Robert Mason - Chickenhawk

We got a hotel room that featured peeling paint, no windows, and a john in the shower stall. This was fine compared to the moldy tents and dirt floors at tent city.

We rushed through quick showers and changed into wrinkled civilian clothes. No uniforms off duty. I had a pair of tan cotton pants and a green checkered shirt. A loose-fitting, wrinkled white shirt emphasized Len’s scrawny build and freckled complexion. It was the first time we had worn anything but fatigues for two months. We looked it, too.

“Shall we go see what we can see?” I said.

“We shall,” said Len.

I opened the door as a young second lieutenant walked by. He stopped, and without saying anything, he leaned against the door jamb and looked around inside.

“Pretty bad room,” he said.

“You don’t like the hotel?” I asked.

“No, it’s not that.” He smiled. “I live here. I’ve just never seen this room before. Really tacky.”

“Seems fine to me,” Riker defended.

“Well, maybe for a one-nighter, or for the enlisted. But it’s not the kind of place I would normally buy.”

“Buy?” I asked.

“Yeah. I buy and lease hotels and apartment buildings for the army. I’m a real-estate officer.”

“Real-estate officer?” I was amazed.

“Sure,” he said. “Somebody has to do it….You guys from the Cav?”

I wondered if he noticed the horse patches on our fatigues inside.

“Yeah, how did you know?” asked Riker.

“I checked the register.” He grinned. “I bet you guys are really seeing some action up there in the highlands. We hear all about the Cav down here. It’s really boring here. Never any action.”

He was dressed in starched jungle fatigues and polished jungle boots. We didn’t have either of these, because there was a shortage. My regular boots were rotting off my feet, so I was looking for a new pair.

“Can you buy fatigues and boots in Saigon?” I asked.

“Buy?” He looked at me, puzzled. “I guess so, but my stuff is issue. Don’t you all have jungle gear? The Cav?” He paused. “Come downstairs to my room and I’ll show you something. You’re on the way out, aren’t you?”

Down in his room, we saw twelve sets of jungle fatigues carefully spaced on his clothes rod, as neat as a closet in officer’s candidate school. Two pairs of jungle boots sat on the floor beneath them.

“You were issued all this stuff?” My feelings were obvious.

“Sure. As far as I know, we have more than we need. I don’t understand why you don’t have this stuff at the Cav. I’m sure you’ll get it soon.” He smiled, but neither of us smiled back. “Anyway, don’t you think this room is nicer than the one you got? Does yours have a john or a squat hole?”

“It’s got a john in the shower stall,” I said.

“Well, that’s something. I hate to use those damn squat holes. Don’t you?” he asked. I hadn’t used one yet, so I didn’t know.

“Well,” I said, “we’re used to using outside latrines.”

“Yeah,” Riker interrupted, “we shit in sawed-off 55-gallon oil drums. When they’re full, we burn the shit with jet fuel. Smells bad.”

“Damn.” He was impressed. “You guys are really roughing it. I can’t tell you how much I envy you. Action. Really getting out there and doing it.” He paused. “Well,” he continued, “somebody has to be down here doing the bullshit.”

“Assholes better not send any more of us to Saigon!” Len exclaimed outside the hotel. “If they do, the word about this fake fucking shortage is going to get back to the suckers!”

“That’s right!” I said. “They’ll have division-wide riots, and everybody will quit.” I started laughing. “I know I’ll quit. Hell, I’ll quit right now just to save the trouble of going back and starting the riots.”

“Me too!” yelled Riker. “I quit!” We were both laughing. Vietnamese passed by us on the sidewalk, smiling nervously at what I’m sure they thought were two drunken, possibly berserk Americans. Exhilaration overcame us, and as we hurried to the street corner where the pedicabs waited, we sang, “We quit because we quit, because we quit, because we quit…” until we sat down in the back of one of the bicycle-powered cabs.

Len gave the driver a piece of paper with the name of the hotel where we could find an officers’ club. I think it was the International Hotel. The young pedicab operator looked at the paper and nodded.

He pedaled tirelessly, his ass never once touching the bicycle seat. “Must be in great shape,” I said. “Probably a VC by night.” A blue U.S. Air Force bus plowed by. It had heavy wire screens installed over each window.

“So you can’t toss a grenade inside,” said Riker.

Suddenly I realized how easy it would be for someone to run up beside us and toss one in the cab seat. It gave me a case of nerves. Too many people to guard against. I was about ready to bail out of this Oriental express when the VC up front turned around, smiling. We had stopped. Obviously he had read my mind.

“Da wa no hai,” he said, or something like that. I translated it as “Ah so, jai, you die now!” Actually, it meant that we had arrived. Len and I got out and paid him. He took our money and pedaled off, to buy some ammo, no doubt.

We passed ARVN MPs at the front door. After a leisurely elevator ride we found ourselves under the darkening sky on the penthouse patio at the top of the hotel. Parts of the hotel served as billets for American officers stationed here, and this roof garden was part of their club. The beautiful Saigon night spread out beyond the low parapet.

The bar served any drink you could name, made with American booze, for a quarter. Civilians and soldiers mixed with round-eyed ladies from somewhere. They drank heavily and talked loudly. Their voices made me nervous. Weren’t they worried that they might draw fire with their boisterousness?

As the bourbon flowed into my bloodstream, I began to warm to the occasion. Drunk enough to relax and be hungry, Riker and I got a table overlooking the city. We had rare sirloin and baked potatoes with sour cream served with a huge tossed salad of crispy fresh lettuce and juicy tomatoes that might have been grown on a farm near my hometown in Florida.

The events of the rest of the night are lost to me. I know that both of us drank too much. Actually, it must have been me who drank too much, because Riker at least knew how to get back to the room.

Starting very late the next morning, we went to the navy BX to pick up stuff for the guys back at camp. The Saigon warriors had a complete department store. The stuff for sale here was actually better and cheaper than the merchandise sold at PXs in America—Nikon cameras for $150. A Roberts tape recorder cost $120. There were clothes, tools, canned food, books, even cases of Kotex.

Riker suggested that evening that we go back to the restaurant I had enjoyed so much last night.

“Last night?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Sure. Don’t you remember the snails you had?”

“I have never eaten snails,” I announced. But I was beginning to have a vague recollection.

“Well, you had about three dozen last night. Besides, there’s a girl there who loves you.”

“A girl? Hey, listen, Len, I’m a married man.”

“So am I.” He grinned. “But I still get horny away from home. Besides, you don’t have to fuck ‘em, you know. It’s nice to just sit and talk to a girl for a change.”

After dinner that evening, I began to feel very sick. By midnight I was doubled over. Len took me to the navy hospital, where they treated me for dysentery. I spent the remaining twenty-four hours of the vacation sick in bed.