Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“Those ain’t machine guns,” Trips said.

Noll started bouncing up and down on his hands. “Juice ’em,” he shouted, “give ’em the fucking juice.”

“Hey. Noll,” warned Griffin, “watch it. You’re gonna fall off the damn roof.”

“Oh, this isn’t Noll,” said Trips. “This is…”

“Mutant Man!” cried Noll. He jumped to his feet, staggered for a moment waving his arms at the lights like a drunken conductor before falling back down again. Griffin and Trips each seized a leg, eased him into a sitting position.

“Tell Griffin about that atomic bomb you got too close to.”

“It knocked me down,” Noll boasted. “Knocked me down like getting a picture taken with a giant flashbulb. Pop. Bang. Sit on your butt. Every year Dad in his lawn chair laughing.”

“What is he talking about?”

Just below the roof in the wall of the nearest hootch in the next row was a space in the shape of a right triangle glowing blue. Griffin remembered the day Wurlitzer had cut out the wood, nailed on the hinge. Even Death Row inmates get a window to look out of, he had said. Griffin could see right into his room. Beneath the blue light Wurlitzer was stretched out on his bunk, masturbating.

“The famous A-bomb of Lantern Park—you haven’t heard? Biggest bang of the biggest fireworks extravaganza in all western New Jersey.”

“Of course then I was just a kid.”

“And now you’re Mutant Man.”

“The A-bomb and the army, man.”

Trips turned toward Griffin. “Every day they made Mutant Man low-crawl for an hour around a gravel parking lot. Under the drill sergeants’ cars.”

“The worst was the dunes, man, the fucking dunes. What a shithole. It was so hot the lizards tried to crawl into our canteens. God, they’d run us up and down those fucking dunes until everybody was falling down and passing out and puking all over their rifles. It was bad if you went down because the sand would burn your hands. There were guys with blisters on their palms big as balloons. Once we were spread out over the dunes panting and gagging, everyone’s face turning sick white when Sergeant Boley, one gung-ho asshole, going for Drill Sergeant of the Year Award and everything, starts going crazy punching and kicking, screaming fucks and shits at everybody in his platoon. He stomped on one guy so hard it busted a kidney or something and they gave him a medical discharge.”

“Lucky fucker,” said Trips.

“If you’re too psychotic for the infantry,” said Griffin, “they make you a drill sergeant.” The flares were still blossoming and fading. Tracer fire streamed out like neon tubes. There was no sign of an early finale. Griffin began to wonder if this was one of those shows in which the audience would be required to participate.

“Fucking Basic,” Trips said. “We had a guy, dumb sorry-ass bastard didn’t have a muscle in his body or a brain in his head, father supposed to be a colonel or toy general or something, big expectations for his boy, and one afternoon just after we’d come in from the range he sits down in the latrine and blows his head off, from the eyebrows up—nothing. So the drill sergeant has the guy’s best friend wipe up the mess. We were having a big inspection next morning and he wanted to be sure the shithouse was real clean.”

“Fucking pigs,” muttered Mutant Man.

“Guy in my platoon tried to brain our drill sergeant with an entrenching tool,” said Griffin.

“Yeah?”

“Drill sergeant threw him down the stairs.”

“We could write a book.”

“A fucking exposé.”

“Famous Drill Sergeants We’d Like To Off.”

“Volumes one and two.”

“I bet Claypool’s got some good stories,” said Griffin. “Claypool, tell us about your adventures in Basic Training.”

There was no answer.

“Claypool.” Griffin stared at Trips. “What the hell’s wrong with him?”

“I ain’t his mother.”

A flare, igniting prematurely, soared upward like a roman candle, trailing a shower of white sparks. “Ooooooo,” moaned Mutant Man, rocking back, “dig that rush.”

“I wish Claypool would say something,” said Griffin. “Why the hell doesn’t he say anything?”

“Leave him alone,” said Trips. “Just because someone ain’t shooting off ninety words a second…”

A half dozen flares filled the sky with burning light. For the first time the distant landscape was visible, chrome bumps and curves, inky pools of shifting shadow. “What the hell is going on out there?” asked Griffin. A ripple of bright crimson appeared, moving from left to right like a stage curtain. The curtain passed back and forth several times red as molten steel being poured from a huge bucket in the sky. “Gunship,” said Trips. Mutant Man bounced up and down on his hands. “Yeah,” he whispered, “yeah, yeah, yeah,” in fierce cadence.

“God,” Griffin said, “it’s so beautiful.”

“Better than acid,” Trips said.

The curtain fluttered about like a scarf on a dancer’s neck. Still there was no sound but the persistent drone of the generators and someone’s radio cycling in and out, the music too faint to be recognized rising and falling in volume, the murmur of a remote argument.

“Hey!” a voice called out. “You people up there.” The beam of a flashlight swung up at them, flicked across Griffin’s eyes. “What’s going on?” It was Sergeant Anstin. Trips cupped his hand behind his back. “Nothing, Sarge,” he said. “Nothing at all. Just out enjoying the war on this pleasant evening.”

“Who’s up there with you?” The flashlight played among their faces. “Who’s that back there in the dark?”

“Claypool, Sarge,” answered Trips. “And that’s Griffin and that’s Noll.”

“I hope, gentlemen, I’m not smelling something.”

“You’re not, Sarge.”

“Noll.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Am I smelling something?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“I’m not smelling something, am I, Specialist Griffin?”

“No, Sergeant, you are not.”

“That’s good. That’s fine. Certain odors bother my nose, know what I mean?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“My eyes aren’t always the best, but sometimes they get a little sensitive, too. Certain sights make them twitch, know what I mean? For instance, why, right at this moment, am I seeing four of this unit’s finest stuck up on a roof like targets in a damn shooting gallery? Could someone explain that to me?”

“It’s the view, Sarge,” said Trips.

“The view.”

“Quite a show out there tonight.”

“Quite a show we’d have in here if a lucky round sailed in and knocked four pretty heads off. Luck like that would make me most unhappy. Do you know why, Specialist Griffin?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“Because I’d have to walk in to Captain Patch with my hat in my hands and tell him one of his boys lost his head out here tonight when I wasn’t looking. And then Captain Patch wouldn’t be very happy either, would he?”

“No, Sergeant, I guess not.”

“And it would make me even more unhappy. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because I’ll have to spend all tomorrow, tomorrow my day off, typing the paperwork on four young corpses. On my day off. Have you ever seen me type, Specialist?”

“No.”

“A quadraplegic could do better. And on my day off. You don’t want to see your poor sergeant suffer like that, now do you?”

“No, Sarge.”

“I didn’t really think you would. I’ll be back in an hour. Anyone still sitting on the roof gets written up. Comprende? ” The flashlight danced across their faces.

“Yes, Sergeant,” replied Griffin.

“Thank you, gentlemen. Have a pleasant evening.” The flashlight wavered across the sand, disappeared behind a corner.