by James Reston
D.J.: If I go out there, I’ll be in the corridors. I hate the corridors. You ever walk the corridors of this place?
DOCTOR: Never had that pleasure.
D.J.: There’s seven miles of them. Lined with basket cases. And I’ve walked them all, man. I’ve walked them all . . .
DOCTOR: So you’re going to stay here with me just to keep out of the corridors for a while?
D.J.: That’s right.
DOCTOR (Not forcing the issue): Fine. Make yourself comfortable.
D.J. smiles, goes to his chair, settles in, stretches, takes off his slippers, wiggles his toes, watches his bare feet as if they were amusing animals. Begins to do a musical beat on the chair, ignoring the DOCTOR. The DOCTOR calmly goes back to the wastebasket, extracts his folders and notebook, shakes the ashes off them. HE takes out his pen, taps it against the side of the basket, in counter-rhythm to D.J.’s beat, and blows the dust off. Then the DOCTOR settles comfortably at his desk, lights a cigarette, whistles a bit of the Mozart G-minor Symphony, begins to look through the folder as if to do some work on his own.
Do you mind if I read a bit? To pass the time?
D.J. (Cool): Help yourself.
DOCTOR (After a beat; musingly): Here’s an interesting story . . . a case study I’ve been working on . . . trying to write it out for myself . . . about a certain man who was an unusual type for the world he came from. (Reads form or refers to folder, as if in discussion of a neutral matter) Rather gentle, and decent in manner . . . almost always easygoing and humorous. Noted for that. As a kid in a tough neighborhood, he had been trained by his mother to survive by combining the virtues of a Christian and a sprinter: he turned the other cheek and ran faster than anyone else. . . . (D.J. is banning to listen with interest) This man was sent by his country to fight in a war. A war unlike any war he might have imagined. Brutal, without glory, without meaning, without good wishes for those who were sent to fight and without gratitude for those who returned. He was trained to kill people of another world in their own homes, in order to help them. How this would help them we do not really know. He was assigned to a tank and grew close with the others in the crew, as men always do in a war. He and his friends in that tank were relatively fortunate—for almost a year they lived through insufferable heat, insects, boredom, but were never drawn into heavy combat. Then one night he was given orders assigning him to a different tank. For what reason?
D.J.: There was no reason.
DOCTOR: There was no reason.
D.J.: It was the army.
DOCTOR It was the army. The next day, his platoon of four M-48 tanks were driving along a road toward a place called Dakto, which meant nothing to him. Suddenly they were ambushed. First, by enemy rockets, which destroyed two of the tanks. Then, enemy soldiers came out of the woods to attack the two tanks still in commission. This man we were speaking of was in one of those tanks. But the tank with his old friends, the tank he would have been in—
D.J.: Should have been in.
DOCTOR: —the tank that he might have been in—that tank was on fire. It was about sixty feet away, and the crew he had spent eleven months and twenty-two days with in Vietnam was trapped inside it. . . . (D.J. looks away, in pain) He hoisted himself out and ran to the other tank. Speaking of standing up in a firefight. . . . Why he wasn’t hit by the heavy crossfire we’ll never know. He pulled out the first man he came to in the turret. The body was blackened, charred, but still alive. That was one of his friends.
D.J.: He kept making a noise to me, over and over again. Just kept making the same noise, but I couldn’t find where his mouth was. . . .
DOCTOR: Then the tank’s artillery shells exploded, killing everyone left inside. He saw the bodies of his other friends all burned and blasted, and then—for thirty minutes, armed first with a 45-caliber pistol and then with a submachine gun he hunted the Vietnamese on the ground, killing from ten to twenty enemy soldiers (no one knows for sure) . . . by himself. When he ran out of ammunition, he killed one with the stock of his submachine gun.
D.J.: He kept making this same noise to me . . . over and over.
DOCTOR (After a pause): When it was all over, it took three men and three shots of morphine to quiet him down. He was raving. He tried to kill the prisoners they had rounded up. They took him away to a hospital in Pleiku in a straitjacket. Twenty-four hours later he was released from that hospital, and within forty-eight hours he was home again in Detroit, with a medical discharge. . . .
D.J.: My mother didn’t even know I was coming. . . .
DOCTOR: Go on.
D.J. (Looking up): You go on.
DOCTOR: That is the story.
D.J.: That’s not the whole story.
DOCTOR: What happened when you got back to this country?
D.J.: What do you mean, what happened?
DOCTOR: One day you’re in the jungle. These catastrophic things happen. Death, screaming, fire. Then suddenly you’re sitting in a jet airplane, going home.
D.J.: They had stewardesses on that plane! D’you know that?
DOCTOR: Oh?
D.J.: Stewardesses, for shit’s sake, man! They kept smiling at us.
DOCTOR: Did you smile back?
D.J. (Straightforward): I wanted to kill them.
DOCTOR: White girls?
D.J.: That’s not the point.
DOCTOR: Are you sure?
D.J.: A white guy would have felt the same way I did. I . . . wanted to throw a hand grenade right in the middle of all those teeth.
DOCTOR: Do you think that was a bad feeling?
D.J.: Blowing up a girl’s face, because she’s smiling at me? Well, I’ll tell you, man, it wasn’t the way my mother brought me up to be. Not exactly.
DOCTOR: Neither was the war. Was it?
D.J.: Doc. Am I crazy?
DOCTOR: Maybe a little bit. But it’s temporary. . . . It can be cured.
D.J.: You can cure me? (Stares at the DOCTOR)
DOCTOR: I didn’t say that.
D.J.: Yeah, but you mean it, don’t you?
DOCTOR: What was it like when you touched ground, in this country?
D.J.: You actually think that you can cure me!
DOCTOR: Did they have a Victory Parade for you?
D.J.: Victory Parade?!
DOCTOR: Soldiers always used to get parades, when they came home. Made them feel better.
D.J.: Victory Parades! Man. . . . (Laughs at the insane wonder of the idea)
DOCTOR: You mean there wasn’t a band playing when you landed in the States?
D.J.: Man, let me tell you something—
DOCTOR: You didn’t march together, with your unit?
D.J.: Unit? What unit?
DOCTOR: Well, the people you flew back with.
D.J.: I didn’t know a soul in that plane, man! I didn’t have no unit. Any unit I had, man, they’re all burned to a crisp. How’m I supposed to march with that unit?—with a whiskbroom, pushing all these little black crumbs forward down the street, and everybody cheering, “There’s Willie! See that little black crumb there? That’s our Willie! No, no, that there crumb is my son, Georgie! Hi, Georgie. Glad to have you home, boy!”? Huh? . . . What are you talking about?! This wasn’t World War Two, man, they sent us back one by one, when our number came up. I told you that!
DOCTOR: People were burned to a crisp in World War Two.
D.J.: Yeah, well there was a difference, because I heard about that war! When people came back from that war they felt like somebody. They were made to feel good, at least for a while.
DOCTOR: That’s just what I was thinking.
D.J.: Then why didn’t you just say it?
DOCTOR: I’d rather that you said it.
D.J.: Were you in that war?
DOCTOR: I remember it—very well.
D.J.: And you knew guys who had a parade with their unit.
DOCTOR: I did. Banners. Ticker tape.
D.J. (Laughs at the thought): Oh, man. How long ago was that?
DOCTOR: Where did you land?
D.J.: Seattle.
DOCTOR: Daytime? Night?
D.J.: Night.
A pause.
DOCTOR: Nothing?
D.J.: Nothing, man. Nothing.
Pause.
DOCTOR: I had one patient who got spat on, at the Seattle airport.
D.J.: Spat on?
DOCTOR: For not winning the war. He said an American Legionnaire, with a red face, apparently used to wait right at the gate . . . so he could spit on soldiers coming back, the moment they arrived.
D.J.: What are you telling me this for?
DOCTOR: Then, inside the terminal there was a group of young people screaming insults. White kids, with long hair. (No reaction from D.J. The DOCTOR watches him carefully) Do you want to know why they were screaming insults?
D.J.: No, Doctor, I do not.
DOCTOR: For burning babies.
D.J.: I didn’t burn no babies! (HE begins to pace. HE is agitated. The DOCTOR watches, waits) The day I arrived; like, everything was disorganized. There was a smaller plane took us to the nearest landing strip, know what I mean?—and then you had to hitch a ride, or whatever, to find your own unit.
DOCTOR: Are you talking about Seattle?
D.J.: No, man. In The Nam. Like, my first day over there. My first day, mind you! So, I hitched a ride on this truck. About six or seven guys in it, heading toward Danang. I was a F.N.G., so I kept my mouth shut.
DOCTOR: F.N.G.?
D.J. (HE pulls his chair up closer to the DOCTOR’s desk, as if to confide in him, and HE sits): A F.N.G. is a Fucking New Guy. See? They all pick on you over there, they hate you just because you’re new. Like, nobody trusts you for the simple fact that you never been through the miseries they been having. At least, not yet. . . . Then you get friendly with your own little group, see, your own three or four friends—the guys in my tank—and they mean everything to you, they’re like family—they’re like everything you got in this world—I—see, that was the—thing about—that was the. . . .
D.J. suddenly can’t go on. HE buries his face in his hands and is attacked by a terrible grief—ambushed by it. HE tries to pull his hands away to speak again, but it is impossible. HE sobs, or weeps, into his hands. The DOCTOR hesitates, then goes around to the chair where D.J. sits, and stays there by him for a moment. The DOCTOR begins to lay a hand, lightly, on D.J.’s shoulder, so that D.J. will not be completely alone with his grief. But D.J. breaks away, violently. HE heads away, as if to escape. The DOCTOR moves to block another impetuous exit, but D.J. had no clear intention. HE is frozen, sobbing. If his face is visible, it is painful to see. The DOCTOR watches him intently, almost like a hunter. HE seems to be gauging his moment, when D.J. will be just in control enough to hear what the DOCTOR is saying, but still vulnerable enough for a deep blow to be struck. Finally HE speaks.
DOCTOR: Is it the tank? (D.J. cannot really answer) Can you say it? (D.J. almost begins to speak, but the catch in his throat is still there. HE will break down again, if HE speaks. HE shakes his head) Do you want me to say it? (D.J. cannot answer) You don’t know why you are alive and they are dead. (D.J. watches) You think you should be dead, too. (D.J. listens, silent. At times HE tries to run away form the words, but the DOCTOR stalks him) Sometimes you feel that you are really dead, already. You can’t feel anything becasue it’s too painful. You dream about the rifle that should have killed you, with the barrel right in your face. You don’t know why it didn’t kill you, why just that rifle should have misfired. . . . (D.J. hangs on these words) And what about those orders that transferred you out of their tank? Why just that night? Why you? Why did the ambush come the next day? . . . There must be something magical about this, like the AK-47 that misfired for no reason. Perhaps you made all these things happen, just to save yourself. Perhaps it is all your fault, that your friends are dead. If you hadn’t been transferred from their tank, then somehow they wouldn’t have died. So you should die, too.
D.J. (Bellowing): I’m dead already!
DOCTOR (Quieter): Yes. You feel, sometimes, that you are dead already. You would like to die, to shut your eyes quietly on all this, and you don’t know who you can tell about it. You keep it locked up like a terrible secret. . . . (D.J. remains silent. The DOCTOR’s words have the power to cause great pain in him. After a pause) This is our work, D.J. This is what we have to do.
D.J.: I can’t, man! I can’t!
DOCTOR: You can. I know you can.
D.J. (Stares at the DOCTOR; then speaks): How do you know all this? From a book?
DOCTOR: I’ve been through it.
D.J.: You were in The Nam?
DOCTOR: No. But I had my own case of survivor guilt.
D.J.: That’s jive and doubletalk! Don’t start that shit with me.
DOCTOR: It’s just shorthand to describe a complicated . . . sickness. It’s the kind of thing that can make a man feel so bad that he thinks he wants to die.
D.J.: Where’d you get yours?
DOCTOR: You think it will help you to know that?
D.J.: Man, I take off my skin, and you just piss all over me! And . . .
DOCTOR: You want me to take my skin off, too. That’s what you want?
D.J.: I want to get better! I don’t want to be crazy!
DOCTOR: Yes. That’s why I’m here, to—
D.J. (Cutting him off): You’re not here!
DOCTOR: I’m not?
D.J.: There’s something here. And it’s wearing a bowtie. But I don’t know what it is . . .
DOCTOR: Well, in this treatment, that’s the way it works. Normally it’s better that you not know about your doctor’s personal—
D.J.: Normally?! Man, this ain’t normally!
The DOCTOR considers this, as a serious proposition. Historically, the abnormal war. The desperation of this man. And HE goes ahead, against his own reluctance.
DOCTOR: All right. All right . . . I wasn’t born here. I’m from Poland. I had a Jewish grandmother, but I was brought up as a regular kid. All right? . . . Life in Poland tends to get confusing. Either the Russians or Germans are always rolling in, flattening the villages and setting fire to people. You’ve got the picture? Anyway, World War Two came, the Nazis, the SS troops, and this time the Jewish kids were supposed to be killed—sent to Camps, gassed, starved, worked to death, beaten to death. That was the program . . . I didn’t think of myself as Jewish. We didn’t burn candles on Friday night, none of that. I wasn’t Jewish. But my mother’s mother was. So, to the Nazis I was Jewish. So, I should be dead now. I shouldn’t be here. You’re looking at someone who “should” be dead, like you. . . . See? (D.J. nods, HE listens intensely) They sent me to one of those Camps. But I was saved, by an accident. . . . You understand what I’m saying? Someone came along—a businessman—and he said he would buy some Jewish children, and the Nazis could use the money for armaments, or whatever. A deal. One gray morning—it was quite warm—they just lined us up, and started counting heads. When they got to the number the gentleman had paid for, they stopped. I got counted. The ones who didn’t—my brother and sister and the others—they all died. But not me. For what reason? There was no reason. . . . So, that’s it. Eventually, I ended up over here, I lied about my age, got into the army at the end of the war. I thought I wanted revenge. But now I know that I wanted to die, back over there. To get shot. But I failed. Came back, and I even marched in a Victory Parade, with my unit! So I was luckier than you, D.J. . . . But still, I didn’t know why I hadn’t died when everyone else did. I thought it must have been magic, and that it was my fault the others were dead—a kind of trade-off, you see, where my survival accounted for their deaths. My parents, everybody. I became quite sick. Depressed, dead-feeling . . .
D.J.: How did you get better?
DOCTOR: The same way you will.
D.J.: I thought you was going to cure me.
DOCTOR: No. Essentially, you are going to cure yourself.
D.J.: Wow. (Shakes his
head)
DOCTOR: Others, men like you, have gone through such things, and they have gotten better. That might make you feel a little better, too, for a start.
D.J.: Yeah, misery loves company. Right?
DOCTOR: Nothing magical happened, D.J. None of this was your fault. (Glances at his watch)
D.J.: How much time we got left, Doc?
DOCTOR: Don’t worry about the time. We have all the time we’ll need.
D.J.: You’re the one is always stealing a look at your watch!
DOCTOR: It’s just a bad habit. Like picking my nose.
D.J.: I ain’t seen you picking your nose.
DOCTOR: You will. You will.
D.J.: I guess that gives me a little something to look forward to, in my hospital stay.
DOCTOR (Laughs): I guess it does.
D.J.: A treat instead of a treatment. (The DOCTOR is no longer amused. HE stares at D.J., expectantly. D.J. grows uneasy) You want something from me.
DOCTOR: Mm. The truck.
D.J.: The truck?
DOCTOR: The story of the first—
D.J. (Interrupting): What truck?
DOCTOR: There was a truck.
D.J.: A truck . . .?
DOCTOR: First day in Vietnam. F.N.G. You hitched a ride in a truck.
D.J.: Jesus.
DOCTOR: Don’t feel like talking about it?
D.J.: No. I don’t.
DOCTOR: That’s as good a reason as any for telling me.
D.J. (Reacts to this notion, but then goes along with it. Sits down again, as HE gets into the story): Well, uh . . . we were riding along, in the truck. Real hot, you know, and nobody much was around . . . and we see there’s a bunch of kids, maybe three, four of them crossing the road up ahead. . . . You know?
DOCTOR How old were they?
D.J.: Well, it’s hard to tell. Those people are all so small, you know?—I mean, all dried-up and tiny, man. . . . Maybe ten years old, twelve, I don’t know. . . .
