Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“I don’t know,” said Captain Miller to Claypool. “This was where you were supposed to strut your stuff.” He unfolded a map. “And us sucking hind tit on body count. Williams, give me the damn horn.” The man with the radio strapped to his back handed the captain the phone.

Captain Miller consulted the map, spoke into the phone, consulted the map again, then tossed the phone at Williams. “We’re in the wrong goddamn village,” he said.

Lieutenant Davis looked toward the well where some men were filling their canteens with green water. Then he turned to study the surrounding bush. “I’ve got a feather in my nose,” he said.

“I know,” replied Captain Miller, staring at the sagging hootches. “Colonel White’s fingerprints are all over this operation.”

Claypool edged casually away. In the event of ambush, he remembered, these people were primary targets. He found a patch of shade under a huge tree that smelled of furniture polish. What were the symptoms of heat stroke? Would the skin on his belly appear flushed or fish white? He longed for a chunk of ice. To suck on like candy. To rub against his steaming face. He couldn’t understand how the others were able to go on.

“You dropped this,” said Mouth, holding out a wad of damp green cloth.

“Thanks.” Claypool shoved the handkerchief into his back pocket.

“Lucky I found it. They could’ve used that rag to sic the dogs on you.”

“Who?”

Mouth walked away. “Fucking MI.”

The CO was still in a huddle with his subordinates. After hours of tramping the bush his helmet still sat perfectly centered upon his head. It must have been glued there after having first been adjusted with a carpenter’s level. The man even sweated like an officer, neat half moons under his arms, a large cross imprinted on his back. Claypool heard a Colonel White’s name mentioned several times. Then Brown came up to report the results of the search: no weapons, no food, no tunnels. It was time to go. As the group broke up the chicken reappeared, walked over to Captain Miller and stood solemnly at his side in a hen’s parody of attention.

“Looks like you got a friend,” declared Sergeant Wilson.

“He knows leadership qualities when he sees them.”

Lieutenant Davis dropped to one knee, staring at the bird’s head. “This chicken is blind,” he said.

Several men crowded around for a look. The left eye was indeed fogged over, a tiny gray marble.

“That’s okay, sir,” said Sergeant Wilson. “One eye is still good.”

“A rare tribute,” replied the captain, “from a one-eyed gook chicken.”

Brown was on his knees, stroking the bird’s yellow back. “Let’s take him with us.”

“No pets on patrol,” said the captain. “Never know, he might be working for the other side.”

But when the company started to move out the chicken followed.

“Sergeant,” said Captain Miller.

Flapping his arms, Sergeant Wilson chased the bird back into the village, answering squawk with squawk. He turned to go. The bird followed. He threw a rock. The bird looked at him, then stepped closer. Sergeant Wilson lunged forward, seized the bird and with one deft twist broke its neck and tossed the carcass into the dust like a wet towel.

Claypool studiously wiped his glasses with a corner of his shirt. Wiped and wiped. He couldn’t see a thing without them.

The patrol crossed a field of long dry grass and reentered the forest. Noon to twilight. The change was that abrupt. Like passing out or entering a cave. There should have been bats hanging down and flitting about. Vampire bats. Rotten jungle odor pitched camp high up in the nostrils. Lumps of dog shit turning white in a damp basement. Water dripped from every leaf tip though it hadn’t rained in weeks. The mud was slippery with moss or algae. In the broken light falling through the tiers of vegetation massed above their heads everyone’s face looked green. Claypool was exhausted. The undergrowth tugged at his feet. He was experiencing difficulty staying erect. When they stopped for breaks his body seemed to keep moving. Except for the chop of machetes and the occasional stumble or curse there was no sound. None. The forest generated silence. No clicking insects, screeching parrots, chattering monkeys. And the plants, the plants were all wrong. No movie had ever been made in here. Claypool recognized nothing. Had a dinosaur’s head poked down between the branches he would have laughed. For a moment he lost sight of Jones, then panicked that he might be left behind, blind, dumb, dead. When he caught sight of Jones again he wanted to stick a boot up his ass. No one lived in here. No one had ever lived in here. No one had ever passed through here. Even communists must require something more than this… this organic inferno. Claypool ran out of water. “Fucking MI.” He licked the sweat from his upper lip, which only made him thirstier. He wished he had a machete to hack with too, just for a couple minutes, he wanted to let go with his rifle, hurt those gray trunks, blast them into soft stumps, shred some leaves, tear out a hole so he could breathe. His face and arms were cut, scraped, and bitten. “Christ!” cursed Jones. “I can’t fucking stand it.” He pulled a long knife from a leather sheath strapped to his calf, the bright blade beaded with moisture. He reached down between his legs and sawed out the crotch of his pants. Cock and balls dangled freely, runny sores exposed to the air. “We should only be wearing paint anyway.” Claypool tossed his dictionary into the bush. It had been chafing against his thigh for some time. Let the mushrooms learn Vietnamese. He began to itch. But when he scratched he made ugly red furrows down his arms, soft dirty skin rolling up under his nails. Heat steamed from the soil. The sun was green. Claypool was being baked. They were all lost. There was no way out. Endless circles. Gnawing on bark. Shooting each other over the last stagnant drop of the last canteen. Flesh finally eaten by the plants. Snakes slithering in and out of their skulls. He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was punched from behind. Sprawled on his nose into the tanglewood. Flash. Boom. Wha happened? “I can’t see,” someone was crying, “I can’t fucking SEE!” Claypool shut his eyes and squeezed his asshole as tightly as he could. Here it was. The Big Scene. Yells. Screams. Exploding metal. Guns were barking, stuttering, coughing except that no human or animal had ever made sounds like these. Something sharp hit him in the side. He reached down to feel for the blood. “Your weapon,” Mouth shouted, shoving the rifle into his ribs. What was he supposed to do with it? There was nothing to see, nothing to shoot at. Bullets zipped overhead. There was a second explosion. The ground shook. He didn’t know whether those were mines or grenades or artillery shells or mortar rounds or bombs. “One six two six one niner,” Captain Miller shouted, “…six one niner!” A confetti of wood chips and leaf fragments cascaded onto Claypool’s back. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He curled up as round and small as he could get and he screamed, let it all come loose, guts in a flutter, wind howling through his chest. When he opened his eyes, Brown was lying across from him taking his picture. Brown lowered the camera, held up a hand with thumb and forefinger forming an O, and his jaw disappeared, yanked away by a hidden wire. Brown fell over, hands clutching his throat. He couldn’t talk or scream. He gurgled. He gurgled on and on until Claypool wished he would die. Why wasn’t someone helping Brown? Where was Mouth, his protection? He looked behind him. Jones was lying there on his side, back to Claypool, shirt stretched tightly across his shoulders where blood beaded through the green stitching like rain on a window screen. Like a sweat stain, just like a sweat stain. His helmet lay uselessly on the ground beside him, SQUEAKY CLEAN upside down. Claypool wished he had asked him what those words meant. Shrieks fell from the sky. The air brightened. The earth trembled. Claypool could see the trees rocking back and forth. Holes were being opened in the jungle. He held onto his knees and cried. Then Mouth was there again, pounding on him. He tried to hit back. Someone started screaming off in the bush in front of them. Mouth leaped up, crashed into the jungle. For the first time Claypool was able to distinguish the sound of M-16s cracking all around him. Sergeant Wilson scurried in on hands and knees. “Where’s Mouth?” he shouted. Face smeared with mud the color and texture of human shit. Blood dribbling out of one ear. Claypool pointed into the forest. “Jesus Christ.” Brown was bubbling quietly. “Help that man. Jesus Christ.” Claypool obediently crawled over to Brown. He couldn’t look above the chest. What was he to do? He felt for Brown’s pulse but already the arm was cold, a freezing subzero cold that attached itself to Claypool’s skin, he jerked his hand away but it was too late, the cold was on his fingers, it was in them deep as bone, moving up his own arm, his wrist, his elbow, past the shoulder down into his chest. Claypool started to shake. He shivered, he had the chills, even his sweat turning icy as he sat there between Brown’s jaw and Jones’s back waiting for winter. The rifle fire stopped. Silence. A hive of pain. Lieutenant Davis ran back in a crouch to ask, “Where’s the sarge?” Claypool pointed and the lieutenant gave him an odd look. “Kill me,” someone screamed, “don’t leave me like this, please.” Someone else was crying loudly in shudders rapid as Claypool’s own, which he now thought were probably the incipient symptoms of malarial fever. Suddenly the bushes erupted into noise and motion. Claypool didn’t move, he simply sat there alone in a tangle of weeds that had been his home forever and waited for whatever it was to emerge and do whatever it had to do to him. It was Sergeant Wilson dragging Mouth out of the jungle. Mouth no longer had any legs. How convenient, thought Claypool, legs were so heavy, no one should be required to carry anybody with legs.