The World Played Chess (18)

“If Charlie comes through the wire, he’ll trip a flare. If he trips the flare, guys will set off the claymores and the machine guns will end it. You stick your rifle over the sandbags and spray at the wire. You do not stick your head up like you’re fucking John Wayne storming Omaha Beach. You get me? That’s just bullshit. You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Haybale said.

“And don’t call me ‘sir.’ And you damn well better not salute me. Charlie kills the officers. I’m Cruz or Clemente. Take your pick.” Kenny and I both nodded. “If your M-16 jams, throw your grenades.” Cruz turned to leave.

“The M-16 jams?” I asked, uncertain I’d heard Cruz correctly. I still couldn’t hear well out of my left ear from the shelling the prior night. Cruz said it would pass.

“Hell yeah, it jams. Didn’t they teach you boys anything? Hand me your magazines.” We did as instructed and Cruz started removing bullets. “It’s a thirty-round magazine, but thirty puts too much pressure on the spring, so you remove two rounds, which relieves the pressure, and it will work just fine.”

He handed me back my magazine, and I pulled out my other magazines to do the same.

“Sleep in two-hour shifts,” Cruz said. “You both go to sleep, you both might die, along with the rest of us. If we all happen to live, I’ll be the first to kill you.”

I nodded.

“You got that, Haybale?”

Kenny nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Cruz again rolled his eyes. “And no smoking. You flick a lighter and it might be the last thing you do. Charlie shoots at the light.”

I knew I wouldn’t sleep, and I figured there was no way Haybale would. He looked like he could run, and win, an Olympic marathon. It wasn’t drugs, either. Haybale told me on the transport that he didn’t drink or smoke. He said he was going through his tour sober so he could remember every minute, tell the family back home. Staying sober sounded smart; I thought it might also help keep me alive. Not sure about the remembering every minute though; there are already parts I’d like to forget.

Cruz started to leave. “That’s it?” I asked, thinking our welcome to the bush was Don’t be John Wayne, because that’s just bullshit.

Cruz smiled. “OJT, Shutter.” On-the-job training. He laughed. “Relax. Charlie hasn’t come to the wire for weeks. It’s mostly hit-and-run shit and random sniper fire. Keep your head down and it’ll be over in five minutes. We don’t use passwords and counterpasswords out here because Charlie has big ears, but given you’re new and I don’t want to get shot, the password for tonight is ‘Penny.’ The counterpassword is ‘Lane.’”

I didn’t know if Charlie not coming for weeks was good news or bad news. I guessed we’d find out.

I told Haybale I’d take first watch, figuring he wouldn’t sleep and would keep me company. He took out a poncho, tucked it tight all around his body, then pulled it over his head, including his face, and put his helmet on. “What are you doing?” I asked.

He pulled down the plastic. “Guys told me the rats over here are big as cats and would give a dog a good fight. Said they come right up when you’re sleeping and take a hunk of flesh out of your face.”

I didn’t know if that was truth or urban myth to scare the FNGs. I couldn’t imagine Vietnamese rats being bigger than New York City rats, or any meaner. Didn’t matter though. Haybale had put the idea of getting a chunk of flesh ripped from my face into my head. So much for sleeping. He, on the other hand, was out in seconds. I could hear him snoring. All Charlie had to do was follow the slumbering z’s to find our foxhole.

As the light faded, I waited for the moonlight but instead got a deepening darkness until I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It was so dark I felt like I’d been struck blind.

Blind, still partially deaf from the shelling the other night, with a gun that jams instead of a camera that shoots, and Private Haybale Pyle sound asleep beside me.

And I was on guard. Well, shit.





Chapter 5


June 5, 1979

The morning after the drive-in, I awoke at six thirty, pulled the jungle boots from the closet, then remembered Todd’s scornful and bemused look. I put them back. I hadn’t bought them as a statement. I just didn’t want to ruin my tennis shoes. The used jungle boots had been affordable; steel-toed work boots were too expensive on my limited budget. As I reasoned and rationalized, I had a morbid thought. Why were the boots used? Had someone just traded them in, or had the person who had worn them died?

I set the boots down with a different appreciation of Todd’s scornful look; someone who had worn those boots every day for a year, under the conditions Todd and William had worn them, likely didn’t appreciate some punk high school kid using them as a fashion statement.

I put on my white Converse high-tops instead.

I didn’t know if I was getting dressed for work or to just pick up my one-day paycheck, but I figured twenty-five dollars was twenty-five dollars and I had passed Todd’s test. I left home at a quarter to seven, wanting to be on time . . . if I still had a job.

I arrived at the jobsite before anyone else. Since I knew the padlock combination on the garage door, I unlocked it. Not sure what to do, I put on the leather gloves Todd had given me and picked up stray pieces of rebar, organizing them by size. I put other tools and supplies in the white five-gallon buckets, and with the garage floor relatively clear of debris, I picked up the push broom and swept until a throaty rumble announced the Chevy’s arrival. Todd parked in front of the house and came down the dirt driveway with his toothpick in place. He stopped to look about, then came into the garage and did the same thing. Finally, he looked at me.