Matterhorn (81 page)

“Charge the fucking bastards, Jayhawk,” McCarthy said. “Jesus. I don’t know about you and business. You can’t make money if
you’re going to be a softy.”

The banter about the Bunker got louder and more outrageous. Make the customers throw bits of food to the rats and pop leeches
on the tables. Make them fill a hundred sandbags as a cover charge. Make them squat on their haunches or sit on a wet floor.
Make them get their water by licking the overhead pipes. Make them piss in the corners. Make them walk back to the parking
lot only to find their cars stolen. Soon all five were standing, stamping their feet, and chanting, over and over, “No resupply!
No medevacs! No maps!”

Finally Hawke sat down. The rest followed. “It’d never work,” Hawke said, taking a drink.

“Why not, Jack?” Goodwin asked.

“The government would never give us a license to blow up half the customers.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Murphy raised his glass. “Here’s to the Bunker,” he said. His head jerked up toward the
raised glass.

“And all the customers,” Hawke said.

There was another silence while they toyed with their glasses. “Ah, fuck you guys,” Murphy said. “You don’t know a good time
when you have one.”

“Typical fucking lifer, Murphy,” Mellas said. “Every shitty thing’s a good time for you guys. That’s why the government will
always get you to do its shitty jobs for it.” Mellas tossed back the rest of his drink and put the glass on the table. “You’re
fucking fools.”

Everyone was quiet. McCarthy was clearly suppressing a smile. He caught Hawke’s eye and then looked toward Murphy. Mellas
didn’t pick up on the fact that he was sailing in treacherous waters.

“Someone’s got to do the shitty jobs, Mel,” Murphy said, wrapping his hands around his empty glass.

“Well, I’ve done all the shitty jobs they’ll ever get me doing. I’m getting the fuck out. Fuck you
and
your government, if you’re dumb enough to stay in.”

“How in the hell do you expect the fucking Marine Corps to ever get its shit together if you chickenshit assholes fuck off
and leave it because you figure you can make more money someplace else?”

“Suck out, Murph. All the fucking money in the world wouldn’t keep my ass in the Crotch.”

“So why are you leaving?”

“I fucking hate it, that’s why,” Mellas said. “I’m sick of the fucking lies and covering the lies with blood.”

“I’ll drink to that,” McCarthy said, and belched.

“That’s no fucking answer,” Murphy said. His beefy arms rested in pools of spilt bourbon. The others were sitting back in
their chairs,
silly grins on their faces, watching Mellas and Murphy pair off, the hare and the bear. “You guys take off and leave it to
the liars and the asslickers and the troops get fucked over worse. You’re just chickenshit to stand up in public with a goddamned
short haircut because you’re afraid you’ll never get laid.”

Instead of accepting that the gibe hurt because it was true, Mellas lost his temper. “You stand the fuck up,” he said, rising
from his chair. His fists were clenched.

McCarthy pulled him down by the back of his utility jacket. “Jesus, Mellas, Murphy will kill you. Just because he hit a fucking
sore spot doesn’t mean you have to become a human sacrifice over it.”

“Murphy’s right,” Hawke said. “Since you been in the Corps, Mellas, how many women you dated that have gone to college and
aren’t southern?”

“Fuck all, that’s how many,” McCarthy answered for him.

“Right,” Hawke said. “You go up to D.C. and there’s all sorts of college girls working for all sorts of government offices,
but you’re there in your short fucking haircut and you’re a nigger in Georgetown if ever there was one.”

“Thank you, Theodore J. Hawke,” Mellas said. “Another pea-green philosopher.” He thought of Karen Elsked and felt empty.

Hawke leaned back in his chair. “You think I’m lying? In six months, you two”—he was pointing at Mellas and McCarthy—“six
months after you’re out of the Corps, if you get out of this place alive, you’ll be goddamned long-haired commie intellectuals
telling everybody how fucked up the war is and how you knew all along. And you know what? You’ll be lying. Lying so you can
get ahead in their world. You’ll be wearing your hair down to your ass, smoking dope, and marching and protesting and wearing
fucking beads and sandals just like the rest of them. And you’ll be doing it for no other reason than to make the girls like
you.”

“Fuck off, Hawke,” McCarthy said.

“I won’t fuck off.” Hawke leaned back into the table. “You’ll both be afraid to go back to the world and tell all those assholes
that you were good fucking Marines. Oh, you weren’t Marine legends. You weren’t
even the best. But you were good. And you’ll try to tell everyone how bad you were and how sorry you are so you won’t have
to explain how it really is. How good it can feel to do something so bad.”

“You’re fucking drunk,” McCarthy said, “but I’ll drink to that.” He did, draining his glass and then smacking it down on the
table. “I fucking volunteered.”

“Didn’t we all?” Mellas said. He stood and raised his glass, nearly falling in the process. “Here’s to the fucking volunteers.”
Everyone solemnly stood. Hawke was weaving uncertainly. Murphy and Goodwin were leaning against each other. They touched glasses
and drank. Then Mellas turned and looked directly at Hawke. He held his empty glass in front of his face and, looking over
it at Hawke with his good eye, quietly said, “Bravo has died. Bravo is risen. Bravo will fight again.” Then he raised the
glass above his head. “Mea culpa,” he added.

Hawke’s eyes focused for a moment and he solemnly made the sign of the cross. “Absolution,” he said, somewhat slurred. His
eyes became unfocused again. Mellas smiled his thanks, and he and Hawke clinked glasses. Mellas looked for a moment at his
empty glass and then let it drop to the floor. It broke. He took a full glass and held it above his head while he made a complete
turn. Then he dipped his thumb and two fingers into the whiskey and began to anoint those around him with solemn ceremonial
movements of his wrist, chanting, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mor-r-i. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mor-r-i.”

Hawke knelt down and stuck his tongue out. McCarthy solemnly placed a piece of cracker on it. He picked up a whiskey glass
with both hands and began to pour the contents slowly on Hawke’s head. The whiskey dripped down Hawke’s face. Then McCarthy
made the sign of the cross over Hawke’s head and chanted, “In the name of the colonel and the Three and a do-nothing Con-n-gress.”

Hawke knelt there with his tongue out, catching the amber liquid as it dribbled down his face. McCarthy then held up his fingers
in a V—the peace sign—and turned slowly around, his arm raised high over his head. He intoned to the now silent crowd, “Peace.
My peace I give you.” Then, with his thumb and two adjoining fingers together, high above
his head, he turned a complete circle, saying, “Deliver us from every evil and grant us peace in our day.” After that he took
the empty glass, looked at it for a moment, and shattered it against the wall. Hawke threw himself over backward and lay on
the floor, spread-eagled, staring drunkenly at the ceiling.

“Hey, Jack,” Goodwin said, “this party’s getting too fucking religious.”

In Cassidy’s room they passed around some beers. They felt the closeness that arises from sharing, as in passing a peace pipe.
Hawke talked about his number-one squaw. She’d written him a letter saying that she had a new boyfriend and that she couldn’t
go on writing to him, because she was opposed to what he was doing. The five of them drank to her continued good health and
moral fiber. Mellas could tell that Hawke was hurt badly, but Hawke didn’t let on and drank with everyone else, mocking the
end of the relationship.

Eventually the beers were finished and Goodwin, Murphy, and McCarthy wandered out to get two hours of sleep before pushing
off on the operation. Hawke and Mellas were left alone. Mellas was bone-weary and his head was spinning. He wanted to sleep
but knew this was their last night together before their new formal relationship added a layer of complication. Tomorrow Hawke
would be the skipper and Mellas the executive officer.

They fiddled with the empty beer cans in an embarrassed silence. Finally Mellas gently tossed his empty beer can at Hawke
and said, “You scared about going back to the bush?”

“Why you think I’m fucking drunk?”

They were silent a moment.

“I’m glad you got the company, Ted. It would have been a disaster if I’d have gotten it.”

Hawke smiled and shook his head. “Mellas, you dumb shit, you didn’t have a chance of getting it. You’re still a boot motherfucker.”

Mellas smiled and nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, but it still would have been a disaster.”

“Fuck, Mellas. You’ll make first lieutenant in another month or so, then a few months after that you’ll be short and all you’ll
want to do is go home. So that’s when they’ll offer it to you, when you won’t want it any more. But there won’t be any better
alternative, so you’ll take it on. And you’ll be the best alternative.”

Mellas laughed, pleased and embarrassed at the praise. “Anyway, it’ll be a pleasure to work with you. In fact, I’d seriously
think about opening up that fucking bar with you if we make it back to the world.” He laughed briefly through his nose. “The
Bunker. I’d let all the vets watch the customers through one-way mirrors.”

Hawke leaned back and smiled at the roof of the tent. Then he sat up, suddenly sober. “It’s a fucking fantasy, Mellas. At
least for eighteen years.”

“What do you mean?”

“I went regular.”

“No.”

“Yeah,” Hawke said. He tried to sound lighthearted. “Wrapping myself in Marine Corps scarlet and gold.”

Mellas said nothing.

Hawke fumbled for the right words, looking at his crumpled beer can rather than at Mellas. “You know. Shit. I don’t know what
the fuck I’d do once I got back to the world. You’re different. You’ll go to fucking law school or something and walk right
on up to the top. Me? Shit. There’s good people here. Mulvaney. Coates. Cassidy. Even Stevens. He tries.” He looked up at
Mellas. “Good guys. Good officers.”

“If I hadn’t thrown my fucking beer can at you I’d toast you.” Mellas lay back on the rack and stared at the folds of the
tent above him, watching the play of shadows from the single candle. “Murphy’s right. The troops get fucked even worse if
the good guys don’t stay in.”

Mellas thought in silence about the old Bravo Company, now gone, scattered to hospitals in Japan or the Philippines, or in
rubberized body bags on commercial airliners heading across the Pacific toward home.

“Tell me something, Hawke,” Mellas said, not looking at him but just watching the shadows on the ceiling. “Before you become
Bravo Six”—he couldn’t resist adding a small bite—“and a regular”—Hawke
flipped him the bird—“why did the colonel send us up the fucking hill the second time?” Mellas’s voice started to tremble.
It caught him by surprise. “The gooks weren’t running. Delta Company could have done it.”

Hawke took some time before he answered. “Because you volunteered. He’d cut the order for the assault but at the last minute
he told Fitch that he’d switch in Delta if Fitch didn’t want to do the job.”

Mellas sat up. The tears that had started to form when he began talking about the assault were shut off, but his throat constricted.
“What?”

“Simpson told Fitch he had two choices: get the company’s pride back for abandoning Matterhorn, which is why there had to
be another assault, or be a yellow-livered dog and let Delta Company clean up Bravo’s mess.” He paused. “And all that entails.
You know how small the Marine Corps is.”

“If I’d known Fitch volunteered, I’d have wanted to kill him, too,” Mellas said quietly, almost musingly.

“And if you’d been faced with the same choice, you’d have volunteered just like Fitch,” Hawke said.

“I know it,” Mellas answered.

“You still feel like killing Simpson?”

“Naw. You know I went crazy up there. He was just doing his job.” Mellas lay back on the cot. “I just wish he’d do it sober.”
He laughed and Hawke joined in. Then they lapsed into silence.

“The funny thing is,” Mellas said, “I still like Fitch. I’d have gone up the hill with him even if I knew.”

“Before or after you would have killed him?”

“Both.”

The two were again quiet. The alcohol blurred Mellas’s vision and threatened to pull him into sleep. Then he surfaced again.
“He still volunteered us, the poor fucking bastard. He’ll carry that a lot longer than a bad fitness report. And here I’ve
been feeling bad because I enjoy killing people.”

Hawke laughed quietly. “At least you’re over the hump on that one. It’s the people who don’t know it who are dangerous. There’s
at least two hundred million of them back in the world. Boot camp doesn’t
make us killers. It’s just a fucking finishing school.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I remember my ex-fucking squaw telling me
it was inconceivable—that was her word,
inconceivable
—that she could ever go to Vietnam like I did, no matter what the consequences. This was just before she went to Europe for
her junior year and met her new boyfriend.”

With one hand Hawke crushed the beer can he was holding. He began to work the mangled can back and forth, twisting it, bending
it. Mellas didn’t say anything. “None of them have ever met the mad monkey inside us,” Hawke added. “But we have.”

“There it is,” Mellas said.

Hawke’s voice became softer and softer. “Maybe we could have an amusement park across the street with a ride called the Mad
Monkey.” He lay across the cot, feet on the floor, eyes closed.

“You’re about to crash, Jayhawk,” Mellas said gently.

“Fuck if I am,” Hawke mumbled. “I’m just resting my eyes.”

They both laughed at the old joke. Then Hawke’s breathing became slow and regular.

“Hey,” Mellas said. “Jayhawk.”

“Hmm.”

Mellas lifted Hawke’s feet up on the cot, put a poncho liner over him, and blew out the candle. The tent was plunged into
blackness. Mellas made his way through the rain and darkness to the Bravo Company supply tent and rolled up in his poncho
liner. He fell asleep on the metal runway floor, listening to the wheezes and grunts of the sleeping strangers who would soon
share his life so intimately.