R&R

by Mark Dapin

  ‘It’ll be lovely,’ said Betty. Her tongue touched her top lip.

  ‘But we always said . . .’ said Shorty.

  Betty didn’t want to tell him what she’d learned: that the human body was just a breathing, eating, bleeding machine. It wasn’t sacred. It had been defiled. It was meat, that was all, and one day it would be dead meat, and the real glaring, blaring, screaming, gigantically obvious wrong thing wasn’t using your body for love or sex, it was men organising themselves to kill each other, and calling it war so it didn’t look like crime.

  ‘You don’t think it would spoil things?’ asked Shorty.

  ‘I think it will make them even better,’ said Betty.

  After dessert, which Betty called ‘divine’, Simpson from Simpson brought the cheese board, with a knife that looked as if it were made to gouge the eyes out of birds.

  Shorty didn’t much like strong cheeses, but Betty already seemed used to them.

  ‘In the corner of my room, there’s a spider as big as my hand,’ said Betty.

  Shorty braced, as if he were about to leave the restaurant, run back to ALSG and chase it away.

  Betty waved him down. ‘A year ago,’ she said, ‘I would’ve run off to ask the nearest man to bat it with a broomstick or catch it in a bucket. Now, I just lie in bed and watch it, as if it were a pattern on the wall.’

  Shorty nodded, vaguely grateful.

  ‘I’m not scared of things any more,’ said Betty.

  Tâm opened the red wine. Shorty checked his watch, but they still had an hour before curfew.

  ‘This has been the most wonderful meal of my life,’ said Betty.

  Shorty suspected she had liked it because she had wanted to enjoy it. Anyone could tell the flavours were a bit much.

  They had only drunk a glass each of the merlot when Tâm gave them cognac. On top of beer and wine, the brandy sent Shorty’s head spinning.

  ‘Monsieur et mademoiselle,’ said Nashville, ‘was everything to your satisfaction?’

  ‘It was perfect,’ said Betty.

  ‘If you’re all finished,’ said Nashville, ‘your car is ready to take you home. The slow route.’

  On the way back through the bar, Betty kissed Moreau and Shorty shook his hand. Shorty kissed Tâm’s hand while Nashville brushed up against her ass.

  Once Betty and Shorty were settled in to the Cadillac, Nashville drew a curtain to separate the back seats from the front. He pushed a tape into the eight-track, and the car set off in the opposite direction to ALSG.

  Betty immediately kissed Shorty on the lips. He ran his hand over her breast in her dress. She took hold of it, and pushed it inside her bra. Shorty felt her nipple. Betty did not reach for Shorty, the way she did at the movies. Instead, she guided him to feel her.

  She was wearing no underpants.

  ‘They spoil the line of the dress,’ she said.

  Shorty wondered who had told her that.

  Oh my God, thought Shorty, she wants to do it now, with Nashville in the car.

  He kissed her and kissed her but whispered, ‘Not here.’

  Betty became more insistent, with her hands and with her legs.

  ‘We should wait,’ said Shorty.

  Betty slid her tongue into his ear.

  Shorty didn’t push her away, but he kept a small but safe distance between the two of them until Betty let him do something he had never done before, and his finger sank inside her.

  ‘Another,’ she whispered.

  He didn’t know what she meant, so she showed him.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said, imagining what she wanted him to imagine.

  ‘Ow,’ she said.

  When he took out his fingers, there was blood. He wondered if this was her period.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘It’s done. Now it doesn’t matter.’

  She kissed him again on the lips, and loved him with her hand.

  Simpson from Simpson circled the town until a moment before curfew, then delivered the couple back to ALSG. They were holding hands, but looking away from one another when Nashville opened the car door.

  ‘I trust you had a pleasant journey,’ he said.

  Betty kissed Nashville on the cheek. ‘You’re a wonderful man,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Nashville.

  Betty kissed Shorty in front of the guard. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said to him.

  There was blood under Shorty’s fingernails. He hid them in his pocket.

  At the Grand Hotel, TJ Caution left five dollars in a glass beside a bed and walked down wooden stairs to the bar, where he bought his first bourbon.

  He was still drinking twenty-two hours later, preparing himself for the murder to come.

  SEVENTEEN

  Caution had no friends in Vung Tau. As the only sergeant in a small unit, he was everybody’s boss. Even the Captain deferred to him, because Caution had the presence of the law, whereas the Captain was just some West Point book-reading faggot-ass rear-echelon motherfucking clown.

  Caution didn’t know where he was. He looked around and all he saw was zipperheads eating sticky rice. He’d been drinking alone for a night and a day, and that was fine because only an asshole needed company, but sometimes even Caution wanted to talk to a white man. He tried to pay the papa-san but his coins spilled onto the floor. An old man offered him a crooked elbow to help him out of the cafe.

  The snakeman stood in the sunshine. The head of his python was shaded beneath the brim of his hat. Together, they cast a monster’s shadow.

  Caution hated snakes.

  ‘Fucking asshole,’ said Caution.

  The python hissed.

  Caution hit the snakeman in the face – not hard, but the snakeman was old and brittle, so he fell to the ground and cracked. Caution thought the python would slither off, but it stayed mounted on the snakeman’s shoulders, posturing as if to defend him.

  As soon as Caution walked away, he forgot about the snakeman. He was heading for Le Boudin, and didn’t care that he was barred, because you can’t stop an MP from coming into your bar, no matter what kind of hook-nosed pipe-sucking cock-smoking whoremonger you might be, or what kind of protection you were supposed to have.

  He passed the ears painted on the walls and laughed.

  It’s like a tribute to me, he thought, from the TJ Caution Zipper­head Fan Club.

  At Le Boudin, Caution looked around the bar for off-duty MPs. He saw no one he knew, took two drinks alone and got talking to a girl. He didn’t know which one she was. It made no difference. They were all the same: no tits, shaved pussy, didn’t like you in their mouths, tried to trick you with their hands. The girl had almost finished him off in his pants when he noticed Nashville, thinking superior thoughts in his gook-loving head, at the end of his own solitary bar crawl.

  Caution grabbed another beer and came over to Nashville’s table.

  ‘I’d thank you not to sit there, TJ,’ said Nashville.

  Caution dropped heavily onto a chair, and slammed down his can as if that were the last word. It made the tabletop tremble, and sent a wave through the bourbon in Nashville’s cup.

  Nashville’s teeth were tight, his mouth closed, his breathing short and shallow.

  He hates me, thought Caution, with hurt and surprise.

  Caution hadn’t thought anything he could do to a zipperhead would matter to a white man. But he wasn’t ashamed. Hell, no. This was a war, and it sometimes seemed to Caution like he was the only one fighting. The gooks didn’t seem much interested. And then there was Nashville, a cunt-struck, self-righteous booze-hound who was frightened of his own badness, and acted like other people should feel the same way. He thought no one understood his jokes, as if a few long words meant he was speaking a different language. And he believed he could stare down Caution, who’d been taught fear by his own pa, a man who’d learned it from a whiskey bottle and even taken its name.

  ‘You think you’re a tough guy,’ said Caution to Nashville.r />
  ‘Go elsewhere, sergeant,’ said Nashville.

  Caution knew what Nashville was trying to do, putting on cold manners like he was born to them, but Nashville was an imitator, a fraud, a peckerwood impersonator, hiding behind the slow talk and the smile.

  ‘You don’t seem like you’re from Tennessee,’ said Caution. ‘In Ten­nessee, white folks stick together.’

  Nashville had already seen their fight. He knew how it would end.

  ‘In Tennessee,’ said Nashville, ‘white folks don’t use zipperheads to beat up on handicapped kids.’

  That was it, then, thought Caution, with relief. He had needed to be sure he was hated for what he had done, not who he was.

  ‘That boy’s a Communist spy,’ said Caution.

  Nashville cocked his head.

  Yes, thought Caution, you ought to fucking pay attention.

  ‘Maybe he will be now,’ said Nashville.

  Caution was tired of hearing this flag-burning bullshit about people turning other people into Commies, as if they didn’t do it to themselves.

  ‘I never had you figured for a liberal,’ he said to Nashville, ‘all up there in that egg-custard pussy. I thought you was a good ol’ boy.’

  Nashville finished his drink.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Caution asked him.

  Nashville did.

  ‘I’ll bet you knew all along, didn’t you?’ asked Caution.

  Nashville nodded, because he had.

  ‘You know who everyone is but yourself, don’t you?’ said Caution. ‘You even know the fucking Mamasan.’

  Nashville looked down.

  ‘I’ll get you another drink,’ said Caution. ‘And I’ll buy the retard a new fucking bike. Is that what I have to do, Nashville?’

  Nashville stood up, turned his back and walked away.

  Caution had hoped to bridge the river, but he should’ve known Nashville wouldn’t take him as a friend. It suited Nashville better to act like Caution was different, to hide the fact they were the same.

  Nashville weaved through sweating, drunken GIs, and chose a new seat at the far side of the bar. The sergeant stared across the crowded floor, like he was fixing to ask Nashville for a dance. Nashville glanced down then back up, virginal and seductive, provocative and demure.

  Nashville – the cocktease – called over Tâm and sat her on his lap. The game grew long and lazy, each move considered through the fog that fell slowly over both men, the descent of destiny.

  Caution placed his hands on his table and straightened his arms at the elbow, bringing himself to his feet. He relied on the table for stability while he calculated the clearest route to Nashville.

  Tâm saw what was coming, stroked Nashville’s ear, and pressed her breast against his neck.

  If she could fake enthusiasm, thought Nashville, I could never leave.

  Caution tumbled across the room and came to rest in front of Nashville’s table. He stood sentry-still and spoke slowly.

  ‘You are . . .’ he said, ‘a sick motherfucker.’

  Nashville smiled at Caution’s scowl. They’re always mean to the girls they like, he thought.

  ‘And you’re a fucking coward,’ said Caution.

  It was true, Nashville never felt brave. To be brave, you had to risk something.

  Nashville rose, with Tâm still curled around him. ‘Time to retreat,’ he said.

  Caution pushed his smashed nose an inch from Nashville’s mouth.

  ‘Go on,’ said Caution. ‘Fuck off.’

  Nashville said to Tâm, ‘I’m taking the coward’s way out.’

  She took his hand and tugged him towards the back door. Caution gripped him by the shoulder.

  ‘You’re hiding behind a girl,’ he said.

  ‘You have never, ever,’ said Nashville, ‘told me one single fucking thing I didn’t already know.’

  This was the way he was going to make it happen, by backing away with his body but coming forward with his mouth.

  ‘You think you’re smarter than me,’ said Caution.

  ‘Tou-fucking-ché,’ said Nashville, and twisted away.

  Strong shoulders, thought Caution.

  ‘Don’t turn your back on me, Corporal,’ he said.

  Nashville left the bar, but lingered outside. He kissed Tâm as she pulled at him to leave. She knew something, but not enough.

  Caution followed them like a lost buddy, as if he’d been left behind by mistake.

  And his friends were waiting for him, Nashville smiling, as he stumbled down the step.

  ‘Take off your shirt,’ demanded Caution. ‘Tonight, I ain’t your sergeant. I’m the guy who’s gonna give you the whupping of your life.’

  Nashville watched the moment come closer, as if it were a thing.

  Caution pulled his shirt over his head. It rasped and spat buttons into the sand. He posed shirtless in front of Nashville. His flesh was pulled tight over his muscles, and his bones looked ready to pop. He doesn’t eat, thought Nashville, he only drinks.

  Nashville figured the time must be now. But he wasn’t going to get killed for this thing.

  ‘I know you’re carrying a Colt, TJ,’ he said.

  Caution took his gun from his belt and wrapped it in his shirt, leaving a bouquet of barrel on the ground.

  ‘Now you,’ he said to Nashville.

  Nashville stripped down. He’d been a long time out of the gym, and his muscles were buried deep in flesh. He felt fat and heavy. He rolled his back, and the joints pulled stiff.

  He bounced on his toes, for effect, and believed he could feel his jowls spring.

  ‘Go on,’ whispered Tâm. ‘Fuck him up.’ She touched him lightly, like a lover.

  I haven’t felt that before, thought Nashville.

  Caution came towards Nashville with his fists up, a nineteenth-century knuckleman, with all his weight on his back foot.

  GIs, marines and Australians trickled from the bar and made a circle around the two men. One soldier cried out for Nashville, another encouraged Caution. The noise brought men to the doors of neighbouring buildings and around the ring. Among their heads, Nashville noticed Izzy Berger’s yellow hat.

  The fight was like a carny sideshow. It started when the crowd was big enough, promised more than it would give, and followed a script written long ago.

  Caution feinted a jab. Nashville knew it was a set-up, but he flinched to leave Caution the room to continue, and let him fire a right hand at Nashville’s jaw. Nashville pulled back but let it tap his chin.

  Once Nashville found the measure of Caution’s reach, he knew to stay just inside it. Caution began to punch seriously with both hands, but Nashville slipped and ducked. The blows thudded into his shoulders and caught on his elbows. Nashville wondered why Caution seemed fixed on boxing, but guessed he was trying to make a point.

  Nashville’s mother had joined him up for the Police Athletic Club boxing program at the age of ten, after his front teeth were knocked out by a boy who had hated and desired him. Nashville was fighting in the ring at twelve years old, and so he had developed the knowledge that Caution had learned from his father. He knew to expect sudden cruelties and react before they could hurt him.

  In the crowd outside Le Boudin, a sapper from the workshops asked Izzy Berger if he’d take a bet. Berger watched Nashville closely for a moment, following his feet more than his hands, then shook his head. ‘It’s not fair dinkum,’ he said.

  Nashville stepped back and let Caution lunge, then stood and waited for him to throw. Caution was tough, in that he wasn’t afraid to come in, but his weapon was his nightstick, not his fists. He was wide open, but Nashville wouldn’t be drawn.

  Then Nashville misread a small movement from Caution’s chest, and Caution’s fist crunched his nose and, for a moment, he wobbled. But it was nothing. Nashville couldn’t use it to make the end.

  Caution was clumsy and impatient and, most of all, drunk. He swung wide. He wanted to knock off Nashville’s head, but h
is fists couldn’t find it. He would have been better off tucking in his chin and barrelling in like a beater or a bully or a screw. But he wasn’t going to fight like that in public. This was Caution’s moment, and he was determined to look good.

  But he didn’t have it.

  Nashville watched Caution line up another haymaker, but the sergeant was standing too far forward. If he missed, he would fall over. Nashville gritted his teeth and stepped into the punch, but pulled back sharply the moment it connected, and tumbled onto his back.

  Nashville thought if he didn’t move, it would end there: all that Lonsdale dancing, the awkward cocked fists and the jutting jaw made it seem like Caution wanted to win a sporting contest, and when his opponent went down he’d pick up his purse and walk away.

  But Nashville felt a crash in his skull, like a wave had dashed his head against a rock, and he curled up into a ball, his hands guarding his temples, rolling as Caution kicked him in the back of the neck.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ cried Nashville. ‘I’m done.’

  Caution hacked at Nashville’s face with his boot.

  Izzy Berger, the smallest man in the crowd, jumped between Caution and Nashville. He caught a swing from Caution’s boot, but accepted it as a hazard of his role. He took Caution’s hand and, before the sergeant could shrug him off, Berger raised his arm in the air.

  ‘The winnerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’ shouted Berger.

  And then it really was all a game, a sport, a contest of equals, a clash of countrymen.

  A few men cheered, to acknowledge the end, and Caution heard them shout his name, like it was a thing to be proud of, a team men wanted to support: ‘Tee-Jay! Tee-Jay! Tee-Jay!’

  Everyone loved Nashville until Nashville was on the ground with a mouth full of blood and dirt and he wasn’t a pretty boy any more. Caution had changed Nashville, altered the way men thought about him. This is how he’d be remembered: crawling around like a bug with a leg torn off.

  Two Australians helped Nashville to his feet. Nashville stood, swaying, pressing his nose to encourage the flow of blood.

  The sergeant walked away.

  The Australians carried Nashville back into the bar and laid him across two chairs. Tâm rolled ice into a cloth and held it against his face.