Singer jogged the last few steps and knelt down in a space between Rhymes and Trip, looking out into a sea of massive tree trunks. After checking his flash suppressor, his magazine loaded with blanks, he aimed out at imaginary targets.
“Good you could join us,” Trip said.
“I got distracted by all the planes and chutes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“In the 1st Cavalry we would have left you.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.” Bear sauntered up, carrying his rifle one-handed.
“What?” Trip turned and tilted back his head.
“That the Cav left guys. All show and no go.”
“Better than the Puking Buzzards any day,” Trip said, looking at Bear’s 101st Airborne patch on his right shoulder.
“We never left guys behind, not even guys like you.”
“Shit, the Cav went places no one else would go.”
“Airmobile still ain’t airborne.”
“Ever hear of the Ia Drang?”
“Heard the Cav got their ass kicked there. Almost sent us to save you.”
“Fuck you.”
Rhymes rose and moved to step between them.
But Bear opened his mouth and let out a laugh that had his chest and arms shaking.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Three sharp explosions sounded from a couple hundred yards ahead. Trip dropped to the ground, his rifle in both hands. Rhymes spun toward the sound. Singer went flat.
Bear only laughed, shorter, sharper than before. “It’s just part of the game to make things more real. Man, you all take this stuff so serious. Don’t matter no more, we all going home. Well, except Singer and the fat ex-clerk.”
Then Bear shuffled over toward Ghost, who hadn’t opened his eyes.
“It okay.” Rhymes said to Singer. “Take that better cover over there. Always take the best cover you can find. Relax. There’s no prize or penalty today.”
Singer shifted to the tree on Rhymes’s left. “I heard the second platoon’s lieutenant yelling at them all week. He sounded like it was serious.”
“Lieutenant Creely. He’s just worried about his career. He wants to make captain, have his own company. Good exercise, good performance report, faster rank. He’s trying to impress the general, his future father-in-law.”
“Really? The general’s daughter? We should be wired, then.”
“That kind of pressure is hard to live with. Be thankful you’re not in his platoon. Nothing in this for us. Just a few days camping and playing war games most of us have seen enough of. Couple days of snakes and Cs and we’ll be back at the barrack again with hot showers and grub. Just take it easy. Remember, it’s a game. Be a while before you see the real thing.”
The real thing. Singer nodded.
A strong breeze that wound through the trees and cooled the back of Singer’s neck carried Sergeant Edwards’s voice as he briefed the squad leaders.
“. . . if you or any of your men are killed, report to the company CP and stay there throughout the remainder of the exercise. Most of your men have been to Nam and are just waiting to go home. Still, I expect a good effort from everyone. Sergeant Royce, Sergeant Prascanni, look after your new guys. See that they learn this. It’ll help keep them alive when they’re sent to Nam. Okay. Let’s go.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” Sergeant Milner said, but it sounded uncertain, a poor impersonation of command.
Sergeant Royce approached his squad with his bull-legged swagger. He looked sober today. He stopped in front of them and stood there silent too long, as though he’d forgotten what he was going to say. Singer waited, imagining there was a bottle in his pack.
“Rhymes, keep an eye on Singer,” Sergeant Royce said.
It looked like he intended to say more but then he caught sight of a sleeping form.
“Ghost. Goddamn it, Ghost! Get up, for Christ’s sake, and look like a soldier. Try not to fuck up today. Move out behind second squad.”
He turned to Bear. “See he doesn’t sleep again.”
Bear shrugged. “We’re lucky when he shows up.”
Ghost climbed slowly to his feet, extending his full five-and-a-half-foot height. “Fuck this. Why after surviving Nam do I still have to play these fucking games?”
No one offered any answer. Sergeant Royce ignored him or didn’t hear as he moved away. The squad formed a loose, staggered line within the platoon column. Far ahead, the line started off, moving among the trees.
More explosions boomed much farther off to the right. This time no men went down and Trip barely flinched. “Fuck,” someone said, the point of the curse unclear.
“Turn around,” Rhymes said. “Let me check your ruck.”
Singer turned and felt the pull at his pack.
“Hold still. I’ll tie this up so it doesn’t rattle.” Rhymes slapped Singer’s shoulder. “Okay. Just follow me. Keep me in sight, don’t lose me. Trip’s got your back.”
Singer looked and Trip nodded.
Then they were weaving their way deeper into the Florida forest. The others might have hated it. He guessed he could understand that, they having done a year or more of this. Maybe he would end up never wanting to hike or hunt or camp again like many of them. But right now it was a wonderful adventure. Hiking in the Florida wilderness, a rifle in his hands, a group of guys—some almost friends—around him with the common bond of being paratroopers and volunteers. All this, and he was getting almost one hundred dollars a month, plus now another fifty-five dollars in jump pay. There was no other adventure or test like it. No similar bond among men. He would have paid to do it.
“Okay?” Rhymes turned and asked in a near-whisper.
Singer nodded, sure he hadn’t hid his smile.
Rhymes had made it, Trip, Bear, Royce, all of them. Why had they all made it through Vietnam while others had not? Could he learn from them what he needed to know?
* * * * *
After four days of playing war, they went back to barracks life. It hadn’t gone so badly. Most of them made it and in the end they captured their objective, a mock enemy camp. Ghost was captured, but Bear said he expected that with the man always running off or sleeping. Sergeant Milner and Stick and another guy in the same squad were “killed.” Sergeant Edwards wasn’t entirely happy about that, except for maybe being rid of Sergeant Milner for most of the game.
Now they were all back at Bragg washing off the Florida mud and stink. Sergeant Milner, Ghost, Stick, and the other “dead” guy had been returned to the unit and were walking around the barracks in their usual routines, none the worse for wear.
“It was my plan to get captured. That camp had cots and real food. I ain’t nobody’s fool,” Ghost said to no one in particular. No one answered.
Men moved about in various stages of transition to civilian clothes and off-duty activities. Slowly, the barrack’s bay was emptying out.
“I need a two-man detail before anybody goes.”
The voice ripped across Singer’s nerves and he grit his teeth until they settled. He heard some groans and catcalls. Ghost streaked past in the opposite direction from the voice and disappeared behind a bank of lockers, any one of which he could easily hide inside—which he had reportedly done on more than one occasion. After waiting a minute, Singer risked crossing the aisle to where there was no sign of Sergeant Milner. He cut though a line of lockers and was brought up short by the flash of what he’d seen.
Taped inside the open door of Sergeant Royce’s locker was a photo. A reclining figure, long bare legs spread apart, dark nest at their meeting. Left hand on her thigh, the right cupping a breast, the left breast bare, slightly sagging, a large, dark nipple. The young woman’s head was turned to the side, eyelids half closed, parted wet lips. A look of pain or pleasure.
“Nice, huh?”
“Jesus,” Singer spun around to find Sergeant Royce behind him.
Sergeant Royce smirked, showing teeth that might have never seen a dentist. “Best fuck east of the Mississippi.
When she wraps those legs . . .”
Singer turned away, chancing the main aisle.
Near the door, Shooter, the platoon sentry, sat shirtless on a foot locker, arms and chest showing time spent in the gym, tattoos on each shoulder. One booted foot was propped up on the locker as he paged through a magazine.
Stick was coming down the hall, head rolling on a long neck, fatigues hanging loose on narrow shoulders, slightly bowed, no chest, arms dangling. Face without color even after days in Florida.
“Damn.” Shooter turned the magazine sideways. “That bitch is built like a brick shit house.”
Shooter looked up at the sound of scraping boots. “Hey, Stick, wait a minute.”
When Stick stopped, Shooter flipped the magazine over and held up the photo of a brunette, all breasts, wearing only a gold chainlink belt that dangled down her thigh. “You ever see anything like this?”
Stick looked at his feet.
“I didn’t think so.” Shooter closed the magazine. “Tough getting killed on your first exercise.”
“I’ll do better.”
“Sure. Is it true your old man is a one-star?”
“Yeah,” Stick’s eyes brightened and his back straightened. “34th Armor.”
“Damn. A fucking general’s son. What the hell are you doing here?”
Stick shrugged.
“Tanks? Your dad want you to go armor, too?”
“No.”
“A Leg, huh? What’d he think about you being a paratrooper?”
“He said I’d never make it.”
“I guess you showed Daddy, huh?”
Stick’s mouth widened, without showing teeth.
“Better not tell him you got killed in your first war games.”
“He’d probably laugh.”
“Fuck him, you’re a paratrooper now. He might be a general, but he’s still a Leg.” Shooter flipped open the magazine. “Singer, Singer where you going?”
Singer kept walking, ignoring the name that Shooter had given him as though he hadn’t learned it.
When Singer got back from the supply room, Shooter had left his sentry’s post, along with his magazine. Sergeant Royce was gone, too, his locker closed, the photo shut up in the dark though Singer could still see it and Sergeant Royce’s bad-toothed grin talking of the prospects. At his bunk he found Trip sitting in jeans, a t-shirt, and bare feet, picking at his cuticles.
“Aren’t you going to town?” Singer asked.
“Fayetteville? Have you been there yet? Bunch of angry vets and short-timers getting drunk, looking for the thrill of combat or wondering why they’re alive. Some of them looking to die. New guys or crazy guys made crazier with booze wanting to show how tough they are. Easier to die there than in the Nam. I’m too short for that shit. I’ll spend my last few months here on base, out of trouble. Maybe shoot a game of pool. You up to a lesson?”
“Maybe later, I got to polish my boots and brass.”
“Be careful if you go to town. Don’t go alone, that’s just asking for trouble.” Then Trip slipped on a pair of tennis shoes with no laces and left.
“Good advice.”
Until then, Singer hadn’t noticed Rhymes lying on his bunk in OD skivvies, an open book lying facedown on his chest, held with one hand, the other up behind his head, a bicep bulging. A small mat of short, curled black hair grew at the center of his chest.
“Trip’s right. Better to go with a group. Someone’s always looking for a fight, usually backed by friends. Shooter goes most nights, but stay away from him. Bear already left, but he’s not a bad choice. He’s big enough to be intimidating and doesn’t look for trouble even when he drinks. Still, there’s a few white boys down there might take issue with you palling with a black and a few bars you wouldn’t be safe in, even with Bear at your side.”
“I can skip it. I’m not that hard up for entertainment. What you reading?”
Rhymes swung his feet out and sat up, closed the book after a marker was in place.
“Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Ever read it?”
Singer shook his head. “I’m not much of a reader.”
“It’s poetry. A classic. Every time I read it I find something new—”
“You’ve read it more than once?”
“A couple of times. I’ve got something shorter if you like poetry.”
“That’s okay.”
But Rhymes was already retrieving a book from his locker. He handed the much thinner book to Singer. “James Weldon Johnson. A black poet from Florida, wrote around the turn of the century. His poem ‘The Young Warrior’ is about a son’s request for his mother to pray that he’ll fight well. You can keep it for a while if you want.”
Singer leafed through a few pages, then handed the book back to Rhymes. “Thanks, but I probably wouldn’t read it. . . . What do you think will happen?”
“What do you mean?” Rhymes asked.
“With me. When I reported, Sergeant Edwards said I wouldn’t be here long.”
“Yeah, most less than two months. You’ll come up on a roster for Nam duty. You’ll get a leave, a couple weeks, then report to the West Coast, Oakland Army Base, to ship out to Vietnam with other replacements from around the country. After a week of training at Bien Hoa or Cam Ranh Bay, they’ll send you to your unit.”
“I’ll go alone?”
“From here, anyway. You’ll meet guys when you report, but you’ll all be going to different units.”
“I won’t know where I’m going?”
“You get orders for either the 173rd Airborne or the 101st, but it’ll depend where they are when you get to Nam, and then what unit needs people.
They can change your orders there. You could go anywhere from the delta to the DMZ.”
“Shit. Alone, and a new guy again.”
“That’s how it is for most.” Rhymes slapped Dante against his leg in a soft rhythm.
“Your patch, the wing and sword?”
“The Herd. The 173rd Airborne Division.”
“Your Nam unit?”
The tapping stopped. Rhymes gripped the book in both hands. “Yeah.”
“What was it like?”
“No one can tell you that.”
“Was it hard?”
Rhymes looked away.
“I mean, being brave.”
When Rhymes turned back toward Singer, something had changed in his face. He squinted though the light wasn’t any brighter, and his jaw was set. He spoke slowly, in nearly a monotone.
“The first months are the most dangerous, those and the last one for different reasons. When you get there, find someone whose made it six months, or four at least. Watch them and pay attention. Don’t be careless or too cautious. Bravery is somewhere in between.”
Singer started to leave, then tuned back.
“Do you regret going?”
“I regret a lot of things. You will, too.”
2
February 14-15, 1968
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Singer leaned against the wall, his ankles crossed, weight on his left leg, talking softly into the phone.
“Hang up!”
“What the—”
A hand pulled him roughly and spun him around. “Hang up now!”
Singer looked at the two military policemen, both about the same height as him, but one was at least twenty pounds heavier, tightly packed. Their faces were taut with similar scowls. Helmets were pulled low just above hard, challenging eyes. The larger of the two brandished a metal pry bar.
“I got to go . . . I don’t know . . . I’m sorry, I—”
The smaller MP yanked the receiver from Singer’s hand and with his other hand, reached across and slammed the hook down, cutting the connection.
“Hey? What the fuck? I was talking to my girlfriend.”
“You just finished,” the MP said, hanging up the handset.
“You can’t do this.”
“Get out of the way or you’ll be in handcuf
fs.”
The larger MP pushed Singer aside, wedged the pry bar behind the phone, and tore it from the wall. Torn wires dangled from a dark hole and crumpled plaster drifted to the floor. Outside, the MP tossed the phone onto a tangled pile of black cases, curled cords, and handsets in the back of a military police jeep. Singer tried to follow out the door to search for another phone, but the smaller MP stepped across and put his hand on Singer’s chest.
“No one goes out.” The MP settled his other hand on his nightstick.
“Just going to the mess.”
“No one goes out.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
The MP merely glared. Two MPs, sidearms, nightsticks, and pry bar were not good odds. Still, Singer set his feet and clamped his teeth so his jaw hurt. They stood this way for a moment, neither moving nor speaking.
The larger MP opened the door, still holding the pry bar. “Anything wrong? Let’s go. I want to get this done. The sentry’s coming now.”
A third MP took up a post outside the door and struck a formal stance as if he planned to stay. After the smaller MP backed out, Singer turned and ran up worn stairs, two at a time, toward the fourth platoon bay.
“Watch where you’re going, Singer.” Sergeant Royce held a bottle of Jack Daniels aloft, the remaining whiskey sloshing up the sides. He wore cowboy boots, a checkered shirt, and cologne that reminded Singer of animal smells.
“You can’t get out. Something’s going on.”
“Get out of my way. Mama’s waiting.” Sergeant Royce pushed past and was gone.
The normalcy of the scene at the top of the stairs brought Singer up short. No MPs. No urgency or signs of any crisis. Sergeant Edwards’s door was closed as it always was after a day of training. Rhymes said he drank in there each night and Sergeant Royce often joined him, Jack Daniels being both their favorite. Tonight it seemed he would drink alone.
Sergeant Prascanni’s rich bass voice floated from the john, filling the hall. It was the same tune Sergeant Prascanni always sang every time he showered. Only Sergeant Prascanni understood the words. “An Italian love song. The one that won my wife,” Sergeant Prascanni had said. “No woman can resist it.” The melody was smooth, and Singer could sense the sweetness in the phrases. Tonight it made him think of love and his ended call to Susan. His hands curled into tight balls.
Perfume River Nights Page 2