bullshit all night because you canât sleep and donât want to, in case you donât wake up. Eddie and I talk all the time. Iowa is nowhere, I tell him. Back in Pennsylvania we pronounce it O-hi-o.
We tell stories when we canât sleep, trading them like you and I used to trade baseball cards. He knew everything there was in just a few nights about all of us. About Momâs fat ass and Dadâs big empty tasteless zucchini and your humongous fucking classical brain and literary presumptions. Is that the word? Iâm no fucking writer, but I know what I like.
PFC Fucking Massolini. Whoâs that? I got another month or so here, they tell me, in Saigon. Then up country we go, over the river and through the woods. Canât wait. Proud to serve. Mr. Rawhide himself, with my M-16, gas-operated, ready to rock. Got twenty rounds in the magazine. Thing weighs 8.2, not including the strap. And not including the fucking grenade launchers theyâre hoping to teach me to launch, which means youâre also stuck with ten or so extra rounds of ammo. A lot to hump and haul through mosquito swamps and elephant grass when youâve got jungle rot and wanna scratch and dust your balls with DDT.
Eddieâs part Indian, he claims, so they made him the medicine man. (We call him Sitting Bullshit.) Bastardâs gonna haul bandages, iodine, plasma, morphine, tape, hypodermics, all that glassy, gooey, spooky shit. Save your fucking life in the right (or wrong) situation, so heâs got to haul it. The walking drugstore.
Speaking of humping, you still got your cherry? I hear those girls in the Ivy League are pretty damn tight-assed, all talk and no action. A hand-job in the library stacks if youâre lucky. Come out here, and get laid in style. Thereâs a whole street in Saigon, Ding Dong Avenue, they call it. Stopped by last night. Youâd love it, manâregular shopping mall for tits and ass. Take your pick, honey. You stand in the lobby and point, then the Momma unites you in the elevator, till death do you part. The bitch takes you upstairs, saying things with a shit-eating grin like âAmericans big moneyâ and âU.S. soldier good man inbed.â Nice bathtubs, where she scrubs your nuts and prick. Big beds, mirrors on the ceiling so if youâre into that kind of kinky shit you can watch yourself hump (if youâre on your back). Or maybe she can watch you hump. They seem to like it, the fucking, though you canât tell shit from their Shinola. I canât anyway, but what did I ever know?
Dad got all emotional and told me the night I left that he learned something in The War, but he never said what. Started to say something about Italy. About Salerno. But the words didnât come easy and he just quit talking. Like whatever he learned over there wasnât worth saying or was too deep to spit it out. I donât honestly think Iâll learn a fucking thing in Nam. Donât believe thereâs anything much to pick up here except the crabs.
âIs there a God?â Eddie keeps asking meâitâs like the biggest question in Iowa, he claims. âIf so, how did he think up all this shit? How did he come up with Nam?â Maybe heâs a demonic genius, I said to him. Maybe heâs bored. This whole fucking mess happened because thereâs nothing on TV up there in heaven, and you canât lay an angel.
I told Eddie he should ask you the biggies, and that thereâs more to you than meets the eye. Underneath it all, you got some balls. I believe that. You come on quiet at first, but then somebody bangs up against your wall, and you squeal.
By the way, if Uncle Sam Wants You, take my advice. Give Uncle the big finger. No good is coming out of this war, thatâs for sure. Whatever Dad says, heâs wrong. Heâs âso proud of me,â he writes. Mom writes nothing, though she sends clippings from the Wilkes-Barre Record. Just the