It’s Saturday. Saturday’s casual. Jeans. Wranglers, Cowboy Cut. Green Colorado State hoodie. Black Motley Crue T-shirt that can’t be seen under the sweatshirt. Brown Adidas, no socks—a good day. We’ll spend at least some of it planning for the party.
The Wilkinsons had a Halloween party every year but only one since we moved here. They missed one about five years ago. I can’t remember why, maybe one of the kids was sick, I’m not sure. Costumes are mandatory.
This kind of stuff is important to Lori. She likes the Wilkinsons—she’s known Bev a long time–and besides, she enjoys dressing up. Last year she went as Miss Piggy. Lori never goes generic—like say, a pig. She’s always somebody.
I went as a generic drug dealer. The challenge for me is to do as little actual costuming as possible. My drug dealer consisted of a three-day beard, a backwards CSI ball cap and a worn, brown satchel. I said, “You know what I’m sayin’?” a lot. I thought I made a very credible drug dealer. People made jokes about turning Miss Piggy into a crack head.
There’s always a theme too. Last year’s was television personalities. Thus Miss Piggy.
Bev Wilkinson asked me how my costume related to television personalities. I said, “I’m the personalities’ dealer, you know what I’m sayin’?” Bev rolled her eyes and walked away.
As she pours coffee into two mugs, Lori informs me that this year’s theme is Heaven. I sip and think about that. Seems a little out-of-step for 2011. But maybe it’s not intended to be religious although I don’t know how you do Heaven without religion being a part of it.
“Might limit creativity,” I tell her.
Lori takes a while getting her coffee to her liking. She puts in too much sugar. She tries to get some back out but doesn’t have much luck. It’s not an easy thing to do.
“Why?” She’s peering into her mug like it’s the mug’s fault.
“Well, there are really only three options—St. Peter, angels and God. How do you dress up as God? Can’t be done. So that leaves two. And since St. Peter is just a glorified parking attendant, I figure there’s going to be a pile of angels. Lots of wings bumping into each other. And harps, a shitload of harps.”
“You’re wrong,” Lori says, finally taking a sip. “People can go as anyone…at least anyone dead.”
“Not Hitler,” I say.
“No.”
“Or Stalin.”
“No. They have to be good dead people.”
“I’m thinking Hell would be the more interesting theme.”
She doesn’t respond. Half a mug later, I say, “Think I’ll go with a three day growth, a backwards ball cap and a satchel. That brown one. You know where it is?”
“What’re you supposed to be?”
“Dealer…for St Peter and the angels. I doubt if God’s a user.”
She doesn’t laugh. I mentioned Lori takes these things seriously. I read somewhere that the first Halloween after 9-11, a huge number of people dressed up as angels for Halloween parties around New York City. See, that makes sense to me. The Wilkinsons are out by a decade.
Point. That’s what the lead man was called. In our squad whenever we walked in single file the point walked with his head down. Squad Leader wanted it done that way. Worst fucking job on the planet. You’re trying to find an enemy who is well hidden in a jungle that he knows better than you do and you’re not allowed to look up. “Keep that head down, MacAdoo.” Booby traps. Mines. Wires. Bamboo pits. That’s the point’s job.
Squad Leader—Bo Mestitch. We called him Lieutenant Moustache. Soldier humour. We took turns. The Squad Leader would never designate who was point until we were actually in the jungle. Otherwise guys would figure ways to get out of it. A lot of ankle sprains. “I’m hurtin,’ LT, I can make the patrol, but I don’t think I can take the point.” Couldn’t blame guys really. In at least half the times we met Charley in the jungle, if we were in single file the point guy was dead before we knew we’d been hit.
We only had two roles. Search and Destroy and Reconnaissance in Force. Same basic job—just a lot bigger scale in Reconnaissance in Force. Search and Destroy was the day-to-day work. Most of us hated it. Lots of searching, not much destroying. The Hueys would drop us into an area that Intelligence said was full of V.C. and we’d search the hell out of that piece of jungle. We only found Charley when Charley wanted to be found. Because he was ready.
Ambush. Point dead.
Sniper. Point dead.
The movies want you to believe that there were firefights going on all the time. A Hamburger Hill a week. I was in maybe half a dozen firefights in my whole tour. That was enough.
The noise is what I remember most. What I hated most. One minute it’s so quiet you can hear the sweat running down your chest and the next minute you can’t think for the noise. That’s not exaggeration for effect. You could not think. Guns, mortars. Guys on both sides yelling. Some screaming. The worst was “help me.” Wounded guys yelled, “Medic,” or “I’m hit.” Dying guys yelled, “Help me.”
Then you focused and fought back. Because that’s what you’d been trained to do. It seldom did a hell of a lot of good. When Charley had done what he’d set out to do, he’d melt away like butter into pancakes. He just wasn’t there anymore. Then you tried to do something for the guys who’d been yelling for help. If they could still be helped.
Bev
He’s an interesting man, I suppose… different. I can’t say that I dislike him although if he wasn’t married to a very good friend I probably wouldn’t care to spend time with him at all. He’s not handsome, I don’t think, but he’s not unpleasant to look at either, not really. Tall, quite a nice build for someone his age. Although I don’t know exactly how old he is. Older than he looks. And older than Lori. Of course, those are guesses. A fair amount of grey. But there’s something about his eyes. They’re not pleasant at all. They’re very blue and I like blue eyes normally but his are wrong somehow, too lacking something… joy maybe or vigor. He isn’t a man who laughs much although he does say funny things sometimes. But he doesn’t laugh then either.
I think a lot of it is that he stares. I don’t know that he’s intentionally doing it, you know, to intimidate or make a person feel uncomfortable. It just seems that he’s studying me sometimes and I don’t like being studied. It’s not like it’s sexual; it’s just strange. I’ve never said anything because I know Lori would be horrified to know that I’m uncomfortable with something her husband is doing.
And then there’s the arm thing. No prosthesis or anything–just that half sleeve. Sometimes I think how horribly painful it must have been to lose an arm in a grain auger. I asked an uncle who farms in Manitoba what it would be like. He said it would be half tearing it off and half chewing it up like a meat grinder. I regretted asking.
I guess I want him to wear a prosthesis just so I wouldn’t have to think about that. Lori told me she asked him about it once and he said, “Why would I wear a fake arm? If I’d lost my dick, I might go with a falsy but an arm don’t mean shit.”
At every one of our Halloween parties I’ve noticed that his costume always has him carrying something. Like the year he came as a shopper. A shopper, for Christ sake. Which was really stupid because the theme that year was wealth. His costume consisted of a shopping bag. Hung over the stump of his arm, just like he did with the satchel last year. Everything else was his regular clothes. I told him I thought he could extend us the courtesy of trying. He said it took wealth to be a really effective shopper. “That’s the connection,” he said.
When I said, “That’s incredibly dumb,” he looked at me for a long time.
Then he said, “Okay.” And nodded at me like he had suddenly turned serious. “Just imagine the shopping bag is full of money. Wealth. We’re talking symbolism here. A metaphor. What other costume in this room has that kind of literary value going for it?”
I just wish he wouldn’t always have something hanging off that arm.
* * * *
This year Lori is taking a different approach. She wants to surprise me with her costume. It won’t be a surprise. She’ll go as an angel. Even after what she said about how she could be anybody who’s actually in Heaven. I figure she’d be a kick-ass Mae West, I’m a big Mae fan—but she’ll go as an angel because that’s how Lori thinks. My job is to be surprised and admiring.
Today when I arrive home from being on the road, she’s going through magazines trying to think of costume ideas. People. Canadian Living.
“You need to be looking at magazines with dead people in them,” I remind her as I pull off the blue, open-collar shirt. Long sleeves. I don’t wear a tie to work. The pants are dress pants—rust, a nice pant–the kind that you can wear with a blazer for meetings or a sweater or just the shirt when you’re on the road. Today I made calls all day in the hills to the west of town. Nice country, farmers with money. Those are usually good days. Today was a good day. A couple of them checked out my pants. Sneaky, but they were checking. I know what they were thinking. A nice pant.
“You want good dead people, remember? You won’t find many of those in People.”
“I just can’t decide,” she looks up at me and is actually sad. I want to help.
“That year you were Dale Evans, Queen of the West—the year the Wilkinsons didn’t have a party and you dressed up to give out the stuff to the kids—I thought you looked terrific that year.”
She doesn’t say anything and looks back down at the magazine.
“And she died a few years ago so she qualifies. I read somewhere that she was a devout Christian so I can’t see any problems at all with you going to a Heaven party as Dale. Dead and good. Bingo.”
“I don’t like to re-cycle…costumes, I mean. People have already seen me in that costume.”
“Only neighbourhood kids is all.”
She shakes her head
“How about Mae West?”
“Do I look like Mae West? Am I built like Mae West?” She doesn’t say it like she’s mad or like I’m an idiot. She’s just pointing out that in her mind Mae West isn’t an option. Lori is five feet tall at the most and weighs maybe 105 pounds.
“Padding?”
She doesn’t answer.
“When I was a kid, I wore padding all the time. I went out every year as a fat man. And I was a skinny kid.”
She still doesn’t say anything.
“Wore the same thing every year. I re-cycled.”
She looks at me. Still sad.
I talk faster because I hate it when she feels bad. “I know what you mean though. I’d be out there dressed like a fat man, all padded up, and with a mask and everything, and the kids would see me and right away they’d go, ‘Hey, Rick’. So I can see where re-cycling Dale Evans, Queen of the West wouldn’t work. I still think you should think about Mae West though. Padding’s all it needs.”
She shakes her head and I wander outside to rake leaves.
First fight I got in over there was with one of our own guys. We were in a bar in Hue. I’d only been in the country for four or five days. This song came on the juke box…“We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do.” The Animals. A little way into the song, out of the blue somebody barehanded me across the back of the head. Hard.
I stood up and turned to face the guy. I didn’t know him. “What do you think you’re doing, Fuck?”
“That’s the National Anthem in this bar, Boy. When you hear it, you stand up and you sing.”
I looked around. Everybody was on their feet. Some had their arms linked. The only people who weren’t singing were me and the guy who hit me and a few people who were watching us to see what would happen. I hit the guy once but I didn’t get him real good and he beat the shit out of me for what seemed like a long time.
When I got up he was grinning at me. He must have chewed snoose because his teeth had the same brown-yellow stains that used to be on the counter of the five-and-dime back home. Same stains as the teeth on the first guy my Mom went out with after my old man took off with a blues singer from Billings, Montana. Hotbed of blues, Billings.
“Nice teeth, Fuck.”
He laid into me again for quite a while until some guys finally pulled him off.
I couldn’t go out on my first patrol for a couple of weeks while I healed up.
My first patrol. Search and destroy. I was point. Didn’t see a Goddamn thing. But at least my face had stopped hurting by then.
I always stood up and sang the song after that.
I killed some people. I’m not sure how many. Sometimes when you’re shooting into the jungle you just don’t know. You spray an M-16 burst into the trees and you hear somebody scream but you don’t really know.
A couple of times I did know. Confirmed kills. But what bothered me—still does–is the other ones. That there might be people who died—because of me—and I don’t know about it. It seems to me you ought to know for certain when you’ve killed somebody.
I think I mostly killed Viet Cong. They were the black pajamas guys. NVA were regular army. North Vietnam. Full equipment and full uniform. Nice uniforms. I don’t think I ever killed an NVA.
James
Do I like Rick? Yeah, I like him. You just have to catch him in the right frame of mind. He can be moody; no moody is not the right word because you never see him really pissed off. At least I haven’t. But sometimes it’s like he’s not totally with the program. Hazy. Not out of it but not not out of it. He’s good at his job though. Took me out on calls with him one time. He rolls into these farms and ranches and it’s like he’s the prodigal son. Pretty soon there’s a beer or lemonade, and a sandwich or something and out into the fields we go in some guy’s beat-to-shit farm truck. As soon as we’re in the fields, Rick is out of the truck and digging around in the dirt. Squeezing the heads on grain, looking around and advising these people on pesticides and herbicides. Fertilizer too. They all love the guy. At one place this old farmer and his wife, they both came out into the field with us. While Rick and the farmer kicked dirt and talked, the wife and I chatted and ate cookies she’d baked because she knew Rick was coming that day. “That man has made us a lot of money,” is what she told me. Must’ve repeated it three or four times. Every time she said it, I nodded like I knew something and said things like, “Yeah, Rick’s the best, all right.”
Bev doesn’t really like him. I just don’t think she gets Rick. Sometimes I’m pretty damn sure he does stuff just to get her pissed at him. Like his Halloween costumes. That drives Bev right up the goddamned wall. I have to laugh. My personal favourite was the time the theme was Super Heroes. (The themes are Bev’s department). Rick wore a T-shirt with a big L on it, a mask like the Lone Ranger used to wear and he had this green garbage bag looped over his arm. The stump.
We were surrounded by Batman, Superman and four or five Spidermans. Lori came as Wonder Woman; there aren’t as many options for women in the world of Super Heroes.
And there was Rick. Finally, Bev couldn’t stand it anymore and went over and asked him. When she came back to where I was I could see she was wild.
“Laundry Man. The asshole calls himself Laundry Man. He’s even got dirty clothes in that garbage bag. Dirty socks and underwear. Jesus Christ.”
Thing is I can’t say I know him as well as I know most of my friends. Lori and him, they got together eight or nine years ago, nine I think, and they got married a year later. I know he was married before, when he was really young and it didn’t last very long. He told me that. And how he went down to the States to go to school and came back here a few years later.
Farmed for a while in his late teens, early twenties—that’s how he lost his arm, and I guess that’s why he knows so much about farming. I asked him once if he’d ever go back to farming. He said he didn’t think so.
If I need help with something, he’s there right away. He’s a good friend that way. Of course, I’m careful what I ask him to help with, what with only one arm. And you never get a chance to return the favour because he doesn’t ask. Except one time. He asked me to come over and help him decide on what to wear to take Lori out for dinner for their fifth anniversary. It took us a half hour to get that figured out.
So, yeah, I like him. But the thing about Rick is I don’t really know if he gives a rat’s ass if I like him or not. Or if anybody does. Except for Lori. Even all those farmers and ranchers that think he’s the second coming. I bet he likes the dirt and the plants and that whole thing as much as he does the people.
* * * *
Lori still hasn’t made up her mind. She’s given up on the magazines and is making a list. She hasn’t let me see it but I’m guessing it’s a list of dead people who might be candidates.
“What about Florence Nightingale?” she says.
“You can never go wrong with a nurse at Halloween,” I tell her. “Somebody might choke on a sucker.”
She writes something. Some notation on the list. Maybe Florence is getting a star beside her name…a contender. “Marilyn Monroe?” She looks up as she says it.
“You’d need…uh…padding.”
She laughs and scratches that one off. We sit and drink coffee and think about good dead women for a long time. As near as I can tell we’re no closer to the answer after an hour. But I’m getting to know the list much better. A couple of world leaders. A suffragette, a pilot, three athletes, Queen Victoria (I suggested her), some small, thin women I haven’t heard of and an unnamed entertainer. I tell her the entertainer would be a great choice.
“I can’t decide on which one.”
I’d momentarily forgotten that Lori can’t go generic.
“How about Madonna?” I’m thinking Mae West half a century later.
“Is she dead?”
“Has to be,” I answer. “Live like she does—it’ll kill ya.”
“I don’t think she’s dead,” Lori says.
“Or good.”
Lori looks up from the list.
“Gone through a lot of husbands,” I explain. Which I don’t know for a fact but I’m guessing.
She shakes her head.
“Agatha Christie,” I offer. “Not an entertainer but sort of close. And she’s like Dale Evans without the horse. Good. Dead. Check and check.”
Another head shake tells me I’m not helping and I decide to leave her to it. I wash up, change clothes and gather up a couple of things I’ll need for the afternoon’s work. As I’m pulling on my jacket to leave, the plain tan jacket with the zipper, she’s still at the kitchen table, hunched over, studying the list.
“You know, what I said about angels the other day, I don’t want you to think I was dissing angels. You’d make a great angel.”
She nods and writes on the pad.
“I have to decide today. In case I have to make something. Or buy something.”
“Lawrence Cluffman called. He wants me to stop by and look at his stubble. He’s thinking of switching to Canola next year. I’ll run out there this afternoon. If you need me to pick up something…”
She shakes her head. “No. Not yet.”
Hill 950. Communications outpost at Khe San, Quang Tri Province. The big fight for the hill had been in June. Third Marine Division lost a lot of people as the hill came very close to being overrun. I wasn’t there then but a few months later I spent two ten-day stints on the hill as we were rotated on and off. My first time there was in September and amounted to R and R. No action, no patrols, just guys taking lots of pictures and eating like pigs. I saw some guys gain serious weight on 950 during those ten-day rotations.
My second stay there began October 23. This time was less of a party. We knew there were NVA in the area and couldn’t be sure there wouldn’t be another attack. I was part of a search and destroy on October 27. We saw no sign of the enemy, just some unexploded ordnance a couple of miles from the hill. We blew them up mostly for something to do.
My war ended on October 31. Another search and destroy. I was point. We had a different squad commander by then and he wasn’t as tough on the head down position for the point guy. But I knew enough by then to be able to look down and still be aware of what was ahead of me. I spotted a wire in some dense forestation. We were due north of the hill about four miles. When I saw the wire I signaled the squad to halt and took a step back and to my left. I didn’t see the second wire.
It gets real hazy after that. I remember lying there and seeing my arm on the ground a few feet away. Thinking how the fuck did that happen.
I don’t think I screamed or yelled, just swore, pissed that I’d missed seeing that wire and trying to figure out how my arm was gone but the rest of me was okay. Sam Samson, a black kid from Mobile, Alabama and the medic were over me. I told them to watch, that there was another wire but I’d been blown quite a ways from that first wire, the one I’d seen, so they were all right. Samson was yelling, “It don’t mean shit, man,” over and over and the doc kept saying, “You’re fine son, you’re going home.” I’d heard him say that to other guys and some of them had died…it was what he was supposed to say, I guess. I didn’t think I was dying. I told Samson to shut up and get my arm. He brought it to me and I held it against my chest, looking at my watch on the wrist. I was starting to get confused. The words, the language was getting all balled up. It sounded like the Doc was saying, “You’re shit, son,” and Samson was yelling, “It don’t mean home, man.” But that couldn’t be right. I was still trying to make my mind figure out what had happened and once I got it, I felt better, less frustrated. Bouncing Betty. It’s a mine that when the wire is tripped bounces up into the air before it explodes. Most guys are ripped to fucking shreds. I’m lucky…I’m lucky…It don’t mean…what? Shit? Yeah, it don’t mean shit.
A Huey flew me back to the base hospital at Khe San where they patched me up for evac. By then I was pretty out of it. The last thing I remember about my final combat day was a Marine corporal at the hospital stopping at my gurney and saying, “It’s Halloween, son. We’re having pumpkin pie. I can bring you a piece if you want.”
Lori
I can’t remember our first date. Maybe it wasn’t a date—just some people being together and then it was Rick and me. Or when he asked me to marry him. People should remember those moments I suppose but I can’t. I’ve wondered if Rick remembers that sort of thing, those times. But we’ve never talked about it.
People ask me if I love him. Bev has asked me that a couple of times. I always say, “Of course I love him. What do you think?” But sometimes I ask myself that question and then it’s not as easy to answer.
We don’t talk the way I always thought married couples should—planning vacations, discussing books or movies, how was your day at work? We’ve never done much of that. I’ve never met any of his family. I know his mother’s still alive but she’s in a home and it sounds like there’s some dementia. So maybe that’s it. But there are holes in our lives that sometimes I wish we could fill in.
I know how he lost his arm. He told me on our wedding night. I do remember that. He said he thought I should know. And I know I’m the only one he’s ever told that to. But I know so little of the rest. He’s only spoken of the war twice. The other time was when I asked him why…why he’d gone there. He said, “I wasn’t the only Canadian who went.” Which didn’t answer the question. Or even really make sense. But it was all he said.
He reads a lot. And he’s very good at puzzles, all kinds of puzzles. Crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, the ones with the words hidden in all those letters, he likes those the best.
It frustrates me sometimes that there’s a part of him that just can’t go along with things. Not everything has to be questioned and resisted, does it?
Then there are the times when he’s so thoughtful I almost start to cry. When my mother died two years ago, he was wonderful. He took care of so many things I just couldn’t bring myself to think about. So there’s that side of it. I guess it’s partly gratitude that I feel. But I’m not sure it’s supposed to be that way.
I think he loves me. He says he does. And I don’t think Rick is someone who would say that if he didn’t mean it. I say it to him too. And I think it’s true.
* * * *
Lori is going in black pajamas. Generic. At first I don’t know if I like it.
“You told me once that some of the Viet Cong fighters were women. I’m sure some were good women.”
“Can’t argue that,” I tell her. “I don’t know about Heaven though. Don’t know if they believed in Heaven.”
“I’m pretty sure some must have.”
I nod. “You’re probably right.”
She models the pajamas for me.
“It’s a great costume,” I tell her. “I don’t think Bev will get it though…or like it.”
“You don’t think so?” She’s smiling and the surprise and the admiration that are my dual obligations are genuine.
I’ve decided to go as an angel. No wings. I’m wearing a sari and a cheap imitation tiara that I picked up at a costume rental on my way home from the Cluffman farm. Personally, I think I look like a cross between Queen Elizabeth and Ravi Shankar. Lori loves it. “You’re a beautiful angel.”
“I’ve tied a string to this toy harp I picked up at Toys R Us,” I hold it up to show her. “I thought I’d loop it over my arm.”
“Yes,” she says. “I think you should do that.”