V E T

By AWJ

 “We’ll get you home, son, don’t worry.”

I couldn’t respond with a kindly “fuck you” because of the shrapnel lodged in my cheek, but I guess it was for the better- a depressing and painful better.  I had never been a fan of the bullshit care army medics spilled on you.  I joined the forces for a brotherhood and I found it.  My boys, they were… good to me.  I never had a family before; never felt so much support from so many people.  The choppers were still on the beach when Cook blew his leg off on the land mine.  I’m still surprised he’s breathing, but that only goes so far because I’m no better.  I’m only bitter because I never actually got to fight; never got to kill in the name of my sorrows.

The Vietnamese jungle slowly became a blur of green and blue and grey as the monstrous Huey climbed into the sky.  It wasn’t the distance that obscured my vision; I realized that when the cabin began to fog as did the ever-so-concerned combat medic.  The grey sky and the shady interior of the medevac HU-1A swirled into an amorphous blob of the darkest black.  Visions of the past washed my memory in dim lighting with an endless and echoing soundtrack of the Mamas and the Papas’ California Dreamin’.  I have never had a favorite song before that came out in ’65- same year I was shipped.  Two years running in a massacre without music, it still held true.  I wasn’t dreaming of Pasadena, however, that’s more of a nightmare.  At least I’m used to it, I told myself.  It can’t be worse going back- I mean, I’m a hero.  I didn’t do anything special but I went and I fought (‘fought’) and I’m back.  Was it foolish to think they would appreciate me then; was that ever-so-fucking foolish?  I guess it was, for even still I prayed for death.

When I awoke, the blinding, sterile white of the hospital shocked my eyes so I kept them closed.  I listened to the doctors with their medical drivel and the nurses’ shoes clicking on the hard floor.  I listened to them, most likely young and beautiful, giggle and flirt with the more conscious soldiers.  I listened to the raspy and terrified screams of the less conscious soldiers.  It was like a singles bar in the depths hell.  So I kept my eyes closed.

After it was safe and I was conscious, I opened them in the shelter of night; only the distant yellow florescent lights to offend me.  To my right was the pitiful private Cook.  He looked terrible.  Blood consistently stained his sheets which they consistently changed and then dumped them on the floor in front of him.  His eyes were wide and lifeless and rolled about like marbles in his useless skull.  Gaping in shock, his mouth quivered and formed soundless cries creating a thin, silver line of drool that contoured his cheek down to his neck.  At least I wasn’t like him, but I couldn’t get excited.

I tried to open my mouth but the order was cancelled when the sting of the tightening stitches hit me like dry ice.  I didn’t need a mirror to know that the shrapnel ripped up my cheek and I didn’t need to look down to know it didn’t treat my chest any better.  I had realized how painful it was to breathe, so I limited my oxygen intake and fell back into sleep.

In the morning I was woken by frantic medical officials rushing and buzzing like bees around the gurney to my left.  I rolled my head over to check out the scene and saw a Negro boy, gurgling and sputtering with the same lifeless eyes Brooks had.  The doctors appeared to be amazed he was still alive after an airlift to the unit all while consciously sporting a bamboo -pierced neck.  I supposed he had something to live for.

“David!  So glad to see you awake.”  A pretty blonde nurse approached my bedside and blocked my only entertainment.  “Are you awake enough to identify yourself properly?”  Her hair was golden and softly fell from under the uniform hat around her perfect face.  Perfect curves protruded from the white cotton dress and perfect legs dressed in smooth stocking soon followed.  It was a dream to see her, and I hated it.

“David Libbot… born, uh… May 9^th 1947.  And, uh- 3^rd Battalion, 60^th Infantry, 9^th Infantry Division.”

“Thank you sir, are you ready for solid foods or not yet?”  Her eyes were wide with interest and curiosity; child-like and fair, despite having a body to please a god.  She would probably please anybody for the matter, and that marked her down a bit from angelic.

“God, I don’t know I just woke the fuck up, you tell me.”  She closed her eyes and took a breath; it was a ‘be strong’ sigh.

“I’ll bring breakfast then.”  She walked away with tenser shoulders and gait than she had come, and I chuckled.  I lolled my head to my right again, where I had a full view of the Negro seeing as the doctors had drizzled away.  It was apparent the offending spear was removed and gauze dressed his neck like a fresh mummy.  His eyes were closed now, and I was hoping he wasn’t dead- I didn’t want to be the only living veteran in a 50ft radius.

“Hey, Nigger, what’s your name, kid?”

In a sharp and raspy whisper exploded, “Clarence.”  He hissed and put his hand on his collar.  He shouldn’t have been talking, and yet he responded.

“Sorry, don’t hurt yourself…  My name is David, pleased to meet you.”  I was surprised at my curtsey considering the filth I threw at the nurse not even a minute ago.  “So, you’re here for a stick?”  He nodded.  “And I hear you were a true hero- medic, right?  Saving lives?”  He nodded again.  “Must have been something; running around in a shit storm of bullets, rescuing the wounded and being brought down by a filthy fucking stick…   Ironic, right?”

“R- right.”  He cracked a smile.

The nurse came back with a tray and chucked it at me, plastic on plastic clattering and insulting my ears.  “What, no smile?”  She threw the look a very nasty look at me and angrily clicked off down the hall.  The pale blue tray sported a sorry looking arrangement of a balanced breakfast.  A tiny, squishy grapefruit, a shot of milk, burnt toast with grape… something, and two very pathetic, shriveled sausages.  Typical hospital food, but I can’t and didn’t complain.  I ate them slowly, the juice of the mixture seeping from and burning my stitches.

“What ch- what chu gotta be angry for … be mean for?”  The breathy whisper flew from Clarence’s mouth and landed gently on my ears.

“I have a lot to be angry about- and it’s not the damn war.  I hear all these people talking about how messed up these soldiers get when seeing the things they do but, hell, man…  I didn’t even get to fucking fight!  I never had brothers until now and look where I am: helpless, stupid…  You fought so hard to live, what’s so great about the other side of these walls?”

“Blue… skies.”

I was much quieter the month following.  I found out I was in Saigon (or was it Chu Lai?) and hadn’t left this shitty country yet.  Miss Angelic would never ease her guard around me, but I didn’t care enough to yell at her, even if I thought she was stupid.  Clarence Sasser, (which was his last name) told me about his house in Virginia and his loving family.  He told me if I wasn’t white, I’d want to marry his sister, but then again, who was I to judge?  No one else got the jokes he told, and I’m we got a lot of funny looks- a nigger and a white boy getting along better than either to their own race.  That, too, was something we found funny.  It’s been a long time since I was able to laugh at something other at irony, even if it hurt my stitches to smile; I couldn’t help it.  He was a good kid.

Later in the week, Clarence died from an infection that reached his heart too quickly before the doctor could detect it.  I really liked him.  I hear he got a medal of honor for what he did.  Loved them like brothers, I guess.  At least I got that opportunity.

Two more lonely months went by until they put me on a plane back to Pasadena.  I arrived with missing luggage and no one no pick me up.  As the day grew faint, I was still pumping change into the phone booth trying to find a ride when a homeless fellow hobbled to me.

“Spare change, sir?”  I turned to tell him to fuck off, but as the lamplight splashed may face, he cowered and hobbled back where he came, shooting awkward glances back to me like my eyes rolled into my head and shouted Latin backwards.  I did look into the mirror, and I hated what I saw.  I look like a comic book villain, distorted features in a well-fit suit.  …But it’s not like I had another face to wear.  ‘How typical,’ I thought, ‘bad guy with the bad face.’  Was it healthy to see myself as a bad guy?  No, probably not.  Fuck that.  My brother Tom arrived in the old truck and I got no greater a reaction from him.  Still, he said nothing and we drove away.  Welcome home.

Scott Mackenzie’s San Francisco loomed out of the crackling radio as we rolled along between the luminescent streaks called Pasadena.  The silhouette of the towering city hall was a gothic giant amongst the typical Californian buildings.  I hate this town and the pompous assholes that populated it.  Our family, rather, my brother’s family wasn’t as rich or well-off or even well adjusted like the other families were.  The only part about Pasadena I was thankful for was that everyone ignored you.  Sure it probably fucked me up as a little kid, but lately I’ve been against human contact.  By lately I mean about 15 years I’ve lived.

Growing up in such an area with such a family was difficult, you could say.  I’ve always been aware I didn’t belong here, although my brother got along fine with the local rats and ruffians.  My father worked in a factory and it’s nothing less than typical for who he was: hard, cold, and perpetually drunk.  I remember when I was ten I took a sip of the dark bourbon on the top shelf of the pantry.  I heard them fight on one of the many nights they did, and I recall my mother scream something about ‘drinking to forget’.  I figured I could do the same.  I climbed onto the counter and pushed the other bottles away exposing the magical fixing tonic.  I hopped down with it and set it on the counter, looking both ways for potential witnesses.  I unscrewed the cap and took a whiff- it was putrid.  As fate would have it, the very same moment I pressed my lips against the bottle’s, my father stepped into the kitchen and dropped his toolbox in shock.  The clatter made me jump about four feet in the air, the bourbon freeing itself from my grip and answering the toolbox with a crash.  I began to cry

I knew very well from previous experiences that to fuck with my father was to sign a death warrant.  His heart was mean as was his belt, and right then and there I knew that I would never live to see age eleven.  I can still vividly picture my father’s blank yet frigid face.  He grabbed my arm and threw me in closet; that’s just what they did with us.  What felt like a thousand years later, the door opened and I was summoned to the kitchen again.  The glass shards and spilled alcohol were gone and replaced with a chair from the table and a fresh bottle, a different bottle.  He sat me down and I thought of prisoners on death row being called home and waiting for the switch to flip.  I was going to fry.  Instead, my father filled a glass to the very lip with the clear liquid.

“Want to be a big boy? Alright,” he said, “drink.”  I did.

I don’t remember how it happened that I drank a half-bottle of vodka, but I remember puking for hours.  I also remember Mom scolding and sending me out back to vomit because she wanted to use the bathroom.  I think I was locked out, too.  My mother was like that.

When the bright city lights were behind us and the dull suburban ones began I felt the pit of dread in my stomach.  I didn’t bring home the medals I promised, just an ugly scar to join the rest of them.  If it’s possible to be grimly hopefully, that’s what I was.  The dusty shack was still falling apart when Tom pulled up alongside the curb.  I swallowed, even cursing myself for still being afraid of my parents.  I grabbed my bag from the back of the pickup and walked to the front door, already open from my brother.  I stepped into the living room and dropped my bag on the dirty carpet.  Lifelessly, “move that.” 

Mom didn’t look away from the television; clearly Dick Clark was more impressive than anyone returning from the shit war going on.  Our living room was basic, plain, bare, and all the other words to describe monotony.  My aging mother was lying down, stiffly yet tired.  She was frail and wrinkled, but not from age, it seemed- more like if she was able to be folded into a smaller, more compact mother.  I expected to be hurt, but nothing came.  I relocated the offending bag to my room, which was as I discovered, emptied.  It was clear where the furniture was, for those were the cleanest squares on the wall.  I left it there and went out back to find my father.

“I’m back.”

“The fuck happened to your face, huh?”

“Landmine.”  He returned to his pipe and flask, and he didn’t say anything after that.  There was nothing to expect, and I got it.  I was always curious how my parents could speak so little in their long and dirty existence.  My brother was outside again, working on the truck that retrieved me despite not having any trouble with it.  He, too, was silent.  I only followed suit and I scanned the sky, trying to scope out the patches of blue between the dirty white.  I was answered in shitty overcast.  As if taking direction, I began a slow march into town.

 … And then I found the bar.  I can handle much more hard liquor than when I first started, so I ordered:

ü  One shot for Pasadena and the assholes who live there

ü  Two shots for growing up with them

ü  Three shots for the damn war

ü  Four shots for getting fucked up in the war, and not mortally

ü  Five and

ü  Six shots for my father to make him proud

ü  Seven shots for my mother

ü  Eight shots for Dick Clark

ü  Nine shots for the job’s I’d been fired

ü  Ten shots because I just fucking like the number ten

ü  Eleven shots in memory of Clarence

ü  and Twelve shots for depressing memoirs and goodbye letters

There will be no Thirteenth.

Sincerely,

      David Libbot, born May 9^th, 1947; 3^rd Battalion, 60^th Infantry, 9^th Infantry Division.

 DBL. HOMICIDE BY VET; PTS?