Cindy said it couldn’t have been as bad as people believed. “Ray Gene ... You remember Ray Gene, he’s my first cousin?”
“I remember Ray Gene,” Tom said.
“Ray Gene was at -- Oh, it’s one of those places I can’t pronounce. You’d think they’d have real names for places. Nah or No or something like that. Anyway, it had an air base.”
“Nha Trang,” he said.
“That’s it!” She reached across the car seat and touched his hand and then took back her hand. “How do you remember all that stuff?” She turned in the seat. Tom looked at her face. He remembered her eyes, colored like blue ice, but he couldn’t see her eyes in the darkness of the car.
“I don’t know. After a while, you know the names,” he said.
“Well, they have funny names for places,” Cindy said. Her hair was longer than Tom remembered, but that was the fashion now. Not that he minded her hair being long. He had seen pictures in magazines, and all the girls in the pictures had long hair. He didn't mind her short skirt, either. When he was last home, girls didn’t wear skirts that short, and he thought it was a good thing they did now.
“Some places I remember, you know, from the news on TV?” Cindy said. “They had lots of stories about Saigon and a place that’s pronounced Whey, but it’s spelled like Huie. Are all the places spelled different than they’re pronounced?”
“Not all of them,” Tom said. Cindy was two years younger and a college sophomore. He and Cindy had not been particularly friends in high school, but Cindy was her mother’s daughter and oftentimes acquiesced with what her mother asked. Her mother and his mother were best friends, and one or the other or both decided Cindy and Tom should go out before his leave was finished. He didn’t mind. Cindy was a pretty girl. The girls were different now, though, and he would not have asked out any girls he remembered knowing. On the plane home he thought about the girls he remembered, in a different way than when he thought about them before he came home. Before he came home, he thought about every girl he had ever known, and the ones he had gone out with. He remembered what he wished had happened when he was out with those girls, even though none of it had happened. On the plane home he thought about different girls and maybe if he asked one or two out, it would happen. But when he came home, the girls were different than he remembered.
“Ray Gene said he worked eight hours a day,” Cindy was saying. “Just like when he worked at the garage. Sometimes he had to work extra hours, like overtime? But he didn’t get paid overtime. I guess they don’t pay overtime.”
“No,” Tom said. “They don't pay overtime.”
“They should,” Cindy said. “I mean, somebody works more than eight hours a day, he should get overtime.”
“It’s the duty,” Tom said, but he knew she wouldn’t understand. “You’re on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
“They should pay overtime,” she said. “Anyway, Ray Gene said when he got off work, there was a club he could go to. On the base. He said they had beer and records. There weren’t any girls to dance with, so they drank beer. Ray Gene wasn’t much for beer before he went over there.”
“Some guys weren’t, I guess.” He hadn’t been much for beer either, but he learned to drink it when it was available, because ... But that was all over now.
Tom parked the car in front of the movie theater. He put the transmission in Park and turned the key. He got out and closed the door and walked to the other side. Cindy said “Thank you” when he opened her door. Tom watched as she swung her legs from the car. He took her hand as she stood. She had nice legs and her hair was thick and dark brown and reached the small of her back. He wondered how it would be, her hair streaming through his fingers, and how her lips would taste. He closed the door. She took his arm. Her fingers were light.
At the ticket window, he said “Two, please” to the woman behind the glass. He paid for the tickets and held the door open. “Thank you,” Cindy said. He asked if she wanted popcorn and a coke. She said she would like a coke. He got two, and they walked into the theater.
They would see “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” On the phone the day before, when he called and asked if she wanted to see a movie with him, although it all had been arranged by her mother and his mother, and he told her which movie was playing, she said, “That’s the one where the colored man is marrying the white girl.” He said it was. She said she wouldn’t mind watching that movie. On the phone she asked, “Do you think that’s happening a lot these days?” He said he didn’t know.
Showing posts with label Vietnam fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Saturday, July 7, 2012
A History of Luna County
This is part of a chapter I wrote several years ago for A History of Luna County, the history far from complete, more an ongoing idea. Priscilla said I should put together all my research on Red River County. Luna County is the result of that suggestion -- historical research, plus people I met.
Nathan Bullock
Nathan would have been beyond surprise had he known April drove down that street hoping to see him there.
As much as Nathan thought about April, he never considered whether she thought about him. In the war, a few months after reading of Tom’s death, Nathan did wonder, but those thoughts came when he thought about April, when the tears threatened, because to think of April was to think of goodness, and there was none of that in the war. Those times, Nathan sat alone, sometimes on ambush in the jungle -- his reclusive nature made others avoid him -- or at a fire base when the company was in from the bush a few days and everyone had at least one night of drunkenness. Sometimes there would be more than a few days, occasionally a week or ten days. Most soldiers became uneasy when in from the bush longer than a week. Officers and sergeants too often decided soldiers needed reminding they were part of the army, and that the army survived by regulations and standard ways of doing things. What the officers and sergeants could not understand was that, yes, they were part of an army, but most of their soldiers were not. The soldiers were part of a great, efficient killing machine. Some soldiers considered themselves only a cog on a small gear in the machine; others knew their true place as an essential part of the machine, that without them, the machine could not function. Those men were very good at their job. Nathan knew his place.
When Nathan sat alone in the war, he read, oftentimes books of history, although he yearned for books of poetry. When such works were available at the fire base library, Nathan borrowed the books, read and reread the poems, then studied favorite poems assiduously. In August 1968, Nathan discovered Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It was a momentous discovery. He had not known such writers existed. In his senior year of high school, Nathan read The Waste Land. That poem opened his mind to style; Sassoon and Owen led him to content. Nathan tried his own hand, writing several short poems, reading and revising. He discovered in those early attempts too many dead bodies. In late August, the company went back to the bush. In that three-week period, Nathan discovered the death of a single person as meaningful as the deaths of thousands. The first night of the company’s return to the fire base in the bush, Nathan took a pad and a pencil and wrote:
“The old woman shuffled to the village gate,
“And Wizard made her dead.”
Nathan wrote many lines that night and in nights that followed. He declined to term the lines poetry, instead considering what he wrote as running prose with natural breaks. Poetry was a delicate thing and should consist of endearing terms. What Nathan wrote that night was a hammer, pounding a piece of metal, red hot and recently removed from smoldering coals.
There were delicate writings, but those always were of April. Those lines Nathan wrote when on ambush or in night defensive position, taking quietly a small notebook from a pocket, sometimes writing in total darkness, translating the scribbles when the sun rose. At times, though, Nathan wrote of April, and his love for her, on fullmoon nights and he could see the words. In one such writing, he told of the difference between Texas and Vietnam in the rising of the moon, how the moon appeared full grown above the trees, with no glow on the horizon to announce its imminent arrival. On those nights, Nathan achingly remembered the moon at home, of the paling on the horizon, of the sky satin and the moon easing through thin clouds edged with gray lace. At times, he closed his eyes and saw April standing before such a moon, her profile in sharp detail. On those nights, Nathan compelled the tears to remain where they belonged.
Nathan kept all the writings in an ammunition can in his tent at the fire support base. Some notebooks were damaged from heavy rains and Nathan’s sweat. Writings in those books he transcribed in ink on lined pads. Notebooks bought at the small PX were almost useless in the humid jungle. Nathan began taking small items from the VC and NVA he killed, exchanging with the company supply sergeant North Vietnamese currency, belts and knapsacks for army notebooks. Those notebooks had thick covers and pages relatively water resistant.
When Nathan left the war, he wrapped notebooks and pads in plastic and wound large rubber bands around the packages and packed them in the middle of his duffel bag. Inspectors at Long Binh did not ask about the notebooks and pads; they were interested only in finding drugs, weapons and military equipment.
Nathan Bullock
Nathan would have been beyond surprise had he known April drove down that street hoping to see him there.
As much as Nathan thought about April, he never considered whether she thought about him. In the war, a few months after reading of Tom’s death, Nathan did wonder, but those thoughts came when he thought about April, when the tears threatened, because to think of April was to think of goodness, and there was none of that in the war. Those times, Nathan sat alone, sometimes on ambush in the jungle -- his reclusive nature made others avoid him -- or at a fire base when the company was in from the bush a few days and everyone had at least one night of drunkenness. Sometimes there would be more than a few days, occasionally a week or ten days. Most soldiers became uneasy when in from the bush longer than a week. Officers and sergeants too often decided soldiers needed reminding they were part of the army, and that the army survived by regulations and standard ways of doing things. What the officers and sergeants could not understand was that, yes, they were part of an army, but most of their soldiers were not. The soldiers were part of a great, efficient killing machine. Some soldiers considered themselves only a cog on a small gear in the machine; others knew their true place as an essential part of the machine, that without them, the machine could not function. Those men were very good at their job. Nathan knew his place.
When Nathan sat alone in the war, he read, oftentimes books of history, although he yearned for books of poetry. When such works were available at the fire base library, Nathan borrowed the books, read and reread the poems, then studied favorite poems assiduously. In August 1968, Nathan discovered Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It was a momentous discovery. He had not known such writers existed. In his senior year of high school, Nathan read The Waste Land. That poem opened his mind to style; Sassoon and Owen led him to content. Nathan tried his own hand, writing several short poems, reading and revising. He discovered in those early attempts too many dead bodies. In late August, the company went back to the bush. In that three-week period, Nathan discovered the death of a single person as meaningful as the deaths of thousands. The first night of the company’s return to the fire base in the bush, Nathan took a pad and a pencil and wrote:
“The old woman shuffled to the village gate,
“And Wizard made her dead.”
Nathan wrote many lines that night and in nights that followed. He declined to term the lines poetry, instead considering what he wrote as running prose with natural breaks. Poetry was a delicate thing and should consist of endearing terms. What Nathan wrote that night was a hammer, pounding a piece of metal, red hot and recently removed from smoldering coals.
There were delicate writings, but those always were of April. Those lines Nathan wrote when on ambush or in night defensive position, taking quietly a small notebook from a pocket, sometimes writing in total darkness, translating the scribbles when the sun rose. At times, though, Nathan wrote of April, and his love for her, on fullmoon nights and he could see the words. In one such writing, he told of the difference between Texas and Vietnam in the rising of the moon, how the moon appeared full grown above the trees, with no glow on the horizon to announce its imminent arrival. On those nights, Nathan achingly remembered the moon at home, of the paling on the horizon, of the sky satin and the moon easing through thin clouds edged with gray lace. At times, he closed his eyes and saw April standing before such a moon, her profile in sharp detail. On those nights, Nathan compelled the tears to remain where they belonged.
Nathan kept all the writings in an ammunition can in his tent at the fire support base. Some notebooks were damaged from heavy rains and Nathan’s sweat. Writings in those books he transcribed in ink on lined pads. Notebooks bought at the small PX were almost useless in the humid jungle. Nathan began taking small items from the VC and NVA he killed, exchanging with the company supply sergeant North Vietnamese currency, belts and knapsacks for army notebooks. Those notebooks had thick covers and pages relatively water resistant.
When Nathan left the war, he wrapped notebooks and pads in plastic and wound large rubber bands around the packages and packed them in the middle of his duffel bag. Inspectors at Long Binh did not ask about the notebooks and pads; they were interested only in finding drugs, weapons and military equipment.
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