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Январь 15th, 2007

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The Short-Timers (engl)

Январь 15th, 2007

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sapiens.
My bullet exits through the occipital bone, knocks out hairy, brain-wet
clods of jagged meat, then buries itself in the roots of a tree.
Silence. Animal Mother lowers his M-60.
Animal Mother, Donlon, Lance Corporal Stutten, Harris, and the other
guys in the squad do not speak. Everyone relaxes, glad to be alive. Everyone
hates my guts, but they know I’m right. I am their sergeant; they are my
men. Cowboy was killed by sniper fire, they’ll say, but they’ll never see me
again; I’ll be invisible.
“Saddle up,” I say, and the squad responds. Packs are hefted up. The
flap and rattle of equipment. A grunt, a growl, and the Lusthog Squad is
ready to move.
I study their faces. Then I say, “Man-oh-man, Cowboy looks like a bag
of leftovers from a V.F.W. barbecue. Of course, I’ve got nothing against
dead people. Why, some of my best friends are dead!”
Silence. They all look at me. I have never felt so alive.
Semper Fi, Mom and Dad, Semper Fi, my werewolf children. Payback is a
motherfucker.
They shift their gear to more comfortable positions.
They wait for an order. I pick up Cowboy’s muddy Stetson.
I wave my hand and the squad moves out, moves back down the trail.
Nobody talks. We’re all too tired to talk, to joke, to call each other
names. The day has been too hot, the hump too long. We’ve shot up our share
of Victor Charlie jungle plants and we are wasted.
We wrap ourselves in pastel fantasies of varied designs and “X” another
day off our short-timer’s calendars. We look forward to imaginary bennies:
hot showers, cold beer, a fix of Coke (because things go better with Coke),
juicy steaks, mail from hone, and a moment of privacy in which to massage
our wands, inspired by fading photographs of loving wives and girlfriends
back in the World.
The showers will be cold, the beer, if there is any, will be hot. No
steak. No Cokes. The mail, if there is any, will not be from sweethearts.
The mail from hometown America, like the half dozen letters I carry unopened
in my rucksack, will say: Write more often be careful if you think it’s
tough there bought this used car what a report card mother is taking shots
nothing good on TV don’t write depressing letters so maybe send me fifty
bucks new furniture in the dining room for a ring quick buddy she’s pregnant
be real careful write more often and so on and so on until you feel like you
just got a Dear John letter from the whole damned world.

We hump back down the trail.
Back on the hill, Sorry Charlie, our bro, will laugh at us one more
time; Sorry Charlie, at least, will greet us with a smile.
Putting our minds back into our feet, we concentrate all our energy

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“ALICE!” (часть 6)

Январь 14th, 2007

Cowboy falls.
Bang. The bullet rips open Cowboy’s trousers at the crotch. “No….”
Cowboy feels for his balls. He shits on himself.
Animal Mother takes a step.
Before I can make a move to stop Animal Mother a pistol pops in the
clearing.
Bang.
Then: Bang.
Donlon: “HE KILLED DOC JAY AND THE NEW GUY!”
Cowboy shakes himself to stay conscious. Then he shoots Alice through
the back of the head.
Bang. Alice’s face is blown off by the forty-five caliber bullet. Alice
flops as though electrocuted.
Cowboy raises the pistol and presses the huge barrel to his right
temple.
Bang.
The pistol falls.
The sniper has put a bullet through the center of Cowboy’s right hand.
The squad bunches up behind the boulder again. I study the dirty faces
of all my bearded children: Animal Mother, Donlon, Lance Corporal Stutten,
Berny, Harris, Rick Berg, Hand-Job, Thunder, The Kid from Brooklyn, Hardy,
Liccardi, and Daddy D.A.
“Stutten, take your people back.”
Lance Corporal Stutten looks at Animal Mother, takes a step toward him.
The squad is going to follow Mother and commit suicide for a tradition.
Mother checks his M-60. His face is wet with tears, Viking-wild, red
with rage. “We’ll go for Cowboy, give the sniper too many targets. We can
save him.”
I take a step into Animal Mother’s path.
Animal Mother raises his weapon. He holds the M-60 waist high. His eyes
are red. He growls deep in his throat. “This ain’t no Hollywood movie,
Joker. Stand down or I will cut you in half…”
I look into Animal Mother’s eyes. I look into the eyes of a killer. He
means it. I know that he means it. I turn my back on him.
Animal Mother is going to waste me. The barrel of the M-60 probes my
back.
The squad is silent, waiting for orders.
I raise my grease gun and I aim it at Cowboy’s face. Cowboy looks
pitiful and he’s terrified. Cowboy is paralyzed by the shock that is setting
in and by the helplessness. I hardly know him. I remember the first time I
saw Cowboy, on Parris Island, laughing, beating his Stetson on his thigh.
I look at him. He looks at the grease gun. He calls out: “I NEVER LIKED
YOU, JOKER. I NEVER THOUGHT YOU WERE FUNNY–”
Bang. I sight down the short metal tube and I watch my bullet enter
Cowboy’s left eye. My bullet passes through his eye socket, punches through
fluid-filled sinus cavities, through membranes, nerves, arteries, muscle
tissue, through the tiny blood vessels that feed three pounds of gray
butter-soft high protein meat where brain cells arranged like jewels in a
clock hold every thought and memory and dream of one adult male Homo

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“ALICE!” (часть 5)

Январь 14th, 2007

And before I can tell Cowboy
that a pistol is useless in the jungle he punches me on the shoulder like a
kid and runs, feinting as wildly as the narrow trail allows.
We wait.
I know that I should be getting the squad on its feet, but I too am
hypnotized.
From nowhere and from everywhere comes the sound of something laughing.
We all rubberneck to see who aming us is so stone-cold hard that he is
enjoying a world of shit like this.
The sniper is laughing at us.
We try to pinpoint the sniper’s position. But the source of the
laughter is all around us. The laughter seems to radiate from the jungle
floor, from the jade trees, from the monster plants, from within our own
bodies.
As the dark laughter draws the blood from my veins I see something. My
eyes try to focus on a shadow. Sweat stings my eyes, blurs my vision. And I
see Sorry Charlie, a black skull, perched on a branch, and then I understand
that only a sniper that does not fear death would reveal his position by
laughing….
I squint. I strain my eyes. The laughing skull fades into a shadow.

Today I am a sergeant of Marines.
I laugh and laugh. The squad freezes with fear because the sniper is
laughing with me. The sniper and I are laughing together and we know that
sooner or later the squad will be laughing, too.
Sooner or later the squad will surrender to the black design of the
jungle. We live by the law of the jungle, which is that more Marines go in
than come out. There it is. Nobody asks us why we’re smiling because nobody
wants to know. The ugly that civilians choose to see in war focuses on
spilled guts. To see human beings clearly, that is ugly. To carry death in
your smile, that is ugly. War is ugly because the truth can be ugly and war
is very sincere. Ugly is the face of Victor Charlie, the shapeless black
face of death touching each of your brothers with the clean stroke of
justice.
Those of us who survive to be short-timers will fly the Freedom Bird
back to hometown America. But home won’t be there anymore and we won’t be
there either. Upon each of our brains the war has lodged itself, a black
crab feeding.
The jungle is quiet now. The sniper has stopped laughing.
The squad is silent, waiting for orders. Soon they will understand.
Soon they won’t be afraid. The dark side will surface and they’ll be like
me; they’ll be Marines.
Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Cowboy stumbles into the clearing.
“We’re moving,” I say, more to Mother than anyone.
Mother ignores me, watches Cowboy.
Bang. Right leg.
Bang. Left leg.

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“ALICE!” (часть 4)

Январь 14th, 2007

angle. “Marines never abandon their dead or wounded, Mr. Squad Leader, sir.”
Cowboy glares at Animal Mother for several deep breaths, then pulls me
aside. “Joker, you’re in charge. Move these people out,” Cowboy sees that
Animal Mother is listening so he adds, “Order Mother to walk the point.”
Animal Mother spits.
Cowboy says in a low voice: “Never turn your back on Mother. Never cut
him any slack. He fragged Mr. Shortround.”
I say, “What about you, Cowboy? I mean, if you get yourself wasted who
will introduce me to your sister?”
Cowboy looks at me. His face is without expression. “I don’t have a
sister. I thought you knew that.” Cowboy looks at Doc and Alice and the New
Guy. “Mother’s right. I’ve got to try. The sniper will see you pulling back
and–”
“Hey, never happen. Fuck it. You can’t do anything.”
“Move them out, Joker. By the numbers.”
“But Cowboy, I–”
“It’s my job,” Cowboy says. “It’s my job….” Cowboy says, as though
his guts are choking him. Then: “Okay?”
I hesitate.
“Okay, bro?”
“Sure, Cowboy. I’ll get them all back to the hill in one piece. I
promise.”
Cowboy relaxes. “Thanks, Joker.” He grins. “You piece of shit.”
Donlon yells: “LOOK!”
Doc Jay has the New Guy across his lap. The New Guy’s face is purple.
Doc Jay is kissing the New Guy’s purple lips in an attempt to breathe life
back into the limp body. The New Guy squirms, claws for air. Doc Jay holds
the New Guy down, zips out his K-bar, cuts the New Guy’s throat. Air
whistles in through the crude incision, blows pink bubbles in the New Guy’s
blood. The New Guy bucks, wheezes, coughs. Doc Jay spills his Unit One, paws
through splints, compress bandages, white tape. Then, frantic, he empties
his pockets. The Doc throws everything away until he finds a ball-point pen.
He stares at the ball-point pen, draws his hand back to throw the pen away,
stops, looks again, unscrews the pen, inserts the biggest piece into the
hole in the New Guy’s throat. The New Guy sucks in air, breathes irregularly
through the small plastic tube. Doc Jay puts the New Guy down on the deck,
gently.
Bang.
Doc Jay’s right ear is split. Cautiously, the Doc touches the side of
his head, feels wet, jagged meat.
Bang.
A bullet cuts off Doc Jay’s nose.
Bang.
A bullet passes through Doc Jay’s cheeks. He coughs, spits up uprooted
teeth and pieces of his gums.
Animal Mother snarls, fires his machine gun into the canopy.
“Get them back,” Cowboy says. He drops his Stetson and Mr. Shortround’s
shotgun. He pops another smoke grenade, lobs it in. He jerks Mr.
Shortround’s pistol from his shoulder holster.

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“ALICE!” (часть 3)

Январь 14th, 2007

radio.
Doc Jay stands up, balances himself on his good leg. He bends over and
hooks Alice under the armpit with his forearm, tries to lift him.
Bang.
Doc Jay collapses. Now his left foot is a bloody lump. He waits for the
last bullet. When the last bullet doesn’t come he sits up, pulls Alice
across his lap. The Doc fumbles in his Unit One, takes out a Syrette, gives
Alice a hit of morphine.
Using his teeth, Doc Jay tears the waxy brown wrappers off three
compress bandages. The Doc ties the bandages around Alice’s wound. Alice
groans, says something we can’t hear. Doc Jay uses his shirttail to wipe the
sweat from Alice’s forehead, then pulls out a piece of rubber tubing he uses
to tie tourniquets.
Bang.
Doc Jay’s right hand is shattered. The Doc tries to move his fingers.
He can’t.
Green smoke pours from Cowboy’s smoke grenade, obscuring the clearing.
Cowboy starts to tell us what to do. But he can’t make up his mind.
Then: “We’re pulling out. That’s a shitty thing to do, but we can’t refuse
to accept the situation. We saw this in Hue. That sniper is just sucking us
in. Wants the whole squad, one at a time. You know that. Doc and Midnight
are wasted; we’re not. Saddle up.”
Nobody moves.
Cowboy stands up. “Do it.”
We all know that Cowboy is right. He’s hard, but he’s right.
“GET SOME!”
Without warning, the New Guy charges for the clearing. He fires blind.
He lopes along with the fluid grace of a meat eater, a predator attacking.
His chin is dripping saliva. The New Guy wants warm blood to drink. The New
Guy wants human flesh to tear apart and devour. The New Guy’s eyes are red:
the New Guy’s eyes glow in the shadow world around us. He fires blind. The
New Guy doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He thinks he’s John Wayne. He
hasn’t been born yet.
Cowboy tries to trip the New Guy as he double-times up the trail, but
the New Guy catches his balance and runs faster, a werewolf charging into
the house of death. He stumbles up to Doc Jay. He spins around. His red eyes
probe the canopy. “Com’on, Doc. I’ll help you. I’ll carry–”
Bang.
For a breath or two we think maybe the sniper has missed for the first
time. Then the New Guy drops to his knees, praying, clutching his throat.
Cowboy says, “Let’s move.”
“Move, my ass,” says Animal Mother. “You move, motherfucker.”
Cowboy takes a step toward Animal Mother, puts his face up close to
Animal Mother’s face, looks Animal Mother right in the eye. “Mother, take
the point.”
Animal Mother stands up, pulls his machine gun off the log and sets the
butt into his hip so that the black barrel slants up at a forty-five degree

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“ALICE!” (часть 2)

Январь 14th, 2007

“I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“He hit Alice again!”
Alice moves, groans. “It hurts…it hurts…”
There’s a dark hole through the canvas jungle boot on Alice’s left
foot. Alice laughs, grins, grits his teeth. “I’m short…”
Animal Mother kicks the rotten log and opens fire. High-velocity
machine-gun bullets clip, chop, and ricochet through the canopy, snapping
into tree trunks with rhythmic precision, cutting leaves from twigs and
killing birds.
The New Guy opens up with his M-16. Lance Corporal Stutten fires an
M-79 and the grenade bursts, invisible in the darkness. I see a strange
shadow on a limb so I throw a few rounds in there with my grease gun. But
it’s Maggie’s drawers. There’s nothing to shoot at.
The New Guy pops a frag and lobs it in.
Cowboy screams into the jarring thud: “OKAY, OKAY, EVERYBODY FUCKING
COOL IT.”
Everyone stops firing–everyone except Animal Mother. I put my hand on
Mother’s shoulder but his weapon continues to spill hot brass and black
metal links until the belt runs out.
“We gotta kill that cocksucker!” says Animal Mother. “Payback is a
motherfucker!”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“The law of the jungle, man.”
Animal Mother punches the rotten log with his fist. “I’ll punch his
fucking heart out!”
“Yeah.”
“Kill that cocksucker!”
Alice is trying to crawl to cover. “Cowboy? Bro?” Alice extends his
gloved right hand.
Bang.
Alice’s hand is knocked down. He lifts it again slowly. Ragged leather.
And Alice’s right forefinger is missing. “Oh, no…not…”
Alice screams.
Doc Jay stands up. Cowboy grabs him and pulls him down. “You crazy?”
But Doc Jay wrestles free. He unhooks the Unit One medical kit from his web
belt and drops the rest of his gear.
Cowboy looks sick. “Don’t try it, bro. That sniper does not miss…”
“I’m the corpsman,” says Doc Jay.” Not you.” And before Cowboy can
react, Doc Jay is on his feet and running. He runs at a crouch, zigzagging.
Bang.
Doc Jay stumbles, falls.
The Doc’s left thigh has been torn open. Jagged bone protrudes. The Doc
tries to push himself forward with his good leg.
Cowboy pops a smoke grenade, lobs it in.
“We’ve got to do something….”
The squad bunches up behind the boulder. “Spread out,” I say,
halfheartedly. The New Guy is watching with wild eyes, his weapon at port
arms. Animal Mother’s bloodshot eyes scan the canopy for muzzle flashes,
movement, any sign of life. Lance Corporal Stutten and the rest of the squad
watch silently–they are waiting for orders. Donlon is hugging his dead

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“ALICE!”

Январь 14th, 2007

“ALICE!”
Alice, the point man, is down. His big black hands are locked around
his right thigh. On the deck all around him are a dozen decayed gook feet.
Blood.
“FACE OUTBOARD!”
Cowboy says, “Damn.” He shoves his Stetson to the back of his head and
jabs at his glasses with his index finger. “CORPSMAN UP!”
Cowboy’s command is echoed back down the trail.
Doc Jay comes scrambling up on all fours like a bear in a hurry.
Cowboy waves his hand, “Come on, Doc.”
Donlon grabs Cowboy’s ankle, tries to hand Cowboy the radio handset.
“Colonel Travis is on the horn.”
“Fuck off, Tom. I’m busy.”
Cowboy and Doc Jay start crawling.
Donlon says into the handset: “Uh, Sudden Death Six, Sudden Death Six,
this is Baby Bayonet. Do you copy? Over.”
Cowboy stops crawling, calls back: “Gunships. And a med-evac.”
Donlon talks into the handset, talks to the old man. Static. The
handset hangs on a wire hook attached to Donlon’s helmet strap. Donlon’s
singsong words are like a prayer he has known for a long time. Donlon stops
talking, listens to an insect inside the handset, then shouts: “The old man
says, ‘Only you can prevent forest fires.’”
Cowboy looks back. “What? What the hell does that mean?”
The radio crackles. Static. “Uh…say again, say again. Over.” Static.
Donlon listens, nodding. Then: “I roger that. Stand by, one.” Donlon yells:
“The old man keeps saying, ‘Only you can prevent forest fires.’…”
Cowboy crawls back to our position. “Donlon, boy, if you’re fucking
with me…”
Donlon shrugs. “Scouts honor.”
I say, “Cowboy, are you absolutely sure that the colonel is on our
side?”
Animal Mother spits. “There it is. He’s a lifer, ain’t he?”
Donlon shakes his head. “No slack. The old man is dinky-dow, crazy.”
I grunt. “Sanity is overrated.”
Cowboy says, “Just tell that lifer son-of-a-bitch that I need a dustoff
for–”
Bang.
A rifle bullet snaps through Donlon’s radio. The impact of the bullet
flips Donlon onto his back. Donlon struggles like an overturned turtle.
I crawl on my hands and knees. I grab Donlon’s rifle belt. I drag him
behind a boulder.
Donlon swallows air. “Beaucoup thanks, bro…”
Cowboy and Doc Jay are arguing. Cowboy says, “Alice is in the open. We
can’t reach him.”
The New Guy says, “Is it just one enemy soldier?”
“Shut your mouth.” Animal Mother sets up his M-60 machine gun on a
rotten log and adjusts a golden ammo belt over a C’s can he has attached to
the gun so that the rounds feed in smoothly.
Cowboy says, “I got to send back a runner–”
Bang.
Cowboy rolls over.

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TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING: KNOW YE THAT REPOSING (часть 22)

Январь 13th, 2007

thought that the future is always safe in a little gold box somewhere. Well,
I’ll live forever. I’m T.H.E. Rock.”
Crazy Earl grunts. “Hey Skipper, what say we stuff some dope into your
shotgun and toke it through the barrel?”
Mr. Shortround shakes his head. “No can do, Craze. We’re moving most
skosh.”
Donlon is talking into his handset. “Sir, the C.O. wants the Actual.”
Donlon gives the handset to Mr. Shortround. The Lieutenant talks to
Delta Six, the commanding officer of Delta One-Five.
“Number ten. Just when we were scarfing up some of the bennies,” says
Crazy Earl. “Just when we were getting a little piece of slack…”
Lieutenant Shortround stands up and starts putting on his gear.
“Moving, rich kids. Saddle up. Craze, get your people on their feet.”
“Moving. Moving.”
We all stand up, except for the NVA corporal who remains seated, a beer
in his hand, a pile of money in his lap, his split lips curled back in a
death grin.
Alice steps up with a machete in one hand and a blue canvas shopping
bag in the other. He kneels. With two blows of the machete Alice chops off
the NVA corporal’s feet. He picks up each foot by the big toe and drops it
into the blue shopping bag. “This gook was a very hard dude. Number one! Big
Magic!”
The grunts stuff beer bottles, piasters, long-rats, and looted
souvenirs into their baggy pockets, into Marine-issue field packs, and into
NVA haversacks souvenired from enemy grunts they have wasted. The grunts
pick up their weapons.
Moving. Moving. I walk behind Cowboy. Rafter Man walks behind me.
I say, “Well, I guess this Citadel shit is going to be oh so bad. But
it could be worse. I mean, at least it’s not Parris Island.”
Cowboy grins. He says, “There it is.”

We see the great walls of the Citadel. With zigzagging ramparts thirty
feet high and eight feet thick, surrounded by a moat, the fortress looks
like an ancient castle from a fairy tale about dragons who guard treasure
and knights on white horses and princesses in need of assistance. The castle
is black stone against a cold gray sky, with dark towers populated by
shadows that are alive.
The Citadel is actually a small walled city constructed by French
engineers as protection for the home of Gia Long, Emperor of the Annamese
Empire. When Hue was the Imperial Capital, the Citadel protected the Emperor
and the royal family and the ancient treasure of the Forbidden City from
pirates raiding from the South China Sea.
We are big white American boys in steel helmets and heavy flak jackets,
armed with magic weapons, laying siege to a castle in modern times. One-Five

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