by Tim O'Brien
Patty giggled and hooked my arm. “God bless you, I dig Vietnam types. I really do.”
“Studs,” said Peg.
“Stallions!” said Patty.
Lost, I told them. Lost as lost gets. Abandoned in those mountains, no compass, no north or south, just the dense green jungle blurring into deeper jungle, and for two days I followed a narrow dirt trail that led nowhere. Here was a place where even lost gets lost. Everything was a mirror to everything else. And none of it seemed real. A joke, maybe: My six comrades would not have left me to perish out here. Except the joke was now two days old and getting stale.
I spent the second night wrapped in my poncho along the trail, listening to ghosts out in the fog, then in the morning I saddled up and headed eastward. The fog became rain. The sun vanished. At times my little trail turned to ooze; other times it gave out entirely, blocked by the face of an implacable rain forest. Unreal, I kept thinking. It could not be happening. Not to me. I was civilized; I believed in civilization. There was a reason, after all, that mankind had invented indoor plumbing, chimneys, brass beds, cotton sheets. It was in man’s nature to defy nature. Why else the Industrial Revolution? Why else four-wheel drive and mosquito repellent? Why else language?
To name it is to tame it.
House, I thought. And as I struggled through the rain, through the dripping underbrush, I murmured the word aloud—house—and then other such words.
I was an indoor person, caught now in an outdoor world, and my disorientation far exceeded the physical. I felt wronged and forsaken, double-crossed by my own comrades. At one point, during a rest break, I wondered if they might simply have forgotten about me.
The thought made me laugh. A moment later I was snarling. Betrayal—as usual.
“Real fascinating,” Peg said. “I had this crazy boyfriend once—a Vietnam type too. I go for that shit. Grunt groupie, that’s what he always called me. Turn-on, you know?”
“Danger,” Patty said.
“Death,” Peg said.
Patty giggled and said, “Same difference.” She pulled off her bartender’s apron, her bow tie, her blouse. “You mind?”
I shook my head. Here was something new.
“Me too,” Peg said. “Hot!”
“Hot!” said Patty.
Ordinarily I would have enjoyed such sportive interplay, but given the solemnity of my topic, I felt abused and ignored, like a teacher whose classroom had collapsed into inexplicable chaos. Granted, the hour was late, and we had imbibed beyond the limits of prudence, yet I suspected that my two youthful pussycats were intentionally missing the point.
Somewhat irritably, I refilled our glasses.
“These six so-called comrades of mine,” I said, “they left me to rot. Walked away. Deserted me.”
“Like my panda bear,” said Patty.
“Except this was war.”
Peg nodded. She was playfully wrapping her black bow tie around my wrists. “So you greased them, right? Shot off their nuts?”
“Now, please,” I said.
“You had a gun, right?”
“A gun? Yes indeed.”
“Well, jeez,” Peg said. She cinched the bow tie, fashioned a snug knot at my wrists. Patty was busy securing my ankles. “Then you should’ve offed them. Like Rambo or somebody.”
“I was lost—that’s our topic—and I would very much like to continue.”
My tone of voice was a trifle brusque, and I rapidly backtracked with a smile. Bizarre creatures, I decided, yet undeniably fetching in their stripped-down slumber-party costumes.
Peg glanced at Patty, Patty at Peg.
“Go ahead, then,” Peg said. “But talk fast, Professor. Before we put the gag on.”
I did not “talk fast.” I will never talk fast. Lucidly, in well-measured paragraphs, I described for them the soul-killing dimension of true lostness. Or, more accurately, the utter absence of dimension. Without up, I asked, where is down? Without hereness, how does one locate thereness? And so on.
By my third day in the mountains, lost had become a state of mind. I was not myself. I was an infant—a lostling—part of the rain forest, part of the sky, and at times the very notion of singularity dissolved all around me. This fuzzed into that: one waterfall became every other waterfall, this tree became that tree. Eventually the rain let up, which made the march easier, but the mountains remained webbed in a great silver mist.
In midafternoon I descended into a deep, grassy valley, and for more than an hour I was able to hold a bearing straight eastward.
No problem, I told myself.
Sooner or later, no matter what, I would run dead-on into the South China Sea.
But then, abruptly, the valley began to rise again, and soon the jungle closed in tight, and within minutes I was more lost than ever—pure greenery, no trails at all. I blundered along, once on my hands and knees, snagged up in vines and deep brush and hopelessness. I was no longer aiming at anything. Not even survival. Except for an occasional whimper, I had lost my capacity for language, the underlying grammar of human reason; I had lost the me of me—my name, its meaning—those particularities of spirit and personality that separate one from all, each from other. I was a grubworm among grubworms. One more fly in God’s inky ointment.
Near dusk, therefore, it came as no shock to look up and behold a mahogany billiard table before me.
Well, I thought.
After which I thought: Am I thinking?
The old billiard table stood on a stone patio. Adjoining the patio was a dilapidated stucco house—a villa, it seemed, or what I imagined a villa must be, with blue shutters and blue trim and a rolled tile roof. Beside the villa was a swimming pool, and beyond the swimming pool was a well-barbered lawn dotted with fountains and gardens. I remained still for a time, waiting for this mirage to vanish, then I ventured a slow breath and approached the mahogany billiard table. It seemed solid to the touch.
Twice, cautiously, I circled the villa. Maybe an old rubber plantation. More likely a product of my own imagination.
The front door stood ajar. I hesitated there, almost knocking, then stepped into a cool hallway. Instantly, the notion of civilization reasserted itself. At the end of the hallway, I came upon a large sitting room furnished with cane chairs and cane sofas. Gauzy white curtains fluttered in an open window. The room had a lived-in feel, no dust or dirt, things neatly in their places. I made my way through a teak-paneled dining room, down another hallway, thence into a sunny, well-equipped kitchen. There was a gas stove, a GE toaster, crates of C rations, a refrigerator stocked with beer and fresh vegetables and packets of frozen meat. Somewhere nearby, I realized, a generator had to be running, which meant the place was inhabited, but for the moment I put these thoughts aside and sat down to my first meal in days.
Afterward, I explored the remainder of the villa.
On the second level I found three bedrooms, each furnished with cots and blankets and mosquito netting. Nothing fancy, but still miraculous. I selected one of the bedrooms, closed the curtains, stripped down, and soon fell into a deep and civilized sleep.
Patty laughed. “Like that old fairy tale, right? Goldilocks and the three bears?”
“Pandas!” said Peg.
Awkwardly, I tried to sit up, a feat that was made difficult by the bow ties secured to my wrists and ankles—also an apron snug around my knees—and by the fact that Patty was now tugging my shirt down around my elbows. I struggled briefly, then tipped onto my side.
My two mates lifted me by the hips.
“Upsa-daisy,” said Peg.
Patty slipped my trousers down; Peg bundled them tightly around my thighs.
“And when you woke up,” Patty was saying, “I bet those three nasty bears were there. Mama bear, papa bear, itty-bitty baby bear.”
Peg growled and unbuckled my belt. “Who’s sleeping in my bed?”
“Very funny,” I snapped. “Are we finished?”
“Not hardly,” said Patty.
> Peg pulled off my belt and looped it around my neck like a dog collar. She winked and gave the belt a little jerk.
“Now, please,” I said, “I believe it’s time to—”
“What a lech,” said Peg.
“A sickie,” Patty said. “Tie him tight.”
I looked up helplessly as Peg folded a wet washcloth. Again, the thought crossed my mind that I was dealing with two very special young ladies, unique beyond measure. Their antics struck me as decidedly unfeminine, and after a moment, in austere tones, I informed them that these bondage antics had gone a step too far. Entirely inappropriate, I told them.
“You’re a pig,” said Peg.
“Nonsense,” said I, and blinked. “What did I do?”
Patty laughed. “It’s not what you did, man, it’s who you are. Your whole sleazy personality. How you talk, how you walk. How you put the scam on every poor woman who walked through here tonight. Us included. Talk about an ogler.”
“I was taught,” I said primly, “to look people in the eye.”
“You don’t look them in the eye. You look them in the tits.”
I nodded cagily. “That may sometimes be so. God forbid that a gentleman should happen to make eye contact with the weaker sex.”
“Weaker sex?” Peg growled. “That’s why you’re in this fix.”
I ignored the semantic smoke screen. “And, moreover,” I said firmly, “it was not I who stripped off his shirt this evening.”
“That was to make a point,” Patty said.
“Which you did. Four.”
Patty looked down at me with an expression that conveyed roughly equal measures of disgust and pity. “That comment sums it up—thanks for helping. Peg and me, we’ve had it up to here with ridiculous old fogies on the make.”
“On their behalf, I apologize,” said I. “But a fogy I am not. And what about my story? Lost—that was our subject.”
“We’re making up a new story,” Peg said.
“The lost lech,” said Patty.
“Open wide,” Peg said. “Say ah.”
I smiled uncertainly. “I know we’re having fun, but I’d very much appreciate—”
“Fun, my ass,” Patty said. “Be a good boy. Nice and wide.”
Peg bent down, pried me open, and stuffed in the washcloth. Patty tightened the belt.
“That should do it,” said Peg.
“I hope,” said Patty.
The lights went off. There was giggly laughter, then a shuffling sound, then more laughter. A moment later Patty knelt down beside me. I could not really see the wicked lass, just sense her.
“A word to the wise,” she said, very gently, almost compassionately. “Pick on women your own age. This is a brand-new world.”
She patted my shoulder.
Briefly, a door swung open, then swung shut again, and for the remainder of the night I lay trussed up in the humid Tampa dark. What was it in my nature, I wondered, that so attracted and so repelled the women of this world? No answer was forthcoming, only a flurry of interwoven questions: whom to trust, what to trust, when to trust, how to trust?
As dawn broke, I counted up my losses. A wife. A marriage. A mind. Mrs. Robert Kooshof.
* I supplied champagne and tips. One cannot buy love, perhaps, but one can almost always secure a credit line on companionship.
Just after 8:00 A.M. I was released by a kindhearted janitor by the name of Delbert, an elderly gentleman with white hair and glossy black skin. He seemed amused at my predicament. “It appears to me,” the man said, slyly and unnecessarily, “like you went and tied one on last night.” He chuckled at this. “Tied—get it?”
I scowled, worked the blood into my wrists, helped myself to the hotel’s whiskey—a double.
“Got it,” I said. “Quite clever.”
Delbert nodded. “Peg and Patty, I figure. Count yourself lucky they didn’t use handcuffs.” The janitor flicked his bushy white eyebrows at me. “And now you’re fit to be tied, so to speak.”
I looked up with mild curiosity.
Lingually, the old man was by no means sophisticated, hardly in my league, but it seemed apparent that we shared a common interest in the subtleties and textures of the English language. I also noted a challenge in his eyes, one to which I could not help but respond.
“Tie the knot,” I said grimly.
“Tie-up,” said Delbert. “Like with traffic.”
“Tied down,” I said. “As in busy, occupied.”
“Railroad tie,” he said.
“Ties of marriage,” I said.
“Tie tack,” he said.
“Tycoon,” said I.
Delbert frowned. “No way, man. That one doesn’t count.”
“Spoilsport. Very well, then—tied score.”
“Tongue-tied,” he shot back. “Tie-dye. Tie into. Tie that binds. My hands are tied.”
I shrugged.
“Not bad,” I said, and poured the old gentleman a whiskey. One had to admire his competitive spirit. “If you’re interested, we could try the word lost. In fact, there’s an excellent story that goes with it.”
“A tie-in?” Delbert said.
“Right,” I said crossly. “A tie-in. But there’s nothing worse than a show-off.”
Thus, in swift narrative strokes, while Delbert mopped the floor, I brought him up-to-date on my current situation, abandoned by one and all, and how my plight had antecedents back during the war—deserted then, deserted now. I told him about the mountains, my six traitorous comrades, the old villa where eventually I found refuge. “There I was,” I said, “sound asleep on that cot, and what finally woke me up were these—”
“Voices,” said Delbert.
“Voices. Yes.”
“Your buddies,” the old man said. He leaned on his mop. “I figure it was your buddies, right? The ones that dumped you?”
I glared at him.
“Sorry, sir. Just trying to speed things up.”
“Speed,” I said curtly, “is irrelevant.”
The old man glanced at a clock behind the bar. “But it was your buddies, right? And I figure they were using the place to hide out—like a base or something.”
I took time refilling my glass.
For a professional teacher—perhaps for all of us—there is little more irritating than to be cut short by incompetent guesswork.
“On the most simplistic level,” I said, “I suppose you’re right. My comrades, yes. A base of operations. But that’s hardly the point.” For a few seconds I rebuked him with silence. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d be happy to fill you in. The subject is lost.”
The old man fidgeted. “Well, sir, it sounds interesting, but I’ve got toilets to clean.”
“Fine. I’ll join you.”
“Sir, I don’t think—”
“Lead the way,” I said resolutely. “The labor may help you concentrate.”
Until that early Tampa morning, I had no idea how many public rest rooms the typical hotel contains. More than a score, in point of fact. At least two for each bar, each restaurant, each ballroom, each swimming pool, each sauna and fitness room and major corridor. Plus the lobby. Plus recreation and utility rooms. It was an arduous morning, in other words, both for myself and for my new friend, Delbert. (I was going on no sleep; Delbert was going on seventy-five years.) We divided up the labor, more or less—I handled the talking, Delbert the brush work—but I dare say that by noon both of us were approaching the end of our respective tethers.
My behavior, I must confess, had become a trifle erratic. Compulsively jabbering. Easily distracted.
In general, I do not respond well to physical fatigue, or to tension, but I now felt positively overwhelmed by the loose ends in my life—Lorna Sue and Herbie and the tycoon and Mrs. Robert Kooshof. On top of this, each hour seemed to bring still other distractions and complications: first Toni, then Peg and Patty, and now I found myself plodding dizzily from commode to commode in the company of a smart-ass old janitor
.
My entire life, it seemed, had become a great looping digression.
Nonetheless, though groggy and exhausted, I was determined to complete my tale. “To be honest,” I told Delbert, “you were pretty much on target. My so-called buddies, it seems they were Green Beret types. Using the old villa to stage all kinds of nasty business. Covert, of course.”
“Covert?” the old man said.
“You know. Secret.”
Delbert leaned over a toilet bowl and gave it a vigorous workout with his scrub brush. “I know what covert is. But what’s the point?”
“Betrayal,” I told him. “Betrayal and loss.”
He looked up with moderate interest. “Famous old tag team,” he said. “Betrayal and loss. But if you ask me, sir, you should get yourself some sleep.”
“Soon,” I said. “First the story.”
The old man handed me his brush. “All right, I’ll listen,” he said wearily. “Finish up that toilet for me. Those other ones too.”
“You don’t mean …?”
“Good and sterile.”
Delbert lit up a pipe and took a seat in the adjoining stall. Fleetingly, though not for the first time, I felt the squeeze of dislocation—that blurred, random sensation.
I sighed and rolled up my sleeves. Sanitation was not my cup of tea and never would be, yet there comes a time when one must pay a price for human sympathy.
I dipped in with my brush.
“You awake?” I said.
“Absolutely,” said Delbert. “Nasty business. Covert.”
My six comrades—if “comrades” is the proper term—did not seem in the least surprised to see me. On the contrary, they scarcely looked up when I marched down the stairs that morning. There were no apologies, no explanations.
The old villa, as it turned out, was situated barely a half mile from our original ambush site, and over the past several days I had been wandering mostly in circles, recrossing my own path several times. Apparently, too, my comrades had been keeping tabs on me the whole while, watching me traipse along—no doubt snickering at my ineptitude—and in at least one important sense, it could be said that I had never been lost at all. (A curious bit of relativism. Lost can be viewed as both a state of mind and a state of being, and the two conditions are not always in harmony. One can feel lost without being lost. One can be lost without feeling lost. Very tricky.)