Tony woke in his rack. He did not know how he’d gotten there. It was Saturday, early afternoon, a nonduty day, cloudy, warm, humid but not raining. Christopher Crocco was sitting on his own bed watching a portable TV he’d bought and set up on the desk. “Eh, paesan, you’re alive!”
“Aw, geez. Is that me?”
“It aint a dead cat under yer bed.”
“Phhew! Oh Man!”
“Hey, when Jimmy dumped you off he said he’d be back about six.”
“What time did I get in?”
“I don’t know. I got up to take a leak about five and you weren’t in. Maybe six. Mulhaney wanted you for notification about seven but Williams covered for ya.”
“I’m not on today.”
“Yeah, but they had like six come in all at once. Gooks launched a series of attacks or somethin.”
“Shit.”
“Hey, ball game’s comin on. Wanta watch it?”
“Naw. Shit Man, what weird dreams. I’m goina go work out. Jimmy say where they stayed or what they were goina—”
“That hot little chick with him wanted to ball his brains out right in yer rack. I swear ta God. What a sweet little ass she’s got. Oh, yeah, that other girl called too. What’s her name?”
“Who!”
“The one you won’t tell me about.”
“Linda! Linda called!” Tony bolted up, excited.
“Ha!” Crocco slapped his hands together. “Linda, is it? Linda, Linda, Linda.”
“You shithead!” Tony rose, stamped. “Shithead. Leave her out of this.”
At first the weights seemed heavy, heavier than their poundage. Tony began with leg flex exercises, then extensions, working his quadriceps, low weights, high reps, being careful not to re-rip the muscle. He stayed on the bench for flies, reverse flies, pull-overs and sit-ups. Beer sweat poured from his skin, its smell mixing with cheese-steak flatus, embarrassing him. He did a full set, used the bathroom, drank a quart of water, began a second set. Now he felt better, stronger.
He thought about calling Linda but his thoughts were vague. Call, maybe be rejected again. Or worse, to have her say yes and then have her be horrified by Jimmy’s weed, by Red’s flirting, by Mill Creek Falls–style evening entertainment. His body rocked forward as he curled the bar, snapping it to his chest, then rocked back as he slowly lowered it. He watched his biceps in the mirror, thought they looked good, thought his pecs beneath his curly chest hair looked especially sexy. What if Jimmy mouthed off? He’d talk in that dopey, macho way they always talked when together, all naws and nopes and yeahs, instead of how he’d talked when he was with her, how he spoke during notifications, professionally, politely. Does she smoke dope? God, he thought, with that car, she probably runs the stuff. Naw. He began a set of quarter squats with 250 pounds on his shoulders. What if she’s weird? And I just didn’t notice because I’d had a few beers? Jimmy’d see right through her. Probably knows a dozen guys who’ve screwed her. “Maintain,” he grumbled to himself. “Main-fuckin-tain.”
That night Tony, Jimmy and Red partied again, drank again, got stoned again. Again Jimmy and Red dumped Tony into his cot.
Again the effect of beer and marijuana wore thin. Again dreams came. Vivid. Confused. More intense than before. More real. It was hot, humid, sticky, filthy. He was in the tunnel. The body was jammed in, sideways, decaying, stinking in the tight enclosure. His heart pounded. In only the light from his flashlight he tried to slip the rope, the chocker, around the corpse, under one arm, around the back, under the other. He had already shot the corpse, shot it three times with his .45, shot it and seen it splat rotting meat onto the tunnel walls. He was in deep, very deep, at an angle with his feet above his head, without air, breathing in the decaying gases of the corpse, trying to tie the rope around it, him, the corpse’s shirt crumbling as Tony tied the rope at the base of the sternum. To tie it he had had to rest his head on the corpse’s shoulder, on the wound in the dead meat that he’d shot, blasted at first glimpse, terrified the man was alive, armed, about to blast him and stop his penetration into the inner sanctum of NVA deception, into the secret nether world the communists had designed to defeat the Marines. Tony’s heart pounded. He tried to turn in the tunnel but couldn’t. He wriggled back using the toes of his boots like the teeth of a ratchet, push, wriggle back, dig in, lock toes, trying to keep from sliding headfirst, diving headfirst into the stench and rot of the corpse. Back, back, only inches at a time. His breath came hard yet was muffled in his ears, dampened by the earth, by the thick air. Dirt broke from the walls, worked under his belt, beneath his shirt. Breathing hard, slipping, grabbing the rope to stop himself. Then feeling the rope go taut, the relief, thinking he’d hold on and they’d pull him out. But the corpse ... the rope tightened, more, more. His heart pounded, the pulsing in his ears, in his eyes, in his upside-down face, pulsing—tighter tighter, dirt in his nose—the rope zipped through his fingers, the head, upper torso smashed, splatted into, onto him, drooling onto him, up top the men still pulling, below the corpse squishing the ...
Tony jolted. Leaped from the bed. He was wet, sweat drenched, tense. His body pulsed. He stared into the blackness, ready, ready to pounce.
“Just piss, Man,” Crocco moaned sleepily. “You don’t gotta wake everybody.”
It was overcast, drizzling again. Red looked terrible. She hugged Tony and said good-bye. Jimmy looked drained. “Cover yer ass, Man.” Tony clutched his cousin’s shoulders. “Stay low.”
“Hey, it’s cool,” Jimmy said. “I’m really lookin forward ta gettin back. It’s like home.” He laughed, got into the car, shut the door.
Tony leaned into the open window. The car reeked of beer and smoke and was dusty with cigarette and joint ash. He hugged Jimmy again. “Write,” Tony said. “Let me know who yer with. Maybe I’ll be there.” Tony stood back.
“Naw,” Jimmy said. “I’ll write, but you’re under a year. They won’t send ya unless you re-up.”
“Hey! Maybe we’ll be lifers.”
Jimmy pointed a finger out the window. “Be cool, Cuz. Be cool.”
6
FRENCH CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA, EARLY October 1968: “I want you to go,” Henry Balliett said. He was a large man with a large nose and a full though short-cropped beard. “It’s important,” he said, “that you set this example for the others.” He did not look at her as he spoke but looked at the edge of the picture window as if it held his grand design for the family. “Now this program, I want to know more about it.”
Henry and Norma Balliett of French Creek had six children. Linda, born January 1st, 1949, was the eldest. She was followed by Ruth, now 18; Joanie, 16; Cindy, 13; Lea, 11; and Henry Jr., 6. Henry Sr. was executive vice-president in charge of underwriting for the diminutive Penn-York Mutual Life Assurance Company of Pottstown. Norma, after a twenty-year hiatus, had returned to work as a yellow-pages artist.
“It’s a nontraditional program,” Linda explained. She was sitting in one of two cream-colored, glazed-chintz, overstuffed chairs. Her father remained standing, staring at the edge of the window. “Not only will I get my RN but I’ll get a master’s degree when I graduate. It’ll take me another two years, full-time.”
“In Boston?”
“Um-hmm. Two years in Boston after I get my LPN here.”
“And you’ve been accepted?”
“Well ... no.” Linda felt the pressure of his question as she had ever since fifth grade when suddenly she was no longer his buddy, no longer his softball player but a young human sprouting breasts. “But I’ve filed the application and the school’s sent my transcript, and ...”
“And you think they’ll take you?”
“Daddy, I’m number two in my class! Why wouldn’t they?! Besides Dr. Tagesaubruch is an alumna and she’s very influential—”
“Do I know him?”
“Dr. Tag—Anne. She. She just about started the program up there and she’s my adviser. She’s setting it up. Oh, Daddy, I’ve told you ...”
“Okay. Okay. But how are you going to pay for all this? Boston! Philadelphia’s bad enough. What’s wrong with working in Reading. Or Pottstown?”
“That’s not what I want!”
“That’s what we can afford! Your sister just got married. Do you know what that cost?! Over three thousand dollars! We could have got a new car. And you and Joanie pretty soon—”
“I can get the financial aid. I’ll tell Anne—”
“Look, Linda Lee ... it’s not that ... it was—with the cake and flowers, really almost four thou—”
“I said I’d get it!”
“Pottstown’s hiring now.”
“I’m not going to work in a hospital. I’m going for a degree in family-nurse practice.”
“Is this that midwife thing again?”
“That’s part of it.”
Henry Balliett shook his head woefully. “I may not know medicine, Linda, but I know insurance. I know who gets sued. I know what happens when a midwife loses a baby in one of those home birth attempts. I know ...” He did not go on but stood still, his teeth clamped, his arms locked over his chest. Linda said nothing. She didn’t want to rile him. He’d slapped her too many times—slapped her once they were no longer buddies and she’d discovered boys—slapped her in front of her sisters so they’d all learn the lesson.
He turned to her, she still sitting in the cream-colored chintz. “What about your car? You’re not going to take that thing to Boston, are you?”
“I’ll take the daisies off,” she conceded. “I won’t need a car up there, anyway.”
He sighed. “Maybe we can swing—”
At that moment Norma Balliett walked into the living room, followed by Joanie, Cindy and Lea. “Well.” Norma paused, looked at her husband and eldest daughter, smiled brightly. “Joanie tells me you’ve some news.” She kissed the top of Linda’s head. “When are we going to meet this Tony fellow?”
They drove out late on a cold Friday night in October, north from Philly, through Allentown, up to I-80 then west, then winding north up through Mill Creek Falls, not stopping, not even slowing down, Tony barely acknowledging his hometown, driving in the darkness of a deserted 154, aiming toward Forksville, searching the coal black roadside for the entrance to World’s End State Park.
“You’re certain ...?” Linda asked, repeated for the nth time.
“Very.” Tony’s answer was terse, his only terse answer to her the entire trip.
“I don’t want to freeze....”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
“This is really way the hell out.”
“Um-hmm.”
“I mean, this is like much farther out than French Creek and French Creek’s pretty rural.”
“Far out, Babe.” Tony turned to her, flashed his smile, turned back quickly.
Linda snuggled in closer, pretending to want warmth but actually looking at the gas gauge. The road essed, rose, dipped. Inside the car she could see the silhouette of Tony’s face in the faint glow from the dash and the minuscule light reflected back in from the headlights, and she tried to feel at ease, tried to feel in love with his handsome profile, but instead she felt terrified. “What if it snows....”
“It’ll be beautiful,” Tony answered. “It’s cold out but we’ll be warm. I promise. I’ve done this in Norway in temperatures below zero.”
“It is snowing!”
“Just a flurry. There—” He lifted his foot from the throttle, let the car decelerate, “we’re here.” He braked, maneuvered the car between two iron posts. “John and Joe and me and my Pop came here a couple of times and I came in scouts.... It’s really beautiful and there’s a natural pool below the falls where we can swim.”
“Swim!”
Tony laughed. “Yeah. There won’t be anybody here. We can skinny-dip before breakfast.”
“No way!” Linda moved back from him. He worked the car through the first lot and onto a small dirt lane that led to the upper campground.
“You’ll see,” he said.
The tent was a two-man mountain shelter and with the small catalytic heater the temperature inside rose quickly. The air mattresses lay side by side, held in place by the narrow walls and by the wool blanket Tony had covered them with and had tucked in at the sides, head and feet, and finally by the soft cotton winter sheet. To cover them he’d layered first a regular cotton sheet, then two soft blankets and finally a thick down comforter he’d borrowed from Lieutenant Kevin Mulhaney. A warm glow came from the battery-powered lantern.
For eight weeks they had dated, for six weeks they had been lovers. Now they lay side by side, naked, uncovered, the heat of their loving having driven the temperature up until Linda’s feet were sweating (perspiring she’d always correct him—girls don’t sweat) and she’d kicked the covers to the bottom of the tent and unzipped both the inner and outer flaps a few inches. He lay on his back, happy, happier, he thought, than he’d ever been, and she, on her side, her hip compressing the mattress to the ground but ignoring that one cool spot and focusing on Tony’s body, running her left hand—her right, propped on an elbow, held her head—running her left hand slowly, lightly, up his left thigh, up his left side, brushing his nipples which made him squiggle with delight, down his right, to his right thigh, her fingers gently entering the cleft left by an NVA bayonet seven months earlier.
“Roll over and I’ll give you a back rub.” Linda pushed herself up, still sitting sideways, her legs slightly askew.
Tony stared at her breasts. No matter how many times he’d seen them in the past six weeks, they always amazed him—the large areolas, the protruding nipples, the curve, the fullness. He rolled toward her, put his right hand on her hip, pressed his face into her right tit. She laughed. He raised up on his left elbow to get better situated, moved his right hand to her left breast, moved the left breast to his ear and began speaking in a silly British accent into the right areola. “Rangoon! Rangoon. This is Bangkok. Ah, Rangoon, you’re coming in a bit heavy. Wait one.” He backed away, pushed her gently to her back, then with a hand on each breast pretended he was adjusting the knobs of a radio. Then back with his mouth on the transmitter, she laughing, squirming, cocking her head to see his silliness. “Ah Rangoon, you are now clear. Do you read me? No! I’ve got you lumpy chicken. Eh?...”
“Lumpy chicken?!” She pushed lightly on his shoulders.
He lifted his head. “Loud and clear.”
“Oh. Carry on.”
“Now, ah yes, Rangoon, yes ... that’s affirmative. The two milk jugs are mine to keep—”
“Hey.” She protested. “What’s in it for me?”
“Ah Rangoon, yes, for you, yes, you get the Thunder Rod ... No ... Yes ... trade two jugs plus one cracked—”
“Tony!” She pushed him off, pretending insult, pretending seriousness. “Now, roll over.”
Now he did roll over and she straddled him, leaned forward, cupped her hands on the sides of his shoulders and kneaded the thick sinew. She worked toward his neck. “What’s all this stuff?” she asked.
“What?” he said, embarrassed.
“These sores.”
“Just zits,” he said. “They come en go. Kind of disgusting. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not that. They don’t look like pimples.”
“Yeah. We use ta call em gook sores. I never had pimples, you know, as a teenager. Well, I mean a few, but not like those. But ever since Nam Bo.... Lots of guys got em over there.”
“That doesn’t look like acne to me.”
“Augh, we were so dirty all the time ...”
“Tony, it looks more like dermatophyte or a skin infection of some kind.”
“What? Yeah. Maybe. I’ve got it on my knees, too. Never goes away all the way. Weird, huh?”
“You should see a dermatologist.”
“Um.” He rolled under her. She still straddled him. “Hey.” He chuckled. His penis was erect. “Know what’s long and hard on an Italian?”
She reached down, grabbed him. “I know what’s long and hard on this one.” She cooed. “God! You’ve got such a fat cock.” She squeezed it.
“Naw,” he blurted. “Not that.” He laughed, coughed, choked on his words. “It’s ... sec ... ond grade.”
She laughed too but only for a few seconds before she lowered herself onto him and held him and whispered, “I love the way you feel in me.”
Tony moved his hips very slowly, rocking gently, lifting her, holding her, kissing her, then holding her face, studying every lash, every pore, feeling more love for her than he ever thought possible. “You’ve got the most incredible eyes,” he said. “I love looking at your eyes.” She lowered her face to his chest. “They’re really different. Like they change colors—gold, then blue, then almost black at the edge. They’re really exquisite.”
She lifted her head. “They’re just hazel,” she said.
“They’re exquisite.” He moved again, lifted again, but mostly they lay still, holding each other, feeling the press of the other’s body.
“If my father knew we were doing this”—Linda shimmied with a small laugh—“he’d come after you with a shotgun.”
“I’d risk his shotgun anytime ... to do this.” Tony kissed her. Again they just held each other. Linda could hear Tony’s heart thumping. “What’s your father like?” Tony asked.
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