Purple Daze
Page 9
I can’t believe they’d give me so much
responsibility.
Later, Mickey
P.S. Last night I stepped into a card game
and walked out with $54.
Cheryl
Yesterday, I showed my mom the short story
I wrote as a makeup for Ms. Hawes’s class
about a girl who stops taking crap from guys.
I got a dollar for my A.
This morning, Nuts & Chews set a gold
foil box on my place mat. Neatly folded
inside, an olive-green mohair sweater.
Cardigan, my size.
I think Mom’s and my story will
have a happy ending, after all.
His name is Lou.
Ziggy
Imagine a family that chops, cooks,
eats their meals together?
Maybe I’ll bake a cake today.
Angel or Devil’s food?
Phil
Dear Cheryl,
Mama mined it.
Wrapped a bomb and
a baby in a blanket.
Blew two grunts to
smither-fuckin’-eens.
Whoever heard of a baby booby-trap?
Capt’n says we’re fighting Commies
so our sons and daughters can crap
in a flush toilet.
All I want to do is come home in one piece
and make babies and live a quiet life in a
time and place without war.
With love, Phil
P.S. I hope I never get used to this.
Cheryl
It’s unreal, like a movie, or photos in the newspaper, or Hollywood
actors, although I know that’s not true, not really, but it’s easier, safer,
to think of them as fake soldiers touched up with makeup, red-dye
blood, it is easier, was easier, to pretend the war is a movie, but I know
it’s real, because Phil’s real, and his letters are real, and now I wish I’d
been paying more attention to all the Gunthers and Phils on the news,
and I’ve decided to spend six months allowance on books of tickets for
Disneyland and I’m going to tear out all the “E” tickets for Phil. ...
Phu Bai Vietnam
Cold C-ration breakfast.
Pack up.
Move out.
Cold C-ration lunch,
ham and lima beans,
warmed on an exhaust
manifold.
March.
Frag grenades.
Body count.
Another crappy meal.
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34 DEEP SHIT
Dear Cheryl,
I’m up to my ass now.
First, on the way back from Bermuda
I got caught sleeping on watch. Second,
I got in a fight in the chow line and was taken
straight to the Executive Officer’s stateroom.
He said, “This is it sailor. No more chances.”
Then I got busted drinking on a phony ID
and spent the night in jail. The next morning
I was right back up here.
Guess I won’t get liberty for a while.
Love, Mickey
P.S. My new girlfriend says I’m a godless alcoholic.
That slays me!
Ziggy
cheryl,
this is the last page in my journal and i wanted to tell you that i don’t
know why i did it—it wasn’t about mickey or don or me—mostly it
wasn’t about me because i’m nothing and that proves it because only
a nothing would do what i did in the gas station and then something
like that to her best friend—and i don’t expect you or god to forgive
me because i’ll never forgive myself—but i saw your mom at the
store and she looked so happy and i know it’s because she’s in love
and married a nice man and i think it’s about time someone in our
crowd was happy and i’m extra glad it’s you.
me
Phil
Darvon Date.
White powder buffers a tiny pink pill
inside a red and white capsule. The infirmary
prescribes them instead of aspirin.
Supposed to be better for our guts, since
we drink like fish and eat street crap.
I split the hulls,
stash the pills,
trash the rest.
Pretty and pink, she sinks into a
red, white, and blue-edged envelope.
I free her with my tongue, chase her
down with warm beer.
A perfect girlfriend who knows how
to take my mind off everything that’s
happening here.
Nancy
Professor James is wearing a Betty Crocker
apron, brandishing a broom, lecturing on the
general unhappiness of women in our society.
He says television and movies, newspapers
and magazines, schools and even our
parents are manipulating us into thinking
housewife is synonymous with occupation.
He says women are victims of a false belief
system that expects us to find meaning in our
lives through our husbands and raising children.
“Housework can be done by any 8-year-old,”
he says, trading the broom for a paperback,
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.
“Who would like to borrow it?”
I raise my hand.
Cheryl
Phil’s in Nam.
Not Nancy.
Not Ziggy.
Not me.
Why? Anatomy?
Ejaculator versus baby maker?
Does that make him expendable?
Who hasn’t said,
I wish he was dead.
I’m mad enough to kill.
If words were bullets
he’d be pushing up daisies.
I scream that and more about
The-Dirty-Rotten-Two-Timer.
Bang. Bang. He’s history.
If thoughts are things
a murderer resides in my head.
Ziggy
Bubba’s still asleep so I fire up a
breakfast doobie and polish off a
package of Lorna Doone cookies.
I find Ms. Hawes in the phone book
and call to tell her I’m still writing in
my journal and ask if it’s okay to send
her a poem sometime, but I’d understand
if it’s not, because she has over 250 students
a day if you count all of her English classes,
plus homeroom and after school detention
and,
she asks if I can help her out on Sunday.
I’m too stoned to come up with an excuse.
Now what?
Phil
Gunther.
Something gets his arm at the elbow,
and he gives a funny little wave, like
a flag salute, watching his hand crawl
on the ground.
Head down, he mutters, “Crap-ola,”
as if he’d dropped his only glove.
Then he passes out, real laid-back.
Medic.
Tourniquet.
Whole blood.
Morphine.
I hold him, my fingers clenched into fists.
He squeezes back, still alive, hanging on.
Jesus, there’s too much blood.
Cheryl
Phil wrote about Gunther getting wounded, said it was nothing serious,
that Gunther was one lucky son-of-a-bitch with his million-dollar
injury, because the war was over for him and he’d be back in the world
soon, but I wish he’d to
ld me what happened, because my whole body
shakes when I think about him getting hurt, because I know Gunther,
even though I’ve never met him, I picture this big, sweet guy in a Santa
suit (so his buddies can have a laugh in hell) wearing his girlfriend’s
garter belt (because he misses her so much) and I think about Pastor
Brunner playing his guitar in Sunday school and how I used to think
God was a musician and I was one of his instruments, and believing he
was strumming me, keeping me safe for eternal life, and I can’t believe
anyone could be so brainwashed, even a five-year-old kid, and before I
know it I’m playing “Nowhere Man” on Mickey’s guitar....
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34
From: SECNAV P. H. Nitze
To: All Ships and Stations
Subject: WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)1. The following information will be of utmost interest to all sailors ashore and afloat.
2. After a lengthy effort the WAVES began service in August 1942, thus avoiding a crisis at hand. Each vessel averages 125 lbs., 66 in. length, and is broad across the beam with dual forward mounts. Newer models are best launched at night, free and fast as hell.
3. A creative, yet functional design supports a hatch at mid-ship that accepts a driving shaft between 6 and 8 inches, though her engine must be heated to the optimum temperature. If bearings are well lubricated the standard speed is 60 minutes, 15 minutes if full speed ahead.
4. If operated according to the manual she will shudder and shake when backing off an all-out run, no matter who’s at the helm. Do not disclose secret maneuvers except in the line of duty. It is mandatory to report violations.
5. Will raise an OFF LIMITS flag 3 to 7 days each month to unload disposable hazardous waste and repair damage caused by projectiles with loose screws. Reel in hoses and salute her colors to avoid a hostile disposition. Hull seldom needs scrapping or paint, though perfume is appreciated.
6. With proper care these vessels will operate satisfactorily until every sailor receives his discharge orders.
“The Unknown Chaplain”
Dust-Off
“Voodoo 10! Voodoo 10!
This is Orphan 99.
Request urgent dust-off.
U.S. Marine ...
mine ... mine.”
“99, this is 10.
Extent of injuries?
Is landing zone secure?”
“Urgent!
Repeat ... gent!
Marine bleed ...
Chri ... mighty . . .
get that damn bird. . . .”
“You’re OK soldier.
Say again, 99.
Slowly.”
“10, this is 99.
LZ secure ...
... no enemy fire.
Need ...”
“Roger that.
Choppers airborne.
What’s your position?”
“Zebra 109-271 ...
Repeat, Zebra 109-271.”
Dust-off complete:
19 minutes.
Marine dies over rice paddy.
Ziggy
Outside L.A. Mission:
Old men sleep on sidewalks.
Cardboard mattresses.
Pockets inside out.
Stolen shoes.
Ms. Hawes says,
“Don’t be afraid.”
I’m not.
Phil
Cheryl,
All I’ve done for the last 42 hours
is wade through muck and mud.
Every inch of exposed flesh
is sliced up from busting jungle.
The fever blisters on my lips are
scabbed over with rot.
Tomorrow we’re going on a seek-and-destroy
patrol. We don’t like these skinny Commies
using us for target practice.
If we have to, we’ll take the village apart one
straw at a time. Shoot a few dogs and chickens,
maybe a water buffalo.
Right now my cartridge belt has
1 Bowie knife + 180 rounds of ammo on it.
I have a rifle that shoots 20 rounds
in less than 2 seconds
plus 6 grenades.
Fragmentation type. 14 ounces.
I pity the poor gook that crosses my path.
I want to get at least one for Gunther.
Thou shalt not kill—Fuck that shit!
I want to come home, Phil
Cheryl
I can’t get out of bed, strangling in sheets, soaked with tears, drool, snot—
screaming louder than when Daddy died and I wore white gloves and a
black headband like Caroline Kennedy at her dad’s funeral—I’m crying for
Daddy and Gunther, and I can’t even imagine how Phil feels—and I’m
tearing at my pillow until my fingers are raw and I’m numb inside trying
to understand, How can someone fucking bleed to death in nineteen minutes?
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34 Pussy Patrol
Don—
Check it out: More than 1,000 sailors
lined-up on deck with our flies open
and our dicks hanging out.
Master Sergeant says, “What’s the gag?”
We salute, all serious.
“If we’re gonna work like horses
we’re gonna look like horses, Sir!”
“The Mick”
P.S. Man, I’ve been off my game.
Can’t sink a stinkin’ bar of soap
in the drain with the butt of my rifle.
P.P.S. I hear you got that job.
Better let your peeps play free!
Ziggy
Ms. Hawes shows me around the Mission,
where women stay up all night taking turns
at an ironing board, pressing work clothes
for the next day.
An older lady reminds me of Nana,
rhinestone clips in her silver hair.
She got laid off from J.C. Penny,
then evicted from her apartment.
“A neighbor brought me here,” she says,
but not like she’s feeling sorry for herself.
“Tomorrow I’ll look for a another job.”
She smiles and pats the blanket on her cot.
I settle on the edge. She smells like Ivory Snow.
She shows me pictures of her kids, grandkids,
too ashamed to tell them what happened.
“I’ll wait until I get back on my feet,”
she says.
Nancy
I told my parents I’m spending the night at Cheryl’s house,
but I’m really taking a bus to Berkeley with my Psych class
to join thousands of protesters. A 10-hour ride.
My suitcase is filled with rag dolls I made out of socks
in red, white, and blue. Uncle Sam hats cut from cardboard.
I want you!
Professor James says he’ll dress up like a soldier in the
American Revolutionary War. We’ll march behind coffins
filled with copies of the Declaration of Independence.
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
I’ll burn my rag dolls, standing with draftees burning
induction orders and draft cards.
Hell no! We won’t go!
No one knows what we’re fighting for!
Hell no!
Cheryl
Hi Ziggy,
I got your letter and I can’t believe I’m writing back, but so much bad