold in my underwear. Of course it was me in the picture. The gunny confirmed that it was, and the officer struck a match and held it to my face and then to the picture. He grinned.

  “Mick Mou,” he said. “You.” He pointed to me and I nodded my head.

  “Donald Duck is married to my sister.”

  “Shut up, Gearheardt,” I said. “Just let this goon get everyone calm. I’m not up for another round of bashing, if you don’t mind.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Gee, I was only asking.”

  The gunny and the Vietnamese had a moment’s conversation, and then we were given back our flight suits. Our boots were already on the feet of soldiers. We saw them clomping around the truck, and I cautioned Gearheardt with my eyes to leave well enough alone. After another round of shouting and pushing, the soldiers let the villagers load back onto their truck and leave. One of them gave Gearheardt a thumbs-up as the truck drove off.

  We were loaded onto another flatbed truck, hands bound behind us, and we drove slowly through the crowd of fist-shaking people. I wondered briefly why no guards were in back with us and quickly decided no one wanted to brave the spit, bottles, bricks, trash, and sticks thrown at us by the anti-Disney group in the crowd. We were out of range soon, and I looked over at Gearheardt trying to dislodge a large tree branch from his shoulders. His head was bleeding but no serious wounds were evident. The same with the gunny, and I didn’t feel too much the worse for wear. I let out a breath that it seemed I had been holding since the troops had ordered us out of the first truck. The streets of Hanoi were narrow and dark, looking no different from the streets of Saigon for the most part, absent the color of advertising, rows of strip joints, and people. We saw almost no one while the truck sped toward the center of the town, throwing us dangerously near the edge of the flatbed when we rounded corners.

  The gunny scooted next to me and leaned into my ear.

  “You still have that map. I can see it sticking out of your flight suit. I’m going to move around and try to get it. Stick your knee out this way.”

  When he had it in his hands, behind his back, he turned back to me. “We may not have much time,” he said. Gearheardt leaned toward us so that he could hear also. “I’m going to roll off this truck. If I can get away, I’ll find one of the contacts on that map and then we’ll find you. Whiffenpoof, Gon Norea, somebody that can help us.”

  “I’d suggest putting on a hat,” Gearheardt said. “Walking around Hanoi in a flight suit with your hands tied behind your back could raise suspicions. I’ve noticed a lot of these people are not six feet tall with blond hair. Just a suggestion.”

  Not having suffered five years of Gearheardt’s sarcasm probably kept the gunny from resenting it. Almost.

  “I’ll take that into consideration, Captain. I realize it’s not as well thought out as your plan of dropping in on Ho Chi Minh unexpectedly, but I’ll work on the details later.”

  “Gunny, do what you have to do. Remember we lost the plan out of the window before we read it. Hopefully, someone on that map has some knowledge that will be helpful.”

  “It’s also helpful that I speak Russian, and if I can get a dark suit that doesn’t fit maybe I can pass. I always have the advantage of being unexpected. How many Marine Corps gunny sergeants do you think they see walking around the streets up here?” He moved toward the edge of the bed. “And if they stop me, I’ll probably end up wherever they take you anyway.” When we began to slow for the next corner, he was gone.

  The truck turned onto a wide boulevard, trees on an island running down the middle, dark and shuttered shop houses lining both sides. Gearheardt and I sat with our backs against the cab, both silent and looking up at the moonless, dark sky. I had to think about what kind of a naive, trusting, dumb, romantic sonofabitch would find himself on the bed of a truck in downtown Hanoi without a clue as to what he was doing. And who was the one-eyed Vietnamese midget manager with sloping breasts? We hit a bump and I banged my butt down hard on the wooden bed. Gearheardt, the bastard, was humming “Wings Over Mexico” or “Here Comes Santa Claus,” I couldn’t tell the difference, although he always said there was one, and it dawned on me that my friend might have lied to me about a lot of things.

  Just as we pulled to a stop in front of an ominous building with guards outside and bars on the windows, Gearheardt nudged me. “Has it occurred to you that Gunny Buckles might be a spy?”

  At least I could still feel cranky. “What in the hell do you mean by that?”

  A guard appeared on the street beside us and motioned menacingly for us to shut up and get down from the truck. Gearheardt ignored him.

  “He shows up, gets a ride to Hanoi, and then disappears. You have to admit that seems a little strange. I know that you were spilling the guts of our plan to him all the way to Hanoi. How trustworthy can a guy be if he’s running a whorehouse in Danang when he’s supposed to be killing people?”

  “Our plan? Our plan?” I shouted at him even as two soldiers appeared beside the first and began to drag me off of the truck. “And just what plan is that, Gearheardt? The one—”

  “Hey, knock off the earheardt-Gay. I told these guys my name was Narsworthy.”

  I really, truly wanted to cry. How had I let myself believe this idiot was doing anything but winging it, just to have an adventure, thinking that because we were Americans, we would somehow prevail, or win, or save the day, or … my mind began to stutter. I didn’t know what to think next.

  And I didn’t get the chance to think anything next except how incredibly painful it was to be dragged backward by my bound hands, up two steps, through a door, down a wooden-floored hall and then, after having our hands untied, thrown down a flight of concrete stairs. Gearheardt landed beside me, groaning and cursing. The door was closed at the top of the stairs and we were in darkness.

  “You can bet I’ll be telling Mr. Minh about this treatment as soon as I see him,” Gearheardt shouted.

  “Oh shut up, Gearheardt,” I said.

  “Where in the hell have you two been?” a voice asked out of the dark b
ehind us. It was a woman’s voice. Pissed.

  “Who’s that?” Gearheardt asked. “Who’s in here?”

  “Who is the hell do you think it is, you nincompoop? How many American women do you think parachuted into Hanoi this evening?”

  “You must be Barbonella,” Gearheardt said.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I went on. “We saw you land.”

  “No, you can thank that smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch in the White House I’m here. I doubt if God has ever talked anyone into jumping naked out of an airplane.”

  “I just meant that we were supposed to hook up with—”

  “Are you still naked?” Gearheardt asked.

  “Don’t get any ideas, soldier boy. Let’s cut the crap. What are we supposed to do now?”

  Of course Gearheardt and I were silent.

  “Don’t tell me. You two don’t have the foggiest idea. Great. Cowboy Larry Bob tells me that you two will meet me and take it from there. So here the three of us are in some spider-infested stinkhole in downtown Hanoi, with our tits hanging out.”

  I heard Gearheardt groan.

  “There’s spiders in here?” I had feared them since childhood, more than anything else on the face of the earth.

  “Oh, brother. You’re worried about spiders and your pal is about to pop his wad. This is the worst nightmare since that space movie idea. Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Gearheardt, damn it, that’s my leg. Get your ass off of me. Ouch! Hey! Jesus, let go of my hair! Damn it you two, back off.”

  I listened to heavy breathing on either side of me, but at least sensed no motion.

  “Both of you calm down. We’re officers in the United States Marine Corps, for God’s sake. At least two of us are, and you, Barbonella, you’re … well, whatever you are, attacking Gearheardt isn’t going to help things. Besides, he likes it. Oh, crap. Barbonella, did you just spit on me? Come on, now. We’ve got a mission to carry out. We need to be resourceful and just figure out how to do it.” Silence. “Have either of you got a flashlight or maybe even a match?”