Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“What’s wrong now?”

“I can’t find my wedding ring. I was just playing with it and it dropped and I can’t find it.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“When are they gonna stop?”

“She was just getting her legs around me good and tight, too.

Goddamn, it makes me mad. I haven’t had a decent wet dream since I got to this fucking war.”

“Samuels, you are a wet dream.”

Someone flipped on a Zippo and all their white faces, suddenly illuminated and turned as one into the circle of light, resembled those in newspaper photographs of a carful of coal miners descending a shaft.

“Jesus Christ, shitbird, put that fucking thing out. You ain’t got any more sense than a goddamn gook.”

“Sorry. I only wanted to see what time it is.”

“Time? Time to kiss your ass good-bye.”

In the flickering light Griffin saw Claypool, pale, eyes closed, and beside him Trips looking as serious as he had ever seen him but where had Mutant Man gone? Either he was in another bunker or he had turned into a sandbag.

“Does this happen often? How long do we have to stay in here? When will it be over?”

“Yes,” someone answered.

“I think I might pass out.”

“Shut up, you’re all right.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes you are goddamnit shut up!”

The siren rose and fell in metallic hysteria. It reminded Griffin of civil defense drills when he was a kid, all six grades of the elementary school packed face first against brown tile walls in a dark gleaming corridor in case the communists ever attack us, dear. Well, Mrs. Lundquist, now they are.

Crump, crump, crump. Griffin could hear only the muffled explosions, not the incoming sound.

“Sounds like the One Hundred First is taking a beating.”

“Airborne’s turn to dance.”

Crump. Crump.

“Chopped eagle meat.”

“Hey, everybody knows airborne don’t bleed.”

“Yeah, they suck.”

Griffin concentrated, hardly daring to breathe, his ears focused outside on the sappers flowing like shadows among the hootches. Under cover of air attack they slipped silently in, detonating bunkers into tombs. He never thought he could want an object like a rifle so badly. No one, though, was armed. Major Holly had ordered all weapons locked in the supply room. Griffin was afraid, but he was surprised to learn he could still be all right; his mind seemed. to be operating logically in refrigerated sequences carefully numbered. He’d get the keys, he’d open the arms room, he’d pass out the weapons, he’d form a defensive perimeter, he’d secure his position. Logic. The method of heroes. Question: When the satchel charge came in on him would there be time enough to toss it back? Answer: probably not.

“Oh, ow, shit.”

“I’m sick of your crap. Shut it.”

“My leg. I’ve got a cramp. Oh, it hurts. I’ve got to stand up. Let me out of here.”

“There’s a shit storm out there.”

“Hey, watch it, you…”

“You stupid fucker.”

“Let him go. Who cares?”

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fucking creep.”

Crump.

“I hope he dies, spitting blood.” Trips.

A flashlight shone into one end of the bunker. “Is there a Paul Michaels in there?”

“Who?”

The flashlight pointed to a clipboard. “Paul Michaels. Spec Four Paul Michaels. He’s supposed to be on reactionary force tonight.”

“You mean Paul?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said Paul Michaels.”

“Correct.”

“But it’s Michael Paul. Paul is his last name.”

“Michael is his first,” said another voice.

“Okay, Michael Paul. Is he in here?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“How should we know?”

The flashlight disappeared. A helicopter flew in low overhead clap-clap–clap.

“Yay, here comes the cavalry.”

“I wonder if our hootch is still standing.”

“If it ain’t we’re gonna be fighting the rest of this war in our underwear.”

“What’s going on? I’ve never been in a bunker this long before.”

“Did someone just poke a flashlight in here?”

“Sergeant Anstin.”

“Thank God. I thought I was having a hallucination.”

“Hold one. What’s that?”

Everyone quieted, listening.

“What?”

“It’s stopped.”

“Is it over?”

“My mother was wrong about prayer.”

“Now they wait a couple hours and zap us in our sheets.”

“Who’s going to bed?”

“Right, I’m sleeping in here tonight.”

“Got a stick to beat off the rats?”

When at last the siren sounded all clear they crawled out of the bunker and stood about for a moment in small uncertain groups, astonished that the surrounding buildings appeared as intact as they had left them.

“So where’s the damage?”

“I told you I was having a hallucination.”

A figure hurried breathless out of the shadows. “One of the TO hootches is gone,” said Simon. “A direct hit.”

“Anybody in it?” Griffin asked.

“They’re looking,” and hurried away.

“Sergeant Anstin?” Trips had come up behind him.

“Are you kidding?” said Griffin. “He’ll leave here without even needing a Band-Aid.” Claypool stood in back of Trips, staring dumbly up at the stars. “So Claypool,” Griffin said, “how’d you like your first mortar attack?”

Claypool was blinking as if the sun were out.

“I said, how’d you like it?”

“He told me,” Trips said, “he was personally disappointed.”

“Maybe I’d like to hear his voice. I’ve forgotten what it sounds like.”

“Tell him, Claypool, tell him how you liked it.”

Claypool’s head moved with ponderous care as though a delicate system of gears and weights were necessary to lower his gaze ninety degrees, then revolve the lens machinery until the visual field contained only two, specimens perhaps of an alien life form. The mouth opened. “Fine,” he said.

“Fine?” repeated Griffin.

“Everything’s fine with the Claypool, isn’t it, kid?”

“Fine?”

“Try it yourself sometime,” said Trips. He laid a possessive arm across Claypool’s shoulder and led him away, the suspicious attendant guiding one of the infirm back to his room.

Griffin followed the flashlights, the sound of voices. A crowd had gathered, standing subdued about an absence that minutes ago had been the TO hootch, home for the enlisted men who during reconnaissance flights operated the radar and infrared equipment, and was now a heap of splintered sticks and a hole in the ground, a space, a gap in the fence. One section of the roof had been driven into the wall of the neighboring signal shack where it protruded like a solar panel on a space station.

Simon came over, still breathing heavily. “Spatz was in bed,” he said grimly. “They just finished taking away what was left.”

Spatz was one of those “old guys” Griffin knew only by sight. His year almost completed, he had been due to go home next month so there hadn’t been much point in getting to know him well. Now Griffin was glad he hadn’t.

“Guy flies two hundred missions without a scratch,” said Simon, “bites it on the ground in his own bed. What irony.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter what it is,” replied Griffin.

A blinding light flashed through the crowd. Several men dropped to the ground.

“You shithead,”’ someone shouted.

It was Weird Wendell, filming again. The camera lights illuminated the remains of the hootch with the same stark dimension-obliterating intensity that had destroyed it.

“Don’t anybody move,” he commanded. “I need bodies for scale.”