Down in the wire, the Kid From Brooklyn stops and looks up at the light. Near Sorry Charlie, our pet skull, the Kid hunkers down, pounded by cold gusts of wind and monsoon rain.
Black laughter drifts in from No Man’s Land. The Kid turns outboard and slowly unslings his rifle. Behind his rain-fogged glasses his eyes are big in his face.
There is the sound of a metallic wine bottle popping open and there is the moment of perfect silence and then one M-79 blooper fragmentation grenade hits the Kid From Brooklyn and the Kid From Brooklyn does a very bad impression of John Kennedy campaigning in Dallas and in silent slow motion the Kid From Brooklyn’s head dissolves into a cloud of pink mist and then bam and the Kid From Brooklyn falls in pieces all over the area, blown away, killed in action and wasted, shot dead and slaughtered.
The Kid From Brooklyn’s headless body is a contorted blob of wax in the ghost light of the illumination flare. One arm gone. One arm converted to pulp. Legs bent too far and in the wrong directions. Ribs curving up incredibly white from inside a glistening black cavity which, as though on fire, is steaming.
Abruptly, illumination fades. Night falls on my position. A shadow walks across my field of fire.
I cling to the cold metal of my machine gun, my mouth dry, teeth gritted, finger aching, hands white, knuckles bleeding where I’ve bitten them, sweat stinging my eyes, stomach pumping in and out, and I’m shaking.
The Phantom Blooper knows where I am now. He knows where I live. Out there beyond the wire in that deep black jungle the Phantom Blooper can hear the sounding of the gong that is the beating of my heart.
I try to let go of the machine gun, but I can’t let go.
Hunkered down, I hold my breath, afraid to fire.
Beaver Cleaver, who likes to tell people who don’t know any better that he is our Platoon Sergeant, is cutting himself a big piece of slack up in his luxurious bunker. The bunker was constructed to the Beaver’s precise specifications by the Seabees in exchange for six Willy Peter bags full of marijuana. No doubt the Beaver is sitting on his rack, drinking cold beer, and watching Leave It To Beaver reruns on his battery-powered, Thai-subtitled Japanese television.
I wait until dark, pull on some rotting jungle utilities and some Ho Chi Minh sandals, and crawl out of the rat’s next of crumpled body bags and parachute silk I’ve made for myself inside a Conex box. The time on deck is oh-dark-thirty. Time to walk lines.
I have walked lines hundreds of times at Khe Sanh. Tonight everything is new and strange. I feel like a blind man after some sadist has moved all the furniture. In the moonlight I’m falling down all over the place like some kind of fucking New Guy. The bulldozers of the Eleventh Engineers have definitely wasted my area. Even the bunkers are not where they are supposed to be. I feel lost. My hometown has been taken away, stacked, burned, or evacuated.
The Marine Corps moves in mysterious ways.
Every twenty meters I stoop down and tug at the barbed wire with det cord crimps to see if the wire has been cut. The tugging scares up bunker rats big enough to stand flat-footed and butt-fuck a six-by. I scan the tanglefoot to see if it looks tight enough to hold the weight of falling dead men. I check the position of each Claymore mine. We paint the backs of our Claymores white so we can count them in the dark and see that they are still facing outboard.
I keep one eye on the darkness out beyond the wire. While fireteams of highly motivated mosquitoes try to scarf me up as their midnight chow I wait for the shadows beyond the wire to turn into people. At night we enter that world where all men are phantoms.
There are things out there in the dark, things that move. Maybe a torn and decaying sandbag being blown around by the wind. Or a stray water buffalo. Or a patch of night thrown down by a cloud passing in front of the moon. Or maybe those black dots shimmering out there at five hundred yards are cold and hungry Viet Cong troopers silently colliding and massing for a ground attack.
Or maybe the Blooper. The Phantom Blooper could be out there, sighting me in.
Tomorrow we blow the wire. Growling green bulldozers will plow down the last of our bunkers and Khe Sanh Combat Base won't be here anymore. The Marine Corps won't be here anymore. Until then, the hills are full of gooks and Khe Sanh is their hobby. Enemy recon teams eyeball us from the ridgelines, probing for any sign of slack. They still want this fog-cursed place.
Life in the V-ring:
Inside the only guard bunker still standing in our area, our New Guy is busy choking his lizard. The New Guy's teenaged horny brain has left Khe Sanh and has gone back to the World and has wrapped itself up inside Suzie Rottencrotch's pretty pink panties. He groans, abusing government property, polishing his bayonet, just a little early-morning organ practice to cut the edge off the cold; the Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
I hop down into the bunker.
A field radio buzzes. I pick up the handset while the New Guy fumbles frantically with the buttons on his fly.
Some fucking pogue lifer standing radio watch in the Sandbag City command post demands a sit-rep, then yawns out loud.
Instead of saying "all secure" in a mechanical monotone, I say with an exaggerated gook accent: "This is General Vo Nguyen Giap speaking. Situation normal, all fucked up."
The fucking pogue lifer on the radio laughs and says, "Wait one." Then he says to someone in the background, "It's Joker. He says he's a Jap." Both pogues laugh and talk about how crazy I am and then the radio voice says, "Affirm, Joker. Roger that," and I put down the handset.
The New Guy is waiting for me, standing almost at attention.
Since the Phantom Blooper started wasting the white grunts with the most T.I.--time in--all I've got left are New Guys. The replacement pipeline pulls cherries out of high school and ships them to Khe Sanh. Half of my people are salty black grunts, but Black John Wayne has ordered the bloods to stand down and to stand by for mutiny. The Grim Reaper, Major Travis, chooses to pretend the mutiny does not exist.
Meanwhile, New Guys have to be watched. Along about midnight, when the Phantom Blooper walks and talks, New Guys wet their pants. Nobody wants to die alone and in the dark.
I try to scare the living shit out of New Guys. The wrong kind of fear can kill you but the right kind of fear can keep you alive. New Guys do not see with the hard eyes of grunts. Not all grunts see those black facts that are as hard as diamonds, only the quick. The dead are kids who can't get wired to the program, and pay the price. Here it's grow up now, grow up fast, grow up overnight, or you don't grow up at all. There it is. The usual ration of civilian bullshit is poison here. Bullets are real metal. Bullets don't give a damn that you were born stupid.
Only in Viet Nam is hypocrisy fatal.
New Guys will bore you to death if you give them half a chance. They tell you scuttlebutt.
They complain. They pop up with platitudes they've found on bubblegum cards, silly shit about the origins of the universe and the meaning of life. They tell you where they went to boot camp, about thigh school athletic awards they've won, and they show you pictures of teenaged girls they claim are their girlfriends. They tell you what they think they've learned about themselves, God, and their country, and they tell you their opinions about Viet Nam.
That's why New Guys are so dangerous. They're thinking all the time about how light refracts through water to create rainbows and why a seed grows and about how they used to cop a feel on Suzie Rottencrotch and so they don't see the trip wire. When they get killed, they have so many things on their minds that they forget to stay alive.
"What's your name there, dipshit?"
"Private Owens, sir." He steps forward. I shove him back.
"Been in-country long, hog?"
"All week, sir."
I turn away. I don't laugh. After a few cadence counts, when I trust myself, I do an about-face.
"The correct answer to that question is 'all fucking day.' And stow the Parris Island 'sir' shit, lard ass.
Shut your skuzzy mouth, fat body, and listen up. I am going to give you the straight skinny, because you are the biggest shitbird on the planet. Don't even play pocket pool when you're supposed to be pulling bunker guard in my area. You will police up your act and get squared away, most ricky-tick, or you are going to have your health record turned into a fuck story. In Viet Nam nice guys do not finish at all and monsters live forever. You got to bring ass to get ass. A few weeks ago you were the hot-rod king of some hillbilly high school, stumbling around in front of all the girls and stepping on your dick, but be advised that Viet Nam will be the education you never got in school. You ain't even born yet, sweet pea. Your job is to stand around and stop the bullet that might hit someone of importance. Before the sun comes up, prive, you could be just one more tagged and bagged pile of nonviewable remains. If you're lucky, you'll only get killed."
The New Guy looks at me as though I've slapped him, but does not reply.
I say, "We are teenaged Quasimodos for the bells of hell and we are as happy as pigs in shit because killing is our business and business is good. The Commandant of the Marine Corps has ordered you to Khe Sanh to get yourself some trigger time and pick up a few sea stories.
But you are not even here to win the D-F-M, the Dumb Fucker's Medal. The only virtue of the stupid is that they don't live long. The Lord giveth and the M-79 taketh away. There it is.
Welcome to the world of zero slack."
The New Guy swats away a whining mosquito, looks at his boots, says sweetly, hating my guts, "Aye-aye, sir."
I don't say anything. I wait. I wait until the New Guy looks up, looks at me. He snaps to attention, a ramrod up his ass, his chin tucked in. "Yes, SIR!"
I stroll down the muddy catwalk of rope-handled ammo crates. I pick up a short black cardboard cylinder from the firing parapet. I tear off black adhesive tape from around the cardboard cylinder until it breaks open. An olive-drab egg drops into my hand, hard, heavy, and cold. There is tape around the spoon; I tear it off.
I say, "I know you've seen all of John Wayne's war movies. You probably think you are in Hollywood now and that this is your audition. In the last reel of this movie I'm supposed to turn out to be a sentimental slob with a heart of gold. But you're just another fucking New Guy and you're too dumb to do anything but draw fire. You don't mean shit to me. You're just one more nameless regulation-issue goggle-eyed human fuckup. I've seen a lot of ol'
boys come and go. It's my job to keep your candy ass serviceable. I'm the most squared-away buck private in this green machine lash-up, and I will do my job."
I hold down the spoon on the grenade with a thumb and I hook my other thumb into the pull ring. I jerk out the cotter pin. I put the pull ring into my pocket.
The New Guy is staring at the grenade. He thinks now that maybe I'm a little dien cai dau--
"crazy." He tires to move away but I punch him in the chest with the frag and I say, "Take it, New Guy, or I will get crazy on you. Do it now."
Awkward, stiff, and scared shitless, the New Guy touches the grenade with his fingertips to see if it's hot. His trembling fingers get a grip on the spoon. I let him breathe his bad breathe into my face until I'm sure he's got control of the spoon, then I let go.
The New Guys holds the grenade out at arm's length, as though that will help if it goes off.
He can't take his eyes off of it.
I say, "Now, if you need gear, do not go to supply. They sell all of the good stuff on the black market. Supply will not issue you any gear, but they might sell you some. No, what you do is you wait until you hear an inbound medevac chopper or until somebody says that some dumb grunt has been hit by incoming. They you double-time over to Charlie Med. Outside of Charlie Med there will be a pile of gear the corpsmen will have stripped off of the dying grunt. While the doctors cut the guy up, you steal his gear.
"After that, the first thing you need to know is to always tap a fresh magazine of bullets on your helmet in case it's been in your bandolier long enough to freeze up due to spring fatigue.
The second thing you need to know is this: don't even piss in my bunker. You need to pee, you just tie it in a knot. And the last piece of skinny I've got for you, New Guy, is this: don't ever put a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound."
The New Guy nods, tries to talk, tries to pull some air down and cough some words up at the same time. "The pin..." He swallows. "Do you want me to be killed?"
I turn to go. I shrug. "Somebody's got to get killed. It might as well be you. I'm not training you to keep you from getting killed. I'm training you so you don't get me killed."
I look down at the wristwatch hanging from the buttonhole of the breast pocket of my utility jacket. I say to the New Guy, "I will inspect this position again in two hours, you gutless little pissant. You will not even fall asleep. When I give you the word you will return my personal hand grenade in a serviceable condition. You will not even allow my personal hand grenade to blow itself up and hurt itself. You will not even mess up my favorite bunker with horrible remains of your disgusting fat body."
The New Guy swallows, nods. "Aye-aye, sir." He's really scared shitless now. He's scared of me, scared of the frag, scared of everything and everybody on the planet.
I say, "When the Phantom Blooper comes, do not work the 60. Pop a frag. Or call in for artillery support. Pop frags all over the area if you want to, many, many of them. When you're standing lines you frag first and forget about asking the questions. Keep your shit wired tight at all times. But do not work the 60. The tracers in the 60 will give away your position."
But the New Guy is not listening. He's distracted.
Down in the wire a squad of Marines is coming in off a night ambush. Somebody pops a star cluster flare and five glowing green balls of beautiful fireworks swoosh up and sparkle down.
A bone-weary squad leader issues a military order: "Hippity hop, mob stop."
I say, "What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? How long will it take me to forget your name?" Without warning I get a firm grip on the New Guy's Adam's apple and I slam him hard into the bunker wall. Most of the air is knocked out of him. I choke out what's left.
I get right up into the New Guy's face. "I can't hear you, you spineless piece of lowlife. Are you going to cry? Go ahead--squirt me a few. You better sound off like you got a pair, sweetheart, or I will personally unscrew your head and shit in your shoulders!"
His face red, Private Owens tries to speak. His eyes are bulging out and he's crying. He can't breathe. His eyes lock on me, the eyes of a rat in a trap. I stand by to make my hat most ricky-tick. The New Guy looks like he's just about ready to faint and drop the grenade.
"AYE-AYE, SIR!" he screams, crazy, desperate. He shoves me back. He makes his free hand into a fist and hits me in the face. His eyes are turning to the dark side now; he sees himself in my face as though in a mirror. He hits me again, harder. We're relating now, we're communicating. Violence: the international language. The New Guy glares at me with pure uncut hatred in his puffy red eyes.
The New Guy shoves me back again, sneering at me now, daring me to stop him, inviting me to get in his way, meaning it, not afraid now, not caring what I might do, a little crazy now, nothing to lose now, nothing standing between him and that one short step into the Beyond.
Nothing but me.
"I'll kill you," he says, and cocks his arm, threatening me with the frag. "I'll kill you," he says, and I believe him, because, finally, the New Guy has become a very dangerous person.
I can't keep the smile off my face, but I dot try to make it look like contempt. "Carry on, Private Owens," I say, and I let him go.
I do an abrupt about-face and dittybop down the catwalk. I pause. I dig the pull ring from the hand grenade out of my pocket. I flip the pull ring across the bunker to Private Owens, who actually catches it.
"Don't play with it anymore tonight, Private Owens."
Private Owens nods, looking glum and totally confused. He brings the hand grenade u
p to the tip of his nose and picks at the firing mechanism with a fingernail, then pokes around with the cotter pin on the pull ring, trying to reinsert it into the grenade.
"Carry on," I say, aiming a forefinger between his eyes. "After I'm gone."
Private Owens nods, stands still, and waits, a human Marine monument to an ignorance hard as iron.
When you're a New Guy, and the first shell falls, you're a man, but confused. When the second shell falls, you're still a man, although you're probably soiling your underwear. By the time the third shell falls, fear, like a big black rat, has gnawed clean through your nerves.
When the third shell falls, you, the New Guy, like a mindless, terrified rodent, are digging a hole to hide in.
You've got to keep New Guys alive until they realize that we're not going to win this war, which usually takes about a week.
I've walked twenty meters away from the guard bunker when there's the hard thump of an explosion to my rear.
For one second I think: tough titty, grease one New Guy.
But Private Owens has not blown himself up with personal hand grenade.
Another shell booms in. Then another.
Incoming.
"INCOMING! INCOMING!" Teenaged voices echo the word.
Incoming means jagged steel screaming through the air, sizzling hot and invisible, hissing and smoking and searching for your face.
An old deuce-and-a-half horn nailed to a dead tree bleats; too late. Somebody didn't get the word. Most days we get ten or twelve seconds' warning in which to cover our asses. Marine forward observers on Hill 881 South see muzzle flashes on Co Roc ridge across the Laotian border and radio in, "Arty, arty, Co Roc."
BOOM.
I double-time in the mud, mumbling an obscene grunt bunker-prayer. I'm just about read to bend over and kiss my ass goodbye when I stumble into a flagpole bearing a tattered American flag and a crudely stenciled sing: ALAMO HILTON.
I dive in headfirst. Someone says, "Hey, you fucking asshole, get your goddamn fucking elbows out of my fucking balls."
The Phantom Blooper Page 2