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Peacock's BirdIn a little over a week, orders come down and I am a squad leader. I get a promotion. Callmeblack gets a promotion too. So now Two Squad is my squad, and I feel different. I don't know how I feel, except different. I've got Callme and Omar and Chas Murphy. And Peacock is still in Two; he outranks me, but he is too short to be made squad leader. He has come back and lies around the hooch all day long. He almost never comes outside. He reads and washes his face with peroxide.
“Jesus, I'm going home in a week, boys,” he says one night, “and my mother is going to see this goddamn tattoo.” He's been taking his malaria medicine and drinking cough syrup for a solid week, and nowadays when he looks at you there is a dullness there that is new. I feel sad for him, but I can't say
