by Ron Lealos
Donaldson laughed again and waved his hand in front of his body, indicating the whole room and his world outside the walls.
“And this is better?” he said. “I could have been in Sweden months ago. But I’m just crazy enough to want to help anyone else escape who wants to di di.”
“How do you do it?”
“Fuck, man. Just zap me. You think I’d tell you. Maybe you want some of that blond stuff in Stockholm?”
“Maybe, but I’m more interested in you.”
At some time, everyone meets a zealot. Could be they worshipped two-headed snakes, saving whales, or torturing their enemies. Occasionally, as was the case with Donaldson, they were the good guys and always seemed to have a candle burning inside, lit by the cause consuming their souls. But their eyes were clear, the vision of destiny already imprinted in their minds leading to a righteous solution to every question. Energy wasn’t a problem when the path was clear. Donaldson was a fanatic on the road to salvation, the redemption of his soul the jungle highway to Sweden. He bounced his legs and talked.
Donaldson told me about his tour in the Highlands. About a lieutenant he fragged after the officer laughed while raping a wounded mama-san and shot her in the head when he came. In the language of gruntville, the lieutenant became a double veteran, “Kill ’em after you fuck ’em.” Afterward, the lieutenant ordered the squad to burn the vil and shoot everyone still alive. About buddies killed by sniper fire and booby traps. About ambushes in the jungle where the only way their location could have been known was leaked to the Cong from ARVN scouts that guided them. But he saved most of his anger for the “lying shitbags at MACV and the scum in Washington.” He crumpled an empty package of cigarettes and tossed it toward the near bamboo wall.
Most of the time I listened, having witnessed much of the same. And having many of the same beliefs. I flipped the wooden match on the hardwood floor and took a long hit on a Camel.
“Can’t argue with you, Donaldson,” I said. “Somehow, the army built a mold made of murder and insanity. The walls are so thick, not even a grenade can break you or me out. The plaster gets into your brain and short-circuits the rational parts. Covers your eyes so you only see what they want.”
A box on the table. Prerolled joints. Donaldson lit up, sucked in, and passed it to me.
“Gimme a name, spook,” Donaldson hissed, smoke drifting from the corners of his mouth. “I’ll take responsibility.”
Taking the spliff, I crushed out the camel on the floor with my bush boot.
“Morgan,” I said. “Frank Morgan.”
Donaldson held out his hand, still keeping the ganja in his lungs. No games. He wasn’t a fat-cat, leech journalist. We joined in a shake that coiled our thumbs together and bonded our eyes.
A cloud of gray smoke and one long exhale.
“So, you gonna di di this shithole, Morgan?” Donaldson asked. “Go see your momma and check if the girlfriend still has you on the list?” He took back the joint. “How you gonna look them in the eye? When you’re touching their skin will you remember the eyeball pouches made of gook hide? Get a job sellin’ used cars? Go back to school and study the history of good wars? What’s the plan, man?”
The smoke made dragons in the air when it came out of my mouth.
“Been in-country more than a day,” I said. “Nearly a lifetime. Just like you. Never had this rap with anybody except my skull. Every second. Every glance. Every dead gook. Now, I don’t know where home is. All I know is that the killin’ has to stop. Let me tell you a story.”
Donaldson slumped back in his chair. Before his next hit, he said, “Go for it, spook. Don’t we all just eat stories? Take’s up the time.”
On the floor, more whiskey. I opened the bottle and swallowed enough the slopover ran down my chin.
“Rode the Freedom Bird over next to a grunt who told me there ain’t no rules in the ’Nam,” I said. “Took a couple winks and my first kill to know he was right on. Spent nights hunkered in the dark, waitin’ for a Charlie to bliss out. Killed his dog and then left him leakin’ oil from his forehead. But, one night, it was a woman. Supposedly a VC hotshot. Beautiful. Green eyes. Smiling. The ants couldn’t drink her blood fast enough.” I took another long swallow and passed the bottle to Donaldson. “Found out later I was ordered out ’cause she wouldn’t fuck the vice president of the Democratic Republic of South Shithole’s son. Innocent ain’t in the vocabulary where I work. Had to grease a few white devils to compensate. Ones who stayed in the rear, gettin’ free pussy and sluggin’ down ice-cold Tigers while dumb shitbirds like us lost our souls. Met a CAG ghost and adopted his kid. Only had the baby-san a day and had to bury his ashes and the parts of his belly I could scoop into my bush hat in the clay. Fell in love. Is that an oxymoron in the Land of Burnt Flesh? Well, shit happens. Anyway, she was an Irish witch, and we spent an afternoon at her altar. Had to waste every one a’ the slants who made her dance to their AKs. Took a while, but me and my Montagnard scout tracked them all to hell. Caught up with the old VP’s kid a few klicks from here. Introduced him to my Hush Puppy and remodeled his knees before I left him smoldering in his villa. Found two little girls hidin’ behind the curtains and a shitload of money. Couldn’t leave the baby-sans on the grill. The scout’s got ’em hopin’ they’ll make him forget watchin’ some ARVN take turns on his wife before they stuck a knife up her pussy and turned left. While I was doin’ my job, the brass showed. Took a lot a’ persuadin’ to make ’em stay. They’re still there. Permanently. What I finally figured is it ain’t us. Maybe we still got a shot at something other than this.” I waved the hand holding the whiskey bottle around the room. “But I doubt it. In one a’ my psych classes before I left The World, some asswipe professor said, ‘The human spirit has an infinite capability to reconstruct itself, shedding the error of past mistakes, while letting the reborn person emerge.’ Ain’t that a hoot? I’ll bet he never laid in the saw grass listenin’ to a man he just gutshot scream for his momma through the night.” Another hit on the bottle and I went on, boonie knowing pounding in my ears, saying Donaldson was worth saving, not me. “Now you, you’ve found a way to jam it up their asses while helpin’ the best way you can. Me, the only answers came from the barrel of a pistol or the blade of a knife. Ain’t gonna be no rebirth for me.”
Outside, the sound of Bob Dylan feeling like a rollin’ stone. A boat person yelling “Xing ong! ” Move. Lanterns on sampans drifting slowly down the river. Palm fronds waving in the wind. The slats on the window drooping like sleeping soldiers. A breeze filled with the smell of fish oil and decaying animals. A creak from the rotting stairs. Inside, another suck on the doobie.
“Guilt,” Donaldson said. “You ever think it’s what got us here and what’s gonna keep us from goin’ home?”
“Yup,” I said. “And some kinda fucked-up sense of duty.”
“Right on,” Donaldson said. “Some a’ that ‘duty’ shit from this end a’ the bunker, too. Signed up ’cause my half-brother came home to Omaha needin’ to take a dump with a nurse holdin’ him on the shitter. No way would my old man let me grow girly hair and hand out petunias on the sidewalk. Said, ‘Boy, someday, you have to step up and be a man.’ Well, I couldn’t take a leak without movin’ all the contraptions for my brother away from the toilet and couldn’t sit at the dinner table without the old man’s eyes comparin’ me to the cripple. Pretty soon, the stares carried me down to the recruitin’ office so I could come here and trade a few dead gooks for my brother’s legs. And my father’s eyes. Didn’t know nuthin’ ’bout no Domino Theory or the Military Industrial Combine. Did know I couldn’t watch my brother learn ta push his wheelchair up the ramp or listen to my old man ‘tsk, tsk’ and shake his head every time I walked into the room no more.” He looked out the broken louvers on the window, the thousand-yard stare glazing his eyes before they shut. “Now, it’s Beckman’s suckin’ chest wound I see and no way to patch it. The doc got popped by a dink machine gun, and I couldn’t even
crawl over to his medpack. We were pinned down. I watched Beckman die, the blood bubbling on his fatigues between my fingers. His last words were, ‘Don’t let me die in Turdville.’” Donaldson opened his eyes. “He wasn’t the first. Or anywhere near the last. What are we gonna do, Morgan? Go back to The World and be Joe Citizens after what we did? And saw? Can you ever look a baloney sandwich in the eye and not remember it’s the same color as some grunt like Beckman’s intestines? Or pinch a little cousin’s cute ear and not see a row of black gook ears hangin’ in a base hootch?”
Not even the breeze off the Son Sai Gon could blow away the heat. Or the mood. Old fatigues piled in the corner were starting to smell like the base laundry before wash day. The poster of Che in his beret was beginning to spook me. Something about those eyes. Too many eyes, including mine. God should have built-in horror filters. I rubbed mine, and it didn’t stop the movie.
“Me,” I said, “it was more duty. Saw lots a’ vets at the Fort on crutches, the bandages starting where their legs used to be. Sympathy isn’t a big play around those places. More, ‘if I look or think too hard, I might be next’ attitudes. Learned ta recite the Uniform Military Code by the time I was ten. Started the day with a Pledge of Allegiance. Could name the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the last ten presidents. Lost any choice before I took my first breath.” A gecko ran across the tin ceiling and disappeared behind a bamboo strut. I turned to Donaldson, who continued his stare out the window. “Ever think about forgiveness? Not of Westmoreland or Tricky Dick. Or the gooks. About yourself. Started with me, buried under a banyan tree, waitin’ for a dink bayonet to slice through the dirt into my dick. Forgiveness took a sabbatical after I found out the girl Liem wasn’t VC, just like I suspected. Revenge helped a lot. And lettin’ a few innocents live, moves that coulda sent me to LBJ. The last coupla’ days I figured there ain’t no Freedom Bird home.”
The roach was burned down to Donaldson’s fingertips. No cinders or smoke left, its vitamins already lazily drifting in his brain. He studied me. No illegal smile.
“Fuck, Morgan,” he said. “You’re a tougher spook than me. It’s not the people I greased. It’s the ghosts of the ones I let die. It’s not the dried ears or the wailin’ mama-sans clutching dead baby-sans to shriveled breasts. It’s Dornoff’s arm sailin’ over my head like a bloody baton. It’s not touching a crispy critter with my M16 barrel and watchin’ the husk of his body crumble like burnt paper. It’s hearin’ that shot from inside the tunnel, knowing it should have been me and not Jurgens. Yes, I gotta forgive. But I don’t think I can forget.”
The chair creaked, and Donaldson reached behind, bringing out an M26 grenade. He stroked it like it was a puppy and snapping the pin with his fingernail.
“You ever wondered what one a’ these would taste like?” he asked, kissing the grenade. “Pull the pin and stick it in your mouth. Bite down on the steel and the metal tang would be your last sensation. No more conscience. No more smokin’ bodies. A quick flight to freedom.”
Sure, the same thought had beckoned me. More times than I felt love. And at this very moment. But I didn’t want to tell it to Donaldson. He might pull the pin right now and send us both to hell in a million pieces. Something was making me want to live, if only long enough to make sure the assholes didn’t win again and take Donaldson’s skin. I set the bottle back on the floor and Donaldson picked it up.
“Hope,” he said. “I know there ain’t much hope to feel lookin’ across a toasted vil to the smokin’ horizon. But you gotta look into your soul and know it’s in there. Somewhere in the dark. And it wants to get out and take you home.”
I stood up and walked to Donaldson.
“Look,” I said, my hand on his bare shoulder. “I’ll make you a deal. You put down that M26, and I’ll take your dog tags. We’re about the same size. When the troops come to burn this place, I’ll make sure they can’t recognize the body. That there M26 oughta do the trick. Your tags’ll make ’em think it’s you.”
A smile. A hand on my forearm.
“Muchas gracias, podner,” he said. “But I coulda run a long time ago. I’m just gonna take a long bivouac here and do what I can.”
“Not possible,” I said. “Your choices are limited. So’re mine. We can stay here and gripe about the unfairness of it all until they send a squad to grease you. Or you can move out. I have ta take your dog tags. And you gotta di di. I already died in this shithole. I wanna let you go, but they have ta think you’re dead. You’ll have to disappear. Your life’s worth ten of mine.”
He was wobbling on the cot. I wasn’t fooled. Donaldson could have an Old Grandad IV attached to his arm and he would still think clearly. He would always be a highly trained killer, and, if he chose, I didn’t know who would be quicker to grab their pistol and shoot. But it wasn’t going to come to that. Instead, he took his hand off my arm, tore the dog tags from his chest, and threw them at me.
The ID jingled when I dropped them in my pocket. Donaldson got up and touched my shoulder.
“Bad deal, Morgan,” he said. “Neither of us is gonna die in this shack.” He gently pushed me back toward the ammo cases. “There’s another way. Sit and listen.”
I sat and Donaldson went back to the cot.
“I been in-country a year longer than you,” he said. “Had lots a’ time ta think. Did too much killin’ ta go home. Started this railroad cause the scene was covered in blood every time I opened my eyes. Believed doing somethin’ was better than pullin’ the pin on the M26 I always carry. Just in case, ya’ know.” He smiled, fondling the M26. “Ain’t gonna end up at the end of a rope at LBJ. Now, you got the same baggage I carried a year ago. It’s gonna take time, but there’s a reason you’re still alive. You’ll figure it out. For me, it ain’t The World. My one regret is I can’t tell my momma I’m alive.” He looked down and scuffed his unlaced boots on the hardwood floor.
Choices. I made a bad one when I walked up the stairs to the Freedom Bird, followed by lots of corpses more. First, I was an innocent. But months of mindlessly following the command of Phoenix put the blame right on my soul. No more orders. No more killing. If it meant I would die from the orange of a flamethrower, don’t mean nuthin’. And I didn’t care about anything but one last gesture. Getting Donaldson out of the shit. I leaned forward and put my hands on my thighs.
“Don’t know if what you say is true or not,” I said. “Right now, what I do know is we’re both dead if we stay here. You’re dead if I don’t bring your tags back or they’re on somebody’s burnt carcass, including mine.”
“You got a death wish?” Donaldson asked. “Like I said. Neither of us is gonna die.” He reached into his pocket and took out another set of dog tags on a silver chain and held them up in the wavering light. “One a’ the reasons you’re here is we had a traitor. Musta’ been feedin’ intel to MACVN. Came here actin’ like a blissed-out junkie, wantin’ ta’ ride the rails to Sweden. One a’ the boys you met downstairs greased him this morning when he pulled a Colt and started threatening. Kinda expected somebody like you. But not so soon. We hadn’t decided what to do, but you made the decision for us.” He tossed me the dog tags. “Take these too. You might need a little more evidence.”
I put them in the pocket with Donaldson’s.
“I guess you can see it don’t matter much to me,” I said. “I’ll take the tags in just to give you some time. After that, I’m scheduled to head out. Maybe I’ll be on the plane. And maybe not.”
“Listen up, Morgan,” Donaldson said. “We both greased people who had no reason to be killed. We both saw things that’ll make dreams something only a bottle or a needle will cure. From what I’ve heard, you think we might be even but not equal. I ain’t keepin’ score. Do a few more smokin’ bodies make you the winner? You got no call to do anything but heal. And you will. Maybe, someday, you’ll thank me. Just like I’m thankin’ you.”
We both stood.
“You gotta di di, post haste,” I said. “If they find ou
t you’re alive, it won’t be for long. And me? Somethin’ tells me the brass would love to see me squirmin’ at the end of a bayonet.”
Next to the dog tags in my pocket, the wad of money pressed against my thigh. I took it out and handed to Donaldson.
“Don’t need this,” I said. “Maybe it’ll do you and your boys some good. It’s blood money anyway, and no one knows it’s missin’. I was thinkin’ about droppin’ it off at the orphanage. Ain’t gonna keep it myself.”
The roll filled Donaldson’s palm, and he looked down, surprise on his face, turning the money around with his fingers.
“Stopped bein’ paid by the Combine a year ago,” Donaldson said. “None a’ these deserters have any money, and it’s been a struggle to get them out. But I can’t take no more death dollars.” He tried to shove the bundle back to me, and I left my hands at my sides.
“No fuckin’ way, Rooster,” I said. “If you want to throw it in the river with the other shit driftin’ by, it’s your call. I ain’t takin’ it back.”
The sound of the river was a gentle murmur at the door. I moved toward the steps, feeling Donaldson’s stare like a sniper’s scope between my shoulder blades.
“Hang on a sec, Morgan,” he said. He put his muscled arms around me, turned me around, and whispered, “Thanks, buddy. Say hello to The World for me if ya’ make it. I don’t think I’ll be goin’ home.”
“At least you’ll be gettin’ outa your luxury accommodations here,” I said, waving my hand around the slanting walls of the filthy room and pointing the M16 at the floor. “I’m not sure if I want a way out of this lice-ridden shithole of ’Nam. But I ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til I escort you down the stairs, if we make it without fallin’ in the river.”
No performance now. Donaldson stood strack straight. Guard duty alone in the perimeter foxhole. Never losing concentration and all senses on bush alert. He studied me like I was a map of the day’s action in the middle of Indian country. After a minute, he scratched the scar on his chest and pocketed the cash.
