No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  He went through the yards and over fences effortlessly, avoiding the police that had been posted at the back of the building, adrenaline feeding his drive forward toward the objective. At times he was crawling through the thick urban vegetation of ailanthus saplings and wild weeds that grew in the backyards and empty lots. He found the cellar door of the building locked. He inserted a thin piece of pipe between lock and hasp and pried the two apart. He was now in the dank cellar and like a shadow he was up the stairs stealthily. When he reached the fourth floor he took a deep breath, crossed himself, and continued. He was no longer thinking but acting purely on animal instinct.

  When he reached the fifth floor his breathing was coming almost without effort and he could feel himself smiling, recalling boot camp and his DI telling him he was a killing machine. He had been trained to protect and attack and that’s what he would do. They had no right taking his kid. He didn’t care who they were. You didn’t do that kind of thing. No way you did that. He felt for the extra clip in his pocket and then took out the .45 and held it down near his left leg and silently slipped the safety off. He went along the wall slowly, listening, and then he heard the voices and knew they were in there. As he approached he heard a dog growl.

  There was an area within which if you fired a weapon there was a strong chance that you could destroy your target. The killing zone they called it, but he couldn’t recall where he had heard the term. Now as he walked along the wall, the steel of the .45 snugly in his fist, he could hear them chattering, their singsong voices thin and incomprehensible to him, except that they were speaking English, interspersed with Spanish, but they might as well be the Viet Cong gook bastards that got Joey. Now they had little Fawn, and the police were down there, helpless to do anything about it.

  Raising his combat boot he aimed a kick at the door so that the blow knocked the haft off the lock and sent the door practically off its hinges. He crashed into the apartment and immediately saw Fawn naked on the dirty mattress, her hands up near her face, the middle of her bloody where they had slit her open. Fawn’s eyes were wide open, in complete shock so that she didn’t even see him, he thought, not realizing, or perhaps not wanting to accept, that she was already dead. The dog came at him first, lunging violently on its hind legs only to be restrained by the thick chain. He blasted the animal above the jaw, ripping his skull apart so that the back of his head exploded against the radiator.

  And then he saw them. They were like rodents scurrying for cover. They had gotten his father, then Joey, and now Fawn, all three of them helpless to defend themselves. They were moving in four different directions, but he knew what had to be done. He hadn’t qualified as a rifleman and that’s why he was a machine gunner, but he’d get these bastards if it took his life. The shots came in quick succession, the flashing of the muzzle of the big gun almost one stream of light as if the anger he felt in his body had become a beam that would destroy all that stood in his way.

  The first shot crashed into Pipo’s smallish chest, flooding his left lung with a cascade of blood that sent a searing black pain into his brain, causing him, mercifully, to black out and go into shock, sparing him the experience of watching his life ebb away as he sprawled into an almost comical position against the dirty armchair, stained by spilled food and dirty hands. Before Billy Farrell would fire his last shot, some thirty seconds later, Pipo would be dead. The autopsy would later reveal that the .45-caliber slug had literally blown his lung out through the back of his shirt, taking part of his heart with it.

  Papo wasn’t so lucky. Billy Farrell’s next shot entered Papo’s left cheek, caromed around in his mouth, destroying the left lower mandible, entering the upper palate, and emerging upward through his right eye, so that he lost his stereoscopic vision but retained consciousness. He was in effect blinded but fully aware that the hell that he had been taught to fear had finally arrived. Miraculously, out of instinct, his right hand found Frankie Cabeza’s silver gun, which he had taken from Pupi when he’d refused to speak to the cops. Papo was blasted by the next two shots which shattered his right kneecap and his right shoulder. Whether it was one of the shots or a combination of all three, both bladder and rectum opened up, involuntarily sending hot urine and feces tumbling out of him as had been the case with Huang, so that for a split second he grabbed his stomach as if he’d been shot there. Papo let go of his stomach just as he had let go of Huang when he’d broken his neck and had smelled his involuntary defecation. All he could think about as he lost consciousness was that he would probably not receive anything for his fifteenth birthday, and fuck them anyway, the creeps.

  Pupi, whose huge knife had severed Fawn’s useless penis, and which Papo had used to murder her, had enough time to react. Having had the knife returned to him, he raised it in a gesture of attack. It only took one shot but it was the truest of shots, laser-like and accurate, so that it left a neat brownish hole a bit left of center on Pupi’s forehead. The back of his skull, brains, bone, and hair traveled backward and slammed against a slightly opened wardrobe behind him, leaving on the full-length mirror a red-and-black Rorschach-like design which the morgue personnel who came to place the bodies in bags argued about. Some said it looked like Ringo Starr and others said it looked like Sandy Duncan. One of the former changed his mind and said it looked more like an octopus. They all agreed that it was a fucking mess.

  Pepe, the last of the enemy, dim-witted and perplexed by what had taken place, attempted to make his escape through the half-opened window to the fire escape. Billy Farrell perceived his desperate exit out of the corner of his eye and shot at him. The bullet crashed into the fleshy part above the hip at enough of an angle to shatter the fourth lumbar vertebra, immediately paralyzing him as he attempted to step from the open window out onto the fire escape. His body went straight up and his hands, receiving no messages from his addled brain because of the spinal injury, flipped over the edge of the fire escape and began his five-story tumbling descent earthward. His body hit a protuberance on the first story of the building, causing a deep gash across his cheek which bared both upper and lower teeth. His body turned once more, then continued downward, landing at the front cellar entrance. In the distance Billy heard the thud of the body and the police loudspeakers as orders were being given. Pepe survived the fall, was in intensive care for two weeks, and began mending enough to answer the police’s questions about the incident. A week later Pepe, a quadriplegic, developed pneumonia and died.

  The sound of the shots still reverberating in his mind, Billy went over and looked at his daughter’s naked body, the face bloody from the times she touched herself where she had been wounded and, expecting a blow to her face, had covered up. Her eyes were open but he imagined the horror behind the eyelids, for the face was contorted in the grimace of the seizures which sometimes came upon her. He removed a large handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the blood away, and then reaching down worked the still pliable face so that the muscles relaxed once more, and Fawn was once again a beautiful young girl.

  In repose he saw now that of the three girls she resembled Lurleen the most and his heart nearly tore out of his chest from the pain. They had slit her open so that her insides were showing above her pelvis. The wound wasn’t quite to the heart as it had been with Joey, but seeing the entrails produced the same visual effect for him. He looked at the men he had shot and was shocked to see that they were just boys. Already numbed by what he’d seen, he removed his fatigue shirt and covered Fawn’s body. His olive Marine undershirt was wet with perspiration and his dog tags were stuck to it. He unstuck them and looked at the twin metal tags on the chain, the teeth notch reminding him of death. His name, serial number, blood type, and religion were on them.

  And then he was back there again, walking into the deserted village, the machine gun on his right shoulder, and the .45, similar to the one he now held in his left hand, in its holster on his web belt. They had gone hooch by hooch, making sure the village was deserted. Sergeant Brec
her, Lucky Weinreich, Parma, Billington, Joey, and himself. Everything was clearly in focus in his memory. Why hadn’t he recalled this before now? When they were convinced that everyone in the small dwellings had left, the six of them sat down to smoke. He lit a cigarette, closed his Zippo, and as he blew the smoke out, he saw them standing in the doorway of a hooch to his right as he sat against the tree. It was a young girl, perhaps eleven years old, and two little boys on either side of her, one about seven and the other one four, maybe younger. The smallest one had no pants on and had his hand out, begging for something to eat. The children were scared out of their minds and they were dirty and looked as if they hadn’t eaten in a week.

  “Look, Sarge,” he said, standing up and pointing. “Three kids.”

  “Shoot them,” Sergeant Brecher said.

  “C’mon, Sarge,” he said. “They’re just kids.”

  “You better do it, Farrell,” Parma said.

  “Don’t do it, Billy,” Joey whispered.

  “I can’t, Sarge.”

  “That’s a fucking order, Marine,” Brecher shouted, standing up. “A fucking order. Cock that fucking gun and shoot the little gook bastards.”

  “I can’t, Sarge,” he’d repeated, feeling as if the enemy were now Sergeant Colin Brecher from Sioux City, Iowa, or Omaha, Nebraska, or Salem, Massachusetts, or wherever he was from, and married to the Corps. Brecher had seen his buddies slaughtered by the Chinese at Inchon in Korea and just the sight or even mention of Asiatic people threw him into a crazed fit. For a moment, Billy thought of taking the safety off his .45 and shooting Brecher, but that, too, would’ve been wrong. He reached into a pocket, brought out a chocolate bar, and began walking toward the kids. The little one came forward, his hand still extended, his penis and testicles minute.

  “Parma, Billington, Weinreich, Santiago.”

  The children were frozen again by Brecher’s voice, so that now he saw them again as in a photograph, the images of hunger, sorrow, fear, and devastation two-dimensional, grainy, faded, and brittle with time, but still active. He knew immediately that he hadn’t recalled the incident before this moment because in the next few seconds all hell broke loose and Parma and Weinreich had stood up and opened fire on the kids with their rifles. The bodies had flown back inside the hooch simultaneously, the littlest one seemingly with his hand still out.

  He dropped his machine gun and ran to Brecher, shouting that he was crazy, telling him he had no business shooting the children. He struck Brecher with his right fist, bloodying the sergeant’s nose.

  “You’re gonna earn yourself a court martial, Farrell, you son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah? You do that. Whatta you think’s gonna happen when they find out what you did?”

  “What did I do?”

  “You had those three kids shot, you crazy bastard.”

  “Who saw what happened?”

  “Every one of us,” he said, sweeping his hand to include the others.

  “Any of you see those kids make any funny moves?” Brecher said, turning to the others. “Like they was signaling someone?”

  “Hell, no. The little boy put his hand out for food.”

  “Bullshit,” Brecher said. “Everybody saw them signaling. Didn’t you all see that?” he shouted at the others. They all said that’s exactly what had happened, including Joey.

  “Okay, Farrell?” Brecher said. “Now, you tell me. You want me to turn you in for insubordination, or you wanna forget this whole thing?”

  “Fuck you, Brecher,” he said. “You murdered those kids. What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

  “Watch yourself, Farrell,” Brecher said, looking him in the eye. “Watch your fucking self, partner.”

  “C’mon, Billy,” Joey said, tugging at his arm.

  By nightfall they had returned to their unit. When they were back at their bunker Billy couldn’t eat or sleep. In the morning he confronted Joey.

  “Why did you back him, bro?”

  “Why do you think?” Joey said.

  “I don’t know. You saw what happened. He did those kids for nothing, man. They were skinny little kids, probably stuck in some tunnel and forgotten. They were just hungry, man.”

  “Yeah, I saw what happened. Damn right, I saw what happened. And if I hadn’t backed Brecher they woulda killed you right there. That’s one crazy mothafucka, Billy. Forget the whole thing, we’re going back to Khe Sanh tomorrow for R&R and then we got a couple more months and then we’re gonna go back to the States, man. Back to New York, bro. I’ma take you Latin dancing and you gonna play at all those jazz clubs you talk about. You’re gonna meet my sisters and all their homegirls and it’s gonna be great.”

  “But, Joey …”

  “Forget it. Man, I feel terrible for those kids, but what the fuck are you gonna do? Them white boys … Sorry, man. I mean they’re all gonna stick together against us.”

  “I hear you, man,” Billy said, thoughtfully. “I hear you. Okay, man. I’m cool, man. I’m cool. We’ll just forget it.”

  But he hadn’t been able to forget. He went back to Khe Sanh in a daze, not responding correctly to questions. His lieutenant sent him to the infirmary for observation. His condition was diagnosed as stress and battle fatigue, and he showed no improvement as they fed him tranquilizers in heavier dosages. He’d wanted to talk to someone about the murders of the children, but worried about Joey, who was going back in-country. He talked to the Catholic chaplain, Captain Farrentino, and they had prayed together for the souls of the children. He’d asked the chaplain what he should do about Brecher. The chaplain got a very troubled look on his face and said that things like that happened in war.

  “I didn’t do anything to stop him, sir,” he said.

  “Technically, they were the enemy.”

  “Children? No little four-year-old boy’s an enemy.”

  “How do you know they weren’t a decoy?”

  “The village had been swept clean. It was safe.”

  “It’s never safe with the gooks, son.”

  “They were children, sir.”

  “God will forgive you,” Captain Farrentino said.

  He’d gotten up and left cursing, more confused than ever. As soon as Brecher had given them the order to waste the kids, he should have taken the safety off the machine gun and just blown Brecher away. The man was crazy.

  Finally, after three weeks, Joey was back in Khe Sanh and came to see him at the infirmary. He told Joey about the chaplain, but Joey asked him again to leave the issue alone. And he had. Sergeant Brecher had come to see him and asked him if he was cool. He had nodded and made himself shake hands with Brecher. But the next day he went and spoke with Lieutenant Dyer, and the lieutenant had brought him to Major Rittenauer. They had discussed the matter in great detail. Major Rittenauer hadn’t been pleased with the report. Brecher had seen Billy subsequently but had said nothing to him. In fact he had been extra pleasant. Brecher probably knew that he’d ratted him out.

  A week later, Sergeant Brecher had gone in-country again. Before the week was out word came that he’d been wounded and sent back, probably directly to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, and then flown to Japan on an Airevac plane. Before Brecher left to go back in-country, he must have contracted with the guys Castillo had talked about at the VA hospital on Twenty-third Street. Castillo had said the guy who was in on it had said they’d made a mistake. That they had gotten the wrong guy. He’d known it all along. It was him they were after and they got Joey. He saw it clearly now. He knew they were going to get him and he never said anything to Joey. So he was responsible after all. It was so clear now. He was a coward. A coward for not seeing the Miles Davis thing through, a coward for not wasting Brecher, and a coward for not warning Joey about what he suspected. He didn’t know how he had known, but he had. And still he asked Joey to go with him. How could he have done such a thing?

  He sat up against the wall across from where Fawn lay, her small mutilated body covered by his fatigue shirt. He ha
d wanted to hold her, wondering for a second if she was cold, but her nakedness made him feel ashamed. It didn’t matter. She was dead and probably already in Heaven. There was no sense living now. He had failed and would probably spend the rest of his life in jail for what he’d done. He’d let his daughter die, and he’d never be able to erase that from his conscience. All his training and he still let it happen. He was supposed to protect Lurleen and the children and he had failed. His only recourse was to die, as he should’ve died when Joey was killed. If he had he could’ve avoided all the trouble that followed him. But he couldn’t die now. He couldn’t, not now. He was playing the music again. No, he had to be brave. He had to be like everyone else and take his lumps. Everybody had it tough. All his life people had taken care of him. First his mother and father and his grandfather and grandmother. And then his father died and Pop Butterworth came along. And then in high school the brothers and lay teachers and coaches. After that the Marine Corps, and when he came out, his grandparents and his mother. After that Elsa tried, but she was too young, and then his grandfather had found Lurleen for him and she had taken care of him. And even Vidamía had taken care of him. Now it was time for him to take care of everyone with his music. Now he had to finally accept responsibility for his life. He took a deep breath and tried to think of the next rehearsal and the tunes they were going to play, but nothing came to him. He tried imagining the chord structure of “Moonlight in Vermont,” but nothing appeared. He closed his eyes and tried to hum Monk’s “Friday the Thirteenth” but could recall nothing of the tune and knew that he was back in the dark tunnel, and this time he would never come out. He wished it were different, but he had to go. Wherever it was that people like him went, he now had to go. He removed his hat and laid the .45 next to him. He closed his eyes and said a Hail Mary, and then an Our Father. When he was finished he heard the policemen coming up the stairs, the sergeant issuing orders. He knew he had to go now.