Red walked by, a toilet kit in his left hand, a towel around his waist. A ragged hole of scar tissue high on Red’s chest made it hard to look him in the face when he was shirtless. He paused in front of Singer.
“Two more months I’ll be sitting in Crosley Field watching my man.”
“Right,” Singer said, trying to concentrate on Red’s blue eyes.
“My dad got first-baseline seats for us, right behind the dugout.”
“Great.”
Red turned back toward the showers, showing the small pink entrance wound so near the base of his neck Singer wondered how it missed his spine.
Singer found Rhymes at his bunk, applying polish with a wet cotton ball to the toe of one of his jump boots in slow, careful motion.
“How’s your girl?” Rhymes asked without looking up.
“Don’t know. Fucking MP grabbed the phone from me, hung it up.”
Rhymes stopped making circles on the boot toe. “MPs? Here in the barracks?”
Trip came up, stood behind him. Then Bear was there.
“Yeah, I was just talking then these two MPs showed up. Tore out the phone. Said no one can leave.”
“Maybe Shooter hit an officer again,” Bear said.
“He’s done with no more rank to lose,” Rhymes said.
“His medals protected him before, will again, I’d bet,” Bear said.
“How am I going to call?” Singer asked.
“Probably another knifing in town,” Trip said. “They’ll search lockers for the blade before we can get out of here.”
“Hey man, mine’s clean,” Bear said. “I don’t need to carry here. Shooter and some of those other guys I’m not so sure of.”
“I don’t like being locked in for anything.” Trip said.
“Now there’s something we agree on,” Bear said.
Rhymes laughed first, then Trip grinned, which started Bear laughing. Only Singer didn’t understand what was so funny. Maybe he would have to be here longer before he got every joke.
“I’m not so excited about being stuck here with you guys, either,” Rhymes said.
“Hell, you never go out anyway, all you do is read like some damn professor. That poetry shit going to fuck your brain. No man reads poetry. No black man, anyway,” Bear said.
“When I get home I’ll send you a copy of Vilakazi’s poems,” Rhymes said.
“What?”
“A black African. A Zulu. You can—”
“Listen up!” Sergeant Edwards’s gravelly voice boomed through the bay.
“Here it comes,” Trip said.
Lockers slammed shut. Men sat up, swung their legs to the floor, or jumped down from top bunks. Everyone drifted into the center aisle. Singer, Rhymes, Bear, and Trip shifted toward the voice with the others. Sergeant Prascanni had stopped singing and stood in the hallway, wrapped in a towel and dripping water, along with Red and two other men. Nearby, Sergeant Milner paced.
Sergeant Edwards stood framed in the doorway in freshly starched fatigues and polished jump boots, as if he had dressed for the occasion. His black face had the tightness he had as jumpmaster on last month’s training jump. His feet were braced as if he were standing on a bouncing plane. He was silent as men pushed closer and an expectant quiet settled over the group.
Behind him, Sergeant Royce rounded the top of the stairs, cowboy boots clomping. “Damn MPs don’t understand. I got to—”
“Not now, Sergeant,” Sergeant Edwards said, then turned back to the group gathered in the bay.
Sergeant Royce faded back, brought the bottle of Jack to his mouth, tilted it up.
“Okay, everyone listen up. We’re on deployment alert as of now.” Sergeant Edwards’s eyebrows rose, then settled low over his eyes. He didn’t speak again until the murmurs died down.
“Most of you know the drill. An info blackout’s been ordered. No one goes out. No calls.”
“Jesus,” Sergeant Royce said. He dropped his empty hand to his crotch and took another drink.
“Load your stateside issue in your duffel and turn it into supply. Keep only combat gear. New gear will be delivered. New weapons are on the way now. Squad leaders, assign details to unload trucks. The move-out order could come at any time. Be ready.”
“Is this an exercise?” someone asked. Heads swung toward the questioner, then back toward Sergeant Edwards.
“We won’t know ’til the stand-down order comes. ’Til then, treat it like it’s not.”
“Where we going, Sarge?” Sergeant Prascanni asked.
“Anywhere’s good with me,” Shooter said.
“Why we getting new weapons?” a voice asked.
“You’ll know when I know. Just be ready,” Sergeant Edwards said and walked back down the hall toward his room, carrying Sergeant Royce’s bottle of Jack.
“Here we go again,” Bear said, rubbing his hip. “Been hurting me all week. Must be going somewhere.”
“Shrapnel,” Rhymes said after Bear walked away.
“What do you think?” Singer asked.
“This can’t be serious with most of us so close to going home,” Trip said. “Shit, Red, Ghost, Bear, Sergeant Royce . . . we’re all out of here in a few weeks. I guess most of the company is done. The only one staying is Shooter. How short are you?” Trip asked, looking at Rhymes.
“We’re probably just being timed. The general likely wants to boast about our readiness. Sooner we’re ready, sooner we’ll be released,” Rhymes said.
“Another game,” Trip said. “My last with the little time I got left. Maybe I should just pack for home.”
Rhymes opened his locker and took out a fatigue shirt, carefully folding it on his bunk. Singer stood and watched as Rhymes started on another, making precise folds, then smoothing each one.
“Better get started,” Rhymes said. “Just ask me if you’re not sure what to pack or bring.”
“Did you ever go anywhere like this before?”
“Detroit last summer.”
“Detroit?”
“The riots. This is different, though.”
“Like an exercise?”
“More serious. See if they really give us new weapons. Hurry and pack.”
With his duffel on the floor, Singer threw his extra pair of boots in first, then rolled up three sets of stateside fatigues and dumped them in the bag.
Sergeant Royce dropped heavily onto his bunk and buried his head in his hands. When he raised his face, he tugged the western boot off his left foot and flung it at his locker, the crash ringing through the room. “Fuck.” After the second boot was off and dropped at his feet, he pulled himself up and started empting his locker, pausing to look at the picture each time he removed an item.
Maybe Singer had been too slow or too obvious being the new guy in the squad, but Sergeant Royce looked over and then, as if remembering, came up and sent him on the equipment detail with Red, who made the mistake of passing by at that wrong moment. Before Singer hit the top of the stairs. Red was into it again.
“He batted .301 last year. Third year in a row over .300. If he can keep this up, you know what it means . . .”
Singer didn’t know and didn’t care and tuned it out. Instead he worried about where they might be sent, if they were going anywhere. He was waiting to go to Vietnam. It was his destiny. It wasn’t possible they would send him somewhere else along with all the others to be some border patrol or monitor some civil strife and he would miss his chance to go to war.
On first floor near the barracks doors, Singer and Red found Stick with three other men Singer didn’t know, in a line of about fifteen others he guessed were from the other three platoons. The same MP was at the door while two others were in the street managing a line of duce-and-a-half trucks that stretched out of sight down the street.
The first boxes contained jungle boots, which to Singer was an ominous sign. The signs continued with cartons of jungle fatigues, then flak jackets they lugged up to the fourth platoon’s bay and t
ossed into a growing pile that men dug through with a measured urgency. An elaborate exercise or a serious mission.
The MPs grew more surly, shouting orders, waving flashlight beams in the settling darkness, rushing trucks in and out. Red had run out of Pete Rose statistics to report, and even his optimism about first-baseline seats for the coming season had grown dim, so he climbed the stairs in silence.
By the time Singer carried up the first boxes of C rations, most of the men of fourth platoon were already in jungle fatigues that brought on a shiny uniformity lacking the Combat Infantry Badges and combat unit patches that had marked most men’s stateside uniforms. Men stripped of their identities, their histories, though Singer knew they had all survived something he had yet to face. He worried about being ready and quickened his pace.
Halfway up the stairs with two more cartons of Cs, Singer ran into Stick, who had stopped and was resting two cartons on his knee. Stick’s shoulders and head were bowed. Singer wondered if he was sleeping.
“Come on, we’re almost done,” Singer said. “Want me to take one of those?”
Stick didn’t answer, but took the weight up in long, spindly arms and climbed ahead, leaving Singer to bring up the rear.
When one of the last trucks backed into position, it revealed a load of new weapons. Singer felt a surge of excitement and fear. Rhymes said new weapons would mean something serious when their own weapons were locked up at supply, just a few paces down the hall. Singer forgot his exhaustion.
Fourth platoon’s bay went quiet for a moment then filled with loud chatter when he and Red carried in the first load. After the last truck pulled away and there were no more cases to carry, Singer ran up the steps on tired legs.
The bay light seemed more harsh, men more subdued. The likelihood of any sleep seemed a remote prospect. Many of the men were sitting on bunks or footlockers with M16s disassembled, wiping parts with rags that looked to have been t-shirts a short time ago.
“We should test-fire these,” a voice said.
I’m betting we’ll get a chance in a few days,” Shooter said, while he continued reassembling a new M60 machine gun.
Two bunks down, Jammer, a lanky black man with a grim expression and angry eyes that aged an otherwise boyish figure, held a barrel up, squinting through one eye. “Damn.”
Beside Jammer, a man with a smooth complexion and a color that suggested a mixed background, released the operating handle of his M16 and the bolt slammed shut. The man aimed at a light and Singer heard the firing pin click on an empty chamber. “Dead.”
“I’m telling you, I won’t fight no brothers again.” Jammer ran a thin finger down the scar that ran across his cheek. “I’ll go to Korea, even back to Nam if I have to, but if that bird’s going to Detroit or any other city where there’s brothers, I ain’t going.”
“What makes you think they’re going to tell you where they’re taking you, much less give you a choice?”
“I’m just saying I ain’t doing it again.”
Trip was on his bunk, arms behind his head, sleeves rolled up, ankles crossed, staring at the bottom of the top bunk as if he might discern some necessary truth from the pattern of the springs. A rucksack, web gear, and rifle lay next to his feet.
Rhymes met Singer before he reached his bunk. “Sorry for the long detail. I was just coming to get you.”
“It’s okay,” Singer said, rubbing his left bicep.
“I set boots and fatigues at your bunk. If they’re the wrong sizes, trade them out from the piles. I’ll draw your rifle and start cleaning it while you change. Then you can finish up while I take your duffle to supply.”
“Thanks.”
“I remember what it’s like to be new to a unit. Besides, if you aren’t ready it reflects on me.”
* * * * *
When Singer woke, for a moment he thought it was daylight and he was somewhere else. He’d dreamt they’d gone already, parachuting in, and he’d been heroic on the first day of fighting saving half the platoon, winning medals and accolades requiring a visit to the oval office. The white lights overhead belied the appearance of the dawn that was just a faint glow in the windows. He found his gear stacked beside his bed where he’d left it and the residue of night clinging in his mouth. Hushed voices came from more than one location.
Singer washed and shaved next to a couple others he didn’t know, both in their fatigues, like him not able to risk a shower until the alert was over. The piles of surplus equipment and the cases and boxes still clogged the center aisle. He understood the ache in his arms and the stiffness in his thighs.
A formation was called and Singer thought, Here we go, until Sergeant Edwards said to leave their gear. They were marched over to the mess, the formation shadowed by MPs as if they were all some kind of prisoners. At the smell of food, Singer recalled they’d had no dinner except for the Cs they opened in the middle of the night. Singer had barely settled down with his tray of cold eggs and nearly raw bacon before they were ordered back into formation and led back to the bay.
Despite their hurried return, once back at the bay they waited, the air growing warm and confining, sour with the lack of showers and the emotions of the night. Men checked rucks and gear and wiped down weapons or sharpened knifes, none of which needed doing. Some men lay on the bunks looking reflective or remorseful. Red sat cross-legged and closed his eyes and hummed. Singer tried to rest, but after just a few minutes was up and moving around.
He found Rhymes reading Dante still, his M79 beside him, his right hand resting on it as he held the book in his left hand. The M79 was an ugly weapon with its short, big barrel and stubby stock. It was a single-shot weapon that required the shooter to open the breech, remove the fired shell casing and insert a new round, then close the breach before they could fire one round again. It was a damning feature. Even the fastest shooters Singer watched in AIT seemed slow. A lot could happen while a man reloaded again and again and was defenseless in those moments. In woods—or more likely, jungles—in close quarters it seemed they would be even less functional, dangerous for the shooter. He’d decided in AIT he’d never carry one, even if it meant refusing an order. Thankfully he’d been assigned an M16. Maybe Rhymes viewed the weapon differently or had been ordered to carry it and was unwilling to fight about it.
Even after he pulled over a footlocker and sat down next to Rhymes’s bunk, Rhymes seemed reluctant to visit.
“It’s a good part,” Rhymes eventually said, returning immediately to the book.
“What do you think?”
It was a minute before Rhymes stopped, inserted a bookmark, and set down the book.
“Have you read the papers the last week?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Nam. Communist attacks on most the province capitals, Hue, Da Nang, Pleiku, Dak To, Long Binh, Bien Hoa, even Saigon.”
“So you think we’re going there?”
“Looks like it.”
“But Trip says you’re all too short to send anywhere.”
“The army’s probably got a different view. Sixty days left is enough. A couple of guys from the third platoon who had something like fifty days left got moved to a company that isn’t on alert. The word is anyone with sixty days will have to go.”
“But you guys were already there?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“I heard guys saying they wouldn’t go.”
“It’s just talk. We’ll all go. We’re all still soldiers. Paratroopers. We have our pride, in ourselves if not the unit.”
“Will we parachute in?”
A smile started on Rhymes’s face then quickly faded. “No. In the Nam it’s all helicopters. Jumping days are over ’til we get back.”
“Are you scared?”
Rhymes turned away for just a moment. His face bore the same countenance when he looked back, but Singer felt he’d asked something he shouldn’t have.
“You can’t think about it. Push it from your mind. You j
ust believe you’ll be all right. Trust in God to protect you.”
Rhymes pulled his M79 closer and picked up Dante.
“Yeah.”
When Rhymes didn’t say anymore, Singer got up, pushed the footlocker back, and moved on. As he walked away he thought of the first time he’d seen Rhymes’s wounds. It was in the shower sometime that first week. The memory of his embarrassment at being caught looking still brought a flush to his face. Rhymes had turned and Singer hadn’t been quick enough to look away. Rhymes touched the mark on his right buttock and then his left, as if to verify it had gone through. The right cheek had a circle of white flesh drawn tight at the edges, stark against Rhymes’s dark skin. The left side was a large and shapeless form of holes and knotted cords that looked like it must still hurt.
“My head was down, but I guess my ass was in the air,” Rhymes had said. “Maybe my ass is just too big to hide.”
Then he finished washing off the soap, shut the water off, and walked out, hiding the wounds under a towel.
Singer paused now between bunks, uncertain. Trip was sleeping, or at least had his eyes closed and didn’t open them. But Bear was sitting on his footlocker, a fatigue jacket on his lap, a needle almost hidden between his fingers. He pushed it through from underneath, then pulled at it twice before getting it and yanking it through, the thread trailing behind it.
Bear looked up at Singer watching.
“I’m putting on my combat patch. I ain’t going anywhere looking like no Cherry. No offense, man.”
Bear smiled and Singer laughed.
“Don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either, if I weren’t one,” Singer said.
“My fingers weren’t made for this.” He held out both hands that looked like baseball mitts.
“Shit, let me do it. I’ve sewed before.”
“Sit down, then. I got it started, but it took forever.”
Singer took the jungle shirt and the needle and had one side done before either of them spoke. Bear dragged over another empty footlocker and sat watching while flexing his fingers that had held the needle.
Perfume River Nights Page 3