Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (19 page)

He had never told his mother that he was a paratrooper. She had enough to worry about, what with the store doing poorly, Samoans moving into the neighborhood, and three straight-A daughters determined to go to college whether they could afford it or not. Marvel’s letters home were always brief and cheerful, full of assurances that he was gaining weight and working in a harmonious office far from the fighting. And since he always reduced his mailing address to numbers, abbreviations, and acronyms, even his three smart little sisters had no idea what he was really doing.

But now, for the first time since leaving home, he was tempted to write his mother an honest letter. He wanted to tell her about the Koreans he’d met at Recondo School. He wanted to tell her about Big Park and Little Park, about Kim Dong-soo and the Korean Army liaison officer, Lieutenant Choi. She’d be proud to know how well they had accepted him. And she’d be even prouder to know that he’d finally spoken Korean in front of a whole group of black and white buddies without getting embarrassed and feeling like some sort of weird foreigner.

Marvel was tempted to tell his mother how he’d ended up winning the Recondo dagger—how he’d learned to distance himself from the curse of the thing. He wanted to tell her about the runs—about the forty-pound sandbag in his rucksack rubbing a hole in his back, about wanting to fall back and run with the pack, but driving on instead, driving on to prove to the Korean soldiers that he was tough enough and strong enough to keep up with them. Now, for the first time in his life, Marvel was proud to be Korean, and he wanted his mother to know about his pride. But he didn’t dare write her. For once he started the story, he’d have to finish it. And that would mean writing about the graduation mission, when Sergeant Stabo, the cadre advisor, got shot. That would mean writing about how he and Big Park had closed Stabo’s sucking chest wound with a plastic battery bag while Kim Dong-soo laughed and swore in three languages and rolled grenades down the bank at the VC patrol in the stream bed.

The Koreans were tough and fierce and brave, and Marvel was proud that they had accepted him as one of their own. But he could never write his mother about being a Korean without also writing her about being a Lurp, and that would be inexcusably cruel. Marvel wrote to Mopar instead. Mopar would understand about being a Korean. Once he stopped laughing and swearing, he’d probably understand about winning the Recondo dagger. And once he cooled off and thought about it for an hour or so, he’d probably even understand about Tiger. After all, it hadn’t been the fault of anyone in the Lurp platoon. And besides, Tiger was a tough and sneaky little mutt—he’d probably be back in the compound before Mopar.

There were still no lights in the team tent, so Marvel wrote by candlelight. He wrote for two hours, and when he finished his letter he read it over with no small measure of pride, for it was a good letter, full of wisdom and wit, heavy with abbreviations and military jargon. Mopar would understand. He might piss and moan and kick a bit, but in the end he’d understand about the Recondo dagger, and even understand about Tiger.

A week after he wrote to Mopar, Marvel was off on Firebase Alexine with Gonzales, pulling radio relay for a twelve-man heavy team that was checking out a rumored NVA truck park in the Aloe Valley. It was night, and the lieutenant was up at the Two Shop discussing Electronically Derived Intelligence with the major. The new man on Two-Five, Two-Two’s former second radioman, Schultz, was off drinking beer with a jeep mechanic from his home town, and Pappy Stagg was down in the operations bunker reminiscing about his earlier tours in Asia. Wolverine was still in the compound, and hoping to loosen Pappy’s tongue so he’d get to talking about the old days in Laos, he ran back to the team leader’s tent for his bottle. He paused on his way back to the bunker to watch a gunship firing into the dark hills a few kilometers beyond the perimeter. A thin red stream of tracer fire reached down from the gunship and swept back and forth like a lizard’s tongue, searching the ground for prey, then flickered hesitantly and receded as the growl of the minigun came, faint and distant, on the still night air. The gunship wasn’t as far away as it looked. If it had been, the interval between the firing and the sound would have been greater.

Wolverine took a swig from his bottle, then turned away from the perimeter, bored with the minigun show. He screwed the top back on his bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, took a deep breath and belched it out again, then started back for the operations bunker. Suddenly be stopped and stood dead still. Someone was coming at him from between the team tents. He spun around, ready to swing with the bottle, then lowered his arm, and shook his head in amazement.

“Holy shit! Mopar! What are you doing here? You still have a few days of leave left, don’t you? What the hell—are you crazy? Sneaking up on a man that way, I damn near put this bottle next to your face!”

Mopar had hitched a ride from the airstrip just before last night and had spent the last three hours drinking and getting high with the guys who had given him a lift. He was now very drunk, and he reached out to steady himself against a trash barrel.

“You ain’t shit, Sarge,” he announced. “If I was a gook I coulda blown your ass away.”

Wolverine shook his head again. “You just about scared the living shit out of me, ol’ hoss. I didn’t even see you standing there.”

Mopar had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He puffed on it—or at least tried to puff on it—then spat it out in disgust.

“Don’t you ol’ hoss me, you lifer pig! I got a bone to pick with you, and you know it. Fuckin’ lifer. I ain’t ever gonna trust another fuckin’ lifer!”

Wolverine eased over next to the sandbag wall that surrounded the closest tent. He put down his bottle so he’d have both hands free, but Mopar refused to stand up for himself and fight things out like a man. Once again Mopar called him a fuckin’ lifer pig, and then to make the insult even more personal, he called him a sissy preacher’s kid. Wolverine chuckled and stepped closer to Mopar.

“So you know about that, huh?” He shook his head sadly, then punched Mopar twice in the belly and sent him staggering backward, doubled over at the waist, trying to get his breath back.

“You call
me
a lifer pig?” Wolverine had to laugh. “Sneaking back to the compound with two or three leave days left—and you call
me
a lifer pig? You better get a hold on yourself right quick, young troop! Word is we’re going out to plant some Black Boxes in J.D.’s last RZ, and you won’t be going if you don’t start talking rational. Lifer pig? Hell’s bells, Mopar, you’re the one who couldn’t even last out a thirty-day leave!”

Mopar felt ridiculous. He straightened up and swallowed back the vomit welling up in his throat. He mumbled an apology, then stooped to pick up his hat. “I’m sorry, Sarge,” he said. “I’m just drunk, ’at’s all.”

“That’s better,” said Wolverine. “Marvel and Gonzales are out on Alexine. Why don’t you just stumble on into the tent and crash. Now go on, get moving. If you can talk rational in the morning, I’m gonna have some work for you. Marvel and Gonzales will be back tomorrow. The lieutenant is up at the Two Shop right now—word is the major wants some sensing devices planted out in RZ Zulme. If you start acting like a soldier again, maybe we’ll get the mission.” Wolverine shook his head. “If you had a lick of sense, you’d still be home.”

“Home? Shit, I was bored, Sarge. Lonely back there … snow and all.” Mopar lurched to the door of the tent, then paused and leaned drunkenly against the sandbag wall. “RZ Zulme, Sarge? No shit. We’ll be going into RZ Zulme soon?” He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “If I’d stayed out my whole leave, I probably woulda missed out on this one, huh Sarge?”

Wolverine shrugged and recovered his bottle. “Maybe so. Now get on in there and sleep it off. I’ll tell Pappy you’re here.”

“I’m sorry, Sarge.” Mopar apologized again, then pushed the screen door open and staggered into the tent.

Wolverine shook his head and started back for the operations bunker, thinking how Pappy Stagg was right; these young troopers coming up now were a confused and puzzling lot. Cutting short a leave to get back to the war, then calling someone else a lifer—you couldn’t get much more confused and puzzling than that.

S
PRAWLED OUT, FULLY DRESSED
, on his cot, Mopar slept through the night and morning. Helicopters landed and took off from the chopper pad. The screen door banged as men went in and out of the tent on various errands. Forklifts and truck engines growled in the supply depot next to the Lurp compound, and ten meters behind the tent the Slop Shop mess sergeant hollered at his KPs, and the KPs banged pots and pans and played “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” over and over, full volume on a battery-operated cassette player. But Mopar slept on undisturbed. When Marvel and Gonzales returned from Firebase Alexine, he was still asleep and beyond reach of the human voice, so Marvel kicked the legs of his cot to wake him.

“Get up, Mopar, you sorry young lifer! You’re back in the Army now, and there’s no use trying to pretend it’s all a dream!” Marvel kicked the cot again, and Mopar came up swinging, then sank back with a sigh and closed his eyes.

“Go away,” he muttered. “I still got three days of leave yet.”

“Come on, Mopar,” Marvel giggled. “Don’t go catatonic on us. Get up and tell us about your leave. Did you smash any peacecreeps? How was Sybill Street? I wrote you about Tiger and about Recondo School—the least you can do is get up and tell us about your leave!”

“Yeah,” Gonzales nodded. “If you don’t get up, Wolverine won’t take you on the overflight.”

Mopar sat up and rubbed the sand from his eyes. His head ached, his belly hurt, his mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and he had to piss so bad he was afraid he’d spill over if he moved too quickly.

“Overflight? What’s this about an overflight?” He was still wearing his boots. He swung them over the edge of the cot, but he didn’t dare stand just yet. “I thought I was dreaming all this shit. I thought I was still back home, just dreaming.” He rubbed his eyes again and looked around the tent. “Tiger? Tiger’s not back yet?” He gave Marvel a dirty look, then rested his head in his hands. “I thought you said he’d be back before me, Marvel, you gooky asshole. And don’t give me any crap about my coming back early; I’d still be home on leave if I hadn’t got your letter telling me everything was going to hell in a handcart without me.”

Marvel glanced over at Gonzales for moral support, but Gonzales only shrugged and retreated to his own cot. “I told you, Mopar, Tiger’s fine.” Marvel had practiced saying this a dozen times or more—not where anyone could hear, but he’d even practiced aloud a few times—and now when he finally had no choice but to say it, he was surprised at how reasonable and confident he sounded. “There’s no sense wasting your time worrying about him. We want to hear about your leave. And then you better get down to the operations bunker to talk to Pappy and Wolverine. We’re going to J.D.’s last Recon Zone day after tomorrow, and the overflight’s scheduled for sixteen hundred hours today.” He paused, then smiled. “That’s four o’clock, in case you forgot how to tell time while you were home.”

Mopar glowered scornfully. “It’s Mr. Recondo, the honor grad himself! He’s gonna come on the lifer to me—on my first day back! Get back, Marvel, you lifer dipshit! You already tried to bullshit me in your letter, and I don’t want no more of it, not just yet.”

He groaned and stood up slowly. He had to get outside and piss. His head was just beginning to clear, but he still didn’t dare move too fast. All the way back across the Pacific, and then for a day and a half in the rear while he waited for a flight north, he’d been looking forward to his reunion with Marvel, Gonzales, and the other guys. But now that he was back in the Lurp compound, it felt like he’d never been away.

“I told you, Mopar, I’m immune. The Koreans always score in the nineties on the written tests because the liaison officer cheats for them, and the physical stuff is easy for them. They weren’t afraid of the dagger. The Koreans gave it all they had, and one of them even took his tests in English so the cadre would know he wasn’t cheating, he wanted the dagger that much. I told you, Koreans are immune to the curse, Mopar. It works the other way for us. I told you before.”

“You’re the first to win it, you goofy zip. And you don’t count as Korean to me. What was it? You were way down in points you said, and then you fucked up and saved some Green Beanie’s life and won the dagger by luck and good fortune? I gotta piss too bad to stand and listen to this dorky bullshit, Marvel. You’re full of shit and that’s it. I gotta go drain the dragon.”

Schultz had come into the tent, and since he was now a member of Team Two-Four, he felt it was only appropriate that he say something to welcome Mopar back. “Be careful not to shake it more than once,” he said. “The Army frowns on unauthorized fun.”

Mopar grimaced and made his way to the door, then paused to turn around and give Schultz the finger.

“Watch yourself, Schultz,” he warned, only half in jest. “You ain’t on the team for good. You’re just filling in until Tiger gets back, so you better show some respect.”

Schultz rolled his eyes, shook his head, and laughed. “Can it, Mopar. I don’t show respect for nobody dumb enough to cut short his leave to come back to this goddamn place.”

Mopar groaned again and pushed through the door with his shoulder. Schultz was a fairly good man in the field, but he was a little too pushy and ambitious for Mopar’s peace of mind.

Schultz was always bragging about the Silver Star he’d won before joining the Lurp platoon. He was always bugging Mopar to show him a picture of Sybill Street, asking if she swallowed cum, and plying him with other such questions Mopar wouldn’t have answered, even if he could. Mopar was sure it was Schultz who stole a picture of Marvel’s sisters from his footlocker and taped it to the shithouse wall. Marvel was reluctant to blame anyone, but Mopar figured it could only have been Schultz. He didn’t have a shred of respect for anything or anybody, and even Tiger had always seemed to regard him with a healthy dose of suspicion. Schultz wasn’t bad out in the field, but he was a jerk and a pest and a pain in the ass to be around back in the rear. Mopar hoped he’d only be on the team for this mission, then go back to Two-Two, where he belonged.