Praise for Christian Bauman’s debut novel
The Ice Beneath You
“Impressive…. Equal partsStripes andApocalypse Now. …Evokes the great soldier-writers Tim O’Brien and Thom Jones.”
—Mark Rozzo,The Los Angeles Times
“This sterling first novel offers a study in quiet tension and contemporary social malaise…. Bauman’s style is terse, candid, and on target with both language and circumstances. His close analysis of character motivation lends extra tension to an already suspenseful account…. A war story for the new millennium.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A fresh, straightforward debut that strikes just the right balance between action and recollection.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An impressive debut…. As with all great war novels,The Ice Beneath You is not so much about war itself as the consequences of war.”
—The Tallahassee Democrat
“Bauman’s pure prose suits his naturalist approach. What is striking…are the tiny minefields laid along the way, microscopic psychological bombs detonated by the realization that the war is never really over for anyone who has fought it. With unadorned honesty, Bauman has illuminated us.”
—Elisa Ludwig,Philadelphia City Paper
“An addictive, quick read…. Unforgettable characters…. Original, timely, and important.”
—Home News Tribune(E. Brunswick, NJ)
“This year’s most riveting return flight into the heart of darkness…searingly real.”
—Anneli Rufus,East Bay Express (Berkeley, CA)
“Darkly comic…. Bauman’s intercutting is a nervy stylistic that zeroes in on the drab lives of less-than-historical figures…. [A] late-night tavern tale of a likeable anti-hero and his dubious comrades in arms.”
—Eugene Weekly(Eugene, OR)
“One of the finest books on life in the American army.”
—Chris Hedges, author of
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
“Beautifully crafted, structured, and simple…. It is a pleasure to read the work of a real writer. Thank you, Mr. Bauman.”
—Hubert Selby, Jr., author of
Last Exit to BrooklynandRequiem for a Dream
“A remarkable debut…a tense, razor-edged, powerful effort…. This is a book that willhold you.”
—Richard Wertime, author of
Citadel on the Mountain
“The Ice Beneath Youis an important book—a profound meditation on the stark realities of the American male experience. The truths of soldiering are brilliantly examined here from angles previously unexplored, but this is not so much a war novel as it is an exploration of the human heart. The writing is beautiful, deft, and it displays an almost religious devotion to unwavering honesty.”
—Don De Grazia, author ofAmerican Skin
“Bauman renders the true spirit of men at war—not just the frustrations and fear that come with operating over a dangerous landscape, but also the deep bonds that tie men and women together through such experiences. With both humor and compassion, he captures well the deeper wounds that such places can inflict.”
—Scott Anderson, author of
The Man Who Tried to Save the WorldandTriage
“Shorn of artifice, probing, moral…. A writer to be watched.”
—Andrew Huebner, author ofAmerican by Blood
Also By Christian Bauman
The Ice Beneath You
TOUCHSTONE
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Christian Bauman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
TOUCHSTONEand colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Kyoko Watanabe
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bauman, Christian.
Voodoo Lounge : a novel / Christian Bauman.
p. cm
“A Touchstone book.”
1. Haiti—History—American intervention, 1994–1995—Fiction. 2. Americans—Haiti—Fiction. 3. Soldiers—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3602.A96V66 2005
813’.6—dc22
ISBN-10: 0-7432-7468-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7468-5
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
For Kirk Berlenbach and Tim Blaikie
“The coming of war turned out to be, somehow, intimate, like Christmas.”
—ALANFURST
“It’s very hard to live in Haiti and not know who cut off someone’s head.”
—PAULFARMER
Contents
Prologue
Part One
Port-au-Prince
Jérémie
Port-au-Prince
Pétionville
Port-au-Prince
Late Morning
Part Two
Under Way
Jacmel
Voodoo Lounge
Jacmel, Morning
Author’s Note
Reading Group Guide
Prologue
September 20, 1994
When you go, you go for real. And there is no time more real than 3:00A.M. Sergeants’ time, it’s called. Zero three hundred. Zero dark early.
On the old Army boat, the general-quarters bell rang twice for wake-up at 0300. The bell didn’t matter; those who’d slept had been up for at least half an hour. Most of the thirty-four soldiers hadn’t slept. In warm bunks and cold latrine stalls they’d all felt the engines throttle down at 0245, the hard rattle in the bulkheads reduced to a low buzz as the vessel went from full speed to barely making headway through the Caribbean waters.
The echo of the bell died in empty steel passageways, replaced by the hollow silence of nothing to say, nothing to talk about. Cigarettes went to lips, Zippo lids flipped back. Brown T-shirts came down over heads, camouflage BDU blouses buttoned up. The skeleton crews on night watch wiped oil from the gray sides of the diesels, raised binoculars to eyes on the bridge wings, listened to quiet static on the marine bands, made coffee.
In a cramped, two-bunk crew cabin the soldier everyone called Jersey sat in the only chair, bent over, pulling speed-laces tight on a black jungle boot, tucking ends. The door opened, Dick Wags in blue engine-room coveralls, hands in pockets. The light from the passage behind framing a tight face.
“Roomdog,” Dick Wags said, with deep-voice Dick Wags drama. “Voodoo Lounge awaits.”
Jersey looked up, snorted, said, “Please.” The soldier tapped a Marlboro against the ashtray, bent to tie the other boot. Dick Wags was from northeast Jersey, Jersey from northwest. Dick Wags was Dick, sometimes Rick. Jersey was Jersey, except to Dick Wags; to Dick Wags, Jersey was Roomdog. Everyone’s roomdog was Roomdog. It wasn’t complicated.
“You done?” Dick Wags asked. “I gotta get my shit on.”
“Two minutes,” Jersey said, picking up the cigarette again.
“Two and two,” Dick Wags said, leaving, closing the door. Boot-sole footsteps padded down the passage then were gone. “Two and two,” Jersey whispered, standing, tucking brown T-shirt deep into green, camouflage BDU pants, tightening belt, reaching for BDU top. “Two and two.” They had all taped silver reflective patches to the shoulders of their uniforms and the crown of their helmets yesterday. A new system, they’d been told. Easier identification from a distance. To avoid fri
endly fire. “Friendly fire,” Jersey whispered. “Two and two.”
Dick Wags was back in two and two, as Jersey stepped into the passageway. “Friendly fire, Dick Wags,” Jersey said, pressing fingertips against the patch of silver tape. “Gotta watch that friendly fire.”
“No friendly fire in the Voodoo Lounge, Sergeant Roomdog,” Dick Wags said.
“Sergeant, yes.”
They slammed knuckled fists as they passed. They were going, going for real, trying to do it right. Two sergeants—Jersey a very young buck sergeant, Dick Wags a staff sergeant—going for the first time.
The cabin door closed. Jersey made for the stairs up to the galley deck. Someone was reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the head. Might be Matata, hard to tell.
Pelton filled the passage at the bottom of the stairs, M-16 rifle hanging from shoulder, forehead pressed against the bulkhead, eyes clenched tight. Jersey put a hand up to the big shoulder, squeezing past, whispered, “All good, P. All good.” Pelton inched forward, head not moving, skin to metal. When Jersey made the stairs and turned to look back the thick snipe was still there, hands wrapped around the rail, face to wall.
In darkened cabins soldiers sat alone, waiting. Dressed; drumming fingertips on desktops, rubbing palms on cheeks and chins.
In the bow-thruster room, deep beneath the wave pushed by the front of the ship, another young buck sergeant, whom everyone called Scaboo, set down hand weights and picked up a towel to wipe sweat, unable to wait passively. In the soundproofed engine-room box Chief threw the breaker to switch generators. On the bridge the first mate, Mac, sat slumped in the skipper’s chair, staring at the flat black of night through the glass. In the skipper’s cabin, directly below the bridge, Mannino sat on the edge of the bunk in boxers and a T-shirt, vessel manifest in hand, the thirty-four names of the warrant officers and crew.
In the small crew’s mess Snaggletooth and Shrug sat below the TV mounted up on the bulkhead, joysticks in hand, playing Tetris. Riddle walked in, moving to the coffee pot. “Turn that shit off.” Riddle’s loud, flat, Florida voice filled the mess like it filled every room Riddle entered. Snaggletooth made a noise, stood, and pushed the button to make the TV a TV again. The screen filled with segueing images of plantations, beaches, city streets teeming with black figures in cars, on foot, on bikes. Swelling symphonic music from the speakers, no words ever, just the music. The TV had been like this since yesterday afternoon. They’d lost the tail-end of the Miami NBC station the day before that, then gained a few hours of Cuban broadcasting. Now, just this: one station out of Port-au-Prince, showing the same scenes over and over, and the never-ending music. It was patriotic, Mac had said. Cedras was broadcasting this to work up Haitian nationalism and pride. The coming American invasion was no surprise, no secret D-Day. They were going for real and half the world knew it. The glory broadcast on TV proved it.
“Nobody needs that now,” Riddle said, sitting at a mess table, looking at the TV. “Put inSerpent and the Rainbow. ”
Shrug pulled the Tetris cartridge from the Nintendo, swaying to compensate for the slow pitch of the boat. “Skipper came in last night, threw it overboard.”
“My movie?”
“Yep,” Shrug said. “Took the tape, threw it overboard.”
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
It was 0315.
Roy stepped into the mess from the galley. Roy liked to be called the Steward. Roy had done some reading, and—Army cook or no—this was a boat, a military vessel of the United States, and that meant Roy was the Steward. It was all the cook would answer to. Roy crossed to the coffee pot, dressed in BDUs, a white cook’s apron hanging from red-blotched neck. A web belt was tight around the apron and the Texan’s thick waist, a 9-mm pistol in a black holster.
“Hey Steward!” Riddle called, pointing at Roy’s pistol. “You think Ton Ton Macoute is coming for your chowder?”
“Fucking-A,” Roy said, Texas slow, adjusting steel-framed glasses and sipping from the coffee mug. The Skipper had assigned Roy to one of the big .50-cal machine guns for battlestations because Roy had spent two years in Korea, cooking chow for an infantry battalion. “Yeah, okay, Skip,” Roy had said, “but I don’t know much about fifty cals.” Mannino put the cook there anyway. “You know what they look like, right, Sergeant?” Mannino had a strong Long Island accent. “If I call battlestations you could probably find it on the deck, right? And pull the trigger?”
Roy had the kitchen privates, Matata and Cain, up at midnight to make chow for the 0300 wake-up. No one wanted chow, though. Just coffee. Back in the galley Roy told Matata and Cain to clean and put everything up then get dressed and ready. They didn’t have designated battlestations. They were substitutes, in case someone got shot.
The ship cut through the night waters, silent and slowing. Thirty-four soldiers, wide awake with nothing to say.
At 0340 general-quarters sounded again and Mac called to prepare for battlestations. Time to stop waiting down below. Time to hurry up and wait somewhere else. Time to go.
When you go—when you go for real—you put on pounds. Even Waterborne soldiers, with no field equipment, bore some weight going in. Real-time weight. Kevlar helmet, flak vest, web belt, LBE suspenders, ammo pouches and clips, M-16 rifle slung over back. Mac had told them not to tuck their pants into their combat boots because it would be easier to swim if they fell overboard. No one bothered to point to the dead weight of their flak jacket and ask if it mattered.
A few weeks before, Jersey had picked up a dog-eared copy ofThe Things They Carried at the USO and the book—the cool parts, anyway—had become standard reading for bored quarterdeck watches in the last days before they went down range. They made up their own lists of things soldiers carry, filling in what the book left out, scribbling anonymous notes on the inside cover:CRYSTAL METH AND A CASE OF THE ASS wrote one wit.HERPES FROM SCABOO’S MOM—WE ALL CARRY THAT —a penciled line reported. Riddle, signing name to note, pointed out that Snaggletooth carried the weight of ugly for the whole detachment. Even with the patience of paper and pencil Snaggletooth wasn’t quick enough to transfer the weight of anything back to Riddle. Now it didn’t matter; this morning they were going for real. All of them—privates to sergeants to warrant officers alike—for the first time. All of them combat virgins. All any of them carried was gradients of fear.
There was one more signal before the scatter for individual battlestations. One more place to wait before they went to wait someplace else. Four of them crowded behind a steel hatch, forward in a tight passage on the port side, like groups were now waiting at five different hatches around the boat. Waiting for the last signal to go for real. Jersey, Temple, Scaboo, and Riddle behind this one; helmet straps tight, adjusting the pounds hanging from their bodies, waiting. It occurred to Jersey that Riddle was silent for the first time in memory, a line of sweat running down the soldier’s left cheek. Jersey drew a breath, held it, let it out.
Tense, tense, feeding on the silence.
“Stupid, going to battlestations this early,” Scaboo growled.
“Can’t you shut up,” Jersey said, spinning so quickly on Scaboo their helmets clicked together.
Scaboo brought a hand up, but PFC Temple, bigger than both of them, slipped between the two new sergeants, stepping lightly on Scaboo’s highly polished jump boot. “Not now,” Temple said, and a second later the passage lights went out—their signal. Riddle reached up, undogged the hatch, and swung it open. A warm wisp of darkness came to them, sweet flowers and salt, Riddle holding the hatch open. Temple pushed through then forward into the night air. Jersey moved to follow.
“Bitch,” Scaboo whispered, lips to ear, and then was gone, through the hatch and up the ladder to the deck above.
Jersey’s open palm shot out, searching for the other young sergeant’s head, but Scaboo was gone.
“C’mon,” Riddle barked. “Fuck that.”
Then Riddle was gone, scurrying up the ladder behind Scaboo. All sound w
as gone as well, lost to the larger wash of ocean and wind.
“Two and two,” Jersey whispered to no one—furious—“and fuck you,” turning to dog the hatch tight, close to hyperventilating. Concentration broken from verbal friendly fire, two quick breaths, concentration back, then moving behind Temple’s shadowy form on the ship’s deck, the long walk forward up the portside catwalk to the bow.
They were going, going for real, but their reality was shaky, shifting; the truth as elusive and unsteady as the deck beneath their boots on a long rolling swell. They’d had a week to prepare for one stark reality; made peace and tied themselves into its probabilities like they tied themselves into their racks to sleep through rough weather. Then it shifted, with only hours to spare.
“Ex-president Jimmy Carter has asked Mister Cedras and the Haitian army not to blow us out of the water,” Mac had intoned on the loudspeaker, voice floating and alien in the dim, empty passages. “Jimmy Carter says they’ll be surrendering to us instead of shooting at us.” They’d heard a click they all understood to be Mac’s Zippo in action on a Camel Light. “The Skipper voted for Jimmy Carter—twice.” The officer exhaled. “Me, I was too young.”
Nothing changed. Just more anxiety. When you finally go, you go for real. Jimmy Carter or not. You have to. And you have to hold onto that—keep it first in your head. If your cracked-leather black combat boot crosses from deckplate to soil and there is a rifle in your hand, those watching from high on hilltops or from behind thick curtains have drawn their own definition of you. It doesn’t matter how you define yourself, or how a president or general defines you, what official title or task is given you and those who travel with you. All that matters is how those watching your arrival define you. They provide your definition. And they know the neighborhood better.
When you go, you go for real, because those watching you arrive may not agree with your own definition. If your cracked-leather black combat boot crosses from deckplate to soil and there is a rifle in your hand, that is definition enough.
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