Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

At the O club conversation became speculative. Was the graffiti in the latrine turning ominous? The list of missing weapons in the supply growing longer? The drums in the night beating louder? What was going on down in the Voodoo Hootch? The rituals conducted within that closed building were as mysterious to whites as the clandestine activities of the Spook House across the compound were to those with insufficient clearances. As far as anyone knew only one honky had ever been permitted beyond the door decorated with painted drawings of fierce masklike faces and Weird Wendell’s standard reply to the curious was that the occupants partied each night by opening veins in one another’s forearms, toasting the demons with brass canisters of blood, and dancing about a flickering Sterno can clad in their jockstraps. This segment of his film was entitled The War In Vietnam: Going Native Or Getting Down? The party was nonstop at the Voodoo Hootch, laughter, shouts, dope scent around the clock; someone was always up and tending the flame. One night a lonely Griffin searching for company was attracted by the noise and stood outside in the dark listening to Franklin, founding father, chief interpreter of the white man’s military ways, and major drug dealer, engaged in a fabulous harangue to an audience of recent black arrivals: “You ever see a black man punching buttons over in the fancy computer room? See a black man climbing down out of a pilot’s seat? A black man with thick glasses showing slides to The General in that air-conditioned whorehouse they got underground? Tell me, any of you ever see a single one of those miraculous sights? No? You say no? And why ain’t you seen that and why ain’t you ever going to see that no matter what garbage comes spilling out The Man’s mouth? I’ll tell you why, because Marse Sam he don’t want no coons up in the big house on the hill, don’t want no filthy black fingers on all them shiny new buttons, don’t want no real spooks mixing with the white spooks. Here it is, brothers, this here’s a white spook’s war. Only way we get into it ’sides Sambos and cannon fodder is to put on white sheets. Put on white sheets and go off scaring and chasing these yellow folks same way The Man’s been doing to us for two hundred years. Time has come to stop this jive, time to say no, brothers, time to break the chains, time to go free, time to make up a mess of trouble for this nasty white boogie man, time to end this war, time to bring down this devil army, bring it down, that’s right, bring it down, you heard me, bring it down !” A burst of shouts, handclaps, a stamping of feet on the wooden floor sudden as rifle fire, then the screech of a guitar as the music came on and under cover of the cry, “Scuse me while I kiss the sky,” Griffin crept back to his room. No place for him at this party even though Franklin had once in a fit of wicked generosity said to both Trips and Griffin, “Hey, I like you guys so much that come the revolution I’m gonna personally shoot the two of you myself so your suffering won’t be dragged out.” Whether or not Franklin’s daily detention was a factor in hastening the arrival of that day couldn’t be determined but racial tension had certainly become more dangerous. Hagen, the motor pool mechanic, who enjoyed getting drunk and prowling for a fight, was found behind the garbage dump bleeding and unconscious after a night in which he had declared he was going out on one of his periodic “coon hunts.” Doctors at the 92nd Evac tactfully ascribed his injuries to “a fall from a jeep.” A couple weeks later a scuffle erupted in the mess hall in front of the milk machine. An overturned table, some spilled food, a couple of tossed chairs. The blacks took to marching to and from the mess hall and the EM club in a silent swaggering group armed with pieces of scrap lumber they called “freedom sticks.” The XO worried about a race riot, Major Holly advised calm or at the least a convincing facsimile.

More weeks passed, without violence or further incident. Then one morning Major Holly, consciousness swarming with the homilies and admonishments he had planned to release at the day’s formation, stepped out the orderly room door and was confronted by a double row of black soldiers blocking his path. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said in an even voice. No one moved. The blacks stared at the major, he stared at them. The moment expanded with inflammables. Then, as though a telepathic signal had been passed, all the blacks turned around and took their places in the regular morning formation. Nothing more was spoken, nothing more needed to be spoken. “Spooky,” muttered the XO, “real spooky.”

Franklin, of course, knew nothing about nothing. “Ise right chere on de bench, massa, doan see nuffin wat dat trash do outdoor.” Major Holly was silent. The First Sergeant snorted all day as though something was caught up his nose. The XO slept with a revolver under his pillow.

Weeks passed without incident. “They made their point,” said Major Holly, “it’s over.” “No,” said the XO, “something’s brewing, something big.” The CO smiled.

One morning Franklin reported for his chair warming session wearing on a chain around his neck what appeared to Simon to be a small dried apricot.

“Okay,” said the First Sergeant. “What’s that?”

“Lucky charm.”

“Some sort of African mumbo jumbo?” asked the First Sergeant, coming from behind his desk for a closer examination. “May I?” He reached out a hand.

“Be my guest,” said Franklin, leaning confidently back into his chair.

The First Sergeant felt the apricot with his fingers.

“Y’all can line up here,” said Franklin, “behave nice now so everybody can get a turn.”

“Where the hell did you get this?” exclaimed the First Sergeant, voice rising in volume on each word.

“Guess I found it.”

“Now listen here, son, you best come clean with me or I’m gonna break you into so many pieces we’ll have to have a police call to put you back together.”

Simon checked the calendar on his desk. One of his dates in the pool came up this week.

“It’s my part,” said Franklin. “I got to do my part in this war, too.”

The First Sergeant stormed into the CO’s office. The clerks looked at one another. Franklin picked his fingernails with the point of a pencil. The First Sergeant and the CO came out of the office. The CO picked up the offending apricot, then dropped it instantly.

“Where did you get this?” asked Holly.

“I thought you’d be real proud of me.”

“Answer the major,” said the First Sergeant.

“I snuck over the wire last night, crawled out into that gook village and got me a VC. How’s that for initiative?”

“Take it off,” said the CO, holding out a hand.

“Jesus, you fucking white folks.” He tore the chain from around his neck. “If you want it that bad. Should pay me something, too.”

Holly, the confiscated apricot in his fist, returned to the inner sanctum of his office. The clerks looked at one another. Simon put on his headphones. Franklin sat in his chair, cracking his knuckles. Finally, the First Sergeant emerged from the CO’s office, settled himself at his desk, and began leafing through a pile of paper work. Long minutes passed. Then the First Sergeant looked over at Franklin, studied him for a moment and said, “If I had an entire company composed of individuals such as yourself, private, I think I would seriously consider my chances with the gooks.”

Franklin adjusted his face into a crafty smirk.

If there hadn’t been such a stigma attached to welfare assistance Chief Warrant Officer Ernest Winkly might never have joined the army. Intimidated by the idea of college, insulted by the actuality of work, dismissed by his family, he was, in his late adolescence, a young man in need of a plan. An older cousin, on leave from the magic kingdom of Basic Training, brought Winkly Technicolored tales of drinking, swearing, and screwing. “You get paid for this, too?” Downtown, over Cokes and cigarettes, the local recruiter confirmed the details. He offered Winkly a pen. Later, lying awake listening to the sighs and sobs of his fellow trainees, Winkly would smile up at the bulging bunk springs above him thinking, that was a good one, cuz, you really got me this time. A regular prankster himself, he could appreciate the cruelly skillful execution of a “good one.” He soon realized, though, that beyond the immediate nooselike horizon of hysterical drill sergeants, pulled muscles, and Brasso there was a special civilized world of quiet duty and loud nights. Instead of revenge, Winkly plotted to apply, at the earliest opportunity, for warrant officers school, a rank high enough to earn salutes, low enough to escape the imprisonment of command. The career had turned out rather well, better than his marriage, fifteen leisurely years of guaranteed paychecks, hot meals, and discount booze linked to a dim succession of identical gray steel desks scattered throughout the Free World where he sat, eye on the clock, shuffling cards and retailing shelf-worn anecdotes. The cards were notorious, his private collection a frequent bar topic from Heidelberg to Fort Hood. The center of each playing card bore an invariably grainy photograph (fifty-two different poses per deck) of a naked woman either having sex or about to have sex or thinking about sex with either herself, another woman, or one of an assortment of lonely farm and zoo animals. To Winkly these blurred off-tone reproductions were artistic wonders deserving repeated consideration and comment; certainly they occupied his time, those seductive games of solitaire spread pink and glossy across his bare desktop, hour after hour, day after day.