Monkey on a Chain

by Harlen Campbell

  “But I don’t understand. Marcos was the president of the Philippines, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he our friend? Why couldn’t this Max just ship the weapons straight to him?”

  “Because they weren’t going to Marcos,” I explained. “They were going to the Huks.”

  “Who were the Huks?”

  “A band of revolutionaries. Communists. They were trying to depose Marcos and throw the U.S. out of the islands. We had a couple of bases there. Clark Air Base and a naval station at Subic Bay.”

  She looked confused. “Why would our government give weapons to people who wanted to throw us off the island?”

  “That took us a while to figure out. But it was really obvious. At that time, the boys in Washington were making a big deal about how the war was an international effort. They wanted troops from as many countries as possible sent over. Like in Korea. Just as tokens, you understand? They wouldn’t do much fighting, but we could point to them as proof that the war wasn’t just the American government fighting a bunch of poor villagers.”

  “But how would the guns help?”

  “Marcos was reluctant to play along. It was a pressure play. When the Huks started acting up, our government could say to Marcos, do us this favor. Send over a couple thousand troops. Make a few speeches about how the Viet Cong are a threat to the free world, to all of Asia. We have some B52s at Clark. Let us fly some missions out of your country, and we’ll help you with this little problem in your backyard. We’ll find out where the Huks are getting their weapons and put a stop to it.”

  “And it worked?” She sounded incredulous.

  “Marcos sent the troops,” I said. “The bombers flew. Of course, it didn’t help us win the war.”

  “So you did it.”

  “We didn’t have any choice.”

  “What was it like?”

  “The first delivery was a piece of cake.”

  I remembered how it had been. The delivery was timed for a new moon. It was dark, almost black that night. Roy had leased a tramp steamer named the Celestina. She was old and dirty, as only a ship can get. She stood a mile off the beach. The only sound was the lapping of the waves against the hull. The shore was invisible except as a line of total darkness, silhouetted against the southern stars.

  The captain put two boats in the water and loaded them. They were almost swamped. Walker and I took one boat in, and Roy handled the other by himself. We steered for a small light that blinked three times in quick succession every sixty seconds.

  We took both boats straight in and beached them next to a finger of sand that stuck out into the sea. A man named Freddy met us with a small crew. Guerrillas, I suppose. We didn’t talk much that time.

  They piled the cargo on the beach, then helped push us back into the water. Freddy tossed the payoff to Roy, and we headed back out. The whole thing took about two hours. Except for making myself climb down into the boat, the hardest part was finding the Celestina again in the dark. The captain must have heard our engines. He flashed a light, and we were right under the hull. We picked up the boats, made the trip around to Manila, unloaded the tractors, took on a little cargo, and headed back to Saigon.

  “What cargo?” April asked.

  “Roy was never one to miss an opportunity,” I told her. “As soon as he realized we would have an empty hold and a free pass through customs, he got in touch with Sissy in Manila and arranged a return cargo. Liquor, medicine, perfume, birth control pills, anything that was in short supply or expensive in Saigon.”

  “But you weren’t supposed to do that.”

  “We weren’t. But we did.”

  “And Sissy wasn’t supposed to know. But you told him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wasn’t that dangerous?”

  “What could they do? Send us to ’Nam?”

  She shook her head slowly. “And it worked out all right?”

  “Like a charm. We made the three hundred for the delivery and another couple of hundred off the white cargo. The tractors paid the lease on the Celestina and her crew. The return trip was pure gravy.”

  “And you did that three times.”

  “No. Only twice. The second delivery, everything turned to shit. That was at the end of July. Sissy was back in-country. Toker had just been recruited. Walker was breaking him in, so Sissy took Walker’s place.

  The approach was smooth. Just the same as the first time. We hit the beach and found Freddy waiting for us. We started unloading. Just about the time we finished, everything fell apart. We started taking fire from the tree line.

  “Sissy went down right away. We didn’t have any place to run. I grabbed my M16 and made it to the trees. Roy and Freddy hit the sand and started returning fire. I wouldn’t have made it without their cover. But once I was off the beach, it was like I was back in ’Nam, before I hooked up with Roy. I located two of the attackers from their muzzle flashes. One I took out right away. The other took longer.”

  I didn’t tell her that I’d had to close with him, use the knife. I didn’t want to describe it to her.

  “Anyway, the others realized what was happening. They had someone in their midst, and they couldn’t tell who. They started shooting in all directions, trying to hit me. They were firing at each other as often as not. It was easier for me. Everyone was the enemy. I just fired now and then and let them work on each other. After what seemed like hours of that, the ones still alive began pulling back.

  “Roy, Freddy, and the surviving guerrillas were in the trees by that time. We chased them a bit, just to keep up the pressure, and then we fell back to the beach to regroup. Roy told me to take one of the boats and get back to the Celestina. I didn’t want to leave him there, but he said he wanted to take care of Sissy. He would meet me in Manila. I did what he wanted. But I almost didn’t find the ship. The firing had spooked the captain. He was about ready to get under way when I reached him.”

  “That was scary,” April said.

  “I haven’t told you the scary part,” I said.

  “Tell it.”

  “The guys that attacked us. When we started firing back, they were yelling at each other in English. American English.”

  She thought about that. She whispered, “What did that mean?”

  “Somebody double-crossed us.”

  “Max?”

  “Probably. He denied it when we got back to Saigon. Roy met me in Manila like he promised but he wasn’t on the Celestina when we sailed. He flew into Saigon a couple of days later. He was pissed. I’ve never seen anyone so mad. He wouldn’t even let me go with him when he faced Corvin. He called him at the embassy and told him to get his ass down to the docks or Roy was going to blow the whole operation to the press. Then he left me and met Corvin.”

  “What happened?”

  “He told us later that Corvin denied the whole thing. There was some snafu up the line. The delivery was supposed to go according to schedule. Roy called him a liar and made him pay the three hundred we’d lost. We put Sissy on the flight manifest of a chopper that got downed on its way north, and he was written off as a KIA. The body wasn’t recovered, of course. The last delivery was canceled. And that was the end of it.

  “We all agreed to shut down the operation as quickly as we could. Walker was supposed to re-up, but instead he mustered out the same month. Roy finished his tour in November and resigned his commission in-country. He hung around for a month or so, though I didn’t see much of him. Toker and I took care of the books and wound things down slowly. I finished my last tour and was mustered out through Oakland in March of ’seventy-one. Toker came home in time for Thanksgiving that year. By then, Roy and I were working the cash shuttle, closing accounts and making the final payoffs. That took until ’seventy-four. You know the rest of it.”

  I felt drained. I looked at April to see what she thought. She was staring off into space, looking at something I couldn’t see. “July was a busy month,” she said.

  It took me a minute to get
it. “Yes.”

  “That was the month I was conceived, too.”

  “Yes.”

  She stretched out on the bed, on her stomach. With her breasts hidden and her bottom pointed at the sky, she looked like a forlorn child. I patted her back.

  “You could have been killed,” she said.

  “That was probably the idea.”

  “What about Max? Could he have been my father?”

  The idea chilled me. “No. He was never alone with your mother. At least not that early.”

  “That you know of.”

  “That I know of,” I agreed. “But why would Miss Phoung have slept with him? She hated him. She was with Sissy. And later Roy.”

  “She didn’t love Roy and Sissy was dead.”

  “She still hated Max. She blamed him for Sissy.”

  April was quiet for a moment. She asked, “What sort of man was Sissy?”

  “Full of life. He was a drinker and a lover. He once told me that he’d fuck a snake if he could teach it to French-kiss.”

  “I see.” Her face was in the pillow and her voice was muffled. Her shoulders began to tremble.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Three fathers,” she said. “Three! And I hate all of them! Roy. Sissy. Toker. One is in hiding. The other two are dead. One of them was a sex freak. The other cheated me. And you. You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, April.”

  “You don’t want me, either. You want to send me off to France. To get rid of me.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “Then what is true?”

  “This.” I kissed her back, between her shoulder blades. She rolled over. “Do that again.”

  I did.

  “Again. More to the right.” She pushed a breast at me.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be good for you.” Or for me.

  “Why?”

  “When Toker sent you to me, he sent a message. He said to tell me that I owe him. Remember?”

  “That wasn’t the message.”

  “What?” I was lost.

  “He said to tell you that you owe me. Not him. Me.”

  I shook my head, not sure what to make of that. “All the more reason,” I said finally. “Let’s go to sleep. We’ve got things to do tomorrow.”

  I turned off the lights and lay down with her. After a time, she spoke in the darkness beside me. “I’m not a child,” she said. “I’m a woman. And it isn’t a father I need, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had too many of those.”

  Her breathing was slow and heavy beside me. I could smell her perfume, her body. My shoulder and hip were hot from her nearness. Not taking her then was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.

  “What do you need?”

  “A man.”

  “I’m not the right one.”

  “What makes you think it’s your decision?”

  “Why haven’t you asked what I need?” I tried to take her hand. She pulled it back and rolled away from me. She said something that was muffled by her pillow. It sounded like “…fuck you.”

  We breakfasted early and caught a taxi downtown. Suddenly, things were going our way. Our first stop was the Philippine Embassy for visas. Once I was sure we’d have them, we went to the airport. I bought two one-ways to Manila. The first available flight left the next morning. Mexico City to Los Angeles to Honolulu to Manila.

  It wasn’t yet noon and the chores I’d reserved the whole day for were done. That doesn’t happen often. It had never happened to me in Mexico before. To celebrate, I bought April a fairly decent lunch and took her through the National Museum, then let her shop up and down a street market. She spent two hours buying a pair of sandals and a T-shirt with a picture of Montezuma saying YOU’LL GET YOURS.

  She enjoyed the day and I enjoyed watching her enjoy it. We returned to the hotel for a short siesta, then went down and watched the Swedish couple samba until we were hungry again. April stuck with the prawns. I sampled the beefsteak Tampiquena, and decided that I was definitely coming back. We turned in early. When April slipped into bed naked again, I pointed out that she had a perfectly good T-shirt now, and that she had said all she ever wore to bed were T-shirts. She told me she could never sleep in a shirt with a picture of Montezuma on it. There was nothing I could say to that because I didn’t understand it.

  The taxi picked us up at seven. We made it to the airport by eight-thirty and were in the air by ten. Our connection to Honolulu took us west over the Pacific late in the afternoon. As we chased the sun into the night, I watched the last light glittering off the swells seven miles below like flecks of white fire. April dozed beside me, and I thought about flying back into Asia. She was moving toward a home of sorts, though a lost home. There was a lost home for me, too, out there somewhere. But not in the home-is-where-the-heart-is sense. Well, maybe, if the heart were trapped in a bad dream.

  The layover in Hono was short. If I’d had any sense, or patience, I’d have scheduled an overnight layover. But I was moving back into the mystery and wanted it solved quickly.

  I slept only fitfully during the twenty-six hours between Mexico City and Manila. My mind went into high gear every time I closed my eyes. I kept hearing the slap of the round Sissy took as it cut into him and seeing the flecks of white fire in the darkness as I ran for the trees. And feeling the ripping of tendons as I pulled my knife through the neck of the second man in the jungle, the one whose interrupted prayer, “Sweet Jesus…,” had gurgled away into the night.

  The hotel in Manila was different in only one essential point from the one in El Paso. The rooms were the same size. The beds were as soft; the service was perhaps a little better; the furnishings were a little older. But in Manila, we got a ceiling fan. I’d forgotten how good those were to sleep under. As soon as we were in the room, I called for two bottles of San Miguel beer on ice and two large omelets and pointed April toward the shower. She signed for the order while I took my turn under the tepid water. The eggs tasted good, but different. The beer was as I’d remembered it. In the tropics, there is nothing better than San Miguel. I finished my beer and part of April’s. She ate her omelet and part of mine. Then we fell into bed.

  It was well after midnight before I woke again. I dressed quietly and went downstairs. The bar was still open. As I hoped, it was almost empty. The bartender came over and took my order for a coffee, then hung around when I pushed a twenty at him. He was a thin man in his sixties. The name embroidered on his white lace shirt identified him as Pete.

  The place was small and dimly lit. There was no one else at the bar. Only two tables were still occupied, one by a Japanese businessman with his mistress and one by two American tourists, man and wife from the way they acted. They hadn’t been on the plane. Neither of the groups showed any interest in me. The waitress stood at her station at the far end of the bar, smoking a cigarette and resting her feet one at a time. She looked bored. The juke box was playing last year’s American hits.

  Pete kept his eye on the twenty. “What can I do for you, sir?” He probably thought the American tourist was lonely, maybe looking for a little female companionship to take the edge off the rest of the night.

  I told him I hadn’t been in the Philippines for twenty years, that it looked like things had changed a lot.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Many changes. New hotels. New business. Many more Japanese here now.” He glanced at the Japanese couple at the table. “I haven’t seen so many since the war. But of course, they are different now. They use money instead of bullets.”

  “And the politics, too,” I said.

  “Oh, the politics,” he said. “Yes. Very different. Marcos is gone. Now we have a woman. Very different.” He made a face that was hard to interpret, like a cross between a grimace and a wink.

  “But things are better now?”

  “Yes, much better now,” he said. “Once I was a poor student. I studied arc
hitecture at the university. Now, you see, I have a job. I am much better off. Much better.”

  I pushed the bill toward him and asked for more coffee, then laid another twenty on the bar. He refilled my cup, glanced down, and said, “So much money for coffee. It must be cheaper in the states, yes?”

  “Coffee like this is not available there,” I told him. “The last time I was here, there was trouble in the mountains.”

  “There is always trouble in the mountains, sir.”

  “Then it was the Huks.”

  “The Huks.” He shrugged. “Now it is the NPA, the New People’s Army. Always there is someone in the mountains.”

  “But are they new people?” I asked. “Or the same people with a new name?”

  “Twenty years.” He looked straight into my face. “People grow old. They die. Some die without growing old. It is hard to say. You are a tourist, sir?”

  “A visitor,” I told him. “A man who wishes to visit with an old friend. A man he met twenty years ago. In the mountains.”

  “The mountains are a dangerous place, sir. A man might be advised to stay away from the mountains. Even a welcome visitor might be advised to stay away from the mountains.” His face was impassive.

  “Even if the old friend would wish to see him? Even if the old friend owed a debt he might wish to repay?”

  “Even so, sir. Not all in the mountains are friends. And it is my experience that old debts are often forgotten.” He moved the twenty from the bar to his pocket.

  “I appreciate your advice,” I told him. “You are very gracious to a visitor. Perhaps you could do me a small favor? Help me find someone to do a service for me?”

  “Perhaps.” He glanced at the waitress. “You wish a companion? One who can show you the delights of Manila?”

  “In a way. I wish to see more of your beautiful islands. I want to find a driver who can show me what there is to see. Here in the city, and perhaps elsewhere. A driver who would know how to avoid the dangers you spoke of.”