The world played chess, p.19
The World Played Chess, page 19
I am often so tired I can’t find the strength to chew, let alone take pictures, but Cruz also makes me eat. He won’t let me sleep until I have eaten. He jabbers at me as the stragglers come in. “We aren’t going to be like them, Shutter. We aren’t going to quit. We aren’t going to give up. Not here. Not in this shithole. We’re going to hump. We’re going to be grunts. We’re going to be marines. Then we’re going home.”
“Don’t talk about home.”
“You’re going to come to Spanish Harlem, Shutter. You’re going to come to my house. My mother is going to cook empanadillas and pasteles and we’re going to eat until we’re sick and throw up. Then we’re going to eat more, just like the Romans.” He cackles. “No more of these fucking C-rats, Shutter. We’re going to eat real food. Then we’re going to go out to the clubs and I’m going to find you a Puerto Rican girl. You have never seen women so beautiful.”
“You think a Puerto Rican girl is going to want a gringo like me?” I say, humoring him. I no longer look like a gringo. My skin has gone from white to red to dark brown. I remember my first day at the firebase when Cruz said none of us were senators’ sons, that we were all men of color. He was right.
“When you’re with me, you are no gringo,” Cruz says. “You are mi hermano. My brother. We’ll drink and dance until the sun comes up. You wait. You’ll see.”
“Don’t talk about home,” I say again.
I sleep two hours. The third hour I’m on guard duty. I’m lucky to get four or five hours of sleep a night. When awake, I stare into a darkness so complete it is as if someone has taken a brush and painted everything black—the stars and the moon, the bush, the ground. But I no longer fear the darkness. I welcome it. In the darkness I, too, am hidden. I crave a cigarette, a nicotine perk to keep me awake, but in this painting, Charlie will see the flare of the match and the glow of the cigarette for miles.
So I paint it black. I paint it black and I stay hidden. And I wait.
I wait for Charlie.
Chapter 16
July 16, 1979
As the summer progressed, William talked more about Vietnam. Perhaps I had become William’s confidant, the closest thing he had to a confessor. I don’t mean to beat my chest as some hero; I was far from it. I didn’t know enough about life, or the world, to have any meaningful or knowledgeable opinions about anyone or anything, which I believe is why William talked to me. He didn’t have to maintain his pride or protect his image. I wasn’t his parent or his priest, so he had no obligation to confess. I didn’t judge him, so he had no reason to be defensive. I didn’t expect him to be anyone, so he had no reason to be anyone but himself. He just needed to get those stories out, to purge an evil spirit. And I just happened to be there to listen, without asking a lot of questions, without condemning or trying to console, without approving or disapproving, without trying to minimize what had happened or what William had been through. I was the blank pages of a journal William could fill with the stories cluttering his mind, the ones that became the nightmares that haunted his sleep and led him to the bottle and the drugs. He could fill those pages honestly, without worrying about any commentary or requests for clarifications, without me judging him. He could just get the stories out and, maybe, I don’t know, maybe feel a little better.
I liked to believe so.
Because, man, it was hard to listen to many of those stories.
“I made a mistake,” he said one afternoon in the garage as the drywall was being installed in the remodel. “I gave up in school. After I lost my scholarships. I gave up, and I paid for it.”
“Vietnam?” I said.
He nodded. “I could have gone to college.”
“I know,” I said.
“I don’t mean the schoolwork. Hell, I could have done the schoolwork in my sleep. I mean, I could have paid for it. Like you. I told myself I couldn’t, but that was just an excuse. It would have been difficult; my parents didn’t have a lot of money with six kids, but I could have worked and taken classes at the community college for two years and then transferred to a university.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was a punk. I quit when I lost wrestling. I thought wrestling was my identity—the little guy who could wrestle like a snake. I was lightning fast, man. Students used to come to our matches just to watch me.” He shrugged. “After the injury, I didn’t have an identity. I became the fuckup, the guy who got stoned at lunch and screwed around in class. I stopped trying to get good grades and instead tried to get attention. The more my parents pushed me, the more I rebelled. I didn’t fully understand the consequences of my actions until that afternoon when my dad handed me my draft notice and I realized I was going to Vietnam.”
I thought of my jump into Ed’s pool and my other stupid stunts. Was I after an identity? Would there be a consequence for me as there had been for William?
I also thought of a movie I’d watched with my dad, On the Waterfront. I thought of the scene in the car when a young Marlon Brando told his brother, Charley, that he could have been somebody, but that he’d never had the chance. That his brother had never looked out for him, and he’d turned out to be nothing more than a punk.
“Regret is so much harder to live with than failure,” William said. “You got a chance to be somebody and to do something. Man, I envy you.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m class valedictorian. It’s kind of embarrassing to say I’m going to community college.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I got into Stanford, but my parents can’t afford it. That’s why I’m going to community college. I don’t know.”
William smiled. “Doesn’t matter where you go to school. You’ll make it. You’ll reach your dreams.”
“I wish I was as sure as you.”
“You’ll make it because you know what will happen if you don’t. You’ll end up working dead-end jobs like this, sweating your ass off breaking up cement and tearing off the roofs of houses, or humping one-hundred-pound bags of cement in the heat. Most of those guys going to those fancy schools never had to do what you’re doing. They never had to work an honest day of labor in their lives or save their money to pay their tuition. They just expected their parents to do it for them. They don’t know how most of the rest of the world lives. You know.”
I hoped William was right.
Our morning routine changed as the subcontractors worked on the remodel. Instead of driving to the Burlingame jobsite, I met Todd and William at Nini’s Coffee Shop on Bayswater Avenue in Burlingame, just down the street from Todd’s house in a neighborhood of single-story, two-bedroom-one-bath stucco homes built to house men coming home from World War II and hoping to join the workforce. Nini’s was an old-fashioned, narrow diner on the corner, with a brown retractable awning, orange barstools, and tables that barely accommodated one but often seated four. The menu was written on the wall alongside photographs and memorabilia.
I usually arrived a half hour after Todd and William because I couldn’t afford to buy breakfast. I ate at home. Todd and William were usually into their third cigarette and multiple cups of coffee by the time I arrived to get my assignment for the day. The first time I met them there, I followed Todd to the cash register and noticed that he pulled a toothpick from a container and stuck it into his mouth. The accessory I had deemed to be part of his tough guy image was just a tool to remove food stuck between his teeth. I laughed that I had given the toothpick so much more significance.
Most mornings, Todd gave William our assignment then left to bid other jobs. William pulled napkins from the dispenser on the table and drew intricate diagrams with dimensions. He laid the napkins on the table as he went, a step-by-step instruction manual on what I was supposed to do to prepare a jobsite while he bought tile, glue and grout, and other supplies. More than a few homeowners would do head turns when I pulled out those napkins and used them to rip out their countertops.
I worried about William. The shake in his hands had become more pronounced. I’d read that Parkinson’s could cause such a shake, but I didn’t think that was it. I’d also often catch William on a job with a distant, distracted gaze. He’d lost his joie de vivre, the chuckle in his voice that had kept the work site lively.
This morning I was to accompany William to a jobsite in Redwood City where Todd had contracted to retile a kitchen counter and backsplash. Todd wanted the project completed in a day so we could get back to the Burlingame remodel. My job was to make sure that happened.
I left my Pinto parked across the street from Nini’s and jumped in the passenger seat of William’s El Camino. Nini’s was close to a 101 freeway on-ramp, a too-short span before cars had to merge into morning traffic. William punched the gas, and the El Camino leaped forward with a growl I felt in my stomach, like the feeling of going over a hill riding a roller coaster.
Just as quickly, William slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing a blue BMW that had changed lanes and cut us off. William laid on the horn, and just as quickly, the woman driving the BMW raised the middle finger of her right hand and flipped us off.
William didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The same dark look shaded his face as the night of the softball brawl. I felt the El Camino accelerate until its front bumper was within inches of the BMW’s back bumper. The woman sped up. So did William. The woman tapped her brakes, William didn’t. I thought we would plow into the back of her car. She must have had the same thought because she didn’t try that again. She kept shifting her eyes from the rearview mirror to the side mirror. From what I could see, she looked young, with long dark hair, and afraid.
She took the next exit. William followed. She ran the stoplight at the end of the exit, turning right. So did William. A horn blared, the car on a collision course with the passenger side of the El Camino. I braced for impact, my stomach in my throat.
The car missed us.
William never glanced at me. Never said a word. His eyes, and his mind, were singularly focused on the BMW. The woman took a sharp left on a residential street. William followed. She took another right. William followed.
I didn’t know what to say at this point, so I said nothing.
The game of cat and mouse continued. When we reached the El Camino Real, the woman switched lanes, cutting off cars. William stayed right on her bumper. After several miles she took a sharp right, then made a left and drove into a garage beneath an apartment building.
William followed her.
Now I was scared.
“William.”
He ignored me. The woman parked the BMW in a stall by the elevator. Before she could get out of her car, William pulled behind her, threw the gearshift on the steering column into park but left the engine running.
The woman kept peering at the side and rearview mirrors. I could see the terror in her eyes, and I knew she was contemplating making a run for the elevator. I didn’t know what William might do, but I hoped she wouldn’t run.
Her car door opened.
William opened his door. I almost said, “William, no,” but the woman hurriedly shut and locked her door. William shut his door. I could see now the woman was crying, tears of fear.
We sat, at a standoff, for another minute or two that felt like ten or twenty. Then, slowly, the dark cloud lifted. William looked over at me, his eyes once again that crystal blue. He reached up, lowered the gearshift on the steering column into reverse, backed up, and drove from the building.
I let out a sigh and had to concentrate to keep my legs from shaking. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
When we reached the El Camino Real, William lit a cigarette and took a drag, blowing smoke out the open window. After another drag, he looked over at me and his mouth inched into a grin. Then he said something I had never considered. “We just saved that woman’s life.”
I didn’t ask how. He told me anyway. “Remember when I said you won’t fail, because you understand what the consequences will be if you do?”
“Yeah.”
“So does that woman. She’ll never flip off another person as long as she lives.”
I gave what he said some thought. “You scared the shit out of her.”
“That was the intent. Better me than some guy who would have harmed her. People have been shot for less.”
“What if she wrote down your license plate?”
He shrugged. “She didn’t.”
“But what if she did?”
He shrugged again. “What’s she going to say?” He blew smoke out the window. “She’s happy to be rid of me. In her mind, she doesn’t want to provoke me and possibly relive the experience.”
It had been a hard lesson learned for the young woman, certainly, but William was right. It was a lesson that might someday save her life. Mine, too. I have never flipped off anyone in the car. I’ve wanted to, many times, but the look of terror on that woman’s face, even after all these years, remains as fresh as the day it happened. I told that story both to Beau and to Mary Beth when each got their driver’s license, but the story doesn’t have the same impact on them as it had on me, because they didn’t experience what I experienced. They didn’t see that raw, pure terror in the woman’s eyes. Both said they would outsmart the driver—drive to a police station, or call 911 on their cell phone.
They’re right, to a degree.
Cell phones have changed the landscape, but so, too, has the increased use of handguns.
“You could,” I tell them, “except the guy might not be content just to follow you, as William did. And the guy might be certifiably crazy.”
My children’s reaction is proof that you must experience some things to fully appreciate them, and to not make the mistake of doing them again.
June 27, 1968
Cruz kept saying, “You don’t find Charlie. Charlie finds you.”
We stepped from the bush to a grove of elephant grass two meters tall and maybe twenty meters across to the next tree line. A fist went up from the marine walking point. Whippet. Cruz had insisted Bean take a mental break. The signal to halt was passed down the line. We dropped, waited, watched. No breeze blew the grass. No sound filled the bush. Late afternoon, the sunlight coming through gaps in the canopy were thin slants of green light filled with insects. We were being cautious. The grass is a good place for an ambush.
I waited for the hand signal to proceed. Instead, I got a signal that Whippet had eyes on three NVA. Within seconds I saw the soldiers marching through the bush to our right. Our lieutenant gave hand signals to stand down. Not to fire. Cruz told me the VC always march in threes. One soldier alone might surrender—Chu Hoi in Vietnamese. One might convince a second to also surrender, but one of three is likely a hardcore Ho Chi Minh true believer, and he will prevent the other two from surrendering.
True or not, I don’t know, but three more VC came down the trail, so close I could hear their whispers. They gave no indication they knew we were there. More hand signals. This time I didn’t need them. I could see a column of twenty, maybe twenty-five, NVA soldiers coming down the same trail. Now it was definitely on. There was going to be a brawl.
“Not good,” Cruz whispered. Then he said, “No. No.” But our lieutenant, Brad Dickson, he with a month of experience, signaled to open fire. He figured he’d found Charlie.
He was wrong. Cruz was right. Charlie had found us.
The column of twenty was just the tip of the spear, and the spear, we soon learned, was a company of NVA dug into the hillside across the elephant grass. The high ground. The column on our right had flanked us and placed us in the kill zone.
Charlie knew we were coming. The three soldiers served to give us a false sense of superior firepower.
Mines buried in the grass erupted. I dropped facedown into a shallow ditch. All around me I could hear the pop-pop-pop of M-16s, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire as 7.62 mm rounds whistled overhead. Mortars and RPGs exploded. It was as if all hell had broken loose, as if Lucifer had opened the fiery gates and unleashed his demons. The tall grass provided no cover. Guys were getting hit, getting blown up, screaming “Corpsman” over the sound of war. I managed to get to my knees, lift my M-16, and open fire in the direction of the tree line. I fired on fully automatic, then dropped again, trying to get the goddamn rucksack off my back. I felt someone yanking on the straps.
Cruz freed me.
He was standing, as if oblivious to the chaos, like he was Superman and the bullets couldn’t kill him. I yelled at him to get down, but Cruz stalked off, yelling orders, yelling at our machine gunners to open fire. “Sixties up! Sixties up!” He waved the mortarmen to return shells. We had been trained to unleash firepower and push through the ambush. Each rifleman who carried a 60 mm mortar round handed the round to the mortarmen and provided cover fire as they moved up. Our job was to keep the NVA occupied, but Charlie had a bead on us, and their mortars were exploding on top of us. I heard our radioman call in coordinates for the gunships and air strikes.
I couldn’t tell a second from a minute or a minute from an hour. I just knew that I was popping off rounds—until I heard the rounds coming back at me, whizzing past me in the tall grass. Shit. We were sitting ducks.
Not this duck.
I switched to semiautomatic, fired three rounds, then belly crawled to a different, unoccupied spot. I fired again. Crawl. Fire. Crawl. I kept firing three-round bursts and crawling through the grass until I crawled out of it. I was positioned at a forty-five-degree angle to the hillside. I could see the NVA soldiers dug in. I switched again to fully automatic, and this time, with aim, I opened up. The hillside behind which the NVA had dug in popped. I saw NVA falling back and dropping down. I spotted the machine gun that was unrelenting, and I emptied another magazine. Then tossed two grenades. The machine gun went quiet.
