by Ron Lealos
Across the street, now blue with cyclo fumes and buzzing with the angry beehive sound, Colleen opened the screen door to let in a shoeless mama-san dressed in a ragged, orange ao dai. Colleen must have used the back door to the orphanage or come in before I started my breakfast. Her long, red hair was pinned behind her head with ivory chopsticks, a morning flush still on her dimpled cheeks.
Colors. ’Nam was full of tints. The brilliant orange clouds, a combination of napalm and jungle that quickly turned to oily black. Brown. Monsoons mixed with the clay, leaving the ever-present brown-red coat that stayed even when it dried. The black of the monster-fucking flies that tried to crawl in my mouth and covered corpses only a few minutes dead. Two women with green eyes, one a dead anomaly in a country of black eyes. The other a gorgeous import. The color that haunted me was red. The red that comes from an open wound and drips from legs sawed off by a claymore turned against the wire. The small circle of red that grew like a cherry stain on Liem’s forehead after the pphhuupp of my Hush Puppy. But green was the hue of the live ’Nam. Fucking green everywhere. A jungle canopy so thick and vivid green that it was impossible to gauge distance. Watching a wall of green, trying to catch a silhouette in black, exposed enough for a kill shot to the head. Sometimes I thought I would always dream in shades of green, the color stamped on my nightmares. Now, I stared across the busy brown dirt road and marveled at the pink on Colleen’s cheeks.
The last of my beer drained, I dropped a few piasters on the Formica table, grabbed my M16, and headed for the orphanage, dodging mopeds, taxis, rickshaws, pedestrians, oxcarts, and bicycles.
Inside, the sign to stow weapons remained on the wall. I leaned my rifle next to the bamboo basket for handguns, breaking the rules by keeping my Hush Puppy and KA-BAR.
Colleen squatted next to a naked baby-san sucking his thumb and nudged the boy toward the door in the back. She looked over the boy’s skinny shoulder covered in weeping scabs and grinned at me. A wisp of hair behind Colleen’s left ear waved in the wind from the fan. The gecko was in the same place on the wall as yesterday, tongue out to catch the day’s meal of mosquito.
“Hello, cowboy,” she said. “Sleep well?”
The hardwood floor was swept clean, and, walking toward Colleen, I watched the mud still caked and dry on my boots fall to the uneven boards in little brown clots and wondered why this Irish witch made so jumpy. I had faced squads of VC in the bush and escaped ambushes that aced every other comrade, leaving me alone and on the run. Never was I as scared as watching the smile light up Colleen’s face.
“Just groovy,” I said. “My poncho and a foxhole make the Rex look like a trailer in the Appalachians. Any word on Tran?”
Colleen stood and smoothed the cotton of her skirt.
“Our goal is to relocate the orphans as quickly as possible so that they can assimilate in a family and community environment,” she said. “Babies are the easiest. Early this morning, we sent Tran to a local village. Duc Lo. A family there has been asking for weeks to adopt an infant. I’m going to visit tomorrow. Would you like to tag along?”
There was no ETA for Luong and me. Nobody to make us burn shit for being tardy. In fact, I didn’t exist on any military roster. When I walked through the towns of ’Nam, few made eye contact. When I went into the bush to carry out orders, no REMF waited to check me off a list on return. I might not come back from a mission that never happened. Only the ones left alive in a hootch, barber shop, or vil knew of my visit.
“Sure,” I said. “What time do you want to di di? I can get a jeep. Tomorrow, I want to visit Tran.”
She touched a wisp of red hair on her forehead.
“Only one cockup,” Colleen said. “Got another rumor. Seems this Ky fellow was upset by my complaint. Supposed to make an unannounced visit anytime.” She smiled and took a step toward me.
No coincidences. Now, Ky was coming into my life in a big way. Soon, he might replace the other nightmares. I smiled back.
“Don’t hassle it,” I said. “What you’re doing here is good and can’t be mixed with evil.”
We were close now. So close I could see the steel fillings in her back teeth. And feel the heat from her skin, even though it must have been pushing a hundred in the room.
Colleen moved nearer and touched the arm of my mud-caked fatigue.
“Now aren’t you the perfect gentleman,” she said. “I was going to take a cyclo, but a spin with you would be better. What are you doing now? Want to go for a ride if you can get a jeep so easily? You must have some clout around this place to do that.”
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll ETA in a half-hour back here.”
Two hours later, we were at the ruins of a Buddhist temple being slowly eaten by the jungle. Roots from the banyan, banana, and bamboo trees pushed through the blocks of limestone around the base and spread up the walls, making the temple look as if a giant green octopus was sitting on top. White and pink orchids bloomed from cracks in the stone. A crumbling, ten-foot-wide stairway led to a dark opening surrounded by carved Vietnamese lettering. The sun shot beams of light through the high, green canopy, and the ever-present smell of decay seeped from the jungle floor.
I parked the jeep on the well-used trail and helped Colleen with the army-issue canvas rucksack she packed. No one was in sight.
“This is one of my favorite spots,” she said, stretching her arms and pointing to the door at the top of the temple. “If no one is around, I love going up there.”
Still in Indian country, my M16 was in my hand. We climbed the stairs and entered the darkness. It was at least twenty degrees cooler inside than the hundred-degree day of the jungle.
“Turn around,” Colleen said. She fumbled in her rucksack, which I had carried up the steps.
Even though the day was the typical monsoon gray, it was brighter than the blackness of the chamber. The space smelled of incense and mold. My eyes slowly adjusted, and I saw a raised altar in the middle of a ten-meter-square room carved out of the hillside. Empty niches for offerings and statues were dug into the walls every few meters.
The snap of a match and the room was lit by a candle Colleen took from the pack. Limestone pieces had fallen in piles around the room and water dripped slowly from the ceiling above the rubble, but the area around the altar was dry. Vietnamese hieroglyphs displaying elephants and warriors covered the walls.
“Don’t you feel like you’re the first white face in here?” Colleen whispered.
I turned to her. There was that Irish grin on her face, mouth surrounded by freckled cheeks. The “all business” look was gone, replaced by something I couldn’t recognize. The change was as eerie as a tiger in the bush, the jungle suddenly quiet.
She moved closer, and I touched her face. She slid the straps of the rucksack off my shoulders and put her arms around my neck.
“Well, laddie,” she whispered, “this is a dream I’ve had ever since I first came here.” She kissed me. Hard. I could almost hear the grinding of a tank as it tried to turn sharply on packed clay. The soft feeling of her breasts went through my fatigues and the spot between my legs was immediately as hard as the KA-BAR in my belt. I was never one to make the b-girl scene. Aly was my last. And that was years ago. War was my life, not romance.
Within seconds, we were naked on the altar. Our shadows waved on the walls, the images pushed by the slight breeze from the jungle. I could hear the sound of monkeys in the trees outside, my mind too trained to be completely lost. Yet.
Colleen was on her back, laying on the fatigue top I spread on the pebbled surface. My mouth was on her left breast, tongue flicking like a cobra on her nipple. The little mole between her breasts was perfectly round, and I licked it, too. My other hand held the weight of her right breast, and she reached to stroke my cock. Ivory hairpins dropped to the stone, and her hair fell over the end of the altar in a canopy of red. The jungle noise was replaced by her moans, and the aroma of decay was masked by the musky woman smell.
Heat. In ’Nam, the only respite was the rain. As soon as a shower ended, payment was due. The temperature went from ninety-plus to well over a hundred in moments, the air saturated and smothering like someone had soaked your fatigues in gasoline then lit you on fire. It was hard to breathe, the air so heavy you could weigh it. Air conditioning was reserved for officers, not assassins. There was no escape, even at night. Now, the room temperature was reaching that of the jungle outside. Or it could just be me.
Our bodies slid easily together, greased by sweat and need. She spread her legs and pushed me inside her. My knees scraped on the rough stone, but there was no pain, only the feeling that my soul was being taken by the moistness of Colleen. I moved in and out to a rhythm set by the pressure of her hands on my back. Eyes wide open, she stared at me, unsmiling, with a look of intensity and purpose that I had only seen in combat.
The days were many since Aly, and now I needed discipline. That was something drilled into me by months of training and the reality of motionless nights when even a blink could mean a sniper’s bullet to the head. The waves of feeling kept me on the brink with every thrust. Colleen moved easily under me. The pace of her movement was increasing at the same rate as mine. I pulled out and put my face between her legs, fingers spreading her lips and tongue searching for the right spot. I knew I was there by the moans that became a yes. My hands went to her nipples, squeezing gently and rolling them in my fingers. Her hips pushed hard into my face and arced above the altar. Seconds passed with the smell of her filling my nose and her juices washing away some of the ever-present jungle taste still in my mouth. She bucked firmly and stayed with her mound in the air, my tongue inside her. She screamed a long “Nowwww” and pushed my head away. “Get inside me now. I need you.” Colleen grabbed at my butt and pushed me into her. There were no more gentle thrusts. She slammed her hips into me and pulled me harder inside, hands gripping my back. “Shag me!” she screamed. “Harder.” The feeling started somewhere near my toes and moved quickly to my cock. Discipline was gone, and years of Aly loss resulted in an orgasm that knocked us off the altar, writhing in a pile of clothes on the limestone floor of the temple.
“Crikey, you Yanks are good for somethin’,” Colleen laughed. We were rolling on my fatigues, Colleen’s face blushed and grinning and me hoping neither of us got stabbed by my KA-BAR.
“We’d better di di, Colleen,” I said. “We may have alerted every Cong in the province.”
I helped her up and brushed a spider web from her hair. We dressed, and she blew out the candle, helping me get the rucksack on my shoulders.
On the way back to town, we passed a few pajama-clad peasants whose unsmiling faces didn’t keep Colleen from waving. We talked about home, and she told me of an alcoholic father on the dole and a mother so enmeshed in Catholicism that she couldn’t leave a loveless, abusive marriage. Admission to university and escape from Belfast to the jungles of Vietnam. I told her about the Colonel and a mother whose afternoon tea was gin and tonic. But nothing about what my true role was in this police action. Mostly, we talked about Tran and what the future might bring for a war orphan in the horrors.
In Cần Thơ, I dropped her at the orphanage. We made plans for tomorrow and parted with a handshake. I watched her climb the steps to the orphanage, her blouse untucked at the back of her skirt, traces of limestone dust in her hair. I drove away to return the jeep to the motor pool and meet Luong for the night’s bivouac in the jungle, the first bars of “Danny Boy” a whistle on my lips.
In the morning, we shared a breakfast of GI issue franks and beans, prepared by Luong. He used a bag of Montagnard spices, C-4, and my helmet. We listened to the jungle awaken. Crickets and horned frogs battled with the buzz of mosquitoes. I offered him a Lucky Strike and smoked while we drank cowboy coffee and spit out the grains. Sometimes, I missed the comfort of a cot and runny eggs in the mess line. Not today. The taste of Colleen was still on my lips, and I would be seeing her again soon.
At the orphanage, the old mama-san swept the floor with a broom made of dried rice stalks tied to a bamboo stick. Her graying hair was wrapped in a bun, and the wrinkles on her face gave her a permanent smile. The ao dai she wore was a patchwork of tattered, faded flowers, held around her waist by a nylon cord that looked like it came from the rigging of a 101st Airborne casualty. She hummed an unrecognizable tune and didn’t hear me slip through the screen door.
“Tot buoi sang, mama-san,” I said. Good morning. “Colleen?”
The mama-san made another stroke, adding the prize to a small pile of rice kernels and dirt. She leaned against the broom handle and said, “Missy Caween di di. Pham Bien. Pham Bien.” She flicked her hand as if to shoo me away like one of the always-circling flies. I could see finger bones covered with saran wrap.
I knew Pham Bien was a small vil about five klicks east through the paddies and one that Colleen said might be a possible home for Tran. I put the butt of my M16 on the hardwood floor.
“Tran?” I asked.
“Pham Bien. Pham Bien,” she said. She started to sweep again. The rice stalks rubbing on the teak floor made the sound of crushing bone-dry flowers in my fist.
“Ky?” I asked. “Ong tham?” Did Ky visit?
“Vang,” the mama-san said. “Hoi sang som. Missy Caween di di yang!” Yes. Early this morning. Colleen left quickly.
Fuck. I didn’t know what a visit from Ky meant for Colleen, but he wouldn’t have come with a bouquet of orchids. Time to find her. And Tran.
“Cam on, mama-san,” I said. Thank you. But she was already turned away, her bare feet sliding toward the door at the back of the room.
On the street, I motioned at Luong to follow me. It only took a nod. He was in the shadows of a bicycle shop, fronted by three rickshaws and a Motorola sign taller than any Vietnamese. We were never seen together in a city. In fact, we were never together unless someone was about to die. Or was already dead.
Even before eight in the morning, the street was crowded. The whine of cyclos and the clouds of blue smoke that trailed every bike blended with the smell of pork boiling in grease. It would be at least a klick outside Cần Thơ before the noise and aroma of the city cleared our nostrils. I didn’t have to glance back to know that Luong was behind me as I threaded my way through the women in ao dais and men in pajamas or khakis. In ten minutes we were on the outskirts of Cần Thơ, heading east on the dike of a rice paddy. Soon, we would have to take to the tree line. A lone GI followed by a Montagnard would raise questions and present an easy target. For now, I was still on an altar in an abandoned jungle temple, enjoying the sun on my back and the sound of gentle waves and wind rustling the rice stalks.
No jeep this morning. Didn’t want the news to get back to Comer I was alive and taking joyrides. Yesterday, it took a few packs of Camels and a bottle of Johnny Walker to “borrow” a jeep off the books for the afternoon. If I would have needed it again today, the price only went up by an extra pack of Camels.
To take my mind off Colleen, Tran, and Ky, the walk gave me time to write a letter. One, like all the others, that would never be put on paper. This one was again to my mother. Colleen gave the pages to me. Love was an emotion that I found ironic in ’Nam. The fantasy was of Colleen and me in a loft somewhere back in The World, struggling to make our way, happy and content in our love and lust. A new adventure for both. Talk would be of the day’s experiences, carrying out the garbage, and what to make for dinner. Simple. Not whose hootch I would sneak into that night or how she would find a home for a legless orphan. Had my mother ever felt “love” for the Colonel?
Mother, I’m here in the middle of a war zone, and I need your advice. You never talk about how you and the Colonel met or anything of what was and is in your heart. We never had any mother-son talks. I think the Colonel must have told you that everything I needed to know, Uncle Sam would teach. What I saw was a woman who laughed only after her husband smiled, granting permission. A salute. A woman who retreated to her room and the fif
th of gin hidden in a Bon Marché hatbox on the top shelf of her closet. Yes, I knew. A woman who shook my hand, while at attention, like the Colonel. Not a hug. A woman who never kissed her husband. Not that I witnessed. You stood tight as the cords on a trip wire. But my letter is for guidance, not to give a litany of whimpers. The Colonel said the army would “make a man even out of a sissy whiner.” Me. Well, I’m here. I don’t know if I’m a man or not. What is a man supposed to feel when he puts a silenced 9mm between the eyes of a beautiful green-eyed woman and watches her brains explode into the mud? Patriotism? What does a man feel when the heat of a woman’s slick body makes the tropics an understatement? What is a man supposed to do when every thought is on her thighs around my neck, the smell of her riper than the scent of the decaying jungle? Did you ever love the Colonel? Were your dreams filled with visions of the Colonel perfectly hanging his perfectly pressed uniform on a chair and sliding between the starched sheets, still in his perfectly pressed skivvies? Did that thing that feels like a mortar attack assault your heart? And what does it mean? Here, the grunts say, “Don’t mean nuthin’.” But that’s just an easy way to avoid the question. And the horror. Cynicism veiled in nonchalance. It means everything. Yesterday, I made love to a woman who won’t leave my mind. I’ve only known her two days. When I think of her, there is this sensation of a million needles poking around in my stomach. My heart seems to weigh more than a grenade. Sometimes, my knees feel like they do after a thirty-klick forced march in full combat gear. When I look at the red clay trail in front of me and scan the tree line for nasties, everything is as vivid as a close-up color snapshot. There’s beauty here. I never realized it before. I know it’s her. Did you ever have those thoughts? What do they mean? I’m asking for your help, Mother. I’m lost in an uncharted world.