Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  They didn’t handcuff him though he thought that if the young agent in the passenger seat had had his way, he would have been bound and gagged and dumped in the trunk for the duration of the journey. He sat in his own silence while the two agents talked in low voices about subjects that didn’t concern him and the countryside rolled by and the army drew nearer and nearer. He had no idea what was going to happen; the agent had talked about a second chance, whatever that meant. But inside he was scared, not blind fear but a gnawing trepidation stalking him quietly, darkly, from all directions and there was nothing he could do about it. He thought of New Orleans, his father and mother and sister, the other members of his band, in training maybe or already in Vietnam or occupying a body bag perhaps. The chances of a grunt getting killed on his first foray into those jungles were pretty good, he figured. There would be nothing like taking out the fresh faces first; the longer you were there, the more chance you had of surviving. The man in you would become a soldier: experience would give you no choice.

  Late that night they drove into the base, stopping at the gate where two marines with pistols and M-I6s checked the car and the ID of the two FBI agents and shone a torch into John-Cody’s face. The car was directed into the complex and the agents got out and handcuffed John-Cody then marched him up the steps of a wooden building and handed him over to the military police.

  A very tall, very well-built officer with no hair and a thin moustache took his details. Then he was marched in silence to a cell at the far end of the wooden block, where the door was closed and locked and John-Cody sat down in the silence of the night and listened to his heart beating. The cell was tiny, seven feet by four: he paced it. With the bunk along one wall he almost had to turn sideways to get in. It reminded him of old television footage he had seen of Sing Sing Prison in New York. He sat on the bunk with his head in his hands and tried not to cry. Maybe he should just go, get himself killed or kill some other people and get it over with. He tried to evaluate why he hadn’t gone: was it not wanting to have a gun in his hands or was it just the cowardice the FBI agent called it?

  He must have slept because the sound of bolts being drawn woke him in the morning and he looked up into the face of another military policeman. ‘Good morning, soldier. This is your lucky day. You got a “get out of jail free” card.’

  John-Cody looked at him and said nothing.

  ‘Jump to it, soldier. Let’s go.’

  The officer marched him into the glaring sunlight where a group of marines in fatigues were being drilled on the parade ground. John-Cody stood with his hair to his shoulders and rubbed his eyes like a sleepy child. He was marched across the ground where the drill had stopped and the marines catcalled to him: part of the psychological process no doubt. He surprised himself by thrusting back his shoulders and holding his head high like some innocent prisoner on his last walk to the gallows. He was marched between two huts and came face to face with a drill sergeant, smaller than he was but broad and stocky with a face that looked like it grew up in a boxing ring. The MPs stood down and the sergeant marched him towards the gates and John-Cody saw a group of twenty or so recruits in civilian clothes standing in line at the polished steps of the guard house. He breathed deeply through his nose and looked directly ahead as the sergeant moved him into line. When the sergeant spoke his voice was a hoarse whisper in John-Cody’s ear.

  ‘Don’t embarrass me, asshole.’

  John-Cody’s heart beat faster and the sergeant stepped away, wheeled to attention then parted his feet, hands behind his back. He looked at the raw young faces ten yards in front of him, John-Cody at the far end of the line.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I am Sergeant Oslowski. You fine young specimens of American manhood have been summoned to fight for your country.’ He paused, licked his lips and his eyes fixed on John-Cody. ‘Now, take one pace forward and accept the honour you’ve been accorded.’

  They all stepped forward: all except John-Cody who stood his ground, hands behind his back, breathing hard but with his chin in the air and his eyes fixed on a red-tailed hawk drifting in silhouette against the sky. He waited in the silence that followed, then heard the sergeant stamp over to him, come alongside and hiss into his ear.

  ‘I said, step forward and accept that honour.’

  John-Cody held his ground.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Step forward.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Gibbs.’

  ‘I will not, sir.’

  The others were staring at him, some with ridicule and some with awe in their eyes. Oslowski stepped in front of him and nodded to the two military policemen waiting off to the side. He told them to cuff him and throw him in the glasshouse till he cooled off. Just before he was marched away John-Cody turned to Oslowski.

  ‘It won’t make any difference, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to Vietnam.’

  ‘Don’t you count on it, boy.’

  He was locked up for a week: no contact with anyone, just meals and water pushed through the slit in the door. He had a bucket for his toilet with one roll of paper and the bucket was not emptied for three days. The stink lived in the back of his throat, making him feel permanently nauseous. At night it seemed to be worse. The cell was airless, with one tiny window through which marines and raw recruits alike called him all the names he had ever heard and a good many he hadn’t.

  And his resolve hardened and he grew calmer, knowing now that he could take whatever they threw at him. His isolation inspired him in a way he would never have thought it could. He allowed his mind to wander, back to Louisiana and the bayous, the big river and New Orleans in summer rainstorms, the heat and the smell of hosepipes washing the streets of the French Quarter early in the morning. He wondered what his parents were doing, if they even knew he was here, if anyone had told them. They had not been in contact but no doubt they were aware of the situation. He had not called them, but home would have been the first place the FBI looked when he didn’t show up for his physical.

  At the end of the week he was allowed to empty the slops in his bucket, then he was locked in the cell for another couple of days. One evening, not long after it got dark, the door swung open and two military policemen with shadowy faces marched him into the night. They ran him round the camp, one either side, trotting him round the perimeter then weaving between the billets and the mess halls so everyone could see him and he was verbally abused in every way imaginable. He ran with a smile on his face though, and his eyes on the horizon, never once looking left or right, even when a half-empty beer can struck him below the ribs. The MPs slowed to a march then delivered him to two others at the steps of a long low building. Here he paused to get his breath, but his arms were pinned and he was hauled up the steps and marched into a room so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face. The door was slammed behind him and he stood there, having no idea where he was and unable to get his bearings.

  He did not know how long he stood in the darkness, but all at once music began to play from either side of him: at first he didn’t recognize it and then he knew it was Glenn Miller, the big band sound of the 1940s. The music washed over him and images took definition on the wall at the far end of what he now realized was one long room. Film projections, GIs from World War II in landing craft in the English Channel. He heard a voice talking about the military, about how the armies of the United States were a beacon for the free world against the advance of communism. Words to engender fear, a warning about the red peril that marched through South East Asia catching everyone off their guard. He saw John Wayne in action, a clip from a war movie about a war he didn’t fight in. He stood with his arms folded while image after image, voice after voice, assaulted his senses through the darkness. It lasted twenty minutes or more, like a presentation, a sales pitch almost, and when it was done a solitary voice rose above the strains of the band.

  ‘John-Cody Gibbs, you’ve been chosen to serve your coun
try. Step forward and accept that honour.’

  John-Cody stood where he was.

  ‘Step forward, son. Your country needs you.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Step forward.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Gibbs, step forward and serve your country.’

  ‘No, sir. I will not, sir.’

  ‘I’m going to ask you one more time. Step forward, Gibbs.’

  ‘No, sir,’ bile on his lip now. ‘I will not do it, sir.’

  John-Cody gazed at Libby through the darkness. Another cigarette burned between his fingers and he was aware of Jonah moving on the other side of the galley window.

  ‘They sentenced me to three years in the state penitentiary,’ he said. ‘I was released after eighteen months and told to stay in Washington State. But I couldn’t get a job, the parole officer saw to that. So I skipped over into Idaho. They caught up with me again and were taking me back when the car was wrecked in the snow. I got out and headed for the coast. I got passage on a trawler in Bellingham and went to Hawaii. From there I came here. You pretty much know the rest.’

  Libby stared at him. ‘And you’re illegal here.’

  He nodded. ‘I never married Mahina, never got my citizenship.’

  ‘But it’s been twenty-five years, John-Cody. Surely they can’t deport you after twenty-five years?’

  ‘Under any other circumstances, they told me. But my character’s in question. The FBI has a file on me.’

  Libby sat with her arms folded. ‘I thought there was an amnesty for people who refused to fight in Vietnam.’

  ‘There was. They received pardons from the government.’

  ‘Well, there you go then.’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m a parole jumper, Libby. I’m technically a felon.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  LIBBY WOKE UP, AWARE of a slight movement under the hull: the boat was silent save for the sound of water shifting against steel. She lay on her back with moonlight breaking the tiny porthole, casting shadows on the louvered door that was pinned back to the wall. She could smell cigarette smoke, which was odd, as John-Cody didn’t allow smoking inside the boat. Getting up, she reached for her robe and slipped it over her T-shirt and knickers. John-Cody’s bed was empty.

  He was leaning in the half-open port door smoking and listening to bull whales grunting at one another through the darkness. Clouds hung over the mountains and draped almost as low as the shore, but the bay reflected the moon in the surface of the water. The wind had dropped and with it the needle on the barometer and it was only a matter of time before the storm blew in.

  John-Cody heard Libby’s feet on the steps, the even creak of wood as she came up from below. He remained where he was, watching the horizon, catching a great plume of vapour as a whale blew close to the boat. The harbour was alive with sound, moans and grunts and in the distance the deeper rumbling roar that he had found no reference to in any textbook. Libby moved behind him. He didn’t look round, didn’t see her, just felt her presence and scented her like an animal, nostrils flared slightly. He drew on the cigarette and pinched the end and when he turned she stood on the bridge behind him. Her face was oval and pale in the moonlight and he gazed at her, roving her features with suddenly hungry eyes. Neither of them said anything.

  Strange thoughts scorched his mind and he didn’t know what he was feeling. Behind him a whale rolled in the surf, setting the water to boil. Libby looked into his face and he could see the light in her eyes, searching his own with a desire he had never witnessed before.

  Libby looked into his ravaged features, the hunted look in his eyes, the way his steel-grey hair was chipped and frayed at the ends. She studied the lines round his mouth, the dull red of his lips in the half-darkness, the slight hook of his nose and the great strength in his jaw. She gazed at his chin, his neck, his chest where it was exposed by his shirt. She looked at the shape of his shoulders, broad and strong still, his torso tightening to trim and narrow hips. She gazed at him and she knew that she saw now what Mahina had seen when he was young, the lighted tunnel into a man’s soul. She saw the fear in his eyes, the confusion and sudden trembling that the future had brought him. She didn’t speak: she felt her stomach cramp with an ache she had never experienced before and she knew then that she loved him.

  John-Cody stood straighter and Libby rested the flat of her palm against his chest and he was aware of how his heart pounded and that she could feel it and that made him suddenly vulnerable and he wanted to pull away. But he didn’t pull away and she moved closer and again he trembled. She reached up and cupped her palm to the back of his neck: her fingers were cool against his flesh and she coaxed his lips to hers.

  At first he didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He tried to think of Mahina, but Mahina wasn’t there and he was filled with a sensation of the sea, rushed suddenly and coursing. Mahina was loose like a dolphin, kicking spray from the waves and racing north to the last resting-place before the world of her ancestors. And then he knew he had held her back, broken his promise and trapped her. He felt suddenly weary but Libby took him in her arms and the weariness bled through him and in that moment Mahina was gone, free to chase the stars and taste the breath of eternity.

  Libby wrapped her arms about him, aware of his weakness. She pulled him towards her and held him, her face in his neck, skin rasped by his stubble. He eased his body against her, holding her, wanting her and drawing her deeper and deeper into his being. Libby plucked at the buttons of his shirt and one by one they popped. John-Cody rested his back against the dashboard, his feet slightly apart, head thrown back as she caressed his skin: eyes closed, he felt the pressure of her fingertips, the sharp kneading sensation of her nails as she dragged them to his belly and the belt buckle of his jeans.

  There was a fire in him now, a fire that had been put out with Mahina’s passing but had begun to smoulder with Libby living next door and now it burned with a new and sudden fury.

  Stepping away from him Libby dropped her robe and peeled her T-shirt over her head and the cold that came from the open port door lifted her flesh in goose bumps. John-Cody felt the weight all at once in his throat. He stepped out of his jeans and took a pace towards her. Libby took him in her arms and pressed herself against him, one leg climbing so her foot was on the edge of the bench and he could feel the warmth of her thigh against his own.

  He took her standing up, pressing her against the wheel and lifting her. They made love frantically, in a wild and savage silence with Jonah and Tom just a few feet away below deck. The air was chill and cold and their breath came as clouds of steam but sweat rose on their bodies, matting their hair, faces close, lips touching, pushing against each other. John-Cody buried himself in the heat of Libby’s love, her breasts against his flesh and the scent of her thick and heady in his nostrils.

  Afterwards they remained coupled as they were, Libby holding John-Cody as tightly as she had held anyone in her life. Gradually though, she released her grip and stood with her head against his chest, resting the fire in her cheek while the passion that had risen became a quiet tenderness between them.

  John-Cody bent for Libby’s robe and placed it round her shoulders, then stepped into his jeans and buckled them. Neither of them said anything. They stood and held each other, watching the moon resting over Laurie Harbour and listening to whales talking to each other in the night.

  In the morning John-Cody woke early and alone and lay in the half-darkness. Libby had come to bed with him and they made love again and then he had slept with her close beside him. He could hear her breathing through the thin wall between their two cabins and he assumed she had gone back to her own berth for the sake of Jonah and Tom. He closed his eyes and saw her naked on the bridge, her body half in shadow, and desire grew up once more. He saw her eyes and heard her voice and he could smell her. For a moment he let his feelings run riot and then he tried to think of Mahina as the old stirrings of betrayal and remorse came over him again. B
ut he couldn’t see her and he knew she was finally gone. He was glad for her, but his own future was as bleak as it had been yesterday, complicated still further by this new situation with Libby.

  Sadness descended like a weight, something he knew he couldn’t shift, so he threw off the bedclothes and got up. Dressing quickly, he felt the rocking motion of the boat and went up to the bridge, where he watched the early morning mist drifting over the water. At the edge of the harbour he saw swirls of rising spray, twisters on the sea, little whitened squalls indicating the strength of the wind. He sipped coffee and saw a whale breach, leaping high and smashing the water like concrete. He thought briefly of his future, the one he didn’t have, and wondered how he could possibly face what was coming. The first storm had eaten into his forty-two days and they would have to leave soon if he was to have any time at all for preparation. His gaze drifted to the dive locker and he wondered if he could summon the strength to try again now that he knew Mahina was finally free.

  In the shallows across the bay he saw the pregnant cow roll and he went down to wake Libby.

  Tom and Jonah lowered the dinghy, easing it down on the hand winches till the aluminium bottom slapped the surface of the harbour beyond the dive platform. Libby and John-Cody, ready in their dive suits and with the camera equipment between them, clambered into the little craft.

  ‘We don’t have long,’ John-Cody said. ‘The wind is really lifting and if it’s this far into sheltered water it’s serious.’

  The water was even colder than yesterday and John-Cody rued the fact that now he could finally afford a drysuit he still didn’t have one. His old bones would not last long in this temperature and he hoped the cow was close to her time. They finned away from where the turbulence dragged from the open sea, to where the water was quiet and empty save for the forests of bladder kelp that climbed up from the seabed.