Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

Now if he was careful he could carry this head through the remainder of his work shift and then on out into dreamland. Guaranteed unconsciousness. Better than Doc’s sleeping pills. He mustn’t rush, though, or get upset, must guard against molestations. Carefully he made his way back to the office. He spoke to no one. At his desk he hunched over the map boards, a parody of concentration, Do Not Disturb, I’ve got a soufflé cooling in here. It was slow work now, requiring twice the time it would have taken without an incinerator visit. The dots on the maps kept shifting around like checker pieces. Careful, careful. Maintain. If tomorrow the recon pilots missed their targets by a grid square or two, well, close enough for government work. Let the damn planes go where they would. He’d dipsy-doodle on back to his room. Where the brownies were.

He fell into bed, seeing himself falling in multiple selves, a fan of after-images, slices from the reality sausage slipping in succession into the original body now prone on the mattress. Swoon. Unspeakable bliss. If he weren’t so tired he’d attempt a replay. Griffin liked to fall when he was stoned. He liked to fall like a stone.

He was in New England, red houses, white rocks, cold drafts sliding over the homemade quilt atop the maple fourposter when the hootch door opened, rubber shower thongs slapped down the narrow hallway, the door banged shut. Mamasan. His ancient hootch maid. The other women had all been given Western names like Suzi or Nan or Molly, but she was old and balding and half deaf and stubbornly herself. She remained Mamasan. Griffin’s nose flooded with menthol. When she was sick she wore around her neck a packet of herbs strong enough to stun a polar bear. Griffin buried his face in the pillow. Her arrival meant it must be eight or eight-thirty and he wasn’t asleep yet. The increase in temperature was already unpleasantly apparent. If he could doze off now he might be able to sneak in a couple hours sleep before the climbing sun transformed his room into a sauna. He turned to the wall and closed his eyes. A jolly snowman in scarf and top hat bent over, shot him a round icy moon. The door to his room quietly opened and, lying still, breathing regularly, he heard: the sighing of Mamasan, her constant sigh, the weary exhalation of Asia, a sound she must practice nights; the cracking of her brittle knees, calcium fragile as dry chicken bones; sigh; the rustle of material, shirts and pants, a zipper lightly scraping across the floor, laundry being gathered; sigh; the door opening, the door closing, quietly, quietly; the sandpapery shuffle of her bare feet moving on into Simon’s room; sigh; the creaking of bedsprings. The creaking of. The door quietly. What the hell was she doing? Then he knew. Griffin rolled over and leaned out of his bunk, hands braced against the floor. For once a petty military regulation proved useful. The army fire code decreed that partitions between rooms descend no farther than two feet from the floor. Through this space Griffin had a clear view of Mamasan perched on Simon’s bunk, his own pants across her lap, a wad of MPC in one hand, his elephant leather wallet in the other. He was sober in an instant. Several straps snapped loose. He screamed. “What you do?” Mamasan leaped off the bed as though struck. Bills fluttered through the air. “What you do? What you do?” Griffin couldn’t stop screaming. Mamasan stooped over, scrambling for the money as quickly as she could. She neither replied to Griffin nor looked in his direction. Her body was shaking so severely she resembled a child’s windup toy. Griffin didn’t care. He was bouncing up and down on his hands, a maniac’s push-ups. His face was flushed. His eyes bulged. “What you do? What you do? Get in here! Get in here right now!” He sat back up in bed and waited. He was trembling too. He wanted to frighten her so badly she would never sigh in his presence again. He wanted to overwhelm her with intimidation. He wanted her to believe she would suffer obscene technological torment for this transgression. He wanted her to think she would lose her job. Tossed off the gravy train. No more castoff combat boots. No more complimentary drinks at the NCO club. The door creaked open and she approached his bed, thrusting pants and money stiffly out before her. She began to jabber in Vietnamese. “What you do?” Griffin shouted. Her body shook with pathetic vigor. She hastily stuffed the ball of money in a pocket and laid the pants back on Griffin’s shelf. Then, holding up her hands, fingers wide, she waved them around, displaying palms and backs like a stage magician. “What you do?” Griffin knew she was the only hootch maid who understood no English beyond “Hey you” and “Okay” but he was upset, he wanted an explanation. Her Vietnamese turned shrill, quavered toward tears. She lifted her blouse, showed her body naked of money, shriveled breasts, cracked nipples, shiny yellow scars across her wrinkled waist. She started to pull down her pants. Griffin impatiently waved a hand. “No,” he said, “I don’t need to see your dried up cunt.” He wasn’t screaming any longer. He was muted with shame. Look at this woman. What was he doing? He pulled the pants into bed with him and counted the money. Two hundred and forty dollars. Twelve twenties. Had there been more? Were there a couple bills shoved up her snatch? He didn’t care. His anger had flared and died. “Get out,” he said, “go on, you get out of here.” She was chattering still, pointing now at Griffin’s locker, now to the pants, shaking a horny finger in his face. Then he realized what she was doing: she was scolding him, scolding him like a mother, the tone of her voice, her gestures, saying to him, you stupid soldier, take care of your belongings, lock your valuables away like one who has respect for himself and his property, I don’t enjoy such humiliation, I do not steal happily, I am so frightened, you ignorant boy. “Yes, yes,” said Griffin, “now go, go on.” She backed through the door, bowing as deeply as her aged body would allow, unable to conceal completely the anger in her eyes. Griffin turned away. He couldn’t stand looking at her anymore. Clever, these Orientals. The whole sorry episode was now his fault. Corruption of innocent East by boorish cash-besotted West. He could hear her sighing and muttering as she swept the hallway, the oldest, most trusted Vietnamese employed in the compound. The shock equal to learning your own mother was a petty thief. And you were to blame for her disgrace. He wanted to dash out into the hallway now, beat her black and blue with his fists, crack a couple ribs with his boot. The urgency, the strength of this impulse. What was happening to him? Totally unbuckled by noon? This wasn’t the real Griffin. The real Griffin bought pencils from blind men, listened politely to old women’s troubles. Where was he? What was wrong with her? Why would she jeopardize her job? She should be grateful she was working, grateful she even had an opportunity to be exposed to criminal temptation, grateful to the army of the United States whose gargantuan needs provided her with a salaried position to fill, a position she required, of course, because the armed presence of that army had also deprived her of a husband and a son and converted the family farm into a field of poisoned mud puddles.

Go and apologize.

She wouldn’t understand.

Give her the whole two forty.

And reward her for stealing?

If Griffin were a white rat in a behavioral lab he would have learned all about electricity by now. He got up, put his pants in the locker, turned on the fan, and adjusted it to aim directly at his head. The wind was warm. He tossed restlessly from side to side. Quite a low point performance today. Dropping back into the pack in the competition for the Hands Across The Water Award. At last, after several changes, he discovered a posture that enabled him to achieve a state of semiconsciousness that, while not exactly genuine sleep, would do for the moment, was close enough for government work.