Profane Men

by Rex Miller

  You plant your feet on edge going down a steep hillside. It really kicks your ass walking that way with this heavy a ruck, and sometimes you don’t turn your foot enough or it’s slick or your boot just doesn’t grab and the foot slips sideways and whooooaaaa you start down the hill ass over tea kettle, grabbing for anything — a vine, a tree root, a buddy’s rifle barrel, a blade of grass, your dick — any damn thing. I hit the bottom of this sucker, arms scratched to shit, legs cramping and hurting, and as I make my way to the bottom, “Bbbbbllllllll-aaaaaaaammmmmmm!” and the concussion blast knocks me forward in a shower of dirt, rock, twigs, leaves, and Oreo. He has grabbed the wrong thing sliding down the steep hillside or one of us pulled the pin and old Oreo was the one nearest to the chi com when the fucker blew.

  I get up wiping my face from where I went down and look back up at Oreo in time to watch his lights go out. I never did notice how yellow the whites of his eyes were. The light just goes right out of them as I’m looking up at him on his back. He’s dead in about twelve seconds. Gonski.

  “Doc?”

  “He’s bought it,” Doc McAllen says quite unnecessarily. No shit, bac se. He turns Oreo’s head slightly. The head wound is trickling blood, and the back of his head has piqued the good doctor’s professional interest. A seventeen-year-old corps-man was Doc and Bock-she. The doctor gives us his final prognosis, “Yeah. He’s all fucked up.”

  “Shallow grave,” Gunny says, also unnecessarily, tossing me an E-tool. “Security,” he motions to Smith and Hedgepath as they start to go back up the hillside. Now the two Merles gotta climb up and down that miserable sonofabitch again. Dragging butt, they start back up. Then they see Harold’s kisser looming up there and they turn around and head back. Probably could kiss the spooky fucker.

  I start scraping the softer ground while Vandervoort and El Tee strip Oreo of any ID, weapons, ammo, personal gear, and a set of tags (not his) that are looped through his jungle boots. They didn’t have to tell me to dig this bitch shallow. I’m praying for some soft digging tonight, too. My hole’s gonna be about four inches deep tonight. We get it done real fast.

  D’Allesandro — and you got to know the dude or it isn’t funny — goes, “Want to say a few words over him?”

  “Nnnnn.” Cold motherfuck. Well, shit, the motha died well. Well and truly. Showed some real John Wayne there, Oreo, didn’t bawl for your mama or nothing. Hell, man, two more hearts and you can DEROS, right? What can I say? I miss you already and it ain’t been five minutes, my man. Now I’ll have to find somebody else to hate with a relentless, unreasoning passion. I never did like your flaky ass, nigger. How’s that for some For-Whom-the-Bell-Tolls bullshit? Can you dig it, Oreo? Fuck it, splib, it don’t mean shit.

  Chapter 14

  “I still can’t hear you pussies,

  What the spirit of the bayonet?”

  “Sir! The spirit of the bayonet is

  to k i l l l l l l l l l !!!!!!!”

  It is a remorseless, unforgiving land with a legacy of bloody violence and conflict; of tyrants, of despots, of colonialism, of communism, imperialism, every kind of ism. A land of predators and parasites. The little man is hard and he will not give up while he draws breath. When JFK said we’d “make any sacrifice,” he could have been talking about Charlie. Total, absolute, hard-core dedication to the Cause. And it was reflected in their leadership. They simply had better leaders. Their fighting men were out in the field. They grasped the concept that in the end, organization would win out over military might or even philosophy. And Charles would kick our ass with tin can chi corns and punji sticks.

  My ears still hurt from the concussion of the cheap, sorry-ass, homemade cherry bomb gook mickeymouse sumbitching garbage that took Oreo down. McAllen has got a battle dressing on Shooter’s arm where he took a hunk of shit from the grenade. Otherwise we done lost a black rifleman and that’s about the size of that shit. Oh, and Price had his Rolex blown off his arm.

  Damn. I’m ripe to crash and this hump is a long way from over. We’ve still got a mission running, not to mention tonight’s little detour. You can get amazingly tired watching somebody you know get taken off. Nothing like murder one to take the starch out of your class As. And this war — shit, first of all you don’t know who the bad guys are, and it isn’t too long before they all start looking like bad guys. Second, you never see the little fuckers. Back in the world you watch this on the six o’clock news and it will invariably look like Sands of Iwo Jima, but lots of the real firefights don’t shape up that way. You might have all kinds of contact over here and never even see a dink.

  A lot of the problem is the damn television and radio and the newspapers anyway, with all these bao chi assholes running around trying to get some hot shit to send back to their editors and just stirring up shit. They run into some old looney lifer bird colonel who wants ink real bad — he’ll make a mission happen, get him some newsworthy action. Get a little body count for the reporters. He don’t give a good rat fuck how many of his men get killed out on some hair-brained field circle jerk.

  And these phony fucks that cover the news from the Caravelle are just as bad. They’re over there writing up that nonsense bullshit and you know they got another handout from the Five O’Clock Follies, more of that Saigon kill-ratio light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel garbage.

  Just take one fire mission as an example: H&I, Harassment and Interdiction. Christ, I never even heard the word pronounced correctly over the TV, not even by Uncle Walter, who practically had to jerk the words out of his throat toward the last, the old dried-up has-been mortarforker. Not even the most trusted, avuncular patron saint of TV anchors could choke the word out of his most trusted mouth. It is pronounced HAIR’-us-ment, not her-RASS-ment. Her-rass, my ass.

  Fuck it. I’m getting tired.

  Gotta get re-tired and wired. I pop some black beauties just to clear my sinuses, take a hit of hot Kool-Aid. Jeeeezzzzus! my fucking canteen smells like fish. Remember the inventor who crossed a pussy with a pineapple to make it smell better, got a pineapple that smelled like pussy. Drive on. One foot in front of the other. Shit don’t mean zip anyway. No way this fucker is real.

  Yesterday we were in a village called Fuck You Two. Maybe today it will be Fuck Me One, Juan, who knows. Kong fucking biet. Harassment and Interdiction. Who comes up with all this funky shit? H&I was fired up to the Almighty by USMACVs, any in a clusterfuck that typified the whole insane war machine. All night, every night, at nameless firebases all across this miserable real estate we would — are you ready? — fire computer-plotted H&I rounds out at nothing. Nothing, that is to say, where the computer thought there was reason to believe there might be something. Every one of those millions of artillery rounds set the taxpaying fools back — what? Fifty? A hundred bucks?

  There’s a case study buried in the dark recesses of the Pentagon’s over-classified docucrap that actually reveals if any of those rounds ever hit anybody on the other side, and that sonofabitch probably lies anyway. Nobody I know ever heard of a single VC being snuffed by one of those H&I rounds. So one suspects the worst about Harassment and Interdiction, sports fans. That it exemplified the jerk-off war of attrition based on CYA, the great truth of the holy military codex: Cover Your Ass.

  Cover Your Ass was the name of the tune over there, and it started at the top. In 1961 we’d be talking about old Zhem Ngo Dinh Diem, as “the Franklin Roosevelt of Asia” — remember that shit? Six months later we had dudes telling other dudes how to make the blood bubble out of his nose. We helped take his ass right off. Whatever makes you look good on paper.

  I’m real good now. That shit is a rush. I’m all right now. But I have this thing about delayed reactions. Usually Cool McCool in a car wreck or a firefight, but a half hour later I take my nineteenth nervous breakdown. Slow. Real slow. Oreo is nothing but a bad memory and it hits me bllllammmmmmmm! I jump from the delayed reaction to the chi com, flash on Big Merle
and Shooter covered in little dirty hunks of Oreo’s bloody skull fragments, wince from the stinging shower of tiny rocks and twigs and shit, gag as the bile washes up into my throat. And as I turn to see who’s tapping me on the shoulder, Dusty is moving his mouth but not saying anything.

  “What?” I say. He keeps moving his lips. I can hear something that sounds like talking in a garbage can fifty feet away.

  “Say what?”

  . . . fucking nothing . . .

  “Huh? I can’t hear shit.”

  “ — cut me a huss with this, I said.”

  “Damn!”

  “Whatsa matter, man, you deaf?”

  “Man, I can’t hear shit.”

  “Hey, my man,” Washington says.

  “Hey.”

  “Can’t you hear this?”

  “No, man, I can’t hear shit.”

  “Well, answer me this, then. If you can’t hear how do you know I asked you if you can’t hear, huh?”

  “Huh?”

  “Say what?”

  “Come on, spread it out there, girls, goddammit, keep moving.” I can barely hear Ewell.

  “He can’t hear, he says.”

  “Say what?”

  “I said he can’t hear, goddammit. Whatsamatter, can’t you hear, either?”

  “You don’t have to fuckin’ yell, fer chrissakes.”

  “Fuckin’ yell fer chrissakes,” I hear him say as my hearing pops back in. I have depressurized, like in an airplane or a car. I swallow and hear my neck crack. I help the RTO out of his monster radio. The PRC is really kicking his ass.

  “El Tee? Cut me a huss for a goddamn minute.”

  “D’Allesandro.” El Tee motions toward White and gives the halt sign. D’Allesandro tells White to stop. I fuck with the PRC while Dusty plops back flat ass on the ground. This splib could fucking bench-press Memphis and the radio kicks his ass. I’d just love to hump this sonofabitch. I dig into my ear and a hunk of dirty wax the size of a pencil eraser pops out. I flip it at Ewell.

  I dig in my ear for more ammo, but nothing comes out. I am jacking around with the PRC, fiddling with the dials and hear Steppenwolf, “Born to Be Wild.” I was born to run. Born to fuck. Born to fight. Born to kill. Born to die. Helmet Dentyne, I think. Slowly I turn. Inch by inch the knob twists until I hear my favorite radio station, that nice big, fat KILL signal crackles from the speaker.

  “Code Name Shark wants to buy special assets quote undamaged and unused condition if you know what I mean unquote. Can take delivery in or around the metro Paris area and will pay maximum money in gold, dollars, Deutschmarks, francs, or in whatever currency desired. Money is no object and this responsible party assures total privacy and discretion on both sides. Highest payment in any mode of international currency for undamaged goods. Primary stipulation quote eight is too late unquote. Code Name Shark is an equal opportunity buyer. Telephone, write, or wire KSP Enterprises, 9 rue Bonaparte, 75005 Paris, France . . . This is KILL with more listeners by far than all other Armed Forces Nets combined!

  “Michael Kirkadian is an internationally respected arms dealer with the finest product and the lowest prices in the East or West. He offers a fabulous opportunity for some qualified buyer to pick up a particularly nice repossessed order of two dozen suppressed M-10s. These are beautiful new, unfired Ingrams in perfect, uncrated condition. Each M-10 comes with a full complement of both Sionic and Collins suppressors, and the shipment purchaser also receives forty thousand free courtesy rounds of ammunition with this unique package deal. Call Mr. Kirkadian at Im Ziel, FL-9934 Liechtenstein, or if for some reason Mr. Kirkadian is unavailable when you attempt to make contact, leave your name and number with the service and your call will be promptly returned within twenty-four hours. That’s Michael Kirkadian at FL, Foxy Lady niner-niner-three-four, Liechtenstein, Europe . . . And this is KILL Outlaw Radio!

  “Code Name Whiskey King taking Scandinavian contracts. Leave a protected callback number at area code zero-one-one, four-four-one, two-niner-three-three-niner. That’s 011-441-29339 for Code Name Whiskey King, now taking Scandinavian-based contracts. 011-441-29339 and leave your protected callback number . . . And we’ve got your number right here on KILL!”

  “Saddle up!”

  Moving again. Secondary depression begins to settle on me. There are only four things wrong with speed. Speed kills. Speed makes your heart hurt. You get secondary depression with lots of speed. Dexis especially come down and sit on you after a while, and when a real dyno-supreme up and turns you around, it really gets your attention. It comes on you to sit on your chest and fuck with your heart and mind. It comes all of a sudden, pockets full of longing and regret and sadness and loneliness and, of course, paranoia and fear. It’s a bitch kitty and who needs her. I pop a couple more Dexis. That’s the fourth thing wrong with speed.

  We ruck up and move closer to Tombstone in the boonie-rat bush. I don’t know what’s wrong with these lame motherfucks; they all look like they’re about two hundred years old. Stooped under their little loads like a bunch of candy-ass pussies. Not me, Jack. I got my shit together now.

  Towels are draped around necks rubbed raw by ammo bandoleers and packs. Towels and ponchos are pulled through canvas straps to cushion these king shit ruck loads with all the canteens, grenades, mines, weapons, and bags of bullshit you need this deep in the hairy bush. Everybody humps a load. El Tee’s is probably the lightest, being a ruck, comic book/map cases, binocs, and his worthless goofy-ass M1 carbine that couldn’t kill a dead dog. Never fucking have understood why El Tee carries that load of shit. Only damn thing it’s got going for it is it is five-and-a-half pounds empty. He carried it for a while when he first threw away his Car-15, with these two big banana clips taped together, and I tried to explain it to him.

  “El Tee,” I said, “that sonofabitch is gonna be in Jam City first time you need it. You’ll be pointing that worthless dork at some slope sometime and pull the trigger, and those weak springs in one of them bananas is gonna be all tired from hugging thirty rounds’ nuts all day and he’s gonna go — no fucking way, and then you won’t have jumping jack squat. Also, all that weight on the feeder lips pulls the shit to where they won’t feed right any fucking way. Also the no-good manual on the sonofabuck says it’s effective at three hundred yards with a max range of two thousand. Holy shit! With all due respect, no fucking way can you hit a damn barn at a hundred meters with that little pickledick. Tits on a boar, goddammit, El Tee.”

  “Uh-huh,” he’d say, and kept on carrying the fucker. But here lately I see he don’t carry those two Steve McQueen banana clips all jammed up into the bottom of that sumbitch, so maybe it did some good after all. Shit, I dunno. Some of these damn people, you can’t tell ’em shit. Fucking M1 carbines. Leftover Korean surplus green motherfucking useless Remington Rand typewriter bullshit. If you’re going to carry a piece, carry a piece.

  I would just as soon carry a worthless fucking sawed-off shotgun as I would carry a goddamn M1 fucking carbine. I like my piece. Sweet Alice. I can really bust caps with this sweet bitch. In the throes of my weapon panegyric, I intuit that Blade is less a stiletto than it is a curving falchion. The question is — why?

  The sky is clear again now and the sun is bright up there way above us, but we are going through some trees and the leafy cover keeps the ground nice and damp and cool and slick with rotten green slimy stuff. Little brown wood leeches about a third the size of the big paddy leeches worm their way along over the twigs and dead leaves and broken branches as we hump through their rotting kingdom.

  We hear the usual chorus of birds chirping their asses off, some monkeys chattering away like motherfuckers, and a couple of times a big, deep-throated serious cat growl that nobody really likes to think about. Fuck it anyway, it don’t mean nothing. No fucking way this Vietnam shit could exist, and we’ll wake up from this damn nightmare any minute now.


  Chapter 15

  “Write if you get work.”

  — Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding

  Princess was really up for her appointment with the big man. Beals was in town and had readily agreed to take a meeting with her. She had already decided what she’d tell her friend about the other meeting she had scheduled following this one, just as a precaution, so convinced she was that Toby Beals would let her out. She could already feel the KILL thing lifting from her shoulders like some great weight, and she was visibly excited as she click-clacked down the hall toward the security elevator.

  On another floor in the same nondescript building, the man at the console where 47-339 was being taped on the program side of the board was listening to a tape Princess had cut the day before yesterday — 17-450 in their odd out-of-sequence numbering system — which was currently booming out over the powerful audition monitors. He was watching the two main VU meters simultaneously, program and audition, watching the decibel levels kicking up perfectly, a hair hot on the right as Nguyen had a tendency to crowd his mike as he got into the pitches. Personally the engineer didn’t think Nguyen could announce for shit, and he didn’t care for his voice or the habit he had of overmodulating and distorting his hard consonants. But, he thought, that’s not my worry.

  At the exact same moment, Nguyen was thinking a bad thought about the moronic engineer, wishing he would have enough sense to turn his volume down, as it was so loud Nguyen could sense a slight thump of muffled noise. Not enough to pick up on mike, but sufficiently audible to be disconcerting when you were trying to get through some of this weird garbage. The staff people at KILL and the broadcast engineers despised each other mutually, superciliously disdaining the other’s dubious abilities. The gab jocks also hated the continuity people, just as the engineering team loathed the security staff, all of whom uniformly were of one mind in their total contempt for that nebulous hierarchy, “the people upstairs.” Money and professionalism were their only common denominators. The more intelligent ones were the unhappiest and the most unpleasant, having the wit to see themselves as whores, and to grasp the sleaziness of their work.