Profane Men

by Rex Miller

  My finger gets my attention as I feel a real nice blood blister taking shape. Sweet Alice has gone and given me a hickey, the bitch. Wisdom: you know you are prematurely aging when you fantasize about violence instead of sex.

  I grab a bunch of shit out of my pocket and eat it all, downers, uppers, black beauties, reds, ludes, sliders, grounders — I don’t give a rat fuck what, just get me out of here. I swallow it dry.

  “Searchin’ for the outlaw station . . . fuckin’ up my concentra . . . shunnnnn — ”

  So until we meet again, good night and goooooood luck from all of us who work the late shift here on Operation Toledo Blade, from LP Green, just a stone’s throw from the heart of A Camp Tombstone Two, Golf Sector, Quang Tri Province, I Corps Tactical Zone, Republic of (South) Vietnam. Planet Earth. Good fucking luck.

  Chapter 18

  “Vir-gin: an unmarried girl or woman —a person who has not had sexual intercourse — (adj) being used or worked for the first time.”

  She has been wildly excited all day, pacing up and down her rooms, rearranging furniture and potted plants and books. Then in a moment of inspiration she goes out and gets some cardboard boxes and begins packing, books and records and tapes first. She’ll save her clothing and household goods until later. She has all but made up her mind to take the offer. She is so excited she finds herself at one point looking frantically for a pack of cigarettes, having forgotten she no longer smokes.

  Princess thinks in Chinese. Her mind refuses to calm her today. It is too wonderful and so perfectly timed. To come right now, when the other thing is right at the point of fruition, it is just so much of a marvelous coincidence — and her Chinese mind then stops her for a moment and lets her take a long, hard look at the offer. She analyzes, dissects, probes. No. She is convinced there is no way it could be a Beals ruse of any kind. She generated every aspect of the offer herself, from the ground up.

  It was pure luck. She had once met one of Beals’s two primary competitors at a trade convention several years back, and his name kept tugging at her subconscious. On a wild whim she had mailed him her best aircheck out of the blue, with a covering letter about how she would love to come work for him. She no longer even knew where he lived or worked, so she had shipped the tape reel to him in care of his headquarters in Honolulu.

  Very late last night the phone had rung. Her unlisted private line. She had snapped at the receiver and growled into the phone,

  “This had better be damn good, whoever this is,” and was somewhat taken aback when a trans-something operator said they were trying to place a call to her, but there were equipment problems. Would she be at this number for the next hour? Yes, of course, she told the operator, she’d be at this number for the rest of the night. She planned to go to sleep. But who was the party trying to contact her? The call was disconnected at that point.

  She boiled a pot of coffee and tried to read. She put on some soothing music and was lying on the floor reading and sipping coffee when the phone rang again and she heard the man ask if it was she.

  Instantly she knew it would be an offer. No broadcaster calls a jock without reason. He told her he had been totally blown away by the aircheck. He complimented her on her voice, and the call was disconnected again. It was all she could do to calm down. She hated the telephones in this awful, primitive, smelly, dirty rat’s nest of a country. She read some more and was almost at the point of falling off to sleep when the phone rang again. She broke a nail snatching the telephone off the cradle and all but screaming at the operator:

  “Working line, operator, this is working, don’t hang up, working!” He told her he was going “all girl” at his Virgin Islands property, simulcasting AOR and heavy talk over both AM/FM operations. He wanted her as his drive-time afternoon gun. He’d pay her the highest salary paid to any air personality in the chain. He named a figure and she almost gasped audibly, it was so far beneath what she was making. She thought it over about a tenth of a second before she screamed yes at him.

  She explained the details of how she would have to leave KILL and the various points covering the way in which she wanted to be moved. He agreed that the people in the Islands would find her a place, a small apartment, she said, poor-mouthing it, and kept unlisted in any station records. He was upfront about the high costs of living there, and he seemed fair to her. They agreed she would call him again later.

  But as soon as the line disconnected, her reasoning took over and insisted that she sit down, take pen and paper in hand, and do some fast math. She discovered that in one way, irrespective of the tax advantages, she’d be working for virtually nothing. She made up her mind to call him back the next day and cancel the deal. She couldn’t afford to take the job.

  Ten minutes later, in bed and staring up at the darkness, she realized with a laugh that she was considering saying no to her ticket out of this mess. Piss on the money, she laughed excitedly, I’m gone.

  By the time she left for her shift the next day, she’d formulated a plan. The one thing she needed, a schematic drawing that could be marked to show the young North Vietnamese the position of the auto-destruct unit, was kept in a certain file in the broadcast chief engineer’s private office. She had come up with the perfect scheme for obtaining the drawing right under his nose. She would use his hatred for her. There was justice, she thought. She laughed again in anticipation as she made up for work. What was it that pompous ass had called it — misdirection. Perfect, she laughed, singing to herself uncharacteristically as she applied the thick application of makeup to her ravaged face. I’ll show you some misdirection, you slob.

  Chapter 19

  “Here I stand, my cock in my hand — ”

  — unfinished latrine graffiti

  Believe this shit: we find one fucking dead dink in the wire. Little fucker all blown in half, strung out in the concertina. Guess they couldn’t pull enough of him out of the wire to take back with them. I expected to see some heavy-duty corpuscles in the dawn’s grisly light. I don’t see jackshit besides this one old chewed fan in black pajama pants. The camp has two patrols out and they find one blood trail. I know I personally zapped a couple. But where are they?

  Body count is all we hear about for the first couple hours while the SF dudes try to pull their shit together for the incoming. They drag the dead dink over with the corpses and line ’em all up in a row, count ’em again, and start digging graves. They report five enemy KIAs from last night’s action, which sounds right to me.

  Resupply! The big birds come with a shitload of people and goodies. Tombstone gets reinforced with a company of Marines, mostly FNGs (fucking new guys) who will be lucky if they make it through the afternoon without getting their cherry asses shot off. Blade fops up resupply and the FO team. We got one Ed Corns, who looks like he has a license to kill handed out by in personally, and a beaner named Al Rodriguez to hump his PRC. Also we got this IP scout called Tex, which is what you’d call anyone named Tran Van Kuang, right?

  Doc McAllen is hog-heavy with every type of bandage, dressing, bottle, ointment, and doodad known to God, MACV, or medical science. We have open sores, immersion foot, runs, boils, all kinds of minor shit, and we keep Doc busy all morning taking care of business. The main thing we get is batteries. We are humping more batteries than ammo — it is un-fucking-believable.

  “We gonna fuckin’ blow that radio station or are we gonna resupply the fucker?”

  “Got enough goddamn batteries to start a demolition derby. These whores are gonna feel real good toward the end of the day. Shheeeeiiit!”

  We tell Rodriguez and Dusty to keep their fuckin’ PRCs on all the damn time.

  “If you don’t use up this shit mighty damn fast, I’m throwing this heavy asskicker in the fucking weeds, Jim, and you can count on that shit. Damn.”

  It’s one thing to hump ammo, but humping bastard batteries, that’s a whole different smoke.

&
nbsp; Dusty’s monster is one of the new experimental units that is designed for covert missions, long probes deep into injun country, where there’s no such thing as battery resupply. With all this shit we’re humpin’, Dusty ought to be able to keep that fucker humming to the end of World War Four.

  “Saddle up!” screams Ewell, and we move out, rucked to the max, flak jackets, pots, cartridge belts, six hundred canteens, fuckin’ batteries, grenades, Cs, ammo boxes heavier than shit, bandoleers, ammo shoved everywhere but up our butts, away we go — used and abused.

  Tombstone is a beehive of bustling activity. All kinds of lifers squaring each other away, running around insulting people, getting the ’yards and the green beanies all haired off, and in general being their pogue, candy-ass, obnoxious selves. A covey of Phantoms streak high overhead, moving north to a chorus of “Get some” from the boonie-rats below.

  Newly treated feet protest at moving again. Flesh drops off feet into stinking socks. Cracks between toes split open and bleed, leaking pus down into jungle boots that mixes with the coagulated blood to form a nice mucilage that glues the sock to the foot and then glues that to the boot. Ankles and knees swollen like overripe melons ache and swell again. Rucks bind and cut. Thousand-yard stares and boots bleached salty-white mark the young vets of Southeast Asian war. Here come the oldest-looking kids on the planet.

  The new RTO’s radio spits out some kind of garbled crap as the gate guards, Flash and Buck, drag the wire aside for us. A squad of badass-looking, unshaven, bleary-eyed green berets drag ass into the compound.

  A voice in a nearby bunker says, “Deuces and jacks and the king with the ax!”

  Another voice says, “Awwww, fuck.”

  Crrrrwwwwwaaaaa.

  “Alpha Team Charlie Charlie, stand by for radio check, over,” says the new RTO, Rodriguez, as the radio snaps and sizzles. Rodriguez slaps at it over his shoulder, “Shit! C’mon, you fuck.”

  Cccrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  “Slow count from ten . . . niner . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . fiver . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . How copy me, over?”

  “Grrrrrrzzzzzcrrrraaaawwwwwwww — eam, over.”

  “Blade Zero Four, Alpha Team Charlie Charlie, requesting test countdown from ten please, over.”

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, it spits at him.

  “Request countdown from ten, please, do you copy, over?”

  “Copy that slow countdown from ten . . . niner . . . “ Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaa.

  Hard rolling rock blasts out of Dusty’s PRC. Jeezus Squeezus. The battle of the dueling pricks. We’re humpin’ batteries for this shit?

  “Fiver . . . four . . . three . . .” All fucking RTOs are just alike, fuckin’ get off counting back and forth. Dusty tests his rig constantly.

  “Two . . . one . . . how do you read me, over?”

  “Blade zero four, we read you Lima Charlie over.”

  We pass a trio of Vietnamese by the side of the road. A bunch of older slopes chattering away in the non-stop, dissonant, singsong, high-pitched wail of a monkey language that was so alien and ugly to Americans and so beautiful to them. Tex shouts something at them that sounds like “Suck King Kong’s Dong” or some such thing, and they glower at him but shut up.

  Tex looks like a real hard-core piece of work. I haven’t heard the fucker’s story, but he looks like he likes to take some names, that’s for sure. Probably VC, the way our luck is running.

  Dusty’s radio has KILL, and the signal is strong enough to be next door:

  “Personal: To anyone knowing the present location of Spec 4 Kenneth Ray Holman, last seen in South Vietnam in Kontum Province, I will pay a substantial cash reward for any information leading to my obtaining his current whereabouts. I am a friend. Please contact me by writing Maurice Tinnon, 722 Regina, Flat A4, Nicosia, Cyprus. Kenneth Ray Holman was last seen in Kontum Province in South Vietnam. Cash reward paid for any information leading to his present whereabouts. You heard it on the Outlaw, KILL!

  “Do you like to get off looking at young cheerleaders in short skirts and high-heeled boots? Be sure to send for our new full-color photo scrapbook Teenage Cheerleaders Bound and Gagged. You’ll see beautiful young pom-pom girls in ass-high miniskirts bound at the ankle and wrist, legs spread wide and ready. Lots of quote leg and shaved twat unquote in our great new color photo scrapbook. Rush ten dollars American to Eurobooks, Box 69, Mechelen Buratel Belgium, 9 rue de la Presse, 1000 H Brussels, Belgium.” The announcer repeats the address and it takes longer than the message.

  “Horny GI,” somebody says. “Box 69, Bang Cock.”

  “You have a friend you don’t know about,” the PRC broadcasts, “and he is even better friends with your lady when you aren’t around, Randy. Check out mama-san and you’ll learn all about your new pal. This tip is from somebody in the 2nd of the four-oh-deuce you did a favor for. That is a special bulletin to Randy, over KILL, with a brand-new number on the way.

  “Code Name Director has a money maker for any individual or group currently involved in quote snatch operations unquote that guarantee you or your organization will have access to quick means of obtaining funds without any security problems, even under the most rigid surveillance. Our method assures payout in a totally untraceable way, utilizing a multiple cutout forwarding system that is unique and foolproof. For all confidential details send a self-addressed, stamped envelope, using Italian postage if possible, to Director, Studio Ecco, Via Veneto 59C-3, 00211-0 La Storta, Roma. And this is — ”

  “Alpha Team Charlie Charlie, Blade Zero Four requesting another test countdown from twenty please, over.”

  “Roger that, Blade, twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .”

  “Code Name Family is mother-daughter combo who want same to swing with us. Mom is thirty-seven, daughter eighteen, but looks much younger, and we want similar. Must be attractive. Quote we prefer both bald down there like us unquote. If mine likes yours, we can meet and swap French lessons and nice, wet, spread-beaver pies. Will also model for horny singles or couples. Send desires and generous stamps allowance to Family, Apanado 9-2120, San Jose, Costa Rica. We are bilingual, so we can quote get you cumming and going in two tongues unquote. And KILL has a new number on the half hour!”

  The outlaw signal is definitely stronger now, down among the sheltering palms.

  “Personal to Janice from Pat, leave a message for me at the Australian Bar in Saigon. Janice, wherever you are, get in touch with Pat. Important. Leave a message for me at the Australian Bar in Saigon. No sweat about the other thing, I will take care of that in person. And your favorite radio station is taking care of business here at KILL.

  “Code Name Silencer — ”

  “. . . seventeen . . . sixteen . . . fifteen . . . fourteen . . .”

  Rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaa

  We pass a rice farmer and his family out working their fields. How the dork do we know KILL ain’t buried down there in some tunnel complex so far under the field that they could arc-light the sucker from now till doomsday and never kick its ass?

  I watch the farmer out in the field. He don’t give a damn whether it’s us or the Cong walking by just as long as we keep walking. He don’t give jack squat about Nationalist, Socialist, Communist, Populist, Imperialist. He just wants one thing: let him the fuck alone so he can harvest his rice crop.

  I say to Washington, “Bro, you know what it all comes down to?”

  “What’s that?”

  “In the end it all comes down to rice.”

  “Ain’t that some shit.”

  “You know what I’m sayin’?”

  “All right.”

  “No shit, man, this sonofabitchin’ green motherfucker is all about a rice bowl.”

  “In the end it’s all chicken anyway, ain’t it?”

  Shit, he had me there.

  “Requesting another slo
w test countdown — ”

  “This is AFVN with a special request for all the great guys in the 92nd assault helicopter company!”

  “Not those rednecks!” Laughter.

  Sssccccrrreeeeaaaaaawwwww.

  “ — a terrorist bounty hunter?”

  “Someone — ”

  “ — twelve, eleven, ten, niner, eight — ”

  “Hey, Dutchman.”

  “Yo.”

  “You hear about the South Vietnamese ranger battalion that went out on a top-secret search-and-avoid mission?”

  Laughter.

  That’s no joke, son. Eighty-five to ninety percent of those mothers are turd worthless. Officers rabbit, the men run. Marvin the ARVN ain’t worth dick dew.

  On the other hand, the dinks from the same damn Vietnam, only farther north, they can kick bootie and dig graves. The thing is, they are well-led and well motivated. Charlie’s got some badass leaders. For every REMF nitwit of ours, Charlie seems to have a Giap. Real heavyweights. Got that organization ticking like a Swiss watch. Everybody’s out in the field. Here all the cats are sitting back in the ac scarfing up the PX bennies and USO shows. Their idea of bad duty is running out of cold beer and pizza. Pogue motherfucks.

  Charles maneuvers. He won’t fight you when you want to get it on. He moves. Runs away. Then he comes back and pops ya. We crash in there with the loud fuckin’ choppers, CA (combat assault) that every slope for a thousand meters has pinpointed, and we wonder why we can’t surprise him. Charlie must laugh his ass off at some of our weak, lame bullshit. And all this technology and money behind us. Fuckin’ shame is what it is.

  “Code Name Sierra is a responsible rep for international corporation wanting any late-model fighter aircraft for purposes of tech evaluation. Can trade a complete Sierra Romeo-71 or pay highest cash price with maximum side compensation. Apolitical in nature.”