The World Played Chess (53)

Bean told me if Dickson doesn’t listen and puts him in danger, he’ll frag his ass in the bush, which means roll a frag grenade up behind him.

The first guy from our company outside the wire was Whippet, a gung-ho marine from Idaho who asked to go first. We call him Whippet because he’s built like one of those lean dogs with the pointed face and he has boundless energy. We were to fall out one at a time, three meters between us. Whippet made the sign of the cross, kissed the crucifix hanging around his neck, gave all of us a big grin and a thumbs-up, and stepped outside the wire. I’d been outside the wire, but this time felt different. This felt real. We expected to engage Charlie, to engage the NVA. I had goose bumps on my arms and tingling up and down my spine and along the nape of my neck. My entire body was a bundle of nerves, adrenaline, and anxiety.

Guys who have been here awhile say the tingling is a premonition of death. I think they’re joking. I hope they’re joking.

Cruz smiled when I reached the wire. “You ready, Shutter?”

I nodded.

“You got your film?”

“Yeah,” I said, but my throat and mouth were dry, and the word came out as a croak.

“Let’s hope you don’t have to use it. I like my search-and-destroy humping the way I like my helicopter rides.”

“What?” I asked, uncertain I had heard him correctly.

“Boring.” He smiled.

I returned the smile, but mentally I was having images of a helicopter crashing and burning.





Chapter 14


July 13, 1979

During each softball game that summer, I felt like I was sitting on a keg of gunpowder about to explode. With Greg and others yelling insults at the other team’s players, an explosion was inevitable and, I believe, provoked on this Friday night so that we’d forfeit the game and no longer be undefeated. Teams couldn’t beat us on the field, so they took a different tack. They all knew the league had warned us about our behavior.

This night the chirping started in the second inning. I don’t recall what was said by who, but the umpires warned both benches we’d forfeit if the chirping got worse. That was usually all we needed to hear. The Northpark Yankees were in first place. None of us wanted to forfeit a game and risk wrecking an undefeated season.

With a runner on first base, the opposing team’s batter hit a screaming line drive to Louie, our third baseman. Louie fielded the ball cleanly and winged it to me covering second base. I grabbed the ball, turned, and fired to first base. The runner breaking toward second base, although clearly out, ducked under the ball and hit me with his shoulder, like a linebacker, planting me hard on the dirt infield. I would have yelled, but I couldn’t find my voice. The guy had knocked the wind out of me.

Mike, our shortstop, dropped his glove and went after the guy, throwing punches. The benches emptied, guys raced onto the field and in from the outfield. I managed to get to my feet to keep from being trampled, then heeded my high school education and stumbled away. I was no match for the behemoths streaming onto the field when healthy. I could barely breathe, and my shoulder burned as if on fire. I vaguely heard the umpires yelling and the fans in the stands cursing and shouting obscenities. Punches were thrown, blood, ripped jerseys. This was a brawl.

In the middle of this chaos, the other team’s first baseman, a bearded player as big as a mountain, came out of the dugout and jogged toward me. This guy would snap me across his leg like the toothpicks Todd chewed, but unlike in the fights with my high school buddies, I could think of no way out of this situation. I couldn’t run and look like a coward, though I contemplated it. I dropped my glove and expected to get killed.

A blur caught my peripheral vision. William. My height, but William had lost weight over the summer, so he was likely no more than 150 pounds. Yes, he had at one time been a New Jersey State wrestling champion, but nobody in their right mind would take on the approaching guy.

William stepped in front of me and pointed at the oncoming mountain. “I want you!” he said and went into a wrestler’s stance.

The guy shifted his eyes from me to William, seemingly uncertain that William had directed his challenge at him. He’d probably never been challenged before and certainly not by some banty rooster. William threw his glove, showing absolutely no fear. Not an ounce. His eyes had become black pinpoints.

The mountain stopped and raised his hands. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Take it easy. I got no beef with you.”

“You and me. Let’s go, big boy,” William said.

The guy actually backed up. Incredible. “I just wanted to make sure the kid was all right.”

It was apparent to me that the guy’s intent was to make sure I was all right. William, however, was in fight-or-flight mode.

“William,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s okay. William.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Shutter,” I said. William jerked his head and looked at me. “It’s okay,” I said.

It took a few seconds before William’s pupils contracted and his eyes returned to blue. He looked confused, as if uncertain where we were, as if he had gone someplace else.

Eventually order was restored. The umpires called a forfeit. Both teams took a loss. Guys picked up hats and gloves and walked off the field with buttons ripped from jerseys, welts that would become bruises, and bloodied knuckles and noses. The worst of it was a cut over our center fielder’s eye, which guys fixed with a butterfly bandage from an emergency medical kit the ball field kept.