Sweet Sunday

by John Lawton

  I knew nothing and told him so. When Dien Bien Phu had happened I’d been more into girls and Little Richard than international politics in faraway countries no one had ever heard of.

  ‘They moved artillery across a mountain range. Stripped it down, strapped it on to bicycles, pushed it, put it back together. Took the French completely by surprise. They were expecting coolies in pointed hats to rush at them with machetés. Vietnamese blew them to hell. They can still do it. Stuff gets moved across territory you’d think twice about taking a mule into. They can appear out of nowhere, behind your own lines, armed with equipment we’d need a chopper to shift. Now—do you get my point?’

  I didn’t.

  ‘This—this is what we’re up against. A rice-fed killing machine who doesn’t need Hershey bars, Coca Cola and visits from Bob Hope. Given the nature—that is what it is—of our enemy, I try not to make mistakes.’

  ‘Ah—I was wondering when we’d get to that.’

  ‘Mouse told you about the dynamite kid he killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d heard about them. Till then I’d never seen one. Used ’em a lot against the French. One guy straps on as much high explosive as he can run with, charges an otherwise impregnable line and blows a hole in it with his own body. The kamikaze for our times. Mr Raines—we don’t have time for mistakes.’

  I threw the rifle back at him. He caught it one-handed.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘The little guy with the rifle in Vietnam is invincible—so you slaughter his unarmed women and children instead.’

  Feaver locked the gun back in the rack.

  ‘Are you even listening to me, Mr Raines?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Feaver. Sole purpose of visit.’

  I could see from his eyes that he knew the quotation in full. ‘Is it your intention to in any way subvert or overthrow the Government of the United States?’ was a question on the old immigration form and some English joker—God knows, Wilde, Waugh—had written ‘sole purpose of visit’ as his answer. The way I heard it, they still let him in. But . . . there was not a flicker of a smile.

  Feaver muttered ‘Jesus Christ’ and stormed off. I followed. It was the first time I’d managed to unnerve him. Best chance yet to get more out of him than he was getting out of me.

  I found him in yet another room, rough pine and spartan, hardly a speck of dust but hardly a human imprint either. Like all his rooms it looked unlived in or lived in by a man who lived between his ears. This one was a west-facing sun trap—huge glass wraparound windows, a view down the valley—it was almost like home. I’d be summoned to a room like this by Sam to receive a catalogue of my sins or, in sentimental mood, to get a version of his ‘one day, my boy all this will be yours’ lecture.

  He turned on me, back to the window, angry but holding it in.

  ‘Mr Raines, do you have any idea what’s happening out there?’ The left arm sweeping across the vista, demonstrative, possessive, whatever. I stuck my neck out.

  ‘Yes. If you ask a question as dumb as that I’ll give you an answer just as dumb. You’ve been to Vietnam, I haven’t. You’ve blown away women and kids. I haven’t. You sat in the cage for twelve weeks. I didn’t. You’ve already convinced me that imagination is not enough. But do I know what’s happening in Vietnam? Are we talking about the big picture? Then yes. I think a lot of Americans know what’s happening in Vietnam. I think most sentient beings in America should know what’s happening in Vietnam. I spent the last six weeks talking to people back from ’Nam. And that’s all America needs to do—just to listen to the kids who’re fighting the war in Vietnam for them.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about Vietnam. I was talking about America!’

  Damn—wrong again.

  ‘But—you’re right about one thing. Every American should know what is being done in Vietnam for them. Every American should grasp where this war stands in . . . in America’s . . .’

  He was fumbling for words for the first time, chopping at the air with his hands.

  ‘The word you’re searching for is destiny,’ I said.

  ‘Fine—destiny it is. I’m not crazy about the word, but let’s use it. What is the war’s place in our destiny? And don’t answer. I’ll tell you. It’s a watershed as big as 1776. As big as 1861. It’s a war we have to win, but it’s a war we’re losing.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ I said.

  I had him on the hop—just. He was nowhere near as cool as he tried to pretend. I stood stock still looking down the valley, he paced up and down in front of the window, a small figure in a landscape rendered up as Cinemascope.

  ‘Did you watch Chicago on the nightly news, Mr Raines?’

  ‘No, Mr Feaver. I was there. I was part of Chicago.’

  Feaver paused and nodded. It is the only time in my life I have ever stated my involvement in that bloodbath with anything approaching pride.

  ‘Fine, that’s good, saves a lot of time. You’ll know that Notley was there?’

  ‘Sure—I read your clipping. That’s how you found Notley, that’s how you found Mel. It’s also how you got him killed.’

  He didn’t rise to that.

  ‘What is the slogan that your generation trucks out so lightly?’

  Jeez—pick any one of two dozen.

  ‘How about,’ he went on, ‘Bring the War Home?’

  I shrugged. Fine by me. I’d heard Rubin use it a lot.

  ‘What do you think it means, Mr Raines?’

  ‘What it says. Give civil Amerika a taste of what’s going down.’

  ‘Good—we agree. That is what Notley did. That is why I wrote to him. That is why I admire him, he has his place. He told America what it did not wish to know. That if the war in Vietnam is not won it will surely come home. Notley kicked off the first battle in the Vietnam war to be fought on American soil. It was a timely reminder. Because if we do not pursue the war, if we do not win the war, then we will end up bringing it all back home. It will be fought out in our streets and on our campuses for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘You know,’ I said slowly, somewhat chilled by his vision of my future, ‘You and Notley seem like the most unholy alliance I can imagine. You want opposing ends, but your means seem identical. We can’t win another Chicago. We didn’t even win the last one. But we can stop you winning in Vietnam all the same. If “Bring the War Home” won’t work, if “By Any Means Necessary” won’t work, there’s always “Hell No We Won’t Go”. We can stop you.’

  ‘And if you do . . . the history of America will be marred for a generation or more . . . the culture will be . . . crippled . . . the national psyche . . . permanently damaged . . . the last quarter of this century will make the ten years after the Civil War look like a national holiday. We could not reconstruct the South. We will have hell on earth trying to reconstruct America.’

  (Was he preaching at me? Absofuckinlutely, as my late wife would say.)

  I guess I’m giving you the gist of what the bastard said. Because I know that by the time I’d argued back and he’d argued back some more night was falling again, and a haze of sunset glimmered behind him in the window, blotting out his features, making it seem as though his voice spoke to me from a silhouette framed in a red-rimmed halo—a total eclipse of the man.

  I’d had enough of his theory. I hauled him back.

  ‘So for the soul of a nation you slaughter one hundred and thirty-four Vietnamese women, kids and old men.’

  ‘The dead are dead.’

  ‘And you pile ’em up.’

  ‘And I pile ’em up. And people like you count ’em . . . you know, you’re the first person to tell me how many died at Phuong. I never counted and I never asked. That’s what’s wrong with the way we are fighting the war. Too many clerks, too many statisticians, too many hacks. Too few warriors. Instead
what we have are figures, ream upon ream of figures—­percentages for this, percentages for that. Cost of a dead GI to the VC? 27 cents. Cost of a dead VC to us? $10,000. Payments made in compensation to the Vietnamese? $20 for a wound, $33.99 for a dead relative. Took a shoe salesman to work out that last figure. How many dead are VC? How many dead are civilian? . . . and everyone invents and everyone lies . . . when what matters, all that matters, is that the dead are dead.’

  I thought for a split second that his tone might be sadness or regret, but I concluded it was just matter-of-fact. And he wasn’t through yet.

  ‘We can win this war. What we need is a General Sherman—someone who’ll cut a swathe the length of Vietnam through every living thing like marching through Georgia.’

  Hurrah, hurrah. The flag that sets you free.

  Right.

  It was a good time to tell him he was nuts. I didn’t bother. I did what any self-respecting coward would do, I changed the subject. There were things I still had to know and I felt time running out.

  ‘Why did you set Mel to find the Nine? You had all Mouse’s 35mm? Were you just mopping up?’

  ‘No—nothing so simple. I gave the 35mm films to Phoenix. I needed what Mouse had. Notley wouldn’t put me in touch with Mouse. That’s where your friend came in.’

  ‘What concerns me is where he went out.’

  ‘Like I said. You have a ways to go yet. Get your gear together. You’re leaving.’

  Orders are orders. I did as I was told. Which consisted of finding my boots and my belt—the only items of clothing six days in the cage hadn’t ruined—and my bag. My notes were in it, my car keys weren’t and neither were the photographs. That didn’t surprise me. I didn’t think anyone would ever see them again. They’d be buried along with Mouse’s 35 mm shots. Without them my notes were uncorroborated. Just the word of two discharged grunts, albeit purple-hearted grunts, versus a serving colonel. Which is to say . . . next to useless. I figured to keep his clothes. It would be so unlike your average mass-murderer to send a guy out buck naked.

  Feaver reappeared. A change of outfit. Combat boots. One of those vests of a thousand pockets that hunters wear to house cartridges and fishing flies. And he had an M16 over his shoulder.

  ‘Come on,’ was all he said.

  I followed him down to the garage again. He flicked a lot of switches, the lights came on, the doors swung open and I saw the night cut up by floodlights, sweeping out across the ridges of a freshly plowed field all the way to my car. Stuck out on the side, looking, as it inevitably had to, like a fat little bug at the perimeter of light.

  ‘You moved my car?’

  He ignored this. Reached into his inside pocket and stuck the envelope containing Mouse’s photos in my hand.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I said in all honesty.

  ‘Take ’em.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take ’em. They’re yours. Write it all up. Publish what you can.’

  ‘Mel Kissing died to get you these.’

  ‘Mel Kissing died to get at the truth. The truth is in your hand now. Finish the job, Mr Raines. Publish them.’

  I finally got the message.

  I stuffed the photos in my bag.

  I felt I’d earned them. O hubris, O fuckin’ hubris.

  Feaver said, ‘I suppose you think you’ve earned them?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I said wondering about the man’s power of perception.

  ‘Not yet, but you will.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Your car is about two hundred yards off. The keys are in the ignition. You could be out of here in less than two minutes. Between you and the car are thirty land mines. Maybe a couple more. I wasn’t counting. You get across without tripping one, and the whole story is yours. You’ll be home free. You could even end up a hero.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No—I never kid. Start running.’

  I laughed. He swung the gun off his shoulder, racked up and said, ‘Run.’

  I didn’t move. He put a bullet into the ground right between my feet. I stared him out. I’d seen this Western too. He slipped the gun onto rock ’n’ roll and cut up the ground around my feet, nicked a piece out of my boots and I ran. Right across that damn field. In a straight line for my car, with bullets zipping up behind me. And a voice that just screamed. I think it was me. I know it was me. I ran until my lungs burned, and then I still ran—on and on as straight as a die. What was the point in bobbing and weaving? I was as likely to hit a mine that way as this way, so I just ran. I fell on my face, sprawled full length on the ground. I waited for the earth to move. It didn’t. Then Feaver’s voice boomed out across the field.

  ‘Get up!’

  I turned my head. Nothing but the glare of floodlights.

  ‘Get-up-you-son-of-a-bitch!’ Every single syllable word rattled off with metrical emphasis.

  I couldn’t move—I was glued to the ground with terror.

  Feaver put a spread all around me. Another bullet nicked into my boots. I leapt up. Screamed. I ran. Still screaming.

  I collapsed against the side of the car. A last volley of bullets tore into the ploughed strip a yard from my feet. The muscles in my legs twitched and jerked with a life of their own. I couldn’t see Feaver—he could surely see me, lit up like the Statue of Liberty. The light was blinding. Why then do I have the lasting impression that he had waved at me? Just once, but he waved. And then I knew. There were no mines. He wanted me alive. He needed me alive. He always had. There was still something I could do for him, he could not do for himself. This was endgame—he’d just moved his last piece. Me.

  I got to my feet, legs like jelly, sucked all the air I could into my lungs. He wasn’t going to shoot me now.

  ‘Fuck you, Jack. Fuck you, Jack!’

  I don’t know how long I yelled or how many times I said it. Twenty, fifty, a hundred? Fuck you, Jack. I was hoarse when I gave up. And answer came there none. The lights went out. I was alone in the sugary pinewood darkness of summer. After the roar of Feaver’s M16, an almost deathly quiet. No rustling in the grass, no hoot of an owl, no fervent ticking of night insects, no booming bass of frogs—between the two of us we’d silenced every other life form. I felt like Ishmael—the last living man, bobbing to the surface on Queequeg’s coffin. For a few minutes, till I came to my senses, got in the car and drove off, I felt as though I’d survived a unique ordeal, been washed up as the sole survivor, alive when Mel and Marty and Gus and half a squad of grunts and a hundred and thirty-four Vietnamese were not. But I hadn’t and I wasn’t. That was Feaver’s point. To save me imagining what I could not imagine. Call me Idiot.

  §

  I drove carefully. I did not trust myself at speed. Just over the state line, a few yards into New York, someone came up behind me at sixty, pushed me off the road and into the ditch. My head bounced off the steering wheel, and when I looked up whoever it was had swung around to fix me in his headlights. He walked out between them, face hidden by the glare as Feaver’s had been by the sunset, but it wasn’t Feaver. He was too short—that much I could see—and he was aiming a pump action shotgun right at me.

  ‘Get out!’

  I stood at the side of the car. Put my hands in the air. Gangling idiot that I was.

  He blew the hood off the VW, and levelled the gun at me again before I could even blink. The hood slammed into the windshield and shattered it. I found myself wondering, almost idly in the face of possessive terror, if he might actually not know the engine is in the rear on a VW.

  He came right up to me.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Where’s what?’

  He slammed the gun into my face. I went down and as I did he put the boot into my ribs. I watched from the ground as he walked to the back of the car and pum
ped two shots into the engine, saw a trail of gray-black smoke start up out of the grill.

  He came back to me.

  ‘Where is it?’

  He dragged me half upright with one hand.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘What did he give you?’

  ‘He didn’t give me anything.’

  ‘You got one chance, sucker.’

  I was on my knees now. He placed the barrel of the gun against my forehead and said, ‘You got one chance. Where is it?’

  ‘Where’s what, for Chrissake?’

  He pressed the barrel into my skin. I heard the explosion, felt the force of it, felt blood and brain slide across my face, saw him bounce off the side of the car with half his head blown away and fall at my feet like a rag doll. I didn’t even have time to scream.

  Three guys came out of the darkness. The first one turned back to a guy with a rifle and said, ‘Clear the car now. It’s going to blow any minute.’

  Then he and a third guy took an armpit apiece and dragged me away. I’d got as articulate as ‘whaaa?’ when I heard the gas tank blow and twisted round to see my little yellow Bug go up in flames. The second guy caught up with us, my bag in one hand, his rifle in the other.

  ‘Got it,’ was all he said.

  They hauled me to a gravel road. A tan Ford was parked just off the highway. They helped me into the back and I remember noting the cop gesture as one of them put his hand on my head and steered me into the seat.

  I found myself seated between two guys, with the one giving the orders up front next to the driver. He turned round to me and said, ‘You know, if you’d not tried so hard to lose us in Chicago and then in Jackson, none of this need have happened.’ Then he turned back and the driver started up.