Dragon Lady

by Gary Alexander

  On his nightstand were the reasons the brass had paid him a call. There were gold oak leaves on it. Captain Papersmith was now Major Papersmith. The major had tubes in his nose and was dozing. Besides the promotion, there was a medal case and a citation for bravery. I saw the Silver Star pinned to his pajamas and read the citation.

  Then-Captain Dean J. Papersmith had been cited for heroism in the face of a Vietcong guerrilla bombing attack in a Saigon civilian recreational establishment frequented by MACV military personnel. Disregarding his own safety, he’d shielded a fellow soldier, an enlisted man, in all likelihood saving his life when the communist bomb explosion had occurred. He’d unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the death of a second enlisted man, whom he’d heroically administered first aid to following a firefight in which he’d mortally wounded one fleeing perpetrator and killed the other.

  I stood there a moment, breathing deeply, to regain a modicum of self-control.

  I gently nudged the major, then smiled and whispered hello into his ear, as not to disturb or attract the attention of his roommates or the medical staff.

  He gave me a sidelong glance and a weak nod.

  “Congratulations on your battlefield promotion, sir.”

  An even weaker nod.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” I whispered. “Nothing too serious, I trust.”

  “They’re running tests,” he rasped. “They’ll know soon.”

  I gave his Silver Star a tug and said I knew one thing that was wrong. “Do I have to spell it out, Major, sir?”

  He shook his head.

  “Isn’t the Silver Star the third highest heroism award, sir? The next higher being the Distinguished Service Cross? The first is the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

  He nodded.

  I moved in against his ear. Speaking as congenially as a Red Cross Donut Dolly wheeling a coffee and sweets cart, taking requests, I said, “Fine, what’s done is done. I personally didn’t give a damn about medals, but if you don’t put Ziggy in for a DSC, I’m gonna shove your Silver Star up your ass. Sideways. Give you a legit reason for being in your deathbed here. Do you understand, you miserable craven despicable useless sneaky worthless chickenshit rancid lying ass-licking piece-of-bat-guano douche-bag motherfucking cocksucking dildo of a cowardly peckerhead cunt? Sir.”

  He nodded.

  “And slip in here in the dark of night and take those fucking tubes out of your fucking nose and make them into a fucking tourniquet for your family-fucking-jewels.”

  He flinched.

  “And strangle your scrotum with it like I’d twist a chicken’s neck.”

  Another flinch, bordering on a spasm.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” I said, straightening up and clicking my heels. I saluted and did a snappy one-eighty.

  ***

  Two days later, a MACV awards and decorations clerk came by and asked me to verify the major’s narrative on Private Edward N. Zbitgysz, a true version of events. I said it was correct to my recollection. I added that Private Zbitgysz was the bravest man I ever knew. My tears made the clerk uneasy, so he scribbled notes fast and bugged out.

  Later in that day, while I was on the terrace, enjoying the sun and reading, Lee Harvey Oswald came up to me. They brought books on carts for us and the selection was slim, but I was halfway through a dandy, a recent best-seller set in Paris when the Germans were bailing out in 1944. To torch the city or not to torch the city, as mandated by the Führer, that was the question.

  I didn’t realize he was there till he was five feet from me, clearing his throat to get my attention. He handed me picture ID that identified him as Chief Warrant Officer R. Tracy of the CID, the Criminal Investigation Division.

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Private Joe,” he said, smirking.

  I looked at the ID, looked at him, looked at the ID. I thought of the cartoon Dick Tracy’s powerful, square jaw, in contrast to CWO Tracy’s weak Oswaldian counterpart. “Oh, right. I vaguely remember you chatting with Sergeant Rubicon. How’s Rubicon doing?”

  “Better than his wife is.”

  “Nice guy. It’s a shame.”

  His smirk tilted but didn’t widen. “Go ahead, take your time. Everybody does.”

  “I’m dying to know what the R. stands for, Mr. Detective R. Tracy.”

  He snapped his fingers, and I handed him back the embossed plastic.

  “What’d I do for you to follow me throughout Saigon and hunt me all the way here to Clark?”

  “I think you know.”

  Me and my Dragon Lady/Mata Hari. Not to mention dealings with Mr. Singh, the stolen M-14 and ammo and Jeep we sold to Singh, various and sundry shenanigans at the 803rd, ad infinitum. After I break every rock inside Leavenworth’s walls, I’ll build my own gallows.

  Proactive was a future buzzword we’d been mercifully spared in the 1960s. But proactively, I laid my best hard-ass stare on the CID agent till he averted his beady eyes, and said, “Don’t have the foggiest what you’re talking about, Mr. Tracy. The army must not have much crime for you to investigate for you to harass a wounded soldier who, incidentally, was awarded a Bronze Star for valor.”

  “If you want to play dumb, Private, it’s your funeral.”

  He pulled stapled sheets of paper out of his briefcase and rattled off familiar titles of books, beginning with People’s War People’s Army. It took him five minutes to finish.

  “Ring a bell?” he said.

  My overdue library books. I was stunned. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to shit or go blind. Immensely relieved that we weren’t on the subject of black marketeering and/or high treason, I exhaled and said. “Most were damn good reads.”

  “Good? If you have a taste for seditious communist filth, they are. Half these books you stole raise a stink in respect to the status quo,” CWO Tracy said. “Why would you care what the Vietminh did to the French army at Dien Bien Phu? The Quiet American by some anti-American limey named Greene Graham too. Were you gloating?”

  “Are you a literature critic, sir? Some of these are classics. And, hey, they were in the Tan Son Nhat library.”

  “I’m expressing my opinion as a good, loyal American.”

  “Opinions are like assholes,” I said. “Everybody’s got one. Last I heard, America’s a free country based on a piece of paper that includes the First Amendment.”

  CWO Tracy laughed. “Not when you’re in the army is it a free country. You’re government property. Not when you’ve stolen that many books from military-operated libraries at Tan Son Nhat.”

  “How many?”

  “I’ve tallied two-hundred-and-thirteen books. A sizable percentage are subversive, written by artists, communists and faggots like those weirdo Spaniard painters.”

  “What faggot weirdo Spanish painters and what have they got to do with books?”

  “Paul Picasso and whatshisname Daley.”

  I had to laugh. “Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí weren’t fairies, Tracy. They got more ass than a toilet seat. You and I should be so lucky. You want subversive, you should see Dr. Strangelove―”

  “I walked out halfway through. Antiwar propaganda.”

  “The ending where the world’s one big mushroom cloud farm, yeah, it might be considered propaganda. Irrespective of your movie review, Tracy, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the greatest movie ever made. Know where I saw it? The Ft. Ord post theatre.”

  Note: I also saw Strangelove on DVD toward my earthly end when the chemo and meds failed to conquer the pain. Over and over again. Gave me a chuckle or three.

  “Let’s stay on the subject, Private Joe,” CWO R. Tracy said. “You have in your possession two-hundred-and-thirteen pieces of stolen government property.”

  I thought the total might be closer to three hundred, but, hey, who’s counting?

  “I didn’t steal them, I borrowed them. I had every intention of returning them, but I’ve been busy taking on more responsibility, on specia
l assignments involving alternative matériel sources. Plus assisting in repulsing a communist attack on the 803rd Annex and sustaining injuries, from which I am slowly recovering.”

  “Spare me the bullshit, Private Joe. A number of the books have been overdue for months. Did they go on the black market?”

  “Oh, I get it now. You’re the library police.”

  “Don’t get smart, soldier.”

  “I didn’t think books were a hot item on the black market unless they’re photos of naked ladies or the Gutenberg Bible.”

  “That’s how much you know, Joe.”

  “You’ll find them all in our hotel room if it hasn’t been cleaned out.”

  I was confident the books would be untouched, as I was the only person I knew who would steal a book. I asked Tracy if he knew who he looked like.

  He said he’d been reminded five million times and that he was saving up for plastic surgery the army wouldn’t pay for.

  “I don’t deserve this,” he said bitterly. “My career was on the rise until November 22, 1963. On top of the teasing about my name, I’m reduced to petty theft investigations of smart-mouthed pinko punks like you.”

  “I’m awfully sorry,” I lied. “Your talents are being squandered.”

  “Are you patronizing me, Private?”

  “Not me, sir. I do wish you’d tell me what the R. stands for.”

  He ignored me and said since I cooperated and was wounded in action and had been under a Vietcong attack at my unit, he’d drop charges if the books were where I said they’d be. I suspected he was making a bigger deal out of me than he had to.

  If he’d followed me to the 803rd and Mai’s, he sure as hell knew where I lived, where the books were. I had a sneaking hunch that Tracy didn’t mind being tied up in a long-term library book caper. He wouldn’t have to go nose-to-nose with hardcore criminals, tough customers of both the American and Vietnamese variety.

  Regardless, I never saw CWO Tracy of the CID again. Nor, alas, the books.

  ***

  By and by, they C-130’d me back to Tan Son Nhat, where I got a final check-up at the field hospital. The airbase was Grand Central Station. Uniformed U.S. units and their vehicles and equipment were arriving in droves. Weeks away from Saigon seemed like years.

  I was itching to go into town to find my Dragon Lady and get the truth out of her, but the hospital kept an eye on us. Everybody was going by the book about everything, no exceptions. This war was getting beyond serious.

  I was sitting on my bunk in the transient hootch, waiting for my reassignment orders when in walked Charlie. I’d been reading the Nazis-in-Gay Paree book I’d totally forgotten to leave behind at Clark. Charlie jolted me out of my literary trance a helluva lot quicker than CWO R. Tracy had.

  Reflexively, I slapped my pocket for the pistol I no longer owned. My sudden action puzzled him. His baggy ARVN uniform puzzled me.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “What the hell you,” Charlie said. “Tell me, Joe. Why you shoot me when electric pole blow up?”

  “I wasn’t shooting. I prevented a Looney Tunes colonel from drilling you, pal. I grabbed his arm or you’d be dead.”

  “For sure?”

  “For sure.”

  As it wasn’t clear if Charlie was unarmed, I played it cool. Though I was aching to, I didn’t inquire why he’d slung a satchel charge in the GiGi Snack Bar, killing Ziggy and almost me, too. I didn’t want a repeat performance. I wanted justice. And some truth, too.

  With all the cool I was able to muster, I swallowed, then asked, “So how are you?”

  “Not for shit, Joe. They grab me off street two week ago. Take me to Quang Trung.”

  “Nice of you to drop by. How’d you get away?” I spoke slowly, as if to a child, attempting to read him.

  “They give me pass. Liberty.”

  An outright lie. Unless he’d signed his own pass. The South Vietnamese Army did not let fresh meat out of their sight.

  “Me sorry for Ziggy. You too, Joe.”

  Charlie was deadpan, eyes glazing. Damn good acting on his part. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t say a word.

  “Joe, why you look at me how you look at me?”

  Enough beating around the bush. “Charlie, there’s a hitch in your shoulder. You get hurt recently?”

  He lifted a leg and showed me a skinned knee. “No shoulder. Leg. Me ride Honda on Tran Quy Cap Street. You know Tran Quy Cap, Joe?”

  “Yeah. Parallel to Hong Tap Tu. Isn’t there an Italian restaurant there?”

  “Traffic slow. ARVN, they pull truck in front me, yell to show ID. I try go by. Guy in truck have pole he stick out. Knock me off bike.”

  “You’re in the army now,” I sang badly. “Sure you didn’t hurt a shoulder?”

  “No shoulder. Knee.”

  “Raise your shirt and turn around. Lift it high,” I said, as if I were Colonel Lanyard giving an order. My eyes didn’t leave him.

  I went through the hand motions, so there’d be no misunderstanding what I wanted him to do.

  Charlie smiled nervously and palmed his crotch. “They operate on you in hospital? Cut prick off? You go queer, Joe? Your hands on me when we go see them shoot rich Chinaman, go too late. Too many people to push through.”

  “It’s a game of inches.”

  “Then we go Dakao. You ask me about boy and girl. You bullshit and say girl not for you.”

  “C’mon, Charlie, humor me. They’re having a mosquito problem here,” I said, changing my tone. “They’ve got long stingers and carry malaria, yellow fever, all that nasty shit. It’s for your own good. I can get you treated here if you have it.”

  He did humor me, exposing a smooth brown back. No scars, no bullet holes, nary a pimple.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered, lacking the gonads to confess my suspicions.

  Lesson learned: We all look alike to him and they all look alike to us. A Vietnamese Charlie his size and age on a motorbike in the heat of bloodletting was therefore a Charlie of the VC persuasion.

  His friendship was pure, mine racial and tentative.

  “Anything I can do for you, man?” I asked, feeling lower than snakeshit.

  “No, Joe.”

  “Cigarettes? I got a brand-new ration.”

  Charlie shook his head. “No time.”

  That was when I knew Charlie was saying goodbye. He was going over the hill. The only reason he hadn’t ditched the uniform yet was to get in to see me.

  We small-talked on the good times. The drinking and carousing with Ziggy. The pussy at Mama-san’s. The execution we barely missed (no sweat, Charlie had said, plenty more greedy Chinamen). Our long talks. Coffee and pastries at Dakao. Him acquiring the vital electrical plugs.

  “I like you, Joe. Mama-san, you good to her.”

  “She was nice, Charlie. Despite her profession, she’s a good lady.”

  “Mama-san, she my mother me.”

  That was a bulletin. I could not summon a reply.

  We had a big hug and Charlie left.

  It was my turn for glassy eyes.

  ***

  Kind reader, I am so sorry. Remember when I walked away from Slick after my chicken or fish wisecrack and heard Smitty scream inside his house? And left you hanging?

  Well, this is what happened….

  Smitty comes flying out his front door, legs pumping, still screaming as he sees me and angles in my direction.

  “Whoa Nellie,” I say, palms up.

  He skids to a stop on the slippery grass and nearly takes a tumble.

  “Joe, they invade. All over my house. I don’t know. I never see them before. I cannot turn without one in my face.”

  “Who? What?”

  “I don’t know. They have these uniforms on.”

  He’s gasping, incoherent. “Okay, okay. Go in my place and watch some TV. The Vietnam War is on. It’ll settle you down.”

  He obeys and I walk into his place.

&nbs
p; “Hello, young man.”

  “Uh, hi, Sister.”

  The nun in black-and-white habit is gray, bespectacled and plump. I shake her proffered flesh-and-blood hand.

  “I’m Sister Agnes. And you, sir?”

  More nuns are behind her, busying themselves with dust mops and lemon-scented waxes. The aroma of baking dominates.

  “Er, um, I’m Joe.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Joe. Would you like a chocolate chip cookie? Sister Mary Jean is a wonderful baker. They’ll be done shortly.”

  I hear more activity upstairs. “I would very much, Sister. Thank you. May I ask where you came from?”

  Sister Agnes frowns. “That’s the strangest thing, Joe. I know that I’m in The Great Beyond. My fellow sisters do, too. But we cannot recall the circumstances that brought us here nor the acquaintance of one another.”

  “Very peculiar,” I say. “How many of you are there?”

  “Seventy of us. We counted.”

  I smile, but do not reply. Bingo. Smitty’s promised seventy virgins.

  “The young man who lives here, he is troubled.”

  I nod. “He sure is.”

  “He’s messy. We’ll clean up after him and cook, and try to be of comfort to him.”

  “He’ll appreciate it when he calms down. I know he will.”

  “Joe, I hear the oven door open. The cookies should be ready.”

  “Lead the way, Sister Agnes.”

  23.

  NEXT MORNING, I see no activity at Slick’s. I check the house out as I did upon meeting Madge. Gone. Him and the old sergeant both. What the hell is this place, a halfway house?

  I’m sitting on that porch, searching my brain for some logic in this. Yeah, our ringmasters have off-the-wall funny bones, but I’m failing to capture their reasoning. Is there reasoning?

  I am in the midst of sadistic and well-planned chaos.

  There is a relatively-new science in the Land of the Living known as chaos theory. Where things are chaotic, except they really ain’t, something like that.

  Whichever, it’s all about tormenting me and me tormenting Smitty. I can think of no other reason why he’s still around.

  An hour ago, he came out to bitch about today’s elevator-music tune: “La Bamba.”