13th Valley (17 page)

Doc handed the boot to Whiteboy for his approval and El Paso passed the other to Garbageman who passed it to Happy who passed it to Silvers. They all approved. Whiteboy and Silvers tossed the boots at Chelini. Chelini covered up and let the boots hit him. Jackson began to laugh and everyone laughed. Chelini laughed so hard he couldn't get his right boot on.

Jax nudged Chelini out of the seat and sat down smiling. He pulled a black and chrome hair pick from a fatigue pocket and stuck it into his short Afro hairdo. He fluffed the black frizz and then scratched his scalp slowly with the long chrome teeth. He eyed Chelini.

“Whatchu think of this cherry, Jax?” Silvers asked.

Jax smiled but he did not answer. He had not yet judged Chelini. About him the laughter continued and the conversation flowed back to the floor-show strippers. Ridgefield had a new mock radio program going by the bar. At several of the tables soldiers were breaking out bottles of hard liquor they had brought into the Phoc Roc. As the whiskey and bourbon were passed, swigged, chased with beer, the noise level rose. Jackson continued eyeing Chelini.

Although he hid it well William Andrew Jackson was very defensive about his dark black skin and his broad flat nose and his full lips. He was defensive about his background.

As Jackson sat watching Chelini, smiling, smelling the stale beer smell of the Phoc Roc, not hearing the ruckus, his mind played games with images and odors from home. Jackson had been born and raised in a depressed area of rural Mississippi, an area known as Nigger Hollow. For some perverse reason the Hollow attracted odors. If an animal thereabouts was dying it came to the Hollow to lay its broken body down and during the day the whole area smelled of carrion. At night there was always the smell of skunks. When a person from the Hollow made a trip to town the smell preceded him and remained there long after he left. That embarrassed Jackson when he was young. The thought embarrassed him now.

Jackson shifted in his seat and chuckled at something everyone else was chuckling at. He still was not sure where to place Chelini. Chelini seemed sharp, smart, a sleeper.

At seventeen Jax fled from his past, fled into the army. The army gave him a better life and it gave him pride. He earned a high school equivalency diploma, advancement to Private First Class and he learned the skills with which to kill. After AIT Jackson, proud, spit-shined and shaved-head, returned to the Hollow. A brief wild fling with the eldest Wilitts girl ensued and before his leave was over, he married her. Two weeks later he was in Vietnam. Two months later, after he had already been awarded his first Silver Star, the letters began and at first they embarrassed him. Not his wife but his new brother-in-law wrote to remind Jax of the suffering black people had endured because of white men. His brother-in-law, Mathew Wilitts, renamed himself Marcus X. The letters were full of Black Power and revolution. The initial embarrassment became agitation in Jax. He exploded, allegedly attempted to frag an officer, was court-martialed and was sent to L.B.J., Long Binh Jail, for a three-month cool down. After a time the letters no longer agitated Jackson though they still hurt him. Jax wanted to be racially militant but he did not have the true militant's fervor. He had no hate. He had resignation. Maybe he would hate this cherry. Jax would not make up his mind about Chelini for two days and then he would change his mind almost daily thereafter.

When the laughter settled down again and he could keep himself from choking on the laughs Chelini stared at Jackson, then Whiteboy then around the table. These people are really okay, he thought. If they're willing to laugh at me and let me laugh with them then it must mean something good. He detected no resentment.

Part of the crowd from the surge into the club had left and the Phoc Roc was less crowded but still noisy. Some had left to form private parties, to get stoned or to get drunk or just to get a longer night's sleep. There was more room to move about and the group at the table in the middle acquired several more chairs. Chelini and Silvers pulled up chairs at the side.

“Can I ask you guys some questions?” Chelini asked the soldier next to him.

“Whatcha think you just did?” a soldier from the far side of the table laughed and they all chuckled again and drank more beer.

“No, I mean, like can I ask a serious question about tomorrow? I feel a little funny. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.”

“Just do what we do,” El Paso said.

“I'm not an eleven-bravo,” Chelini explained. “I'm supposed to be a wireman.”

“I'm supposed to be a cook,” Happy said.

“Ah'm supposed ta be home and out a heah,” Whiteboy said.

“I won't never supposed to come,” said Brunak. “As a matter of fact, I think I'm goina sky. Doc, what's that bitch look like you brought back?”

“She's number fuckin one.”

“She's ugly, Man.”

“I'm comin too,” Numbnuts said.

“Shee-it,” Boom-Boom said. “If you ever saw a pussy you'd throw rocks at it.”

“Count me in,” Garbageman said. “I've gone too long to care what it looks like. I aint goina eat it.”

Boom-Boom rolled back in his chair. “Don't give Numbnuts no ideas.”

Brunak, Garbageman and Numbnuts rose and Boom-Boom rose too and they all left, leaving seven soldiers at the table.

“What are you worried about?” El Paso said to Cherry.

Chelini felt conspicuous again but he forced himself to speak. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do,” he shrugged. “I don't know a thing about the field.”

“It's like this,” El Paso said. “You just do everything everybody else does. And you do it quiet. We don't make any noise.”

“After the CA …” Jax said, “CAs is excitin, Man … but after the CA maybe two days it all jest humpin yo ruck up every mountain like a bear. Yo goes over the mountain ta see what yo ken see and what yo see …”

“… is another mountain.”

“Yo got it, Cherry. Check it out. One after nother like the fuckin bear.”

“Thaht ruck goan kick your ass,” Whiteboy drawled. “And thaht weapon goan get so heavy you're goan cuss it like tits on a bull, til when you need it then you goan wonder how it done got so light.”

“We had one dude,” Jackson said, “up at Bach Ma. We called him the Shepherd cause he wouldn't carry a weapon. Yo dudes remember the Shepherd? Carried a long stick instead. Called it his staff.”

“That asshole.”

“What happened to him?” Cherry asked, disbelieving.

“I think somebody shot him for sleepin on guard,” El Paso said.

Chelini chuckled briefly. The others remained silent as the point struck very fast and Chelini stopped chuckling.

“Look,” Doc said. “You do what you gotta do. First bird in is bad. B-A-D—if the dinks don't want ya on the ground. Usually it the second bird theys after. If they can blow that one away they can waste the dudes that come in on the first bird and the other birds can't land cause the second bird messin up the LZ. If we get three birds in theys gonna dee-dee.”

“If the dinks are out there, we'll do em a J-O-B,” Happy said from behind Jackson.

“Kick ass—take no names,” Jax said.

“Scatter their shit to the wind,” Happy added.

“Nobody gets blown away unless we make a mistake,” Silvers smiled. They all began smiling now and Cherry couldn't tell if they'd been serious or if they'd been teasing him the entire time. “Course,” Silvers said, “it may be a mistake to be here in the first place.”

“Hey Monk,” El Paso said. “Tell him the story about the dude with the bagpipes. I like the way you tell that one.”

“Christ,” Silvers chuckled. “The war story of all war stories.”

“This aint no shit,” Moneski said. Moneski was a small, squarish-looking soldier who'd said very little but who had drunk a lot of beer and smoked a lot of cigarettes while the others were BSing. He drew his head back, belched as loudly as possible and said, “Well, t'was a feller we had here one time that use ta tell a story about a unit he was in down south on an earlier tour. I forgit his name. I think it was McDonald. Yep. Some dude in his old unit come cross this idear on how to keep everybody from gettin killed. Units down south, Man, they're fucked up. This dude figgers the NVA and the VC aint never but never heard no bagpipes. He figgers he can create enough noise so next time they get sprung in an ambush he goina be able to scare everybody away. He says they gets into a firefight, ah, that is McDonald says they hit the shit bout two weeks after this dude comes up with his bagpipes. All of a sudden, from someplace in the middle of nowhere comes this horrible screechin sound. It sounds so bad, McDonald says, that everybody stops firin. Even the NVA stop firin. Then McDonald says that crazy motherfucker stands up and starts marchin forward screechin and screamin on his instrument. Then everybody starts rushin around, pullin out frags, attachin more belts to the 60s, gettin set to charge up behind this dude when, WHAM. That crazy motherfucker standin up with his bagpipe gets it right square in the head, right between the eyes. Boom. Naaughk. Ginggg.”

“Mothafucka gave away his position,” El Paso smiled.

“Well,” Monk continued, “that aint the half of it. McDonald says they go out and rout the NVA anyway. Then it turns out that sometime later they in the same area and they catch this NVA feller. And MI's talkin to him and gettin a little information, cache here, booby trap there, you know. MI, they begin gettin this dude's history in combat and this little dude begins talkin about that crazy time when they ambushed a bunch of USAs right in that same AO and there was a crazy dude with some bagpipes. That dink look up at the dudes from MI and says, This crazy Americano start playin him bagpipe right in the middle of the firefight and everybody stop shooting. I never hear bagpipe play so bad before,' the gook says. That man not fit to call water buffalo with bagpipe. My squad, we all look at each other and laugh. Then we draw straws to see who gets honor of returning honorable peace to our ears and Tho, my friend, he wins and he places bullet in middle of bagpipe man's head and for a little while everything is quiet again and only the sound of rifles can be heard.'”

“Shee-it,” Cherry said. He was now a little drunk himself. “You guys have been just playin with me.”

Whiteboy guffawed and everybody laughed and Whiteboy said, “Cherry, you doan gotta worry bout nothin. Doan gotta worry bout the bullet with your name on it. It aint been made yet. The one you gotta watch for is one thaht sez ‘To Whom It May Concern.'” Whiteboy guffawed even louder and most of the soldiers laughed at his laugh.

More soldiers departed the club and the noise level fell to where the music could be heard again. The Monk left and Whiteboy became so drunk he laid his head on the table for a rest and passed out.

“Hey,” El Paso announced, “we've got some latecomers. Hey, L-T, Egan, over here. Hey L-T, guess what? We got us a psychologist. Now we got us just about everything.”

“Yous guys still drinking?” the lieutenant asked. Jax handed the lieutenant a beer. “Say hey, Little Bro,” Brooks grasped Jax' hand in a soul handclasp. “We're movin out at oh-four hundred.”

“That aint nothin, L-T,” Whiteboy said raising his head about three inches off the table. “We sh'till got fo hours ta party.”

Egan did not sit immediately at the center table. He went to the bar and bought a case of beer. Ridgefield was there joking quietly now with his closest friends, Snell, Nahele and McQueen. Egan nodded to them. Ridgefield nodded back with detached respect. They were the informal leaders of their respective platoons and the competition between them, although concealed, was ardent. Their styles were very different. Ridgefield was Rafe the Rapper, always joking and entertaining. He was a very good soldier. Egan was quiet, disciplined, the man who would take any risk to protect his men, a soldier's soldier, The Boonierat. Egan left Rafe a six-pack, grabbed a seat and pulled up at the center table.

Alpha Company, 7th of the 402d, like all infantry units in the 101st in which officers were rotated more quickly than enlisted men, had developed a substructure of leadership. In the year preceding the assault on the Khe Ta Laou Company A had had four commanders. There had developed a structured bureaucracy within Alpha in which was placed a significant degree of decision making. The bureaucracy was mostly comprised of old-timers: platoon sergeants, the senior RTO and medic and several riflemen. Jackson, Doc Johnson, El Paso, Whiteboy, they were the core, the nucleus, the very heart of the company. They had been through it all together, for ten, fourteen, sixteen months. Each had had his reason to extend his tour in Vietnam although the only reason anyone ever admitted was that his hate for the army had driven him to extend his tour until he would have less than one hundred and fifty days remaining in his enlistment when he DEROSd. With less than one hundred and fifty he would be automatically discharged. Ridgefield and his friends were the bureaucracy at platoon level in 3d Plt. Egan was it in 1st. As platoon sergeant Egan ran 1st Plt. The platoon leader, Lieutenant Thomaston, deferred all the tactical as well as the daily decisions to Egan. Thomaston put his authority behind Egan and followed. At company level the bureaucracy was a mix of CP old-timers and the platoon bureaucrats.

Brooks had been in-country for seventeen months. He'd been with the 7th of the 402d for thirteen of those months and with Company A for three. They accepted him though he was not one of them. He was the commander, the computer center, the brain of the unit and these men were now
his
heart, ears and eyes. They were like one body. Men like Silvers and Moneski, Lairds and Brunak were the skin. They were essential to have but somehow not an inside part. Chelini was a new cell and neither he nor the others knew how he would grow.

“If it aint Bro Boon,” Egan laughed at Jackson as he pulled up his chair.