Bombingham

IN FRONT OF US, about a quarter mile, was Thoybu, a complexof straw houses among the palms. Like so many of the villages wehad run through, it looked tranquil at a distance, with felicific frondswaving above the thatch roofs. The silence, though, ought to havebeen a warning, but my head throbbed, a lump the size of a potatopressed against my anus, and I wanted to sleep more than anything. Ididn't like being in the open, and the two platoons were strung outacross the paddies. The sunlight hurt my eyes and made me dizzy, soI looked down and followed Haywood. He was over six foot and twohundred pounds. His deep tracks filled with brown water.Vester walked beside me, elbow to elbow. His face was pearledwith sweat. "Goddamn hot," he said. I didn't say anything. Maybe Igave him a half smile. "Okay, cool. Be that way if you want. Your'Bama ass gone get plenty hot before this day is over.""It's all a matter of mind over matter," I said."You full of shit.""I don't mind and you don't matter.""You tell 'im, Tibbs." Bright Eyes walked on my left. My name wasWalter Burke, but I let them call me "Mr. Tibbs" after a character SidneyPoitier played in the movies."You don't matter, neither," Vester said. "That's why your black assis here. And that rabbit over there?" He referred to Bright Eyes. "Iwouldn't even bother scraping his pale-face ass off the sole of my shoe.""I'm just on a Sunday stroll," Bright Eyes said. "Just like going tochurch on revival Sunday. Picnic on the grounds. Ham and chicken.Macaroni and cheese–""What the hell is he talking about?""Cakes and pies. Grandma makes this caramel cake and AuntClaudia, she makes a squash pie. Ever heard of that?""Shut the fuck up, you Bugs Bunny-looking motherfucker. Whatthe fuck you talking about, anyway? You see any goddamn squash pieout here?"RTO's radio crackled and the squad leader talked into it. Theywere just on the other side of Bright Eyes. I looked at Bright Eyes. Hesmiled and pushed at his helmet."It's A-okay, a cruise," he reported."There no such thing as a cruise," I said."You've just got to put an edge on everything.""He's just a edgy brother," Vester said."Hard-edged," Bright Eyes said. "Wouldn't you say, Tibbs? I mean,there's a difference. Edgy is jumpy like. But hard-edged is cool like.""Cold-edged. Like a mama-san's tit," Vester said.I didn't say anything. Mr. Tibbs would have found the conversationcontemptible."What mama-san's tit have you been sucking?""The same damn one as you.""Then you must have been sucking it the wrong way. Remind meto show you some technique. Tibbs got technique. Tibbs, you need togive your brother man a lesson in tit sucking.""Keep cool, Harvey." I quoted a line from the movie, mimickingMr. Tibbs's exacting elocution.Haywood let us catch up to him. He squeezed in between Vester andme. "I got a uptight feeling about this one," he whispered. "There's gotto be a Betty out here somewhere. I just feel it." The lump in my stomachturned over. Haywood was usually right about these things.I slowed down and it seemed that everyone did, as if the line hadrun up against an unseen tension. I squinted and surveyed the floodplain, puzzled with paddies. The river was behind and to the left ofus. Haywood pointed to a figure running away. "Who want this one?"he asked."Looks like a papa-san," Bright Eyes said. "I ain't for capping papasans.""He's legal," Haywood said."Legal, my ass." Bright Eyes looked at me for support. "Fugazi!That's fucked up."I lifted my rifle and sighted along the barrel. The man was dressedin the loose-fitting outfit we called black pajamas. We had been told itwas okay to shoot anyone in black pajamas who ran because he wasVC, running to give warning. The figure made slow progress acrossthe paddies, fighting the suction of the mud with each leap. Itappeared to be an old man, though from the distance it could easilyhave been an old woman with her hair up. I followed the figure withthe point of the barrel."You got 'im, Waltie?" Haywood asked. There were perhaps thirtyGIs closer to the figure than us."I got 'im." My heart fluttered and I squeezed off a round. Sporadicpopping came from up and down the line, but I was first. Thefigure tripped and went down."What that make? Four or five for you?" asked Haywood."Who's counting?""You are counting. But I wouldn't count that one," Bright Eyessaid. "I wouldn't count that one if I were you, Tibbs.""You are not me," I said."Lord a mighty, don't get so testy about it. I'm not saying you didsomething wrong. I'm just saying I wouldn't count that one.""Count what you want to count," Haywood said. "It doesn'tchange anything. The way it is, is the way it is.""But the brother got style," Vester said. "He so cool, he scare me.A hundred degrees out here and he ain't even sweating. Just pick 'emoff like–pow!"Haywood looked at me and snorted. He and I knew better. He wasmy age, but seemed older. He already had his short-timer's stick. Heknew how important it was to do what you had to do to get by."But I wouldn't have capped a papa-san," Bright Eyes said. "Notan old man.""It wasn't an old man.""What was it then? Looked like papa-san to me.""It wasn't your papa," I said and moved ahead."Least you could have let somebody down the line do it. Maybethey could have seen it better.""Whose conscience are you? You out of everybody," Haywood saidto Bright Eyes. "You ain't got no room to talk with that ring of babyfingers hanging around your neck.""Ain't no baby fingers on my chain." Bright Eyes pulled a chainout of his shirt. It had an ear on it from a kill he had made earlier inthe week. The ear was beginning to mold."Goddamn," said Vester. "Throw that goddamn shit away. Walkingaround like a goddamn cannibal with that goddamn thing onyour neck. It stinks.""It's my power.""Fuck your power. It stinks. This ain't Africa or something; weain't no goddamn cannibals. It stinks.""Y'all ease up," Haywood said, authoritatively. "Keep alert. I thinkwe're in for some action.""Uh-uh," Bright Eyes disagreed. "CO said, 'Contact unlikely.' "Just then a snake shimmied across my path. I froze and held mybreath. It was one of the slender, green, quick kind we often encounteredin the bamboo thickets. A kind of cobra. It skimmed across apuddle and disappeared into the spring green shoots.That's an omen, I thought, but I did not say it. I looked into theblue sky, and for a moment felt its weight. "We'll get through. We'llget through, all right," I heard Haywood saying. He had seen thesnake, too. "Oh, Lord," I heard Bright Eyes say. "Goddamn, here wego," Vester said. Then I heard popping coming from out of the treesin the village. The men in formation closest to the village fell into themud, and like a row of dominoes the line went down.I threw myself into the mud and tried to spot the snipers throughthe sight of my rifle. The fire got heavy. GIs groaned and cried out.The radio crackled and word came down the line to dig in, but it wasall I could do to lie still and hope to stay clear of the rounds pattingthe mud all around me.The fire slackened after ten minutes, and we were ordered tomove forward. By now I was not thinking about my head or mystomach. My senses were outside of me like the feelers of an insect,aware of every movement, every sound, and every smell. We all wereinsects, ground beetles testing the mud with each step lest we set off amine. We gained a couple of hundred feet before we fell back in heavyfire. Haywood spotted an area in the trees just in front of the village."Bust caps right along in there," he directed, and the four of usburned up a lot of ammunition concentrating on the one clump oftrees. After ten or fifteen minutes, the fronds were dangling from thetrees and our fire received no answer from that clump. I couldn't seeour line anymore because the men were low, digging shallow holesin the mud into which to slap their bodies. Smoke wafted across thefields. After a while, a Chinook came across, headed toward a Medevacflare, but the chopper drew so much fire, it couldn't land."We need some air. Why don't they send us some air?" Vesterasked."It won't be long," Haywood assured him. "Lieutenant's called forit by now. Just lay flat and we'll get through this.""We need some air," Vester yelled across to the squad leader."It's on the way," the squad leader said. He was from Boston, andhe sounded like it."When? Next Christmas?" Bright Eyes yelled."Be easy. Be easy," Haywood said. His voice was resonant, andBright Eyes squeaked. Their voices reminded me of the drones andchirps of crickets. Vester whined. They were a jazz trio of insects. AndI . . . I was the singer. I was Nat "King" Cole. Cool and mellow. Only Ihadn't begun to sing yet.The VC opened up with thirty-caliber guns, twenty or thirty ofthem, and jackhammered all around us. I looked at Haywood, and heraised his head and looked back. His eyes were round and bright. Heopened his mouth to say something when a round peeled his headopen just above the brow."Goddamn," Vester said, "goddamn, goddamn."I closed my eyes and put my face down in the mud. For whatseemed like a long time, I didn't think about anything, but felt myselfloosen and drain over the paddies. Then a familiar uneasiness cameto me as I began to pull together again. For a second I allowed myselfto hope that Haywood was alive. I had seen the bullet catch him, butmaybe it was only a flesh wound, the kind that cowboys get on TV."Goddamn, goddamn."I raised my head and looked again. Haywood was dead, as dead asany dead man I had seen. I tried to swallow what that meant; it meantnothing to me. I gripped tighter on my rifle and tried to crawl ahead,away from Haywood, but the firefight kept me in place. I put themud-slicked rifle stock against my shoulder and sighted at Thoybu.They kill us; we kill them. The sight passed over the place where thepapa-san had fallen, and I thought that if I hadn't shot at the papasan,then Haywood would be alive. It should have been me, since Ishot at the papa-san, since I felt dead already, it should have been me.I had imagined that it would be me before Haywood. After all, he wasthe one who dreamed about what he would do back in the world. Hewas going to go to college, to make something of himself.I had promised Haywood that if I survived him, that I would writea letter to his mother and father. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, I was withyour beloved Haywood at the end, and I can assure you that it came quickly andwithout any pain. In his last breath he whispered about you, about home, abouthome sweet home….He had said he would write one for me, too. I toldhim not to trouble himself.When the fire slackened, I slithered over to Haywood. Bright Eyeswas already beside him."He's gone," Bright Eyes said.Haywood didn't look too bad. Part of his head had broken open,but had fallen back into place, held by a flap of skin. They could havea funeral with him."Medic!" Vester screamed."Are you hit? Are you hit?" I screamed back.He was crawling to Haywood. "Goddamn. Goddamn.""Quit your damning," Bright Eyes said. "It's over. He's gone."I looked where the RTO and the squad leader had been. Theyweren't there. Our line was still. "Just be quiet," I said. "Just be realquiet for a while." For a moment it seemed like a beautiful summerday. Blue sky. White billows of cloud. The rustle of a light breeze. Itcould have been Alabama. Alabama was "the Beautiful State." That iswhat the word meant. Haywood knew this. He knew a lot of what Iknew. He was from Eufaula. I was from Birmingham. Dear Mr. andMrs. Jackson … Dear Haywood's Mother and Father … Dear Haywood….I closed his eyes, and now I had his blood on my hands. "Let's be quietfor a while."The thirty-calibers picked up again; the mud became soupy withblood and piss; the sun became hotter, and the air filled with bitingflies. There was the smell of open bowels, smoke, and oil. The gunswhined and popped incessantly. I lay beside Haywood and nestled myface in the mud beside his torso. The mud was warm and smelledfaintly of manure.