Sergeant Dickinson (12 page)

“No. Dennis and I hadn't seen each other in a long time. His mother was afraid I was going to take her precious son away from her. I wrote you about it, didn't I?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn't sure. It happened during a time when I would have given anything to have two days in a row that were the same. I didn't have anybody I could talk to about it. I had a vague feeling that I wrote you, but I couldn't remember for sure. He was your friend, too.”

“He was. A hard cock has no conscience, I guess.”

“Neither do wet thighs.”

“Very good. Excellent repartee.”

“I went to him, Ray, he didn't come to me. That's something you're going to have to learn to live with.”

“Just what I need. Something to live with.”

“Do we have to do this?”

“I guess not. I don't suppose it matters much any more.”

I reached over and took an ashtray off the nightstand and put it on the bed between us. On its bottom were the words Disneyland Hotel.

“The manager must have stolen it from the Disneyland Hotel,” Elaine said.

“And decided to use it in his own motel, probably to replace one that was stolen,” I offered.

“I had a dream about you. I think it was right after Dennis was buried. You were in Saigon. You were drunk and you had fallen down between two cars that were parked at the curb. You had that same stupid grin you always wore when you were drunk. Then one of the cars started up and moved forward and crushed your head between its bumper and the bumper of the other car. You were still wearing that silly grin, you didn't even know you were being killed. After I had that dream I started wondering if I still loved you.”

“What do you want from me, Elaine?”

“I want you not to die. I want you not to leave me. I want you to stop being a soldier and to stay with me. I don't want much, do I?”

“Not much.”

“When you were on your first tour I used to wish sometimes that you would get killed just so it would be over, so I could forget about you. My hair was falling out, I had a bald spot on the back of my head, I worried so much about you. I never told you about that, did I?”

“No, you never did.”

“I stopped watching the news on television and my hair grew back.” She laughed.

I laughed too.

“Your enlistment is up soon, isn't it? Unless you've already reenlisted?”

“Jesus. You kept track. No, I haven't reenlisted.”

“Couldn't you take leave while you make up your mind? You could stay with me. At least we would have that much time together if you decide to go back.”

“I don't know.”

“I'm not going to beg you, Ray.”

“All right. All right.”

We lived in a one-hundred-unit complex surrounding a small glade of grass and pines. From the terrace you could see the pine squirrels gamboling on the grass and in the branches of the trees. Our apartment was in a corner of the building and from the window in the bedroom you could see out onto the street where students parked their cars before walking to the junior college three blocks away. They were all so bright and shiny, like their cars, even the acne-marked ones looked innocent and untested. During the day when Elaine was at work I watched the squirrels and the students. In my mind I rolled grenades in among clusters of kids and watched the detonations turn them into meat.

Elaine had a yellow-striped kitten I played with. I held a length of string just outside of its reach and when the kitten swatted at it I pulled the string away. When the kitten tried to quit the game I danced the string across its nose until it swatted at it again, then I pulled the string away.

“Why don't you let the poor thing sleep?” Elaine complained.

“I read somewhere that cats need eighteen hours of sleep a day in order to remain healthy. I want to see if it's true.”

“By depriving it of sleep?”

“Sure.”

“God, Ray, you're going to have that cat as neurotic as you are.”

“Well, you know.”

The sounds of a woman crying brought me out of it. Elaine was standing against the door, her hands clutching her elbows across her belly.

“What's wrong?”

“You hit me. In your sleep.” The voice was not fearful; it just said the words.

“I don't remember it.”

“You were sleeping. You hit me with your elbow. Why did you hit me? And when I woke up you were sitting up and you had your hands out like you were choking somebody and you were making these horrible noises like an animal, you were whimpering.”

“I had both hands out? Not one?”

“No, both, like you were strangling somebody, like you wanted to kill him.”

“That's strange. In the dream I'm only using one hand.”

“It was a dream? You had a dream?”

“I have it a lot. The same one.”

“You hit me in your dream?”

“It wasn't you. It was just somebody who was behind me. I wasn't trying to hurt her, I just needed room to move. Somebody was trying to kill me.”

“You were just pushing her out of the way?”

“Yes. An old peasant woman.”

“Oh God, Ray, I don't know…I don't know…”

“Come on back to bed. I never have the dream more than once a night. Sometimes not that often. I wouldn't hurt you.”

“I'm afraid.”

“Do you want to sleep on the couch? Or I can.”

“No. No. I believe you.”

She huddled under my arm. It was almost as though nothing had happened. I tried to stay awake but couldn't. I did not have the dream again that night. I dreamt instead of Robbie burning on the wire when the flame thrower exploded on his back. Everybody was running and Robbie was burning on the wire and I had the red laterite dust in my mouth. This time the noises I was making woke me up before they did Elaine, and I slipped my arm out from under her head and rolled over on my stomach to keep them from coming back. I decided to find some sort of work to keep me tired enough not to think and not to dream.

It was good enough work. It was not the best paying work but it was good enough. Probably what was important was that it felt good when the day ended. It was out-of-doors work. The hours were long and you got more exercise than you needed. In November the spray season would be over. There was no guarantee that there would be another season. There were only a few groves left that had not given way to housing.

We turned off the truck engine and tightened the hose valves, letting the chemical drain out of the hoses. The nurse truck joined us and Perez got out. We opened our sacks for lunch.

At the end of the irrigation ditch was a schoolyard with monkey bars and tether balls and slides and other equipment that children play on in order to build strong bodies and healthy minds. It was recess, and the screams and laughter of the children wafted over.

“I wish I was a kid again,” Perez said. “Then I wouldn't have to work.”

“I've been working all my life,” Bob Miles said.

I had forgotten my lunch. Bob Miles picked an orange
off a tree and handed it to me. “Here,” he said. “It's better than nothing.”

It was a simple thing to do. A gesture. I could have done it myself.

“Why, thanks, Bob.”

Bob Miles was embarrassed. I wished I had taken the orange and kept silent.

I hoped the banks of the irrigation ditches in the next grove were soft dirt. They were harder walking than the concrete-hard ground we were on now but I liked the give of the softer soil under my boots.

A Skyraider had buzzed the town. Then it buzzed the camp. Then it buzzed the town again. Then the camp. Then the town. You could hear the pilot hooting like a rodeo cowboy. I could not remember how I knew that the pilot was laughing, but I was sure that be was. Afterward, the Air Force grounded him. But it was something to think about.

After forty-five minutes we started the truck engines and opened the valves to the hoses. I picked up my spray gun and began spraying. I had fallen asleep during the lunch break. My legs had twitched and jerked and once they had jerked strongly enough to raise me off the ground. More than the starting of the truck engines, my legs had waked me up. It was a crisp blue-sky day.

The girl I lived with smelled bad before and after coupling. She did not know this. She thought it was the smell both of us left after love-making. I did not tell her.

She was inhaling gasoline fumes. It was a very quick high. She passed the bottle to someone, then demanded it back. Then
she got sick, she had a headache, she said, and sbe went to sleep on the floor. After awhile she drank some wine with everybody else.

On the way home she was very sick. She had thrown up and vomit streaked the side of the car. Some of it was on her cheek.

“
Don't leave me,” she said. “I love you.”

“
I won't,” I said
.

“
Please don't leave me. I won't get sick again
.”

“
I won't. Be quiet now
.”

“
You're going to leave me. I can tell
.”

“
No. You're wrong. Here. You have something on your cheek.”

In the morning the blinds were not drawn so that alternating slats of sunlight and shadow striped the bedroom. Elaine was getting dressed.

“How can I know what to say when you don't even tell me what you're thinking?” she said.

“Don't say anything.”

“They're going to ask me, though.”

“Then say whatever comes to mind.”

“Oh, hell. They're my parents, honey.”

“I'm sorry. I don't know what else to tell you.”

“All right. I'll tell them something. I'll tell them that you're going back to school next semester. Is that all right?”

“That's fine.”

“Is that what you'll do then?”

“What?”

“Go back to school. Isn't that what we were just talking about?”

“I don't know. I might.”

“Oh, Ray.”

The first time I was shot I fell down and thought, this can't be happening to me, although I had always known that I would not live through the year. Then I had to crawl fifteen feet and it took a long time because it was such a long distance. “I'm going into shock,” I told the medic. “No, you're not. You're doing fine. Where are you from, Sarge?” the medic said. Then the medic gave me morphine and helped me to the rear. On the way, we came upon a huge hole that was two feet deep. “How am I ever going to get around it?” I asked. “We'll just walk around it,” the medic said. Then I fell into the hole. When they lifted me into the helicopter I was in great pain and the medic on board gave me morphine. In Saigon they gave me morphine again. It was a wonder to me that I did not die of good care, but I kept my mouth shut and waited for them to administer each shot.

My legs jerked and I woke up. It was afternoon now. The sun did not slant through the blinds. I got dressed and went out for a walk. After a while I came home. Elaine was back.

“Connie wants me to marry him. He was at my parents'.”

“Who is Connie?”

“Conrad. You remember him.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Don't you have anything to say?”

“Do you want to marry him?”

“I don't know. I wanted to hear what you would say.”

“Does it matter?”

“Certainly it matters. It matters very much to me.”

“I see. Yes. I suppose it does.”

I could see the bones of my hand. Then I blinked and I could no longer see the bones for the blood. “I'm going into shock.” “No, you're not. Where are you from, Sarge?”

When you are dead, it is just like sleeping.

I hate weekends.

It would be Wednesday before we finished the grove. Three hundred and fifty acres of it would be gone next year. Housing. We watched the children at recess.

“I wish I was a kid again,” Perez said. “Let my parents support me.”

“Shit. I wouldn't want to have to do anything over again,” Bob Miles said.

When we got home the kitten was dead. It had found the ball of string and got one end of the string wrapped around its neck. The string was pulled taut between table legs and chair legs and the couch and led out the glass door to the terrace. Tbe kitten was hanging off of it.

“Oh, Ray,” Elaine said. “Look what you've done. You've killed yourself, like in your dream.” She was still drunk.

“Jeff.”

“Hey, Dixie. I wondered if I'd see you again.”

“I just came back to get discharged. From the hospital, I mean.”

“You going to stay in the Army?”

“Yeah. Looks that way.”

“Going back to ‘Nam?”

“Try to. Hey, where is everybody?”

“Lowell's around somewhere, playing with himself. Everybody else has either been transferred or discharged. The cancer sergeant is still here, of course.”

“Yeah, I saw him. What do you mean, transferred?”

“They're turning the place into a cancer ward. They started moving us out right after you left. Me and Lowell are the last ones. They're going to start moving the last-leggers in tomorrow, I think.”

“The last-leggers?”

“That's what Tanner calls them. They're all terminal cases.”

“That's lovely.”

“Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Hey, you're looking good, Dixie. Been out in the sun.”

“Yeah. Plenty of sun. What about you? Did they ever cut?”

“Yeah, would you believe it? I thought they'd kill me first. But they've got me doing physical therapy in the pool now three times a week.”

“Well, that's great, isn't it? That's real good, Jeff.”