by Ron Lealos
Hungry, I craved one of my favorite treats. But thoughts of food were full of land mines. A grunt nicknamed S’more. He had nearly the same color skin as Liem, just a shade darker. His chubby stomach made him look like a dark marshmallow. On Memorial Day, he used C-4 and some napalm requisitioned from the ammo dump to cook us a barbecue of steaks and franks. One of S’more’s other talents, beyond brewing the best grilling sauce in ’Nam, was shaping C-4 inside a piece of steel pipe. Plenty of stuff was around to make fireworks for the night’s celebration. He mixed stolen food coloring from the PX and a dash of salt and pepper and put the loaded stick into the neck of an empty bottle of Jim Beam. Better than the nightly display from the 155 howitzers. S’more was one of the few black grunts who refused to join the Vietnam chapter of the Panthers or sew a Black Power fist to his fatigues. I guess his brothers were tired of the Oreo cookie metaphor and settled on S’more. He carried a seventy-pound M40 pig machine gun, with bandoleers of ammo, through the bush like it was made of bamboo. On an op outside Cần Thơ, he went into a hootch. With the barrel of his pig, he pushed up the lid of a thatched basket that held a few weeks’ supply of rice for a squad of Cong. The VC knew the white devils enjoyed destroying food that might reach their bellies. They left a gift. And pieces of S’more ended up riding a slick back to base.
Agent Orange had killed all the vegetation the bulldozers missed within a quarter mile surrounding the base. I walked on a path I knew wasn’t mined, at least not yesterday, and connected with the road to the gate, joining a squad of grunts limping toward the entrance. We were waved through. I didn’t have to report in and headed for the Special Ops compound to ask Viper a few questions. Or fit him for a bow tie.
Viper’s right hand crept toward the KA-BAR on his belt. His shaved head was as round and smooth as an M26 “wake-up” grenade. Red Man tobacco juice ran from the corner of his death’s-head mouth, his teeth brown like a Montagnard hill tribesman. Betel nut brown.
“So, pussy,” Viper said, “lost your appetite for cappin’ gooks?”
The Gerber fighting knife in my right hand was sharp enough to sever his spine without stopping for a smile.
“You fuckin’ pogue assholes just give the orders,” I said. “And I ain’t greasin’ anymore dinks because you fuck-ups tell me to.”
“I got my orders,” Viper said. “You got yours, Morgan.”
Bodies of headless kraits hung from the crooked bamboo beams of the sweltering Phoenix program command hootch, their dead black-and-yellow snake skins limp like baggy prom dresses. The sagging hootch was outside the perimeter of the Special Forces camp in the Mekong Delta, but still inside the firebase. Ho Chi Minh watched our dance from a stained poster on the bamboo wall. Blackened ears were pinned to the sides of Uncle Ho’s head. A nail on one of the banyan support posts held a broken stethoscope and a dirty, white operating room mask.
“Orders?” I asked. “You fuckin’ spooks don’t even have names. It’s just a game with you gung-ho Phoenix motherfuckers. Where’d you get the intel that Liem was VC?” The chinstrap on my webbed helmet chafed my neck. I loosened the leather. “Crank a little extra juice during Bell Telephone Hour? Some peasant’s nuts fryin’ while you called his number on your field phone? Did he squeal loud enough for you to get your rocks off, Viper? Or whatever your fuckin’ name is.”
The dirt on the hootch floor scraped under my bush boots as I slid closer for a strike to Viper’s throat. A jagged piece of a broken, pitted mirror was nailed to a post behind Viper. Morning humidity made the greasepaint on my face streak. An Indian in from a night of massacre in the bush. Sweat caused my camouflage fatigues to cling like Saran Wrap. The smell in the hootch was a mix of filthy armpit and crotch, along with the ever-present jungle decay. And rotting flesh.
“Now I get it, Morgan,” Viper said. “You fell for that slant bitch. You a double veteran now? Did she call you ‘sweet papa-san’ while you fucked her? Or did she save all the nice-nice for when you zapped her?”
The Gerber stopped a centimeter from Viper’s throat. My left hand pinned Viper’s KA-BAR tight to his side. Gray chest hair tickled my wrist from the open neck of Viper’s Hawaiian shirt. Small drops of blood pooled on the blade of the knife.
“Hear about the lieutenant in Charlie Company who got fragged while he was takin’ a shit last week?” I asked. “Blew his balls through the latrine roof and into a banyan tree, still in one piece. The vultures had a number one meal. Now that’s a set of nuts. You think yours are that big, Viper?”
“Fuck,” Viper said, “you ain’t gonna wax me. You’d spend your days back in The World at Leavenworth. Always knew you didn’t have the guts to hump it over here.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Damn straight I’m not gonna ice another woman because you psychos order it. Seein’ your bald head roll across this hootch might be the R&R I need.”
“Drop the knife and I won’t rat you out to Comer,” Viper said. “You need to di di mau to China Beach. Knock some white meat off a few doughnut dollies.” It would take a crowbar to pry the shit-eating smile off Viper’s face.
I jammed my knee between Viper’s legs harder. Viper stiffened as if he’d taken a hit in the back from a VC sniper. The heels of his unlaced tennis shoes lifted off the red dirt. I slid the Gerber a centimeter right. Fresh blood surged across the blade like the gentle waves at Au Tau Island.
The field radio squawked. “Heavy incoming at LZ 39. Charlie’s murdering us. Dust-off now. Got casualties. Get them Jolly Green’s here. Now.” Grunts were caught in a firefight in Bravo sector. The muffled rat-a-tat of AK-47s, M16s, and exploding Soviet-made pineapple grenades was the background music. On the spool table next to the field radio, Viper’s transistor crackled with Jimi Hendrix singing “All Along the Watchtower,” courtesy of Armed Forces Radio, Saigon.
“Need some intel from you before I make up my mind whether to feed your nuts to the rats,” I said. “Who told you Liem was VC? And you better not say it was those ARVN assholes. Last week they raped and butchered the mama-san who did the laundry for Alpha squad. The ARVN security goons claimed she was washin’ the secrets out of A squad’s maggoty shorts.”
Behind Viper, a yellowed map of the Mekong was dotted with red pins. Each one the obituary notice for an assassinated supposed VC sympathizer. A spider web connected the dots in the southeast quadrant.
The sweet smell of Laotian green drifted through the cracks in the bamboo walls, mixed with the acrid smell of shit burning in kerosene. Morning in Vietnam. A joint with the cowboy coffee. Fill your lungs with weed and black smoke from the torched two-holer. Pick the grounds out of your teeth with a stem from the dope. If the weed didn’t give the right charge, drop a white for a kick of adrenaline. Groove to the sound of the Doors on the Akai reel-to-reel tape deck while you check if you scored a chocolate pudding in the C-ration breakfast. Get pumped for another day of blood. Or boredom.
“What would you do if I told you, Morgan?” Viper asked. “Grease ’em? You’re a professional. Where’d this conscience bullshit come from? Why give a shit about some dink cunt?” The stubble of Viper’s beard rubbed against the top of my knuckles. When he swallowed, I could feel his Adam’s apple move above the Gerber blade. Viper’s breath was a mix of chew and rot. The ugly, insane smile still bent his lips. I knew Viper would welcome death in this killing field as much as me. Fear wouldn’t make him talk.
“Conscience?” I asked. “The story I heard was that you waxed a whole family of gooks with a garrote, including the little girl who woke to her mama-san’s last breath. A LURP patrol found you wandering in the bush with her scalp on your ammo belt, muttering about ‘eyeballs in the trees.’ They say you’re crazier than Charles Manson. That’s why you’re stuck in this hellhole. Nobody wants your disease. Perfect for Phoenix.”
“But now I don’t have to do the killing,” Viper laughed. “I get naive cocksuckers like you to do it for me. I just write the death warrants. You get the nightmares.”
“You and Comer made me what I am,” I said. “Payback’s a bitch.” I moved closer. My nose touched Viper’s. “Now we’re gonna quit rappin’ and you’re gonna tell me who ratted Liem. Or I’ll liberate your dickface head from your body.” The hand on the Gerber tightened enough to start another fresh flow of blood. “You’ll be diddy boppin’ around this hootch like one of them mangy chickens the villagers decap.”
The bamboo hut creaked in the morning sun. Dust motes floated in the humid air from the drying thatched-palm roof. A streak of light from the open window settled on Viper’s Colt semiautomatic pistol. The Colt hung in its leather holster from the back of a rattan chair under a blowup of Ann-Margret dancing in a pink miniskirt and white go-go boots. Bob Hope licked his lips in the background.
“If you put the blade down,” Viper said, “I’ll tell you. Not because I’m wetting myself ’cause of a candyass chickenshit like you. But I heard something interesting about your dead girlfriend. Maybe you smoked the wrong bitch.”
Everywhere I looked in ’Nam was green. Green jungle. Green elephant grass. Green fatigues. Green fungus from the rot between my toes. Green mold on the tuna in my C-rations. Gangrene. Except when the clay ran red with blood. Like the red that flooded my eyes.
A twist of my left hand on Viper’s wrist caused the joint to pop. The sound a white phosphorous smoke grenade made when it marked the LZ for the Hueys. “Fuck, boy,” Viper said. “I said we can talk this over.” The shit-eating grin vanished from his face. “I’m havin’ too much fun to be medevaced to the Land of the Big PX with a pissant broken arm.”
“If you can figure a way to tell the truth once in your fucked-up life,” I said, “I’ll let you go. First, I gotta relieve you of your KA-BAR and that Beretta I feel in your pocket. You gonna bullshit me?”
“Nawww, Morgan,” Viper said. “Maybe I’ll confess all my sins. But I don’t think confession will keep either of us from roasting in a napalm hell.”
Viper tried to nod his head but the Gerber at his throat made it a bad idea.
“I’ll be a good little scout,” he said.
The 9mm Beretta Tomcat fit easily into the palm of my left hand, the silver handle cool to the touch and moist from Viper’s sweat. I tossed the dainty pistol and the KA-BAR into the corner next to a pile of dog-eared Playboy magazines.
“That cute little gun fit well in your purse, Viper?” I asked. “Down on the deck, hands on your knees.” I used the tip of the Gerber to prod Viper to the dirt floor. “You might need a Band-Aid for that cut on your neck. Should leave a nice scar you can tell lies about.”
Viper used the corner of his shirt to dab at the blood that dripped onto his hairy chest. On his left hand, a bone ring carved from a dead VC skull said he was married to the dark side. The sun-bleached ring was a badge of honor worn by the spooks in the Phoenix program.
“Now that we’re cozy,” I said, “tell me about Liem.” Broken pieces of the rattan chair poked through the ass of my camo pants. Viper squirmed below me. The Gerber was aimed at Viper’s left eye. A cloud of jungle steam lazed through the open windows and door. Armed Forces Radio played “Sympathy for the Devil.” Mick Jagger’s gravel voice was backed by static and the distant thump, thump of slicks ferrying grunts to the boonies. The field radio was silent.
“Have you heard about the new local ARVN Special Branch commander?” Viper asked. I shook my head no. “Name of Colonel Hoang. Badass motherfucker. Smile like a cobra. Seems he took a likin’ to your girlfriend. Rumor has it she wouldn’t put out.”
“So you send me to grease her?” The Gerber nicked the blond hair on Viper’s eyebrow. “Because she wouldn’t fuck? I oughta pop your eyeball in the dirt, you sorry piece of shit.” A drop of blood fell into Viper’s eye. He didn’t blink, he smiled. “Was it Hoang’s men who wasted Thieu and his squad? I’ll bet you didn’t figure on seeing me again.”
“Hey, Morgan, you hear about the bitches in Dogpatch outside the gate to Firebase Echo? They stick razor blades up their holes so stupid grunts can go stateside without their luggage. Two greenbacks, couple a humps, and they’re callin’ you Sheila.”
“You practicing some of that psy ops shit they sling at Benning?” I asked. “Spit in the interrogator’s face? Show him you’re hung like a water buffalo? How many dinks have you had me ice? Twenty? Thirty? Lost count? You think I give a shit that your skin ain’t yellow and I won’t carve that smirk off your turd-eating face?” My right hand held the Hush Puppy I used to kill Liem. The silencer was pointed at Viper’s balls. “What about Hoang?”
“I’m thrilled you stopped by this morning, Morgan. It was stacking up as just another boring day in paradise.”
“Hoang, shit head.”
“A worldly man like you knows the pursuit of pussy has lots of twists. Seems Hoang’s blue balls pissed him off. Told us Liem was the local VC cadre chief, in charge of finishin’ the tunnels to the Ho Chi Minh Trail and supplying the VC with rice and bullets. But, surprise. Yesterday, just after you left to smoke her, a patrol from Bravo Company captured the command tunnel for this sector. Papers they grabbed said the real number one was Jin Nguyen, a barber and surgeon in Vu Thi, ten klicks down the road. Gotta think old Colonel Hoang was shittin’ us.”
“You guys never checked Hoang’s intel on Liem?”
“The watchword around here is cooperation. Now, how would it look if we questioned info that came from the very top papa-san? We’re tryin’ hard to have a relationship built on trust.”
The crooked smile never left Viper’s face. I figured he didn’t believe I’d kill him. Maybe fuck him up a little. Stall until somebody came to the rescue. Viper forgot that everyone avoided this hootch like it was surrounded with claymores. Grunts called the mines with their little green legs “toe poppers,” and a visit to the Phoenix hootch could mean a future missing a lot more than a few toes. The stench of death from the palm fronds woven in the roof of Viper’s hut poisoned anyone who passed. No one dropped by to rap uninvited.
“Heard anything about Liem before Hoang?”
“Nope.”
“I thought the policy was that no one got capped until you had backup evidence.”
“Boy, you’re shittin’ in the wrong jungle. Can’t you see we’re losin’ this police action? Just the scent of VC and you’re rat food.”
“So now it’s policy to wax anybody who doesn’t smell right?”
“Don’t it make you proud to be an American?” Viper asked. “Hey, Morgan. Came up with the best scam yet to get free pussy. Wanna join in? See that busted stethoscope on the nail by Ann-Margret? Got it from a Second Battalion medic. Put the mask on, hang the scope around your neck, and go into a vil. Tell the gooks you’re a doctor on a mercy mission. The dink women line up for their exams. Get their legs spread and jam it in. Boom-boom time. What’re they gonna do? Scream? All you gotta do is say ‘Bac-si, bac-si,’ Vietnamese for doctor, and the bitches come runnin’.”
“Shut the fuck up.” The Hush Puppy bucked in my right hand as it jammed into Viper’s balls. A sharp hiss came from his mouth, but the smile stayed. “I only wanna hear about Hoang. Where’s he headquartered?”
“Why should I tell you? You gonna grease him, too? That would be against United States Military Law and the Geneva Conventions. And would certainly fuck up LBJ’s Hearts and Minds policy. Besides, I hear you’re at your best killing gook women in their beds.”
The sound of the Doors singing, “Come on, baby, light my fire,” muffled the quiet thhuupp of the Hush Puppy. The sound-suppressed bullet missed Viper’s balls by a quarter inch and slammed into the dirt behind him. He jumped back. The Gerber stayed pressed against Viper’s eyebrow. The smile was gone.
Viper swept his right leg at my feet. At the same time, he grabbed the arm that held the Hush Puppy, rolling left and pushing the pistol toward the thatched roof. The Gerber opened a six-inch cut across Viper’s forehead. I jerked my arm away and let him go. As he crawled to his feet, wiping the stream of blood
from his eyes, I shot him in the thigh. Viper fell backward against the bamboo wall, ripping off a VISIT GAY, HISTORIC VIETNAM poster. The poster showed a handsome Vietnamese couple strolling down a sunny boulevard in front of a cathedral in Saigon. The woman carried a yellow umbrella. Both of the happy citizens smiled with straight, white teeth.
“You son of a bitch,” Viper hissed. He used both hands to try to slow the bleeding. “You’re gonna spend the rest of your short life in the stockade at Long Binh. Until they hang you.”
“Now why would that be? I came in here this morning and found you dead. Obviously you were tortured before you died. I hear there’s a bounty on you Phoenix pricks. Just like the SOG boys. Some lucky Charlie just bought himself a year’s supply of rice. Took your ring finger with the skull on it, since you spooks don’t wear dog tags.” I wiped the blade of the Gerber on my camo pants. The Hush Puppy was pointed between Viper’s eyes. “Hey, what the fuck. Seems Langley’s got an endless supply of dirtballs like you. You won’t even be missed.”
Killing came easier to me than handling the constant dysentery. The backside of my fatigues was always stained black from the sweat-and-shit cocktail that seeped from my ass. Shooting Viper would be the one murder that was absolutely right. His face wouldn’t be in the jury of victims that condemned me in the nightly dreams. But I’d think of his dead, smiling face when the green shit dripped into my pants.
“Fuck, that hurts,” Viper said. The blood from his forehead fell onto the hands that clutched the gunshot wound. A cockroach scurried past his foot.
“If we rap for a couple days, the maggots will start eating the infection in your leg. That’s nature’s healing process at work. But you’re not gonna be around to feel it, Viper. The maggots don’t care if the host is alive or dead. You’re gonna be dead unless you tell me more about Hoang.”
A puddle of Viper’s blood turned black when it mixed with the clay floor. Viper squeezed his wound with both hands and tried to smile. His fingers made squishing sounds as they tightened.