by Chris Lynch
Maybe that tree doesn’t make a noise, though. And maybe if you blow a kid’s face off in the dark under the ground then it makes no mess.
I have to get back.
It’s also probably a good thing I won’t be reading any kind of map to get myself back, because then I’d never get there. As it is, I think I know the way. Like I know the rats are here and like the rats know where they’re going, I think I’ll be fine without any eyes.
“I have to go, man,” I say to him. After you kill somebody, I am finding, you have a sort of warm feeling about them. I suppose it would be different if it was somebody you killed because you hated them. But I haven’t had that. I’ve only killed the people I’m supposed to kill.
“You keep the bayonet,” I say, even though it strictly didn’t belong to me. It strictly does belong to him now.
I don’t know how long the whole trip has been, time-wise, by the time I grab the rope and the guys pull me up into the light. Like a lot of these missions and these moments here in Vietnam, I think it probably felt like a lot longer than it actually took in real time.
“Oh, man,” Hunter says, coming right up to me as soon as I’m out of the ground. “Are you all right?”
“All the way all right,” I say brightly.
Lt. Silva is staring at me, his look both intense and distant.
“Here’s your gun, boss,” I say. As I hand it over, I see it’s absolutely laminated in shiny red blood. As is my hand.
“Sorry, Sunshine,” I say, “but I don’t have your bayonet. I seem to have lost a couple of things down there.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, looking at me just a tiny bit less dominating than before. “Kill anybody while you were at it?”
I look down at my hands, all glistening in that hot, wicked sun. Then I look back up at him.
“It was so dark down there, man, who could tell?”
That’s what I say. I’m just a bit surprised to hear myself say it. But it beats what I want to say.
What I want to tell them all is: Yeah, I killed somebody. I killed Rudi.
Old Rudi, or maybe Young Rudi.
No. Rudy-Judy is who he was. But he’s not anymore. Killed him and left him right down in that hole.
That’s what I want to say. But I know how weird that would sound, so I keep it to myself.
I have a what?”
The corporal, who I have never seen before, laughs at my shock.
“You heard me right, private,” he says. “You have a call. Follow me, please.”
I follow him — at a trot, because apparently these things are time sensitive. He leads me to a tent that’s got all kinds of wires running in and out of it, then inside to a squeezed-up desk in the corner among a lot of other squeezed-up desks and guys with headphones on. I grab a phone receiver.
“Yeah?” I say.
“Well, it is about time.”
“Morris?” I say. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. “Morris, man, is that you?”
“It’s me, Rudi, man. So good to hear your voice.”
“Same here, Morris.”
“I was starting to think I’d never get a hold of you. How are you doing?”
“Great, Morris, I’m doing great. What about you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say great, but all right. I’m surviving, getting by, you know. That’s the best we can do over here, isn’t it?”
I’m surprised at how much like a corporal he sounds. “What? No. Actually, no. You can do a lot better than that.”
“Oh. You can? Oh, so I guess when you said you were fitting in with the Marines, you meant you really were —”
“What else could I have meant?”
“All right, all right,” he says. “You’re awful edgy all of a sudden.”
“And you’re awfully sensitive all of a sudden. All I was saying, Morris, was that if more of our guys over here wanted to get something accomplished, instead of just wanting to get by and then get out, maybe we’d have won this thing already. We talk about it here all the time, that Charlie’s like the thing that wouldn’t die. No matter how many days we blast him away we come back the next day and there he is. I don’t see him quitting like I see a lot of our guys doing. The VC, man, those guys ain’t messing around, and they ain’t just waiting to go home, either.”
“That’s ’cause they are home.”
“Hnnn. Maybe. Anyway, have you seen this book thing the Defense Department produces? It’s called Know Your Enemy: The Vietcong.”
“Ah, gee, Rude, not yet…. I think it’s in the stack on my nightstand.”
“Hey, be a wiseguy if you want, but if you read it you would know just how prepared and committed these guys are. They got these lists, their oath, their twelve rules of discipline, their rules of attention — rules of attention, man! If they weren’t the enemy, I might have to start hanging around with them instead of some of the people we got here.”
There is a silence on the other end of the line, which, combined with his silence while I was talking, is a lot of nothing coming from the guy who actually made the call.
“What’s the matter with you?” I say, and I hear more impatience in my voice than I intend, but, oh well.
“I was just going to ask you the same question. You don’t sound like yourself, Rudi, to be honest.”
“Good,” I say loudly. “Thank you. Because you know what? I’m not that guy. The Marines have remade me, Morris. I’ve remade myself. The Rudi you knew was a loser, man, and good riddance to him.”
“No, no, no,” he says, matching my intensity for the first time in the conversation. “The Rudi I knew was an excellent guy. He was kind of a goof, but he was somebody loveable. And I know I speak for the other guys, too, when I say I would rather you came home a good guy and a bad soldier than the other way around.”
The radio coordinator guy comes over to me and starts tapping his watch already. I turn away from him.
“Morris, are you not paying attention? Are you even bothering to read my letters? I’m not going home. Understand? I mean, you guys are still the best guys in the world, and we will always be us no matter what, but … I’m not going back home. I hate home. The Marines is my home, where I fit and where I belong. If they keep fighting in Vietnam then that’s where I’ll be. If they fight on into China, look for me there. If the Russians want a piece, bring it on ’cause I’ll be there. Boston can just take a hike. If I never see that place again that’s just fine with me. In fact, I would really like it if the USMC declared war on Massachusetts. That would thrill me all over.”
He’s gone all silent again. But because he is Morris I know the silence doesn’t stand a chance.
“How ’bout your mom, Rudi? Don’t you want to go home to your mom?”
I should show more respect here but, you know, this just isn’t the time.
“Mom? My mom? Okay, right, I missed her when I left. And I was thinking about her at first, before I started getting experienced, y’know, started turning into a man and into a Marine. Then, I got reality, Morris.”
“You got reality.”
“Reality, right. And reality is this. I needed my mom because I was nobody, with nothing, understand? Then I got to be somebody and I found myself needing less and less of Mom, or anybody, really. And I realized, a big part of why I was Mr. Nobody with Nothing, was ’cause of her.”
“Ah, Rudi, man, she did her best —”
“Know how many letters I’ve gotten from my mother? None. But I’m not surprised. She told me that was how it would be. The day I left, man, my mother — my own mother — said that because I was me it was so sure that I was gonna get killed that she was considering me dead as soon as she shut the door. That way she could protect herself from all the worrying, and if I came back someday it would just be a pleasant surprise. Huh? How’s that for a pat on the back, a confidence booster on the way to war? Well, what she doesn’t know is that that Rudi, Rudy-Judy, is dead already, and this Rudi that has replac
ed him is invincible. So there.”
There is another silence out there, this one longer. And again, because I know Morris like I do, I can just about see him.
“You’re shaking your head now, right? And holding your hand flat up against your forehead.”
This, at least, brings a chuckle out of him.
“I see you’ve invented the picture phone,” he says.
And now I chuckle, and now that has to be good enough to end on.
“Anyway, you may be a privileged radioman with all the time in the world, Morris, but I have a guy here waiting to unplug me.”
“Remember who and what you are, Rudi. Remember most of all what you are not. And then go and be everything else.”
“Morris, if you start talking to me like Beck then I will pull the plug here myself.”
He sighs loudly. “I know you’ve killed people, Rude. Maybe a lot —”
“A lot.” No sense in tiptoeing.
“But you don’t have to become one of them. That doesn’t have to be who you are. You’re not —”
“I am.”
“You also never used to —”
“Interrupt you?” I laugh, and he does, too.
It feels really, really, really good to be laughing, blending laughs with one of the guys. I’m shocked at the feeling it gives me. Frightened by it, even.
It’s a feeling connected to old stuff, and that feeling has to go.
“I have to go,” I say.
“No, don’t.”
“I have to, Morris, because they’re gonna disconnect me.”
And I also have to because I have to. Before Morris disconnects me. Disconnects me. I start talking very fast, so that I can get my words in, and so that he can’t.
“There is order here, Morris, and I understand it. I am good at this, and I am making a difference. I control stuff like I never could, and like I never will, outside of this thing. There will be no twelve-months-and-out for me. I’m in, all the way in, forever. I hope you understand, and I hope Beck understands, but I know that Ivan understands. And he’s proud of me, and by the time I’m done he’s gonna be even prouder, wait and see.”
“I can promise you that Ivan is in no way —”
I pull the receiver away from my ear when I see the radioman walking briskly toward me and waving his hands in front of his face like he’s disallowing a touchdown.
“Rudi!” I hear little-voice Morris bellowing at me desperately.
“Yeah, Morris,” I say, buying one more moment from the radioman with one finger in the air.
“You don’t have to like what you have to do here. You’re not supposed to like it.”
“Well, there ya go,” I say. “When did I ever do anything the way I was supposed to?”
“Wait, we’re all very —”
Morris is still talking at me when I hand the phone over voluntarily and get back to business.
Co Co Village?” I say when Silva tells us the assignment. It’s a special one — I can tell because he has come over to our hooch to fill it up with his smoke. That’s a first. “But lieutenant, there’s nothing to do there. The CAP guys have it all packed up tight and passive. What, did they run out of candy and flower seeds?”
“As a matter of fact I think they have run out of candy and flower seeds. But as it happens they are also running low on men.”
“Why’s that, lieutenant?” Sunshine asks.
“That is because, I’m afraid things aren’t going so well. Not in Co Co, and not with the CAP program in I Corps generally. They are getting hit more often, and more strategically. Locals are getting more distant, and the guys who aren’t local — that would be Charlie — are getting less distant.”
“We’re losing, is that what you’re saying?” Sunshine, like Silva, is not one for beating around bushes. They speak the same language.
“I am not saying that, private. But I am coming close to saying it. In a couple of weeks, in fact, we’re pulling the CAP program out of Co Co village.”
“For good?” Hunter asks.
“For good.”
Sunshine, Hunter, and myself are gathered around the lieutenant now like we’re kids at story time, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Marquette remains on his bunk.
“You getting all this, Marquette?” Lt. Silva asks.
“Every word, lieutenant,” he answers as sleeplike as he can.
“Good. Then you, and all of us, can start packing up, because we are moving on down the road. They have lost three men, and we are providing them with seven to make up for it in these final weeks of the program. The five of us, along with Corporals Cherry and McClean, are going to be CAPs for a while. Whole new world, huh?”
Lt. Silva has finally managed to get all of Marquette’s attention. He sits up, swings his feet to the floor.
“Lieutenant, how exactly does a CAP unit lose three men?”
Silva sticks his cigarette into his teeth, that skeleton-effect thing he does so well. He holds up a thumb. “One was shot with an AK-47 by an eleven-year-old.” He keeps his thumb extended and adds the index finger. “One was blown up by a booby-trapped radio.” He adds another finger. “And one did the bamboo snake two-step.” It is called the bamboo two-step because the snake is so poisonous that you only get two steps before you fall down dead. “Although, that terminology may not be fitting in this case since the soldier was sitting down at the time of the biting and so he didn’t take any steps at all. And since the viper in question came out of a bag of freshly, locally laundered uniforms, one might be inclined to move that one also into the booby-trap column. Needless to say, the CAP unit is no longer patronizing the local laundress. Nor any of the other small local businesses that had been heretofore benefiting from Uncle Sam’s haphazard generosity. This state of affairs is consequently doing very little to sustain good relations on either side.”
“And that’s where we’re going?” Hunter asks. Fairly enough.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?” Sunshine asks.
Lt. Silva shrugs. “I think the president referred to it as ‘an honorable end to the war.’”
“What does that mean?” Hunter asks.
“It means we ain’t leaving ’til we say we’re leaving,” I say.
Silva nods at me. “Yeah, something like that. The Marines have set their withdrawal date from the village, and we don’t look good if we get pushed out early. With a little effort and luck we might be able to leave the place a little more pacified and friendly than it is at this moment.”
You can feel the energy wafting out of the place along with Silva’s cloud as he leaves the hooch. This is a tough one, high on difficulty and low on potential for success. What would success even look like? But we are Marines. So, first thing in the morning, we will march.
“Good luck with that,” Marquette says, lying back on his bunk.
The three of us turn as one on him.
“What are you saying?” Hunter asks, befuddled.
“I’m saying shut up, Hunter, that’s what I’m saying.”
Sunshine takes one slow, sure step in the direction of Marquette’s bunk. Marquette smiles broad and slimy. “Go, on, big boy,” he says, “go right ahead. Do me the biggest favor of the whole war. Only this time put a little more effort into it so I can go home. Save me the trouble of doing it myself. ’Cause one way or another, you boys are definitely going to Co Co village without me.”
And in that moment, if I was going to build a thing in my mad-scientist laboratory that would bring out all the hatred and hostility in my soul, that thing would come out looking and sounding and acting just like Marquette.
We’re all lying in our bunks, and it’s a quiet night in Chu Lai. When it’s like this, the warm dark night sitting on top of us like blankets, frogs and insects making the loudest noises on the slightly stirring air, this place could be like a home almost. Or, anyway, like a summer-vacation camp where a guy could close his eyes and just be all right, trusting that his fellow c
ampers all around him are having the same good time, sharing the same dreams tonight for the same outcomes tomorrow.
But I tip a glance over in the direction of Marquette’s bunk and I know it just won’t ever be that here. He is going to be a rat, and he’s going to get away with it, though I don’t know how. We hear stories about guys doing all kinds of crazy stuff to injure themselves out of fighting duty, and Marquette could easily be one of those guys. He’s already snoring, so he’s obviously not sweating it like I am.
I look over to Hunter, who is staring at the ceiling and worrying himself to sleep. I stare over at Sunshine, who looks to be sleeping and readying himself for what’s to come tomorrow. Which should be plenty.
“Hey! Hey, hey!” Before I even know I am asleep, I wake up to almighty screaming coming from Marquette’s bunk.
“Shut up, will ya?” Sunshine bellows back. It is just breaking dawn, and all of us are awake, just like that. “I wasn’t done sleeping yet, Marquette, you jerk. Neither were these guys. Now, look, you got everybody up, and we all have a big day today.”
It is quite a scene. Sunshine’s bed has at sometime during the night made its way across the floor to butt up against Marquette’s. Marquette is swinging and flailing around, but not getting much accomplished, because Sunshine is shadowing his every move.
He has no choice but to shadow him, really, since they are shackled together, right ankle to left, right wrist to left.
Hunter starts falling all over the place laughing, and I join him. Sunshine deserves credit for keeping a completely straight face but Marquette deserves none because being deadly serious right now is no effort for him at all.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marquette barks.
“Being a good Marine, and a good buddy,” Sunshine says.
“Get these things off of me, Gillespie, I mean it.”
“Sure thing,” Sunshine says. “But we gotta go find my friend, who’s an MP on patrol duty. You know, Military Police? He’s got the key. And lucky for you he understands your sleepwalking problem. I explained the whole thing to him.”
“I don’t sleepwalk,” Marquette says. The two of them are now standing in the middle of the hooch in their skivvies.