Who Shot the Water Buffalo?

by Ken Babbs

  “Better check that out,” Cochran yells.

  We run down the beach past a group of Marines sitting on the sand with their feet cooling in the water.

  “Where you off to in such a rush?” one of the Marines yells.

  “Crazy beach scene up ahead,” Cochran answers.

  As we get closer a boat takes shape in the water, an oversized rowboat riding low in the trough of a wave, then it dances on top of a swell, the bow rising out of the water like a marlin.

  Wiry Vietnamese men pull on a rope that stretches into the sea. The men lean into the rope, their legs muscled and bronze, their faces blank as the sand. As the sea breathes and a wave brushes the shore, the rope slackens and in unison the men pull, one step, then another. Then they wait.

  “Fishing,” says Cochran.

  “That’s it,” I say. “They’ve got a net out and there’s a buoy. That must be the end of the net.”

  The men take up a few inches of line and I watch for the buoy to move but it is too far away to tell. Cochran walks up to the line and pulls on it. The Vietnamese watch warily. One of the younger men gestures and Cochran wraps his arm around the rope and leans into it.

  “Pull me hearties. Give her a good yank. Come on, you lubbers, lend a hand.”

  I catch hold and help pull. Cochran begins to chant: “Yo-ho, here we go, with a hidey-hie and a hidey-ho, we pull with all our might, we pull the rope out of sight.”

  The rope begins to move, inching towards the dunes where a Vietnamese fisherman coils the rope in a circular pile. The head man stands in water up to his waist, feeling the rope, testing its strain. Take it easy, he motions, but we pull on.

  “Give her your heart, your throbs, your sway-backing best. Don’t slack when a fish gets away and we have to pull in the rest.”

  Farther down the beach another group pulls on the other half of the net, a huge bow sweeping across the sea, trapping the fish in its ponderous path. Ponderous until now. The rhythm of the centuries is disrupted.

  “Now me hearties with the balls to go with your brawls. Fling your fists into the fray and put your back into the bay.”

  Not for us to pull with the motion of the waves. Not for us the long day’s grind to net a passel of fish. We, by Jesus, got a man’s hold on the rope and will have that net full of fish on dry land within the hour or eat humble pie in the coliseum at dawn.

  The head man makes frantic waving motions, exhorting us to slow down, but Cochran sings out, unheeding, sweat pouring into his eyes. My legs and back throb and the rope makes an indentation in my arm. The net inches forward, a slow pulsing movement. The waves help and we gain. The ebb hinders and we pull harder to make a profit when we should be content with saving a loss, and then, suddenly, the rope breaks.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cochran yells, holding the raveled end of rope in his hand. “Guess we got a bit too testy for her.”

  The head man screams at his crew. They stand on the beach looking bewildered. It is a catastrophe they weren’t prepared for and while they moan and cry we roll in the sand laughing.

  “You got to pull with the current,” Cochran yells. “Just like I was saying. You can’t rush these things.”

  The head man looks from Cochran to his net. How many years of pulling in that look? To have these foreigners bull in with their unaskedfor help and botch everything?

  Cochran leaps up, his laughing jag over.

  “Don’t sweat it, old man,” he says, and, grabbing the free end of rope, he plunges into the water. I jump in behind him and we swim toward the wooden buoy. Even with our frantic pulling the buoy hasn’t moved very close to shore and we attack the water with the same vehemence we used to break the rope. A quarter mile from shore, my breath stabbing like a blunt bayonet in my ribs, Cochran turns and motions. Ahead, limp as a petered-out dick, is the other end of the rope. Cochran mates the ends in a granny knot, “Everlasting and evermore till rot do you part,” and we rest on the taut rope.

  “That dumb son of a bitch. Did you see his face when the rope broke?”

  Again Cochran laughs, the low sound rumbling deep in the pit of his stomach masking the silent panic that struggles for escape every time one of his booming deeds blows up in his face.

  He lets go of the rope and we swim to the beach and collapse on the sand, luxuriating in the warmth until the Vietnamese bring in their net and catch of fish, the sun drops behind the mountains, and the truck grinds down to the water’s edge to load us aboard and carry us back to the base.

  Cochran and I decide to stop in town. We jump off the truck and wander the streets where we laugh at the kids, goof with the bar girls and mosey into a tapestry shop. Pete Alexander, the camp interpreter, is inside buying a green and red silk banner with Chinese emblems embroidered up and down its sinuous length. We look it over and Pete deciphers the story for us. The characters stand for good health, many children, big fortune and long life, the usual characterization of wishful thinking since the only one that ususally comes true is a houseful of hungry kids.

  Another tapestry catches Cochran’s attention. A large white silk bedspread with long tassels hanging around the edge. Four smoke-blowing dragons, eyes buggy, horny spikes along their backs, ears pointed and sinister. The dragons twist around a slant-eyed tiger, his ears laid back and mouth turned down, tooth hanging over a nasty-looking lip, head centered in a garland of flowers.

  “Wonder how much this costs,” Cochran says. “Hey, man,” he asks the bowing owner. “How much? How many pees?”

  The old man clasps his hands and smiles. Then he says something in Vietnamese.

  “Huh? What’s that? What’d he say? How much?”

  Pete Alexander has been listening. “He says it’s already been sold. He made it for a soldier in the United States Army.”

  “Ask him if he can make one for me.”

  Pete says something in Vietnamese and the owner answers, gesturing towards the bedspread, his face animated.

  “It takes a very long time to make,” Pete interprets. “He has to design each dragon and draw it out and then stitch it together. The tiger takes longest of all. Every one he does is different. He puts an individual effort into each piece of embroidery.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” says Cochran. “Artist-type character. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against that. Can he do one for me?”

  “He says he can make you one like this or he can put something else on the banner.”

  “This one is fine. No. Wait a minute. There’s one thing.”

  Cochran scratches the burr of hair sticking out of his shirt cuff. “Those flowers surrounding the tiger’s head. They’re not right.”

  Pete mentions it to the artist who goes into another long story, drawing his hands in a circle and talking all the while.

  Pete translates. “The tiger lives in the jungle. He is the king of all the beasts and these flowers are the real plants found in the mountains of Vietnam—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I can see that,” Cochran interrupts. “Perfectly obvious. He has to frame the tiger’s head, can’t have a disembodied tiger head floating around in the middle of the bedspread. But why the sickly-looking bushes. Can’t he frame the head in something else?”

  Pete relays the question. “He says the jungle plants are a necessary part of the story. They fit the setting—”

  “I realize all that,” Cochran interrupts again. “Tell him the way I see it these dragons are lackeys of the tiger. They sit around blowing fire and smoke, keeping the king’s paws warm and his whiskers curly. He’s the top boy, the head honcho. He doesn’t need those weasely vines wrapped around his head. How about some flames instead? Yeah, that’s it. Flames from the dragons. Surrounding him but they can’t touch him. He’s too regal to be burned. Ask him if he can do flames.”

  Pete attempts to imitate Cochran’s description but has to settle for a question about the flames. Cochran watches the old man closely, gauging his reaction. The owner shakes his head.


  Cochran pokes me in the ribs. “Oh, oh. The old boy doesn’t like it.”

  Pete argues some more. Finally he turns to Cochran. “He says he can do the flames if that’s what you want.”

  “Good deal. How much?”

  “We’ll have to go in the other room and decide. He has to draw it out and figure the amount of material needed and then his wife sets the final price. She handles the business end of things.”

  We go into the back room and sit down in front of a low table where the owner’s wife and another old woman are manicuring the evening’s potion of betel nut. They first grind the betel nut and mix it in a lime paste, then they spread the goo on young green leaves. The women chew a gob, grind it down to juice and shreds before they start spitting. The betel nut eases the misery of their backs and erases the rheumatism in their bones, making them easy headed on a chewing and spitting spree. It also stains their teeth a dark black color which the wife counters by rubbing her mouth with lemon.

  The owner wants two thousand piasters, about twenty- five dollars American, but Pete has overheard the old man say he made the other bedspread for fifteen hundred piasters and when Cochran hears that he offers twelve hundred. The old man waves his hand and laughs silently, pantomiming the outrageousness of the offer.

  “Goddamnit, Pete, tell him I won’t go over fifteen hundred pees, not after knowing he sold the other one for that.”

  The old man smiles sadly and shakes his head. He sketches in his notebook, writes down some figures and says something to Pete.

  “He says he is very busy now and to get this done he’ll have to hire out some of the needlework which makes it more expensive.”

  “Well piss on that,” says Cochran. “If he can do one for some other guy, I guess he can do it for me. Tell him fifteen hundred and that’s final.”

  Pete tells him and the owner jabbers to his wife. She spits and bats the argument right back. Pete gets up and says, “Let’s go. She’s trying to get him to accept it. Maybe he’ll call us back when he sees we’re walking out.”

  We get up, thank the old man, and say goodbye to the ladies. The owner rises, presses his hands together, we nod and walk out.

  He doesn’t call us back so we keep going.

  “I can’t figure it out,” Pete says. “His wife wanted him to do it for fifteen hundred, but he told her, ‘Truly I do not want to do this job,’ and she didn’t force him.”

  “Why that little bastard,” says Cochran. “That’s your artistic temperament for you. Fuck your belly to feast your soul.” He lifts his nose and sniffs. “What’s that smell?

  An old wizened man, thin as a scarecrow with clothes to match, wheels a cart toward us. The closer the cart the grosser the smell.

  “Durian,” says Pete, “a real delicacy.”

  The nearer the vendor the ranker his wares.

  “Yuck,” Cochran says, “smells like a feefool, something between a feedlot and a cesspool.”

  “I was thinking more of a binwall,” I say. “Something between a binjo ditch and a hog waller.”

  The cart stops alongside and we get a good look. Some kind of evil-looking fuit, a yellow ball of spikes. Cochran reaches out a tentative finger.

  “Yikes, sharp. You could kill a person if you hit him in the head with one of those things.”

  “Let’s get some and drop them from the choppers,” I say.

  “The Cong would like that,” Pete says, “as long as you didn’t hit them in the head. They believe the durian has magic powers, keeps you looking and feeling young, and it heats your body so you don’t need a blanket to sleep at night.”

  The old man whacks a durian with a cleaver. It splits in half and the smell wafts up, worse than ever. The old man slices off a chunk and offers it to Cochran, who leans away, leery.

  “Go ahead, try it,” Pete says. “There’s an old saying, ‘When the durians come off the trees the ao dais come off the ladies.’”

  “I get it. An aphrodisiac.” He takes the chunk, holds his nose and bites off a little piece.

  “Sometimes they roll the fruit on the ground to cover the thorns with grass and leaves,” Pete says. “Then let elephants eat the durian. It comes out the other end whole. Enhances the eater’s experience.”

  “Aaargh.” Cochran spits out the chunk. “Why’d you have to tell me that?” He wipes his mouth. “Actually, I’m glad you did. I was about to swallow the damned thing.”

  The old man holds out his hand. Cochran pulls some piasters out of his pocket and gives them to the vendor. The old man pushes his cart forward and we head for the highway and catch a truck going to the base. We squat out of the wind for the bouncy ride home. Cochran works his mouth and jaw, trying to get rid of the durian taste.

  “Those guys, they’re something,” he says. “The fruit-seller was pretty laid back and the old fisherman was a load, but the tapestry artist takes the cake. You got to admire him for refusing a job when his heart’s not in it. Did you notice when it happened, when the deal was queered?”

  I shake my head.

  “Right when I told him how I saw the scene, how the tiger and dragons looked to me. He didn’t like my version one bit. The layout was his idea and if he had to change it to suit someone else, then that guy’s going to pay through the nose.

  “Except I didn’t do it. After I found out how much he sold the other one for I couldn’t pay any more than that, just like he couldn’t do the job for less than what he asked.”

  “Yeah, right, more of the old pissing contest.” I tell him.

  Cochran scratches his chest and shakes sand out of his shirt. My back is burned from the sun and raw from the salt water, my arm sore from the rope. I lean against the sideboards and scratch my shoulders on the wood. No sooner do I close my eyes than I’m jounced awake by the truck slamming to a stop.

  “Home sweet home,” Cochran says.

  We’re parked next to the mess hall. I climb down and stagger to the Frog House We’ve missed the shower hours but I’m so beat it doesn’t matter. Covered with sand and salt and burn, I fall into bed. Gladys can sweep up the mess in the morning.

  15. Sixes Sir

  Some water, Doc … a nice cool drink … that’s the ticket … abolish all fever spots … empty the ice machine … raindrops falling on my head … sweet balm of rapture … fly me to the moon, Doc … I need a reprieve … Cochran is a maniac … we fly eleven hours on a massive troop lift, he never turns loose the controls … with the bit in his teeth, he’s a horse not a gorilla … we refuel at a dirt strip with big black gas bladders filling us up … choppers gulping gas, three at a time … rotors shut down but engines running … we’re full up … bird in front of us still refueling … Cochran curses, what’s the fucking holdup … engages rotors, twists on turns, pulls the collective up and lifts off … raises a big cloud of dust and sends pebbles flying and the gas jockeys ducking … we fly across the runway five feet off the ground and sit down to wait … well, that was uncalled for, I tell him … he scowls and I don’t touch the controls all day … he pays the price the next day… we sit waiting to be called for a supply run … Cochran, all worn out, sleeps in the shade of the chopper belly and when we’re finally ordered out I fly every run … some kind of payback, there, Doc, or is it a reconciliation? … pffllff … this water tastes like blood, Doc … what kind of service you offering here … fill your hand pard … hard to pander when you’re potted …

  The officers kick in twenty-five bucks each for the pleasure of dickering with the Ice Queen. All base construction is conducted through the Ice Queen, a slinky black-haired, English-speaking Vietnamese, who, even after taking her cut, still gives us a good deal. She’ll build us a thatch-roofed and bamboo-sided officer’s club that will be the envy of the coupound. Not that that’s much of a challenge. The Staff NCOs already have a club. They quietly built their own out of scrounged and moonlighted materials right after we arrived.

  The first month here we drank in our rooms, hoping for an officer
’s club to magically appear. Then, no sooner do we start dickering with the Ice Queen, than the Hammer stands up at the morning meeting and announces we need an O club. We take that to mean he’ll take on the job, so we back off with the dickering.

  What it really means is that there’s an immediate halt to the whole thing. The Hammer is too involved in operational planning to do anything about an O Club. He is ordered to Saigon for a conference and in his absence we hold an O club meeting in the Frog House and elect a board of governors with Emmett as our president. The resolution is passed that the club will belong to the men who built it, to run as we please with our rules and our policies. In the couple of days the Hammer is gone we get the working parties and committees organized, liquor is ordered and the Ice Queen is given the go-ahead to build.

  When he returns, the Hammer surveys the lumber and bricks, retires to his room to run a private study of the plans and intentions, then reappears to okay the construction. The building materials are quickly assembled into a snazzy little hut with a thatched roof, brick and bamboo sides, a solid wall at one end, the other three walls screened waist-high to the roof. Liquor cabinets; rattan furniture; reefers leased from the Ice Queen; a suave Vietnamese bartender; two slinky waitresses; and the place is good to go.

  We cool off with cold beer in the club after our touch football games. Following a long day in the cockpit, we drop in for gin and tonics. Poker games go until late hours. We have daylong gatherings when the rain puts a damper on the flight schedule and there’s nothing to do but fill up on spirits and ride the high of a bottle of courage until some drunken shavetail tells a Major to go fuck himself and the place clears out.

  But even during the carousing and the false courage of the bottle, a worm borrows in the backs of our minds: take care, take care. The heavies are watching.

  We make a move before they strike. Call another meeting. The incubation period is over, the club has come of age. The initial investment is paid off and enough money has been made to declare free drinks one night a week. Now it’s time to get serious. Before the heavies stomp on our free-wheeling antics we have to come up with some bylaws, a written creed of respectability.