by Ron Lealos
“Take out your pen,” I said to the bloodsucker, the tip inches from his nose.
Runson shrank into his phony ammo jacket like putting salt on a snail.
“Do it,” I hissed.
He reached into his breast pocket and took out a gold-plated Cartier pen, probably one of the knock-offs sold on Tu Do.
I laid the knife on the tablecloth.
“Now,” I said. “I want to see if you can stick that pen into my eye. I want to see how mighty it is. I want to know if you can do anything but serve up bullshit for these fresh turds who aren’t worth the sweat of one grunt willing to die for his buddy.”
The reporter tried to smile, but it came out like a five-year-old caught in a lie. Now I had the attention of the other newsies in the room. None of them moved. Probably their first taste of action.
Somehow this man must have witnessed enough death to figure he was mean and tough. Osmosis. He put the pen down on the table, sober.
“I don’t have anything to prove,” he said. “I’ve been out in the boonies. I’ve seen the horror. I’ve earned the right to tell it like it is. America needs to know. Now, finish your drink and leave me alone.”
There was a cliché that I had thought was a myth, but I had experienced it enough to be a true believer. The room turned red. The reporter’s ammo jacket was crimson, and the sweat on his brow was blood.
If I stuck the Gerber in the asshole’s eye, I would spend years in LBJ or stand at attention in front of a firing squad. Even Phoenix couldn’t save the ass of an agent who gouged the eye out of a reporter with witnesses nearby. Jimmy Ky wouldn’t suffer from my hands. I wouldn’t get to salute the Colonel again. Don’t mean nuthin’.
With my left hand, I grabbed the collar of his ammo jacket and pulled it hard together at his throat. My right hand held the Gerber to his eye. Our noses touched.
“Fuck you,” I screamed. “You don’t know the truth. You write what Westie and the other zombies tell you to. You watch the blood seep into the clay. For what? To sell newspapers? So you feel like a man? Have you seen a woman die with a bullet between her eyes from your pistol? Have you had the power of life and death in your fingers?” I let go of his collar and put the Gerber back again. “Now, you’ve got three seconds to pick up that pen and show me you’re not the dirtbag phony I know you are.”
The reporter smoothed out the new wrinkles in his jacket. He didn’t reach for the pen. Suicide wasn’t his trip.
“You know I’m not gonna do it,” he said. “You’d kill me. What I would rather do is buy you another drink and you can tell me what the real story is. If I have offended you, I apologize.” There was no more childish smile on his face. But there was a tic above his right eye. He had been around enough to realize his life was hanging on the whim of a burnout who had seen and done too much.
Someone punctured the tires on my jeep. All I felt was the weight. The incredible weight of eyes that haunted every moment. I slumped my shoulders and tossed the last of my drink down my throat.
“No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll turn in. You boys have a fine evening pretending.”
Maybe it was the drugs. Mood swings. Days and nights of living on yellow jackets had just brought me to the brink of murder. And I hadn’t even been ordered to. Maybe it was what I had become. I was having a hard time distinguishing that voice in my head from my master’s like Comer. Phoenix had succeeded. I was a stone killer. And a man just came within a millimeter of death because he was a blowhard. There was one speck of conscience left. But the battle was nearly lost.
I took the stairs to my room and smoked a joint, sleeping through the night on dreams shaded green.
In the morning, after a breakfast of ham and eggs unlike anything the chow line at base camp had on the menu, I walked to the Sporting Bar. Soon, I would have to choose the best site for approaching Ky. Even at ten-thirty, Special Forces soldiers were drinking Tiger and Lucky 7 beer. Or maybe they had been there all night.
Saigon was an arms-free zone for all but MPs, but these soldiers must not have gotten the word. M16s, Colt pistols, M79 grenade launchers, and sawed-off shotguns sat on tables or rested against legs. Many of the men looked as if they had just arrived from a long-range patrol in the Delta, their fatigues caked with clay and their eyes still surrounded by black greasepaint. Most had no insignia on their uniforms, another sign they were under orders from the spooks, the bastard cousins of SOG, Special Operations Group.
As I walked through the louvered swinging doors, taking in the “don’t give a fuck” atmosphere with one glance, I knew exactly what was going on in the heads of these men. They had crawled on their bellies through the mud, the least of their worries the snakes, leeches, poisonous spiders, malaria-ridden mosquitoes, and booby traps. Pushing aside a clump of rice or elephant grass, they never knew when a squad of VC or NVA would be waiting, smiling, and pointing an AK at their faces. Maybe even a battalion. A place like the Sporting Bar was one of the few sanctuaries they could go to forget the yellow men. Forget the bodies that played the pirouette of death caused by their rifles or the buddy who got his ticket punched by a trip wire hidden on the trail. Unfortunately, the Sporting Bar didn’t make any of them forget. Gallons of beer only made them angrier and the stories more bizarre. The lifeblood of ’Nam wasn’t the millions of dollars of supplies that were consumed every day. It was stories. If the stories stopped, the war would end. If the supplies stopped, the grunts could eat off the land. I had heard enough stories never to sleep again. Now I would have to listen to more to get the information I needed.
No one paid me much attention. In some ways, I felt like a comic book character. I would walk into any one of a thousand bars in Saigon. No one would seriously mess with me. Today, I wore khaki pants, loafers with no socks, and a short-sleeve, white cotton shirt. No beard, my hair over my ears, the tan, the scar, and creases welded to my face the only indication that I had been in the bush. The intuition these men had groomed after months in the boonies gave them the ability to smell death. I wore that like a neon sign across my chest. An unknowing cherry who mistakenly stepped into the Sporting Bar would be lucky to leave with only a few broken ribs. But I wasn’t a green troop just in from Da Nang and seeking adventure. No words passed to communicate who I was. It was natural boonie rat knowing. I walked to the bar and ordered a Tiger. No one made eye contact.
Most of the light in the bar came from the door. Table lamps were twenty watt and covered with Chinese paper shades. A jukebox played Beach Boys songs at low volume. Later, it would get louder, in proportion to the drunk level of the grunts. The smell of fish frying in oil drifted from a beaded doorway that led to the back. Smoke curled around the ceiling and created a fog like the aftermath of an artillery strike. Cigarette burns scarred every table and the bar. Butts and roaches littered the floor.
The beer was ice cold. This was a hangout for Special Forces. If things weren’t the way they wanted it or up to their expectations, a phosphorous grenade would have the bamboo walls burning in seconds, leaving the Sporting Bar another innocent but still dead casualty. I raised my beer to a soldier who was alone and hunched over a Lucky, his M16 leaning against the thigh of his torn fatigue pants. He nodded.
The typical conversation starter was, “Where you from?” This dump was different. Special Forces soldiers didn’t give a shit. Dialogue would most often begin with things like, “You wearin’ pink boxers, pussy? That tan came from China Beach, and you ain’t foolin’ nobody. I got mine from a month in the paddies near Long My.” But I was different, too.
“My old man’s a colonel,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. What’s your story?”
The soldier had streaks of red in the mud on his face. His bloodshot eyes held the ever-present thousand-yard stare when he looked at me, not saying a word. Sometimes it took days for the mouth to be able to translate messages from the brain, after only saying things like “down” or “mortar” or “doc” for weeks.
“You’re fuu
ucked up, man,” he said, enunciating every vowel. “Nobody ever admits that their old man’s an officer. You gotta be ready for a Section 8, talkin’ that shit. Or willing to eat a frag.” He drank a long swallow of his Lucky and called for the barmaid.
The b-girls in the Sporting Bar were older than the normal whores in the other bars. And they didn’t harass the patrons with “Buy me drink, sodjer.” They wore ao dais showing lots of flesh, but stayed huddled in the corner unless a grunt beckoned. This was a place for serious drinking. The serious fucking could be found most anywhere else.
I finished my beer in one long swallow and asked the barmaid for another while she was serving the grunt next to me.
“Don’t make much difference how,” I said. “Just when.”
He turned his head full on. The red streaks came from a scalp wound that I hadn’t seen and was still oozing and raw. Special Forces troops, fresh from a month of long-range reconnaissance in the boonies, often didn’t wait to be mustered for a trip to town. They stole a jeep and went. Who would stop them? Not even Westmoreland. There were more unwritten laws in ’Nam that were honored than volumes of the Military Code. One was “Don’t fuck with LURPs.” It was a capital offense. More of the second sight told me this was a LURP, not a Green Beret or SEAL.
“You got that right on, man,” he said. He clinked his fresh beer against mine.
“Hear you dudes hit some heavy action down by Ben Luc,” I said. “That true?” The best way to loosen any grunt’s tongue was a story. Especially one about him. Most wanted to talk about the fear without naming the beast. It had been inside their heads, eating the horror for days, if not years.
The LURP watched his reflection in the mirror behind the wall and waited for nearly a minute before responding.
“Shit,” he said. “Never saw nuthin’ like it. We laid in that fuckin’ water for a week. Intel told us there was a fresh battalion of NVA meat startin’ up in that sector. Got the info from ARVN scouts. If that ain’t fuck all, don’t know what is. The rain was so bad, couldn’t a’ seen or heard a fuckin’ tank within five meters. By the time we finally saw Charlie, none a’ us had any blood left from bein’ sucked dry by them fuckin’ leeches.” He held out his arm and pushed up the sleeve of his fatigue blouse. His forearm was covered with puckering scars about two inches long, both from the leeches and burning them off. “Wrong day. Right Charlie. They showed their dink faces. We laid low until they got close enough to smell the shit in my pants. We opened up, and the artillery strikes came within a few feet of our heads. Them yellow fuckers had their own mortars back in the trees. Couldn’t go forward or we’d be wasted by friendlies. Couldn’t go back or the gook mortars would rip us new shitters. Ended up hand to hand. I’m the only one in my squad who made it back without ridin’ medevac.” He scratched at the sores on his forearm and looked at me. “I been wonderin’ how they knew we were there. I think the ARVN set up the whole thing. All their troops were in the rear. Told us to go out there and had the NVA wait until we were nearly done anyway. Lost my best buddy, Corrigan. He took a bayonet to the kidney. Don’t mean nuthin’.” He downed the rest of his beer in one motion.
The war was beyond the comprehension of a kid from Omaha. The ARVN general he saluted had millions in a numbered Swiss account, earned from the black market drug trade, assassinations, NVA payoffs, prostitution, and a percentage of the wages of all his men. The ARVN scout he listened to was more often than not working for the VC and hated him more than any North Vietnamese. The crippled beggar in the street would knife him if it was dark enough and he turned his back. The whore he fucked might have razor blades in her pussy. The little girl crying at the sight of her mother being dragged away could be booby-trapped with C-4 sold to the VC by the master sergeant at the ammo dump. His green lieutenant would likely get everyone in the squad killed if his orders were followed. There were no innocents. Everyone was the enemy. Except your buddy.
The story was the same. Only the people who died were different. I motioned for the barmaid to come over and ordered two more beers. The LURP knew one was for him.
“You been in here before?” I asked.
“Yup,” he said. “Been in-country nearly a year on this tour.”
No introductions had been made. It was not done with grunts who were in the shit day after day. If I knew your name, I might have to feel something when your shit got scattered. I might even have to feel responsible in some small way. The load was too heavy.
The barmaid set the beers in front of us, and I reached for mine. There was a sheen of moisture on the cooled glass.
“Ever seen the guy who works upstairs come through here?” I asked. I figured Ky owned the Sporting Bar.
“Yaa,” the LURP said. “Why ya’ wanna know?” The look was like he was trying to decide if he should open the shirt of a dead VC. The booby traps were everywhere.
“A little business proposition.”
“What would that be?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I get that you work alone. You’re a fuckin’ spook. And I don’t wanna know. Just makin’ conversation.”
“So, have you seen him? Thirties. Probably wearing sunglasses, tall for a gook, thin, and always has lots of bodyguards. Drives a Mercedes. Or gets driven. Wouldn’t be surprised if he owned this joint.”
“You gonna grease him? Need any help?”
“Naw. Just need to have a discussion.”
“Right on, spook.” He laughed, the first smile since I sat down. “Sure, I’ve seen the dude. Everyone here has. Sometimes, he buys a round. Never hangs. Disappears into the back, followed by a couple gooks tryin’ to look mean. Gets lotsa visitors, too.”
“Does he keep any schedule?”
“Don’t know that. You can ask around. The times I’ve seen him, it was morning. Like now. By the time he left, I was too blind to see him. Or anything else.”
The LURP looked over my shoulder.
“Goddamn,” he said. “I think your buddy just walked through the door.” He nodded behind me.
I chose this grunt and the spot on the bar because of the mirror. I could look without being too obvious.
One of the other SOGs yelled, “Hey, General. We’re gettin’ thirsty. How ’bout buyin’ a brew for your best buddies?” That was met with cheers from the other grunts.
Jimmy Ky had been trying to make it across the room without having to slow down. Now he was caught. He stopped, held up his hand, and waved to the barmaid. When she got close, he said, “Bring these fine men a beer. On me.” He spoke nearly perfect English. His entourage stood a step behind him, glaring at the grunts as if they could scare them. Not even with an M60 pig machine gun. The grunts cheered. Ky walked through the beads, followed by his bodyguards.
“Now ain’t that one fine gook?” the LURP asked. “Whose gonna buy the free rounds when you waste him?”
“I never said anything about killing,” I said. “What gave you that idea? Just business.”
Again. I couldn’t shed my skin. I was sitting next to a LURP who had probably zapped more gooks than me. The stench wafted from us like a slaughterhouse. He knew, and not a hundred Tigers could change his mind. He also knew what guys like me did. We were talked about in whispers. And avoided. He killed in firefights, meeting the enemy straight on, while I crept through the night in search of my prey. And it didn’t have to be Vietnamese.
For the rest of the day, I drank with the LURP. No one else joined us. I counted a half-dozen visitors. In the afternoon, I staggered through the beads toward the back, acting as if I was too drunk to see that it wasn’t the way to the latrine.
Three mama-sans tended to pots of frying grease and chopped fish and vegetables. A big pan of rice warmed on the gas stove. Dishes, bowls, and cups sat on metal shelves. A stairway climbed up the wall on the left. The door at the top was closed and one of the bodyguards, leaning against the railing, scowled at me, yelling, “Di di!” pointing back to the way I stumbled in.
/> When I came back to the bar, the LURP asked, “Find what you were lookin’ for?” He finished another Tiger and looked away, smiling. I didn’t answer.
Ky came down and left the Sporting Bar a few minutes before dark. Perfect. It gave me time to check out the back and get to the Majestic for another night of riding the dragon.
There was a message shoved under the door when I woke up after a night tripping to Puff dreams. Luong would meet me at the Ben Thanh Market at 0900. Of course the note didn’t read that way. Comer loved to play a game that joined cowboys with spooks. “Stagecoach arrives by fruit stall oh-nine-hundred.” Luong couldn’t show his face at the Majestic, and I didn’t think any heathen Montagnard had ever been allowed through the door by the Vietnamese management. A white man walking with Luong through the streets would attract immediate attention. At the market, we could camouflage our conversation for the short amount of time it took to give him a rendezvous point.
Two choices for meeting Ky, the mansion or the Sporting Bar. Ky wouldn’t make the decision where or when he died. It was a question of logistics. And our survival. On the ride to the market, I decided my best work had been in the night. Scaling the wall at the mansion would be the plan.
Motorized and foot-driven cyclos fought with Renaults, Peugeots, jeeps, and pedestrians for space on Le Loi. I hired a pedal cyclo outside the Majestic and joined the morning traffic. The street was already a fog of blue smoke, and the air smelled of baking, rancid fruit, Son Sai Gon River sewage, and exhaust. A dog nipped at my driver’s legs, and he barked back, careful not to offend the soul of the mangy bitch. Buddhist monks made their morning rounds in flowing, orange robes, knowing the believers would feed them without even holding out a hand. The few palm trees that still existed in this land of asphalt and smog looked as if they needed an emergency transfusion of clean air and water.