Purple Daze (4 page)

The NLF begins confiscating property of large landowners and distributing it among the poor. In exchange, the peasants feed and hide soldiers and often take up arms to help liberate other villages.

 

If the U.S. Marines or Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) gains control of a village, they are told their land will be confiscated. Consequently, peasants think of the NLF as their friends and U.S. military and ARVN as enemies.

 

These beliefs are reinforced as explained by U.S. Marine William Ehrhart, “They'd (peasants) be beaten pretty badly, maybe tortured. Or they might be hauled off to jail, and God knows what happened to them. At the end of the day, the villagers would be turned loose. Their homes had been wrecked, their chickens killed, their rice confiscated—and if they weren't pro-Vietcong before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left.”

Some girls put wadded up
toilet paper in their bras.
Mine has socks.

 

I mailed in the Free Trial coupon
in
Silver Screen
magazine under
a photograph of Jayne Mansfield.

 

BE A BUSTY BOMBSHELL IN JUST TWELVE WEEKS

 

When the package arrives there's
a tube of cream and a photograph
of a man's hand.

Me and Ziggy swap spit at the drive-in,
an old flick called
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
.

 

Don is in the backseat with Cheryl, moaning
like a sick animal, so I grab my squirt gun
to cool him off. He swears, totally pissed.
Cheryl just busts up.

 

Brick and Maggie sound like Mom and Dad
before Mom took off with that guy who sells
fake-leather encyclopedias.

 

I aim the gun in my mouth, all quiet like Brick.
“Nothing's gonna ruin my liquor.”

Don tickles my tonsils with
Juicy Fruit and I wonder why

 

 

then Mickey blasts us with a
Screwdriver-filled squirt gun.

 

What a kick in the glass!

Less than ten minutes
until the world blows its top.
I'm still a *_ _ _ _* virgin.

“On this Memorial Day, May 30, we will pay homage to our honored dead who gave their lives that this county might live in peace and freedom. Their numbers are legion, their deeds valorous, their memories hallowed.

 

“They fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania, in the trenches at Verdun, and in the foxholes at Guadalcanal. Now America's sons are again making the highest sacrifice to protect for this and future generations the liberty won in past struggles.

 

“Man possesses now the capacity to end war and preserve peace. We are able to eliminate poverty and share abundance, to overcome disease and illiteracy, and to bring to all our fellow citizens the fulfillment of their dream of a better life. We have the means to achieve these victories....

 

“
Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson,
President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Sunday, May 30, 1965, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I call upon the people of the Nation to pray for a lasting peace in which all mankind may reap the fruits of His blessing...”

 

—Lyndon B. Johnson, Memorial Day, 1965

The White House and Justice Department are aware that the FBI is conducting an “intelligence investigation” not a “criminal investigation” in an all-out war to discredit civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Wiretaps in phones, in homes, and microphones hidden in hotel rooms to “obtain information” about “private activities of King and his advisors” to “completely discredit” them in a “personal attack without evidentiary support.”

 

An FBI agent is dispatched to the Vatican to warn about the “likely embarrassment that may result if the Pope should grant Dr. King an audience.”

 

The FBI responds to Dr. King's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize by attempting to undermine his reception by foreign heads of state and American ambassadors in several countries he plans to visit.

 

The FBI prepares to promote someone “to assume the role of leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited.”

Today we saw the movie
PT 109
in
Social Studies class. Cliff Robertson
played John F. Kennedy in the Navy,
World War II.

 

I fell asleep and dreamed I was in the
White House, classy as Jackie before
Lee Harvey Oswald,

 

looking cool in silk taffeta.

In kindergarten I had these plastic army men.

 

I'd march them into the fireplace,
watching them melt into mutilated
green globs.

 

Dad laughed like crazy when he
saw them. “That's my boy!”

 

Think I'll drop out and enlist.
It'd be a blast to blow up stuff.

I picked up the extension when my
step-dad was on the phone, telling
my real dad horrible things about

 

me.

 

“Daddy never interrupted him.
Not once. Guess the whole world
is full of adults you can't

 

trust.

Raggy rock and rollers whang electric guitars,
a sledgehammer rhythm on radios, rooftops,
stages, alleyways.

 

A raucous beat heaving patent leather feet
into discotheques from sea to shining sea:

 

Whisky A-Go-Go, California
Frisky A-Go-Go, Texas
Bin-Note A-Go-Go, New York

 

Parents barely survived
Pat Boone's white bucks
and Johnnie Ray's histrionics
when four Liverpool blokes took Ed Sullivan's stage
last year in high-heeled boots, shrinking suits,
and sufficient hair to stuff an easy chair.

 

“I Want to Hold Your Hand”

 

To distinguish themselves from the Fab Four,
the butch bluesy Rolling Stones are the band
“parents love to hate.”

 

Mick's thick lips suggest how his nights are spent.

 

“(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction”

 

Teens rarely touch one another while dancing,
nor do they gaze into each other's eyes.
Yet psychiatrists and sociologists view
the orgiastic gyrations with horrification.

 

 

A Senate subcommittee is formed to investigate
the link between rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquency.

Six of us sway shoulder to shoulder
on a blanket a mile from the stage:
Don, Ziggy & Mick, Nancy & Phil.

 

A new band from San Francisco is playing,
Jefferson Airplane. Hazy pot smoke clouds
the park, but we're sipping cherry Cokes.

 

Ziggy dances in a stretchy halter top,
ankle bells keeping time to “Tobacco Road.”
Mickey picks out rhythm on his guitar,
his strings solo singers.

 

Don and Nancy pay a visit to porta-potties
and Phil takes my hand, pulling me up.
“Wanna dance?”

 

“Okay,” I say.

 

His smooth moves are easy to follow
unlike the boxy steps I remember
from fifth grade cotillion class.
“When did you learn this?”

 

We're palm to palm, a slow turn.
“My aunt teaches at Arthur Murray.”

 

Another spin, I trip on the hem of my
fringed jeans, trying to laugh, except I'm
crying and can't stop.
“I don't want you to die.”

 

He soaks up Signe Anderson, jazzy
in black leg-hugging leather boots.
“She sings like an angel.”

I shout over her mournful voice,

 

“Tell them you're a pacifist.
Or flat-footed and a homosexual.
They don't take homos.

 

Oregon, Washington,
Canada
.
A thousand miles maybe?
You could make it in a day.”

 

He kisses the tip of my sunburned nose.
“Sorry, honey. I'm not a traitorous wussy.”

Don bums a smoke from a guy with a
Pocahontas headband in a porta-potty line
that snakes like psychedelic dominoes under
a smoky green haze.

 

One flick and we all fall down, spreading
a runny egg of Communism:

 

South Vietnam and Southeast Asia,
before splashing across the Pacific until
America's democratic beaches turn red,
says the president and his shiny-starred
generals.

 

I've seen Phil fight when he thinks a guy's
putting the rush on me. But I can't imagine
him in a steamy jungle shooting at squat,
brown people in black pajamas, and

 

I can't imagine them shooting back.

 

I lose my balance and topple over,
another casualty of the domino theory.

A country-rock band is on stage
warming up a banjo and washtub bass,
while I zigzag through a maze of
frizzy hair and peace signs:

 

MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.

 

 

I spot Cheryl sitting cross-legged,
practically in Mick's lap. His shirt's off
and he's got his arms around her, his lecherous
fingers pressing hers to the guitar's neck.
He's wailing “Baby Love.”

 

She smiles at me and blows on her fingers,
sore as usual from the steel strings.
“Mickey says I can keep it while he's gone.”

 

I tell him to get up because I want to see
if the jerk has a boner and if he does, I'm
going to kick his zipper inside out, which
should help him sound more like Diana Ross.

 

He laughs hysterically. Like it's a joke.

 

History.

 

I've never taken such a hard test.

 

I read the True or False section first,
marking answers opposite to what I think
is right, so I'd have a chance of passing.

 

When I got to the Multiple Choice part,
I was so tired of not knowing the answers
I just scratched out letters.

 

All of the above.
None of the above.

 

I get an
F
.
Fuck.

Impromptu Writing: 100 words or less
Topic: Friendship
Due: End of Today's Class

 

MY BEST FRIEND

At first I thought what an easy assignment! Ziggy has been my best friend since elementary school. I can tell her anything, repeat
anything.
But when I started writing, all these feelings about my mom started coming out. I'm not going to put them down, because they're personal and I don't know if you plan to read these out loud. Since I have 48 words left, I will say this—I can count on my mom and that means a lot when you're a teenager.

—Cheryl

 

LONELINESS

Now that I've lived 17 years, I realize it's better not to let any one person get too close to you. That way you'll be used to being by yourself, so when real loneliness marches in to rip your heart out, you won't feel it.

—Nancy

 

FRIENDSHIP

I know lots of people, both in and out of school. But I wouldn't call them all friends. Bubba is more than my brother, because he listens to me like what I'm saying is important. That's an out- standing quality. Cheryl listens too. But even more than that, she understands when I get hysterical and wipes my tears when I cry. That should be in
Webster's
as a definition of best friend.