The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien first lieutenant Jimmy cross carried letters from A girl named Martha a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey they were not loved letters but Lieutenant cross was hoping so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his ruck sack in the late afternoon after a day's March he would dig his Foxhole wash his hands under a Canen unwrap the letters hold them with the tips of his fingers and spend the last hour of light pretending he would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire he would sometimes taste the envelope flaps knowing her tongue had been there more than anything he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her but the letters were mostly chatty elusive on the matter of love she was a virgin he was almost sure she was an English major at Mount Sebastian and she wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams about her respect for choser and her great affection for Virginia wolf she often quoted lines of poetry she never mentioned the war except to say Jimmy take care of yourself the letters weighed 10 ounces they were signed love Martha but Lieutenant cross understood that love was only a way of signing an did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant at dusk he would carefully return the letters to his rucksack slowly a bit distracted he would get up and move among his men checking the perimeter then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin The Things They Carried were largely determined by necessity among the Necessities or near Necessities were P38 can openers pocket knives heat tabs wrist watches dog tags mosquito repellent chewing gum candy cigarettes salt tablets packets of Kool-Aid lighters matches sewing kits Military Payment certificates SE rations and two or three censes of water together together these items weighed between 15 and 20 PBS depending upon a man's habits or rate of metabolism Henry Dobbins who was a big man carried extra rations he was especially fond of canned peaches and heavy syrup over pound cake Dave Jensen who practiced field hygiene carried a toothbrush dental floss and several hotels siiz bars of soap he'd stolen onor andar in Sydney Australia Ted lavender who was scared carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of then in mid April by necessity and because it was sop they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 lbs including the liner and camouflage cover They Carried the standard fatigue jackets and trousers very few carried underwear on their feet They Carried jungle boots 2.1 lb and Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of doctor Shaw's foot powder as a precaution against trench foot until he was shot Ted lavender carried six or 7 ounces of Premium dope which for him was a necessity Mitchell Sanders the Aro carried condoms Norman Boker carried a diary rack Kylie carried comic books kowa a devout Baptist carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father who taught Sunday School in Oklahoma City Oklahoma as a hedge against bad times however kyowa also carried his grandmother's distrust of the white man his grandfather's old hun Hatchet necessity dictated because the land was mine and booby trapped it was soft for each man to carry a steel Center nylon covered Flack jacket which weighed 6.7 lb but which on hot days seemed much heavier because you could die so quickly each man carried at least one large compressed bandage usually in the helmet bandn for easy access because the knights were cold and because the monsoons were wet each carried a green plastic Poncho that could be used as a raincoat or ground sheet sheet or makeshift tent with its quilted liner the Poncho weighed almost a pounds but it was worth every ounce in April for instance when Ted lavender was shot they used his Poncho to wrap him up then to carry him across the Patty then to lift him into the chopper that took him away they were called legs or grunts to carry something was to hump it as when Lieutenant Jimmy cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps in its intransitive form to hump meant to walk or to March but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive almost everyone humped photographs in his wallet Lieutenant cross carried to photographs of Martha the first was a coda color snapshot signed love though he knew better she stood against a brick wall her eyes were gray and neutral her lips slightly open as she stared straight on at the camera at night sometimes Lieutenant cross wondered who had taken the picture because he knew she had boyfriends because he loved her so much and because he could see the shadow of the picture Edgar spreading out against the brick wall the second photograph had been clipped from the 1968 Mount Sebastian yearbook it was an action shot women's volleyball and Martha was bent horizontal to the floor reaching the palms of her hands in sharp Focus the tongue taut the expression Frank and competitive there was no visible sweat she wore white gimm shorts her legs he thought were almost C certainly the legs of a virgin dry and without hair the left knee cocked in carrying her entire weight which was just over 100 lb Lieutenant cross remembered touching that left knee a dark theater he remembered and the movie was Bonnie and Clyde and Martha wore a Tweed skirt and during the final scene when he touched her knee she turned and looked at him in a sad silver way that made him pull his hand back but he would always remember the feel of the Tweed skirt and the knee beneath it and the sound of the Gare that killed Bonnie and Clyde how embarrassing it was how slow and oppressive he remembered kissing her good night at the dorm door right then he thought he should have done something Brave he should have carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touch that left KNE all night long he should have risked it whenever he looked at the photographs he thought of new things he should have done what They Carried was partly a function of rank partly a field specialty as a first lieutenant and platoon leader Jimmy cross carried a compass Maps code books binoculars and a 45 caliber pistol that weighed to 0.9 lbs fully loaded he carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men as nrto Mitchell Sanders carried the PRC to 5 radio a killer 26 lbs with its battery as a medic rack Kylie carried a canvas Satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry including M&M's for especially bad wounds for a total weight of nearly 20 lb as a big man therefore a machine gunner Henry Dobbins carried the M60 which weighed 23 lbs unloaded but which was almost always loaded in addition Dobbins carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders asfc respect spec for South most of them were common Grunts and carried the standard MC 16 gas operated assault rifle the weapon weighed 7.5 lb unloaded 8.2 lb with its full 20 round magazine depending on numerous factors such as topography and psychology The Rifleman carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines usually in cloth banders adding on another 8.4 lb at minimum 14 lb at maximum when it was available they also carried M16 maintenance gear rods and steel brushes and swabs and tubes of LSA oil all of which weighed about a pound among the grunts some carried the m79 grenade launcher 5.9 lb unloaded a reasonably light weapon except for the ammunition which was Heavy a single round weighed 10 o the typical load was 25 rounds but Ted lavender who was scared carried 30 for Rounds when he was shot and killed outside then K and he went down under an exceptional burden more than 20 lbs of ammunition plus the Flack jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest plus the in Wade fear he was dead weight there was no twitching or flopping Kawa who saw it happen said it was like watching a rock fall or a big sand bag or something just boom then down not like the movies where the Dead Guy rolls around and his fancy spins and goes ass over te Kettle not like that kywa said the poor bastard just flat fell boom down nothing else it was a bright morning in mid April Lieutenant cross felt the pain he blamed himself they stripped off lavender's canens and ammo all the heavy things and rack Kylie said the obvious the guy is dead and Mitchell Sanders used his radio to report oneu s here and to request a chopper then they wrapped Lavender in his Poncho They Carried him out to a dry Patty established security and sat smoking the Dead Man's dope until the chopper came lieutenant cross kept to himself he pictured Martha's smooth young face thinking he loved her more than anything more than his men and now Ted lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her when the dust off arrived They Carried lavender aboard afterward they burned then K they marched until dusk then tug their holes and that night Kawa kept explaining how you had to be there how fast it was how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete boom down he said like cement in addition to the three standard weapons the M60 M16 and m79 They Carried whatever presented itself or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing were staying alive They Carried catch as catch can at various times in various situations They Carried m4s and c15s and Swedish and gree guns and captured AK-47s and Kai comms and RPGs and Simon of carbines and black market ues and 38 Calibur Smith and and Wesson handguns and 66 mm laws and shotguns and silencers and blackjacks and bayonets and C4 plastic explosives Lee Strunk carried a slingshot a weapon of Last Resort he called it Mitchell Sanders carried brass knuckles kywa carried his grandfather's feathered Hatchet every third or fourth man carried a Claymore anti-personnel Mine 3.5 lbs with its firing device they all carried fragmentation grenades 14 oz each they all carried at least one M8 colored smoke grenade 24 o some carried CS or tear gas grenades some carried white phosphorus grenades They Carried all they could bear and then some including a silent off for the terrible power of The Things They Carried in the first week of April before lavender died Lieutenant Jimmy cross received a good luck charm from Martha it was a simple Pebble an ounce at most smooth to the touch it was a milky white color with flex of orange and violet oval-shaped like a miniature egg in the accompanying letter Martha wrote that she had found the pebble on the Jersey Shoreline precisely where the land touched water at high tide where things came together but also separated it was this separate but together quality she wrote that had inspired her to pick up the pebble and to carry it in her breast pocket for several days where it seemed weightless and then to send it through the mail by air as a token of her truest feelings for him Lieutenant cross found this romantic but he wondered what her truest feelings were exactly and what she meant by separate but together he wondered how the tides and waves had come into play on that afternoon along the Jersey Shoreline when Martha saw the pebble and bent down to rescue it from geology he imagined bare feet Martha was a poet with the poet's sensibilities and her feet would be brown and bare the toenails unpainted the eyes chilly and somber like the ocean in March and though it was painful he wondered who had been with her that afternoon he imagined a pair of Shadows moving along the strip of sand where things came together but also separated it was Phantom jealousy he knew but he couldn't help himself he loved her so much on the March through the hot days of early April he carried the pebble in his mouth turning it with his tongue tasting sea salt and moisture his mind wandered he had difficulty keeping his attention on on the war on occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column to keep their eyes open but then he would slip away into Daydreams just pretending walking barefoot along the Jersey Shore with Martha carrying nothing he would feel himself Rising Sun and waves and gentle winds all love and lightness What They Carried varied by Mission when a mission took them to the mountains They Carried mosquito netting machetes canvas tarps and extra bug juice if a mission seemed especially hazardous or if it involved a place they knew to be bad They carried everything they could in certain heavily minded AOS where the land was dense with toe poppers and bouncing betties they took turns humping a 28lb mine detector with its headphones and big sensing plate the equipment was a stress on the lower back and shoulders awkward to handle often useless because of the shrap dull in the Earth but they carried it anyway partly for safety partly for the illusion of safety on ambush or other night missions They Carried peculiar little odds and ends Kwa always took along his new testament and a pair of moccasins for silence Dave Jensen carried Nightside vitamins high in Keratin Lee Strunk carried his slingshot ammo he claimed would never be a problem rack Kylie carried Brandy and mm's Candy until he was shot Ted lavender carried the Starlight scope which weighed 6.3 lb with its aluminum carrying case Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend's panty hose wrapped around his neck as a comforter they all carried ghosts when dark came they would move out single file Across The Meadows and patties to their Ambush coordinates where they would quietly set up the Claymores and lie down and spend the night waiting other missions were more complicated and required special equipment in mid April it was their mission to search out and destroy the laborate tunnel complexes in the then area south of chai to blow the tunnels They Carried one PB blocks of penite high explosives four blocks to a man 68 lb and all They Carried wiring detonators and battery powered clackers Dave Jensen carried ear plugs most often before blowing the tunnels they were ordered by higher command to search them which was considered bad news but by and large they just Shrugged and carried out orders because he was a big man Henry Dobbins was excused from tunnel Duty the others would draw numbers before lavender died there were 17 men in the platoon and whoever drew the number 17 would strip off his gear and crawl in head first with a flashlight and Lieutenant crosses 45 caliber pistol the rest of them would Fen out as security they would sit down or kneel not facing the hole listening to the ground beneath them imagining cobwebs and ghosts whatever was down there the tunnel walls squeezing in how the flashlight seemed impossibly heavy in the hand and how it was tunnel vision in the very strictest sense compression in all ways even time and how you had to wiggle in as an elbows a swallowed up feeling and how you found yourself worrying about odd things will your flashlight go dead do rats carry rabies if you screamed how far would the sound carry would your buddies hear it would they have the courage to drag you out in some respects though not many The Waiting was worse than the tunnel itself imagination was a killer on April 16th when Lee Strunk drew the number 17 he laughed and muttered something and went down quickly the morning was hot and very still not good Kawa said he looked at the tunnel opening then out across a dry Patty toward the village of then nothing moved no clouds or birds or people as they waited the men smoked and drank Kool-Aid not talking much feeling sympathy for Lee Strunk but also feeling the luck of the draw you and some you lose some said Mitchell Sanders and sometimes you settle for a range in check it was a tired line and no one laughed Henry Dobbins ate a Tropical Chocolate Bar Ted lavender popped a tranquilizer and went off to pee after 5 minutes Lieutenant Jimmy cross moved to the tunnel leaned down and examined the darkness trouble he thought a caveen maybe and then suddenly without willing it he was thinking about Martha the stresses and fractures the quick collapse the two of them buried alive under all that weight dense crushing love kn watching the hole he tried to concentrate on the Strunk and the war all the dangers but his love was too much for him he felt paralyzed he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered he wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin all at once he wanted to know her Intimate Secrets why poetry why so sad why that greyness in her eyes why so alone not lonely just alone riding her bike across campus were sitting off by herself in the cafeteria even dancing she danced alone and it was the loneness that filled him with love he remembered telling her that one evening how she nodded and looked away and how later when he kissed her she received the kiss without returning it her eyes wide open Not Afraid not a virgin's eyes just flat and uninvolved Lieutenant cross gazed at the tunnel but he was not there he was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey Shore they were pressed together and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue he was smiling vaguely he was aware of how quiet the day was the sell and patties yet he could not bring himself to worry about matters of security he was beyond that he was just a kid at war in love he was 24 years old he couldn't help it a few moments later Lee strun crawled out of the tunnel he came up grinning filthy but alive Lieutenant cross nodded and closed his eyes while the the others clapped Strunk on the back and made jokes about rising from the dead worms rat Kylie said ride out of the Grave zomie the men laughed they all felt great relief spook City said Mitchell Sanders Lee Strunk made a funny ghost sound a kind of Moaning yet very happy and right then when Strunk made that high happy moaning sound when he went AO right then Ted lavender was shot in the head on his way back from peeing he lay with his mouth open the teeth were broken there was a swollen black bruise under his left eye the cheekbone was gone oh rack Kylie said the guy's dead the guy dead he kept saying which seemed profound the guy's dead I mean really The Things They Carried were determined to some extent by Superstition Lieutenant cross carried his good luck Pebble Dave Jensen carried a rabbit's foot Norman Boker otherwise a very gentle person carried a thumb that had been presented to him as a gift by Mitchell Sanders the thumb was dark brown rubbery to the touch and weighed for ounces at most it had been kept from ABC corpse a boy of 15 or 16 they'd found him at the bottom of an irrigation ditch badly burned flies in his mouth and eyes the boy wore black shorts and sandals at the time of his death he had been carrying a pouch of rice a rifle and three magazines of ammunition you want my opinion Mitchell Sanders said there's a definite moral here he put his hand on the dead boy's wrist he was quiet for a time as if counting a pulse then he patted the stomach almost affectionately and yusai was hunting Hatchet to remove the thumb Henry Dobbins asked what the moral was moral you know moral Sanders wrapped the thumb in toilet paper and handed it across to Norman Booker there was no blood smiling he kicked the boy's head watched the fly scatter and said it's like with that old TV show Paladin have gun we travel Henry Dobbins thought about it yeah well he finally said I don't see no moral there it is man off They Carried Uso stationary and pencils and pens They Carried Sterno safety pins trip flares signal flares spools of wire razor blades chewing tobacco liberated jaw sticks and statuettes of The Smiling Buddha candles grease pencils the Stars and Stripes fingernail clippers scops leaflets Bush Hats bolos and much more twice a week when the resupply Choppers came in They Carried hot Chow in green mermai cans and large canvas bags filled with ice beer and soda pop They Carried plastic water containers each with a 2 gallon capacity Mitchell Sanders carried a set of starch tiger fatigues for special occasions Henry Dobbins carried Black Flag insecticide Dave Jensen carried empty sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection Le Strunk carried tanning lotion Some Things They Carried in common taking turns They Carried the big PR c77 scram blue radio which weighed 30 lb with its battery they shared the weight of memory they took up what others could no longer bear often They Carried each other the wounded or weak They Carried infections They Carried chest sets basketballs vietnames English dictionaries Insignia of rank bronze stars and purple hearts plastic cards imprinted with the code of conduct They Carried diseases among them malaria and dysentery They Carried lice and ringworm and leeches and Patty algae and various rots and molds They Carried the land itself Vietnam the place the soil a powdery orange red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces They Carried the sky the whole atmosphere They carried it the humidity the monsoons the stink of fungus and decay all of it they Carri gravity they moved like mules by daylight they took sniper fire at night they were mortared but it was not battle it was just the endless March Village to Village without purpose nothing won or lost they marched for the sake of the March they plotted along slowly dumbly leaning forward against the Heat and thinkinking all Blood and Bone simple grunts soldiering with their legs toiling up the hills and down into the patties and across the rivers and up again and down just humping one step and then the next and then another but no volition no will because it was automatic it was anatomy and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage the hump was everything a kind of inertia a kind of emptiness a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility their principles were in their feet their calculations were biological they had no sense of strategy or Mission they searched the villages without knowing what to look for not caring kicking over jars of rice frisk ing children and old men blowing tunnels sometimes setting fires and sometimes not then forming up and moving onto the next Village then other Villages where it would always be the same They Carried their own lives the pressures were enormous In the Heat of early afternoon they would remove their helmets and Flack jackets walking bear which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain they would often discard things along the route of March purely for Comfort they would throw away rations blow their Claymores and grenades no matter because by Nightfall The resupply Choppers would arrive with more of the same then a day or two later still more fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and Woolen sweaters the resources were stunning sparklers for the 4th of July colored eggs for Easter it was the Great American war chest the fruits of science the Smoke Stacks the canaries the arsenals at Hartford the Minnesota forests the machine shops the vast fields of corn and wheat They Carried like freight trains They carried it on their backs and shoulders and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam all the Mysteries and unknowns there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry after the chopper took lavender away Lieutenant Jimmy cross LED his men into the village of then they burn everything they shot chickens and dogs they trashed the village well they called in artillery and watched the wreckage then they marched for several hours through the hot afternoon and then at dusk while Kaa explained how lavender died Lieutenant cross found himself trembling he tried not to cry with his entrenching tool which weighed 5 lbs he began digging a hole in the earth he felt sham he hated himself he had loved Martha more than his men and as a consequence lavender was now dead and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war all he could do was dig he used his entrenching tool like an axe slashing feeling both love and hate and then later when it was full dark he sat at the bottom of his Foxhole and wept it went on for a long while in part he was grieving for Ted lavender but mostly it was for Martha and for himself because she belonged to another world which was not quite real and because she was a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey a poet and a virgin and un involved and because he realized she did not love him and never would like cement Kawa whispered in the dark I swear to God boom down not a word I've heard this said Norman Booker a pisser you know still zipping himself up zap while zipping all right fine that's enough yeah but you had to see it the guy just I heard man cement so why not shut the up Kwa shook his head sadly and glanced over at the hole where Lieutenant Jimmy cross sat watching the night the air was thick and wet a warm dense fog had settled over the patties and there was the Stillness that precedes rain after a Time K aside one thing for sure he said the lieutenants in some deep hurt I mean that crying Jag the way he was carrying on it wasn't fake or anything it was real heavy duty hurt the man cares sure Norman Boker said say what you want the man does care we all got problems not lavender no I guess not Boer said said do me a favor though shut up that's a smart Indian shut up shrugging kywa pulled off his boots he wanted to say more just to lighten up his sleep but instead he opened his new testament and arranged it beneath his head as a pillow the fog made things seem Hollow and unattached he tried not to think about Ted lavender but then he was thinking how fast it was no drama down and dead and how it was hard to feel anything except surprise it seemed unchristian he wished he could find some great sadness or even anger but the emotion wasn't there and he couldn't make it happen mostly he felt pleased to be alive he liked the smell of the New Testament under his cheek the leather and ink and paper and glue whatever the chemicals were he liked hearing the sounds of night even his fatigue it felt fine the stiff muscles and the prickly awareness of his own body a floating feeling he enjoyed not being dead lying there Kawa admired lieuten and Jimmy cross's capacity for grief he wanted to share the man's pain he wanted to care as Jimmy cross cared and yet when he closed his eyes all he could think was boom down and all he could feel was the pleasure of having his boots off and the fog curling in around him and The Damp soy and the Bible smells and the plush comfort of night after a moment Norman Booker sat up in the dark what the hell he said you want to talk talk tell it to me forget it no man go go on one thing I hate it's a silent Indian for the most part they carried themselves with poise a kind of dignity now and then however there were times of panic when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and father others hoping not to die in different ways it happened to all of them afterward when the firing ended they would blink and peek up they would touch their bodies feeling shame then quickly hiding it they would force themselves to stand as if in slow motion frame by frame the world would take on the old logic absolute silence then the wind then sunlight then voices it was the burden of being alive awkwardly the men would reassemble themselves first in private then in groups becoming soldiers again they would repair the leaks in their eyes they would check for casualties call in dust talks light cigarettes try to smile clear their throats and spit and begin cleaning their weapons after a time someone would shake his head and say no lie I almost my pants and someone else would laugh which meant it was bad yes but the guy had obviously not his pants it wasn't that bad and in any case nobody would ever do such a thing and then go ahead and and talk about it they would squint into the dense oppressive sunlight for a few moments perhaps they would fall silent lighting a joint and tracking its passage from man to man inhaling holding in the humiliation scary stuff one of them might say but then someone else would grin or flick his eyebrows and say Roger Dodger almost cut me a new almost there were numerous such poses some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or Macho Zeal they were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it they found jokes to tell they used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness grease they'd say off lit up Zapped while zipping it wasn't cruelty just stage presence they were actors when someone died it wasn't quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted and because they had their lines mostly memorized irony mixed with tragedy and and because they called it by other names as if to insist and destroy the reality of death itself they kicked corpses they cut off thums they talked grunt lingo they told stories about Ted love Ender supply of tranquilizers how the poor guy didn't feel a thing how incredibly tranquil he was there's a moral here said Mitchell Sanders they were waiting for love Ender Chopper smoking the Dead Man's dope the moral is pretty obvious Sanders said and winked stay away from drugs no joke they'll ruin your day every time cute said Henry Dobbins mindblower get it talk about Wiggy nothing left just blood and brains they made themselves laugh there it is they'd say over and over there it is my friend there it is as if the repetition itself were an act of poise a balance between crazy and almost crazy knowing without going there it is which meant be cool let it ride because oh yeah man you can't change what can't be changed there it is there it absolutely and positively and well is they were tough They Carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die grief Terror love longing these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity they had tangible weight They Carried shameful memories They Carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained the instinct to run or freeze or hide and in many respects this was the the heaviest burden of all for it could never be put down it required perfect balance and perfect posture They Carried their reputations They Carried the soldiers greatest fear which was the fear of blushing men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to it was what had brought them to the war in the first place nothing positive no dreams of Glory or honor just to avoid the blush Of Dishonor they died so as not to die of embarrassment they crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced Under Fire each morning despite these unknowns they made their legs move they endured they kept humping they did not submit to the obvious alternative which was simply to close the eyes and fall so easy really go limp and humble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would Roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world a mere matter of falling yet no one ever fell it was not courage exactly the object was not Valor rather they were too frightened to be cowards by and large They Carried these things inside maintaining The Masks of composure they sneered at sick Cole they spoke bitterly about guys who had found release by shooting off their own Toes or fingers they'd say candy asses it was fierce mocking talk with only a trace of Envy or awe but even so the image played itself out behind their eyes they imagined the muzzle against flesh so easy squeeze the trigger and blow away a toe they imagined it they imagined the quick sweet pain then the evacuation to Japan then a hospital with warm beds and cute Gia nurses and they dreamed of Freedom birds at night on guard staring into the dark they were Carried Away by jumbo Jets they felt the rush of takeoff gone they yelled and then Velocity Wings and engines a smiling stewardess but it was more than a plane it it was a real bird a big Sleek silver bird with feathers and Talons and high screeching they were flying the weights fell off there was nothing to Bear they laughed and held on tight feeling the cold slap of wind and altitude soaring thinking it's over I'm gone they were naked they were light and free it was all lightness bright and fast and buoyant light as light a helium buzz in the brain a giddy bubbling in the lungs as they were taken up over the clouds and the war Beyond Duty Beyond gravity and mortification and Global entanglements siny they yelled I'm sorry but I'm out of it I'm goofed I'm on a space Cruise I'm gone and it was a restful unencumbered sensation just riding the light waves sailing that big silver Freedom bird over the mountains and oceans Over America over the farms and great sleeping cities and cemeteries and highways and the golden arches of McDonald's it was flight a kind of fleeing a kind of falling falling higher and higher spinning off the edge of the Earth and Beyond the Sun and through the vast silent vacuum where there were no burdens and where everything weighed exactly nothing gone they screamed I'm sorry but I'm gone and so at night not quite dreaming they gave themselves over to lightness they were carried they were purely born on the morning after Ted lavender died first lieutenant Jimmy cross crouched at the bottom of his Foxhole and burned Martha's letters then he burned the two photographs there was a steady rain falling which made it difficult but he used heat tabs and Sterno to build a small fire screening it with his body holding the photographs over the tight blue flame with the tips of his fingers he realized it was only a gesture stupid he thought sentimental too but mostly just stupid lavender was dead you couldn't burn the blame besides the letters were in his head and even now without photographs Lieutenant cross could see Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow t-shirt he could see her moving in the rain when the fire died out Lieutenant Cross pulled his Poncho over his shoulders and ate breakfast from a can there was no great mystery he decided in those burned letters Martha had never mentioned the war except to say Jimmy take care of yourself she wasn't involved she signed the letters love but it wasn't love and all the fine lines and technicalities did not matter virginity was no longer an issue he hated her yes he did he hated her love too but it was a hard hating kind of love the morning came up wet and blurry everything seemed part of everything else the fog and Martha and the deepening rain he was a soldier after all half smiling Lieutenant Jimmy cross took out his Maps he shook his head hard as if to clear it then bent forward and began planning the day's March in 10 minutes or maybe 20 he would Rouse the men and they would pack up and head West where the maps showed the country to be green and inviting they would do what they had always done the rain might add some weight but otherwise it would be one more day layered upon all the other days he was realistic about it there was that new hardness in his stomach he loved her but he hated her no more fantasies he told himself henceforth when he thought about Martha it would be only to think that she belonged elsewhere he would shut down the Daydreams this was not Mount Sebastian it was another world where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity Kawa was right boom down and you were dead never partly dead briefly in the rain Lieutenant cross saw Martha's gray eyes gazing back at him he understood it was very sad he thought the things men carried inside the things men did or felt they had to do he almost nodded at her but didn't instead instead he went back to his Maps he was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence it wouldn't help lavender he knew that but from this point on he would comport himself as an officer he would dispose of his good luck Pebble swallow it maybe or use Le drunk's slingshot or just drop it along the trail on the March he would impose strict field discipline he would be careful to send out flank security to prevent straggling or bunching up to keep his troops moving at the proper pace and at the proper interval he would insist on clean weapons he would confiscate the remainder of La Ender's dope later in the day perhaps he would call the men together and speak to them plainly he would accept the blame for what had happened to Ted lavender he would be a man about it he would look them in the eyes keeping his chin level and he would issue the new stops in a calm impersonal tone of voice a Lieutenant's voice leaving no room for argument or discussion commencing immediately he tell them them they would no longer abandon equipment along the route of March they would police up their axe they would get their together and keep it together and maintain it neatly and in good working order he would not tolerate laxity he would show strength distancing himself among the men there would be grumbling of course and maybe worse because their days would seem longer and their loads heavier but Lieutenant Jimmy cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead he would dispense with with love it was not now a factor and if anyone quarreled or complained he would simply tighten his lips and arrange his shoulders in the correct command posture he might give a Curt little nod or he might not he might just shrug and say carry on then they would saddle up and form into a column and move out toward the villages west of then love many years after the war Jimmy cross came to visit me at my home in Massachusetts and for a full day we drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and talked about everything we had seen and done so long ago all the things we still carried through our lives spread out across the kitchen table were maybe a hundred old photographs there were pictures of raky and kyway and Mitchell Sanders all of us the fa is incredibly soft and young at one point I remember we paused over a snapshot of Ted lavender and after a while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said he'd never forgiven himself for lavender's death it was something that would never go away he said quietly and I nodded and told him I felt the same about certain things then for a long time neither of us could think of much to say the thing to do we decided was to forget the coffee and switch to Jin which improved the mood and not much later we were laughing about some of the craziness that used to go on the way Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend's panty hose around his neck like a comforter ky's moccasins and hunting Hatchet rat Kylie's comic books by midnight we were both a little high and I decided there was no harm in asking about Martha I'm not sure how I phrased it just a general question but Jimmy cross looked up in surprise you writer types he said you've got long memories then he smiled and excused himself and went up to the guest room and came back with a small framed photograph it was the volleyball shot Martha bent horizontal to the floor reaching the palms of her hands in sharp Focus remember this he said I nodded and told him I was surprised I thought he burned it Jimmy kept smiling for a while he stared down at the photograph his eyes very bright then he Shrugged and said well I did I burned it after lavender died I couldn't this is a new one Martha gave it to me herself they'd run into each other he said at a college reunion in 1979 nothing had changed he still loved her for eight or nine hours he said they spent most of their time together there was a banquet and then a dance and then afterward they took a walk across the campus and talked about their lives Martha was a Lutheran missionary now a trained nurse although nursing wasn't the point and she had done service in Ethiopia and Guatemala and Mexico she had never married she said and probably never would she didn't know why but as she said this her eyes seemed to slide sideways and it occurred to him that there were things about her he would never know her eyes were Gray and neutral later when he took her hand there was no pressure in return and later still when he told her he still loved her she kept walking and didn't answer and then after several minutes looked at her wristwatch and said it was getting late he walked her back to the dormatory for a few moments he considered asking her to his room but instead he laughed and told her how back in college he'd almost done something very brave it was after seeing Bonnie and Clyde he said and on this same spot he'd almost picked her up and carried her to his room and tied her to the bed and put his hand on her knee and just held it there all night long it came close he told her he'd almost done it Martha shut her eyes she crossed her arms at her chest as if suddenly cold rocking slightly then after a time she looked at him and said she was glad he hadn't tried it she didn't understand how men could do those things what things he asked and Martha said the things men do then he nodded it began to form oh he said those things at breakfast the next morning she told him she was sorry she explained that there was nothing she could do about it and he said he understood and then she laughed and gave him the picture and told him not to burn this one up Jimmy shook his head it doesn't matter he finally said I love her for the rest of his visit I steered the conversation away from Martha at the end though as we were walking out to his car I told him that I'd like to write a story about some of this Jimmy thought it over and then gave me a little smile why not he said maybe she'll read it and come begging there's always hope right right I said he got into his car and rolled down the window make me out to be a good guy okay Brave and handsome all that stuff best platoon leader ever he hesitated for a second and do me a favor don't mention anything about no I said I won't spin the war wasn't all Terror and violence sometimes things could almost get sweet for instance I remember a little boy with a plastic leg I remember how he hopped over to AAR and asked for a chocolate bar G number one the kid said and AAR laughed and handed over the chocolate when the boy hopped away Azar clucked his tongue and said War's a he shook his head sadly one leg for chrissk some poor ran out of ammo I I remember Mitchell Sanders sitting quietly in the shade of an old Banyon tree he was using a thumbnail to pry off the body lice working slowly carefully depositing the lice in a blue Uso envelope his eyes were tired it had been a long two weeks in the bush after an hour or so he sealed up the envelope wrote free in the upper right hand corner and addressed it to his draft board in Ohio on occasions the war was like a pingpong ball you could put fancy spin on it you could make it dance I remember Norman Boker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers every evening before dark it was a ritual for them they would dig a foxhole and get the board out and play long silent games as the sky went from pink to purple the rest of us would sometimes stop by to watch there was something restful about it something orderly and reassuring there were red Checkers and black checkers the playing field was laid out in a strict grid no tunnels or mountains or jungles you knew where you stood you knew the score the pieces were out on the board the enemy was visible you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies there was a winner and a loser there were rules I'm 43 years old and a writer now and the war has been over for a long while much of it is hard to remember I sit at this typewriter and stare through my words and watch kyowa sinking into the deep muuk of a ship field or kurur lemon hanging in pieces from a tree and as I write about these things the remembering is turned into a kind of rehappening Kwa yells at me Kurt lemon Steps From the shade into bright sunlight his face Brown and shining and then he Soares into a tree the bad stuff never stops happening it lives in its own Dimension replaying itself over and over but the war wasn't all that way like when Ted lavender went to heavy on the tranquilizers how's the war today somebody would say and Ted lavender would give a soft Spacey smile and say mellow man we got ourselves a nice mellow War today and like the time we enlisted an old Papa San to guide us through the minefields out on the batangan peninsula the old guy walked with a limp slow and stooped over but he knew where the safe spots were and where you had to be careful and where even if you were careful you could end up like popcorn he had a tight tro walker feel for the land beneath him its surface tension the give and take of things each morning we'd form up in a long column the old Papa sent out front and for the whole day we troop along after him tracing his footsteps playing an exact and ruthless game of Follow the Leader rack Kylie made up a rhyme that caught on and we'd all be chanting it together step out of line hit a mine follow the dink you're in the pink all around us the place was littered with bouncing betties and toe poppers and booby trapped artillery rounds but in those 5 days on the bangan peninsula nobody got hurt we all learned to love the old man it was a sad scene when the Choppers came to take us away Jimmy cross gave the old Papa a hug Mitchell Sanders and Lee Strunk loaded him up with boxes of SE rations there were actually tears in the old guy's eyes follow dink he said to each of us you go pink if you weren't humping you were waiting I remember the monotony digging fox holes slapping mosquitoes the sun and the Heat and the endless patties even in the Deep Bush where you could die in any number of ways the war was nakedly and aggressive ly boring but it was a strange boredom it was boredom with a Twist the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders you'd be sitting at the top of a high hill the flat patties stretching out below and the day would be calm and hot and utterly vacant and you'd feel the boredom dripping inside you like a leaky faucet except it wasn't water it was a sort of acid and with each little droplet you feel the stuff eating away at important organs you try to relax you'd uncir your fists and let your thoughts go well you'd think this isn't so bad and right then you'd hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you'd be squealing Pig squeals that kind of boredom I feel guilty sometimes 43 years old and I'm still writing more stories my daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a shin Pony in a way I guess she's right I should forget it but the thing about remember ing is that you don't forget you take your material where you find it which is in your life at the intersection of past and present the memory traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head where it goes in circles for a while then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets as a rider all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride putting things down as they come at you that's the real Obsession all those stories not bloody stories necessarily happy stories too and even a few peace stories here's a quick piece story a guy goes a WL Shacks up in Danning with a red cross nurse it's a great time the nurse loves him to death the guy gets whatever he wants whenever he wants it the war's over he thinks just Nookie and new angles but then one day he rejoins his unit in the bush can't wait to get back into action finally one of his buddies asks what happened with the nurse why so hot for combat and the guy says all that piece man it felt so good it hurt I want to hurt it back I remember Mitchell Sanders smiling as he told me that story most of it he made up I'm sure but even so it gave me a quick truth Goose because it's all relative you're pinned down in some filthy hell hole of a Patty getting your ass delivered to Kingdom come but then for a few seconds everything goes quiet and you look up and see the sun and a few puffy white clouds and immense ser flashes against your eyeballs the whole world gets rearranged and even though you're pinned down by a war you never felt more at peace what sticks to memory often are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no End Norman Boker lying on his back one night watching the Stars Then whispering to me I'll tell you something O'Brien if I could have one wish anything I'd wish for my dad to write me a letter and say it's okay if I don't win any medals that's all my old man talks about nothing else how he can't wait to see my godamn medals Ora teaching a rain dance to ratal and Dave Jensen the three of them hooping and leaping around Barefoot while a bunch of villagers looked on with a mixture of Fascination and giggly horror afterward rat said so where's the rain and kywa said the Earth is slow but the Buffalo is patient and rat thought about it and said yeah but where's the rain or Ted lavender adopting an orphan puppy feeding it from a plast IC spoon and carrying it in his ruck sack until the day AAR strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel Mine and squeezed the firing device the average age in our platoon I'd guess was 19 or 20 and as a consequence things often took on a curiously playful atmosphere like a sporting event at some exotic reform school the competition could be lethal yet there was a childlike exuberance to it all lots of pranks and horse playay like when AAR blew away Ted La Ender's puppy who what everybody so upset about AAR said I mean Christ I'm just a boy I remember these things too The Damp fungal scent of an empty body bag a quarter moon rising over the nighttime patties Henry Dobbin sitting in the Twilight sewing on his new Buck sergeant stripes quietly singing a tisket a tasket a green and yellow basket a field of elephant grass weighted with wind Bo under the stir of a helicopter's blades the grass dark and serval bending low but then Rising straight again when the chopper went away a red clay Trail outside the village of m a hand grenade a slim dead dainy young man of about 20 Kyo was saying no choice Tim what else could you do K was saying right Kyo was saying talk to me 43 years old and the war occurred half a lifetime ago and yet the remembering makes it now and sometimes remembering will lead to a story which makes it forever that that's what stories are for stories are for joining the past to the Future stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are stories are for eternity when memory is erased when there is nothing to remember except the story on the Rainy River this is one story I've never told before not to anyone not to my parents not to my brother or sister not even to my wife to go into it I've always thought would only cause embarrassment for all of us a sudden need to be elsewhere which is the natural response to a confession even now I'll admit the story makes me squirm for more than 20 years I've had to live with it feeling the shame trying to push it away and so by this act of remembrance by putting the facts down on paper I'm hoping to relieve at least some of the pressure on my dreams still it's a hard story to tell all of us I like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth bravely and forthrightly without thought of personal loss or discredit certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968 Tim O'Brien a secret hero The Lone Ranger if the stakes ever became high enough if the evil were evil enough if the good were good enough I would simply tap a secret reservoir of Courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years courage I seem to think comes to us in finite quantities like an inheritance and by being Frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down it was a comforting Theory it dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward it Justified the past while amortizing the future in June of 1968 a month after graduating from the Cal College I was drafted to fight a war one hated I was 21 years old young yes and politically naive but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons I saw no Unity of purpose no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law the very facts were shrouded in uncertainty was it a civil war a war of National Liberation or simple aggression who started it and when and why what really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of tonan was hokai in a communist stooge or a nationalist savior or both or neither what about the Geneva accords what about CTO and the Cold War what about dominoes America was divided on these and a thousand other issues and the debate had Spilled Out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets and smart men and Pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy the only certainty that summer was moral confusion it was my view then and still is that you don't make war without knowing why knowledge of course is always imperfect but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the Justice and imperative of its cause you can't fix your mistakes once people are dead you can't make them Undead in any case those were my convictions and back in college I had taken a modest stand against the war not nothing radical no hoad stuff just ringing a few doorbells for Jee McCarthy composing a few tedious uninspired editorials for the campus newspaper oddly though it was almost entirely an intellectual activity I brought some energy to it of course but it was the energy that accompanies almost any abstract Endeavor I felt no personal danger I felt no sense of an impending crisis in my life stupidly with a kind of smug removal that I can't begin to fathom I assumed that the problems of killing and dying did not fall within my special Province the draft notice arrived on June 17th 1968 it was a humid afternoon I remember cloudy and very quiet and I'd just come in from a round of golf my mother and father were having lunch out in the kitchen I remember opening up the letter scanning the first few lines feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes I remember a sound in my head it wasn't thinking just a Sil how a million things all at once I was too good for this war too smart too compassionate to everything it couldn't happen I was above it I had the world F Beta Kappa and Suma Cad and president of the student body and a full ride scholarship for grad studies at Harvard a mistake maybe a foul up in the paperwork I was no Soldier I hated Boy Scouts I hated camping out I hated dirt and Tents and mosquitoes the side of blood made me queasy and I couldn't tolerate Authority and I didn't know a rifle from a slingshot I was a liberal for Christ's sake if they needed fresh bodies why not draft some back to the Stone Age hawk or some dumb Jingo in his hard hat and bomb hanoy button or one of lbj's pretty daughters or west morland's whole handsome family nephews and nieces and baby grandson there should be a law I thought if you support a war if you think it's worth the price that's fine but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line you have to head for the front and hook up with an infantry unit and help spill the blood and you have to bring along your wife or your kids or your lover Allah I thought I remember the rage in my stomach later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity than to numbness at dinner that night my father asked what my plans were nothing I said wait I spent the summer of 1968 working in an armored meat packing plant in my hometown of Worthington Minnesota the plant specialized in pork products and for 8 hours a day I stood on a quarter mile assembly line more properly a disassembly line removing blood clots from the necks of Dent pigs my job title I believe was de clutter after Slaughter the Hogs were decapitated split down the length of the belly Pride open eviscerated and strung up by the hind Hawks on a high conveyor belt then gravity took over by the time a carcass reached my spot on the line the fluids had mostly drained out everything except for thick clots of blood in the neck and upper chest cavity to remove the stuff I used a kind of water gun the machine was Heavy maybe 80 lb and was suspended from the ceiling by a heavy rubber cord there was some bounce to it an elastic upand down give and the trick was to maneuver the gun with your whole body not lifting with the arms just letting the rubber cord do the work for you at one end was a trigger at the muzzle end was a small nozzle and a steel roller brush as a carcass passed by you'd lean forward and swing the gun up against the clots and squeeze the trigger all in one motion and the brush would whirl and water would come shooting out and youd hear a quick splattering sound as the clots dissolved into a fine Red Mist it was not pleasant work goggles were a necessity and a rubber apron but even so it was like standing for 8 hours a day under a lukewarm blood shower at night I'd go home smelling a pig it wouldn't go go away even after a hot bath scrubbing hard the stink was always there like old bacon or sausage a dense greasy Pig stink that soaked deep into my skin and hair among other things I remember it was tough getting dates that summer I felt isolated I spent a lot of time alone and there was also that draft notice tucked away in my wallet in the evenings I'd sometimes borrow my father's car and drive aimlessly around town feeling sorry for myself thinking about the war and the pig Factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing towards Slaughter I felt paralyzed all around me the options seemed to be narrowing as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel the whole world squeezing in tight there was no happy way out the government had ended most graduate school deferments the waiting lists for the National Guard and reserves were impossibly long my health was solid I didn't qualify for Co status no religious grounds no history as a pacifist moreover I could not claim to be opposed to War as a matter of General principle there were occasions I believed when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve its ends to stop a Hitler or some comparable evil and I told myself that in such circumstances I would have willingly marched off to the battle the problem though was that a draft board did not let you choose your War beyond all this or at the very center was the raw fact of Terror I did not want to die not ever but certainly not then not there not in a wrong War driving up Main Street past the courthouse and the Ben Franklin store I sometimes felt the fear spreading inside me like weeds I imagined myself dead I imagined myself doing things I could not do charging an enemy position taking a at another human being at some point in mid July I began thinking seriously about Canada the Border lay a few hundred miles north an 8 hour drive both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it just take off and run like hell and never stop in the beginning the idea seemed purely abstract the word Canada printing itself out in my head but after a time I could see particular shapes and images the sorry details of my own future a hotel room in Winnipeg a battered old suitcase my father's says as I tried to explain myself over the telephone I could almost hear his voice and my mothers run I'd think then I'd think impossible then a second later I'd think run it was a kind of schizophrenia a moral split I couldn't make up my mind I feared the war yes but I also feared Exile I was afraid of walking away from my own life my friends and my family my whole history everything that mattered to me I feared losing the respect of my parents I feared the law I feared ridicule and censure my hometown was a conservative little spot on the Prairie a place where tradition counted and it was easy to imagine people people sitting around a table down at the old gobler Cafe on Main Street coffee cups poised the conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O'Brien kid how the damn had taken off for Canada at night when I couldn't sleep I'd sometimes carry on Fierce arguments with those people I'd be screaming at them telling them how much I detested their blind thoughtless automatic acquiescence to it all their simple minded patriotism their pritul ignorance their love it or leave it platitudes how they were sending me off to fight a war they didn't understand and didn't want to understand I held them responsible by God yes I did all of them I held them personally and individually responsible the polyester kaanas boys the merchants and Farmers the piest churchgoers the chatty Housewives the PTA and the Lions Club and the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the fine upstanding Gentry out act the country club they didn't know B die from The Man in the Moon they didn't know history they didn't know the first thing about de's tyranny or the nature of Vietnamese nationalism or the long colonialism of the French this was all to damned complicated it required some reading but no matter it was a war to stop the Communists plain and simple which was how they liked things and you were a treasonous if you had second thoughts about killing or dying for plain and simple reasons I was bitter sure but it was so much more than that the emotions went from outrage to Terror to bewilderment to guilt to sorrow and then back again to outrage I felt a sickness inside me real disease most of this I've told before or at least hinted at but what I have never told is the full truth how I cracked how at work one morning standing on the pig line I felt something break open in my chest I don't know what it was I'll never know but it was real I know that much it was a physical rupture a cracking leaking popping feeling I remember dropping my water gun quickly almost without thought I took off my apron and walked out of the plant and drove home it was mid morning I remember and the house was empty down in my chest there was still that leaking sensation something very warm and precious spilling out and I was covered with blood and hog stink and for a long while I just concentrated on holding myself together I remember taking a hot shower I remember packing a suitcase and carrying it out to the kitchen standing very still for a few minutes looking carefully at The Familiar objects all around me the old Chrome toaster the telephone the pink and white for Mica on the kitchen counters the room was full of bright Sunshine everything sparkled my house I thought my life I'm not sure how long I stood there but later I scribbled out a short note to my parents what it said exactly I don't recall now something vague taking off will call loved him I drove North it's a blur now as it was then and all I remember is a sense of high velocity and the feel of the steering wheel in my hands I was riding on adrenaline a giddy feeling in a way except there was the dreamy edge of impossibility to it like running a deadend maze no way out it couldn't come to a happy conclusion and yet I was doing it anyway because it was all I could think of to do it was pure flight fast and Mindless I had no plan just hit the border at high speed and crash through and keep on running near dusk I passed through buiji then turned Northeast toward International Falls I spent the night in the car behind a closed down gas station a half mile from the border in the morning after gassing up I headed straight west along the Rainy River which separates Minnesota from Canada and which for me separated one life from another the land was mostly Wilderness here and there I passed a motel or bait shop but otherwise the country unfolded in great sweeps of Pine and Birch and sumac though it was still August the air already had the smell of October football season piles of yellow red leaves everything crisp and clean I remember a huge blue sky off to my right was the Rainy River wide as a lake in places and Beyond the Rainy River was Canada for a while I just drove not aiming at anything then in the late morning I began looking for a place to lie low for a day or two I was exhausted and scared sick and around noon I pulled into an Old Fishing Resort called The tiptop Lodge actually it was not a lodge at all just eight or nine tiny yellow cabins clustered on a peninsula that jutted northward into the Rainy River the place was in sorry shape there was a dangerous wooden dock an old minnow tank a flimsy tar paper boat house along the shore the main building which stood in a cluster of Pines on High Ground seemed to lean heavily to one side like a the roof sagging toward Canada briefly I thought about turning around just giving up but then I got out of of the car and walked up to the front porch the man who opened the door that day is the hero of my life how do I say this without sounding sappy blurted out the man saved me he offered exactly what I needed without questions without any words at all he took me in he was there at the critical time a silent watchful presence 6 days later when it ended I was unable to find a proper way to thank him and I never have and so if nothing else this story represents a small gesture of gratitude 20 years overdue even after two decades I can close my eyes and return to that porch at the tiptop lodge I can see the old guy staring at me L Roy berall 81 years old skinny and shrunken and mostly bald he wore a flannel shirt and brown work pants in one hand I remember he carried a green apple a small pairing knife in the other his eyes had the bluish gray color of a razor blade the same polish shine and as he peered up at me I felt felt a strange sharpness almost painful a cutting sensation as if his gaze Were Somehow slicing me open in part no doubt it was my own sense of guilt but even so I'm absolutely certain that the old man took one look and went right to the heart of things a kid in trouble when I asked for a room oroy made a little clicking sound with his tongue he nodded led me out to one of the cabins and dropped a key in my hand I remember smiling at him I also remember wishing I hadn't the old man shook his head as if to tell me it wasn't worth the bother dinner at 5:30 he said you eat fish anything I said looy grunted and said I'll bet we spent six days together at the tiptop lodge Just the Two of Us tourist season was over and there were no boats on the river and the Wilderness seemed to withdraw into a great permanent Stillness over those six days o Roy berall and I took most of our meals together in the mornings we sometimes went out on Long hikes into the woods and at night we played Scrabble or listened to records or sat reading in front of his big stone fireplace at times I felt the awkwardness of an intruder but Ol Roy accepted me into his quiet routine without fuss or ceremony he took my presence for granted the same way he might have sheltered a stray cat no wasted size or pity and there was never any talk about it just the opposite what I remember more than anything is the man's willful almost ferocious silence in all that time together all those hours he never asked the obvious questions why was I there why alone why so preoccupied if aloy was curious about any of this he was careful never to put it into words my hunch though is that he already knew at least the basics after all it was 1968 and guys were burning draft cards and Canada was just a boat right away L Roy birdall was no hick his bedroom I remember was cluttered with books and newspapers he killed me at the Scrabble board barely concentrating and on those occasions when speech was necessary he had a way of compressing large thoughts into small cryptic packets of language one evening just at Sunset he pointed up at an all circling over the Violet lighted Forest to the West hey obrien he said there's Jesus the man was sharp he didn't miss much those razor eyes now and then he'd catch me staring out at the river at the far sure and I could almost hear the Tumblers clicking in his head maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it one thing for certain he knew I wasn't desperate trouble and he knew I couldn't talk about it the wrong word or even the right word and I would have disappeared I was wired and jittery my skin felt to tight after supper one evening I vomited and went back to my cabin and lay down for a few moments and then vomited again another time in the middle of the afternoon I began sweating and couldn't shut it off I went through whole days feeling dizzy with sorrow I couldn't sleep I couldn't lie still at night I'd toss around in bed half awake half dreaming imagining how I'd sneak down to the beach and quietly push one of the old man's boats out into the river and start paddling my way toward Canada there were times when I thought I'd gone off the psychic Edge I couldn't tell up from down I was just fallen and late in the night I'd lie there watching weird pictures spin through my head getting chased by the Border Patrol helicopters and search lights and barking dogs I'd be crashing through the woods I'd be down on my hands and knees people shouting out my name the law closing in on all sides my hometown draft board and the FBA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police it all seemed crazy and impossible 21 years old an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreams and Ambitions and all I wanted was to live the life I was born to a mainstream life I Lov baseball ball and hamburgers and Cherry Cokes and now I was off on the margins of Exile leaving my country forever and it seemed so impossible and terrible and sad I'm not sure how I made it through those six days most of it I can't remember on two or 3 afternoons to pass some time I helped Del Roy get the place ready for winter sweeping down the cabins and Hauling in the boats little chores that kept my body moving the days were cool and bright the nights were very dark one morning the old man showed me how to split and stack firewood and for several hours we just worked in silence out behind his house at one point I remember oloy put down his Ma and looked at me for a long time his lips drawn as if framing a difficult question but then he shook his head and went back to work the man's self-control was amazing he never pried he never put me in a position that required lies or denials to an extent I suppose his reticence was typical of that part of Minnesota where private y still held value and even if I'd been walking around with some horrible deformity for arms and three heads I'm sure the old man would have talked about everything except those extra arms and heads simple politeness was part of it but even more than that I think the man understood that words were insufficient the problem had gone beyond discussion during that long summer I'd been overand over the various arguments all the pros and cons and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason intellect had come up against emotion my conscience told me to run but some irrational and powerful force was resisting like a weight pushing me toward the war what it came down to stupidly was a sense of Shame hot stupid shame I did not want people to think badly of me not my parents not my brother and sister not even the folks down at the gobler cafe I was ashamed to be there at the tiptop lodge I was ashamed of my conscience ashamed to be doing the right thing some of this iloy must have understood not the details of course but the plain fact of Crisis although the old man never confronted me about it there was one occasion when he came close to forcing the whole thing out into the open it was early evening and we just finished supper and over coffee and dessert I asked him about my bill how much I owed so far for a long while the old man squinted down at the tablecloth well the basic rate he said is 50 bucks a night not counting meals this makes for nights right I nodded I had $312 in my wallet ooy kept his eyes on the tablecloth now that's an on season price to be fair I suppose we should knock it down a peg or two he leaned back in his chair what's a reasonable number you figure I don't know I said 40 40 is good 40 a night then we tack on food say another 100 260 total I guess he raised his eyebrows too much no that's fair it's fine tomorrow though I think I'd better take off tomorrow Leroy Shrugged and began clearing the table for a time he fussed with the dishes whisking to himself as if the subject had been settled after a second he slapped his hands together you know what we forgot he said we forgot wages those odd jobs you done what we have to do we have to figure out what your time's worth your last job how much did you pull in an hour not enough I said a bad one yes pretty bad slowly then without intending any long sermon I told him about my days at the pig plant it began as a straight recitation of the facts but before I could stop myself I was talking about the blood clots and the water gun and how the smell had soaked into my skin and how I couldn't wash it away I went on for a long time I told him about wild hogs squealing in my dreams the sounds of Butchery slaughterhouse sounds and how I'd sometimes wake up with that greasy Pig stink in my throat when I was finished L Roy nodded at me well to be honest he said when you first showed up here I wondered about all that the aroma I mean smelled like you was awful damned fond of pork chops the old man almost smiled he made a snuffling sound then sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper so what did this crud job pay 10 bucks an hour 15 less ooy shook his head let's make it 15 you put in 25 hours here easy that's 375 bucks total wages we subtract the 260 for food and lodging I still owe you 115 he took for 50s out of his shirt pocket and laid them on the table call it even he said no pick it up get yourself a haircut the money lay on the table for the rest of the evening it was still there when I went back to my cabin in the morning though I found an envelope tacked to my door inside were the 450s and a two-word note that said emergency fund the man knew looking back after 20 years I sometimes wonder if the events of that summer didn't happen in some other dimension a place where your life exists before you've lived it and where it goes afterward none of it ever seemed real during my time at the tiptop lodge I had the feeling that I'd slipped out of my own skin hovering a few feet away while some poor yulio with my name and face tried to make his way toward a future he didn't understand and didn't want even now I can see myself as I was then it's like watching an old home movie I'm young and 10 and fit I've got hair lots of it I don't smoke or drink I'm wearing faded blue jeans and a white polo shirt I can see myself sitting on Al Roy burle's dock near dusk one evening the sky a bright shimmering pink and I'm finishing up a letter to my parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and and how sorry I am that I'd never found the courage to talk to them about it I asked them not to be angry I tried to explain some of my feelings but there aren't enough words and so I just say that it's a thing that has to be done at the end of the letter I talk about the vacations we used to take up in this North Country at a place called White Fish Lake and how the scenery here reminds me of those good times I tell them I'm fine I tell them I WR again from Winnipeg or Montreal or wherever I end up on my last full day the sixth day the old man took me out fishing on the Rainy River the afternoon was sunny and cold a stiff breeze came in from the north and I remember how the little 14t boat made sharp rocking motions as we pushed off from the dock the current was fast all around us I remember there was a vastness to the world an unpeopled roness just the trees and the sky and the water reaching out toward nowhere the air had the brittle scent of October for 10 or 15 minutes Ol Roy held a course Upstream the re River choppy and silver gray then he turned straight North and put the engine on Full Throttle I felt the bll lift beneath me I remember the wind in my ears the sound of the old outboard Evan rote for a time I didn't pay attention to anything just feeling the cold spray against my face but then it occurred to me that at some point we must have passed into Canadian Waters across that dotted line between to different worlds and I remember a sudden tightness in my chest as I looked up and watched the far Shore come at me this wasn't a Daydream it was tangible and real as we came in toward land ooy cut the engine letting the bo fish tail lightly about 20 yards offshore the old man didn't look at me or speak bending down he opened up his tackle box and busied himself with a bobber and a piece of wire leader humming to himself his eyes down it struck me then that he must have planned it I'll never be certain of course but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself I remember staring at the old man then at my hands then at Canada the shoreline was dense with brush and Timber I could see tiny red berries on the bushes I could see a squirrel up in one of the birch trees a big Crow looking at me from a boulder along the river that close 20 yards and I could see the delicate lattice work of the leaves the texture of the soil the brown needles beneath the Pines the configurations of geology and human history 20 yards I could have done it I could have jumped and started swimming for my life inside me in my chest I felt a terrible squeezing pressure even now as I write this I can still feel that tightness and I want you to feel it the wind coming off the river the waves the silence the wooded Frontier you're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River you're 21 years old you're scared and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest best what would you know would you jump would you feel pity for yourself would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind would it hurt would it feel like dying would you cry as eated itried to swallow it back I tried to smile except I was crying now perhaps you can understand why I've never told this story before it's not just the embarrassment of Tears that's part of it no doubt but what embarrasses me much more and always will is the paralysis that took my heart a moral freeze I couldn't decide I couldn't act I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity all I could do was cry quietly not balling just the chest chokes at the rear of the bod Roy berall pretended not to notice he held a fishing rod in his hands his head bowed to hide his eyes he kept humming a soft monotonous Little tune everywhere it seemed in the trees and water and sky a great worldwide sadness came pressing down on me a crushing sorrow sorrow like I had never known it before and what was so sad I realized was that Canada had become a pitiful fantasy silly and hopeless it was no longer a possibility right then with the shore so close I understood that I would not do what I should do I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life I would not be brave that old image of myself as a hero as a man of conscience and courage all that was just a threadbear pipe dream bobbing there on the Rainy River looking back at the Minnesota Shore I felt a sudden swell of helplessness come over me a drowning sensation as if I had toppled overboard and was being Swept Away by the silver waves chunks of my own history flashed by I saw a seven-year-old boy in a white Cowboy head and a Lone Ranger mask and a pair of holstered six shooters I saw a 12-year-old little lead shortstop pivoting to turn a double play I saw a 16-year-old kid decked out for his first prom looking spiffy in a white tux and a black bow tie his hair cut short and flat his shoes freshly polished my whole life seemed to spill out into the river swirling away from me everything I had ever been or ever wanted to be I couldn't get my breath I couldn't stay afloat I couldn't tell which way to swim a hallucination I suppose but it was as real as anything I would ever feel I saw my parents calling to me from the far Shoreline I saw my brother and sister all the town's folk the mayor and the entire Chamber of Commerce and all my old teachers and girlfriends and high school buddies like some weird sporting event everybody screaming from the sidelines rooting me on a loud Stadium Roar hot dogs and popcorn Stadium smells Stadium heat a squad of cheerleaders did cartwheels along the banks of the Rainy River they had megaphones and pom poms and smooth Brown thighs the crowd swayed left and right a marching B and played fight songs all my aunts and uncles were there and Abraham Lincoln and St George and a 9-year-old girl named Linda who had died of a brain tumor back in fifth grade and several members of the United States Senate and a blind poet scribbling notes and LBJ and huckin and Abby Hoffman and all the dead soldiers back from the grave and the many thousands who were later to die villagers with terrible Burns little kids without arms or legs yes and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there and a couple of popes and a first lieutenant named Jimmy cross and the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and Jane Fonda dressed up as Barbarella and an old man sprawled beside a pig bin and my grandfather and Gary Cooper and a kindf faced woman carrying an umbrella and a copy of Plato's Republic and a million ferocious citizens waving flags of all shapes and colors people in hard hats people in headbands they were all all hooping and chanting and urging me toward one Shore or the other I saw faces from my distant past and distant future my wife was there my unborn daughter waved at me and my two sons hopped up and down and a drill sergeant named bighton sneered and shot up a finger and shook his head there was a choir in bright purple robes there was a cabie from the Bronx there was a slim young man I would one day kill with a hand grenade along a red clay Trail outside the village of my K the little aluminum boat rocked softly beneath me there was the wind and the sky I tried to will myself overboard I gripped the edge of the boat and leaned forward and thought now I did try it just wasn't possible all those eyes on me the town the whole universe and I couldn't risk the embarrassment it was as if there were an audience to my life that swirl of faces along the river and in my head I could hear people screaming at me Traer they yelled turncoat I felt myself blush I couldn't tolerate it I couldn't endure the mockery or the disgrace or the Patriotic ridicule even in my imagination the shore just 20 yards away I couldn't make myself be brave it had nothing to do with morality embarrassment that's all it was and right then I submitted I would go to the war I would kill and maybe die because I was embarrassed not to that was the sad thing and so I sat in the bow of the boat and cried it was loud now loud hard crying L Roy berall remained quiet he kept fishing he worked his line with the tips of his fingers patiently squinting out at his red and white bobber on the Rainy River his eyes were flat and impassive he didn't speak he was simply there like the river and the late Summer Sun and yet by his presence his mute watchfulness he made it real he was the true audience he was a widness like God or like the gods who look on in absolute silence as we live our lives as we make our choices or fail to make them ain't biting he said then after a Time the old man pulled in his line and turned the boat back toward Minnesota I don't remember saying goodbye that last night we had dinner together and I went to bed early and in the morning L Roy fixed breakfast for me when I told him I'd be leaving the old man nodded as if he already knew he looked down at the table and smiled at some point later in the morning it's possible that we shook hands I just don't remember but I do know that by the time I'd finished packing the old man had disappeared around noon when I took my suitcase out to the car I noticed that his old black pickup truck was no longer parked in front of the house I went inside and waited for a while but I felt a bone certainty that he wouldn't be back in a way I thought it was appropriate I washed up the breakfast dishes left his $200 on the kitchen counter got into the car and drove South toward home the day was cloudy I passed through town with familiar names through the pine forests and down to the Prairie and then to Vietnam where I was a soldier and then home again I survived but it's not a happy ending I was a coward I went to the war enemies one morning in Late July while we were out on patrol near LZ Gator Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen got into a fist fight it was about something stupid a missing jack knife but even so the fight was vicious for a while it went back and forth but Dave Jensen was much bigger and much stronger and eventually he wrapped an arm around strunk's neck and pinned him down and kept hitting him on the nose he hit him hard and he didn't stop strunk's nose made a sharp snapping sound like a firecracker but even then Jensen kept hitting him over and over quick stiff punches that did not miss it took three of us to pull him off when it was over strun had to be choppered back to the the rear where he had his nose looked after and 2 days later he rejoined us wearing a metal splint and lots of gauze in any other circumstance it might have ended there but this was Vietnam where guys carried guns and Dave Jensen started to worry it was mostly in his head there were no threats no vows of Revenge just a silent tension between them that made Jensen take special precautions on patrol he was careful to keep track of Strunk whereabouts he dug his fox holes on the far side of the perimeter he kept his back covered he avoided situations that might put the two of them alone together eventually after a week of this The Strain began to create problems Jensen couldn't relax like fighting to different Wars he said no safe ground enemies everywhere no front or rear at night he had trouble sleeping a skittish feeling always on guard hearing strange noises in the dark imagining a grenade rolling into his Foxhole or the tickle of a knife against his ear the distinction between good guys and bad guys disappeared for him even in times of relative safety while the rest of us took it easy Jensen would be sitting with his back against a stone wall weapon across his knees watching Le Strunk with quick nervous eyes it got to the point finally where he lost control something must have snapped one afternoon he began firing his weapon into the air yelling strunk's name just firing and yelling and it didn't stop until he'd rattled off an entire magazine of ammunition we were all flat on the ground nobody had the nerve to go near him Jenson started to reload but then suddenly he sat down and held his head in his arms and wouldn't move for 2 or 3 hours he simply sat there but that wasn't the bizarre part because late that same night he borrowed a pistol gripped it by the barrel and used it like a hammer to break his own nose afterward he crossed the perimeter to Lee strunk's Foxhole he showed him what he done and asked if everything was Square between them Strunk nodded and said sure things were square but in the morning Lee Strunk couldn't stop laughing the man's crazy he said I stole his jack knife friends Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk did not become instant buddies but they did learn to trust each other over the next month they often teamed up on ambushes they covered each other on patrol shared a foxhole took turns pulling guard at night in late August they made a pack that if one of them should ever get totally rucked up a wheelchair wound the other guy would automatically find a way to end it as far as I could tell they were serious they drew it up on paper signing their names and asking a couple of guys to act as Witnesses and then in October Lee Strunk stepped on a rigged mortar round it took off his right leg at the knee he managed a funny little half step like a hop then he tilted sideways and dropped oh damn he said for a while he kept on saying it damn oh damn as if he'd stubbed a toe then he panicked he tried to get up and run but there was nothing left to run on he fell hard the stump of his right leg was twitching there were slivers of bone and the blood came in quick spurts like water from a pump he seemed bewildered he reached down as if to massage his missing leg then he passed out and rat Kylie put on a tourniquet and administered morphine and ran plasma into him there was nothing much anybody could do except wait for the dust off after we'd secured an LZ Dave Jensen went over and kneeled at Strunk side the stump had stopped twitching now for a time there was some question as to whether Strunk was still alive but then he opened his eyes and looked up at Dave Jensen oh Jesus he said and moaned and tried to slide away and said Jesus man don't kill me relax Jensen said Lee Strunk seemed groggy and confused he lay still for for a second and then motioned toward his leg really it's not so bad not terrible hey really they can sew it back on really right I'll bet they can you think sure I do Strunk frowned at the sky he passed out again then woke up and said don't kill me I won't Jensen said I'm serious sure but you got to promise swear it to me swear you won't kill me Jensen nodded and said I swear and then a little later we carried Strunk to the dust off Chopper Jensen reached out and touched the good leg go on now he said later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chuli which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight how to tell a true War Story this is true I had a buddy in Vietnam his name was Bob Kylie but everybody called him rat a friend of his gets killed so about a week later rat sits down and writes a letter to the guy's sister rat tells her what a great brother she had how together the guy was a number one pal and comrade a real soldier's Soldier rat says then he tells a few stories to make the point how her brother would always volunteer for Stuff nobody else would volunteer for in a million years dangerous stuff like doing recon or going out on these really badass night patrols stainless steel balls rat tells her the guy was a little crazy for sure but crazy in a good way a real Daredevil because he liked the challenge of it he liked testing himself just man against g a great great guy rat says anyway it's a terrific letter very personal and touching rad almost balls writing it he gets all Ty telling about the good times they had together how her brother made the war seem almost fun always raising hell and lighting up vills and bringing smoke to Bear Every Which Way a great sense of humor too like the time that this River when he went fishing with a whole damn crate of hand grenades probably the funniest thing in world history rat says all that Gore about 20 zillion dead gfish her brother he had the right attitude he knew how to have a good time on Halloween this real hot Spooky Night the dude paints up his body all different colors and puts on this weird mask and Hikes over to a Ville and goes trick-or treating almost stark naked just boots and balls and an M16 a tremendous human being wrath says pretty n so some times but you could trust him with your life and then the letter gets very sad and serious rat pours his heart out he says he loved the guy he says the guy was his best friend in the world they were like soulmates he says like twins or something they had a whole lot in common he tells the guy's sister he'll look her up when the war is over so what happens rat mails the letter he waits to months the dumc never writes back a true War Story is never moral it does not instruct nor encourage virtue nor suggest models of proper human behavior nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done if a story seems moral do not believe it if at the end of a war story you feel uplifted or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie there is no rectitude whatsoever there is no virtue as a first rule of thumb therefore you can tell a truth War Story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil listen to rat Kye who he says he does not say he certainly does not say woman or girl he says C then he spits and stares he's 19 years old it's too much for him so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says C because his friend is dead and because it's so incredibly sad and true she never wrote back you can tell a true War story If It embarrasses you if you don't care for obscenity you don't care for the truth if you don't care for the truth watch how you vote send guys to war they come home talking dirty listen to rat Jesus Christ man I write this beautiful letter I slave over it and what happens the dumb cous never writes back the dead guy's name was Kurt lemon what happened was we crossed a muddy river and marched West into the mountains and on the third day we took a break along a Junction in Deep Jungle right away lemon and rack Kylie started goofing they didn't understand about the spookiness they were kids they just didn't know a nature hike they thought not even a war so they went off into the shade of some giant trees quadruple canopy no sunlight at all and they were giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they'd invented the game involved smoke grenades which were harmless unless you did stupid things and what they did was pull out the p pin and stand a few feet apart and play catch under the shade of those huge trees whoever chickened out was a yellow mother and if nobody chicken out the grenade would make a light popping sound and they'd be covered with smoke and they'd laugh and dance around and then do it again it's all exactly true it happened to me nearly 20 years ago and I still remember that trail Junction and those giant trees and a soft dripping sound somewhere beyond the trees I remember the smell of moss up in the canopy there were tiny white blossoms but no sunlight at all and I remember the Shadows spreading out under the trees where Kurt lemon and rat Kylie were playing catch with smoke grenades Mitchell Sanders sat flipping his yo-yo Norman Boker and KY and Dave Jensen were dozing or half dozing and all around us were those ragged Green Mountains except for the laughter things were quiet at one point I remember Mitchell sanders turned and looked at me not quite nodding as if to warn me about about something as if he already knew then after a while he rolled up his yo-yo and moved away it's hard to tell you what happened next they were just goofing there was a noise I suppose which must have been the Detonator so I glanced behind me and watched lemon step from the shade into bright sunlight his face was suddenly Brown and Shining a handsome kid really sharp gray eyes lean and narrow wasted and when he died it was almost beautiful the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and Vines and white blossoms in any War story but especially a true one it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen what seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way the angles of vision are skewed when a booby trap explodes you close your eyes and Duck and Float outside yourself when a guy dies like kurd lemon you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again the pictures get jumbled you tend to miss a lot and then afterward when you go to tell about it there is always that surreal seemingness which makes the story seem untrue but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed in many cases a true War Story cannot be believed if you believe it be skeptical it's a question of credibility often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness in other cases you can't even tell a true War story sometimes it's just beyond telling I heard this one for example from Mitchell Sanders it was near Dusk and we were sitting at my Foxhole along a wide Muddy River North of quangang gai I remember how peaceful the Twilight was a deep pinkish red Spilled Out on the river which moved without sound and in the morning we would cross the river and March West into the mountains the occasion was right for a good story God's truth Mitchell Sanders said a six-man Patrol goes up into the mountains on a basic listening post operation the idea is to spend a week up there just lie low and listen for enemy movement they've got a radio along so if they hear anything suspicious anything they're supposed to call an artillery or gun chips whatever it takes otherwise they keep strict field discipline absolute silence they just listen Sanders glanced at me to make sure I had the scenario he was playing with his yo-yo dancing it with short tied little stroke of the wrist his face was blank in the dusk we're talking regulation by the book LP these six guys they don't say for a solid week they don't got tongues all ears right I said understand me invisible Sanders nodded airm he said invisible so what happens is these guys get themselves deep in the bush all camouflaged up and they lie down and wait and that's all they do nothing else they lie there for seven straight days days and just listen and man I'll tell you it's spooky this is mountains you don't know spooky till you've been there jungle sort of except its way up in the clouds and there's always this fog like rain except it's not raining everything's all wet and swirly and Tangled Up and you can't see Jack you can't find your own pecker to piss with like you don't even have a body sirious spooky you just go with the vapors the fog sort of takes you in and the sounds man the sounds car forever you hear stuff nobody should overhear Sanders was quiet for a second just working the yo-yo then he smiled at me so after a couple days the guys start hearing this real soft kind of whacked out music weird Echoes and stuff like a radio or something but it's not a radio it's this strange good music that comes right out of the Rocks far away sort of but right up close too they tried to ignore it but it's a listening post right so they listened and and every night they keep hearing that crazy ass good concert all kinds of Chimes and xylophones I mean this is Wilderness no way it can't be real but there it is like the mountains are tuned into radio Hanoi naturally they get nervous one guy sticks Juicy Fruit in his ears another guy almost flips thing is though they can't report music they can't get on the horn and call back to base and say Hey listen we need some Firepower we got to blow away this weirdo g rock band they can't do that it wouldn't go down so they lie there in the fog and keep their mouths shut and what makes it extra bad see is the poor dudes can't horse around like normal can't joke it away can't even talk to each other except maybe in Whispers all hush hush and that just revs up the Willies all they do is listen again there was some silence as Mitchell Sanders looked out on the river the dark was coming on hard now and off to the West I could see the mountain mountains rising in silhouette all the Mysteries and unknowns this next part Sanders said quietly you won't believe probably not I said you won't and you know why he gave me a long tired smile because it happened because every word is absolutely dead ontrue Sanders made a sound in his throat like a sigh as if to say he didn't care if I believed him or not but he did care he wanted me to feel the truth to believe by the raw force of feeling he seemed sad in a way these six guys he said they're pretty fried out by now and one night they start hearing voices like at a cocktail party that's what it sounds like this big Swank G cocktail party somewhere out there in the fog music and chitchat and stuff it's crazy I know but they hear the champagne corks they hear the actual martini glasses real hoyy toyy all very civilized except this isn't civilization this is nam anyway the guys try to be cool they just lie there and groove but after a while they start hearing you won't believe this they hear chamber music they hear violins and solos they hear this terrific Maman soprano then after a while they hear G Opera and a glee club and the Hun boys choir and a barber shop quartet and all kinds of weird chanting and budha buha stuff and the whole time in the background there's still that cocktail party going on all these different voices not human voices though because it's the mountains follow me the rock it's talking and the fog too and the grassa and the godamn mongus everything talks the trees talk Politics the monkeys talk religion the whole country Vietnam the place talks it talks understand n it truly talks the guys can't cope they lose it they get on the radio and Report enemy movement a whole army they say and they order up the the Firepower they get rdan gunships they call in air strikes and I'll tell you they crashed that cocktail party all night long they just smoke those mountains they make jungle juice they blow away trees and Glee clubs and whatever else there is to blow away Scorch time they walk napom up and down The Ridges they bring in the cobras and F fors they use Willie Peter and he and incendiaries it's all fire they make those mountains burn around Dawn things finally get quiet like you never even heard quiet before one of those real thick real Misty Days just clouds and fog they're off in this special Zone and the mountains are absolutely dead flat silent like Brigadoon Pure Vapor you know everything's all sucked up inside the fog not a single sound except they still hear it so they pack up and start humping they head down the mountain back to base camp and when they get there they don't say didly they don't talk not a word like they're deaf and dumb later on this fight bird colonel comes up and asks what the hell happened out there what did they he why all the ordinance the man's ragged out he gets down tight on their case I mean they spend $6 trillion dollar on Fir power and this fat house Colonel wants answers he wants to know what the story is but the guys don't say zip they just look at him for a while sort of funny like sort of amazed and the whole war is right there in that stair it say everything you can't ever say it says man you got wax in your ears it says poor bastard you'll never know wrong frequency you don't even want to hear this then they salute the and walk away because certain stories you don't ever tell you can tell a true War Story by the way it never seems to end not then not ever not when Mitchell Sanders stood up and moved off into the dark It All Happened even now at this instant I remember that yo-yo in a way I suppose you had to be there you had to hear it but I could tell how desperately Sanders wanted me to believe him his frustration and not quite getting the details right not quite pinning down the final and definitive truth and I remember sitting at my Foxhole that night watching the shadows of Quang and Guai thinking about the coming day and how we would cross the river and March West into the mountains all the ways I might die all the things I did not understand late in the night Mitchell Sanders touched my shoulder just came to me he whispered the moral I mean nobody listens nobody hears nothing like that fat ass Colonel the politicians all the civilian types your girlfriend my girlfriend everybody's sweet little virgin girlfriend what they need is to go out on LP the vapors man trees and rocks you got to listen to your enemy and then again in the morning Sanders came up to me the platoon Was preparing to move out checking weapons going through all the the little rituals that preceded a day's March already the lead Squad had crossed the river and was filing off toward the west I got a confession to make Sanders said last night man I had to make up a few things I know that the Glee Club there wasn't any glee club right no Opera forget it I understand yeah but listen it's still true those six guys they heard Wicked sound out there they heard sound you just plain won't believe Sanders pulled on his Ru sack closed his eyes for a moment then almost smiled at me I knew what was coming all right I said what's the moral forget it no go ahead for a long while he was quiet looking away and the silence kept stretching out until it was almost embarrassing then he Shrugged and gave me a stare that lasted all day hear that quiet man he said that quiet just listen there's your moral in a true War story if there's a moral at all it's like the thread that makes the cloth you can't tease it out you can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning and in the end really there's nothing much to say about a true War story except Mayo true War Stories do not generalize they do not indulge in abstraction or analysis for example war is hell as a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true and yet because it abstracts because it generalizes I can't believe it with my stomach nothing turns inside it comes down to gut instinct a true War story if truly told makes the stomach believe this one does it for me I've told it before many times many versions but here's what actually happened we crossed that River and marched West into the mountains on the third day Kurt lemon stepped on a booby trapped 105 round he was playing catch with rack Kylie laughing and then he was dead the trees were thick it took nearly an hour to cut an l for the dust off later higher in the mountains we came across a baby VC water buffalo what it was doing there I don't know no Farms or patties but we chased it down and got a rope around it and led it along to a deserted village where we sat up for the night after supper rat Kylie went over and stroked its nose he opened up a can of sea rations pork and beans but the baby buffalo wasn't interested rat Shrugged he stepped back and shot it through the right front knee the the animal did not make a sound it went down hard then got up again and rat took careful a man shot off in here he shot it in the hind quarters and in the little hump at its back he shot it twice in the flanks it wasn't to kill it was to hurt he put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away nobody said much the whole platoon stood there watching feeling all kinds of things but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo Kurt lemon was dead rat Kylie had lost his best friend in the world later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy's sister who would not write back but for now it was a question of pain he shot off the tail he shot away chunks of meat below the ribs all around us there was the smell of smoke and filth and deep Greenery and the evening was humid and very hot rat went to automatic he shot randomly almost casually quick little spurts in the belly and butt then he reloaded squatted down and Ed in the left front knee again the animal fell hard and tried to get up but this time it couldn't quite make it it wobbled and went down sideways rat shot it in the nose he bent forward and whispered something as if talking to a pet then he shot it in the throat all the while the baby buffalo was silent or almost silent just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been it lay very still nothing moved except the eyes which were enormous the pupils shiny black and dumb rat Kylie was crying he tried to say something but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself the rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo for a time no one spoke we had witnessed something essential something brand new and profound a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it somebody kicked the baby buffalo it was still alive though just barely just in the eyes amazing Dave Jensen said my whole life I never seen anything like it never not hardly not once kwe and Mitchell Sanders picked up the baby buffalo they hauled it across the open Square hoisted it up and dumped it in the village well afterward we sat waiting for rat to get himself together amazing Dave Jensen kept saying a new wrinkle I never seen it before Mitchell Sanders took out his yo-yo well that's n he said Garden of Evil over here man every's real fresh and original how do you generalize where is hell but that's not the half of it because war is also mystery and Terror and adventure and courage and Discovery and Holiness and pity and despair and longing and love war is nasty war is fun war is thrilling war is drudgery War makes you a man War makes you dead the truths are contradictory it can be argued for instance that war is grotesque but in truth war is also Beauty for all its horror you can't help but gape at the awful Majesty of combat you stare out at Tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons you crouch in Ambush as a cool and passive Moon Rises over the nighttime patties you admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion the great sheets of metal fire streaming down from a gunship the illumination rounds the white phosphorus the purpley orange glow of naom the rockets red glare it's not pretty exactly it's a it's astonishing it fills the eye it commands you you hate it yes but your eyes do not like a killer forest fire like cancer under a microscope any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference a powerful implacable beauty and a true War Story will tell the truth about this though the truth is ugly to generalize about war is like generalizing about peace almost everything is true almost nothing is true at its core perhaps war is just another name for death and yet any Soldier will tell you if he tells the truth that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life after a firefight there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness the trees are alive the grass the soil everything all around you things are purely living and you among them and the liveness makes you tremble you feel an intense outof the skin awareness of your living self your your truest self the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it in the midst of evil you want to be a good man you want decency you want Justice and courtesy and human Concord things you never knew you wanted there is a kind of largess to it a kind of godliness though it's odd you're never More Alive than when you're almost dead you recognize what's valuable freshly as if for the first time you love what's Best in yourself and in the world all that might be lost at the hour of dusk you sit at your Foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red and at the mountains Beyond and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die even so you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the Sun and you are filled with a hard icking love for how the world could be and always should be but now is not Mitchell Sanders was right for the common soldier at least War has the feel the spiritual texture of a great ghostly fog thick and permanent there is no Clarity everything swirls the old rules are no longer binding the old truths no longer true right spills over into wrong order Blends into chaos love into hate ugliness into Beauty law into Anarchy civility into savagery the vapors suck you in you can't tell where you are or why you're there and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity in war you lose your s of the definite hence your sense of Truth itself and therefore it's safe to say that in a true War Story nothing is ever absolutely true often in a true War Story there is not even a point or else the point doesn't hit you until 20 years later in your sleep and you wake up and shake your wife and start telling the story to her except when you get to the end you've forgotten the point again and then for a long time you lie there watching the story happen in your head you listen to your wife's breathing the war's Over You Close Your Eyes you smile and think Christ what's the point this one wakes me up in the mountains that day I watched lemon turn sideways he laughed and said something to rat Kylie then he took a peculiar half step moving from shade into bright sunlight and the booby trapped 105 round blew him into a tree the parts were just hanging there so Dave Jensen and I were ordered to shinny up and peel him off I remember the white bone of an arm I remember pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must have been the intestines the gore was horrible and stays with me but what wakes me up 20 years later is Dave Jensen singing lemon tree as we threw down the parts you can tell a true War Story by the questions you ask somebody tells a story let's say and afterward you ask is it true and if the answer matters you've got your answer for example we've all heard this one for guys go down a trail a grenade sails out one guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies is it true the answer matters you'd feel cheated if it never happened without the grounding reality it's just a trit bit of puffery pure Hollywood and true in the way all such stories are and true yet even if it did happen and maybe it did anything's possible even then you know it can't be true because a true War Story does not depend upon that kind of Truth absolute occurrence is irrelevant a thing may happen and be a total lie another thing May may not happen and be truer than the truth for example four guys go down a trail a grenade sails out one guy jumps on it and takes the blast but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway before they die though one of the dead guys says the you do that for and the jumper says Story of My Life man and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead that's a true story that never happened 20 years later I can still see the sunlight on lemon's face I can see him turn turning looking back at Rack Kylie then he laughed and took that curious half step from shade into sunlight his face suddenly Brown and shining and when his foot touched down in that instant he must have thought it was the sunlight that was killing him it was not the sunlight it was a rig 105 round but if I could ever get the story right how the Sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree if I could somehow recreate the Fatal whiteness of that light the quick glare the obvious CZ and effect then you would believe the last thing Kurt lemon believed which for him must have been the final truth now and then when I tell this story someone will come up to me afterward and say she liked it it's always a woman usually it's an older woman of kindly temperament and Humane politics she'll explain that as a rule she hates War Stories she can't understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore but this one she liked the poor baby buffalo it made her sad sometimes even there are little tears what I should do she'll say is put it all behind me find new stories to tell I won't say it but I'll think it I'll picture rack Kylie's face his grief and I'll think you dumb CS because she wasn't listening it wasn't a war story it was a love story but you can't say that all you can do is tell it one more time patiently adding and subtracting making up a few things to get at the real truth no Mitchell Sanders you tell her no lemon no rat Kylie no Trail Junction no baby buffalo no vines or Moss or white blossoms beginning to end you tell her it's all made up every godamn detail the mountains and the river and especially that poor dumb baby buffalo none of it happened none of it and even if it did happen it didn't happen in the mountains it happened in this little village on the batangan peninsula and it was raining like crazy and one night a guy named stink Harris woke up screaming with a leech on his tongue you can tell a true War story if you just keep on telling it and in the end of course a true War Story is never about war it's about sunlight it's about the special way that Dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and March into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do it's about love and memory it's about sorrow it's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen the dentist when Kurt lemon was killed I found it hard to mourn I knew him only slightly and what I did know was not impressive he had a tendency to play the tough Soldier role always posturing always puffing himself up and on occasion he took it way too far it's true that he pulled off some dangerous stunts even a few that seemed plain crazy like the time he painted up his body and put on a ghost mask and went out trick or treating on Halloween but afterward he couldn't stop bragging he kept replaying his own exploits tacking on little flourishes that never happened he had an opinion of himself I think that was too high for his own good or maybe it was the reverse maybe it was a low opinion that he kept trying to erase in any case it's easy to get sentimental about the dead and to guard against that I want to tell a quick Curt lemon story in February we were working in area of operations called the Rocket Pocket which got its name from the fact that the enemy sometimes used the place to launch rocket attacks on the Airfield at chulai but for us it was like a two- we vacation they all lay along the South China Sea where things had the feel of a resort with white beaches and palm trees and friendly little Villages it was a quiet time no casualties no contact at all as usual though the higher-ups couldn't leave well enough alone and one afternoon an army dentist was choppered into check our teeth and do minor repair work he was a tall skinny young Captain with bad breath breath for a half hour he lectured us on oral hygiene demonstrating the proper flossing and brushing techniques then afterward he opened up shop in a small field tent and we all took turns going in for personal exams at best it was a very primitive setup there was a battery powered drill a canvas cot a bucket of sea water for rinsing a metal suitcase full of the various instruments it amounted to assembly line Dentistry quick and impersonal and the young Captain's main concern seemed to be the clock as we sat waiting Kurt lemon began to tense up he kept fidgeting playing with his dog tags finally somebody asked what the problem was and lemon looked down at his hands and said that back in high school he'd had a couple of bad experiences with dentists real sadism he said torture chamber stuff he didn't mind blood or pain he actually enjoyed combat but there was something about a dentist that just gave him the creeps he glanced over at the field tent and said no way count me out Nobody messes with these teeth but a few minutes later when the dentist called his name lemon stood up and walked into the tent it was over fast he fainted even before the man touched him four of us had to hoist him up and lay him on the cot when he came to there was a funny new look on his face almost sheepish as if he'd been caught committing some terrible crime he wouldn't talk to anyone for the rest of the day he stayed off by himself sitting alone under a tree just staring down at the field tent he seemed a little dazed now and then we could hear him cussing balling himself out anyone else would have laughed it off but for Kurt lemon it was too much the embarrassment must have turned a screw in his head late that night he crept down to the dental tent he switched on a flashlight woke up the young captain and told him he had a monster to take a killer he said like a nail in his jaw the dentist couldn't find any problem but lemon kept insisting so the man finally Shrugged and shot in the novocaine and yanked out a perfectly good tooth there was some pain no doubt but in the morning Kurt lemon was all smiles sweetheart of the song trabon Vietnam was full of strange stories some improbable some well beyond that but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedum the Matt and the mandane this one keeps returning to me I heard it from rat Kylie who swore up and down to its truth all though in the end I'll admit that doesn't amount to much of a warranty among the men in Alpha Company rat had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement a compulsion to rev up the facts and for most of us it was normal procedure to Discount 60 or 70% of anything he had to say if rat told you for example that he'd slept with for girls one night you could figure it was about a girl and a half it wasn't a question of Deceit just the opposite he wanted to heat up the truth to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt for rat Kylie I think facts were formed by sensation not the other way around and when you listen to one of his stories you'd find yourself performing rapid calculations in your head subtracting superlatives figuring the square root of an absolute and then multiplying by maybe still with this particular story rat never backed down he claimed to have witnessed the incident with his own eyes and I remember how upset he became one morning when Mitchell Sanders challenged him on its basic premise it can't happen Sanders said nobody ships his honey over to n it don't ring true I mean you just can't import your own personal Pang rat shook his head I saw it man I was right there this guy did it his girlfriend straight on it's a fact rat's voice squeaked a little he paused and looked at his hands listen the guy sends her the money flies her over this cute blonde just a kid just barely out of high school she shows up with a suitcase and one of those plastic cosmetic bags comes right out to the boonies I swear to God man she's got on cullets white cullets and this sexy pink sweater there she is I remember Mitchell Sanders folding his arms he looked over at me for a second not quite grinning not saying a word but I could read the amusement in his eyes rat saw it too no lie he muttered call it when he first arrived in country before joining Alpha Company rat had been assigned to a small medical Detachment up in the mountains west of chulai near the village of tabang where along with eight other enlisted men he ran an aid station that provided basic Emergency and Trauma care casualties were flown in by helicopter stabilized then shipped out to hospitals in Chuli or Danning it was gory work rat said but predictable amputations mostly legs and feet the area was heavily mined thick with bouncing betties and homemade booby traps for a medic though it was ideal Duty and rat counted himself lucky there was plenty of cold beer three hot meals a day a tin roof over his head no humping at all no officers either you could let your hair grow he said and you didn't have to polish your boots or snap off salutes or put up with the usual rear Echelon nonsense the highest ranking in coo was an E6 named Eddie Diamond whose Pleasures ran from dopee to Darin and except for a rare field inspection there was no such thing as military discipline as rat described it the compound was situated at the top of a flat crested Hill along the northern outskirts of TR bong at one end was a small dirt helipad at the other end in a rough semicircle the mes Hall and medical hooches overlooked a river called the song trabon surrounding the place were Tangled rolls of concertina wire with bunkers and reinforce firing positions at staggered intervals and base security was provided by a mixed unit of RFS PFS and arv and infantry which is to say virtually no security at all as soldiers the arvans were useless the rough and puffs were outright dangerous and yet even with decent troops the place was clearly indefensible to the north and west The Country Rose up in thick walls of wilderness Triple Canopy jungle mountains unfolding into higher mountains Ravines and gorgeous and fast moving rivers and waterfalls and exotic butterflies and steep Cliffs and Smoky little hamlets and great valleys of bamboo and elephant grass originally in the early 1960s the place had been set up as a special forces Outpost and when Rak Kylie arrived nearly a decade later a squad of six green barretts still used the compound as a base of operations the Greenies were not social animals animals rat said but far from social they had their own Hooch at the edge of the perimeter fortified with sandbags and a metal fence and except for the Bare Essentials they avoided contact with the medical Detachment secretive and suspicious loners by Nature the six Greenies would sometimes vanish for days at a time or even weeks then late in the night they would just as magically reappear moving like Shadows through the Moonlight filing in silently from the dense rain forest off to the West among the Medics there were jokes about this but no asked questions while The Outpost was isolated and vulnerable rat said he always felt a curious sense of safety there nothing much ever happened the place was never mortared never taken Under Fire and the war seemed to be somewhere far away on occasion when casualties came in there were quick spurts of activity but otherwise the days flowed by without incident a smooth and peaceful time most mornings were spent on the volleyball court in the heat of midday the men would head for the shade lazing away the long afternoons and after Sundown there were movies and card games and sometimes all night drinking sessions it was during one of those late nights that Eddie Diamond first brought up the tantalizing possibility it was an off-hand comment a joke really what they should do Eddie said was pull some bucks and bring in a few mamans from Saigon spice things up and after a moment one of the men laughed and said our own little M club and somebody else said hey yeah we pay our dues don't we it was nothing serious just passing time playing with the possibilities and so for a while they toss the idea around how you could actually get away with it no officers or anything nobody to clamp down then they dropped the subject and moved on to cars and baseball later in the night though a young medic named Mark FY kept coming back to the subject look if you think about it he said it's not that crazy you could actually do it do what rat said you know bring in a girl I mean what's the problem rat Shrugged nothing a war well see that's the thing Mark fosy said no we here you could really do it a pair of solid brass balls that's all you'd need there was some laughter and Eddie Diamond told him he'd best strap down his dick but FY just frowned and looked at the ceiling for a while and then went off to write a letter 6 weeks later his girlfriend showed up the way told it she came in by helicopter along with the daily resupply shipment out of chulai a tall Big Bone blonde at best rat said she was 17 years old fresh out of Cleveland Heights senior high she had long white legs and blue eyes and a competion like strawberry ice cream very friendly too at the helipad that morning Mark fossy grinned and put his arm around her and said guys this is Maryann the girl seemed tired and somewhat lost but she smiled there was a heavy silence Andy Diamond the ranking and Co made a small motion with his hand and some of the others murmured a word or two then they watched Mark fosy pick up her suitcase and Le her by the arm down to the hooches for a long while the men were quiet that somebody finally said at evening CH Mark fosy explained how he'd set it up it was expensive he admitted and the logistics were complicated but it wasn't like going to the Moon Cleveland went to Los Angeles LA to Bangkok Bangkok to Saigon she'd hopped to see 1:30 up to chulai and stayed overnight at the Uso and the next morning hooka ride West with the resupply chopper a cinch FY said and gazed down at his pretty girlfriend thing is you just got to want it enough Mary and bell and Mark FY had been sweethearts since grammar school from the sixth grade on they had known for a fact that someday they would be married and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Yuri and have three healthy yellow-haired children and grow old together and no doubt die in each other's arms and be buried in the same Walnut casket that was the plan they were very much in love full of dreams and in the ordinary flow of their lives the whole scenario might well have come true on the first night they set up house in one of the bunkers along the perimeter near the special forces's Hooch and over the next two weeks they stuck together like a pair of high school stadies it was almost dis disgusting rat said the way they mooned over each other always holding hands always laughing over some private joke all they needed he said wear a couple of matching sweaters but among the Medics there was some Envy it was Vietnam after all and Mary and Bell was an attractive girl to wide in the shoulders maybe but she had terrific legs a bubbly personality a happy smile the men genuinely liked her out on the volleyball court she wore cut off blue jeans and black swimsuit suit top which the guys appreciated and in the evenings she liked to dance to music from rat's portable tape deck there was a novelty to it she was good for morale at times she gave off a kind of come get me energy Co and flutatious but apparently it never bothered Mark fossy in fact he seemed to enjoy it just grinning at her because he was so much in love and because it was the sort of show that a girl will sometimes put on for her boyfriends entertainment and education though she was young rat said Mary and Bell was no timid child she was curious about things during her first days in country she liked to roam around the compound asking questions what exactly was a trip flare how did a claymore work what was behind those scary Green Mountains to the west then she'd squint and listen quietly while somebody filled her in she had a good quick mind she paid attention often especially during the hot afternoons she would spend time with the Arvin out along the perimeter picking up little phrases of Vietnamese learning how to cook rice over a can of Sterno how to eat with her hands the guys sometimes like to kid her about it our own little native they'd say but Maryann would just smile and stick out her tongue I'm here she'd say I might as well learn something the war intrigued her the land too and the Mystery at the beginning of her second week she began pestering Mark fosy to take her down to the Village at the foot of the hill in a quiet voice very patiently he tried to tell her that it was a bad idea way too dangerous but Maran kept after him she wanted to get a feel for how people lived what the smells and Customs were it did not impress her that the VC owned the place listen it can't be that bad she said they're human beings aren't they like everybody else FY nodded he loved her and so in the morning wck Kylie and to other Medics tagged along as security while Mark and Maran strolled through through the Ville like a pair of tourists if the girl was nervous she didn't show it she seemed comfortable and entirely at home the hostle atmosphere did not seem to register all morning Mary and chattered Away about how quaint the place was how she loved the thatched roofs and naked children the wonderful Simplicity of Village Life a strange thing to watch rat said this 17-year-old doll and her goddamn pullets perky and fresh faced like a cheerleader visiting the opposing team's locker room her pretty blue eyes seemed to Glow she couldn't get enough of it on their way back up to the compound she stopped for a swim in the song trabon stripping down to her underwear showing off her legs while fossy tried to explain to her about things like ambushes and snipers and the stopping power of an AK for seven the guys though were impressed a real tiger said Eddie Diamond decup guts train her bra brains she'll learn somebody said Eddie Diamond gave a solemn nod there's the scary part I promise you this girl will most definitely learn in Parts at least it was a funny story and yet to hear rack Kylie tell it you'd almost think it was intended as straight tragedy he never smiled not even at the crazy stuff there was always a dark far off look in his eyes a kind of sadness as if you were troubled by something sliding beneath the story's surface whenever we laughed I remember he' say and waited out but the one thing he could not tolerate was disbelief he'd get edgy if someone questioned one of the details she wasn't dumb he'd snap I never said that young that's all I said like you and me a girl that's the only difference and I'll tell you something it didn't amount to Jack I mean when we first got here all of us we were really young and innocent full of romantic but we learned pretty damn quick and so did maryan rat would peer down at his hands silent and thoughtful after a moment his voice would flatten out you don't believe it he'd say fine with me but you don't know human nature you don't know n then he tell us to listen up a good sharp mind rat said true she could be silly sometimes but she picked up on things fast at the end of the second week when for casualties came in marann wasn't afraid to get her hands bloody at times in fact she seemed fascinated by it not the gore so much but the adrenaline Buzz that went with the job that quick hot Rush in your veins when the chopper settled down and you had to do things fast and right no time for sorting through options no thinking at all you just stuck your hands in and started plugging up holes she was quiet and steady she didn't back off from the ugly cases over the next day or two as more casualties trickled in she learned how to clip an artery and pump up a plastic splint and shoot in morphine in times of action her face took on a sudden new composure almost Serene the fuzzy blue eyes narrowing into a tight intelligent Focus Mark FY would grin at this he was proud yes but also amazed a different person it seemed and he wasn't sure what to make of it other things too the way she quickly fell into the habits of the Bush no Cosmetics no fingernail filing she stopped wearing jewelry cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandana hygiene became a matter of small consequence in her second week Edy Diamond taught her how to disassemble in M16 how the various parts worked and from there it was a natural progression to learning how to use the weapon for hours at a time she plunked away at C rash and cans a bit unsure of herself but as it turned out she had a real knack for it there was a new confidence in her voice and new Authority in the way she carried herself in many ways she remained naive and immature still a kid but Cleveland Heights now seemed very far away once or twice gently Mark FY suggested that it might be time to think about heading home but Maran laughed and told him to forget it everything I want she said is right here she stroked his arm and then kissed him on one level things remained the same between them they slept together they held hands and made plans for after the war but now there was a new imprecision in the way Mary and expressed her thoughts on certain subjects not necessarily three kids she'd say not necessarily a house on Lake Yuri naturally we'll still get married she'd tell him but it doesn't have to be right away maybe travel first maybe live together just test it out you know Mark fossy would nod at this even smile and agree but it made him uncomfortable he couldn't pen it down her body seemed faren somehow to stiffen places to firm where the softness used to be the bubbliness was gone the nervous giggling too when she laughed now which was rare it was only when something struck her as truly funny her voice seemed to reorganize itself at a lower pitch in the evenings while the men played cards she would sometimes fall into long elastic silences her eyes fixed on the dark her arms folded her foot tapping out a coated message against the floor when FY asked about it one evening Maran looked at him for a long moment and then Shrugged it's nothing she said really nothing to tell the truth I've never been happier in my whole life never twice though she came in late at night very late and then finally she did not come in at all rat Kylie heard about it from FY himself Before Dawn one morning the kid shook him awake he was in bad shape his voice seemed Hollow and stuffed up nasal sounding as if he had a bad cold he held a flashlight in his hand clicking it on and off marann he whispered I can't find her rat sat up and rubbed his face even in the dim light it was clear that the boy was in trouble there were dark smudges under his eyes The Frayed edges of somebody who hadn't slept in a while gone FY said rat listen she's sleeping with somebody last night she didn't even I don't know what to do abruptly then FY seemed to collapse he squatted down rocking on his heels still clutching the flashlight just a boy 18 years old tall and blonde A Gifted athlete a nice kid too polite and good-hearted although for the moment none of it seemed to be serving him well he kept clicking the flashlight on and off all right start at the start rat said nice and slow sleeping with who I don't know who Eddie Diamond Eddie has to be the guy's always there always hanging on her rat shook his head man I don't know can't say it strikes a right note not with Eddie yes but he's Easy Does It rat said he reached out and tapped the boy's shoulder why not just check some bunks we got nine guys you and me that's two so there's seven posses do a quick body count FY hesitated but I can't if she's there I mean if she's with somebody oh Christ rat pushed himself up he took the flashlight muttered something and moved down to the far end of the hooch for privacy the men had rigged up contained walls around their cots small makeshift bedrooms and in the dark rat went quickly from room to room using the flashlight to pluck out the faces Eddie Diamond slept a hard deep sleep the others too to be sure though rat checked once more very carefully then he reported back to FY all accounted for no extras Eddie Darin dreams rat switched off the flashlight and tried to think it out maybe she just I don't know maybe she camped out tonight under the stars or something you search the compound sure I did well come on rat said one more time outside a soft violet light was spreading out across the Eastern hillsides two or three arv and soldiers had built their breakfast fires but the place was mostly quiet and unmoving they tried the helip at first then the mes Hall and Supply hooches then they walked the entire 600 MERS of perimeter okay rat finally said we got a problem when he first told the story rat stopped there and looked at Mitchell Sanders for a time so what's your vote where was she the Greenies Sanders said yeah Sanders smiled no other option that's tough about the Special Forces how they Ed the place as a base of operations how they'd Glide in and out all that had to be there for a reason that's how stories work man rat thought about it then Shrugged all right sure the Greenies but it's not what FY thought she wasn't sleeping with any of them at least not exactly I mean in a way she was sleeping with all of them more or less except it wasn't sex or anything they was just lying together so to speak Mary and and these six grungy weirded out green barretts lying down Sanders said you got it lying down how rat smiled Ambush all night long man maran's out on Ambush just after Sunrise rat said she came trooping in through the wire tired looking but cheerful as she dropped her gear and gave Mark FY a Brisk hug the six green barretts did not speak one of them nodded at her and the other gave FY a long stare then they filed off to their Hooch at the edge of the compound please she said not a word FY took a half step forward and hesitated it was as though he had trouble recognizing her she wore a bush head and filthy green fatigues she carried the standard M16 automatic assault rifle her face was black with charcoal maryan handed him the weapon I'm exhausted she said we'll talk later she glanced over at the special ual forces area then turned and walked quickly across the compound toward her own bunker FY Stood Still for a few seconds a little dazed it seemed after a moment though he set his jaw and whispered something and went after her with a hard fast stride not later he yelled now what happened between them rat said nobody ever knew for sure but in the mess hall that evening it was clear that an accommodation had been reached or more likely he said it was case of setting down some new rules MaryAnn's hair was freshly shampooed she wore a white blouse a navy blue skirt a pair of plain black flats over dinner she kept her eyes down poking at her food subdued to the point of Silence Eddie diamond and some of the others tried to nudge her into talking about the Ambush what was the feeling out there what exactly did she see and here but the questions seemed to give her trouble nervously she'd look across the table at f she'd wait a moment as if to receive some sort of clearance then she'd bow her head and Mumble out a vague word or two there were no real answers Mark fosy too had little to say nobody's business he told rhat that night then he offered a brief smile one thing for sure though there won't be any more ambushes no more late nights you laid down the law compromise FY said I'll put it this way we officially engaged rat nodded cautiously well hey shek make a sweet bride he said combat ready over the next several days there was a strain tightly wound quality to the way they treated each other a rigid correctness that was enforced by repetitive acts of willpower to look at them from a distance rat said you would think they were the happiest to people on the planet they spent the Long Afternoon sunbathing together stretched outside by side on top of their bunker or playing back gamon in the shade of a giant palm tree or just sitting quietly a model of togetherness it seemed and yet at close range their faces showed the tension to polite to thoughtful Mark FY tried hard to keep up a self- assured pose as if nothing had ever come between them or ever could but there was a fragility to it something tentative and false if Maran happened to move a few steps away from him even briefly he'd tighten up and force himself not to watch her but then a moment later he'd be watching in the presence of others at least they kept on their masks over meals they talked about plans for a huge wedding in Cleveland Heights at T bash lots of flowers and yet even then their smiles seemed too intense they were to quick with their banter they held hands as if afraid to let go it had to end and eventually it did near the end of the third week fossy began making arrangements to send her home at first rat said Maran seemed to accept it but then after a day or two she fell into a Restless Gloom sitting off by herself at the edge of the perimeter she would not speak shoulders hunched her blue eyes opaque she seemed to disappear inside herself a couple of times fossy approached her and tried to talk it out but Marian just stared out at the dark green mountains to the West the Wilderness seemed to draw her in a haunted look rat said partly Terror partly Rapture it was as if she had come up on the edge of something as if she were caught in that no man's land between Cleveland Heights and Deep Jungle 17 years old just a child blonde and innocent but then weren't they all the next morning she was gone the six Greenies were gone too in a way rat said poor fossy expected it or something like it but that did not help much with the pain the kid couldn't function the grief took him by the throat and squeezed and would not let go lost he kept Whispering it was nearly 3 weeks before she returned but in a sense she never returned not entirely not all of her her by chance rat said he was awake to see it a damp Misty night he couldn't sleep so he'd gone outside for a quick smoke he was just standing there he said watching the moon and then off to the West a column of Silhouettes appeared as if by Magic at the edge of the jungle at first he didn't recognize her a small soft Shadow among six other Shadows there was no sound no real substance either the seven Silhouettes seemed to float across the surface of the Earth like spirits vaporous and unreal as he watched rat said it made him think of some weird opium dream the Silhouettes moved without moving silently one by one they came up the hill passed through the wire and drifted in a Loose file across the compound it was then rat said that he picked out MaryAnn's face her eyes seemed to shine in the dark not blue though but a bright glowing jungle green she did not pause at fy's Bunker she cradled her weapon and moved Swift ly to the Special Forces Hooch and followed the others inside briefly a light came on and someone laughed then the place went dark again whenever he told the story rat had a tendency to stop now and then interrupting the flow inserting little clarifications or bits of analysis and personal opinion it was a bad habit Mitchell Sanders said because all that matters is the raw material the stuff itself and you can't clutter it up with your own half-baked commentary that just breaks the spell it destroys the magic what you have to do Sanders said is trust your own story get the hell out of the way and let it tell itself but rack kly couldn't help it he wanted to bracket the full range of meaning I know it sounds far out he'd tell us but it's not like impossible or anything we all heard plenty of wackier stories some guy comes back from the bush tells you he saw the Virgin Mary out there she was riding a godamn goose or something everybody buys it everybody smiles and asks how fast was they going did she have Spurs on well it's not like that this Maran wasn't no virgin but at least she was real I saw it when she came in through the wire that night I was right there I saw those eyes of hers I saw how she wasn't even the same person no more What's So Impossible about that she was a girl that's all I mean if it was a guy everybody'd say hey no big deal he got caught up in the N got seduced by the Greenies see what I mean you got these blinders on about women how gentle and peaceful they are all that crap about how if we had a for president there wouldn't be no more Wars pure garbage you got to get rid of that sexist attitude rat would go on like that until Mitchell Sanders couldn't tolerate it any longer it offended his inner ear the story Sanders would say the whole tone man you're wrecking It tone the sound you need to get a consistent sound like slow or fast funny or sad all these digressions they just screw up your story sound stick to what happened frowning rat would close his eyes tone he'd say I didn't know it was all that complicated the girl joined the zoo one more animal end of story yeah fine but tell it right at Daybreak the next morning when Mark fosy heard she was back he stationed himself outside the fenced off Special Forces area all morning he waited for her and all afternoon round dusk rat brought him something to eat she has to come out FY said sooner or later she has to or else what rat said I go get her I bring her out rat shook his head your decision I was you though no way I'd mess around with any greeny types not for nothing it's Maran in there sure I know that all the same I'd not real extra super polite even with the cooling night air f 's face was slick with sweat he looked sick his eyes were bloodshot his skin had a whitish almost colorless cast for a few minutes rat waited with him quietly watching the hooch then he patted the kid's shoulder and left him alone it was after midnight when rad and Eddie Diamond went out to check on him the night had gone cold and steamy a low fog sliding down from the mountains and somewhere out in the dark they heard music playing not loud but not soft either it had a chaotic almost un musical sound without Rhythm or form or progression like the noise of nature a synthesizer it seemed or maybe an electric organ in the background just audible a woman's voice was half singing half chanting but the lyrics seemed to be in a foreign tongue they found FY squatting near the gate in front of the special forces's Area Head bowed he was swaying to the music his face wet and shiny as Eddie bent down beside him the kid looked up with dull eyes Ashen and powdery not quite and r register hear that he whispered you hear it's Maryanne Eddie Diamond took his arm letun get you inside somebody's radio that's all it is move it now maranne just listen sure but listen FY suddenly pulled away twisting sideways and fell back against the gate he L there with his eyes closed the music the noise whatever it was came from the hooch beyond the fence the place was dark except for a small glowing wind which stood partly open the pains Dancing In Bright Reds and yellows as though the glass were on fire the chanting seemed louder now fiercer too and higher pitched FY pushed himself up he wavered for a moment then forced the gate open that voice he said Maryanne rat took a step forward reaching out for him but FY was already moving fast toward the hooch he stumbled once caught himself and hit the door hard with both arms there was a noise a short screeching sound like a cat and the door swung and and fosy was framed there for an instant his arm stretched out then he slipped inside after a moment rad and Eddie followed quietly just inside the door they found FY bent down on one knee he wasn't moving across the room a dozen candles were burning on the floor near the open window the place seemed to Echo with a weird deep Wilderness sound tribal music bamboo flutes and drums and Chimes but what hit you first rad said was the smell two kinds of smells there was a topmost scent of jaw sticks and incense like the fumes of some exotic smok house but beneath the smoke lay a deeper and much more powerful stench impossible to describe rat said it paralyzed your lungs thick and numbing like an animals Den a mix of blood and scorched hair and excrement and the sweet sour odor of moldering Flesh the stink of the kill but that wasn't all on a post at the rear of the hooch was the decayed head of a large black leopard strips of yellow brown skin dangled from the overhead Rafters and Bones stacks of Bones all kinds to one side propped up against a wall stood a poster in neat black lettering assemble your own G free sample kit the images came in a swirl wrath said and there was no way you could process it all off in the Gloom a few dim figures lounged in hammocks or on cots but none of them moved or spoke the background music came from a tape deck near the circle of candles but the high voice was MaryAnn's after a second Mark fosy made a soft moaning sound he started to get up but then stiffened Maryanne he said quietly then she stepped out of the Shadows at least for a moment she seemed to be the same pretty young girl who had arrived a few weeks earlier she was barefoot she wore her pink sweater and a white blouse and a simple cotton skirt for a long while the girl gazed down at FY almost blankly and in the candle light her face had the composure of someone perfectly at peace with herself it took a few seconds rat said to appreciate the full change in part it was her eyes utterly flat and indifferent there was no emotion in her stare no sense of the person behind it but the grotesque part he said was her jewelry at the girl's throat was a necklace of human tongues elongated and narrow like pieces of blackened leather the tongues were threaded along a length of copper wire one overlapping the next the tips curled upward as if caught in a final shrill syllable briefly it seemed the girl smiled at Mark fossy there's no sense talking she said I know what you think but it's not it's not bad bad FY murmured it's not in the shadows there was laughter one of the Greenies sat up and lighted a cigar the others lay silent you're in a place Maryanne said softly where you don't belong she moved her hand in a gesture that encompassed not just the hooch but everything around it the entire War the mountains the mean little Villages the trails and trees and rivers and deep misted over valleys you just don't know she said you hide in this little Fortress behind wire and sandbags and you don't know what it's all about sometimes I want to eat this place Vietnam I want to swallow the whole country the dirt the death I just want to eat it and have it there inside me that's how I feel it's like this appetite I get scared sometimes lots of times but it's not bad you know I feel close to myself when I'm out there at night I feel close to my own body I can feel my blood moving my skin and my fingernails everything it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark I'm on fire almost I'm burning away into nothing but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am you can't feel like that anywhere else all this was said softly as if to herself her voice slow and imp passive she was not trying to persuade for a few moments she looked at Mark fosy who seemed to shrink away then she turned and moved back into the Gloom there was nothing to be done rat took fy's arm helped him up and led him outside in the darkness there was that weird tribal music which seemed to come from the Earth itself from the deep rain forest and a woman's voice rising up in a language Beyond translation Mark fzy stood rigid do something he whispered I can't just let her go like that rat listened for a time then shook his head man you must be deaf she's already gone rat Kylie stopped there almost in mids sentence which drove Mitchell Sanders crazy what next he said next the girl what happened to her rat made a small tired motion with his shoulders hard to tell for sure maybe 3 4 days later I got orders to report here to Alpha Company jumped the first Chopper out that's the last I ever seen of the place Place Maryanne to Mitchell Sanders stared at him you can't do that do what Jesus Christ it's against the rules Sanders said against human nature this elaborate story you can't say hey by the way I don't know the ending I mean you got certain obligations rack gave a quick smile patience man up to now everything I told you is from personal experience the exact truth but there's a few other things I heard secondhand third hand actually from here on it gets to be I don't know what the word is speculation yeah right rat looked off to the West scanning the mountains as if expecting something to appear on one of the high ridg lines after a second he Shrugged anyhow maybe two months later I ran into Eddie Diamond over in Bangkok I was on our andar just this fluke thing and he told me some stuff I can't vouch for with my own eyes even Eddie didn't really see it he heard it from one of the green so you got to take this with a whole Shaker full of salt once more rat searched the mountains then he sat back and closed his eyes you know he said abruptly I loved her say again a lot we all did I guess the way she looked Maran made you think about those girls back home how clean and innocent they all are how they'll never understand any of this not an a billion years tried to tell them about it they'll just stare at you with those big round candy eyes they won't understand zip it's like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like Mitchell Sanders nodded or there it is you got to taste it and that's the thing with Maryann she was there she was up to her eyeballs in it after the war man I promise you you won't find nobody like her suddenly rat pushed up to his feet moved a few steps away from us then stopped and stood with his back turned he was an emotional guy got hooked I guess he said I loved her her so when I heard from Eddie about what happened it almost made me like you say it's pure speculation go on Mitchell Sanders said finish up what happened to her rat said was what happened to all of them you come over clean and you get dirty and then afterward it's never the same a question of degree some make it intact some don't make it at all for Mary and Bell it seemed the adnam had the effect of a powerful drug that mix of unnamed Terror and unnamed pleasure that comes as the needle slips in and you know you're risking something the endorphins start to flow and the adrenaline and you hold your breath and creep quietly through the moonlit nightscapes you become intimate with danger you're in touch with the far side of yourself as though it's another Hemisphere and you want to string it out and go wherever the trip takes you and be host to all the possibilities inside yourself not bad she said Vietnam made her glow in the dark she wanted more she wanted to penetrate deeper into the the mystery of herself and after a Time the wanting became needing which turned then to craving according to Eddie Diamond who heard it from one of the Greenies she took a greedy pleasure in night patrols she was good at it she had the moves all camouflaged up her face smooth and vacant she seemed to flow like water through the dark like oil without sound or Center she went Barefoot she stopped carrying a weapon there were times apparently when she took crazy death wish chances things that even the Greenies bed at it was as if she were taunting some wild creature out in the bush or in her head inviting it to show itself a curious game of haand Go Seek that was played out in the dense terrain of a nightmare she was lost inside herself on occasion when they were taken Under Fire Maran would stand quietly and watch the Tracer round snap by a little smile at her lips intent on some private transaction with the war other times she would simply vanish all together for hours for days and then one morning all alone marann walked off into the mountains and did not come back no body was ever found no equipment no clothing for all he knew rat said the girl was still alive maybe up in one of the high mountain vills maybe with the montner tribes but that was guesswork there was an inquiry of course and a weekl long air search and for a Time the trabon compound went crazy with them PN Sid types in the end how however nothing came of it it was a war and the war went on Mark FY was busted to PFC shipped back to a hospital in the states and two months later received a medical discharge Mary and Bell joined the missing but the story did not end there if you believe the Greenies rat said Marian was still somewhere out there in the dark odd movements odd shapes late at night when the Greenies were out on ambush the whole rain firus seemed to stare in at them a watch feeling and a couple of times they almost saw her sliding through the Shadows not quite but almost she had crossed to the other side she was part of the land she was wearing her cullets her pink sweater and a necklace of human tongues she was dangerous she was ready for the kill stockings Henry Dobbins was a good man and a superb Soldier but sophistication was not his strong suit the ironies went beyond him in many ways he was like a America itself began Strong full of good intentions a roll of fat jiggling at his belly slow of foot but always plotting along always there when you needed him a believer in the virtues of Simplicity and directness and hard labor like his country too Dobbins was drawn towards sentimentality even now 20 years later I can see him wrapping his girlfriend's panty hose around his neck before heading out on ambush it was his one eccentricity the Pandy hos he said had the proper ities of a good luck charm he liked putting his nose into the nylon and breathing in the scent of his girlfriend's body he liked the memories this inspired he sometimes slept with the stockings up against his face the way an infant sleeps with a flannel blanket secure and peaceful more than anything though the stockings were a Talisman for him they kept him safe they gave access to a spiritual world where things were soft and intimate a place where he might someday take his girlfriend to live like many of us in Vietnam dobins felt the pull of superstition and he believed firmly and absolutely in the protective power of the stockings they were like body armor he thought whenever we saddled up for a late night Ambush putting on our helmets and Flack jackets Henry Dobbins would make a ritual out of arranging the nylons around his neck carefully tying a knot draping the twole sections over his left shoulder there were some jokes of course but we came to appreciate the mystery of it all Dobbins was was invulnerable never wounded never a scratch in August he tripped A Bouncing Betty which failed to detonate and a week later he got caught in the open during a fierce little firefight no cover at all but he just slipped the Pandy hose over his nose and breathed deep and let the magic do its work it turned us into a platoon of Believers you don't dispute facts but then near the end of October his girlfriend dumped him it was a hard blow Dobbins went quiet for a while staring down at her letter then after a time he took out the stockings and tied them around his neck as a comforter no sweat he said the magic doesn't go away church one afternoon somewhere west of the batangan peninsula we came across an abandoned pagota or almost abandoned because a pair of monks lived there in a tar paper Shack tending a small garden and some broken shrines they spoke almost no English at all when we we dug our fox holes in the yard the monks did not seem upset or displeased though the younger one performed a washing motion with his hands no one could decide what it meant the older monk led us into the Pagoda the place was dark and cool I remember with crumbling walls and sandbagged windows and a ceiling full of holes it's bad news kywa said you don't mess with churches but we spent the night there turning the pagota into a little Fortress and then for the next seven or8 days we used the place as a base of operations it was mostly a very peaceful time each morning the two monks brought us buckets of water they giggled when we stripped down to bit they smiled happily while we soaked up and splashed one another on the second day the older monk carried in a cane chair for the use of Lieutenant Jimmy cross placing it near the altar area Boeing and gesturing for him to sit down the old monk seemed proud of the chair and proud that such a man as Lieutenant cross should be sitting in it on another occasion the younger monk presented us with four ripe watermelons from his garden he stood watching until the Watermelons were eaten down to the rinds then he smiled and made the strange washing motion with his hands though they were kind to all of us the monks took a special liking for Henry doin Soldier Jesus they'd say good soldier Jesus squatting quietly in the cool pagota they would help Dobbins disassemble and clean his machine gun carefully brushing the parts with oil the three of them seemed to have an understanding nothing in words just a quietness they shared you know dobin said to kowo one morning after the war maybe I join up with these guys join how Kawa said wear robes take the pledge Kawa thought about it that's a new one I didn't know you were all that religious well I'm not toin said beside him the two monks were working on the m6o he watched them take turns running oil swaps through the barrel I mean I'm not the churchy type when I was a little kid way back I used to sit there on Sunday counting bricks in the wall Church wasn't for me but then in high school I started to think how I'd like to be a minister free house free car lots of potlucks it looked like a pretty good life you're serious kywa said Dobbin Shrugged his shoulders what serious I was a kid the thing is I believed in God and all that but it wasn't the religious part that interested me just being nice to people that's all being decent Right kywa Said visit sick people stuff like that I would have been good at it too not the brainy part not sermons and all that but I'd be okay with the people part Henry Dobbins was silent for a time he smiled at the older monk who was now cleaning the machine gun's trigger assembly but anyway Dobbins said I couldn't ever be a real Minister because you have to be super sharp upstairs I mean it takes brains you have to explain some hard stuff like why people die or why God invented pneumonia and all that he shook his head I just didn't have the smarts for it and there's the religious thing too all these years man I still hate church maybe you change Kawa said Henry Dobbins closed his eyes briefly then laughed one thing for sure I'd look spiy in those robes they wear just like frier tuck maybe I'll do it find a monastery somewhere wear a robe and be nice to people sounds good k said the two monks were quiet as they clean and oiled the machine gun though they spoke almost no English they seemed to have great respect for the conversation as if sensing that important matters were being discussed the younger monk used a yellow cloth to wipe dirt from a belt of ammunition what about you dobin said how well you carry that Bible everywhere you never hardly swear or anything so you must I grew up that way Kawa said did you ever you know did you you think about being a minister no not ever Dobbins laughed an Indian Preacher Man that's one I'd love to see feathers and buffalo robes Kai will lay on his back looking up at the ceiling and for a time he didn't speak then he sat up and took a drink from his Cen not a minister he said but I do like churches the way it feels inside it feels good when you just sit there like you're in a forest and everything's really quiet except there's still this sound you can't hear yeah you ever feel that sort of Kawa made a noise in his throat this is all wrong he said what setting up here it's wrong I don't care what it's still a church Dobbins nodded true a church Kyle was said just wrong when the two monks finished cleaning the machine gun Henry Dobbins began reassembling it wiping off the excess while then he handed each of them a can of peaches and a chocolate bar okay he said Dey Mount boys beat it the monks bowed and moved out of the pagota into the bright morning sunlight Henry doin made the washing motion with his hands you're right he said all you can do is be nice treat them decent you know the man I killed his jaw was in his throat his upper lip and teeth were gone his one eye was shut his other eye was a star shaped hole his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's his nose was undamaged there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear his clean black hair was swept upward into a cic at the rear of the skull his forehead was lightly freckled his fingernails were clean the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips his right cheek was smooth and hairless there was a butterfly on his chin his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him he lay face up in the center of the trail a slim dead almost dainy young man he had bony legs a narrow waist long shapely fingers his chest was sunken and poorly muscled a scholar maybe his wrists were the wrists of a child he wore a black shirt black pajama pants a gray ammunition belt a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand his rubber sandals had been blown off one lay beside him the other a few meters up the trail he had been born maybe in 1946 in the village of M near the central Coastline of kuang inai Province where his parents farmed and where his family had lived for several centuries and where during the time of the French his father and two uncles and many neighbors had joined in the struggle for Independence he was not a communist he was a citizen and a soldier in the village of M as an all of Quang and Guy patriotic resistance had the force of tradition which was partly the force of Legend and from his earliest Boyhood the man I killed would have listened two stories about the heroic trun sisters and Tran hung DA's famous route of the Mongols and Loo's final Victory against the Chinese at tatong he would have been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest Duty and highest privilege he had accepted this it was never open to question secretly though it also frightened him he was not a fighter his health was poor his body small and frail he liked books he wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics at night lying on his mat he could not picture himself doing the brave things his father had done or his uncles or the heroes of the stories he hoped in his heart that he would never be tested he hoped the Americans would go away soon he hoped he kept hoping and hoping always even when he was asleep oh man you trash the AAR said you scrambled his sorry self look at that you did you laid him out like shredded wheat go away kywa said I'm just saying the truth like oatmeal go kywa said okay then I take it back AAR said he started to move away then stopped and said Rice Krispies you know on the dead test this particular individual gets a plus smiling at this he Shrugged and walked up the trail toward the village behind the trees Kaa kneel down just forget that crud he said he opened up his Canen and held it out for a while and then inside and pulled it away no sweat man what else could you do later Kawa said I'm serious nothing anybody could do come on stop staring the trail Junction was shaded by a row of trees and Tall brush the slim young man lay with his legs in the shade his jaw was in his throat his one eye was shed and the other was a star-shaped hole Kawa glanced at the bodyall right let me ask a question he said you want to trade places with him turn it all up upside down you want that I mean be honest the star-shaped hole was red and yellow the yellow Parts seemed to be getting wider spreading out at the center of the star the upper lip and gum and teeth were gone the man's head was cocked at a wrong angle as if loose at the neck and the neck was wet with blood think it over kywa said then later he said Tim it's a war the guy wasn't hidey he had a weapon right it's a tough thing for sure but you got to cut out that staring then he said maybe you better lie down a minute then after a long empty time he said take it slow just go wherever the spirit takes you the butterfly was making its way along the young man's forehead which was spotted with small dark freckles the nose was undamaged the skin on the right cheek was smooth and fine grained and hairless frail looking delicately boned the young man would not have wanted to be a soldier and in his heart would have feared performing badly in battle even as a boy growing up in the the village of M he had often worried about this he imagined covering his head and lying in a deep hole and closing his eyes and not moving until the war was over he had no stomach for violence he loved mathematics his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman and at school the boys sometimes teased him about how pretty he was the arched eyebrows and long shapely fingers and on the playground they mimicked a woman's walk and made fun of his smooth skin and his love for mathematics the young man could not make himself fight them he often wanted to but he was afraid and this increased his shame if he could not fight little boys he thought how could he ever become a soldier and fight the Americans with their airplanes and helicopters and bombs it did not seem possible in the presence of his father and uncles he pretended to look forward to doing his patriotic Duty which was also a privilege but at night he prayed with his mother that the war might end soon beyond anything else he was was afraid of disgracing himself and therefore his family and Village but all he could do he thought was wait and pray and try not to grow up to fast listen to me Kawa said you feel terrible I know that then he said okay maybe I don't know along the trail there were small blue flowers shaped like Bells the young man's head was wrenched sideways not quite facing the flowers and even in the shade a single blade of sunlight sparkled against the Buckle of his ammunition belt but left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips the wounds at his neck had not yet clotted which made him seem animate even in death the blood still spreading out across his shirt Kawa shook his head there was some silence before he said stop staring the young man's fingernails were clean there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear a sprinkling of Blood on the forearm he wore a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand his chest was sunken and poorly muscled a scholar Maybe his life was now a constellation of possibilities so yes maybe a scholar and for years despite his family's poverty the man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics the means for this were arranged perhaps through the village Liberation cadri and in 1960 for the young man began attending classes at the University in Saigon where he avoided politics and paid attention to the problems of calculus he devoted himself to his studies he spent his nights alone wrote romantic poems in his journal took pleasure in the grace and beauty of differential equations the war he knew would finally take him but for the time being he would not let himself think about it he had stopped praying instead now he waited and as he waited in his final year at the University he fell in love with a classmate a girl of 17 who one day told him that his wrists were like the wrists of a child so small and delicate and who admired his narrow waist and the cic that rose up like a bird's tail at the back of his head she liked his quiet manner she laughed at his freckles and bony legs one evening perhaps they exchanged gold rings now when I was a star you okay kywa said the body lay almost entirely in shade there were knuts at the mouth little flexs of pollen drifting above the nose the butterfly was gone the bleeding had stopped except for the neck wounds Kawa picked up the rubber sandals clapping off the dirt then bent down to search the body he found a pouch of rice a comb a fingernail clipper a few soiled piasters a snapshot of a young woman standing in front of a parked motorcycle kaiwa placed these items in his ruck sack along with the gray ammunition belt and rubber sandals then he squatted down I'll tell you the straight truth he said the guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail understand me we all had him zeroed a good kill weapon ammunition everything t tiny beans of sweat glistened at ky's forehead his eyes moved from the sky to the dead man's body to the knuckles of his own hands so listen you best pull your together can't just sit here all day later he said understand then he said 5 minutes Tim five more minutes and we're moving out the one I did a funny twinkling trick red to Yellow his head was wrenched sideways as if loose at the neck and the dead young man seemed to be staring at some distant object beyond the bell shap flowers along the trail the blood at the neck had gone to a deep purplish black clean fingernails clean hair he had been a soldier for only a single day after his years at the university the man I killed returned with his new wife to the Village of M K where he enlisted as a common Rifleman with the 48th Viet Kong Battalion he knew he would die quickly he knew he would see a flash of light he knew he would fall dead and wake up in the stories of his village and people Kwa covered the body with a Poncho hey you're looking better he said no doubt about it all you needed was time some mental R andar then he said man I'm sorry then later he said why not talk about it then he said come on man talk he was a slim dead almost dainty young man of about 20 he lay with one leg bent beneath him his jaw and his throat his face neither expressive nor inexpressive one eye was shut the other was a star shaped talk Kaa said Ambush when she was nine my daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed anyone she knew about the war she knew I'd been a soldier you keep writing these War Stories she said so I guess you must have killed somebody it was a difficult moment but I did what seemed right which was to say of course not and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while someday I hope she'll ask again but here I want to pretend she's a grown-up I want to tell her exactly what happened or what I remember happening and that I want to say to her that as a little girl she was absolutely right this is why I keep writing War Stories he was a short slender young man of about 20 I was afraid of him afraid of something and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him or to go back shortly after midnight we moved into the Ambush side outside M K the whole platoon was there spread out in the dense brush along the trail and for 5 hours nothing at all happened we were working in two man teams one man on guard while the other slept switching off every 2 hours and I remember it was still dark when Kaa shook me awake for the final watch the night was foggy and hot for the first few moments I felt lost not sure about directions groping for my helmet and weapon I reached out and found three grenades and lined them up in front of me the pins had already been straightened for quick throwing and then for maybe half an hour I kneeled there and waited very gradually in tiny slivers Dom began to break through the fog and from my position in the brush I could see 10 or 15 M up the trail the mosquitoes were Fierce I remember slapping at them wondering if I should wake up Cy and ask for some repellent then thinking it was a bad idea then looking up and seeing the young man come out of the fog he wore black clothing and rubber sandals and a gray em amunition belt his shoulders were slightly stooped his head cocked to the side as if listening for something he seemed at ease he carried his weapon in one hand muzzled down moving without any hurry up the center of the trail there was no sound at all none that I can remember in a way it seemed he was part of the morning fog or my own imagination but there was also the reality of what was happening in my stomach I had already pulled the pin on a grenade I had come up to a Crouch it was entirely on a automatic I did not hate the young man I did not see him as the enemy I did not Ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty I crouched and kept my head low I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach which tasted like lemonade something fruity and sour I was terrified there were no thoughts about killing the grenade was to make him go away just evaporate and I leaned back and felt my mind go empty and then felt it fill up again I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it the brush was thick and I had to lob it high not aiming and I remember the grenade seeming to freeze above me for an instant as if a camera had clicked and I remember ducking down and holding my breath and seeing little wisps of fog rise from the earth the grenade bounced once and rolled across the trail I did not hear it but there must have been a sound because the young man dropped his weapon and began to run just two or three quick steps then he hesitated swiveling in to his right and he glanced down at the grenade and tried to cover his head but never did it occurred to me then that he was about to die I wanted to warn him the grenade made a popping noise not soft but not loud either not what I'd expected and there was a puff of dust and smoke a small white puff and the young man seemed to jerk upward as if pulled by invisible wires he fell on his back his rubber sandals had been blown off there was no wind he lay at the center of the trail his right leg bent beneath him his one eye shut his other ey a huge star-shaped hole it was not a matter of live or die there was no real Peril almost certainly the young man would have passed by and it will always be that way later I remember kywa tried to tell me that the man would have died anyway he told me that it was a good kill that I was a soldier and this was a war that I should Shipe up and stop staring and ask myself what the dead man would be done if things were reversed not none of it mattered the words seemed far too complicated all I could do was gape at the fact of the young man's body even now I haven't finished sorting it out sometimes I forgive myself other times I don't in the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it but now and then when I'm reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room I'll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog I'll watch him walked toward me his shoulders slightly stooped his head cocked to the side and he'll pass within a few yards of and suddenly smile at some secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends back into the fog style there was no music most of the Hamlet had burned down including her house which was now smoke and the girl danced with her eyes half closed her feet bare she was maybe 14 she had black hair and brown skin why is she dancing ozar said we searched through the wreckage but there wasn't much to find rat Kylie caught a chicken for dinner Lieutenant cross radioed up to the gunships and told them to go away the girl danced mostly on her toes she took Tiny Steps in the dirt in front of her house sometimes making a slow twirl sometimes smiling to herself why is she dancing Azar said and Henry Dobbin said it didn't matter why she just was later we found her family in the house they were dead and badly burned it wasn't a big family an infant and an old woman and a woman whose age was hard to tell when we dragged them out the girl kept dancing she put the palms of her hands against her ears which must have meant something and she danced sideways for a short while and then backwards she did a graceful movement with her hips well I don't get it Azar said the smoke from the hooches smelled like straw it moved in patches across the Village Square not thick anymore sometimes just faint ripples like fog there were dead pigs too the girl went up on her toes and made a slow turn and danced through the smoke her face had a dreamy look quiet and composed a while later when we moved out of the Hamlet she was still dancing probably some weird ritual AAR said but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no the girl just liked to dance that night after we marched away from the smoking Village AAR mocked the girls dancing he did funny jumps and Spins he put the palms of his hands against his ears and danced sideways for for a while and then backwards and then did an erotic thing with his hips but Henry Dobbins who Moved gracefully for such a big man took Azar from behind and lifted him up high and carried him over to a deep well and asked if he wanted to be dumped in Azar said no all right then Henry Dobbin said dance right speaking of Courage the war was over and there was no place in particular to go Norman Boker followed the tar rode on its 7mile loop around the lake then he started all over again driving slowly feeling safe inside his father's big Chevy now and then looking out on the lake to watch the boats and water skares and scenery it was Sunday and it was summer and the town seemed pretty much the same the lake lay flat and silvery against the sun along the road the houses were all low slung and split level and modern with big porches and picture windows facing the water The Lawns were spacious on the lake side of the Road where real estate was most valuable the houses were handsome and set deep in well-kept and brightly painted with docks jetting out into the lake and boats moed and covered with canvas and neat Gardens and sometimes even gardeners and stone patios with barbecue spits and grills and wooden shingles saying who lived where on the other side of the road to his left the houses were also handsome the less expensive and on a smaller scale and with no docks or boats or gardeners the road was a sort of boundary between the affluent and the almost affluent and to live on the lake side of the road was one of the few natural privileges in a town of the Prairie the difference between watching the sunet over corn fields or overwater it was a graceful good-sized Lake back in high school at night he had driven around and around it with Sally Kramer wondering if she'd want to pull into the shelter of Sunset Park or other times with his friends talking about urgent matters worrying about the exist of God and theories of causation then there had not been a war but there had always been the lake which was the town's first C of existence a place for immigrant settlers to put down their loads before the settlers were the Sue and before the Sue were the vast open prairies and before the Prairies there was only ice the lake bed had been dug out by the southernmost advance of the Wisconsin Glacier fed by neither streams nor Springs the lake was often filthy and alied relying on fickle Prairie Reign for replenishment still it was the only important body of water within 40 Mi a source of Pride nice to look at on bright summer days and later that evening it would color up with fireworks now in the late afternoon it lay calm and smooth a good audience for silence a s mile circumference that could be traveled by slow car in 25 minutes it was not such a good Lake for swimming After High School he'd caught an ear infection that had almost kept him out of the war and the lake had drowned his friend Max Arnold keeping him out of the war entirely Max had been one who liked to talk about the existence of God no I'm not saying that he'd argue against the Drone of the engine I'm saying it's possible as an idea even necessary as an idea a final cause in the whole structure of causation now he knew perhaps before the war they'd driven around the lake as friends but now Max was just an idea and most of Norman boker's other friends were living in De Mo or suid or going to school somewhere or holding down jobs the high school girls were mostly gone or married Sally Kramer whose pictures he had once carried in his wallet was one who had married her name was now Sally gustaffson and she lived in a pleasant Blue House on the less expensive side of the lake road on his third day home he'd seen her out mowing the lawn still pretty in a lazy red blouse and white shorts for a moment he'd almost pulled over just to talk but instead he' pushed down hard on the gas pedal she looked happy she had her house and her new husband and there was really nothing he could say to her the town seemed remote somehow Sally was remarried and Max was drowned and his father was at home watching baseball on national TV Norman Boker Shrugged no problem he murmured clockwise as if in orbit he took the Chevy on another 7mile turn around the lake even in late afternoon the day was hot he turned on the air conditioner then the radio and he leaned back and let the cold air and music blow over him along the road kicking stones in front of them two young boys were hiking with knapsacks and T rifles and canens he hped going by but neither boy looked up already he had passed them six times 42 Mi nearly 3 hours without stop he watched the boys recede in his rearview mirror they turned a soft grayish color like sand before finally disappearing he tapped down lightly on the accelerator out on the lake a man's motorboat had stalled the man was bent over the engine with a wrench and a frown beyond the stalled boat there were other boats and a few water skiers and the smooth July Waters and an immense flatness everywhere two Mud Hens floated stiffly beside a white dock the road curved West where the sun had now dipped low he figured it was close to 5:00 20 after he guessed the war had taught him to tell time without clocks and even at night waking from sleep he could usually place it within 10 minutes either way what he should do he thought is stop at Sally's house and impress her with this new time telling trick of his they talked for a while catching up on things and then he'd say well better hit the road it's 5:34 and she'd glance at her wristwatch and say hey how'd you do that and he'd give a casual shrug and tell her it was just one of those things you pick up he'd keep it light he wouldn't say anything about anything how's it being married he might ask and he nod at whatever she answered with and he would not say a word about how he'd almost won the Silver Star for Valor he drove past Slater Park and across the causeway and past Sunset Park the radio announcer sounded tired the temperature in Del Mo was 81° and the time was 535 and all you on the road drive extra careful now on this fine Fourth of July if Sally had not been married or if his father were not such a baseball fan it would have been a good time to talk the Silver Star his father might have said yes but I didn't get it almost but not quite and his father would have nodded knowing full well that many brave men do not win medals for their bravery and that others win medals for doing nothing as a starting point maybe Norman Boker might then have listed the seven medals he did win the combat infantryman's badge the air medal the Army Commendation Medal The Good Conduct Medal the Vietnam campaign medal the bronze star and the Purple Heart though it wasn't much of a wound and did not leave a scar and did not hurt and never had he would have explained to his father that none of these decorations was for Uncommon Valor they were for Common Valor the routine daily stuff just humping just enduring but that was worth something wasn't it yes it was worth plenty the ribbons looked good on the uniform in his closet and if his father were to ask he would have explained what each signified and how he was proud of all of them especially the combat infantryman's badge because it meant he had been there as a real Soldier and had done all the things soldiers do and therefore it wasn't such a big deal that he could not bring himself to be uncommonly brave and then he would have talked about the medal he did not win and why he did not win it I almost won the Silver Star he would have said how's that just a story so tell me his father would have said slowly then circling the Lake Norman Boker would have started by describing the song trabon a river he would have said this slow flat muddy river he would have explained how during the dry season it was exactly like any other River nothing special but how in October the monsoons began and the whole situation changed for a solid week the rains never stopped not once and so after a few days the song Trang overflowed its banks and the land turned into a deep thick muck for a half mile on either side just muuk no other word for it like quicksand almost except the stink was incredible you couldn't even sleep he'd tell his father at night you'd find a high spot and you'd doze off but then later you'd wake up because you'd be buried in all that slime youd just sink in you'd feel a toes up over your body and sort of suck you down and the whole time there was that constant rain I mean it never stopped not ever sounds pretty wet his father would have said pausing briefly so what happened you really want to hear this hey I'm your father father Norman Booker smiled he looked out across the lake and imagined the feel of his tongue against the truth well this one time this one night out by the river I wasn't very brave you have seven medals sure seven count him you weren't a coward either well maybe not but I had the chance and I blew it the stink that's what got to me I couldn't take that godamn awful smell if you don't want to say anymore I do want to all right then slow and sweet take your time the road descended into the outskirts of town turning Northwest past the junior college and the tennis courts then past chiaka Park where the picnic tables were spread with sheets of colored plastic and where picnickers sat in lawn chairs and listened to the high school band playing soua marches under the band show the music faded after a few blocks he drove beneath a canopy of Elms then along a stretch of open Shore then past the municipal docks where a woman and pedal pushers stood casting for bullheads there were no other fish in the lake except for perch and a few worthless carp it was a bad Lake for swimming and fishing both he drove slowly no hurry nowhere to go inside the Chevy the air was cool and oily smelling and he took pleasure in the steady sounds of the engine and air conditioning a tbus feeling in a away except the town he was touring seemed dead Through the Windows as if in a stop motion photograph the place looked as if it had had been hit by nerve gas everything still and lifeless even the people the town could not talk and would not listen had you like to hear about the war he might have asked but the place could only blink and shrug it had no memory therefore no guilt the taxes got paid and the votes got counted and the agencies of government did their work briskly and politely it was a Brisk polite Town it did not know about and did not care to know Norman Booker leaned back and considered what he might have said on the subject heet it was his specialty the smell in particular but also the numerous varieties of texture and taste someday he'd give a lecture on the topic put on a suit and TI and stand up in front of the kowas club and tell the about all the wonderful he knew pass out samples maybe smiling at this he clamped the steering wheel slightly right of Center which produced a smooth clockwise motion against the curve of the road the Chevy seemed to know its own way the sun was lower now 555 he decided 6:00 Topps a long and unused rail wasper for workmen labored in the shadowy red heat setting up a platform and steel launchers for the evening fireworks they were dressed alike in cocky trousers work shirts viser caps and brown boots their faces were dark and smudgy want to hear about the Silver Star I almost won Norman Booker whispered but none of the workmen looked up later they would blow color into the sky the lake would Sparkle with Reds and blues and greens like a mirror and the picnickers would make low sounds of appreciation well see it never stopped raining he would have said the muck was everywhere you couldn't get away from it he would have paused a second then he would have told about the night they Biv whacked in a field along the song trabon a big swampy field beside the river there was a vill nearby 50 m Downstream and right away a dozen old mamans ran out and started yelling a weird scene he would have said the mamans just stood there in the rain soaking wet yapping away about how this field was bad news number 10 they said evil ground not a good spot for good Gia finally Lieutenant Jimmy cross had to get out his pistol and fire off a few rounds just to shoot them away by then it was almost dark so they set up a perimeter each how then crawled under their ponchos and tried to settle in for the night but the rain kept getting worse and by midnight the field turned into soup just this deep Uzi soup he would have said like sewage or something thick and mushy you couldn't sleep you couldn't even lie down not for long because you'd start to sink under the soup real clammy you could feel the crud coming up inside your boots and pants here Norman Boker would have squinted against the low sun he would have kept his voice cool no self-pity but the worst part he would have said quietly was the smell partly it was the river a dead fish smell but it was something else too finally somebody figured it out what this was it was a ship field The Village toilet no indoor plumbing right so they used the field I mean we were camped in a godamn field he imagines s Kramer closing her eyes if she were here with him in the car she would have said stop it I don't like that word that's what it was all right but you don't have to use that word fine what should we call it she would have glared at him I don't know just stop it clearly he thought this was not a story for Sally Kramer she was Sally gustofson now no doubt Max would have liked it the irony in particular but Max had become a Pure idea which was its own irony it was just too bad if his father were here riding shakun around the lake the old man might have glanced over for a second understanding perfectly well that that it was not a question of offensive language but a fact his father would have sighed and folded his arms and waited a shedfield Norman Booker would have said and later that night I could have won the Silver Star for Valor right his father would have murmured I hear you the Chevy rolled smoothly across a vict and up the narrow tar road to the right was open Lake to the left across the road most of the Lawns were scorched dry like October corn hopelessly round and round a rot in sprinkler scattered Lake water on Doctor Mason's vegetable garden already the Prairie had been baked dry but in August it would get worse the lake would turn green with algae and the golf course would burn up and the dragon flies would crack open for one of good water the big Chevy curved past Centennial Beach and thew root beer stand it was his eighth revolution around the lake he followed the road past the handsome houses with their docks and wooden shingles back to Slater Park across the causeway way around to Sunset Park as though riding on tracks the two little boys were still trudging along on their seven-mile hike out on the lake the man in the stalled motorboat still fiddled with his engine the pair of Mud Hens floated like wooden decoys and the water skiers looked hand and athletic and the high school band was packing up its instruments and the woman in pedal pushers patiently rebaited her hook for one last try quaint he thought a hot summer day and it was all very quain and remote the four workmen had nearly completed their preparations for the evening fireworks facing the sun again Norman Boker decided it was nearly 7:00 not much later the tired radio announcer confirmed it his voice rocking itself into a deep Sunday snooze if Max Arnold were here he would say something about the announcer's fatigue and related to the bright pink in the sky and the war and courage a Pity that Max was gone and a Pity about his father who had his own War and who now pref preferred silence still there was so much to say how the rain never stopped how the cold worked into your bones sometimes the bravest thing on Earth was to sit through the night and feel the cold in your bones courage was not always a matter of yes or no sometimes it came in degrees like the cold sometimes you were very brave up to a point and then beyond that point you were not so brave in certain situations you could do incredible things you could Advance toward enemy fire but in other situations which were were not nearly so bad you had trouble keeping your eyes open sometimes like that night in the field the difference between courage and cowardice was something small and stupid the W Earth bubbled and the smell in a soft voice without flourishes he would have told the exact truth late in the night he would have said we took some mortar fire he would have explained how it was still raining and how the clouds were pasted to the field and how the mortar rounds seemed to come right out of the clouds everything was black and wet the field just exploded rain and slap and trapnel nowhere to run and all they could do was warm down into slime and cover up and wait he would have described the crazy things he saw weird things like how at one point he noticed a GU lying next to him in the sludge completely buried except for his face and how after a moment the guy rolled his eyes and winked at him the noise was fierce heavy thunder and mortar rounds and people yelling some of the men began shooting up flares red and green and silver flares all colors and the rain came down in Technicolor the field was boiling the shells made deep slushy craters opening up all those years of waste centuries worth and the smell came bubbling out of the earth two rounds hit close by then a third even closer and immediately off to his left he heard somebody screaming it was Kwa he knew that the sound was ragged and clotted up but even so he knew the The Voice a strange gargling noise rolling sideways he crawled toward the screaming in the dark the rain was hard and steady along the perimeter there were quick bursts of gunfire another round hit nearby sprang up and water and for a few moments he ducked down beneath the mud he heard the valves in his heart he heard the quick Feathering action of the hinges extraordinary he thought as he came up a pair of red flares puffed open a soft fuzzy glow and in the glow he saw kao's wide open eyes settling down into the scum briefly all he could do was watch he heard himself moan then he moved again crabbing forward but when he got there kyowa was almost completely under there was a knee there was an arm and a gold wristwatch and part of a boot he could not describe what happened next not ever but he would have tried anyway he would have spoken carefully so as to make it real for anyone who would listen there were bubbles where ky's head should have been the left hand was curled open the fingernails were filthy the wristwatch gave off a green phosphorescent shine as it slipped beneath the thick Waters he would have talked about this and how he grabbed Kawa by the boot and tried to pull him out he pulled hard but Kwa was gone and then suddenly he felt himself going too he could taste it the was in his nose and eyes there were flares and mortar rounds and the stink was everywhere it was inside him in his lungs and he could no longer tolerate it not here he thought not like this he released kyo's Boot and watched it slide away slowly working his way up he hoisted himself out of the deep mud and then he lay still and tasted the in his mouth and closed his eyes and listened to the rain and explosions and bubbling sounds he was alone he had lost his weapon but it did not matter all he wanted was a bath nothing else a hot soapy bath circling the the Lake Norman Boer remembered how his friend Kawa had disappeared under the waste and water I didn't flip out he would have said I was cool if things had gone right if it hadn't been for that smell I could have won the Silver Star a good War story he thought but it was not a war for War Stories nor for talk of Valor and nobody in town wanted to know about the terrible stink they wanted good intentions and Good Deeds but the town was not to blame really it was a nice little town very prosperous with neat houses and all the sanitary conveniences Norman Boker lit a cigarette and cranked open his window 7:35 he decided the lake had divided into two halves one half still glistened the other was caught in Shadow along the causeway the two little boys marched on the man in the stalled motorboat yanked frantically on the cord to his engine and the two Mud Hens sought supper at the bottom of the lake taals bobbing he passed Sunset Park once again in and more houses and the junior college and the tennis courts and the picnickers who now sat waiting for the evening fireworks the high school band was gone the woman in pedal pushers patiently toyed with her line although it was not yet dusk thew was already washing Neon Lights he maneuvered his father's Chevy into one of the parking slots left the engine idle and sat back the place was doing a good holiday business mostly kids it seemed and a few farmers and for the day he did not recognize any of the faces a slim hipless young car hop passed by but when he hit the horn she did not seem to notice her eyes slid sideways she hooked a tray to the window of a Firebird laughing lightly leaning forward to chat with the three boys inside he felt invisible in the soft Twilight straight ahead over the takeout counter swarms of mosquitoes electrocuted themselves against an aluminum pest machine it was a calm quiet summer evening he honked again this time leaning on the horn the young car hop turned slowly as if puzzled then said something to the boys in the firebird and moved reluctantly toward him pinned to her shirt was a badge that said eat Mama Burgers when she reached his window she stood straight up so that all he could see was the badge Mama Burger he said maybe some fries too the girl sighed leaned down and shook her head her eyes were as fluffy and aite as cotton candy you blind she said she put out her hand and tapped an intercom attached to a steel post punch the button and place your order all I do is carry the dumb trays she stared at him for a moment briefly he thought a question lingered in her fuzzy eyes but then she turned and punched the button for him and returned to her friends in the firebird the intercom squeaked and said order Mama Burger and Fries Norman Boker said said affirmative copy clear no Rudy toti Rudy toti you know man root beer a small one Roger Dodger repeat one Mama one fries one small beer fire for effect standby the intercom squeaked and went dead out said Norman Boker when the girl brought his tray he ate quickly without looking up the tired radio announcer and de Mo gave the time almost 8:30 dark was pressing in tight now and he wished there were somewhere to go in the morning he' check out some job possibilities shoot a few buckets down at the Y maybe wash the Chevy he finished his root beer and pushed the intercom button order said the tiny voice all done that's it I guess so hey loosen up the voice said what you really need friend Norman Booker smiled well he said how' you like to hear about he stopped and shook his head hear what man nothing well hey the intercom said I'm sure as not going anywhere screwed to a post for God's sake go ahead try me nothing you sure positive all done the intercom made a light sound of disappointment your choice I guess over and out out said Norman Boker on his 10th turn around the lake he passed the hiking boys for the last time the man in the stalled motorboat was gone the Mud Hens were gone beyond the lake over Sal guston's house the sun had left a smudge of purple on the horizon The Band Shell was deserted and the woman in Petal pushers quietly reeled in her line and Doctor Mason sprinkler went round and round on his 11th Revolution he switched off the air conditioning opened up his window and rested his elbow comfortably on the sill driving with one hand there was nothing to say he could not talk about it and never would the evening was smooth and warm if it had been Poss possible which it wasn't he would have explained how his friend Kyo was slipped away that night beneath the dark swampy field he was folded in with the war he was part of the waste turning on his headlights driving slowly Norman Boker remembered how he had taken hold of kyo's boot and pulled hard but how the smell was simply too much and how he backed off and in that way had lost the Silver Star he wished he could have explained some of this how he had been braver than he ever thought possible but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be the distinction was important Max Arnold Who Loved Fine Lines would have appreciated it and his father who already knew would have nodded the truth Norman Boker would have said is I let the guy go maybe he was already gone he wasn't but maybe no I could feel it he wasn't some things you can feel his father would have been quiet for a while watching the headlights against the narrow tar Road well anyway the old man would have said there's still the seven Metals I suppose seven Honeys right on his 12th Revolution the sky went crazy with color he pulled into Sunset Park and stopped in the shadow of a picnic shelter after a time he got out walked down to the beach and waited into the lake without undressing the water felt warm against his skin he put his head under he opened his lips very slightly for The Taste then he stood up and folded his arms and watched the fireworks for a small town he decided it was a pretty good show notes speaking of Courage was written in 1975 at the suggestion of Norman Boker who three years later hanged himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown in central Iowa in the spring of 1975 near the time of Saigon's final collapse I received a long disjointed letter in which Boer described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life life after the war he had worked briefly as an automotive parts salesman a janitor a car wash attendant and a short torter cook at the local a w fast food franchise none of these jobs he said had lasted more than 10 weeks he lived with his parents who supported him and who treated him with kindness and obvious love at one point he had enrolled in the junior college in his hometown but the coursework he said seemed too abstract to distant with nothing real or tangible at stake certainly not the stakes of a war he dropped out after 8 months he spent His Mornings in bed in the afternoons he played pickup basketball at the Y and then at night he drove around town in his father's car mostly alone or with a six back of beer cruising the thing is he wrote there's no place to go not just in this lousy little town in general my life I mean it's almost like I got killed over in N hard to describe that night when kyowa got wasted I sort of sank down into the sewage with him feels like I'm still in deep the letter covered 17 hand ridden Pages its tone jumping from self-pity to anger to irony to guilt to a kind of feigned indifference he didn't know what to feel in the middle of the letter for example he reproached himself for complaining too much God this is starting to sound like some jerkoff it crying in his beer sorry about that I'm no basket case not even any bad dreams and I don't feel like anybody mistreats me or anything except sometimes people act too nice too polite like they're afraid they might ask the wrong question but I shouldn't one thing I hate really hate is all those Wier vets guys sniveling about how they didn't get any parades such absolute crap I mean who in his right mind wants a parade or getting his back clapped by a bunch of patriotic idiots Who Don't Know Jack about what it feels like to kill people or get shot at or sleep in the rain or watch your buddy go down underneath the mud who needs it anyhow I'm basically okay Home Free so why not come down for a visit sometime and we'll chase and shoot the breeze and tell each other old war lies a good long bull session you know I felt it coming and near the end of the letter it came he explained that he had read my first book If I die in a combat zone which he liked except for the bleeding heart political parts for half a page he talked about how much the book had meant to him how it brought back all kinds of memories the vills and patties and rivers and how he recognized most of the characters including himself even though almost all of the names were changed then Boer came straight out with it what you should do Tim is Right a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that hole a guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway this guy wants to talk about it but he can't if you want you can use the stuff in this letter but not my real name okay I'd write it myself except I can't ever find any words if you know what I mean and I can't figure out what exactly to say something about the field that night the way kaoa just disappeared into the crud you were there you can tell it Norman boker's letter Hit me hard four years I'd felt a certain smugness about how easily I had made the shift from war to peace a nice smooth Glide no flashbacks or midnight sweats the war was over after all and the thing to do was go on so I took pride in sliding gracefully from Vietnam to graduate school from Chilai to Harvard from one world to another in ordinary conversation I never spoke much about the war certainly not in detail and yet ever since my return I had been talking about it virtually non-stop through my writing telling stories seemed a natural inevitable process like clearing the throat partly cathar partly communication it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what had happened to me how I'd allowed myself to get dragged into a wrong War all the mistakes I'd made all the Terrible Things I had seen and done I did not look on my work as therapy and still don't yet when I received Norman Booker's letter it occurred to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse by telling stories you object a your own experience you separate it from yourself you pin down certain truths you make up others you start sometimes with an incident that truly happened like the night in the field and you carry it Forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless helped to clarify and explain in any case Norman boker's letter had an effect it haunted me for more than a month not the word so much as its desperation and I resolved finally to take him up on his story suggestion at the time I was at work on a new novel going after kakado and one morning I sat down and began a chapter titled speaking of Courage the emotional core came directly from boker's letter the simple need to talk to provide a dramatic frame I collapsed events into a single time and place a car circling a lake on a quiet afternoon in Midsummer using the lake as a nucleus around which the story would orbit as he' requested I did not use Norman Booker's name instead substituted the name of my novel's main character Paul Berlin for the scenery I borrowed heavily from my own Hometown wholesale thievery in fact I lifted up Worthington Minnesota the lake the road the causeway the woman in pedal pushers the junior college the handsome houses and docks and boats and public parks and carried it all a few hundred miles south and transplanted it onto the Iowa Prairie the writing went quickly and easily I drafted the piece in a week or two fiddled with it for another week then published it as a separate short story almost immediately though there was a sense of failure the details of Norman Booker's story were missing in this original version which I still conceived as part of the novel I had been forced to omit the ship field and the rain and the death of Kwa replacing this material with events that better fit the book's narrative as a consequence I'd lost the natural Counterpoint between the lake and the field a metaphoric Unity was broken what the piece needed and did not have was the terrible killing power of that field as the novel developed over the next year and as my own ideas clarified it became apparent that the chapter had no proper home in the larger narrative going after kakado was a war story speaking of Courage was a post-war story two different time periods two different sets of issues there was no choice but to remove the chapter entirely the mistake in part had been in trying to wedge the piece into a novel no beyond that though something about the story had frightened me I was afraid to speak directly afraid to remember and in the end the piece had been ruined by a failure to tell the full and exact truth about our night in the field over the next several months as it often happens I managed to erase the story's flaws from my memory taking pride in a shadowy idealized recollection of its virtues when the piece appeared in an anthology of short fiction I sent a copy off to Norman Boker with the thought that it might please him his reaction was short and somewhat bitter it's not terrible he wrote me but you left out Vietnam where's CA where's the 8 months later he hanged himself in August of 1978 his mother sent me a brief note explaining what had happened he'd been playing pickup basketball at the Y after two hours he went off for a drink of water he used a jump rope his friends found him hanging from a waterpipe there was no suicide note no message of any kind Norman was a quiet boy his mother wrote and I don't suppose he wanted to bother anybody now a decade after his death I'm hoping that speaking of Courage makes good on Norman boker's silence and I hope it's a better story although the old structure Remains the piece has been substantially revised in some places by severe cutting in other places by the addition of new material Norman is back in the story where he belongs and I don't think he would mind that his real name of appears the central incident our long night in the ship field along the song trabon has been restored to the peace it was hard stuff to write Kawa after all had been a close friend and for years I've avoided thinking about his death and my own complicity in it even here it's not easy in the interests of Truth however I want to make it clear that Norman Booker was in no way responsible for what happened to kywa Norman did not experience a failure of nerve that night he did did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for Valor that part of the story is my own in the field at Daybreak the platoon of 18 soldiers formed into a loose Rank and began waiting side by side through the Deep mck of the field they moved slowly in the rain leaning forward heads down they used the butts of their weapons as probes waiting across the field to the river and then turning and waiting back again they were tired and miserable all they wanted now was to get it finished Kwa was gone he was under the mud and water folded in with the war and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to someplace dry and warm it had been a hard night maybe the worst ever the rains had fallen without stop and the song Trang had overflowed its banks and the muck had now risen thigh deep in the field along the river Alo gray Mist hovered over the land off to the West there was Thunder soft little moaning sounds and the monsoon seemed to be a lasting element of the war the 18 soldiers moved in silence first lieutenant Jimmy cross went first now and then straightening out the rank closing up the gaps his uniform was dark with mud his arms and face were filthy early in the morning he had radioed in the Mia report giving the name and circumstances but he was now determined to find his man no matter what even if it meant flying in slabs of concrete and damning up the river and draining the ENT Tire field he would not lose a member of his command like this it wasn't right Kawa had been a fine Soldier and a fine human being a devout Baptist and there was no way Lieutenant cross would allow such a good man to be lost under the Slime of a ship field briefly he stopped and watched the clouds except for some occasional Thunder it was a deeply quiet morning just the rain and the steady slashing sounds of 18 men waiting through the thick Waters Lieutenant cross wished the rain would let up even for an hour it would make things easier but then he Shrugged the rain was the war end you had to fight it turning he looked out across the field and yelled at one of his men to close up the rank not a man really a boy the young Soldier stood off by himself at the center of the field in Knee Deep Water reaching down with both hands as if chasing some object just beneath the surface the boy's shoulders were shaking Jimmy cross yelled again but the young Soldier did not turn or look up in his hooded Poncho everything caked with mud the boy's face was impossible to make out the filth seemed to erase identities transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier which was exactly how Jimmy cross had been trained to treat them as interchangeable units of command it was difficult sometimes but he tried to avoid that sort of thinking he had no military Ambitions he preferred to view his men not as units but as human beings and Kwa had been a splendid human being the very best intelligent and gentle and quiet spoken very brave too and decent the kid's father taught Sunday School in Oklahoma City where Kwa had been raised to believe in the promise of Salvation under Jesus Christ and this conviction had always been present in the boy's smile in his posture toward the world in the way he never went anywhere without an illustrated New Testament that his father had mailed to him as a birthday present back in January a crime Jimmy cross thought looking out toward the River he knew for a fact that he had made a mistake setting up here the order had come from higher true but still he should have exercised some field discretion he should have moved to Higher Ground for the night should have radioed in false coordinates there was nothing he could do now but still it was a mistake and a hideous waste he felt sick about it standing in the Deep Waters of the field first lieutenant Jimmy cross began composing a letter in his head to the kid's father not mentioning the ship field just saying what a find Soldier kowa had been what a fine human being and how he was the kind of son that any father could be proud of forever the search went slowly for a Time the morning seemed to brighten the sky go into a lighter shade of silver but then the rains came back hard and steady there was the feel of permanent Twilight at the far left of the line Azar and Norman Boker and Mitchell Sanders waited along the edge of the field closest to the river they were tall men but at times the muck came to mid thigh other times to the CR watch Azar kept shaking his head he coughed and shook his head and said man talk about irony I bet if kyowa was here I bet he just laugh eating it's your classic irony fine said Norman Boker now pipe down AAR side wasted in the waste he said a field you got to admit it's pure worldclass irony the three men moved with slow heavy steps it was hard to keep balance their boots sank into the which produced a powerful downward suction and with each step they would have to pull up hard to break the hold the rain made quick dents in the water like tiny mouths and the stink was everywhere when they reached the river they shifted a few meters to the north and began waiting back up the field occasionally they used their weapons to test the bottom but mostly they just search with their feet a classic case AAR was saying biting the dirt so to speak that tells the story enough Boker said like the those old cowboy movies one more red skin bites the dirt I'm serious man zip it shut Azar smiled and said classic the morning was cold and wet they had not slept during the night not even for a few moments and all three of them were feeling the tension as they moved across the field toward the river there was nothing they could do for CA just find him and slide him aboard a chopper whenever a man died it was always the same a desire to get it over with quickly no fuss or ceremony and what they wanted now was to head for a vill and get under a roof and forget what had happened during the night halfway across the field Mitchell Sanders stopped he stood for a moment with his eyes shut feeling along the bottom with a foot then he passed his weapon over to Norman Boker and reached down into the muck after a second he hauled up a filthy green ruck sack the three men did not speak for a Time the pack was Heavy with mud and water dead looking inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated new Testament well Mitchell Sanders finally said the guy around here somewhere better tell the LT screw him yeah but some Lieutenant Sanders said camps us in a toilet man don't know nobody knew Boker said maybe so maybe not 10 billion places we could have set up last night the man picks a latrine Norman Booker stared down at the ruck sack it was made of dark green nylon with an aluminum frame but now it had the Curious look of of Flesh it wasn't the lt's fault Boer said quietly who's then nobody's nobody knew till afterward Mitchell Sanders made a sound in his throat he hoisted up the ruck sack slipped into the harness and pulled the straps tight all right but this much for sure the man knew it was raining he knew about the river one plus one at it up you get exactly what happened Sanders glared at the river move it he said cow is waiting on us slowly then bending against the rain Azar and Norman Boker and Mitchell Sanders began waiting again through the Deep Waters their eyes down circling out from where they had found the ruck sack first lieutenant Jimmy cross stood 50 m away he had finished writing the letter in his head explaining things to kyo's father and now he folded his arms and watched his platoon crisscrossing the wide field in a funny way it reminded him of the municipal golf course in his hometown in New Jersey a lost ball he thought tired players searching through the rough sweeping back and forth in Long systematic patterns he wished he were there right now on the sixth hole looking out across the water hazard that fronted the small flat green a seven iron in his hand calculating wind and distance wondering if he should reach instead for an eight a tough decision but all you could ever lose was a ball you did not lose a player and you never had to wait out into the hazard and spend the day searching through the slime Jimmy cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men he had never wanted it in his sophomore year at Mount Sebastian College he had signed up for the Reserve officer training cores without much thought an automatic thing because his friends had joined and because it was worth a few credits and because it seemed preferable to letting the draft take him he was unprepared 24 years old and his heart wasn't in it military matters meant nothing to him he did not care one way or the other about the war and he had no desire to command and even after all these months in the bush all the days and nights even then he did not know enough to keep his men out of a ship field what he should have done he told himself was follow his first impulse in the late afternoon yesterday when they reached the night coordinates he should have taken one look and headed for Higher Ground he should have known no excuses at one edge of the field was a small vill and right away a couple of old m Sands had trotted out to warn him number 10 they' said evil ground not a good spot for good G but it was a war and he had his orders so they'd set up a perimeter and crawled under their ponchos and tried to settle in for the night the rain never stopped by midnight the song Trang had overflowed its banks the field turned to slop everything soft and mushy he remembered how the water kept Rising how a terrible stink began to Bubble Up out of the earth it was a the dead fish smell partly but something else too and then later in the night Mitchell Sanders had crawled through the rain and grabbed him hard by the arm and asked what he was doing setting up in a ship field The Village toilet Sanders said he remembered the look on Sanders's face the guy stared for a moment and then wiped his mouth and whispered and then crawled away into the dark a stupid mistake that's all it was a mistake but it had killed Kwa Lieutenant Jimmy cross felt something tightened inside him in the letter to kyo's father he would apologize Point Blank just admit to the blunders he would place the blame where it belonged tactically he'd say it was indefensible ground from the start low and flat no natural cover and so late in the night when they took mortar fire from across the river all they could do was snake Down Under the slop and lie there and wait the field just exploded rain and slap and trapnel it all mixed together and the field seemed to boil he would explain this to ky's Father carefully not covering up his own guilt he would tell how the mortar rounds made craters in the slush spraying up great Showers of Filth and how the craters then collapsed on themselves and filled up with mud and water sucking things down swallowing things weapons and entrenching tools and belts of ammunition and how in this way his son Kwa had been combined with the waste and the war my own fault he would say straightening up first lieutenant Jimmy cross rubbed his eyes and tried to get his thoughts together the rain fell in a cold sad drizzle off toward the river he again noticed the young Soldier standing alone at the center of the field the boy's shoulders were shaking maybe it was something in the posture of the soldier or the way he seemed to be reaching for some invisible object beneath the surface but for several moments Jimmy cross stood very still afraid to move yet knowing he had to and then he murmured to himself my fault and he nodded and waited out across the field toward the boy the young Soldier was trying hard not to cry he too blamed himself bent forward at the waist groping with both hands he seemed to be chasing some creature just beyond reach something elusive a fish or a frog his lips were moving like Jimmy cross the boy was explaining things to an Elson judge it wasn't to defend himself the boy recognized his own guilt and wanted only to lay out the full couses waiting sideways a few steps he he leaned down and felt along the soft bottom of the field he pictured ky's face they'd been close Buddies the tightest and he remembered how last night they had huddled together under their ponchos the rain cold and steady the Water Rising to their knees but how Kwa had just laughed it off and said they should concentrate on better things and so for a long while they talked about their families and hometowns at one point the boy remembered he'd been showing KY picture of his girlfriend he remembered switching on his flashlight a stupid thing to do but he did it anyway and he remembered Kyle leaning in for a look at the picture hey she's cute he said and then the field exploded all around them like murder the boy thought the flashlight made it happen dumb and dangerous and as a result his friend Kaa was dead that simple he thought he wished there were some other way to look at it but there wasn't very simple and very final he remembered to mortar rounds hidden close by then a third even closer and off to his left he'd heard somebody Scream the voice was ragged and clotted up but he knew instantly that it was Kwa he remembered trying to crawl toward the screaming no sense of direction though and the field seemed to suck him under and everything was black and wet and swirling and he couldn't get his bearings and then another round hit nearby and for a few moments all he could do was hold his breath and duck down beneath the water later when he came up again there were no more screams there was an arm and a wristwatch and part of a boot there were bubbles where ky's head should have been he remembered grabbing the boot he remembered pulling hard but how the field seemed to pull back like a tug of war he couldn't win and how finally he had to whisper his friend's name and let go and watch the boot slide away then for a long time there were things he could not remember various sounds various smells later he'd found found himself lying on a little rise face up tasting the field in his mouth listening to the rain and explosions and bubbling sounds he was alone he'd lost everything he'd lost Cy and his weapon and his flashlight and his girlfriend's picture he remembered this he remembered wondering if he could lose himself now in the dull Morning Rain the boy seemed frantic he waited quickly from spot to spot leaning down and plunging his hands into the water he did not look up when Lieutenant Jimmy cross approached right here the boy was saying got to be right here Jimmy cross remembered the kids face but not the name that happened sometimes he tried to treat his men as individuals but sometimes the names just escaped him he watched the young Soldier shove his hands into the water right here he kept saying his movements seemed random and jerky Jimmy cross waited a moment then stepped closer listen he said quietly the guy could be anywhere the boy glanced up who could Kawa you can't expect kawa's dead well yes the young Soldier nodded so what about Billy who my girl what about her this picture it was the only one I had right here I lost it Jimmy cross shook his head it bothered him that he could not come up with the name slow down he said I don't Billy's picture I had it all wrapped up I had it in plastic so it'll be okay if I can last night we were looking at it me and Kawa right here I know for sure it's right here somewhere Jimmy cross smiled at the boy you can ask her for another one a better one she won't send another one she's not even my girl anymore she won't man I got to find it the boy yanked his arm free he shuffled sideways and stooped down again and dipped into the muck with both hands his shoulders were shaking briefly Lieutenant cross wondered where the kid weapon was and his helmet but it seemed better not to ask he felt some pity come on him for a moment the day seemed to soften so much hurt he thought he watched the young Soldier waiting through the water bending down and then standing and then bending down again as if something might finally be salvaged from all the waste Jimmy cross silently wished the boy luck then he closed his eyes and went back to working on the letter to kyo's Father across the field AAR and Norman Boker and Mitchell Sanders were wai waiting alongside a narrow dcat the edge of the field it was near noon now Norman Boer found Kwa he was under to feed of water nothing showed except the heel of a boot that's him Azar said who else I don't know Azar shook his head I don't know Norman Boker touched the boot covered his eyes for a moment then stood up and looked at AAR so where's the joke he said no joke eating let's hear that one forget it Mitchell Sanders told them to knock it off the three soldiers moved to the Dyke put down their packs and weapons then waited back to where the boot was showing the body lay partly wedged under a layer of mud beneath the water it was hard to get traction with each movement the muck would grip their feet and hold tight the rain had come back harder now Mitchell Sanders reached down and found KY was other Boot and they waited a moment then Sanders sigh and said okay and they took hold of the Two Boots and pulled up hard there was only a slight give they tried again but this time the body did not move at all after the third try they stopped and looked down for a while one more time Norman Boker said he counted to three and they leaned back and pulled stuck said Mitchell Sanders I see that Christ they tried again then called over Henry Dobbins and rack Kylie and all five of them put their arms and backs into it but the body was jammed and tight AAR moved to the Dyke and sat holding his stomach his face was pale the others stood in a circle watching the water then after a time somebody said we can't just leave him there and the men nodded and got up there entrenching tools and began digging it was hard sloppy work the mud seemed to flow back faster than they could dig but Kwa was their friend and they kept at it anyway slowly in little groups the rest of the platoon drifted over to watch only Lieutenant Jimmy cross and the young Soldier were still searching the field what we should do I guess Norman Booker said is tell the LT Mitchell Sanders shook his head just mess things up besides the man looks happy out there real content let him be after 10 minutes they uncovered most of kyo's lower body the corpse was angled steeply into the muck upside down like a diver who had plunge had first off a high tower the men stood quietly for a few seconds there was a feeling of awe Mitchell Sanders finally nodded and said let get it done and they took hold of the legs and pulled up hard then pulled again and after a moment kywa came sliding to the surface a piece of his shoulder was missing the arms and chest and face were cut up with shrapnel he was covered with bluish green mud well Henry Dobbins said it could be worse and Dave Jensen said how man tell me how carefully trying not to look at the body They carried kywa over to the Dyke and laid him down they used towels to clean off off the scum rat Kylie went through the kids Pockets placed his personal effects in a plastic bag taped the bag to kawa's wrist then used the radio to call in a dust off moving away the men found things to do with themselves some smoking some opening up cans of sea rations a few just standing in the rain for all of them it was a relief to have it finished there was the promise now of finding a hooch somewhere or an abandoned Pagoda where they could strip down and ring out their fatigues and maybe start a hot fire they felt bad for Kawa but they also felt a kind of giddiness a secret Joy because they were alive and because even the rain was preferable to being sucked under a ship field and because it was all a matter of luck and happenstance AAR sat down on the Dy next to Norman Booker listen he said those dumb jokes I didn't mean anything we all say things yeah but when I saw the guy it made me feel I don't know like he was listening he wasn't I guess not but I felt sort of guilty almost like if I'd kept my mouth shut none of it would have ever happened like it was my fault Norman Booker looked out across the wet field nobody's fault he said everybody's near the center of the field first lieutenant Jimmy cross squatted in the muck almost entirely submerged in his head he was revising the letter to ky's Father impersonal this time an officer expressing an officer condolences no apologies were necessary because in in fact it was one of those freak things and the war was full of freaks and nothing could ever change it anyway which was the truth he thought the exact truth Lieutenant cross went deeper into the muck the dark water at his throat and tried to tell himself it was the truth beside him a few steps off to the left the young Soldier was still searching for his girlfriend's picture still remembering how he had killed CWA the boy wanted to confess he wanted to tell the lieutenant how in the middle of the night he had pulled out Billy picture and passed it over to Kwa and then switched on the flashlight and how Kawa had whispered hey she's cute and how for a second the flashlight had made Billy's face Sparkle and how right then the field had exploded all around them the flashlight had done it like a Target shining in the dark the boy looked up at the sky then at Jimmy cross sir he said the rain and Mist moved across the field in broad sweeping sheets of gray close by there was Thunder sir the boy said I got to explain something but Lieutenant Jimmy cross wasn't listening eyes closed he let himself go deeper into the waist just letting the field take him he lay back and floated when a man died there had to be blame Jimmy cross understood this you could blame the war you could blame the idiots who made the war you could blame Kwa for going to it you could blame the rain you could blame the river you could blame the field the mud the climate you could blame the enemy you could blame the mortar rounds you could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper who were bored by the daily body counts who switch channels At The Mention of politics you could blame whole Nations you could blame God you could blame the Munitions makers or Carl marks or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote in the field though the couses were immediate a moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever for a long Long Wild Jimmy cross lay floating in the clouds to the east there was the sound of a helicopter but he did not take notice with his eyes still closed bobbing in the field he let himself slip away he was back home in New Jersey a golden afternoon on the golf course the phway is Lush and green and he was teeing it up on the first hole it was a world without responsibility when the war was over he thought maybe then he would write a letter to kyo's father or maybe not maybe he would just take a couple of practice swings and knock the ball down the middle and pick up his clubs and walk off into the afternoon good form it's time to be blunt I'm 43 years old true and I'm a writer now and a long time ago I walked through Quang inai Province as a foot soldier almost everything else is invented but it's not a game it's a form right here now as I invent myself I'm thinking of all I want to tell you about why this book is written as it is for instance I want to tell you this 20 years ago I watched a man die on a trail near the village of my K I did not kill him but I was present you see and my presence was guilt enough I remember his face which was not a pretty face because his jaw was in his throat and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief I blamed myself and rightly so because I was present but listen even that story is made up I want I want you to feel what I felt I want you to know why story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth here is the happening truth I was once a soldier there were many bodies real bodies with real faces but I was young then and I was afraid to look and now 20 years later I'm left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief here is the story truth he was a slim dead almost dainty young man of about 20 he lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of m k his jaw was in his throat his one eye was shut the other eye was a star-shaped hole I killed him what stories can do I guess is make things present I can look at things I never looked at I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God I can be brave I can make myself feel again Daddy tell the truth Kathleen can say did you ever kill anybody and I can say honestly of course not or I can say honestly yes field trip a few months after completing in the field I returned with my daughter to Vietnam where we visited the site of ky's death and where I looked for signs of forgiveness or personal Grace or whatever else the land might offer the field was still there though not as I remembered it much smaller I thought and not nearly so menacing and in the bright sunlight it was hard to picture what had happened on this ground some 20 years ago except for a few marshy spots along the river everything was bone dry no ghosts just a flat grassy field the place was at peace there were yellow butterflies there was a breeze and a wide Blue Sky along the river Two Old Farmers stood in ankled deep water repairing the same narrow dikke where we had laid out ky's body after pulling him from the muck things were quiet at one point I remember one of the farmers looked up and shaded his eyes staring across the field at us then after a time he wiped his forehead and went back to work I stood with my arms folded feeling the grip of sentiment and time amazing I thought 20 years behind me in the Jeep my daughter Kathleen sat waiting with the government interpreter and now and then I could hear the two of them talking in soft voices they were already Fast Friends neither of them I think understood what all this was about why I'd insisted that we search out this spot it had been a hard to our ride from kuang and gai City bumpy dirt roads and a Hot August Sun ending up at an empty field on the edge of nowhere I took out my camera snapped a couple of pictures then stood gazing out at the field after a Time Kathleen got out of the Jeep and Stood Beside Me you know what I think she said I think this place stinks it smells like God I don't even know what it smells rotten it sure does I know that so when can we go pretty soon I said she started to say something but then hesitated frowning she squinted out at the field for a second then shroud and walked back to the Jeep Kathleen had just turned 10 and this trip was a kind of birthday present showing her the world offering a small piece of her father's history for the most part she'd held up well far better than I and over the first two weeks she'd trooped along without complaint as we hit the obligatory tourist stops hokai min's melam in Hanoi a model Farm outside saon the tunnels kukai The Monuments and government offices and orphanages through most of this Kathleen had seemed to enjoy the foreignness of it all the exotic food and animals and even during those periods of boredom and discomfort she' kept up a good humored tolerance at the same time however she'd seemed a bit puzzled the war was as remote to her as cavemen and dinosaurs one morning in Saigon she'd asked what it was all about this whole War she said why was everybody so mad at everybody else I shook my head they weren't mad exactly some people wanted one thing other people wanted another thing what did you want nothing I said to stay alive that's all yes Kathleen sighed well I don't get it I mean how come you were even here in the first place I don't know I said because I had to be but why I tried to find something to tell her but finally I Shrugged and said it's a mystery I guess I don't know for the rest of the day she was very quiet that night though just before bedtime Kathleen put her hand on my shoulder and said you know something sometimes you're pretty weird aren't you well no I said you are too she pulled her hand away and frowned at me like coming over here some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it and that's bad no she said quietly that's weird in the second week of August near the end of our St I'd arranged for the side trip up to kuang and Guy The Tourist stuff was fine but from the start I'd wanted to take my daughter to the places I'd seen as a soldier I wanted to show her the Vietnam that kept me awake at night a Shady Trail outside the village of m a filthy old Pig Style on the bangan peninsula our time was short however and choices had to be made and in the end I decided to take her to this piece of ground where my friend Kawa had died it seemed appropriate and besides I had business here now looking out at the field I wondered if it was all a mistake everything was too ordinary a quiet sunny day and the field was not the field I remembered I pictured ky's face the way he used to smile but all I felt was the awkwardness of remembering behind me Kathleen let out a little giggle The Interpreter was showing her magic tricks there were birds and butterflies the soft rustlings of rur anywhere Below in the Earth the relics of our presence were no doubt still there the canens and banders and mes kits this little field I thought had swallowed so much my best friend my pride my belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage still it was hard to find any real emotion it simply wasn't there after that long night in the rain I'd seemed to grow cold inside all the Illusions gone all the old Ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud over the years that coldness had never entirely disappeared there were times in my life when I couldn't feel much not sadness or Petty or passion and somehow I blamed this place for what I had become and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been for 20 years this field had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam all the vulgarity and horror now it was just what it was flat and dreary and unremarkable I walked up toward the river trying to pick out specific landmarks but all I recognized was a small rise where Jimmy cross had set up his command post that night nothing else for a while I watched The Two Old Farmers working under the hot sun I took a few more photographs waved at the farmers then turned and moved back to the Jeep Kathleen gave me a little nod well she said I hope you're having fun sure can we go now in a minute I said just relax at the back of the Jeep I found the small cloth bundle i' carried over from the states Kathleen's eyes narrowed what's that stuff I told her she glanced at the bundle again then hopped out of the Jeep and followed me back to the field we walked past Jimmy cross's command post past the spot where Kawa had gone under down to where the field dipped into the Marshland along the river I took off my shoes and socks okay Kathleen said what's going on a quick swim where right here I said stay put she watched me unrap the cloth bundle inside where Kai's old moccasins I stripped down to my underwear took off my wristwatch and waited in the water was warm against my feet instantly I recognized the soft fat feel of the bottom the water here was 8 in deep Kathleen seemed nervous she squinted at me her hands fluttering listen this is stupid she said you can't even hardly get wet how can you swim out there I'll manage but it's not I mean God it's not even water it's like mush or something she pinched her nose and watched me wait out to where the water reached my knees roughly here I decided was where Mitchell Sanders had found KY was rucksack I eased myself down squatting at first then sitting there was again that sense of recognition the water Rose to mid cast a deep greenish Brown almost hot small water bugs skipped along the surface right here I thought leaning forward I reached in with the moccasins and w wedged them into the soft bottom letting them Slide Away Tiny Bubbles broke along the surface I tried to think of something decent to say something meaningful and right but nothing came to me I looked down into the field well I finally managed there it is my voice surprised me it had a rough chalky sound full of things I did not know were there I wanted to tell kyowa that he'd been a great friend the very best but all I could do was slap hands with the water the sun made me squint 20 years a lot like yesterday a lot like never in a way maybe I'd gone under with kywa and now after two decades I'd finally worked my way out a hot afternoon a bright August sun and the war was over for a few moments I could not bring myself to move like waking from a summer nap feeling lazy and sluggish the world collecting itself around me 50 m up the field one of the Old Farmers stood watching from along the Dyke the man's face was dark and solemn as we we stared at each other neither of us moving I felt something go shut in my heart while something else swung open briefly I wondered if the old man might walk over to exchange a few War Stories but instead he picked up a shovel and raised it over his head and held it there for a time grimly like a flag then he brought the shovel down and said something to his friend and began digging into the hard dry ground I stood up and waited out of the water what a mess Kathleen said all that Gunk on your skin you look like wait till I tell Mommy she'll probably make you sleep in the garage you're right I said don't tell her I pulled on my shoes took my daughter's hand and led her across the field toward the jeep soft heat waves shimmed up out of the earth when we reached the Jeep Kathleen turned and glanced out at the field that old man she said is he mad at you or something I hope not he looks mad no I said all that's finished the ghost soldiers I was shot Twice The First Time Out by triin it knocked me against the pagota wall and I bounced and spun around and ended up on rat Kylie's lap a lucky thing because rat was the medic he tied on a compress and told me to ease back then he ran off toward the fighting for a long time I lay there all alone listening to the battle thinking I've been shot I've been shot all those Jee atrey movies I'd seen as a kid in fact I almost smiled except then I started to think I might die it was the fear mostly but I felt wobbly and then I had a sinking sensation ears all plugged up as if I'd gone deep underwater thank God for rat Kylie every so often maybe for times altogether he trotted back to check me out which took courage it was a wild fight guys running and laying down fire and regrouping and running again lots of noise but rack Kylie took the risks easy does it he told me just aside wound no problem unless you're pregnant he ripped off the compress applied a fresh one and told me to clamp it in place with my fingers press hard he said don't worry about the baby then he took off it was almost dark when the fighting ended and the chopper came to take me and to dead guys away Happy Trails wrath said he helped me into the helicopter and stood there for a moment then he did an odd thing he leaned in and put his head against my shoulder and almost hug me coming from rack Kylie that was something new on the ride into chulai I kept waiting for the pain to hit but in fact I didn't feel much a throb that's all even in the hospital it wasn't bad when I got back to Alpha Company 26 days later in mid December rat Kylie had been wounded and shipped off to Japan and a new medic named Bobby Jorgenson had replaced him Jorgenson was no rat Kylie he was green and incompetent and scared so when I got shot the second time in the butt along the song trabon it took the son of a almost 10 minutes to work up the nerve to crawl over to me by then I was Gone with the pain later I found out I'd almost died of shock Bobby Jorgenson didn't know about shock or if he did the fear made him forget to make it worse he bungled the patch job and a couple of weeks later my ass started to rot away you could actually peel off chunks of skin with your fingernail it was borderline Gang Green I spent a month flat on my my stomach I couldn't walk or sit I couldn't sleep I kept seeing Bobby Jorgenson's scared white face those buggy eyes and the way his lips twitched and that silly excuse he had for a mustache after the rock cleared up once I could think straight I devoted a lot of time to figuring ways to get back at him getting shot should be an experience from which you can draw some small Pride I don't mean the Macho stuff all I mean is that you should be able to talk about it the stiff thumb of the bullet like a fist the way it knocks the air out of you and makes you cough how the sound of The Gunshot arrives about 10 years later and the Dizzy feeling the smell of yourself the things you think about and say and do right afterward the way your eyes focus on a tiny white Pebble or a blade of grass and how you start thinking oh man that's the last thing I'll ever see that Pebble that blade of grass which makes you want to cry Pride isn't the right word I don't know the right word all I know is you shouldn't feel embarrassed humiliation shouldn't be part of it it diaper rash the nurses called it and in joke I suppose but it made me hate Bobby Jorgenson the way some guys hated the VC get hate the kind of hate that stays with you even in your dreams I guess the higher-ups decided I'd been shot enough at the end of December when I was released from the 91st Evac hospital they transferred me over to headquarters company est4 the Battalion Supply section compared with the boonies it was cushy Duty we had regular hours there was an M club with beer and movies sometimes even live Floor shows the whole blurry slow motion of the rear for the first time in months I felt reasonably safe the Battalion Firebase was built into a hill just off Highway One surrounded on all sides by flat Patty land and between us and the patties there were reinforced bunkers and observation towers and trip flares and rolls of Razor tip barbb wire you could still die of course once a month we'd get hit with mortar fire but you could also die in the bleachers at met stadium in Minneapolis Bases Loaded Harmon killab brw coming to the plate I didn't complain in an odd way though there were times when I missed the adventure even the danger of the real war out in the boonies it's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake it makes things Vivid when you're afraid really afraid you see things you never saw before you pay attention to the world you make close friends you become part of a tribe and you share the same blood you give it together you take it together on the other hand I'd already been hit with two bullets I was superstitious I believed in the odds with the same passion that my friend Kwa had once believed in Jesus Christ or the way Mitchell Sanders believed in the power of morals I figured my war was over if it hadn't been for the constant ache in my butt I'm sure things would have worked out fine but it hurt at night I had had to sleep on my belly that doesn't sound so terrible until you consider that I'd been a backs sleeper all my life I'd lie there all fidgety and tight then after a while I'd feel a swell of anger come on I'd squirm around cussing half nuts with pain and pretty soon I'd start remembering how Bobby Jorgenson had almost killed me shock I'd think how could he forget to treat for shock I'd remember how long it took him to get to me and how his fingers were all jerky and nervous and the way his lips kept twitching under that ridiculous little mustache the knights were miserable sometimes I'd roam around the base I'd head down to the wire and stare out at the darkness out where the war was and think up ways to make Bobby Jorgenson feel exactly what I felt I wanted to hurt him in March Alpha Company came in for standown I was there at the helipad to meet the Choppers Mitchell Sanders and AAR and Henry Dobbins and Dave Jensen and Norman Boker slapped hands with me and we piled their gear in my my Jeep and drove down to the alpha hooches we partied until Chow Time afterward we kept on partying it was one of the rituals even if you weren't in the mood you did it on principle by midnight it was Story Time Morty Phillips used up his luck Boker said I smiled and waited there was a Tempo to how stories got told Boker peeled open a finger blister and sucked on it go on AAR said tell him everything well that's about it poor more wasted his luck pissed it away on nothing Azor said the dummy pisses it away on nothing Norman Booker nodded started to speak but then stopped and got up and moved to the cooler and shoved his hands deep into the ice he was naked except for his shorts and dog tags in a way I envied him all of them their deep Bush Tans the sores and blisters the stories the in iamus I felt close to them yes but I also felt a new sense of separation my fatigues were starched I had a neat haircut and the clean sterile smell of the rear they were still my buddies at least on one level but once you leave the boonies the whole comrade business gets turned around you become a civilian you forfeit membership in the family the blood fraternity and no matter how hard you try you can't pretend to be part of it that's how I felt like a civilian and it made me sad these guys had been my brothers we loved one another no Norman Boker bent forward and scooped up some ice against his chest pressing it there for a moment then he fished out a beer and snapped it open it was out by my K he said quietly one of those killer hot days hot hot and we're all popping salt tabs just to stay conscious can't barely breathe everybody's lying around just grooving it and after a while somebody says Hey where's Morty so the lieutenant does a head count and guess what no Morty gone Ela said poof navican Morty Norman Booker nodded anyhow we send out to search patrols no dice not a trace pausing a second Boker poured a trickle of beer onto his blister and licked at it by then it's almost dark Lieutenant cross he's ready to have a fit you know how he gets right and then guess what take a guess Morty shows I said you got it man Morty shows we almost chalk him up as Mia and then bingo he shows soaking wet said AAR Hey listen Okay but tell it Norman Boker frowned soaking wet he said turns out the went for a swim you believe that all alone he just takes off hikes a couple clicks finds himself a river and strips down and hops in and starts doing the goddamn breaststroke or some such fine no security no nothing I mean the dude goes skinny dipping Azar giggled a hot day not that hot said Dave Jensen hot though get the picture Boker said this is my K we're talking about dinks everywhere and the guy goes for a swim crazy I said I looked across the hooch 20 or 30 guys were there some drinking some passed out but I couldn't find Morty Phillips among them Boker smiled he reached out and put his hand on my knee and squeezed that's the kicker man no more Morty no Morty's luck gets all used to up Boker said his hands still rested on my knee very lightly a few days later maybe a week he feels real Dizzy PES a lot temperature zooms way up I mean the guy's sick Jorgenson says he must have swallowed bad water on that swim swallowed a VC virus or something Bobby Jorgenson I said where is he be cool where's my good buddy Bobby Norman Boker made a short clicking sound with his tongue you want to hear this yes or no sure I do so listen up then Morty gets sick like you never seen nobody so bad off this is real Kias disease he can't walk or talk can't fart can't nothing like he's paralyzed Kio maybe Henry Dobbin shook his head not polio you got it wrong maybe polio no way said Dobbins not polio well hey Boker said I'm just saying what Jorgenson says maybe polio or that weird elephant disease elephant Asel or whatever yeah but not polio across the hooch sitting off by himself AAR grinned and snapped his fingers either way he said it goes to show you don't throw away luck on little stuff save it up there it is said Mitchell Sanders Morty was due Dave Jensen said overdue Sanders said Norman Booker nodded solemnly you don't mess around like that you just don't Fritter away all your luck men said Sanders polio said Henry Dobbins we sat quietly for a time there was no need to talk because we were thinking the same things about Morty Phillips and the way luck worked and didn't work and how it was impossible to calculate the odds There Were A Million Ways To Die getting shot was one way booby traps and landmines and Gang Green and shock and polio from ABC virus where's Jorgenson I said another thing three times a day no matter what I had to stop whatever I was doing I had to go find a private place and drop my pants and smear on this antibacterial ointment the stuff left stains on the seat of my trousers big yellow splotches and so naturally there were some jokes there was one about rear guard Duty there was another one about hemorrhoids and how I had trouble putting the past behind me the others weren't quite so funny during the first full day of Alpha's standown I didn't run into Bobby Jorgenson once not at not at the M Club not even during our long boo sessions in the Alpha Company Hooch at one point I almost went looking for him but my friend Mitchell Sanders told me to forget it let it ride he said the kid messed up bad for sure but you have to take into account how green he was brand new remember thing is he's doing a lot better now I mean listen the guy knows his say what you want but he kept Morty Phillips alive and that makes it okay Sanders Shrugged people change situations change I hate to say this man but you're out of touch Jorgenson he's with us now and I'm not Sanders looked at me for a moment no he said I guess you're not stiffly like a stranger Sanders moved across the hooch and lay down with a magazine and pretended to read I felt something shift inside me it was anger partly but it was also a sense of pure and total loss I didn't fit anymore There Were Soldiers I wasn't in a few days they'd saddle up and head back into the bush and I'd stand up on the helipad to watch them March away and then after they were gone I'd spend the day loading resupply Choppers until it was time to catch a movie or play cards or drink myself to sleep a funny thing but I felt betrayed for a long while I just stared at Mitchell Sanders loyalty I said such a pal in the morning I ran into Bobby Jorgenson I was loading huys up on the helipad and when the last bird took off while I was putting on my shirt I looked over and saw him leaning against my Jeep waiting for me it was a surprise he seemed smaller than I remembered a little squirrel of a guy short and Stumpy looking he nodded nervously well he said I first I just looked down at his boots those boots I remembered them from when I got shot out along the song Trang a bullet inside me all that pain but for some reason what stuck to my memory was the smooth unblemished leather of his new boots Factory black no scuffs or dust or red clay the boots were one of those Vivid details you can't forget like a pebble or a blade of grass you just stare and think dear Christ there's the last thing on earth I'll ever see Jorgenson blinked and tried to smile oddly I almost felt some pity for him look he said can we talk I didn't move I didn't say a word Jorgenson's tongue flicked out moving along the edge of his mustache then Slipped Away listen man I up he said what else can I say I'm sorry when you got hit I kept telling myself to move move but I couldn't do it like I was full of drugs or something you ever feel like that like you can't even move no I said I never did but can't you at least excuses Jorgenson's lip twitched no I botched it period got all Frozen up I guess the noise and shooting and everything my first firefight I just couldn't handle it when I heard about the shock the Gang Green I felt like I felt miserable nightmares too I kept seeing you lying out there heard you screaming but it was like my legs were filled up with sand they didn't work i' keep trying but I couldn't make my goddamn legs work he made a small sound in his throat something low and feathery and for a second I was afraid he might ball that would have ended it I would have patted his shoulder and told him to forget it but he kept control he swallowed whatever the sound was and forced a smile and tried to shake my hand it gave me an excuse to glare at him it's not that easy I said Tim I can't go back and do things over my ass Jorgenson kept pushing his hand out at me he looked so Earnest so sad and hurt that it almost made me feel guilty not quite though after a second I muttered something and got into my Jeep and put it to the floor and left him standing there I hated him for making me stop hating him something had gone wrong I'd come to this war a quiet thoughtful sort of person a college grad F Beta Kappa and Summa all the credentials but after 7 months in the bush I realized that those High civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under the weight of the simple daily realities I'd turn mean inside even a little cruel at times for all my education all my fine liberal values I now felt a deep coldness inside me something dark and Beyond reason it's a hard thing to admit ad MIT even to myself but I was capable of evil I wanted to hurt Bobby Jorgenson the way he'd hurt me for weeks it had been a vow I'll get him I'll get him it was down inside Me Like a Rock granted I didn't hate him anymore and I'd lost some of the outrage and passion but the need for Revenge kept eating at me at night I sometimes drank too much I'd remember getting shot and yelling out for a medic and then waiting and waiting and waiting passing out once then waking up and screaming some more and how the screaming seemed to make new pain the awful stink of myself the sweat and fear Bobby Jorgenson's clumsy fingers when he finally got around to working on me I kept going over it all every detail I remembered the soft fluid heat of my own blood shock I thought and I tried to tell him that but my tongue wouldn't make the connection I wanted to yell you jerk it shock I'm dying but all I could do was Winnie and squeal I remembered that and the hospital and the nurses I even remembered the rage but I couldn't feel it anymore in the end all I felt was that coldness down inside my chest number one the guy had almost killed me number two there had to be consequences that afternoon I asked Mitchell Sanders to give me a hand no pain I said basic psychology that's all mess with his head a little negative Sanders said spook the Sanders shook his head man you're sick all I want is sick quietly Sanders looked at me for a second and then walked away I had to get AAR in on it he didn't have Mitchell Sanders's intelligence but he had a Keener sense of justice after I explained the plan Azar gave me a long white smile tonight he said just don't get carried away me still smiling AAR flicked an eyebrow and started snapping his fingers it was a tick of his whenever things got tense Whenever there was a prospect for action he'd do that snapping thing nobody cared for him including myself understand I said Azar winked Roger Dodger only a game right we called the enemy ghosts bad night we'd say the ghosts are out to get spooked in the lingo meant not only to get scared but to get killed don't get spooked we'd say stay cool stay alive or we'd say careful man don't give up the ghost the countryside itself seemed spooky shadows and tunnels and incense burning in the dark the land was haunted we were fighting forces that did not obey the laws of 20th century science late at night onu guard it seemed that all of Vietnam was alive and shimmering odd shapes swaying in the patties boogy men in sandals Spirits dancing in Old pagodas it was Ghost country and Charlie Kong was the main ghost the way he came out at night how you never really saw him just thought you did almost magical appearing disappearing he could blend with the land changing form becoming trees and grass he could levitate he could fly he could pass through barbed wire and melt away like ice and creep up on you without sound or footsteps he was scary in the daylight maybe you didn't believe in this stuff you laughed at off you made jokes but at night you turned into a Believer no Skeptics and foxh holes AAR was wound up tight all afternoon while we made the preparations he kept chanting Halloween Halloween that plus the finger snapping almost made me cancel the whole operation I went hot and cold Mitchell Sanders wouldn't speak to me which tended to cool it off but then I'd start remembering things the result was a kind of numbness no ice no heat I just went through the motions rigidly by the Numbers without any heart or real emotion I rigged up my special effects checked out the terrain measured distances collected the ordinance and Equipment we'd need I was professional enough about it I didn't make mistakes but somehow it felt as if I were gearing up to fight somebody else's War I didn't have that patriotic Zeal if there had been a dignified way out I might have taken it during evening Chow in fact I kept staring across the mess hall at Bobby Jorgenson and when he finally looked up at me almost nodding I came very close to Calling it Quits maybe I was fishing for something one last apology something public but Orson only gazed back at me it was a strange gaze too straight on and unafraid as if apologies were no longer required he was sitting there with Dave Jensen and Mitchell Sanders and a few others and he seemed to fit in very nicely all smiles and group rour that's probably what cinched it I went back to my Hooch showered shaved threw my helmet against the wall lay down for a while got up prowled around talked to myself applied some fresh ointment then headed off to to find AAR just before dusk Alpha Company stood for roll call afterward the men separated into two groups some went off to write letters or party or sleep the others trooped down to the base perimeter where for the next 11 hours they would pull Night Guard Duty it was sop one night on one night off this was Jorgenson's night on I knew that in advance of course and I knew his bunker assignment bunker 6 a pile of sandbags at the southwest corner of the perimeter that morning I had scouted out every inch of his position I knew the blind spots and the little ripples of land and the places where he'd take cover in case of trouble but still just to guard against freak screw-ups aara and I tailed him down to the wire we watched him lay out his Poncho and connect his Claymores to their firing devices softly like a little boy he was whisking to himself he tested His Radio unwrapped a candy bar then sat back with his rifle cradled to his chest like a teddy bear a pigeon AAR whispered roast pigeon on a spit I smell it sizzling except this isn't for real AAR Shrugged after a second he reached out and clapped me on the shoulder not roughly but not gently either what's real he said 8 months in fantasy land it tends to blur the line honest to God I sometimes can't remember what real is psychology that was one thing I knew you don't try to scare people in broad daylight you wa because the darkness squeezes you inside yourself you get cut off from the outside world the imagination takes over that's basic psychology I'd pulled enough Night Guard to know how the Fear Factor gets multiplied as you sit there hour after hour nobody to talk to nothing to do but stare into the big black hole at the center of your own sorry Soul the hours go by end you lose your gyroscope your mind starts to roam you think about dark closets Madmen murderers under the bed all those childhood fears Gremlins and trolls and Giants you try to block it out but you can't you see ghosts you blink and shake your head you tell yourself but then you remember the guys who died Kurt lemon kyowa Ted lavender a half dozen others whose faces you can't bring into Focus anymore and then pretty soon you start to ponder the stories you've heard about Charlie's magic the time some guys cornered to VC in a dead end tunnel no way out but how when the tunnel was fragant and searched nothing was found except a pile of dead rats a 100 stories ghosts wiping out a whole Marine platoon in 20 seconds flat ghosts rising from the dead ghosts behind you and in front of you and inside you after a while as the night deepens you feel a funny buzzing in your ears tiny sounds get heightened and distorted The Crickets talk in code the night takes on a weird electronic tingle you hold your breath you coil up and tighten your muscles and listen Knuckles hard the pulse ticking in your head you hear the Spooks laughing no laughing you jerk up you freeze you squint at the dark nothing though you put your weapon on full automatic you crouch lower and count your grenades and make sure the pins are bent for quick throwing and take a deep breath and listen and try not to freak and then later after enough time pauses things start to get bad come on Azar said letun do it but I told him to be patient waiting was the trick so we went to the movies Barbarella again the eighth straight night a lousy movie I thought but it kept AAR occupied he was crazy about Jane Fonda sweet Janie he kept saying sweet Janie boosts a man's morale then with his hand he showed me which part of his morale got boosted it was an old joke everything was old the movie The Heat the booze the War I fell asleep during the second reel a hot angry sleep and 40 minutes later or I woke up to a sore ass and a f temper it wasn't yet midnight we hiked over to them club and worked our way through a six-pack Mitchell Sanders was there at another table but he pretended not to see me around closing time I nodded at Azar well goody gum drop he said we went over to my Hooch picked up our gear and then moved through the night down to the wire I felt like a soldier again back in the bush it seemed we observed good field discipline not talking keeping to the shadows and joining in with the darkness when we came up on Bunker 6 Azar lifted his thumb and peeled away from me and began circling to the South Old Times I thought a kind of thrill a kind of dread quietly I shouldered my gear and crossed over to a heap of Boulders that overlooked Jorgenson's position I was directly behind him 32 M away exactly even in the heavy darkness no moon yet I could make out the kid silhouette a helmet a pair of shoulders a rifle barrel his back was to me he gazed out at the wire and at the patties Beyond where the danger was I knelt down and took out 10 flares and unscrewed the caps and lined them up in front of me and then checked my wristwatch still 5 minutes to go edging over to my left I groped for the ropes I'd set up that afternoon I found them tested the tension and checked the time again for minutes there was a light feeling in my head fluttery and TD at the same time I I remembered it from the boonies giddiness and doubt and awe all those things and a million more you wonder if you're dreaming it's like you're in a movie there's a camera on you so you begin acting you're somebody else you think of all the films you've seen aie Murphy and Gary Cooper and The Cisco Kid all those Heroes and you can't help falling back on them as models of proper comportment on ambush curled in the dark you fight for control not too much fidgeting you rearrange your your posture you try for a grin you measure out your breathing eyes open be alert old imperatives old movies it all swirls together cliches mixing with your own emotions and in the end you can't tell one from the other there was that coldness inside me I wasn't myself I felt Hollow and dangerous I took a breath fingered the first rope and gave it a sharp little jerk instantly there was a clatter outside the wire I expected the noise I was even tense for it but still my heart took a hop now I thought now it starts eight ropes Al together I had four AAR had four each rope was hooked up to a homemade noise maker out in front of Jorgenson's bunker eight ammo cans filled with rifle cartridges simple devices but they worked I waited a moment and then very gently I gave all four of my ropes a little tug delicate nothing loud if you weren't listening listening hard you might have missed it but Jorgenson was listening ing at the first low rattle his silhouette seemed to freeze another rattle as are this time we kept at it for 10 minutes staggering the Rhythm noise silence noise gradually building the tension squinting down at Jorgenson's position I felt a swell of immense power it was a feeling the BC must have Like A pueter Yank on the ropes watch the silly wooden Soldier jump and twitch it made me smile one by one in sequence I tugged on each of the ropes and the sounds came flowing back at me with a soft indefinite formlessness a rattlesnake maybe or the creek of a trapo or Footsteps in the Attic whatever you made of it in a way I wanted to stop myself it was cruel I knew that but right and wrong were somewhere else this was the spirit world I heard myself laugh and then presently I came unattached from the natural world I felt the hinges go eyes closed I seemed to rise up out of my own body and Float Through The Dark dark down to Jorgenson's position I was invisible I had no shape no substance I weighed less than nothing I just drifted it was imagination of course but for a long while I hovered there over Bobby Jorgenson's bunker as if through dark glass I could see him lying flat in his circle of sandbags silent and scared listening rubbing his eyes telling himself it was all a trick of the dark muscles tight ears tight I could see it now at this instant he glanced up at the Sky hoping for a moon or a few stars but no moon no stars he'd start talking to himself he tried to bring the night into Focus will and coherence but the effort would only cause distortions out Beyond The Wire the patties would seem to swirl andway the trees would take human form clumps of grass would glide through the night like sappers fun house country trick mirrors and curvatures and popup monsters take it easy he'd murmur easy easy easy but but it wouldn't get any easier I could actually see it I was down there with him inside him I was part of the night I was the land itself everything everywhere the fireflies and patties the moon the midnight rustlings the cool phosphorescent Shimmer of evil I was atrocity I was Jungle fire jungle drums I was the blind stare in the eyes of all those poor dead dumb exp Pals of mine all the pale young corpses Le Strunk and cwe and Kurt lemon I was was the beast on their lips I was n the horror the war creepy AAR said wet pants and goosebumps he held a beer out to me but I shook my head we sat in the dim light of my Hooch boots off listening to Mary Hopkin on my tape deck what next wait I said sure but I mean shut up and listen that high elegant voice someday when the war was over I'd go to London and ask Mary Hopkin to marry me that's another thing Nam does to you it turns you sentimental it makes you want to hook up with girls like Mary Hopkin you learn finally that you'll die and so you try to hang on to your own life that gentle naive kid you used to be but then after a while the sentiment takes over and the sadness because you know for a fact that you can't ever bring any of it back again you just can't those were the days she sang AAR Switched Off the tape man he said don't you got music and now finally the moon was out we slipped back to our positions and went to work again with the ropes louder now more insistent Starlight sparkled in the barbed wire and there were curious Reflections and layerings of Shadow and the big white moon added resonance there was no wind the night was absolute slowly we dragged the Amo can closer to Bobby Jorgenson's bunker and this plus the moon gave a sense of approaching Peril the slow belly down crawl of evil at 030 hours AAR said off the first trip flare there was a light popping noise then a Sizzle out in front of Bunker 6 the night seemed to snap itself in half the white flare burned 10 Paces from the bunker I fired off three more flares and it was instant daylight then Jorgenson moved he made a short low cry not even a cry really just a short lung and throat bark and there was a blurred sequence as he lunged sideways and rolled toward a heap of sandbags and crouched there and hugged his rifle and waited there I whispered now you know I could read his mind I was there with him together we understood what Terror was you're not human anymore you're a shadow you slip out of your own skin like molting shedding your own history and your own future leaving behind everything you ever were or wanted or believed in you know you're about to die and it's not a movie and you aren't the hero and all you can do is whimper and wait this now was something we shared I felt close to him it wasn't compassion just closeness his silhouette was framed like a cardboard cut out against the burning flares in the dark outside my Hooch even though I bent toward him almost nose to nose all I could see were the glossy whites of aar's eyes enough I said oh sure seriously AAR gave me a small thin smile serious he said that's way too serious for me I'm your basic fun lover when he smiled again I knew it was hopeless but I tried anyway I told him the score was even we made our point I said no need to rub it in AAR stared at me poor poor boy he said the rest was in flection and white eyes an hour before Dawn we moved in for the last phase AAR was in command now I tagged after him thinking maybe I could keep a lid on Don't Take This Personal Azar said softly it's my own character flaw I just like to finish things I didn't look at him as we approached the the wire AAR put his hand on my shoulder guiding me over toward the boulder pile he knelt down and inspected the ropes and flares nodded to himself peered out at Jorgenson's bunker nodded once more then took off his helmet and sat on it he was smiling again you know something he said his voice was wistful out here at night I almost feel like a kid again the Vietnam experience I mean well I love this let's just AAR put a finger to his lips he was still smiling at me almost kindly this here is what you wanted he said displaying War right that's all this is a cute little backyard war game brings back memories I bet those happy soldiering days except now you're a husband one of those American Legion types guys who like to dress up in a Nifty uniform and go out and play at it pitiful it was me I'd rather get my ass blown away for real my lips had a waxy feel like soap stone come on I said just quit pitiful Azar for Christ's sake he patted my cheek purely pitiful he said we waited another 10 minutes it was cold now and damp squatting down I felt a sudden brittleness come over me a hollow sensation as if someone could reach out and crush me like a Christmas tree ornament it was the same feeling I'd had out along the song trabon like I was losing myself everything spilling out I I remembered how the bullet had made a soft puffing noise inside me I remembered lying there for a long while listening to the river the gunfire and voices how I kept calling out for a medic but how nobody came and how I finally reached back and touched the hole the blood was warm like dishwater I could feel my pants filling up with it all this Blood I thought I'll be Hollow then the brittle sensation hit me I passed out for a while and when I woke up the battle had moved moved farther down the river I was still leaking I wondered where rat Kylie was but rat Kylie was in Japan there was rifle fire somewhere off to my right and people yelling except none of it seemed real anymore I smelled myself dying the round had entered at a steep angle smashing down through the hip and colon the stench made me jerk sideways I turned and clamped a hand against the wound and tried to plug it up leaking to death I thought and then I felt it happen like a genie swirling out of a bottle like a cloud of gas I was drifting upward out of my own body I was half in and half out part of me still lay there the corpse part but I was also that Genie looking on and saying there there which made me start to scream I couldn't help it when Bobby Jorgenson got to me I was almost gone with shock all I could do was scream I tightened up and squeezed trying to stop the leak but that only made it worse and Jorgenson punched me and told me to knock it off shocked I thought I tried to tell him that I tried to say shock but it wouldn't come out right Jorgenson flipped me over and pressed a knee against my back pinning me there and I kept trying to say shock man treat for shock I was lucid things were clear but my tongue wouldn't fit around the words then I slipped under for a while when I came back Jorgenson was using a knife to cut off my pants he shot in the morphine which scared me and I shouted something and tried to wiggle away but he kept pushing down hard on my back except it wasn't Jorgenson now it was that Genie he was smiling down at me and winking and I couldn't Buck him off later on things clicked into slow motion the morphine maybe I focused on Jorgenson's brand new boots then on a pebble then on my own face floating high above me the last things I'd ever see I couldn't look away it occurred to me that I was witnessed to something rare even now in the dark there were indications of a spirit world Oar said hey you awake I nodded down at Bunker 6 things were silent the place looked abandoned ozar grinned and went to work on the ropes it began like a breeze a soft sighing sound I hugged myself I watched AAR Bend forward and fire off the first illumination flare please I almost said but the word snagged and I looked up and tracked the flare over Jorgenson's bunker it exploded almost without noise a soft red Flash there was a whimper in the dark at first I thought it was Jorgenson please I said I bit down and folded my hands and squeezed I had the Shivers twice more rapidly AAR fired up red flares at one point he turned toward me and lifted his eyebrows Timmy Timmy he said such a specimen I agreed I wanted to do something stop him somehow but I crouched back and watched AAR pick up a teargas grenade and pull the pin and stand up and throw the gas puffed up in a thin Cloud that partly obscured bunker 6 even from 30 m away I could smell it and taste it Jesus please I said but Oar lobbed over another one waited for the hiss then scrambled over to the Rope we hadn't used yet it was my idea I'd rigged it up myself a sandbag painted white a pulley system Azar gave the Rope a quick tug and out in front of Bunker 6 the white sandbag lifted itself up and hovered there in a misty swirl of gas Jorgenson began firing just one round at first a single red Tracer that thumped into the sandbag and burned oo Azar murmured quickly talking to himself AAR hurled the last gas grenade shot up another flare then snatched the Rope again and made the white sandbag dance ooh he was chanting Starlight Star Bright Bobby Jorgenson did not go nuts quietly almost with dignity he stood up and took him and fired once more at the the sandbag I could see his profile against the red flares his face seemed relaxed no twitching or screams he stared out into the dark for several seconds as if deciding something then he shook his head and smiled he stood up straight he seemed to brace himself for a moment then very slowly he began marching out toward the wire his posture was erect he did not Crouch or squirm or crawl he walked upright he moved with a kind of Grace when he reached the sandbag Jorgenson stopped and turned and shouted out my name then he placed his rifle muzzle up against the white sandbag obrien he yelled and he fired AAR dropped the Rope well he muttered shows over he looked down at me with a mixture of contempt and pity after a second he shook his head man I'll tell you something you're a sorry sorry case I was trembling I kept hugging myself rocking but I couldn't make it go away disgusting Azar said sorriest case I ever seen he looked out at Jorgenson then at me his eyes had opaque polished surface of stone he moved forward as if to help me up then he stopped and smiled almost as an afterthought he kicked me in the head sad he murmured then he turned and headed off to bed no big deal I told Jorgenson leave it alone but he led me down to the bunker and used a towel to wipe the gash up my forehead it wasn't bad really I felt so dizziness but I tried not to let it show it was almost Dawn now a hazy silver Dawn for a while we didn't speak so he finally said right we shook hands neither of us put much emotion into it and we didn't look at each other's eyes Jorgenson pointed out at the shot up sandbag that was a nice touch he said it almost had me he paused and squinted out at the Eastern patties where the sky was beginning to color up anyway a nice dramatic touch you've got a a real flare for it someday maybe you should go into the movies or something I nodded and said that's an idea another Hitchcock The Birds you ever see it scary stuff I said we sat for a while longer then I started to get up except I was still feeling the wobbles in my head Jorgenson reached out and steadied me we even now he said pretty much again I felt that human closeness almost were buddies we nearly shook hands again but then decided again against it Jorgenson picked up his helmet brushed it off and looked back one more time at the white sandbag his face was filthy up at the medic's hooch he cleaned and bandaged my forehead then we went to Chow we didn't have much to say I told him I was sorry he told me the same thing afterward in an awkward moment I said letun kill AAR Jorgenson smiled scare him to death right right I said what a movie I Shrugged sure or just kill him night life a few words about rat Kylie I wasn't there when he got hurt but Mitchell Sanders later told me the essential facts apparently he lost his cool the platoon had been working in a out in the Foothills west of kuang and G City and for some time they'd been receiving intelligence about an NVA buildup in the area the usual crazy rumors massed artillery and Russian tanks and whole divisions of fresh troops no no one took it seriously including Lieutenant cross but as a precaution the platoon moved only at night staying off the main trails and observing strict field Sops for almost two weeks Sanders said they lived the night life that was the phrase everyone used the night life a language trick it made things seem tolerable how's the N treating you one guy would ask and some other guy would say hey one big party just living the night life it was a tense time for everybody Sanders said but for Rak Kylie it ended up in Japan The Strain was too much for him he couldn't make the adjustment during those two weeks the basic routine was simple they'd sleep away the daylight hours or try to sleep then at dusk they'd put on their gear and move out single file into the dark always a heavy cloud cover no moon and no stars it was the purest black you could imagine sander said the kind of clock stopping Black that God must have had in mind when he sat down to invent blackness it made your eyeballs ache youd shake your head and blink except you couldn't even tell you were blinking the Blackness didn't change so pretty soon you'd get jumpy your nurse would go you'd start to worry about getting cut off from the rest of the unit alone you'd think and then the real Panic would bang in and you'd reach out and try to touch the guy in front of you groping for his shirt hoping to Christ he was still there it made for some bad dreams Dave Jensen popped special vitamins high in Keratin lieutenant cross popped notos Henry Dobbins and Norman Boker even rigged up a safety line between them a long piece of string tied to their belts the whole platoon felt the impact with rat Kylie though it was different too many body bags maybe too much Gore at first rat just sank inside himself not saying a word but then later on after five or six days it flipped the other way he couldn't stop talking weird talk too talking about bugs for instance how the worst thing in N was the godamn bugs big giant killer bugs he'd say mutant bugs bugs with up DNA bugs that were chemically altered by napam and defoliant and teargas and DDT he claimed the bugs were personally after his ass he said he could hear the bastards homing in on him swarms of mutant bugs billions of them they had him bracketed Whispering his name he said his actual name all night long it was driving him crazy odd stuff s said and it wasn't just talk rat developed some peculiar habits constantly scratching himself clawing at the bug bites he couldn't quit digging at his skin making big scabs and then ripping off the scabs and scratching the open sores it was a sad thing to watch definitely not the old rack Kylie his whole personality seemed out of kilter to an extent though everybody was feeling it the long night marches turned their minds upside down all the rhythms were wrong always a lost sensation they'd blunder along through the dark willy-nilly no sense of place or Direction probing for an enemy that nobody could see like a snipe hunt Sanders said a bunch of dumb Cub Scouts chasing the Phantoms they marched North for a time then East then North again skirting The Villages no one talking except in Whispers and it was rugged country too not quite mountains But Rising fast full of gorges and deep brush and places you could die around midnight things always got wild all around you everywhere the whole dark Countryside came alive you'd hear a strange hum in your ears nothing specific nothing you could put a name on tree frogs maybe or snakes or Flying Squirrels or who knew what like the night had its own voice that hum in your ears and in the hours after midnight you swear you were walking through some kind of soft black protoplasm Vietnam the blood and the flesh it was no joke s said the monkeys chatter death chatter the knights got freaky rack Kylie finally hit a wall he couldn't sleep during the hot daylight hours he couldn't cope with the nights late one afternoon as the platoon prepared for another March he broke down in front of Mitchell Sanders not crying but up against it he said he was scared and it wasn't normal scared he didn't know what it was to long in country probably or else he wasn't cut out to be a medic always policing up the parts he said always plugging up holes sometimes he'd stare at guys who were still okay the alive guys and he'd start to picture how they'd look dead without arms or legs that sort of thing it was ghoulish he knew that but he couldn't shut off the pictures he'd be sitting there talking with Booker or Dobbins or somebody just marking time and then out of nowhere he'd find himself wondering how much the guy's head weighed like how heavy it was and what it would feel like to pick up the head and carry over to a chopper and dump it in Rat scratched the skin at his elbow digging in hard his eyes were red and weary it's not right he said these pictures in my head they won't quit I'll see a guy's liver the actual liver and the thing is it doesn't scare me it doesn't even give me the willies more like curiosity the way a doctor feels when he looks at a patient sort of mechanical not seeing the real person just a ruptured appendix or a clogged up artery his voice floated away for a second he looked at Sanders and tried to smile he kept clawing at his elbow anyway rat said the days aren't so bad but at night the pictures get to be a I start seeing my own body chunks of myself my own heart my own kidneys it's like I don't know it's like staring into this huge black crystal ball one of these nights I'll be lying dead out there in the dark and nobody will find me except the bugs I can see it I can see the godamn bugs chewing tunnels through me I can see the mongus is munching on my bones I swear it's too much I can't keep seeing myself dead Mitchell Sanders nodded he didn't know what to say for a time they sat watching the Shadows come then rat shook his head he said he done his best he tried to be a decent medic when some and lose some he said but he tried hard briefly then rambling a little he talked about a few of the guys who were gone now Kurt lemon and c and Ted lavender and how crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive could get so incredibly dead then he almost laughed this whole War he said you know what it is just one big banquet meet man you and me everybody meet for the bugs the next morning he shot himself he took off his boots and socks laid out his medical kit doped himself up and put a round through his foot nobody blamed him Sanders said before the chopper came there was time for goodbyes Lieutenant cross went over and said he'd vouched that it was an accident Henry Dobbins and AAR gave him a stack of comic books for Hospital Reading everybody stood in a little circle feeling bad about it trying to cheer him up with about the great night life in Japan the lives of the dead but this too is true stories can save us I'm 43 years old and a writer now and even still right here I keep dreaming Linda alive and Ted lavender two and Kaa and Kurt lemon and a slim young man I killed and an old man sprawled beside a pig pin and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck they're all dead but in a story which is a kind of dreaming the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world start here a body without a name on an afternoon in 1969 the platoon took sniper fire from a filthy little village along the South China Sea it lasted only a minute or two and nobody was hurt but even so Lieutenant Jimmy cross got on the radio and ordered up an air strike for the next half hour we watched the place burn it was a cool bright morning like early Autumn and the Jets were glossy black against the sky when it ended we formed into a loose line and swept East through the village it was all wreckage I remember the smell of burnt straw I remember broken fences and torn up trees and heaps of stone and brick and pottery the place was deserted no people no animals and the only confirmed kill was an old man who lay face up near a pig pin at the center of the village his right arm was gone at his face there were already many flies and gats Dave Jensen went over and shook the old man's hand how' he do he said one by one the others did it too they didn't disturb the body they just grabbed the old man's hand and offered a few words and moved away rat Kylie bent over the corpse give me five he said a real honor pleased as punch said Henry Dobbins I was brand new to the war it was my fourth day I hadn't yet developed a sense of humor right away as if I had swallowed something I felt a moist sickness rise up in my throat I sat down beside the pig pin closed my eyes put my head between my knees after a moment Dave Jensen touched my shoulder be polite now he said go introduce yourself nothing to be afraid about just a nice old man show a little respect for your elders no way maybe it's to real for you that's right I said way to real Jenson kept after me but I didn't go near the body I didn't even look at it except by accident for the rest of the day there was still that sickness inside me but it wasn't the old man's corpse so much it was that awesome Act of greeting the dead at one point I remember they sat the body up against a fence they crossed his legs and talked to him the guest of honor Mitchell Sanders said and he placed a can of orange slices in the old man's lap vitamin C he said gently a guy's Health that's the most important thing they proposed toasts they lifted their censes and drank to the Old Man's family and ancestors his many grandchildren his new found life after death it was more than mockery there was a formality to it like a funeral without the sadness Dave Jensen flicked his eyes at me hey obrien he said you got a toast in mind never too late for manners I found things to do with my hands I looked away and tried not to think late in the afternoon just before dusk kyowa came up and asked if he could sit at my Foxhole for a minute he offered me a Christmas cookie from a batch his father had sent him it was February now but the cookies tasted fine for a few moments kyowa watched the sky you did a good thing today he said that shaking hands crap it isn't decent the guys will hassle you for a while especially Jensen but just keep saying no should have done it myself takes guts I know that it wasn't guts I was scared Kyo was Shrugged same difference no I couldn't do it a mental block or something I don't know just creepy well you're new here you'll get used to it he paused for a second studying the green and red sprinkles on a cookie today I guess this was your first look at a real body I shook my head all day long I'd been picturing Linda's face the way she smiled it sounds funny I said but that poor old man he reminds me of I mean there's this girl I used to know I took her to the movies once my first date Kaa looked at me for a long while then he leaned back and smiled man he said that's a bad date Linda was nine then as I was but we were in love and it was real when I write about her now three decades later it's tempting to dismiss it as a crush and in infatuation of childhood but I know for a fact that what we felt for each other was as deep and rich as love can ever get it had all the shadings and complexities of mature adult love and maybe more because there were not yet words for it and because it was not yet fixed to comparisons or chronologies or the ways by which adults measure such things I just loved her she had pois and great dignity her eyes I remember were deep Brown like her hair and she was Slender and very quiet and fragile looking even then at 9 years old I wanted to live inside her body I wanted to melt into her bones that kind of love and so in the spring of 1956 when we were in the fourth grade I took her out on the first real date of my life a double date actually with my mother and father though I can't remember the exact sequence my mother had somehow arranged it with Linda's parents and on that damp spring night my dad did the driving while Linda and I sat in the back seat and stared out opposite Windows both of us trying to pretend it was nothing special for me though it was very special down inside I had important things to tell her big profound things but I couldn't make any words come out I had trouble breathing now and then I'd glance over at her thinking how beautiful she was her white skin and those dark brown eyes and the way she always smiled at the world always it seemed as if her face had been designed that way the smile never went away that night I I remember she wore a new Red Cap which seemed to me very stylish and sophisticated very unusual it was a stocking cap basically except the tapered part at the top seemed extra long almost too long like a tail growing out of the back of her head it made me think of the Caps that Santa's elves wear the same shape and color the same fuzzy white tassel at the tip sitting there in the back seat I wanted to find some way to let her know how I felt a compliment of some sort but all I could manage was a stupid comp about the cap jeez I must have said what a cap Linda smiled at the window she knew what I meant but my mother turned and gave me a hard look it surprised me it was as if I'd brought up some Horrible Secret for the rest of the ride I kept my mouth shut we parked in front of the Ben Franklin store and walked up Main Street toward the State Theater my parents went first side by side and then Linda in her new red cap and then me tailing along 10 or 20 steps behind I was 9 years old I didn't yet have the gift for small talk now and then my mother glanced back making little motions with her hand to speed me up at the ticket booth I remember Linda stood off to one side I moved over to the concession area studying the candy and both of us were very careful to avoid the awkwardness of eye contact which was how we knew about being in love it was pure knowing neither of us I suppose would have thought to use that word love but by the fact of not looking at each other other and not talking we understood with the clarity Beyond language that we were sharing something huge and permanent behind me in the theater I heard cartoon music hey step it up I said I almost had the courage to look at her you want popcorn or what the thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it hoping that others might then dream along with you and in this way memory and Imagination and language combined to make spirits in the head there is the illusion of aliveness in Vietnam for instance Ted lavender had a habit of popping four or five tranquilizers every morning it was his way of coping just dealing with the realities and the drugs helped to ease him through the days I remember how peaceful his eyes were even in bad situations he had a soft dreamy expression on his face which was what he wanted a kind of Escape how's the war today somebody would ask and Ted lavender would give a little smile to the sky and say mellow a nice smooth War today and then in April he was shot in the head outside the village of den K and I and a couple of others were ordered to prepare his body for the dust off I remember squatting down not wanting to look but then looking lavender's left cheekbone was gone there was a swollen Blackness around his eye quickly trying not to feel anything we went through the kids Pockets I remember wishing I had gloves it wasn't the blood I hated it was the deadness we put his personal effects in a plastic bag and tied the bag to his arm we stripped off the canens and ammo all the heavy stuff and wrapped him up in his own Poncho and carried him out to a dry Patty and laid him down for a while nobody said much then Mitchell Sanders laughed and looked over at the green plastic Poncho hey lavender he said how's the war today there was a short quiet mellow somebody said well that's good Sanders murmured that's real real good stay cool now hey no sweat I'm mellow just Ease on back then don't need no pills we got this incredible Chopper on call this once in a lifetime mind trip oh yeah mellow Mitchell Sanders smiled there it is my man this Chopper going to take you up high and cool going to relax you going to alter your whole perspective on this sorry sorry we could almost see Ted love Ender's dreamy blue eyes we could almost hear him Roger that somebody said I'm ready to fly there was the sound of the wind the sound of birds and the quiet afternoon which was the world we were in that's what a story does the bodies are animated you make the dead talk they sometimes say things like Roger that or they say Timmy stop crying which is what Linda said to me after she was dead even now I can see her walking down the aisle of the Old State Theater in Worthington Minnesota I can see her face and profile beside me the cheeks softly lighted by Coming Attractions the movie that night was The Man Who Never Was I remember the plot clearly or at least the premise because the main character was a corpse that fact alone I know deeply impressed me it was a World War to film the Allies devise a scheme to mislead Germany about the side of the upcoming Landings in Europe they get their hands on a body a British soldier I believe they dress him up in an officer's uniform plant fake documents in his pocket then dump him in the sea and let the currents wash him onto a Nazi Beach the Germans find the documents the deception wins the war even now I can remember the awful Splash as that corpse fell into the sea I remember glancing over at Linda thinking it might be too much for her but in the dim gray light she seemed to be smiling at the screen there were little crinkles at her eyes her lips open and gently curving at the corners I couldn't understand it there was nothing to smile at once or twice in fact I had to close my eyes but it didn't help much even then I kept seeing the Soldier's body tumbling toward the water splashing down hard how inert and heavy it was how completely dead it was a relief when the movie finally ended afterward we drove out to the Dairy Queen at the edge of town the KN had it quilted waited down quality as if somehow burdened and all around us the Minnesota prairies reached out in Long repetitive waves of corn and soybeans everything flat everything the same I remember eating ice cream in the back seat of the Buick and a long blank Drive in the dark and then pulling up in front of Linda's house things must have been said but it's all gone now except for a few last images I remember walking her to the front door I remember the brass porch light with its Fierce yellow glow my own feet the Juniper bushes along the front steps the wet grass Linda close beside me we were in love 9 years old yes but it was real love and now we were alone on those front steps finally we looked at each other bye I said Linda nodded and said bye over the next few weeks Linda wore her new Red Cap to school every day she never took it off not even in the classroom and so it was inevitable that she took some teasing about it most of it came from a kid named Nick venhoff out on the playground during recess Nick would creep up behind her and make a could grab for the cap almost yanking it off then scampering away it went on likee that for weeks the girls giggling the guys egging him on naturally I wanted to do something about it but it just wasn't possible I had my reputation to think about I had my pride and there was also the problem of Nick venhoff so I stood off to the side just a spectator wishing I could do things I couldn't do I watched Linda clamp down the cap with the palm of her hand holding it there smiling over Nick's direction as if none of it really mattered for me though it didn't matter it still does I should have stepped in fourth grade is no excuse besides it doesn't get easier with time and 12 years later when Vietnam presented much harder choices some practice at being brave might have helped a little also too I might have stopped what happened next maybe not but at least it's possible most of the details I forgotten or maybe blocked out but I know it was an afternoon and late spring and we were taking a spelling test and halfway into it Nick vhof held up his hand and asked to use the pencil sharpener right away the kids laughed no doubt he'd broken the pencil on purpose but it wasn't something you could prove and so the teacher nodded and told him to hustle it up which was a mistake out of nowhere Nick developed a terrible limp he moved in slow motion dragging himself up to the pencil sharpener and carefully slipping in his pencil and then grinding away forever at the time I suppose it was funny but on the way back to his seat Nick took a short detour he squeezed between two desks turned sharply right and moved up the aisle toward Linda I saw him grin at one of his Pals and away I already knew what was coming as he passed Linda's desk he dropped the pencil and squatted down to get it when he came up his left hand slipped behind her back there was a half second hesitation maybe he was trying to stop himself maybe then just briefly he felt some small approximation of guilt but it wasn't enough he took hold of the white tassel stood up and gently lifted off her cap somebody must have laughed I remember a short tinny Echo I remember Nick Fen Hoff trying to smile somewhere behind me a girl said or a sound like that Linda didn't move even now when I think back on it I can still see the glossy whiteness of her scalp she wasn't bald not quite not completely there were some toughs of hair little patches of grayish Brown fuzz but what I saw then and keep seeing now is all that whiteness a smooth pale translucent white I could see the bones and veins I could see the exact structure of her skull there was a large Band-Aid at the back of her head a row of black stitches a piece of G taped above her left ear Nick venhoff took a step backward he was still smiling but the smile was doing strange things the whole time Linda stared straight ahead said her eyes locked on the Blackboard her hands Loosely folded at her lap she didn't say anything after a time though she turned and looked at me across the room it lasted only a moment but I had the feeling that a whole conversation was happening between us well she was saying and I was saying sure okay later on she cried for a while the teacher helped her put the cap back on then we finished the spelling test and did some finger painting and after school that day Nick vhof and I walked her home it's now 1990 I'm 43 years old which would have seemed impossible to a fourth grader And yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956 I realize that in the important ways I haven't changed at all I was Timmy then now I'm Tim but the essence Remains the Same I'm not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile I know my own eyes and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now inside the body or beyond the body there is something absolute and unchanging the human life is all one thing like a blade tracing loops on Ice a little kid a 23-year-old infantry Sergeant a middleaged rider knowing guilt and sorrow and as a writer now I want to save Linda's life not her body her life she died of course 9 years old and she died it was a brain tumor she lived through the summer and into the first part of September and then she was dead but in a story I can steal her soul I can revive at least briefly that which is absolute and unchanging in a story Miracles can happen Linda can smile and sit up She can reach out touch my wrist and say Timmy stop crying I needed that kind of Miracle at some point I had come to understand that Linda was sick maybe even dying but I loved her and just couldn't accept it in the middle of the summer I remember my mother tried to explain to me about brain to humors now and then she said bad things start growing inside us sometimes you can cut them out and other times you can't and for Linda it was one of the times when you can't I thought about it for several days all right I finally said so will she get better now well no my mother said I don't think so she stared at a spot behind my shoulder sometimes people don't ever get better they die sometimes I shook my head not Linda I said but on a setember afternoon during noon recess Nick venhoff came up to me on the school playground your girlfriend he said she kicked the bucket at first I didn't understand she's dead he said my mom told me at lunchtime no lie she actually kicked the God dang bucket all I could do was nod somehow it didn't quite register I turned away glanced down at my hands for a second then walked home without telling anyone it was a little after 1:00 I remember and the house was empty I drank some chocolate milk and then lay down on the sofa in the living room not really sad just floating trying to imagine what it was to be dead nothing much came to me I remember closing my eyes and Whispering her name almost begging trying to make her come back Linda I said please and then I concentrated I willed her alive it was a dream I suppose or a Daydream but I made it happen I saw her coming down the middle of Main Street all alone it was nearly dark and the street was deserted no cars or people and Linda wore a pink dress and shiny black shoes I remember sitting down on the curb to watch all her hair had grown back the scars and stitches were gone in the dream if that's what it was she was playing a game of some sort laughing and running up the empty Street kicking a big aluminum water bucket right then I started to cry after a moment Linda stopped and carried her water bucket over to the curb and asked why I was so sad well God I said you're dead Linda nodded at me she was standing under a yellow streetlight a 9-year-old girl just a kid and yet there was something ageless in her eyes not a child not an adult just a bright ongoing everness that same pin prick of absolute lasting light that I see today in my own eyes as Timmy Smiles at Tim from the graying photographs of that time did I said Linda smiled it was a secret Smile as if she knew things nobody could ever know and she reached out and touched my wrist and said Timmy stop crying it doesn't matter in Vietnam too we had ways of making the dead seem not quite so dead shaking hands that was One Way by sliding death by acting we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was by our language which was both hard and wistful we transformed the bodies into piles of waste thus when someone got killed as Kurt lemon did his body was not really a body but rather one small bit of waste in the midst of a much wider wastage I learned that words make a difference it's easier to cope with a kicked bucket than a corpse if it isn't human it doesn't matter much if it's dead and so ABC nurse Fried by napom was a crispy Critter a Vietnamese baby which lay nearby was a roasted peanut just a crunchy munchy rat Kylie said as he stepped over the body we kept the Dead Alive with stories when Ted lavender was shot in the head the men talked about how they'd never seen him so mellow how tranquil he was how it wasn't the bullet but the tranquilizers that blew his mind he wasn't dead just laidback there were Christians Among Us like Kwa who believed in the New Testament stories of life after death other stories were passed down like legends from Oldtimer to newcomer mostly though we had to make up our own often they were exaggerated or blatant lies but it was a way of bringing body and soul back together or a way of making new bodies for the souls to inhabit there was a story for instance about how Kurt lemon had gone trick-or-treating on Halloween a dark spooky night and so lemon put on a ghost mask and painted up his body all different colors and crept across a Patty to a sleeping Village almost stark naked the story went just boots and balls and an M16 and in the dark lemon went from Hooch to Hooch ringing adorables he called it and a few hours later when he slipped back into the perimeter he had a whole sack full of goodies to share with his PS candles and jaw sticks and a pair of black pajamas and statuettes of The Smiling Buddha that was the story anyway other versions were much more elaborate full of descriptions and scraps of dialogue rat Kyu liked to spice it up with extra details see what happens is it's like for in the morning and lemon sneaks into a hooch with that weird ghost mask on everybody's asleep right so he wakes up this cute little mama s tickles her foot hey Mama s he goes real soft like hey Mama s trick or treat should have seen her face about freaks I mean there's this Buck Naked ghost standing there and he's got this M16 up against her ear and he whispers hey Mama s trick or treat then he takes off her PJs strips her right down sticks the pajama in his sack and Tucks her into bed and heads for the next Hooch pausing a moment rat Kylie would grin and shake his head honest to God he'd murmur trick or treat lemon there's one Class Act to listen to the story especially as rat Kylie told it you'd never know that Kurt lemon was dead he was still out there in the dark naked and painted up trick-or treating sliding from Pooch to Hooch in that crazy white ghost mask but he was dead in September the day after Linda died died I asked my father to take me down to Benson's funeral home to view the body I was a fifth grader then I was curious on the drive downtown my father kept his eyes straight ahead at one point I remember he made a scratchy sound in his throat it took him a long time to light up a cigarette Timmy he said you're sure about this I nodded at him down inside of course I wasn't sure and yet I had to see her one more time what I needed I suppose was some sort of confirmation something to carry with me after she was gone when we parked in front of the funeral home my father turned and looked at me if this bothers you he said just say the word wek make a quick getaway fair enough okay I said or if you start to feel sick or anything I won't I told him inside the first thing I noticed was the smell thick and sweet like something sprayed out of a can the viewing room was empty except for Linda and my father and me I felt a rush of of panic as we walked up the aisle the smell made me dizzy I tried to fight it off slowing down a little taking short shallow breaths through my mouth but at the same time I felt a funny excitement anticipation in a way that same awkward feeling when I walked up the sidewalk to ring her doorbell on our first date I wanted to impress her I wanted something to happen between us a secret signal of some sort the room was dimly lighted almost dark but at the far end of the aisle Linda's white casket was illuminated by a row of spotlights up in the ceiling everything was quiet my father put his hand on my shoulder whispered something and backed off after a moment I edged forward a few steps pushing up on my toes for a better look it didn't seem real a mistake I thought the girl lying in the white casket wasn't Linda there was a resemblance maybe but where Linda had always been very slender and fragile looking almost skinny the body in that casket was fat and swollen for a second I wondered if somebody had made a terrible blunder a technical mistake like they'd pumped her to full of form Malahide or embalming fluid or whatever they used her arms and face were bloated the skin at her cheeks was stretched out tight like the rubber skin on a balloon just before it pops open even her fingers seemed puffy I turned and glanced behind me where my father stood thinking that maybe it was a joke hoping it was a joke almost believing that Linda would jump out from behind one of the curtains and laugh and yell out my name but she didn't the room was silent when I looked back at the casket I felt dizzy again in my heart I'm sure I knew this was Linda but even so I couldn't find much to recognize I tried to pretend she was taking a nap her hands folded at her stomach just sleeping away the afternoon except she didn't look asleep she looked dead she looked heavy and totally dead I remember closing my eyes after a while my father stepped up beside me come on now now he said let's go get some ice cream in the months after Ted lavender died there were many other bodies I never shook hands not that but one afternoon I climbed a tree and threw down what was left of Kurt lemon I watched my friend kywa sink into the muck along the song trabon and in early July after a battle in the mountains I was assigned to a six-man detail to police up the enemy KES there were 27 bodies altogether and parts of several others the dead were everywhere some lay in piles some lay alone one I remember seemed to kneel another was bent from the waist over a small Boulder the top of his head on the ground his arms rigid the eyes squinting in concentration as if he were about to perform a handstand or somersault it was my worst day at the war for 3 hours we carried the bodies down the mountain to a clearing alongside a narrow dirt road we had lunch there then a truck pulled up and we worked in two man teams to load the truck I remember swinging the B bodies up Mitchell Sanders took a man's feet I took the arms and we counted to three working up momentum and then we tossed the body high and watched it bounce and come to rest among the other bodies the dead had been dead for more than a day they were all badly bloated their clothing was stretched tied like sausage skins and when we picked them up some made sharp burping sounds as the gases were released they were heavy their feet were bluish green and cold the smell was terrible at one point Mitchell sanded looked at me and said hey man I just realized something what he wiped his eyes and spoke very quietly as if odd by his own wisdom death sucks he said lying in bed at night I made up elaborate stories to bring Linda alive in my sleep I invented my own dreams it sounds impossible I know but I did it I'd picture somebody's birthday party a crowded room I'd think and a big chocolate cake with pink candles and then soon I'd be dreaming it and after a while Linda would show up as I knew she would and in the dream we'd look at each other and not talk much because we were shy but then later I'd walk her home and we'd sit on her front steps and stare at the dark and just be together she'd say amazing things sometimes once you're alive she'd say you can't ever be dead or she'd say do I look dead it was a kind of self- hypnosis partly willpower partly Faith which is how stories arrive but back then it felt like a miracle my dreams had become a secret meeting place and in the weeks after she died I couldn't wait to fall asleep at night I began going to bed earlier and earlier sometimes even in bright daylight my mother I remember finally asked about it at breakfast one morning Timmy what's wrong she said but all I could do was shrug and say nothing I just need sleep that's all I didn't dare tell the truth it was embarrassing I suppose but it was also a precious secret like a magic trick where if I tried to explain it or even talk about it the thrill and mystery would be gone I didn't want to lose Linda she was dead I understood that after all I'd seen her body and yet even as a 9-year-old I had begun to practice the magic of stories some I just dreamed up others I wrote down the scenes and dialogue and at night time I'd slide into sleep knowing that Linda would be there waiting for me once I remember we went I skating late at night tracing loops and circles under yellow flood lights later we sat by a wood stove in the warming house all alone and after a while I asked her what it was like to be dead apparently Linda thought it was a silly question she smiled and said do I look dead I told her no she looked terrific I waited a moment then asked again and Linda made a soft little sigh I could smell our wool mittens drying on the stove for a few seconds she was crying well right now she said I'm not dead but when I am it's like I don't know I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading a book I said an old one it's up on a library shelf so you're safe and everything but the book hasn't been checked out for a long long time all you can do is wait just hope somebody will pick it up and start reading Linda smiled at me anyhow it's not so bad she said I mean when you're dead you just have to be yourself she stood up and put on her red stocking cap this is stupid let's go skate some more so I followed her down to the frozen pond it was late and nobody else was there and we held hands and skated almost all night under the yellow lights and then it becomes 1990 I'm 43 years old and a writer now still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way she's not the embodied Linda she's mostly made up with a new identity and a new name like the man who never was her real name doesn't matter she was 9 years old I loved her and then she died and yet right here in the spell of memory and Imagination I can still see her as if through ice as if I'm gazing into some other world a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes where there are no bodies at all I can see Kwa too and Ted lavender and Kurt lemon and sometimes I can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow flood lights I'm young and happy on never die I'm skimming across the surface of my own history moving fast riding the Melt beneath the blades doing loops and Spins and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down 30 years later I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story The End