13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Lila returned to the bed and, acting bored, as if she had nothing better to do, she stroked-squeezed Rufus’ flaccid manhood. It stayed limp. She smothered a laugh. “That the best you can do, Stud?” Lila rolled over and lay facing away from him.

  Rufus looked at Lila’s ass and then at his penis. His penis drooped across his muscular thigh. He could not feel it. He sat up, rolled to his knees and on hands and knees hovered over her, kissing her body up and down, aware always that his penis was still limp and hanging dead between his legs. Rufus caressed, massaged, titillated Lila and she purred softly, her eyes closed, thinking about someone else, he thought, she lying on her belly now, breathing a little quicker, a little harder, undulating her pelvis slowly with the caress of Rufus’ large hand, the stimulation of his thick finger. Rufus lay forward and pressed his chest to Lila’s back, supporting his body with his knees and chest, fingering Lila with one hand and squeezing his limp penis with the other. It stiffened slightly. He thought of her warmth and it stiffened more. He moved behind her and his penis touched her and shrank. Fear, embarrassment, overcame him. Come on, he coaxed himself. Come on. Rufus continued caressing Lila. She reached down and adjusted his hand to give herself more pleasure. He pulled harder on himself hoping she would not roll over. “Oh, Rufus,” Lila moaned. “You should do this all the time. You always want to get in me so fast. I feel so hot and juicy. Don’t stop.” Rufus inserted his finger deeper, he let himself lie on her and he curled his other arm about her and stroked her forehead. He kissed her back. Lila grabbed his hand from her head and brought it to her mouth. She kissed his fingers. Then she began sucking his middle finger rhythmically, undulating her groin in time. “Come in me,” she cried. “Oh, I’m ready,” she gurgled, she rolled under him. Rufus continued stimulating her vagina with his hand. He closed his eyes and pretended—pretended another man was with them—was behind Lila—was behind him. His penis became rigid. He slid atop Lila, between her thighs, he opened his eyes and wilted. “Fuck me,” she cried. “Fuck me. Give it to me … give … what’s the matter with you?”

  After they got up she repeated it, nastily, trying to hurt him, repeated it again and again. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Look, ah, I just flashed on, ah, something. That’s all.”

  “Oh good. You get me all jacked up then go thinking about your boys again.”

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “Here he is, Mr. Fagman. You can have him. Mr. Stud. A one-ton bomb with a half-inch wick. But don’t worry. He’s not dangerous.”

  “Wait a minute, Bitch. All you gotta do is spread them thighs. It’s me that’s gotta do the work.”

  “The WORK!? Is that what you call it?”

  It did not get better between them. She was hurt and she wanted to hurt him. They drank more heavily. “You think it easy for me?” she asked the next day. “You know how many nights I spend alone? I’m out singing, working with all these really right dudes, out in really fine company, and I go home alone. I may not always do that, Stud.”

  Rufus, the ex-athlete, felt as if his body had betrayed him. The fifth night of R&R they tried again to make love and again he could not keep hard. They sat, not looking at each other, not speaking, each wondering how to get through the time remaining until they would return to their own worlds, each disgusted with the other, hurt by the other, disappointed with the other and with their own selves.

  On the sixth and last night of R&R Rufus said to Lila, “I don’t know what it is, or why. I thought we could make it. I don’t know or maybe I do. I think maybe I really do. You think because I’ve told you I love you, you’ve unlocked all the mystery of me and there isn’t anything left to find. You think there’s no room to look at me anymore and it’s time to move on. Lady, I don’t think you’ve even scratched the surface.”

  “Maybe,” Lila answered softly, they had ceased shouting that morning, “that’s because you won’t let me. You’ve got this coating of words so wrapped around you, you can’t even see yourself. How do you expect me to know you?”

  On the second night she had said, “Not tonight, Honey.” On the sixth night it became his turn and he did not even try. All my life, he told himself, I’ve been good at whatever I’ve attempted. I’m not going to start failing now. He gawked at her. She grinned at him, nastily, crudely, destructively. “I hate you,” Lila said and they passed the night in polite silence.

  At noon the next day, Lieutenant Brooks, in uniform, said good-bye to Mrs. Brooks. They spoke formally. Around them other soldiers were politely saying good-bye to their wives also. There was no frantic passion as there had been when that planeload had arrived from Vietnam. There were only a few tears.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Rufus,” Lila said softly not looking at him.

  “No,” he answered. “It wasn’t.”

  “Good-bye.” Tears welled then streamed.

  “Good-bye,” he said simply, watching her crack. She turned and ran from him, ran from the loading gate, from the terminal, from Hawaii. He turned and walked up the ramp. In his throat he sang the lyrics to the song Walk Like A Man. His spine was straight, his lips formed the words, Walk.…

  The Hawaii torment followed him, chased him for months. There was a side of the conflict he never saw, never imagined. Had he seen it he would not have understood it. Lila continued to spend lonely nights and anguished days. When she had left for Hawaii she had wanted something to call her own, a baby, a family, yet the dream had soured. Upon returning she tried to get a steady job. She had to become self-sufficient again and learn not to depend on his allotment. She asked herself a thousand times if she could leave him. She did not want another man. Men became repulsive. Should she divorce him? In March she wrote him a note which said only, “I didn’t want to be pregnant and I’m not.” Could she send it? Could she? She did and with it she decided irreversibly to divorce and she set about building her support system which jelled in July. In early August she filed the papers.

  In his mind Brooks entered the bedroom of a penthouse bachelor’s pad. He crept in slowly, noiselessly, in the best boonierat fashion. She did not know he had returned. It was his first day back. They were giggling on the bed. The lights were low. Lila, her sensuous mocha-colored body naked on the Jody’s legs, her mouth on his large penis. The Jody laying back, eyes stoned-closed dreaming. Brooks snapped his right hand toward the bed. The spoon flew from the grenade with a metallic ting. No wait. His mind stopped the scene. The image switched. He and Lila were on the bed making love. He watched her so lovingly lick and suck him. It excited him beyond description. It excited him as he lay on the cold valley floor. With the excitement there nagged a secret thoughtimage which he tried to chase away, which disgusted him. It was a mental picture he watched begin a hundred times since Hawaii yet never allowed it to run on. If Lila could enjoy it so, if she could bring him so much pleasure, if he could love it so, would he be able to bring that pleasure to another man? He wanted to suck a cock. Yes. He wanted to feel the head in his mouth, to lick the ridge. He wanted to suck his own cock but he couldn’t. He was in bed with the Jody. The Jody was Egan. Oh, that beautiful cock Egan had plunged into that gypsy bitch in Australia. What would it be like to be eating her pussy and then have Egan step from the shadows and begin to fuck her while he ate her? His mouth on her lips, on her juiciness and on Egan’s hot shaft simultaneously. He could feel her back off. It was Lila. Egan had been fucking his wife. Egan was his Jody. Lila kissed Rufus passionately. She stuck her tongue deeply into his mouth, licked her own juices from his chin. Then Egan began rubbing his giant cock against her face. She turned and licked it. She turned back and kissed Rufus deeply pulling him to Egan. Egan’s erectness was between them, between their lips as they kissed and licked. Then the cock slid into his mouth. Lila held Rufus’ face to it. Egan pumped back and forth. Brooks squirmed on the jungle floor. Stop. Not that. He pushed Egan out of the picture and brought Lila’s head down to his groin. Suck me. Th
at’s how it should be. His mind shot spiralling into a void. He felt the darkness, the emptiness expanding. He was losing everything. The emptiness grew forcing his entire life away. Everything became a black void, expanding, expanding like a giant bubble of nothingness, like a gigantic balloon with only a speck of dust at center. Expanding—a helium-filled balloon—ever expanding, its walls becoming fainter, more fragile. Emptiness expanding, concentrating tension and pressure at the walls, the outer edge of the void. Pressure more severe than those at the ocean’s greatest depths, pressure within and without. The darkness of his closed lids expanding beyond his body, beyond his mind, and the tension and static balanced forces escalating, threatening to collapse, threatening a tremendous implosion destined to destroy the center where his eyes are shut.

  Hold it together, he demanded of his mind. Hold it together. It hasn’t all collapsed yet. It doesn’t have to.

  SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

  THE FOLLOWING RESULTS OF OPERATIONS IN THE O’REILLY/BARNETT/JEROME AREA WERE REPORTED FOR THE 24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING 2359 19 AUGUST 70:

  AT 0310 HOURS COMPANY D, 7/402 RECEIVED A SAPPER ATTACK IN THEIR NDP IN THE VICINITY OF YD 143328 RESULTING IN SEVEN US KIA AND 17 US WIA OF WHICH 11 REQUIRED MEDICAL EVACUATION. ENEMY CASUALTIES WERE UNKNOWN.

  FOUR SEPARATE ATROCITIES WERE PERPETRATED BY THE ENEMY AGAINST VILLAGE POPULACES OF THUA THIEN PROVINCE PRIOR TO DAYBREAK RESULTING IN NINE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES. DETACHMENT 4, 7TH PSYOPS BN IN COORDINATION WITH DISTRICT LEADERS AND THE VIETNAMESE INFORMATION SERVICE COLLECTED ANTI-GOVERNMENT AND ANTI-FREE WORLD MILITARY ASSISTANCE FORCE LEAFLETS WHICH THE ENEMY HAD DISTRIBUTED. GROUND LOUDSPEAKER TEAMS WERE DEPLOYED AND IMMEDIATELY BEGAN BROADCASTING PRO-GVN MESSAGES. THE EFFECT OF THE NVA PROPAGANDA WAS EFFECTIVELY NEGATED. PHOTOGRAPHS AND TAPE RECORDED INTERVIEWS WERE MADE FOR POSSIBLE FUTURE USE.

  AT 0737 HOURS, COMPANY A, 7/402 SPOTTED TWO NVA SQUADS IN THE OPEN THREE KILOMETERS WEST SOUTHWEST OF FIREBASE BARNETT. ARTILLERY WAS EMPLOYED. A SEARCH OF THE AREA REVEALED NUMEROUS BLOOD TRAILS.

  DURING A LATE MORNING SWEEP, 2D PLT, CO A, 7/402 DISCOVERED AN NVA FISHING CAMP, VICINITY YD 165311, WITH NUMEROUS BAMBOO FISH TRAPS AND SEVERAL SMALL ANIMAL SNARES. THE TRAPS AND SNARES WERE DESTROYED. AT 1215 HOURS 3D PLT OF CO A REPORTED FINDING FOUR MARIJUANA PATCHES VICINITY YD 168309. WHITE PHOSPHORUS ARTILLERY ROUNDS WERE EMPLOYED TO DESTROY THE CROP.

  AT 1330 HOURS ON A SWEEP SOUTH OF THE KHE TA LAOU RIVER CO A WAS AMBUSHED BY AN ESTIMATED REINFORCED NVA SQUAD. THE UNIT RETURNED ORGANIC WEAPONS FIRE AND WAS SUPPORTED BY ARTILLERY RESULTING IN NINE ENEMY KILLED AND FOUR INDIVIDUAL WEAPONS CAPTURED. NO US CASUALTIES WERE REPORTED.

  IN A MASS GRAVE APPROXIMATELY THREE KILOMETERS NORTHWEST OF FIREBASE RIPCORD, THE 3D CO, 3D BN, 1ST REGT (ARVN) DISCOVERED 20 ENEMY KILLED DURING THE PREVIOUS WEEK BY TACTICAL AIR STRIKES.

  WHILE RECONNING AN ENEMY BASE AREA VICINITY YD 155307, A SQUAD OF CO A, 7/402 WAS AMBUSHED BY AN UNKNOWN SIZED ENEMY FORCE. THE SQUAD RETURNED ORGANIC WEAPONS FIRE AND WAS SUPPORTED BY ARA AND REINFORCED BY TWO PLATOONS OF CO A. TWO US WERE KIA, THREE US WERE WOUNDED AND EVACUATED. ENEMY CASUALTIES WERE UNKNOWN.

  FIREBASE BARNETT RECEIVED 13 ROUNDS OF 82MM MORTAR FIRE AT 1819 HOURS. NO CASUALTIES WERE REPORTED.

  CHAPTER 27

  20 AUGUST 1970

  By first light the raindrizzle had ceased. Alpha was socked in beneath thick valley mist. The boonierats hardly moved. For an hour the only noise was the RTOs calling in situation reports and resupply requests and Brown calling in the altered supply order for now seventy-five men. Doc Johnson had convinced the L-T to send Whiteboy to the rear because of the big soldier’s eye wound. Melvin Harley would act as squad leader until Whiteboy returned.

  Alpha rested. Today would be resupply day and they anticipated none of the complications of the last resupply. Brooks cut them as much slack as he dared. He sent out only three five-man patrols, one from each platoon, and they were instructed to stay relatively close. “Just have a look around,” he had told the platoon leaders. “Get us some targets for arty, collect intelligence, but avoid engaging the enemy if possible.” Everyone had agreed enthusiastically and had left Brooks alone in the dawning while he called the GreenMan.

  “Red Rover One, this is Quiet Rover Four,” he radioed. He was not sure how to proceed. He had a personal request.

  Brooks spoke with the TOC RTO and finally got the GreenMan. “Four, this is One Niner. Over.”

  “One,” Brooks addressed the GreenMan. How could he say it other than just saying it? He could not think of a way. “One, Quiet Rover Four Niner requests to delta echo romeo oscar sierra on two eight August. Over.” There! Finally he had said it. There was a long pause. He wanted to DEROS in eight days. He would be out of the field in five days or less. His decision was made. Now it would be up to the GreenMan to approve it and up to Personnel to implement it.

  “Four,” the GreenMan’s voice came from the handset, “that’s a rodge. That’s affirm. I have you deltaechoromeooscarsierra on two eight August—providing Texas Star reaches termination. Four, I need you. Over. Out.”

  There had been no CP meeting the previous night because of the fleeing and hiding. In the unreal security of dawn the usual boonierats gathered at the CP. They felt extra tired, extra irritable, yet they generally maintained the macho, though dampened, facade of young soldiers.

  Cherry sat quietly monitoring the various companies’ internals about the valley. Doc, Minh and Whiteboy spoke quietly among themselves. Brown and Cahalan shared a cold can of Spaghetti and Meatballs. El Paso monitored the reconning patrols and he and FO plotted targets. Egan painstakingly cleaned his weapon. Thomaston, Caldwell and De Barti savored the smoke of a single last cigarette.

  “Hey, Eg,” Thomaston called lowly, “how many today?”

  “Eighteen en a wake-up,” Egan answered. “What about you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “You cherries,” Brooks laughed. “EIGHT!” he announced.

  “Is that fucken right?” Thomaston said astounded.

  “You finally decided,” Egan added.

  “You owe it to yerself,” Doc said. “Right on.”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever leave,” El Paso smiled.

  “But I still have eight days,” Brooks said. He was happy and they were happy for him. “Let’s get down to business.”

  The boonierats closed in about their commander. They whispered one-to-one the cliches they always whispered when a boonierat brother left. “Get some for me.” “Look out, Mama, Daddy been holdin it so long, it gonna explode.” “I bet he shoots his load before he ee-ven enters the door and still blows her eyes out.” “Bet yer ass he will.”

  “Well,” Pop Randalph smiled at them all, quieted them as he leaned into the center of the circle, “when yer twenty you can send a squirt right across the room. When yer twenty-five you still got enough muzzle velocity to fire from the hip. But, I gotta let yall know, when yer thirty-seven, goddammitall, it’ll still come out with a bit a coaxin but you best have a bucket under it. How old are you, Sir?”

  “Old enough to reach halfway across the room,” Brooks chuckled.

  “Why, hell. Here all this time I thought you was seventeen.”

  They all laughed then Brooks put a damper on the meeting. They discussed yesterday’s ambush of Mohnsen’s squad. What happened, why it happened, how it could have been avoided. “Recon elements should not pursue ambushers,” Brooks said. “It’s the same damn thing that happened to Bravo down on the Sông Bo. They sucked them in then blew them away.”

  “L-T, I don’t think you can say that,” Lt. De Barti challenged him.

  “I agree, Sir,” Pop said. “You gotta return fire, suppress their fire, an gain fire superiority. Otherwise they goan eat you up.”

  “Not a seven-man recon element,” Brooks said. “When they began taking fire they should have held their position until maneuver elements could have flanked them.”

  “No Sir,” Pop said. “I disagree. Most times you can’t wa
it for nobody. You gotta break the back of a ambush.”

  “That’s true,” Egan said.

  “Yes,” El Paso agreed then tried for a compromise, “but I think what Mohnsen did was run through his ambush. They should have stopped the second they realized there were enemy on their sides. They could still have disengaged.”

  “Hey,” Brooks said. “Listen. As long as I’m in command here, recon elements are to return fire but to disengage as rapidly as possible. They are to wait for reinforcements or for arty or ARA. That’s it. Any questions?” No one answered. Egan bit down and tightened his jaw. Pop examined his fingers. The weariness that was in them all seemed to seep to the surface. Brooks removed his odd baseball-style hat and scratched his scalp. “We’re going to have plenty of opportunities over the next few days to mix it up with Charlie,” Brooks said. “Don’t worry about that. Green-Man still wants us to clean out this valley. After resupply we’re coming back here. We’re going for their heart.”

  Before Alpha moved out Brooks walked to each platoon. He wanted to tell as many of his men as was possible. He especially wanted to tell the old-timers. He wanted to say he was leaving them but not abandoning them. That was always bullshit. It seemed everyone always said that in one form or another just before they DEROSed. Then they would leave and perhaps send a letter or maybe even a package. But soon that ceased and they were out of touch; the old unit was filled with cherries and the vet was surrounded by a different and demanding world. But Brooks believed he would be different. He would not forget. He wanted them to know that. Slowly he moved to 1st Plt’s area. He carried only his weapon and a notebook. Yes, he thought. It is also time to write down their views and perceptions on conflict. Perhaps, in the next five days, I can make enough notes to lay the foundation for a thesis. And yes, one thing more, he felt it, knew it without verbalizing it, to write these things down and to speak them out would calm his troubled mind. It had been near impossible for him to look at Egan this morning. Perhaps he would tell Egan his dream. Not explicitly, generally. Egan had lady problems too. They all knew that even if no one said it. It would be easy to talk to him.