The World Played Chess (89)

“Sure as shit,” said another. “They’re all VC. I’ll bet she gave us away, gave the NVA time to ambush us.”

I looked up and saw her in the distance, small and fragile, just a shadow really, her cone-shaped hat and white shirt against the fading light.

“What do you want to bet I can hit her?” one of the guys said.

I heard someone say, “Don’t bother. You’re just wasting ammunition.” And I realized it was me. I was not thinking, This is an innocent woman. I was thinking we shouldn’t waste ammunition.

The first guy took a shot. Mama-san never looked up. She never looked over. She just kept working.

The second guy shouldered his rifle, shot. Missed.

The third guy also missed.

They looked to me. Like I was one of them. But I was not one of them. I was not like them. I was not going to shoot at an old woman.

I looked to the old woman, and suddenly I was hovering over this shell of a marine I no longer recognized, this marine I did not know. I watched as he raised the barrel of his M-16 and put the stock to his shoulder. He’s not going to pull the trigger, I told myself. He was just going to put the sights on her and pretend to pull the trigger. He was not going to shoot an innocent woman.

She was a dark shape against the fading light and the red horizon. Too far. She was too far to hit.

He squeezed the trigger.

The old woman fell over.

I lowered the rifle and looked to the three soldiers. No one said anything. No one’s facial expression changed. They stood and fell out, humping across the rice paddies, past the old woman’s body. As we passed, they never looked over at her. They didn’t care.

But I looked.

I saw the face.

Not an old mama-san. A boy. Maybe seven or eight years old. A child.

His eyes were open, staring up at me, pleading for an answer. Why?

I had no answer.

I didn’t know why.

I see that young boy’s face every day.

He walks down the streets I walk, sits in a passing car, plays soccer on the soccer fields with other kids. He eats in the booth next to me in restaurants, sits in the movie theaters I attend, stands in line when I wait for anything. I see him at night when I close my eyes. I see him in the morning when I wake. I see him in the shower and in the mirror when I shave.

He is death.

Death follows me.

The young boy haunts me. He has a right.

I took his life.

He’s taking mine.





Chapter 26


June 17, 2017

I drove down to Los Angeles to pick up Beau after he completed his first year at UCLA. There had been some talk of him staying in LA, about a job working with a friend at a golf course, but ultimately, Beau decided he wanted to come home. Elizabeth had too much going on at work to make the drive, and with Mary Beth still in finals, we thought it best that Elizabeth stay home and keep Mary Beth on track.

I helped Beau carry his belongings to the car. It wasn’t much. I was amazed at how little one could live on, the simplicity of college life. It made me think of William again, what little he had in Vietnam. Beau’s freshman roommate, whom I had never met, had already checked out, leaving just the elevated bare mattress and pinholes in the wall where the Star Wars movie posters had hung.

He and Beau got along fine but they weren’t close friends and didn’t socialize. After nine months living together, they headed for home, and with an undergraduate student population of forty thousand, it was unlikely they would see much of each other again.

“You ready?” I asked Beau.

“Hungry,” he said, which was always his answer. “Can we hit Tommy’s on the way home?”

“What’s Tommy’s?”

“Oh, Dad, you have not had a chili cheeseburger until you’ve had Tommy’s.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell Beau that because of a weird iron issue with my blood, I had become primarily vegan. And this was one of those opportunities when I figured a chili cheeseburger with my son would have a far greater impact on my memories, not to mention my cholesterol and fat levels, than on my iron count. And I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to create a memory.

We ate the burgers at an outdoor bench in glorious sunshine, then jumped in the car and headed for home. I kept waiting for Beau to turn on the radio and use the aux cord to plug in his playlist, but he never did.

“Did I ever tell you about my final drive home from law school behind my buddy Thomas?”

“No,” Beau said.

“I had an afternoon final, but Thomas waited so we could drive home together. I didn’t finish the test until close to five o’clock. We should have just spent the night, but we were both anxious to get home. We came out of these mountains and descended into tule fog.”

“What’s tule fog?” Beau asked.

“Tule fog is a thick ground fog, like driving through pea soup. The headlights on my Ford Pinto could barely pierce it.”

“Shit, really?”

“We should have pulled over and stayed in a hotel. Not that either of us had any money, but we had credit cards.”

“Why didn’t you?” Beau asked.

Good question. By the end of law school I was twenty-five years old and couldn’t blame an undeveloped frontal cortex. I had a girlfriend, but more importantly, I wanted to get away from law school. It had been three difficult years, and I wanted to put it in my past. “We should have,” I said, “and I hope that if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you have enough sense to do it.”