by John Hart
“See? She knows, and I will start with the white wine shrimp…” A whistling mortar made a shrill landing just outside the compound perimeter they had been sent out to guard. “I never thought, I mean ever, ever thought I would be doing this.”
“Look on the bright side. With all the casualties coming in, even if there isn’t a ground attack they’ll be pulling all the medical docs into the ER in about 30 minutes and that’ll at least get you out of this bunker.”
“At least then I could do something I know how to do. I mean, what the hell am I doing holding this thing like I’m a commando or something?”
“You tell me. I didn’t even have a BB gun growing up.” Gregg stared at the rifle in his hands. “Honestly, I’d have a better chance of fending off the enemy with my surfboard.”
Another mortar hit, only closer, and they both jumped.
“Gregg, could there really be a ground attack here? At the hospital?”
“Yeah, there could be. There was one during the Tet holiday last year. I’m sure you must have read about it. The NVA had planned it for months, timing it so all the Vietnamese were traveling to go home for their big new year holiday, then boom, the NVA hit everywhere at once with everything they had. They almost took over the whole country. Hell, even Saigon got overrun. But you know all this already, right? Remember the battle at the Embassy?”
Izzy nodded, just slightly. “I remember. But, you know back home you read that stuff and it doesn’t really mean anything. Even the front page of the New York Times can scream ‘Tet Offensive, Saigon Overrun and Ground Attack!’ and you never for a moment imagine that there are real people being overrun and that overrun means the Indians are running over the walls and through the fort and want to kill everyone.”
Izzy took a deep breath and K.O. licked his hand again.
“I know,” Gregg agreed, not even caring if Izzy had K.O. for now because at least he wasn’t alone in this scary stinking hole they had no business being in. “I mean, who would even think about what it feels like to be out on a perimeter fence like this, looking into the dark where there’s probably somebody who actually does know what they are doing and can cut right through or wiggle under and just come right at us? And to think just a year ago I was so worried and concerned about getting Jefferson Airplane tickets. Yeah, that was a big worry and I was interviewing for a job at Pepperdine, another big worry.” He thought then of Hertz, who would never have the chance to be so self-indulgent. “You know, I really liked Hertz, a lot. He was a good, smart guy, and he was planning to go to college when he got out of here. I’m glad you were there for his birthday. He really dug your music. And I’m glad Rick gave him that bottle of Jack, too. I hope Hertz drank every drop, I hope—”
Another rocket shrieked overhead and landed somewhere on the airbase and the ground shook like an earthquake.
K.O. licked Gregg’s cheek then rested her head in his lap.
“Thank you, girl,” he whispered, “Thank you.”
21
The stars were bright overhead, but the explosions brighter as the concuss of the rockets and mortars carried across the calm waters of the bay to the mission’s veranda, where Kate, Nikki, and Shirley waited—for what, none of them were sure.
“I feel like I should be there, not here,” Nikki said, nervously shaking her foot.
“There is nothing you can do really,” Kate reminded her. “Except take care of yourself now so you can be there when they need you after this is over.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s just that almost everyone I really care about is in some kind of danger over there.”
Kate knew the feeling. But she refused to think of anything bad happening, especially to Gregg or J.D. Instead she asked Shirley, “Do you think there’s any chance they might attack here, at the mission?”
“No.” Shirley shook her head. “We have more than God on our side.”
Kate realized she must be referring to their “turn no one away” policy which included Professor Nguyen. The relief Kate had felt when she realized J.D. had no intentions of turning him in had been too profound to continue pretending she could actually be some kind of informant for Phillip. The Mission was like Switzerland refusing to take sides and ratting anyone out contradicted everything the people she worked with stood for. These were good people with a purpose. They had made her start wondering about her own purpose in life.
Far off they heard a siren.
“That’s the all clear,” Nikki said, a sigh of relief.
“Finally,” breathed Kate.
“No, not finally,” Shirley corrected. “Maybe. Sometimes they stop and then wait for the all clear and once the Americans go out to get their wounded and come out of their bunkers, they attack again.”
“I wish Rick was there to help them,” Nikki said. “All those Viet Cong would skedaddle and quick if he and his men showed up.”
Kate was happy to take that ball and run with it; anything to keep her mind off what could be happening this very moment across the bay.
“So, are you and Rick an item now?”
“Too soon to call it that, but. . .” A handwritten letter along with a snapshot of her very handsome new pen pal materialized and Nikki fanned herself with the letter while clearly mooning over the other. “Let’s just say he sure does have a way with words. I wrote him right back and he even called me at the Red Cross yesterday. He’s got such a dreamy voice, too, I could’ve listened to him talk for hours.”
“Should I take that to mean that Major Peck is out of the picture?”
Nikki took a moment to answer. She traced a line on the letter she held, something that was clearly special to her. “My relationship with Don is complicated but I do realize it is unwise. He hasn’t made it easy to break things off.” She lifted her left wrist, flashing a bracelet.
Kate had wanted to compliment Nikki on it earlier but with Gregg around, she didn’t want to risk the attention boomeranging back to her own new piece of jewelry.
“That’s lovely, Nikki.” Kate looked closer at the stones, the setting.
“Don said it was elegant, like me. Nobody ever called me elegant before. And no one ever gave me a diamond bracelet before—a platinum one, too! It is beautiful, isn’t it? He said it came from Cartier.”
Kate nodded even as she weighed the importance of telling Nikki the bracelet couldn’t have possibly come from Cartier. To the untrained eye it could pass as a fine piece of jewelry. However, she detected a few tiny bubbles a real gemstone would never have, the craftsmanship was less than perfect, the platinum was almost certainly sterling silver, and the line Nikki had been fed, total bullshit.
“Really? Cartier?” Kate delicately put the possibility out for Nikki to consider. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Nikki clearly wasn’t wanting to let go of the notion she had a Cartier bracelet. Since Kate didn’t relish the idea of prying it from her dream pool, she went at it another way.
“I can see how Major Peck is making it hard to break things off when he gives you such extravagant gifts, but Nikki, is he really the man you want to be with?”
“Yes, gifts are very nice,” Shirley chimed in. “But something like this suggests a more long term commitment than mere dating.”
“I know you mean well, Kate.” Nikki looked over at Shirley. “You too, Shirley. And yes, you are right about thinking ahead—which I’ve been doing a lot of lately since Don proposed. Can you believe that? I mean, look at where I come from, and then look at him. He actually said he wanted to marry me, buy me a big, fancy house once we get back to the States, and put a ring on my finger to match all the fine furniture and fancy clothes a wife befitting a man in his position should have. I don’t expect either of you ladies to understand but, coming from where I do, what Major Peck has offered me is an awful lot to walk away from.”
“Except?�
�� Shirley prompted.
Nikki traced the line on Rick’s letter again. Her smile was so radiant she glowed. “Like I said, Captain Galt sure does have a way with words. I feel like he respects me and women in general, in a way that Don just doesn’t. Maybe it has something to do with the way they were raised, but they sure do have different choices when it comes to calling me something other than my name.”
Kate waited a beat. “And what would that difference be?”
“To put it politely, it’s the difference between a sweet little cat and a female dog.”
That did it. “Nikki, I hate to tell you this, but that bracelet isn’t—”
Before Kate could blow the whistle Dr. Donnelly rushed out of the mission, joined by a renewed onslaught of mortar blasts raining from the sky and guns going off like firecrackers across the bay. It was all mesmerizing in its own crash and burn kind of way even as he delivered the latest news.
“We already have some casualties on their way. Shirley, Kate, we need to get scrubbed up and plan on an all-nighter in surgery. Nikki, I know you aren’t a nurse but—”
“I can do more than hold hands and pass out cookies.” Nikki was already off the sofa. “I can give out meds, even poke somebody with a needle and stitch in an emergency as long as they don’t cry when I do it.”
Overhead the stars were bright. The sound of the surf on the beach followed them up the lawn and toward the wounded who would come since they turned no one away.
Water is fluid, soft, and yielding.
But water will wear away rock, which is rigid
and will not yield.
This is another paradox:
What is soft is strong.
—Lao Tzu
Bouquet and Two Oranges Together
CLEANSING
Once I killed the kittens, I felt like I would never get clean after what I did to them all, especially Panda. As you can imagine, it was a lot easier to shoot my stepfather than do that to the kittens and when I finally did kill Bert I felt a lot better, at least until I got out of juvie.
After juvie, things did not ever seem to go so well for a long time after that. I imagined like a lot of kids that if the evil stepfather or the evil stepmother were gone that everything would be great. While I was in juvie I dreamed all the time that I would get home and my mom and my sisters would think I was a hero and would be overjoyed to see me again and somehow we would live in a nice house in the old neighborhood and everybody would be happy ever after.
When you are locked up you have so much time to think about how things are going to be and I would think in just the smallest details of the welcome home cake my mom and sisters would make with gooey chocolate frosting and bright white coconut and yellow letters saying WELCOME HOME HERO. Anyway, instead they lived in a shithole, my mom had become a drunk, or maybe she always had been and now was a worse drunk and my sisters were sluts, fat sluts and they all blamed me. Somehow history had been rewritten to the point that my stepfather had been a great guy who my mom had always loved a lot, we had lived in a great house in a nice neighborhood which he had provided for us and I was a psycho who had ruined everything and was totally responsible for the loss of their great life. So you can imagine the great homecoming I got. No homecoming. Juvie let me out. Nobody came to pick me up. I took a bus home. They were all out at a movie or something.
My mom was ragging my case constantly and really I just got sick of being blamed CONSTANTLY for EVERYTHING THAT WAS WRONG all the time. My sisters were ALWAYS SCREAMING at me. The house was just a stinking pisshole that no one ever cleaned up. I hated the dirt, the filth, my sisters, my mom.
One night, I thought I have got to clean this up. First we can start with painting this place. I cannot go on living like this. I did a good job. I did some careful planning which is always critical in fixing things. I got the primer stuff, I got the paint thinner to clean the brushes, I got the roller pans to put the stuff in and paint rollers, and I got the paint. Somehow I worked out a deal with Mr. Davis down at hardware to get this stuff in exchange for delivery work on weekends. Everyone was real excited about it.
Particularly me, because You know fire is a Cleansing I thought. Out of the ashes, the Phoenix and all that.
Mom’s a drunk, everyone knows that and she smokes. Put some lit cigarettes in packets of matches on top of open paint thinner cans. You have to be careful doing this.
We had a gas oven. Maybe she forgot to turn off. Put some paint out on all the floors. . .
I watched from across the street. Most people do not realize that old wood frame houses are almost explosively flammable, actually they are explosive with the oven gas on. I don’t think I even heard any screaming but maybe there was.
The best part was I felt good again, like when I killed Bert. Only this was better because I didn’t have to go to juvie for cleaning up the dirt.
22
Nikki felt dirty. And, not from the blood and frenzied aftermath of the wounded, many of them children, which had been brought to the mission. She had come to Vietnam as an escape, only to learn you could take the girl out of the hills, but not the hills out of the girl.
She had tried to better herself by doing well enough in school to get accepted to community college, only for her daddy to scoff at the notion since all she apparently needed was a degree from The School of Hard Knocks. Well, she had countered, feeling a bit full of herself she supposed, she should already have a PhD from that particular school considering how many times she had been backhanded for daring to speak up and want more than milking cows, tending fields, and a flour sack for a Sunday best dress.
Her daddy didn’t know what a PhD was, so that just made him madder. Made him even more sure she thought herself too good for the rest of them, her third cousin who wanted to marry her included, and since that was the case—whap—then she’d better pack her things and not show her face again until she had one of them PhDs herself.
Nikki knew she wasn’t nearly as stupid as what she had been told, but she also knew attaining a PhD was beyond her mental ability and fiscal means to manage. It had taken her seven years to work her way through night school for the bachelor’s degree she needed to sign up with the Red Cross to “bring a touch of home in a combat zone.” She had gotten so excited upon seeing the recruitment ad, asking “Are you creative? Could you develop an interesting program on travel, holidays, sports, music, or current events? The American Red Cross needs qualified young women who are willing to serve one year overseas.” Then it said among the qualifications the job required considerable ingenuity and a capacity for hard work under far less than ideal conditions.
Well heck, that made her qualified and then some, and here was the opportunity to make a yearly salary of $4800 and get paid to see the world! Then the next thing she knew, she had landed herself something even higher than a PhD: a psychiatrist whose family included a US senator that could have surely gotten him out of serving in Vietnam—only Dr. Donald Peck the Third had wanted to sign up.
Don said it was because he wanted to be valued for himself and what he could contribute to humanity rather than be constantly judged by what everyone perceived his family to be and therefore him.
She could relate to that.
He said that they were kindred spirits that way. That their families didn’t understand them, but they understood each other.
Agreed again.
Don had said a lot of things that she could relate to. So when he pushed her around the first time, she told herself it was just a little accidental shove and nothing compared to what she had grown up with. The second time, though, was more than a shove. That’s when she began to wonder if a psychiatrist could work other people’s brains to make them believe things they shouldn’t. Like when he called her a bitch and she protested, he turned it around to make her seem like a prude because he liked that kind of talk in bed.
Still, despite it all, she wa
nted to believe in his good intentions, even if the truth probably was that she just didn’t want one more man to let her down.
Meeting Rick had made her stop and think, but Don’s surprise proposal reminded her she had practical matters to consider:
Wasn’t a bird in hand worth two in the bush? And who knew where anything with Rick would end up, she hardly knew him.
Nikki looked at the clock in hers and Margie’s apartment, the one they had bought together at a local market and hung up over the entry door as a joke because on the hour it chimed “Cuckoo-cuckoo.”
Margie said it was a reminder that once she clocked out and walked in the front door, she could be as crazy as she wanted minus the patients. She loved that clock.
But she couldn’t stand Don. Margie was taking her turn working the night shift and wouldn’t like it that Don was showing up without her here. She didn’t want much to do with him, almost nobody did, which had a lot to do with Nikki not rebuffing his interest. She knew how it felt to be an outsider.
The Cuckoo clock signaled 8 p.m., that was 20 hundred hours in military time, and she could see why Don, despite his faults—and didn’t everyone have them?—actually liked being in the army. He liked precision, and being a stickler for punctuality, sure enough there he was, doing a “Shave and a Haircut,” right on time.
Nikki still wasn’t quite sure how she was going to go about this. She opened the door anyway since, after all, she had done the inviting once the onslaught of casualties had died down.
“Baby!” he greeted her, and before she could say a word he was bending her back against a strong, supporting arm while his free hand held aloft a spray of flowers and some very fine wine he had introduced her to.