Gloryland (17 page)

So I walked away from that fool, who just stayed there with his mouth open and didn’t do nothing cause he didn’t know what to do.

I’ve seen men out of their minds on a battlefield and no bullet touches them, while men who keep cool and try to reason get all shot up, and they’re lying there bleeding trying to figure out what happened to them, as if reason had anything to do with it. If something’s crazy, then you got to be crazier if you want to survive.

A lot happened to me in the Philippines. Not all of it was bad, and some of it was beautiful. Now and then I managed to get out of my uniform and breathe a little better. But mostly I was bound up in my uniform and my orders and the hate that came across the ocean with us. That sergeant in Manila, and people like him, was the real cause of the Philippine-American War. Yes, an American ship in the Havana harbor blew up, and President McKinley was assassinated in 1901. But I believe the Philippine Insurrection happened mostly cause of hate no one bothered to hide. When you call someone nigger while you’re shaking his hand, you shouldn’t be surprised when he gets angry and wants to hurt you as deep as you hurt him.

Just about anywhere I know, that’s reason enough for a fight.

D
ear God:
i’m havin a hard time breathin
it’s so hot and the air is full of water,
i’m walkin on the ground, but i’m drownin,
my clothes never dry
and neither do i,
i would be so grateful for a wind
to blow over me, a cool wind
off a mesa in arizona at night,
yeah, that would be nice,
just send that cold, dry breeze
into this green weeping filipinos call a forest,
thank you, God!

 

oh, i forgot,
i do appreciate the sun,
but i wish it were clearer,
i think even the sun
is troubled by all these clouds
so you’d be helpin the sun
as well as me if a wind
would come up and blow
the rain away, and then i could see
clearer who’s tryin to kill me,
who i’m tryin to kill,
and all the reasons why,
although i don’t know if light can do that
cause seein clear is not always bout
illumination
even when you see how water
washes all the blood away
all the rot away
all the pain away,
well, not all of it cause
lately in my soul nothin is flowin
and no breeze is blowin,
it’s just a big dark hole
full of whispers, prayers, curses,
tears, piss, and stagnant water,
so a wind out of arizona
goin right through me
would be sweet.

 

dear God:
i don’t know what to do
no more with a smile
or long black hair down to a waist
my hands were hungry to hold.
what do i do with black eyes
starin at me that way?
and how her dress
come up over hips that way
what do i do with that?
and it wouldn’t have mattered
if she hadn’t looked at me
like i was the one, the only one
that was meant to hold her
that way, and she smiled at me
as i rode by, lookin up at me,
and i almost fell off a my horse.

i become a deserter right there,
i would’ve fought for aguinaldo
right there, and every insurrecto in these islands
just for another smile from that sweet young thing,
twistin me in my saddle till the 2nd lieutenant yelled
at me bout breakin formation
as if that mattered, considerin
my heart was busted
by those deep black eyes lookin into me
that way with that smile, God almighty
why she do that to me?

W
hat I remember most bout the voyage back to California was how even the sea felt uneasy. It was more restless than I was, rolling and churning. I wondered what was beneath all that commotion struggling to get out. I’d felt like that ever since leaving Manila, and not just my stomach.

It was strange to spend all those months on ground that never moved, and the whole time feeling inside like the water out there, neither one ever quiet. I see now that even when I was in that jungle, I was still on that boat in the stormy water, being tossed round and not knowing why. I can see me hunched over and creeping through all that hot green country, and struggling to stay upright on that ship deck at the same time. If someone introduced me to the self I was then, what would I say?

“Boy, you look like hell, worse than hell, you look like the manure hell is built on top of!” Yeah, that’s what I’d say if I could talk to myself, instead of standing by this railing peering down into an ocean just as roiled up as I am.

Listen to it roar. Listen to me roar. Just like water, I am bigger than the world, and nobody knows me even if they know my name. Pacific, that’s what they call you, and the lieutenant says that means peace or peaceful, except you’re anything but. I’ve known a few people who were like this water, all loud and scary on the outside, but what are they really like deep down, so far down you’d drown before you got there?

Maybe somewhere at the bottom of all this there’s no noise, no
movement, just nothing. Maybe nothing wears the ocean like I wear this uniform or my skin. Something to cover up what shouldn’t be seen. The water knows I’m naked even though I’m standing here clothed. Though I act all right, this water can feel the lie underneath. It ain’t pacific at all, and neither am I. Who moves inside me that’s got my name, my voice, my blood, but don’t know me?

Then the ship pitched again, and I let go of my insides, but it all got lost in the spray. If I fell in, would the Pacific even know I was there? I wondered how many people and other living things had died in this water, and the water took it all in and still was itself, never became something else. I remembered the dream I had when I was just leaving home, the dream about slaves who jumped or were thrown into the sea. The sea got into them after they fell into the sea. This water can become anything it wants to, but it never forgets what it is.

If it didn’t make you so sick, a man could learn something from this water. Even when I was being sick, it made me think.

Then came a long slow deep roll to the other side, and I held on tight to the rail. It was like holding on to ice but it was better than becoming ice. I felt someone next to me and looked down, which was easy since I was already looking down on account of I was throwing up my breakfast all over the deck. And I saw shoes down by my shoes, shoes shiny with spray and polish, too bright to be the shoes of an enlisted man. It was an officer’s shoes shining there by my feet, and there were officer’s pants rising up above those shoes.

And the view didn’t improve as I looked all the way up, into the eyes of Captain Charles Young.

I’d always wanted to meet Captain Young, but not like this. Not with what I’d eaten this morning all over my coat, my pants, my shoes. I wanted to look my best when meeting one of the few colored officers in the army, a colored man who was also a West Point graduate, and who I’d heard had said that “the worst thing I could ever wish on an enemy would be to make him colored and a cadet at West Point.” The man every soldier in Troop K looked up to cause
of who he was and what he was and what he’d done, the same man who was standing in front of me for the first time.

“Captain Young!” I gasped, so excited I forgot to salute. I stuck out my right hand to shake his, and only then remembered that I was just using that hand to wipe the puke from my mouth, but it was too late to pull it away. I didn’t want to offend him, but, hell, I was offending him anyway.

Captain Young looked down at my hand and then in my face, and I saw that what’s at the bottom of this ocean was also at the bottom of this man’s eyes. And whatever that is, I still ain’t got a name for it.

“Sergeant,” he said finally, “you’re a mess. No, soldier, you’re beyond a mess, and I’ll take your hand once it’s clean, but for the moment I suggest you go below and wash yourself thoroughly.”

I stood at attention, stiff as a flag after an ice storm. Here was the man I wanted to meet more than any other man in this world, the man who made me proud to wear the uniform, and I was a disgrace in his eyes.

“Yes sir!” I said to him. “I’m sorry, sir, but ocean-goin don’t agree with me, sir. I thought the fresh air up here on deck would be better than bein down below, and it was for a bit, but—” I paused to gather myself and steady my words. “I’m sorry, Captain Young,” I said again, as if repeating it would make things better. “It won’t happen again, sir!”

He seemed to lose a little iron. His body was still stiff like he had joints missing, but his eyes were warmer. I thought I could see some part of him the army had never touched, somewhere way down at the bottom of his eyes.

“Very good, sergeant, very good,” he answered. He started to turn with the motion of the ship, but then turned back to me and asked, “What’s your name?”

I stood up even straighter before replying, “Sergeant Elijah Yancy, Troop K, sir!”

And this time I saw just a bit of a smile hiding in the corners of his mouth.

“Yancy,” he said. “Well, enjoy the rest of the voyage, Sergeant Yancy. California will be somewhat steadier than the ocean. You’ll settle down soon enough.”

He saluted, I saluted, and he walked off. The rolling of the ship didn’t seem a problem to him at all. Must be something they teach you at West Point, but I think the most important things about him he didn’t learn in school.

Of all my time on the
Logan
, meeting Captain Young is what I remember most clearly. I was embarrassed at the time, but no more, cause at least he saw that I was a human being, and every officer needs to be reminded about that once in a while. I remind myself all the time.