Uncle Dex nodded. “Hard to understand that,” he agreed. “I guess it was just that in places in Vietnam you never knew who might be the enemy. It could be an old person or even a child sometimes, carrying a weapon or a bomb or something. That’s how guerilla war works. You don’t know who your enemy is because the enemy can look just like everybody else.”
“But, babies?” Julie said again.
“Yeah, I know,” Uncle Dex said. “There’s no explaining that, except that those men sort of all went crazy together in a way, from the war, and their officers didn’t have the kind of control over them that they were supposed to have, to keep things from getting out of hand like they did.”
“What happened to the men who did that?” I asked, worried that Z might have been involved. I didn’t think I could help somebody who would ever do something like the massacre.
Uncle Dex kept his eyes on the highway, even though we were still barely moving. “There was a cover-up,” he said. “All these high-ranking officers lied about what happened. But an army photographer had taken a lot of pictures, so there was proof. You’ve already seen some of them, and they’re pretty horrifying. A year after the massacre, the truth finally came out and a lot of soldiers and officers had charges against them, but in the end nobody was convicted except this one officer, a lieutenant named William Calley who carried out a lot of the killing and ordered his men to do it, too. He only spent a year or two in jail.”
“Wow,” said Greg. “War totally stinks.”
Uncle Dex agreed, and then we all stopped talking for a while.
After another ten minutes, the traffic picked back up and we gained speed and moved on to other things Uncle Dex had mentioned. The Chicago protests, which I looked up on my iPhone, were these wild demonstrations against the war by antiwar protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The police arrested a lot of the protesters and conked a bunch of them over the head with their nightsticks, and then there was a famous trial of the protest leaders, called the Chicago Seven. Of course, the violence wasn’t anything like what happened at My Lai. Nobody got killed in Chicago.
“My dad talked about the protesters one time,” Greg said. “He read something in the newspaper about some that set off some bombs to protest the war and the government and everything. He was still really mad about what they did, even though it was so long ago. It was about the only time he ever mentioned anything about being in Vietnam. He said he wished they would’ve shipped all the protesters over to the war, and then they’d’ve see what it was really all about.”
Greg seemed kind of worked up telling us that. Julie reached over and patted him on the back for a second. Uncle Dex looked back in the rearview mirror.
“It must have been hard for your dad,” he said. “Being in the war and all. Especially knowing not everybody was supporting what he was doing.”
Greg just shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess.”
I was beginning to hate this whole Vietnam business. But we still had our job to do, so I kept reading on my phone and pretty soon found some good news.
“Hey, check this out,” I said. “Zorn Miller couldn’t have been involved in what happened at My Lai. It happened later that year, after he went missing.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “and see here — it was also in a different province than Quang Tri, where he went missing. Not that that would have mattered. But still, it is one more thing.”
We didn’t have time to look up the Tet Offensive and the Siege of Khe Sanh because we were finally at our exit off the interstate. All our brains were tired, and Uncle Dex kept rubbing his head, too. All we’d done was ride in a car, visit the memorial, and then come back home, but it was as if we’d been out in the jungle on patrol ourselves for a week. Sort of.
Greg and Julie said their thanks to Uncle Dex as he let each of them out at their houses, and I watched them trudge up their sidewalks and through their front doors, neither of them so much as looking up or waving as they went inside.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Anderson,” Uncle Dex said. “And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about enough of Vietnam for one day.”
I was just about to say, “Me too,” when I realized Z was sitting next to me in the backseat — or at least a faint, flickering version of him was — staring out the window at first, and then turning to look at me.
He started to say something — I think it was just to thank me for making the trip to The Wall, but maybe some things were starting to come back to him since finding out his name, and when he’d gone missing and all of that.
But then Uncle Dex pulled up in front of my house — just two blocks from Greg’s — and Z disappeared.
“Here you go, Anderson,” Uncle Dex said. “Say hi to your mom and dad for me.”
“Thanks for taking us today,” I said, echoing Julie and Greg. “I really learned a lot.”
“I’m glad,” Uncle Dex said. He turned to look back at me and got a serious look on his face. “Are you okay, Anderson?” he asked. “You seem like something’s bothering you. Was it all that we talked about in the car about the war?”
“Yeah,” I said, opening the door and climbing out. “I guess so. Anyway, thanks again.”
I couldn’t exactly say it to Uncle Dex, but the truth was I felt bad because here we all got to quit at the end of the day, but Zorn Miller was still in Vietnam in a way, and he’d been stuck there for most of the past fifty years. He’d probably had enough of it, too, but unless we found a lot more answers for him, and soon, he wasn’t ever going to get to go home.
Z didn’t show up again after Uncle Dex dropped me off — at least not for a while. Mom wasn’t feeling well from her MS, so she stayed in bed during dinner. Dad and I had soup and sandwiches, and he also made me eat some carrot sticks so I would be healthy, or that’s what he said. Carrots are what parents give you if they can’t remember the last time you ate a vegetable and they’re feeling guilty about not feeding you right.
“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Dad asked. I had almost forgotten it was Saturday — not that I ever did much on Saturday nights, or any night, really. It wasn’t like I got invited to a lot of cool parties. But then I remembered.
“There’s an All-Ages Concert,” I said. “Do you think it would be okay if I called Greg to see if he can go?
Dad dunked a corner of his grilled cheese into his tomato soup and took a soggy bite. It did not look appetizing. “Is your band playing?” he asked. “What’s the name again — the Spirits of War?”
“The Ghosts of War,” I corrected him. “And no, we’re not playing. That’s next weekend, the next open mic night they’re having. But we haven’t practiced nearly enough to be ready for that.”
Dad switched over to a soup spoon. “Well, I’m sure that would be all right if you and Greg wanted to go,” he said. “Do you know anything about the band that is playing?”
“Not really,” I said. “Just that it’s not us and it’s not Belman’s band, either.”
“Who?” Dad asked. I guess I hadn’t told him much about Belman, but now probably wasn’t the time. If I explained about what a bully Belman was, Dad might not let us go to the concert.
“Just this guy at school,” I said. “His band is, like, our main number one rival. At the open mic night.” That wasn’t technically true — Belman’s band was about a hundred times better than the Ghosts of War — but at the same time it was kind of true.
Greg was happy that I called him.
“Definitely,” he said. “When can you pick me up? Actually, never mind. I’ll just come on over to your house.”
I could tell from the way his voice sounded that things probably weren’t too good with his dad, and turns out I was right. He was so ready to get out of his house that he must have been running over to mine while we were still on the phone, because it seemed like not even a minute later he was knocking on the front door.
He told me what was going on while
we waited for my dad to get ready so he could drive us to the concert.
“Stupid me,” he said. “I went ahead and asked my dad about Vietnam when I got home and he got kind of mad about it. Well, not mad exactly, but just really tense, the way he does sometimes. Usually he goes and gets a drink when that happens.”
“What did you ask him?”
Greg kind of scuffed his shoes on the mat just inside our front door. “Just, like, was he in Vietnam in 1968, and how old was he, and where was he. Stuff like that.”
“I guess he didn’t answer you?” I said.
“No,” Greg said. “I mean, yes. The funny thing is he did answer me. He said he was twenty-two and yeah, he was there in ’68, and he said I probably never heard of where he’d been and then he just said it was in the north, in the jungle mostly.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Not really,” Greg said. “Just that he was in the army, and he was a Green Beret, like in that song.”
“Wouldn’t it be crazy if he knew Z?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Greg said. “Wonder if they might have ever met each other? That would have been crazy.”
“We could ask,” I said.
“No,” Greg said, shaking his head pretty emphatically. “I already asked too much as it is. I bet Dad’s already opening his fourth beer by now.”
We heard my dad in the kitchen just then, grabbing his keys off the hook. “You boys ready to go?” he half shouted down the hall.
“Yes, Dad,” I half shouted back.
“Yes, Mr. Carter,” Greg added. He was always super polite when it came to my parents.
“So what happened next with your dad?” I asked Greg.
“Nothing,” he said. “That was all he said, and then he got a beer. And then he got kind of cranky and you called and I figured it was time to go.”
We were halfway to the place where they held the all-ages concerts — this drum store called Eyeclops that had a big warehouse in back — when Julie called my cell phone. “Do you and Greg want to go to the concert?” she asked. “I was trying to do more research, but I am overwhelmed by so much happening today and already learning so much about Zorn Miller and Vietnam.”
I felt guilty that we hadn’t asked her to come with us, so I sort of lied and didn’t tell her we were already on our way there. Instead, I said that was a great idea and my brain was tired, too, and I asked if she wanted us to pick her up.
“That would be very nice,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll be waiting.”
“Oops,” Greg said after I hung up. He had listened in on the conversation.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, and then I asked Dad if he could make an extra stop on the way.
The concert was great — at first. The band was called the Dismemberment Plan and they were four older guys from Washington, DC, but they were still really good, and really loud, and their songs had really cool titles, like “Daddy Was a Real Good Dancer,” and “Spider in the Snow,” and “Girl O’Clock.” They even had one called “Bra,” which Greg and I couldn’t stop laughing about. Julie just rolled her eyes at us.
Then this kid came up and asked her if she wanted to dance. He was a sixth grader like us, a big-time gamer named Quinn who wore really thick glasses, probably because he wrecked his eyesight staring at pixels so much. That was the story about him, anyway. He was about six inches shorter than Julie.
She looked at me, then at Greg. Then, when neither one of us could think of anything to say, she nodded at Quinn and off they went to dance together. Quinn was a really good dancer. Julie kind of worked hard to keep up with him.
Greg and I just stood and stared.
“Uh, I wasn’t expecting that to happen,” he said.
I actually felt kind of, well, weird. Or something. Not that I was about to say anything to Greg — and definitely not to Julie.
“Yeah,” I said, because I had no clue what else to say.
Fortunately, the song was really short, and when it ended Julie said something to Quinn, then she came back over to me and Greg. I don’t think we’d so much as shuffled our feet the whole time she was gone.
“Tomorrow we will get serious about practicing again,” she said, as if what had just happened was no big deal.
Greg said, “Definitely,” and I said, “Totally,” and then the band started up again and the next thing I knew the crowd swelled around us and everybody was jumping up and down so we started jumping up and down with the rest of the kids. It was a song called “Invisible Man.”
Halfway through, though, somebody crashed into me and sent me crashing into Greg and both of us went sprawling across the dance floor. I skinned my elbow and got blood on my sleeve. Greg rubbed his head and seemed woozy. The music kept going, but a couple of the adult chaperones waded through the crowd of kids and dragged us outside into the waiting area where parents hung out.
One of them handed Greg an ice pack, and another taped gauze over my wounded arm.
I thought they’d be sympathetic, but they weren’t.
“If you boys can’t behave, then you won’t be allowed to come back,” this one lady said.
“But we didn’t do anything,” I said. “Somebody ran into us.”
“Then you need to be sure you get out of the way next time,” said a man with big glasses and a ponytail, even though his hair was mostly gone on top. He was a little friendlier than the lady, at least.
“Sorry,” Greg said, even though we really didn’t have anything to apologize for.
The man and the lady left us sitting there on a sagging couch and went back inside. Julie came out when they went in.
“Are you guys okay?” she asked. “I can’t believe they did that!”
I shrugged. “They’re just doing their job, I guess, being chaperones.”
“Not them,” Julie said. “Didn’t you see who ran into you and Greg?”
Greg and I both shook our heads.
Julie made a noise that actually sounded like growling. “It was Belman,” she said. “He and his friends just showed up. They were banging into everybody on the dance floor, and then when they saw you guys they acted like it was the funniest thing in the world to knock you down. Like bowling.”
“You saw it all?” I asked. “Weren’t you dancing with that kid again — with Quinn?”
“No,” Julie said, with this sort of shy smile. “Anyway, he was dancing with somebody else. I think he’s what they call a player.”
“You mean a gamer?” I asked. “He plays a lot of computer games.”
Julie shrugged. “That, too. But also a player. He dances with a lot of girls. That’s all.”
I decided to let it go before I made a total fool out of myself for pressing things about Julie dancing with Quinn.
“What do we do now?” I asked. “I mean, should we go back in? I’m just kind of wondering if Belman and his friends might knock into us again if we do.”
And Quinn might ask Julie to dance again. But I just thought that; I didn’t say it out loud.
Julie growled again. “We should report them.”
“No,” Greg said. “It would just be our word against theirs. And anyway, my head hurts and I think I want to go home.”
It was my turn to growl.
Greg stayed over at my house that night. He fell asleep pretty much right away once Dad brought us home and Greg dragged out his usual sleeping bag from under my bed. I was wide-awake, though, my brain spinning with all the stuff that had happened that day.
Of course I kept thinking about The Wall and finding out Z’s real name, plus when he went missing in Vietnam, and where anybody last saw him, or sort of where, anyway. They had it narrowed down to the province, so at least we had that to go on. All kinds of other things, too: his rank and his hometown. Maybe tomorrow we could try to get in touch with anybody who knew him. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe check out a Vietnam veterans’ website. There were probably a bunch of those, where guys stayed in touch with one another, a
nd where they posted stuff about guys who didn’t make it back from the war. There were all sorts of possibilities.
I felt kind of bad that I had gone out to the concert when probably I should have stayed home and followed up on all these new leads. And with the clock ticking on how long we had to solve Z’s mystery for him, what had I been thinking? Of course I should have stayed home. Just one more thing to feel guilty about, I guess.
Plus, not inviting Julie to go with Greg and me. That wasn’t exactly the nicest thing, either. And I couldn’t quite figure out why it made me feel so weird when Julie danced with Quinn. I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted to dance with her. But that didn’t mean I wanted Quinn to. I sighed.
And then there was that big jerk Belman. I wished I knew what to do about him. It seemed like every time I turned around, there he was making life difficult for us.
I was just stewing over all this stuff, unable to turn my thoughts off, when a sort of shadow appeared at the end of my bed. That’s the best way I can describe it.
“You’re looking kind of down there, son,” a voice said from that direction. “Been quite a day, huh?”
Z was back! I was already sitting up on my bed. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, yes, sir.”
He laughed. “I’m not an officer,” he said. “Just a sergeant. At least according to that big headstone you took me to today. The Wall. You don’t call me ‘sir.’ Just a ‘Yes, Sergeant’ will do.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.
“So look,” he said. “I appreciate all you kids have done for me. I’m still putting it all together, what we found out today, but I just want you to know. You all have been a big help. I’m glad you went out tonight and had you some fun. Don’t feel bad about that. You deserved it. Even if it didn’t end up so great.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was almost as if Z — Sergeant Miller — had been reading my mind or something. And as if he’d been there at the concert keeping an eye on us. Too bad he couldn’t have done something about Belman. Maybe just haunt the guy a little, give him a good ghost scare. And maybe trip Quinn while he was at it.
Lost at Khe Sanh Page 6
