The Phantom Blooper (5 page)

Eddie Haskell says, "What's wrong, Joker? No balls for a fight?"

I say, "I'm holding myself in reserve for the ground assault on Hanoi."

The Beaver says, "And what about the Marines in your platoon?"

I say, "I'm holding them in reserve too. How can I be a hero if I can't have my fans?"

"Joker," says the Beaver, "I am not your enemy. Why can't we work together and try to get along. For the good of the platoon."

I say, "Beaver, the only reason you like to get close to people is so that you won't miss when you decide to shit on them."

"But, Joker--"

I say, "You're a slick little silver-tongued monster, Beaver, and you are on my list."

Eddie Haskell says, "Joker, you're paranoid."

I say, "That's a rog on your last, scumbag. It's only after you stop being paranoid that they get you."

"Now, Joker," the Beaver says, "let's be reasonable. You are entitled to your opinion, of course. I can respect that. But you and I can work together. I mean that. I'm being sincere now."

I say, "Like you worked with Mr. Greenjeans?"

Pause. Someone moves in the darkness. "Who?"

"Mr. Greenjeans, motherfucker," says Black John Wayne. "Remember Mr. Greenjeans? You should remember him. You had the man iced."

Beaver Cleaver says, "If you're talking about some kind of fragging incident--"

"He was an outstanding company commander!" says Black John Wayne, almost growling. "The skipper was one hell of a decent man. He was people, you son of a bitch. Captain Greenjeans was
people
!"

Someone says, "That's affirmative. He was a good Marine and a good officer. And the skipper had more balls than he knew what to do with."

The Beaver says, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of the man. He sounds like--"

Someone says, "You never
heard
of him?"

The Beaver says, "It never happened. I don't believe that there ever was any such person. Can anyone prove that this so-called Captain Greenjeans ever actually existed? Maybe you're just a little bit confused on that point.

"Anyway," the Beaver continues, "he had it coming. We've got an important job to do in Southeast Asia, an American job. Sacrifices have to be made. We've got to keep our head until this peace craze blows over. It's a hardball world and Communist aggression must be defeated at any price. What's wrong with spraying a few people with napalm if it makes the world a better place to live in? We are killing these people for their own good. Inside very gook is an American trying to get out."

Black John Wayne spits. "America invented Communism when they ran out of Indians."

The Beaver says, "But let's not worry about the past. What's done is done. That's blood under the bridge. Let's try to be constructive. There's no point in our talking in circles about unpleasant things which may or may not have happened."

"You murdered Mr. Greenjeans," I say. "Nobody gives a shit about your black-market deals. You can sell fake NVA flags and chrome-plated shrapnel and you can flog off photographs of Ann-Margret's crotch in tight yellow capri pants. You can run watered-down whiskey and stepped-on dope and nobody cares if you trade off military equipment to the Viet Cong by the truckload.

"But Mr. Greenjeans caught your ass in the ville. Inside that steam-and-cream full of twelve-year-old whores that you own with that fat Gunny from Arkansas.

"You were trading a six-by loaded with crates of hand grenades for a seabag full of raw heroin. I wasted your customer. Remember? The gook cyclo driver who had a Viet Cong officer's credentials sewed up inside his hat. Then the Captain dragged your ass up to the command post and turned you in to the Grim Reaper. I was there, Beaver. I saw the whole thing."

Eddie Haskell says, "Joker, you're just a cynical misfit with an overly active imagination. So where's your evidence? Are those just words, or do you have some coonskins on the wall?"

Every man in the bunker can feel the strain in the Beaver's voice as he struggles to maintain his self-control: "Private Joker, I can certainly understand your resentment of me. You've got more time in than I have and you've been busted in rank. You've been under a lot of pressure, I know. I understand."

Beaver Cleaver pauses, then continues: "No one here believes that you wanted to kill your own best friend. What was his name? Cowboy? It was harsh of the Marine Corps to strip you of your stripes for failing to recover his body. I constantly reassure those who fear you because you have blown away a round-eyed Marine. And I do not believe the reports that you run around naked, that you sleep in mud, or that you are afraid to come out in the daytime. These stories are exaggerations, I'm sure."

The Beaver's voice drones on in the dark. "We have had honest differences of opinions in the past, Private Joker, but I do want you to know that I have always had a lot of respect for you."

I say, "Talk smack to me."

Someone says, "The Beaver sells roger copy smack!"

Black John Wayne says, teasing, "Hey, Beaver, when we be talking about the bounty you got posted on the Joker's head?"

I say, "J.W., don't argue with the little puke. He's not even there."

"You right," Black John Wayne says. "Yeah, you right. He not even there."

The Beaver says, "Look, guys, I really do want to get to the bottom of this problem. It would be productive if we could clear it up once and for all. But I guess we'll just never know for sure. I only wish I could be more helpful. Maybe this Captain you're talking about was killed in action. Or perhaps the Phantom Blooper got him."

Someone says, "Bullshit. That Claymore was set up
inside
the skipper's bunker. That means that the Phantom Blooper can walk on wire."

The Beaver says, "I don't know all the facts of this case, but I am going to find out. I promise you that. I'll file the papers to request a CID investigation. They will file an official report of the alleged incident."

"Just shut up," I say. "Just shut the fuck up."

"What?" says the Beaver. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by that."

Black John Wayne says, "The man say for you to shut up. You do what the man say or I will beat the white off your ass."

The Beaver makes another speech: "Now, Sergeant, there's no reason for anyone to get upset. Let's all try to stay calm, okay? You may be right. Maybe if we can all just relax and think this thing through, we'll be able to find a logical explanation. But I do think we should at least try to get all the facts before we start jumping to any hasty conclusions."

The Marine in the bunker are silent, waiting.

On Armed Forces Radio, Billy Joe is throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Suddenly the bunker is half filled with half-light from illumination flares popping outside.

Frozen in the cold magnesium light, Black John Wayne's face is a hard mask of ebony. He's glaring at the Beaver.

Black John Wayne wears jungle utilities dyed black. Around his neck hangs a heavy necklace of grenade pines. He's big. Black John Wayne started out in life as a black giant and monster, got tough on the streets, grew strong enough and tall, then took up body building.

The Beaver is pale and innocent, with a pug nose, chubby cheeks, and freckles. He's wearing a football jersey, blue jeans, tennis shoes and a blue baseball cap with NY in big white letters on the side. The Beaver, unlike the rest of us, is not carrying a weapon. The Beaver is slapping his palm with a bamboo swagger stick. The swagger stick has a Brasso'd .45-caliber shell casing on the tip.

Eddie Haskell sits on a bamboo footlocker in the corner of the bunker, poking at a ringworm scab on his ankle with the point of a bayonet. He's a skinny red-haired little rat-bastard with a face like a hungry weasel. He looks up, stabs the bayonet into a sandbag, shifts the pump-action shotgun on his lap to port arms.

Lumpy is near the bunker entrance, cringing into a shadow.

Black John Wayne gets up and walks, stooped over, stepping his way through a dozen black Marines in black jungle utilities. He leans down into the Beaver's face and grunts. "The Joker knows that you the beast because the Joker is a blue-eyed soul brother."

From a scuffed orange jungle boot with a dogtag in the laces Black John Wayne produces an ivory-handled straight razor.
Snick.
Out flashes six inches of fine surgical steel of the sharp shiny kind, for freelancers only.

Black John Wayne's Godzilla paw twists into the Beaver's football jersey and jerks the Beaver forward like a doll. The straight razor whips up to the Beaver's pink throat.

Black John Wayne says to the Beaver, "You want to belay them lies, or do you want a glass eye?"

Eddie Haskell makes his move. I dive across the bunker. I grab his collar and pull him down. Before he can get his shotgun out of the mud I lay my Tokarev 9-millimeter Russian officer's pistol hard upside his head.

Eddie Haskell slumps, groans, starts up again. I admire him for a cadence count, then I beat him unconscious with the butt of my pistol. His head is as hard as a shell casing.

The squad does not move.

Someone says, "Violence party! Violence party!"

"GET SOME!"

I cock my arm to souvenir Lumpy a love tap across the face.

Lumpy drops his M-16 and slides on out of the bunker.

I can hear him running away, slogging through the mud.

Locked in Black John Wayne's grip, the Beaver struggles desperately. When he sees that his bodyguards are gone, he starts bawling and lunging. Black John Wayne has got the Beaver in a death grip and he won't let go.

Light from illumination flares continues to be reflected into the bunker. Something very hairy must be going down outside. There's shouting, movement, and scattered small-arms fire.

Here inside the bunker the only sound is the Beaver trying to whine and breathe at the same time. His face is twisted into a spasming mask of stark terror.

The Beaver beats Black John Wayne in the face with his swagger stick. Black John Wayne shakes his head to clear his vision, as though annoyed by a fly.

Black John Wayne presses the blade in just under the Beaver's left eye. "Gonna cut him!" he says to me. Then to the Beaver: "Make you a believer!"

I do a chin-up on Black John Wayne's arm, which is about the size of my thigh and as hard as a boulder. "Negative," I say. "Stand down, J.W. We can't waste him. You're not back on the block doing your thing with a razor."

Black John Wayne looks at me. "Sure we can kill him. Who's going to stop us?"

I dig into my thigh pocket and pull out my det cord crimps. "Here. Take these."

"What?"

I say, "Come on, bro. Cut me a huss."

Black John Wayne shakes his head. "No. No way. Bullshit. Later for that."

"Do it, J.W. Trust me."

Black John Wayne groans and says, "Joker, m'man, you better thrill me." He hands me the straight razor and takes the det cord crimps.

The Beaver's bulging eyes follow the movement of the straight razor from Black John Wayne's hand to mine. The Beaver is bucking against the sandbagged bunker wall in a sort of spastic seizure of terror; he is going out of his mind with fear.

"Choke him," I say to Black John Wayne, and Black John Wayne chokes him.

Beaver Cleaver gags, moans, slobbers, and spits. His tongue sticks out, a slimy red garden slug.

Black John Wayne looks at me, then at the Beaver, then back at me again. I nod. "Get his tongue," I say, and Black John Wayne digs into the Beaver's mouth with the crimping pliers and clamps a grip onto the Beaver's tongue.

The Beaver's eyes are bulging out of their sockets. I hold the blade flat on his tongue and he gags and I smile and say, "Are we communicating?"

When the Beaver whimpers and his eyes beg, I say, "
Sin Loi
, Beaver--tough shit. Be advised, mercy is not what I do best." I pull the razor and the blue blade slices smoothly through the Beaver's tongue an inch deep, splitting the tip. Blood squirts out with such force that it shoots all the way across the bunker and splatters in a shiny wet pattern across the gray wall of sandbags.

Black John Wayne releases his grip on the Beaver and the Beaver drops to his knees. Blood pours out over the Beaver's lower lip and drips down his chin like drool. The Beaver makes a horrible nonsound, with his hands in front of his face, afraid to touch.

Someone says, "Charlie got a bloop gun!"

Eddie Haskell moans, rubs his head, tries to get up.

Outside the bunker, small-arms fire pops up urgently a hundred yards down the perimeter and incoming mortar shells start falling.

I step outside in time to see Private Owens, the New Guy, waddling past the bunker at a double-time, squealing in his high-pitched voice: "SAPPERS IN THE WIRE! SAPPERS IN THE WIRE!"

As the scattered small-arms fire is picked up all along the perimeter, Black John Wayne's people double-time out of the bunker and we all haul ass into the shit.

Howitzer shells arc out over our heads. Recoilless rifles belch flechette darts in murderous prickly clouds. Claymores explode, raining deadly steel balls. Blips of red light blink across the fields of fire and interlace into wavering hypnotic patterns.

Ignoring the fact that our supporting arms are slaughtering them, crack assault troops from the 304th NVA Division, the heroes of Dien Bien Phu, men harder than grenades, pour into attack lanes blown in our wire by the
Dac Cong
, elite sappers teams, crawling naked and greased through our wire under fire.

The sappers shove bangalore torpedoes--bamboo packed with TNT--into the concertina, tanglefoot, and mine fields. The sappers detonate the bangalores by hand, blowing themselves into bloody chunks of meat so their friends can get at us.

As I double-time along the perimeter I check the slit trenches for non-hackers, juice freaks, and heads. I drag out the sleepy, the confused, and the angry. Every Marine at Khe Sanh is bone tired, fed up, and wasted. But they are United States Marines. So they get their heads and asses wired together, grab their pieces, and double-time toward the sound of the guns.