Duty and Dishonor: Author's Preferred Edition

by Dale A. Dye

  “So, you gonna try to get back in the saddle again with Ricky?”

  “She means a lot to me, Lu. I found that out by staying out of the saddle.”

  “Man, you need to lighten up. She doesn’t want what you’re selling. How come you can’t see that?”

  “How come you keep trying to run interference?”

  Lucinda backed off to eye him up and down. They just stood immersed in party noise for a while until she seemed to notice both their glasses were empty. Then she grabbed him by the belt and dragged him over to a long table groaning under a sweaty beer keg and assorted liquor bottles. She poured heavy hits of Wild Turkey into their beer glasses and turned toward the stereo in a dark comer. Bob Dylan was whining through his nose.

  “You dig Dylan?”

  Willy was caught off guard and sipped at the whiskey to cover his surprise. “What? Yeah, from what I hear of him he’s pretty good.”

  “They should have appointed him President when Tricky Dick bit the big weenie.” She sipped and listened for a while, catching up with the lyrics. Then she sang to him in a surprisingly pretty alto voice.

  “You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changing…”

  “Are you trying to tell me something, Lu?”

  “I’m saying you’re out of step, Mr. Marine. Can you dig it? Women today don’t want what you want, you know?”

  “How the hell do you know what I want?”

  “You are who you are, my man.”

  “And you’re stoned.”

  “You want a job and a house and a wife and some kids…all the apple pie American bullshit. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about coming home to that while you were in Vietnam.”

  “I thought about all kinds of shit when I was in Vietnam. What’s wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong is you come home expecting to get what you were thinking about, but this world has spun around a few times while you were over there in the jungle. It’s not the same place. People are finding out there’s more to life.”

  “Nobody said that’s what I want out of life.”

  “It’s what you fought for isn’t it? And you’re gonna drag some simple-minded woman onto that treadmill with you.”

  Willy looked around the room for Ricky, but the lights were dimmed to accommodate the dope smokers’ dilated pupils. He couldn’t spot her in any of the shadows. Lu’s cheeks were flushed as she splashed more bourbon into her glass.

  “I don’t want to stand around and argue with you all night, Lu. Let’s leave it.”

  “I’m a caring person, OK? I just don’t want to see Ricky throw her life away.”

  Willy swallowed a fiery jolt of bourbon and decided if Lucinda Harris wanted to play hardball, he was ready to pitch. “You know what I think, Lu? I think you’re pissed off because she won’t swing your way.”

  “You know what I think, Mr. Marine?” She picked up a half-full beer glass that several people had used for an ashtray. “I think the VC would have done us all a favor if they’d shot your cock off.” And then she splashed stale beer and cigarette butts all over the crotch of his new bell-bottoms. She showed him an upraised middle finger and then stormed off into a cloud of dope smoke.

  Willy Pud found Ricky by the flicker of a strobe light and pulled her into a corner. She snuggled against him and noticed the soggy condition of his trousers. He mumbled something about spilling a drink, avoiding any mention of the argument with her roommate.

  /

  /

  “There’s a pair of my dad’s old shorts in the bedroom. We can hang your pants in the shower until they dry.”

  Willy followed her into a back bedroom and stripped down to his skivvies. When he emerged into the room wearing nothing but an old ratty pair of Northwestern University athletic shorts, he felt silly and embarrassed standing still while Ricky eyed his torso. “It’ll have to do for now,” he said.

  “Let’s get a drink,” she said. “There’s some real beer in the kitchen.”

  No one in the party crowd seemed to notice a half-naked man threading through the mob that seemed to have grown exponentially while Willy was changing clothes. There were lots of semi-naked people in the room, and that number seemed to be growing everywhere he looked as he followed Ricky.

  She retrieved a beer for him from the refrigerator and then noticed a man standing by the sink, a small man with a neatly trimmed beard showing streaks of grey. She waved casually and then left Willy by the fridge while she went to talk to the man. Willy had seen him somewhere before on campus. The guy gave Ricky a hug and whispered something in her ear. He was intense, tightly wound, and Willy thought he remembered the guy might be an assistant professor or graduate student of some kind. If the man noticed Willy at all while he smiled and whispered with Ricky, he didn’t show it.

  He eventually nodded at Willy and brought his conversation with Ricky above a whisper as though he understood it was impolite to exclude the third person in the room. “I’d like to think it will have a healing effect,” he said, “but I just can’t see it right now. What do you think?”

  “What will have a healing effect?” Willy had no idea what the man had said earlier to Ricky.

  “The Nixon resignation, of course. No question it will finally bring an end to the war in Vietnam. Ford is an idiot but he’ll end it soon.”

  “I guess so…”

  “I mean, it’s been going on for ten years, ten agonizing years.”

  “Willy ought to know,” Ricky added. “He was over there for a couple of those years.”

  “Is that right?” The man shoved wire-rim glasses higher on his nose and stared at the scars on Willy’s torso as if he was examining a lab specimen. “Well, surely you understand it’s all over for the South Vietnamese. Don’t you think we ought to bring the objectors and the fugitives home from Canada and put the whole pitiful thing behind us?”

  Willy Pud just stared at the man from the other side of the kitchen table. Here’s another clueless bullshit artist on a soapbox, he thought. The booze was working on him and he was having a hard time thinking how to respond without upsetting Ricky. He leaned back to rest on the refrigerator and misjudged the distance which left him staggering for a moment.

  “You OK?” The man said wrapping his arm around Ricky’s waist as if to protect her from a reeling drunk.

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Tell me what you think as a man who has been there. I’m interested.”

  “I try not to think about it all that much.”

  The man stepped toward him pulling Ricky along and pointing at the scars on his body. “Are those from Vietnam?”

  “All except this one...” Willy pointed to his right eyebrow. “This one I got as a kid in a losing fight with a ’47 Oldsmobile. That was back before they issued me a rifle.”

  “Well, I’d think if anyone could see the mess we’re in over there, you could.”

  There was a half-full whiskey bottle on the kitchen table. Willy Pud slugged from it and swallowed a couple of times. He was hoping the whiskey would cool his temper. It did just the opposite.

  “We lost a lot of good young men over there,” the man said staring directly into Willy’s eyes, “For what?”

  “A little while ago, you asked me about the guys who ran to Canada, right?”

  “Yes, I did. I think they should be brought home without penalty. What do you think?”

  “You want the truth?” He saw Ricky shaking her head but decided to ignore it.

  “Of course I do. I wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise.”

  “Fuck those guys,” Willy said and hit the bottle again. Somehow the shocked expression on Ricky’s face seemed pleasing, even humorous. This dude asked for it, now he was going to get it. “I can’t blame anybody for not wanting to get their ass shot off. But I damn sure can call ’em the gutless cocksuckers they are.”

  An angry flu
sh appeared on the man’s cheeks above his beard line. Ricky was trying to pull him out of the kitchen. “So it’s your opinion that anyone who refused to go to Vietnam is a coward. Is that right?

  “I guess that about sums up my informed opinion in the matter.” Willy drank from the whiskey bottle and watched Ricky shove the angry man through the kitchen door and back into the heart of the party. She returned in a few moments to stand in front of him with her arms crossed and a sad expression on her face.

  “Why did you have to do that?”

  “Guys like that just can’t leave it alone. They’ve got to pick and pry at people. He don’t understand that the world don’t owe them anything. They got to pay dues just like everyone else. I figured he needed to know that.”

  “You’re drunk, Willy Pud. Let’s get you into the bedroom. You can lay down a little while and I’ll see if your pants are dry.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said when he slumped down on her bed. “Too much booze…I’m sorry I upset your friend.”

  She stood over him and looked at the scars on his body. There was a strange expression on her face. The little arrows appeared around her mouth and eyes as she smiled. She knelt and wrapped her arms around his shoulders running a thumb along a ridge of scar tissue.

  “He’s a visiting professor from SIU. He tried to feel me up one time in a Holiday Inn elevator.”

  Willy chuckled, feeling her lips on his neck. “Well then I should have kicked him in the nuts.”

  “That’s what I did,” she said and stood to lift the tank-top off over her head. Willy could almost feel the heat from her crotch right at his face level. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her breasts and the nipples were taut. He closed his eyes hoping this time she wouldn’t hold back and then opened them to watch her move topless across the room and lock the door.

  When she returned to the bedside, Willy put his hands on her buttocks and lifted her off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he spun slowly and laid her back onto the bed spread. She heaved with her hips and slipped off her panties and then tugged at his shorts. And then he was in her, sliding easily through her juices, breathing through his nose and grunting with each thrust. She moaned and thrust to meet him as she squirmed to bring their bodies into closer contact. She made little whining sounds as the friction increased and Willy could feel her heels digging into his hips. The climax left them both gasping.

  He panted into her breasts and listened as her heartbeat slowed. “I love you, Ricky.”

  She patted his butt and stretched. “You love fucking me, Willy Pud. Leave it at that for now.”

  j

  Sergeant Major Shifty Schaeffer parted the lobby crowd like a destroyer s cutting through an oil slick. Most of the well-dressed civilians, gathered for Chicago society functions in the Sheraton Blackstone, had probably never seen a live Marine in dress-blue uniform. Even those that had were visibly impressed by the martial splendor of the lanky man with gold chevrons and hashmarks covering his sleeves, three clanking banks of gleaming medals on his left breast, and the pale blue, star-spangled pendant wrapped around the high collar of his uniform blouse.

  Even Willy Pud found it hard not to stop and stare as he stood blocking traffic just inside the revolving door that led off State Street The rented tux with muted maroon tie and cummerbund, the rare ensemble that caused the old man to tear up the house searching for his old Kodak Instamatic, suddenly felt to Willy Pud like faded pair of jeans and a ratty T-shirt. He shifted the box and papers he carried and shook the Schaeffer’s hand. “Damn, Sarn’t Major! You look spectacular.”

  “About once a year I get the chance to break out the old rig and suit up. I gotta admit it feels great.” He grabbed Willy by the elbow and led him toward a dark, wood-paneled banquet room. A photographer, standing outside the closed doors near a sign announcing the Medal of Honor Society Installation Dinner, aimed and fired his strobe at them.

  “We got time for a drink,” Schaeffer said. “And then a couple of reporters want to talk to you before dinner…couple of local guys from the Sun-Times and Daily News.”

  They pushed through the doors and into a large room lit by crystal chandeliers that gave the polished wood and gleaming crystal of the banquet setup a twinkle. Willy saw several men were standing in small clutches around the periphery of the room. Some wore medal-encrusted uniforms and others wore tuxedos. All had the same Medal around their necks.

  “Jesus, I forgot.” Willy stopped and handed Sergeant Major Schaeffer the felt-covered box containing his Medal of Honor: “I didn’t know how to put this on with a tuxedo.”

  Schaeffer spun him around, fished the Medal out of the box, and fumbled with the catch until it hung around Willy’s neck, nestled neatly beneath his clip-on bow tie. He admired his work critically for a moment and then smiled.

  “Ain’t no regulation for it out of uniform. Guess they figure a guy’s got the Medal, he’ll wear it any damn way he wants to.”

  Willy stood self-consciously looking around the room while Sergeant Major Schaeffer went for drinks. Except for the Medal, there didn’t seem to be any common denominator among assembled members. In fact, most of the men Willy saw looked like businessmen or lawyers at first glance. There were overweight guys with gleaming jowls and Wall Street pallor as well as lanky, silver-maned patrician types with bone-deep Palm Springs tans. There were a few short sweaty guys, with the last remaining strands of hair swept over their skulls like shipyard heaving lines. Everyone stood casually around the room, smoking, sipping, and chatting. Mixed into the bag were men who supported crooked bodies on canes or crutches. Two were in wheelchairs, wearing tuxedo trousers cuffed and folded neatly where legs were missing. A blinded hero in dark glasses crossed to the bar on the only remaining arm of another man who wore a cluster of miniature medals proclaiming service in Korea pinned to the lapel of his tux.

  Willy nodded, smiled, and mumbled his name as a few of them stopped to meet him and welcome him to the fold. He felt alien and unworthy, fighting an urge to tear off his pleated shirt and expose some scar tissue, to demonstrate that he, too, had paid some painful dues to be here tonight. Sergeant Major Schaeffer was over by the bar, anchored in conversation with two younger, shaggier men who Willy knew would be the reporters. He began to edge away in the opposite direction until a voice nailed him in place.

  “You’re Pudarski, right? First Marine Division in The Nam?”

  Willy Pud spun to face a lean individual with dark hair and sparkling green eyes. The accent marked the man as a native of Queens or one of the inner boroughs. There was something vaguely familiar about the man’s pug Irish face. Willy smiled and shook an offered hand.

  “Name’s Bob O’Meara, Third MarDiv, Operation Starlight...back in ’65.”

  The light went on as Willy Pud recalled his very first combat operation in Vietnam. Starlight…the Special Landing Force he was with was brought down from Okinawa for an amphibious landing. Sometime in August that was, and Willy’s company landed in Amtracs right behind another unit that had been shot up and pinned down in a contested tree line. A lone Marine had broken the deadly log jam on the bloody beach south of Chu Lai that day. One sergeant from 3rd Marines had fought his way into the trenches and single-handedly killed a bunch of main-force VC defenders. Willy seemed to recall the guy had absorbed nine or ten hits before he finally fell. And he was fairly sure that very man was standing right in front of him.

  “I seem to remember helping to load you on a medevac chopper.”

  “You guys probably thought I was dead man. Hell, so did I.”

  “Shocked me fairly solid seeing you all torn up that day. I was just a Lance Corporal, first time in combat.”

  O’Meara shrugged and pulled at his drink. “Just wasn’t my time to check out, I guess. And somebody had to get us moving off that beach. You know how it is. You do what you gotta do, right?”

  Sergeant Major Schaeffer made his way acr
oss the room with the reporters in tow. He made introductions and handed Willy a stiff drink. O’Meara made no move to leave as an uncomfortable silence settled over the group.

  “Hey, Sarn’t Major, turns out me and Pudarski hit the same beach together on Starlight. He was one of the guys that policed me up and loaded me on a chopper.”

  “It was my first op. . .” Willy mumbled into his drink. “They hit the Amtrac I was riding with a B-40 and killed a couple of guys. Thought that was gonna be the end of it right there.”

  One of the reporters checked his watch. “We got a deadline, Mr. Pudarski. Can we go somewhere and do a little interview?”

  Sergeant Major Shaeffer grabbed O’Meara by the elbow and started to lead him toward the bar. O’Meara resisted for a moment and then whispered to the reporters. “In case you’re looking for a little something extra, gents, you can quote me on this. I think what Ford did today stinks and it dishonors all the good men who served in Vietnam.”

  “C’mon, Bob. It ain’t your interview.” Schaeffer led O’Meara away and Willy Pud followed the reporters to a corner table where both men broke out notebooks and small tape recorders.

  “Guess we might as well get the hard stuff out of the way,” said the man from the Chicago Sun-Times as they got seated. “How do you feel about the President’s announcement?”

  “Is that what you’re here to write about?”

  “No, not specifically, but it’s kind of hard to ignore reaction from veterans when the President signs a proclamation offering clemency to draft evaders and people who ran off to avoid going to Vietnam.”

  Willy took a deep breath and tried to decide what the Medal of Honor Society expected him to say. Schaeffer said they were mostly apolitical, but clearly at least one member didn’t give a shit about that. “My reaction’s about the same as you heard from Bob O’Meara, I guess. I don’t know how we’re gonna convince veterans they did the right thing by going to Vietnam if we just shrug it off and forgive the guys who broke the law and ran off to Canada or somewhere.”