Dropping Like Flies (155 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Davros (View user info) at 2006-09-25 14:49:25 EDT
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I pulled on the pants of my suit, wincing as the waistband clinched tight to the fleshy overhang of my stomach. It had been almost two years since it had come out of the closet and it was obvious that I had let myself go considerably in that time. I briefly considered throwing it away and buying a new one but the thought rapidly passed. For all the occasions I needed it, I would have grown out of it before I got any use from it.
The envelope lay on the dresser, the unmistakable scrawling handwriting on the front. Inside a newspaper clipping and a post it note, the cause of my discomfort both in my clothes and in my mind.
"Six Down".
The words on the note looked more like a crossword clue than something to bring a feeling of dread, but the words that Stretch had omitted were more important than those he had written. The cold details in the clipping passed me by, we would all be remembered in the same way eventually, but the important details were etched in my mind. The time and the place.
Four times in the last five years I had received these envelopes from Stretch, always the same format, a clipping and a note. Since I had moved away from Berkeley to the Bay, I had not taken an interest in the press, in particular the obituaries. Stretch however, had decided it was his duty to keep me informed of the news in regard to the old crew, in a way that typifies the stilted correspondence between two men who would really rather not be in touch. Christmas and Birthdays aside, this letter would be the last of its kind, those unsaid words, confirming what we both knew.
"Two to go".
The Chapel was almost deserted when I parked my rental around the side and I suspected that it would remain that way for this service. Guys like us didn't allow too many people to get close.
Stretch was waiting for me in the entrance and we embraced like brothers. No words passed between us, that was for later, as we made our way to the small room set aside for the ceremony. Six times we had carried out this routine, the number of mourners getting fewer with each occasion.
The mahogany casket lay at the head of the room, draped with the flag. There were maybe twenty people in attendance of which half looked to be professional mourners. The two that stood out were in uniform, all polished brass and leather, there to perform the presentation of the flag to the family, if there was anyone there to receive it. The sight of these two uniforms always aroused an anger in me that I had thought was long dead. Even though I knew they would be there, I still felt that they were intruding into a private moment. It almost felt as if they were rubbernecking on an accident, which they themselves had caused.
The service itself was brief, which I appreciated and the flag was presented to a guy in his early twenties, which surprised us both. We were ready to follow our routine when we were approached by the young man who introduced himself as Chops' son. We knew then that things were going to be different. We were going to have to go into detail and tell the story in full and damn the consequences.
In many ways it was for the best. Things like this shouldn't just be allowed to be forgotten. People needed to know what made us the way we were.
I drove my rental back to the hotel and called a cab to take me back to Brady's, an old haunt from my Berkeley days and waited, nursing a beer, for the two guys to arrive. I had selected a booth at the very back of the bar to keep from being overheard, an unnecessary precaution as the place was deserted. I sipped slowly on my beer, fully aware that there was a long day ahead of me.
I was just draining my beer when Stretch and Chris, Chops' son, arrived. They walked over with a fresh round of beers and a bottle of expensive scotch. After drinking a toast to Chops, I glanced across at Stretch who nodded his assent for me to tell our story.
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It was in November of '71 that I got busted out of college. They had started cracking down on all the freaks and hippies when the war protests started getting violent and I was arrested carrying enough pot to keep me high for a month. Wrong place at the wrong time I guess. In truth it was probably for the best. I was failing badly, I hadn't been to a class for weeks as I was far more interested in the social side of proceedings and was rarely without a baggie of something about my person.
The arrest freaked my parents. The thought of their son with a criminal record was unthinkable. What would my father tell his friends at the Rotary Club?
While that was on their mind, my concerns were on waiting for the draft form to drop into the mail box. I knew that they wouldn't touch me until I had seen my day in court, but once that passed I was going to be their number one priority. I was considering skipping out to Mexico or Canada, but after the trouble I had put my folks through, I didn't want to do any further damage.
The judge and prosecutor made it easy for me. I got the choice of a year (minimum) in jail or to "volunteer" for the army.
I found myself on a bus with around twenty other guys all of who had taken the same option as I had. We went off to camp for basic training, which was very basic. I guess that by this point they were struggling so badly to get guys to go out that they rushed them through as quickly as they could. After a short visit home to my parents, who loved my short hair and uniform, we returned to base for shipment to Vietnam in early February '72.
When I got back to base, I learned that I was to be assigned to 67th Company, along with seven others from our graduating class who would be my new roommates. We met up that night. I can't say that we got along. Although we all got drunk together on our last night of freedom, it wasn't until we arrived in 'Nam that we bonded and became a unit.
The company knew what we were and didn't care for it. These were career boys, proud of their military prowess and not happy at being saddled with a bunch of criminals. This did have some advantages for us as we were left to ourselves for the most part, often remaining in camp while the "real" soldiers went out on reconnaissance. It did however, mean that we got allocated the worst jobs. Latrines, Garbage and, worst of all, Body detail. We quickly became known as "S Squad" or "Shit Squad", which made us bond much more quickly than any other force could have done.
As well as Stretch and I, there were Fitch, Okie, Freak, Pops, Bull and Chops, your Father. They called me Brains or Prof on account of my year of college. I think you can guess how Stretch got his name. Pops was the eldest of us all and Bull the biggest. Fitch managed to keep his real name, Okie was a true redneck, Freak would do just about anything to alter his mental state and Chops wore Elvis style sideburns from the day I met him.
We got pretty tight in a short space of time. You needed people to have your back in situations like that and when most of the company though you were no better than something they should scrape off their shoes, you took your friends where you could.
We drifted through most of our time, doing what we could to make the time pass. Freak helped us on the way by introducing us to the local specialty, Pot and Opium mixed. It is not something I am proud of, but it was rife over there and anything that took away the boredom and the fear was welcomed by the troops on the ground.
In a lot of ways it was that stuff that kept us together even after we came back home, but it also got us into the trouble that is at the heart of this story.
We had been in country for about a year without having to leave the camp on more than a dozen times, with the exception of forays into the local village for drink, women or drugs. Most of the Company was out on recce leaving only the eight of us and the camp guards back at base. Freak decided we needed some R & R, so he took us to his latest haunt, a place called "Ho Min", a combination Brothel and Opium Den. We were greeted by the hostess herself, a woman in her fifties, and taken into the most dilapidated establishment I can ever remember seeing. It was hotter than hell and the bugs were as thick as fog, but we trusted Freak when it came to these issues.
We were immediately provided with our poison of choice, the usual opium laced pot, and left to our own devices. We had drunk three fifths of Jack en route to the whorehouse and the strength of the smokes rapidly pushed us towards oblivion. I vaguely remember a group of girls being paraded into the room amid the swarming flies and mosquitoes. Ho Min entered and laughed, shouting something that I don't remember before I passed out.
When I came around, there was an horrific scene in front of me. One girl was laid nude on the floor and she was bleeding and bruised. Five of the guys were naked and laid around in various stages of consciousness, Bull was still busy with the girl, punctuating his thrusts with slaps to her face and blows to her body. I could see blood on the bodies of everyone except Stretch and I, leaving me in no doubt over what had gone on. Bull eventually finished and crawled off the top of the battered girl. She slowly left the room.
It could have been hours later, but I suspect it was minutes, that Ho Min stormed into the room screaming at us. I was never much on the language, but I recognised the word "daughter" in her vocabulary. I also noticed for the first time that the room was free of all the flying bugs. We were chased out of the brothel by a woman who stood five feet and weighed in at no more than one hundred pounds. Fighting our inebriation we made our way back to camp, where we dropped back into our sleep.
You might think that I would have had nothing to do with those guys after that, but you would be wrong. They were my only friends in Vietnam and besides, it was only a slope, a gook, a slant. Most of them would kill you as easily as they would fuck you. We put the incident to the back of our minds and carried on doing our grunt work around the camp.
Around three months later we were all shipped out back to the States. That is all I can tell you. The rest is down to Stretch.
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Stretch left the table to visit the restrooms and we waited in silence. Although I knew this part of the story as well as Stretch did, this was his interlude. I would probably have to take the reigns again, but it was important that he put in his part. He had witnessed it and needed to put it his way.
Stretch returned to the table and cast a longing glance at the scotch bottle, which remained almost full. Dragging his eyes away he gripped his beer and began to speak.
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I didn't fuck her. I didn't even touch her, that's the first thing you need to know. I didn't pass out as early as the Prof did, but it wasn't much. What I saw freaked me the fuck out. I welcomed the escape that those loaded joints provided me.
I remember the girls coming in and Ho Min following them. When she shouted, before all the shit started to go down, all those fucking bugs just dropped dead on the floor. It was like some sort of slope voodoo. If the guys weren't already so wasted and horny, they might have noticed too but maybe not. Those bastards seemed to like me. I spent my year in 'Nam constantly scratching at the bites those little fucks gave me, so I sure noticed them drop.
I remember the girl too. She was different from the usual whores. She seemed almost shy and she was so young. Bull took a shine to her right away. I dunno if young was his thing or whether he just enjoyed the idea of fucking a piece of new meat, but the other guys soon got on his wavelength. I know all the girls left apart from this one and she was aware that she was taking on the troop. It didn't seem to phase her, but then she didn't know what it would turn into.
I passed out not long after that and before any of the fucked up shit started to go down. I was different from Brains 'cos I didn't need anyone to watch my back. I had been a loner most of my life and that shit makes you tough. I stuck around the squad but only because we were all tarred with the same brush. Things were different between us after that, but when we came back Stateside, it didn't seem to matter that much. It was like a different world. I kept in touch with all the guys, through the Vets meetings along with other things.
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Stretch had resumed his usual silence and I knew it was up to me to continue. After ten years of keeping quiet it was hard to let it out, but I still felt that someone needed to know. When Stretch and I signed off, someone would know why and it was my job to provide the details.
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When we came back I had managed to get myself a serious habit. I spent most of the next two years trying to get my fix and doing what I had to do to achieve it. I had nothing on Freak.
He was crazed. Any high would do. I had seen him spike a vein a few times in Vietnam, but when he got back he embraced it with a passion. I don't think I ever saw him straight. He was the first to go. He managed to hit an artery in a shooting gallery and bled out. We didn't think about it at the time, but later we started to question how he had missed. Someone as experienced as him would know what he was doing. It wasn't until later that we made the connection.
Fitch went next. He took the easy way out. The barrel of a .38 will do the job as good as anything. Okie was a surprise. He had gone back to college and seemed to be doing well, until he got pulled over by a cop one night. He pulled a gun on the cop and ended up on the wrong end of a service revolver.
Pops was killed working at a 7/11. A robbery gone wrong. He was the one who made us think something was going on. Bull ended up bleeding to death after some whore shot him in the crotch. The judge took one look at the bruises on her face and body and declared self defence. Chops was last, another one sucking on the business end of his gun.
Pops had filled us in on what happened in Ho Min's, he also left me enough money to get out of Berkeley and down to the Bay and open my bookstore. The guys had started off just wanting to all be with the same girl, I guess it was a bonding exercise, but by the second time around she had started to get tired.
Freak had decided that her time wasn't up and took what he wanted with the assistance of his fists. The others had followed.
They had died in the order they fucked Ho Min's daughter.
As she had chased us out of her house, she had screamed at us.
I was never great at picking up the language, but it was something like this.
"You are lower than insects. You deserve life less than they do."
Now there are just me and Stretch left. We weren't involved so we don't know whether we are included in what she did to the guys. If we are, then you know. If not we got lucky.
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I looked across at Chris, waiting for his response.
He stared back at Stretch and me for what seemed like an eternity, until eventually he picked up the scotch bottle and poured a large draught into each of our glasses.
"To remembrance and regret.", he raised his glass.
We drank with him.
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