Purple Daze
Page 8
Ziggy
* I’m lipstick
nail polish
mascara.
A short squat
package people
buy without
looking inside.
* Free Verse: Ms. Hawes’s class
Cheryl
* HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
I HATE DONALD DUCK
* Haiku: Ms. Hawes’s class
Norman Morrison
(December 29, 1933–November 2, 1965)
A devout Quaker and father of three young children pours kerosene over his head and sets himself on fire outside Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s office at the Pentagon in an act of self-sacrifice to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34 Puerto Rico
Dear Cheryl,
Guess what?
I got relieved of one of my jobs.
Guide Bearer. My CO said (quote),
“What in the hell makes you think
you can laugh at everything?
This is the Navy!”
Me, “I know, Sir.”
Him, “When you can stop laughing
you can have your job back.”
I haven’t stopped laughing.
That job had a lot of responsibility I
didn’t need. I’d rather just be Mail PO.
Get the same thing on my uniform.
Love, Mickey
P.S. Tell Don I tried to qualify for a golf
tournament and shot a clutch 89.
Phil
Dear Cheryl,
Is Ozzie and Harriet still on TV?
I used to think that show was corny as hell.
Now I dream of being married
with a buttload of kids.
I’d be pretty strict.
But no spankings.
I’d never hurt a kid.
Not even here.
I don’t care if orders came from
General Westmoreland.
I carry memories of Nancy,
praying she’s still waiting for me
in that other world where she sleeps
on clean sheets and a feather pillow.
We’re going out on operations tomorrow, so
I thought someone should know there’s a few
feelings under these filthy fatigues.
Love, Phil
P.S. This goddamned country rains horse piss–just emptied out my boots again—in case you meet a POG who wants to trade places.
Thanksgiving
Commander’s Message
“This Thanksgiving Day we find ourselves in a foreign land assisting in the defense of the rights of free men everywhere. On this day we should offer our grateful thanks for the abundant life which we and our loved ones have been provided. May we each pray for His continued blessings and guidance upon our endeavors to assist the Vietnamese people in their struggle to attain an everlasting peace within a free society.”
—W. C. Westmoreland, General United States Army
Thanksgiving Menu
Shrimp Cocktail
Crackers
Roast Turkey
Giblet Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Cornbread Dressing
Cranberry Sauce
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Buttered Peas
Assorted Crisp Relishes
Hot Butter Buns
Butter
Fruitcake
Mincemeat Pie
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream
Assorted Fresh Fruit
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Candy
Tea Milk Coffee
Phil
Dear Cheryl,
My sister sent a present with her
last letter, a stuffed duck.
We named him Daffy—
he’s our “unofficial mascot.”
You otta see these
salt-dripping haggard rag-tags
having conversations with Daffy.
He wears a helmet (crushed beer can)
and jungle fatigues (woven razor grass).
Cap’n donated a soggy cigar.
Love ya, Phil
P.S. We’re having Spam for Thanksgiving, probably left over from WWI.
Alice’s Restaurant
1964 Alice and Ray Brock purchase a gothic
revival building in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
The small, pine church is transformed into a refuge,
where young people escape establishment pressures
and the hell of Vietnam.
Agitated neighbors shout at the long-haired,
nonconformists living in this beatnik commune.
Thanksgiving 1965 Arlo Guthrie, son of folk singer
Woody Guthrie, and a friend haul garbage from the
Brock’s home to the city dump. Discovering it closed
for Thanksgiving, they toss the trash down a hill.
The pair is arrested, appearing before a blind judge,
who’s unable to see the 8 x 10 glossy photos in evidence.
They plead guilty, pay a $25 fine, and clean up the mess.
“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” evolves into a satirical
18-minute talk-song that records the events. Later,
lyrics critical of the war are woven in.
Who says you can get anything you want?
Nancy
Tonight our professor is lecturing about navigating
life through enlightenment, explaining it’s possible
to be en-lightened without reading a tome or spending
a hundred years in a monastery.
He says that according to existentialists,
most problems stem from worrying about
the past and future.
I worried, still worry, about Phil—Maybe
I never loved him as much as he loved me.
Otherwise why did I stop writing?
Now I worry that my feelings were parataxic distortion—
meaning, not based on Phil’s true attributes,
but on a fantasy boyfriend I conjured in my mind.
I stay after class to talk to the professor about it.
He says, “Never let learning get in the way of loving.”
Da Nang Vietnam
Inbound provisions:
Hot ammunition, maybe
even misplaced mail?
Phil
Cheryl,
A grunt just walked by.
KILL THEM ALL,
LET GOD SORT IT OUT!
scrawled on his flak jacket.
Put my dog tags in a boot.
If I hit a mine or a tripwire
that’s all that’ll be left.
Love, Phil
P.S. Forgot to explain POGs:
People Other than Grunts.
P.P.S. Just finished The Carpetbaggers.
First classic I ever read.
Cheryl
mom elopes with nuts & chews,
a drive-up ceremony in las vegas
since he owns a grocery store
we move to a new house with
tv dinners stacked in the freezer
salisbury steak is my favorite
mom and I used to get our periods
together.
now we’re a week apart
Ziggy
My motel sign:
VACANCY
Chu Lai Vietnam
Gooks dig holes.
Two-feet deep.
Shove in Punji sticks—
18 inches of bamboo,
ends hacked to a point,
dipped in shit.
Stuck in holes,
camouflaged.
Neat little booby trap—
not the C-cup type.
Fuckin’ crazy.
Medical Evacuation
From the standpoint of methods in which
soldier
s are wounded—mines, high-velocity
missiles, booby-traps—and the locale of the
injured—paddy fields and along waterways
where human and animal excretion is common—
Vietnam is a dirty war
Due to the lack of secure road networks in
combat areas, med-evac choppers are keystone.
Whole blood packaged in Styrofoam™ containers
permits storage of 48–72 hours in the field,
in anticipation of casualties.
Greater care of the wounded results from rapid
evacuation, ready availability of whole blood,
well-established hospitals, and advanced surgical
techniques.
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34 Non-Virgin Islands
Dear Cheryl,
I can’t believe you broke up with Don!
I’m still going out with that Chinese girl.
Her father works her to death,
I swear, 13 hours a day, 7 days a week.
They own a Chinese restaurant.
I sort of feel sorry for them because
they don’t get hardly any business.
Her name is Yen, I’m serious.
She’s from Hong Kong.
She’s not exactly a girlfriend because
she’s married and all.
Her husband is in Vietnam.
Love, Mickey
P.S. Tell Ziggy I won’t be in the States for a while,
so she can stay stoned a little longer.
Ziggy
I sneak in the side door of the gas station,
drop a quarter in the cigarette machine,
and wonder if I have the strength
to push the right button,
straighten out my life.
Mick says I’m a nymphomaniac
when I’m really just in love.
Before I quit school, I told Ms. Hawes
that I moved in with my brother, and
she took me to the teacher’s lounge,
poured two cups of coffee, gave me a
dime and the number of a church
where I could get help.
I spent it on a glazed donut.
Phil
Dear Cheryl,
We started packing maxi pads
in our helmets to plug sucking
chest wounds.
Another thing—
war flicks don’t know shit about dying.
No one staggers in slow motion crying,
“Mama!”
They drop like puppets with
their strings cut.
Zapped.
Offed.
Lit up.
Dead as fucking door knobs.
I never prayed before I came here.
Love, Phil
P.S. My M-16’s chipped, cracked,
metal parts worn through the bluing,
cuz it never leaves my side.
P.P.S. .45 is rusted shut.
Yo-yo can still walk-the-dog though.
Don
Dearest Cheryl,
DON’T TEAR THIS UP!!! PLEASE!!!
I’ll do anything if you’ll just forgive me.
Anything. I’m on my knees, begging, please,
I love you so much I can’t eat or sleep.
All I think about is holding you.
I look for you everyday before and after school,
between classes, during nutrition at lunch.
Guess you’ve been cutting Hawes’s class,
and using someone else’s locker.
Has your mom told you I called?
About a million times!
PLEASE CALL ME!!!
I love you more today than ever, Don
P.S. Are you still pen pals with Mick & Phil?
P.P.S. I got that job at the club. $1.25 an hour.
Cheryl
Love is like sticking
your car keys in a pocket with
your sunglasses and thinking
your glasses won’t get scratched.
Phil
2 a.m. December 1
Me and Gunther have guard duty in the
tower, a mini-hooch without the screen.
A 20-foot high platform,
Permanent Target Duty.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Mortars propel from some gook hooch.
I’ve got my buddy Blooper, an M-79 grenade launcher,
like a large bore, single barrel, sawn-off shotgun.
Our Xmas toys light up everything, moving or not.
M-18 Claymore mines—front toward enemy—
steel ball bearing shrapnel. Fugas. Trip flares.
Illumination flares, mini-chutes raining light.
Tracer rounds, ribbons of chrome-orange metal.
Hueys roll in.
Fighter pilots in helmets, shorts, zoris.
Annihilate the place. Rat-a-tat-tat.
Chaos.
Silent night, holy night.
Destruction.
All is calm, all is bright.
Extermination.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Bits of beauty everywhere.
Cheryl
Stable horses, $2.50 an hour.
I broke all the rules, galloped
soon as I left the barn,
like dancing to “Hang on Sloopy,”
naked,
free.
Ziggy
Bubba dropped me at Hughes Market
with a list:
Crispy Critters
Ding Dongs
Potato Crisps
Sweet Tarts
Dr. Pepper
Wheeling through produce, I see
Cheryl’s mom thumping cantaloupes.
Her cart cradles chickens, carrots, squash—
nothing in a can or a box.
“Ziggy!” she says, rushing over.
“Where’ve you been?”
I self-destruct on the spot.
Phil
I keep having this dream.
A short, sharp sound.
Click!
When I turn, a squat brown boy
jabs a gun in my gut.
Click! Click!
He swings the butt at my head.
I empty a clip in his face.
Bones fly. Chip by chip.
A tooth.
Another round of shoot-a-gook.
I wake up sweatin’ blood.
God forgive us.
Mickey
USS Hermitage LSD-34 Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Dear Cheryl,
What’s the haps?
Thought I’d send you some stuff
I picked up on my travels.
Hope you like the poem about Santa Claus.
Guess what? I qualified for Heads Helmsman.
(That’s the guy who steers the ship.)
Whenever we go through shallow water
I’ll be called up to steer.
I have to know everything about the Pilot House.
If I make one mistake
I could run aground or into another ship.