Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

Trips didn’t know what happened until he returned from work—his daily nap in the operations office—and whistled and then whistled again and looked around in bewilderment for the excited animal who had been there to greet him without fail for almost a year. “Where’s Thai?” he asked. No one could tell him. Griffin tried, but hadn’t even gotten to the main event, said the words, when Trips stepped cursing to his locker, rummaged around inside, and strode out the door with the attitude of someone embarking on a mission so critical he didn’t care if he ever came back. Half an hour later he returned, tossed the unbloodied knife onto his bed, muttering about witnesses and close quarters and what he really needed was a bomb to take out the entire NCO club and all the cowards in it. He left again, everyone assuming of course he was out hunting up an adequate explosive device or building it himself because he was gone all night, only Griffin to know finally he had spent the hours sitting beside a mound of freshly bulldozed sand where for the first time in fifteen years he cried with tears and blubbering. Then he dug up one of his Maxwell House cans and locked the door to his room and got into bed and stayed for three days and even after he was up and walking about it was still more than a week before he talked to anyone. No one was to mention Thai’s name again. It had taken this much to get over it and he didn’t want to repeat the process, but sometimes of course a person forgot or pretended to forget and the dog’s name hung in the air like a stale odor that won’t go away and anyone could tell by the pure cold light that came into his eyes he hadn’t gotten over anything.

1. Before sowing treat seed with a fungicide, for example, a .25% solution of formaline. Wash seeds and allow to dry.

2. Mix seed with sand at a ratio of 1:2 and sow in a light, friable, but rich soil at a depth not to exceed ¼ inch.

3. Soil can be kept moist but take care not to overwater.

4. Germination usually lasts from two to three weeks. Three to four weeks after germination the first four leaves of the plant are formed.

5. After the leaves have appeared the plants should be thinned out so that they are spaced about 3–4" apart.

6. In warm temperatures the plant reaches full development in 40 to 60 days.

7. Flowering occurs during the day. Each flower remains open 30 to 40 hours after which it begins to wither.

Huey stopped dead in the doorway. “Okay, what’s this now,” she asked, “boarding a family of vampires?” She entered the room cautiously between the narrow boxes of black dirt. “But where did these come from? How did you get them up here? What on earth are you doing?”

“Best soil money can buy.”

She wandered the aisles, astonished. She bent down, squeezed clumps of dirt with her fingers. “There are tiny green things here,” she declared, “shooting up out of this mud. It’s a garden, you’ve turned your apartment into a garden.”

I showed her the closet stocked with bags of fertilizer, the green hose winding its way in from the kitchen tap.

“What have you planted?”

“Let’s wait until it blooms and be surprised.”

“You could grow your own food in here, organic fruits and vegetables.”

“We’d never get cancer.”

“Flowers, though, would be spectacular, a roomful of fresh flowers in the center of the city.”

“We could hold a beautiful wake.”

“Think of all the oxygen the leaves are going to make. We’ll be able to breathe again.” She turned around in surprise. “But where’s your couch and the chairs? Your desk?”

“Them’s city conveniences, ma’am, don’t need none of that trash out here in God’s Country.”

“Good Lord, the bed’s gone, what have you done with your bed? Where do you sleep?”

“Among the furrows.”

“Now what are you doing?”

“Taking off my clothes.”

“If you think I’m getting down on that dirty floor.”

“Not on the floor, on the dirty dirt.”

“O no.” She began to laugh. “What are you doing? O no.”

“Ancient farm ritual. To ensure the success of the harvest.”

“O, this is kinky.”

“Well, try to calm yourself, all this laughing is frightening the bees.”

“O, o o o o o.”

Stamens and pistils.

One morning Franklin settled himself into his chair with his usual exaggerated care, studied the occupants of the room, stuck a joint in his mouth, lit it, and began smoking.

The clerks looked at one another.

“Fraaaaaaaaaank-lin!” bellowed the First Sergeant, “I don’t believe I’m actually seeing this.”

Franklin grinned behind purple glasses.

“Put it out, Private!”

Franklin shook his head. “I can’t, Top. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

“Well, here’s what I do.” The First Sergeant came out from behind his desk, strode over to Franklin, and yanked the burning joint from his mouth.

Suddenly, with the quick fluid motion of a working magician, Franklin caused a long glittering knife to appear in his hand.

“I thought I confiscated that.”

“A white devil don’t know how to think.”

“Give it up now and this unfortunate incident doesn’t have to leave the room.”

“No, but I do.”

“And where you gonna go?” The First Sergeant smiled pleasantly. “This ain’t downtown Chicago.”

The clerks were frozen in their chairs.

The telephone on top of the First Sergeant’s desk began ringing.

“Get that, Simon,” said the First Sergeant without taking his eyes off Franklin.

“Ten sixty-ninth M.I.G., Specialist Simon speaking, sir.”

Franklin’s chest had started to heave.

“No, sir… yes, sir, but I don’t believe… yes, sir, I’ll tell him, sir.” Simon replaced the receiver.

“Major Coggins out on the perimeter says we owe him another man this month.”

“Fine, Simon, sit down.”

The knife was quivering in Franklin’s hand.

“Now, Franklin, if anyone knows how patient a man I can be it’s certainly you. I’ve sat here day after day listening to your gripes, your complaints, your bad mouth, your drivel, and I think I’ve been fairly decent about it. So I can be decent about this, too, if you’ll just give it over right now. Wait much longer and I don’t know what will happen.”

The First Sergeant extended his arm. The knife flashed. There was a bright streak of red from elbow to wrist. The First Sergeant looked at his arm in disbelief, looked at Franklin, looked at his arm again. “Why you goddamn cocksucking nigger I’ll kill you for this!” he shouted, lunging toward the figure already halfway to the door.

The First Sergeant lost him more than a mile down the road somewhere in the warren of tumbledown shacks and huts that served as housing for the 131st FAC. Major Holly was secretly pleased. At last the CID had cause to enter the case, but a month later Franklin was still missing and there were no leads. Captain Rossiter of the CID figured that by now the fugitive was probably down in Saigon shacked up with some prostitute on Tudo Street. Don’t worry, we’ll find him. Months passed. Griffin wondered if maybe he wasn’t living in a rabbit hole under the Voodoo Hootch but none of the brothers were talking. Or maybe he had really done it, gone all the way over, gone out there, beyond the safety of barbed wire and bunker, to roam about those dark wilds, to wait and to watch with lighted eyes.

Each day was a tube you curled yourself into a ball and rolled through. Zip. Dark tube connected to dark tube, a tunnel to tumble down. Zip.