F.N.G

Chapter 2 – Arrival-2

“Men, welcome to Vietnam.”

The NCO is young but wrinkled and squints into the sun behind us. He goes on in a monotone that must have been saying the same thing for a year.

“Since there are almost no VC left around here you will not be issued weapons until you get ready to go to your units. Anybody who doesn't have his dog tags go to the line over there. You must have two dog tags all the time in Vietnam. If you get blown away, somebody will shove a tag between your teeth and kick your jaw shut, so we don't ship the wrong bag of guts to your mama. Any questions?”

I think at a million miles an hour while we go from station to station: to be positive we all have two dog tags, to be given ration cards, to have explained for the tenth time why U.S. forces are in Vietnam. We get told to buy savings bonds, warned about Hanoi Hannah—“the blackest clap of ‘em all”—taken to a sandbagged chapel where the chaplain is drunk, then issued a steel pot and five pair of green underwear. Mine are big enough to fit a rain barrel.

On our way to the mess hall we have to get pneumatic shots.

A tobacco-spitting medic who tells the guy in front of me he was a garbage truck driver on the Outside hits my vein, and the blood runs down to my elbow and drops onto my pants. The medic waiting to shoot my other arm says, “Let it drip and put in for a Purple Heart.”

~ ~ ~

Everybody is tired and grouchy and there is shouting in the barracks after supper. There is a two-man outdoor shower, and the line moves fast because everybody in line hustles the guys under the water. I'm a little surprised that the water is lukewarm. It comes from a big tank that gets heated by the sun.

The barracks are stuffy, and after I claim a bunk below a*s I go outside to have a smoke. Ours is the last one in a row, and the distance between the barracks and the perimeter of the compound is only two hundred meters.

The airfield is toward the center of camp. Over the roofs of the barracks buildings are at least twenty helicopters heading different directions, blinking green lights. Almost all the sound I hear comes from the helicopters: sometimes I distinctly hear the whoosh of their jet motors, but mostly there is the out-of-cadence whap-wop-wop-wop-whap-whack from the blades chopping air at different angles. The birds have red and green lights but only the green lights blink, and watching them from this distance is like seeing a pinball machine working through an arcade window. All at once I am conscious of a guy standing beside me, and I get the feeling he is watching the exact green lights that I am.

“Howdy,” he says; then, before I can answer, “You're new, huh?” His voice is higher than I expect. He is a pretty big dude.

“Been here almost a day.”

He lights a smoke in one quick motion, and when I smell it I know it's dope.

“With luck you've only got three hundred and sixty-four more.

“I got one.”

He whistles the smoke out and hands me a joint.

“What's it like to make it?”

“I didn't make it whole,” he says. Now I see his arm is bandaged and strapped to his side.

“How bad, uh … ?”

“Coulda been my nuts,” he says. “I've got all my hand left.

“Good,” I mean to fill the silence.

“One finger.”

The quietness gets clumsy. Next thing I know I ask him how it happened. The dope is making me talk.

“On an ambush. A noise, and some Effengee panicked and laid a round my way. Simple.”

“Effengee?”

“F, period. N, period. G, period. Effengee. Fuckin’ New Guy. They're all alike. You're one. You'll see. I'm Lonesome.”

“Me too, and I just got here.”

“Lonesome's my nickname. I got it because I built one-man hooches when I was in the field.” He stands up. “I'm done here. Goin’ home, can you dig that? One more day of that fuckin’ hospital and I get on my freedom bird. In a hundred hours I won't be Lonesome. I'll be Chester again …. Or maybe I'll get a new nickname, maybe Unfinger. I'm going shopping in the village, wanna come? Ten bucks for a pipe of opium and a blow job.”

“Thanks, man, but I just got here.”

“And you might get your s**t blown backwards tomorrow. Think about it.”

~ ~ ~

Halfway across the open area he takes his hat off and gives it to me. The back of his head is shaved and bandaged, but I don't ask him anything about it.

“You got to get rid of that Effengee baseball hat as soon as you can. Get a Boonie, first time you go to a PX. In the field it's like a woman, can you dig that? I mean, it's something the Army doesn't give you. They give you a number and everybody else a number. But the hat is yours and you can paint it pink if you're nuts enough. Putting your name on it is enough. Like a zero—the Army doesn't like zeros. The reason I gave you mine to use is so not everybody can tell at a glance you're an Effengee, can you—”

“Dig it,” I say. I can see him smile in the light from the bunker line. Our side of the perimeter is dark, but the outside is lit up by huge spotlights mounted on top of the guard towers.

He stops us in back of Bunker 23 and hollers, “Three times twenty-three is sixty-nine.”

A flashlight shines from the window and a voice comes from where it goes out. “Wanna get the clap, eh, Lonesome?”

“I got the Jones, man. Gotta get one more crossmounted p***y before I'm a gone muthafucker tomorrow at noon, buddy.” He says “gone” especially loud.

“What's in it for us, my man?”

“Best they got.”

“Wait one.” And the spotlight on the bunker goes out. Lonesome shows me how to get through a break in the concertina wire, and we are soon galloping down a wide path beyond the range of the spotlights. Another, smaller, trail leads through some vegetation for maybe fifty meters and suddenly to a hut. The hut is lit by a candle sitting in the middle of the dirt floor. A small woman with black teeth is sitting beside the candle smoking what looks like a cigar rolled out of yellow leaves. She is wearing black pajamas and rubber sandals made from used tires.

“Mamasan,” Lonesome says, “We want opium and a blow job, one at a time.”

“Only one baby-san,” she says.

He goes into the corner and lies down on a pile of brown rags.

Mamasan motions to me to sit down and pulls a rag from out of her pajamas, which are thin and full of rips. A girl who can't be over four feet tall comes in and goes to Lonesome. She doesn't say anything. She begins playing with Lonesome, and when she kneels down I see that she only has half her right arm.

The woman looks like a squirrel. Her face is small and round and her black teeth move nervously like a squirrel's. She opens the rag on the floor beside the candle, and there is a small pipe with a long stem and a small bottle of brown liquid. She lights a piece of straw to warm the pipe, then hands it to me and fires it while I drag—just one quick sensation that makes me think of swallowing a spark. The woman sticks the tip of her brown tongue into the bowl of the pipe, then props it between her feet to refill it with one more drop.

The first rush comes and it feels like a part of my head inside is soft and woven, airy, like I've got a sock cap between my brain and my skull. The edges of everything fade too, like wearing sunglasses at night. The woman looks even more like a squirrel, and when she brings the pipe to my mouth the way she holds her arms is the way a squirrel holds a nut.

After that hit she and Lonesome help me onto the pile of rags and I just lie there and cruise. Another GI comes to the door and Mamasan goes outside to talk to him. Lonesome is sitting by the candle with his pants rolled up to his knees, scratching. His legs are raw and he opens scabs as he scratches. His feet and ankles are black.

The girl comes to me and I want to look in her face but she keeps it turned away from me. She washes me and some of the water runs down into my new green skivvies. I eventually almost pass out, I think, and I am done and the girl is moving toward the candle when I wrestle my mind back into this hut. Lonesome is lying out flat on the dirt floor and the woman and the girl are whispering: their talk is full of high pitches and low grunts. Once again when the woman turns a certain way I think of a squirrel.

I am almost asleep and dreaming about hunting in Schrader's woods when the woman and Lonesome stand up. It seems like I am looking out of a black umbrella that only lets me see their legs. Lonesome's pants are still rolled up, and the blood from a big picked scab dried while his leg was horizontal so, when he stands up, the scab makes me think of a mailbox flag, swung down. The girl is there too and her thin legs look ordinary like a ten-year-old's legs. They all have on the sandals made out of tires, “Ho Chis,” and all six feet are filthy.

I know this is a moment I'm going to remember.

The hike back to the bunker line seems to take hours. My sense of sound is completely screwy and I keep seeing things move. It is all I can do to keep from yelling. I don't feel much like talking when we get back to the shadows of the barracks, even though I am not quite as high, but I say thanks when I give Lonesome his hat.

“So you're not quite the Effengee you were,” he says. “Stay high, man. Keep your fuckin’ head down. Good luck. Never forget there's no such thing as a coward. Look me up, only one in Ogden, Utah. Peace.” And he is gone.

~ ~ ~

I must be awake, because I see a guy coming up the two steps to our barracks floor, and I see he's got a garbage can. He throws it down the aisle, and the lid comes off and the can and the lid make unbelievable noise on the concrete floor in that small room.

When everybody jumps, not knowing what the hell to do, he says, “Breakfast is served in five minutes, and for only five minutes, in case the goddamn Chinese send troops in, so get the f**k in line.” Then he goes out the door.

Breakfast doesn't even look like food. It should be biscuits and gravy but it looks like half-mixed mortar sitting in kettles the size of small washtubs. There is only one guy serving and he just pours. The guy getting the ration is the one who has to aim the plate. I move mine under the ladle in time to get about half. It's like the cook doesn't even notice. He tells the guy behind me that he is so short he can sit on a dime and swing his legs.

The next line is in front of a sergeant. He is tall and full of muscles and has his cap pulled low onto his brown forehead. Somehow he looks more kind than he sounds. He stands calmly with his hands behind his back until we all get fairly quiet. His uniform is faded but pressed.