Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  Across the street, a well-traveled and expert whore stands smoky-eyed—with plumped lips and waxy skin; a silk negligee and baggy harem pants; her hands on her hips, impatient as her aura of seduction dissolves. Her potential client—a greenhorn virgin quaking in his boots; his face clammy with flop sweat—thumbs through foreign currency, trying to calculate in ‘Monopoly money’ the value of his first lay—a moment ill-prepared and long-awaited, to fulfill the enthusiasm that underwrote his enlistment.

  Three doors down, a slender woman—younger than her neighbor; dressed in fieldworking attire, cut and sewn to seem fashionable—stands before three broad-shouldered, brown-haired American men—their backs straight; the sleeves of their fatigues torn away—talking prices; talking her down; asking what all she’ll do.

  She wrings her hands behind her back, looking down and out; searching for words that aren’t there. The soldiers look to one another with prudent smirks. She chatters off—with clipping tongue, and deepening, darkening eyes—a list of sexual acts she’s never done, implying she’s a seasoned pro while speaking meek and shivering.

  The soldiers hold silent, in rapture, deciding ultimately to forgo her payment, to her immediate displeasure. They lift her off her feet. She screams, and thrashes feebly, but her cries are quickly muffled by a closed door.

  Two mopeds scoot through a throng of bicycles. Cattle pull a wagon. Dirt becomes pavement. An off-white Volkswagen Beetle parks at an intersection. Pigeons settle on the eaves of the surrounding buildings; their rooftops all draped with billboards; their walls littered with signage—written in English and Vietnamese alike—painted to advertise only beer, cigarettes, and nightlife.

  An Khê’s preeminent harlot emerges—her purse slung loose over her shoulder; long legs concluding with high heels; plaid mini-skirt under an ill-fitting halter top; polished fingernails raking through tousled hair. She struts the pavement in a narrow stride, sucking a cigarette and her finger interchangeably. She hollers—in shrill phonetics—to two infantrymen seated on a tavern patio.

  The infantryman with thick brown sideburns ask her to repeat herself. She says she's horny. She asks if they want to party. Her skin is tan, smooth; her physique small, slender, but strong.

  The other infantryman, with a prominent blonde widow's peak, asks if she intends to take them both. She nods, “Twenty dollar.” The soldiers smile, “Twenty for both?” She shakes her head, “No, each man twenty dollar.”

  “What about on our own?” asks the sideburned soldier. “You don't want party?” she coos, tugging on her halter top and pursing her lips. She bats her eyelashes; her makeup is as precise and exquisite as a Vegas dancer's.

  The infantrymen look to one another, wordlessly calculating. The sideburned one turns back, “Fifteen each.” She counters with “twenty” and reminds them that she's horny. She squeezes her breasts. The soldier with the widow's peak squirms in his seat.

  Sideburn asks if she's clean. She says, “Okay, fifteen each.” Sideburn smiles to his friend, saying, “Hear that? She's clean.” The widow's peak cocks his brow, “Sounds like she's deflecting.” “At least she ain't defecting! If a gook is clean,” sideburn prods, “it's more than likely she beds with Charlie.” “Oh,” widow's peak nods, “woof.”

  The harlot flips her plaid skirt up for quick flash of her bare, shaved vagina. Sideburn smiles, with a turn of hand, “See? Now we're cooking with gas.” She blows a kiss at widow's peak, and he asks her, “What all then for fifteen?” “I do all.” “All?” “Suck an’ fuck, baby. I do all.”

  Widow's peak’s eyes bulge. “Boy howdy!” He reaches into his pocket, and his grin soon wanes. “Say, um,” he turns to his buddy, digging through his other pockets, “You, uh, got any rubbers?”

  A crowd gathers in the vacant lot around the corner. A go-go band of scrawny dark-skinned natives, all clad in hand-me-down Army fatigues, jam a syncopated groove on a short wooden stage. Four native girls in plastic gold shimmering bikinis, with plastic yellow knee-high boots, cheer and dance for a thickening throng of infantrymen. The girls are all glammed-up and smiley, stepping side-to-side with rolling, weaving hands.

  The lead dancer stoops and extends her hand, inviting a soldier on-stage for a rousing jive together, and he accepts her offer—however, he grabs tight and pulls her towards him. Her joy dissolves to danger, with furrowing brow and hot breathing, leaning her weight back and pulling against his grip, but his arms—made egregiously strong, in every centimeter of muscle and tendon, by the necessity of mastering an LMG against its bucking recoil—are obscenely powerful for their size, and he easily takes control. He pulls her off-stage and holds her close. She squirms but inevitably relents, determining resistance to be a futile drain of her energy, and the soldier grinds his chest and pelvis against her taut body. His hands explore her. The infantrymen cheer. The girls on-stage continue to groove, half-hearted and feigning smiles.

  Watching from across the street, a soldier in full-gear—exhausted yet upright; mentally drained—peers out the barred window of a respectable home. The room he alone occupies—formerly a bedroom—is in shambles: drawers upturned and emptied on the floor; surfaces wiped clean, their materiel strewn; a painted portrait of the homeowners—the western-dressed, shiny-haired, weathered faces of a meek woman and her meek man—leans against the wall under the window, barred thrice across for every one vertical.

  The room adjacent is empty save for a small shrine to Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, the mountain god, clad in gilded robes and seated upon a red throne. An empty-eyed soldier leans against the wall and side-eyes a circular window whose flush design is of the inset symbol for good fortune. Bullet holes span the wall behind him, seemingly having spared the mountain god of injury. The soldier holds his gun at the ready.

  In the dining room—wherefrom both soldiers began—a square meal steams on the tabletop, and three taciturn persons surround it. Foremost, the meek man in his white-collared shirt—his face buried in his plate—with red splotches on his back. Seated across from him, the meek woman wears a red blouse, stained somehow redder. Similar stains bespatter the tablecloth before her. She slouches in her chair—her legs under the table and her head lilting over the side; her hair hanging down like vines, like brambles; her lips parted and eyes vacant. Below her, on the floor beside an upturned chair, lies a man in a crew-neck yellow shirt and jeans; his head turned on its side, with a bullet hole through his ear—a gaping moist wound of crimson. He lies on his back; arms out, palms up, as if asking for forgiveness.

  Outside, on the tree-lined street, three soldiers hustle down the sidewalk; their rifles carried like briefcases, running as if for a missed bus. Holes decorate the sidewalk, as do loose bricks from nearby buildings. The soldiers run past a mural—an advertisement, painted—upon white concrete blocks: “YOU’LL BE SATISIFIED HERE” “WHAT YOU WAIT FOR? COME IN” “GOOD BODY MASSAGE AND EVERYTHING” “FIND BEAUTY & RELAXATION” in four pert boxes, sidelining a pop-portrait of an American soldier in his fatigues, removing his helmet, with a broad smile, closed eyes, and lax shoulders.

  The soldiers round the corner and hustle down the road, leaving the parlor in their wake. Five older women watch them depart, from their vantage on the parlor stoop, where they sit—bored and barely-dressed—on two shared benches. Above the stoop, a corrugated metal sign—nailed firm—bears the name “PARIS VIỆT” in bold red paint. On the either side of the door, betwixt a pair of potted plants, are two small signs—“nhiều gái điếm INSIDE,” “buộc phép vợ ON LIMITS”—also in red.

  An aging matron guides a heavyset soldier out of the establishment—her hand on his back—swinging wide the doors and smiling. He looks left and right as he adjusts his cap back upon his head. A tall native woman in a western-style floral dress—backless; high neckline; mid-thigh hemline—and white stiletto heels walks arm-in-arm with an old breed lieutenant, passing the gaggle and the heavyset soldier. The two men hold a brief, silent gaze and look away, as if it never happened. The s
toop women jeer the fashionista as soon as her back is turned, but she strides on without acknowledging them.

  The matron side-eyes her thrall and returns to her parlor. Crossing the threshold, she passes a small stage occupied only by a long-haired go-go girl and her bowl-cut bassist. She’s heavily makeuped and wearing a two-piece leopard-print bikini; thick legs wrapped in knee-high grecian sandals; no underwear—dancing, grooving, swishing, swaying. The bassist stands behind her, in white bell-bottoms and vest, over an orange polyester shirt—flared lapel, open chest—strumming an electric bass guitar.

  Plush booths line the wall, against shuttered windows. A couple shares one side of the corner booth—a thick-eyebrowed Italian-American GI and a cute young Vietnamese girl—and turn to eavesdrop on the conversation behind them: a curly-haired Italian-American soldier is a geyser of emotion, leaning his forearms into the table, as the Vietnamese woman seated beside him—mature and well-dressed, with dangling golden earrings—puts her hand on his shoulder. She speaks slowly to him, pronouncing every heartbreaking syllable. Before her is an empty wine glass; before him are three empty bottles of ‘33’ EXPORT rice beer.

  The matron skims past the booths without a glance, then passes an occupied white leather loveseat: a bespectacled officer, in plainclothes—white collared shirt, short-sleeved; pleated pants, pulled halfway up the calf as he sits, revealing half-calf white socks—and glossy black waxed shoes. He palms a beer glass, posed in the center of the couch and leaning over; mistaking encroachment for engagement at the expense of his seated partner, who is subsequently squished against the arm of the couch. He looks her over as he drones on and on indifferent to her demeanor; holding loose his beer glass in his right hand—elbow propped on knee—as his left arm drapes across his lap; his hand hanging loose, and his gold wedding band glimmering in the light of the sunbeams that stream through the clapboard window. She stares ahead, eyes sullen and cheeks dry—awash in a boredom more claustrophobic than circumstantial; an existential ennui—wearing a white dress; one leg crossed over the other, her flip-flop dangling by its thong. Her right arm propped on her knee; her chin held in the palm of her hand; her fingers long up the side of her face, like a threaded buffer. Her other arm limp on the armrest; her left hand hanging loose, and her gold wedding band glimmering in the light of the sunbeams…

  And the matron crosses through two rows of two-person tables; chairs and surfaces empty, save for a lone local woman, seated with her arms folded against the table. Her hair tidy in a beehive; her fingernails freshly-painted an acrylic white; her dark dress busy with geometric designs. She glances down at her wristwatch.

  At the countertop adjacent sits a well-manicured native woman. She smirks, coy, as she strokes her fingers across the shoulders of a barrel-bodied and bespectacled GI. He stares ahead, his eyes transfixed on the near-to-overflowing beer pint that he prods with the tips of his fingers, toying nervously with the slick glass. He clears his throat. She leans over, to whisper in his ear, as her left hand crosses over her lap to grab his, squeezing the inside of his thigh. He reflexively kicks the bar, and he scans the room to see if anyone noticed. She giggles and stands; her hands gently guiding him away from his stool and around the bar…

  She leads him toward a darkened doorway that conceals a flight of stairs. He adjusts his glasses, noticing briefly the sign beside the passage: “Cần điều chỉnh?” They ascend the staircase, up to a long hall with a dozen doors. The first, ahead of him, holds a canopy bed, boxed-in by four wooden posts; shirts and dresses hang from the rods instead of curtains; a paisley quilt covers the mattress, and a woman—fully-dressed and frustrated—lies atop it on her stomach, looking across the room at the GI who sits patiently on his stool, savoring the last of his can of beer.

  In the room adjacent is a simple bare mattress, lofted on a row of crates, and a collection of oriental movie posters pasted to the walls. A woman in her late-fifties sits upon the mattress, staring out the door at the passing GI; leaning back into her propped arms; grinning with inflated confidence. An industrial fan, long ago repurposed from a storeroom ceiling, stands on a rickety credenza, blowing cool air upon her in an endless gust. She grins, unsurpassably satisfied—an enviable blithe candor—as the cool air ripples her dry hair and wrinkled skin, and her shirt—collared; unbuttoned; repurposed—flutters in the breeze, exposing her pruned chest—the interior walls of her old breasts, and her liver-spotted areolas.

  The passing GI snaps his gaze away to the opposite wall; his face reddens with the heat of shame, and his heart pounds against his sternum. The manicured woman guides him down the hall, by a gentle grasp of his hand, past an open window—barred thrice across for every one vertical—and a hole south of the inner arris, punched-through the plaster to expose the wall’s body of brick.

  The next room exists in darkness—its windows blacked-out by clothing nailed taut across—and a bare mattress lies on the center of the floor, illuminated only by the light cast-in from the hall. Caught in this glow are a pair of svelte, tender legs—rubbing long against one another—and the unmistakable olive-green of Army fatigues, worn by two strapping soldiers—one with thick brown sideburns, the other with a prominent blonde widow's peak—as they crawl on their hands and knees around the mattress. Thereupon lolls a bare-legged Vietnamese girl, clad only in a black negligee. The sideburned soldier mounts the mattress, enveloping the girl; growling in her ear like a mad dog. She laughs and wriggles beneath him; he licks her face. The widow’s peak soldier grabs both of her small ankles, and he pries her legs apart.

  The matron, passing, shuts the door on the dark room. She takes the meandering GI by his elbow and motions his gentle guide, the manicured woman, to the room at the end of the hall. The woman nods and briskly pulls the GI down the aisle, shuffling past a burly, blonde, and aging sergeant who occupies much of the corridor with his commanding stance; his wide-bodied lean against the wall, holding there an older vietnamese woman. The sergeant looks to his hand—that which cups the woman’s small breast—and she, wrinkled and demure, finds the passing GI’s eyes with her own, following him until he’s out of sight.

  The door shuts behind him, acclimatizing him to this exceptionally-sunlit makeshift bedroom—its brightness owed largely to the blown-out corner of the room, loose with bricks and plaster; exposed to the city’s other rooftops. An oriental divider—six panels of dark wood and paper screens—stands between an old mattress and the aperture in the walls. The paper screens diffuse the sunlight, casting an ethereal glow over the bed.

  The manicured woman settles there, in the bath of warm light and the pillows of goose feather. She curls one leg in over the other, lets her hair down, and smiles.

  The GI looks her up and down. He shudders an exhale and his face once again reddens. He removes his glasses and polishes them with a handkerchief. Returning his spectacles to his face, he notices, behind the screen divider, another man: a soldier, fully-geared and armored, slouching against the wall; his M60 machine gun rests propped atop the rubble, aimed down at the city streets.

  The gunner stares sullen-eyed out the aperture. He holds a toothpick with pinched fingers and needles it along his ruddy gums. Sensing the GI’s gaze, he turns and—with an unapologetic twang, breaking a brief silence—says, “Don’t mind me,” before turning back to the view from his perch.

  The GI swivels his gaze back to the mattress: the manicured woman beckons him with a cute smile and curling finger. He removes his glasses, tucks them into his chest pocket, clears his throat, and unbuttons his shirt.

  The gunner stares through his aperture at the street below. A 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood—long, brown body; squared radiator grill—idles curbside, and a Vietnamese woman with voluminous hair, pink tank-top, and thigh-high red leather boots sits on its hood, shaking loose a cigarette from its pack. She puts it to her lips and lights it. Two other Vietnamese women—in bronze one-piece bathing suits, with long bare legs, pert nipples, and bouncy dark curls—emerge from the car’s pas
senger side, drinking from bottles of ‘33’ EXPORT beer.

  Across the street, a buxom mother grimaces with disapproval. She holds the hands of her two young sons, both of whom ogle the scantily-clad femme fatales. The mother drags her sons away from the scene—the elder, made in her image; the younger, born of her bushy black hair and tanned skin, but also of an aquiline nose and wide blue eyes.

  The mother turns the corner with her sons in tow. Further down the road, along the way, the boys ogle a shabby building of plaster and stone, surrounded in barbed wire. Within its thorny confines are a few dozen natives—all naked, save for whatever cloth they could scrounge—kept under constant surveillance by well-armed ARVN soldiers. Near to the building's oily facade stands a wooden post, driven firm into the ground, and a naked gook on his knees—tied to the post; his arms wrapped behind it; a blindfold over his eyes, and his head drooping under the pull of gravity. His chest weeps red in three places.

  Two American MPs stand in the dirt road outside the hovel, watching the natives with disinterest; chewing gum; overseeing the sanctity of some dozen emaciated, dried-out gook corpses.

  The hovel gates swing open. The MPs watch as five ARVN officers drag two Hanoian gooks—bound at their wrists—to the middle of the dirt road. Both are brought to their knees, and the one in ragged underwear is knocked to the ground. An officer loops his rifle under the chin of the other—naked; complaining—and pulls up on it with both hands, choking the naked gook by the top of his neck. Two other officers prod his bare gut with their bayonets, pricking him and drawing blood.

  The naked gook and his tormentors scream at one another in their shrill, inflective native tongue. The more decorus of the two gooks, face-down in the dirt, has one officer's boot stamped between his scapulae while another officer needles his shoulder with a knife. The genteel stabs bring him to wince, and then—as quietly as a summer breeze—the knife glides up and down his arm, slicing thin strips of hearty flesh; churning-out ribbons of pork.