Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

Finally the ambulance arrived, its domed lights swinging in counterpoint to the neon DANCE DANCE DANCE. A pair of burly bearded guys who appeared to have just driven in from a beer commercial in Colorado jumped out and attended to Trips. The police talked to me.

“You the hero?”

“I hope not.”

“Okay, what’s the story here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody killed his dog.”

I rode to the hospital, rocking beneath a siren, in the back of the ambulance, staring at a white hand dangling off a stretcher. Someone said there was no major penetration, they thought he’d probably make it. Ice built up under the wipers, the tires occasionally skidded sideways. Someone offered me a whiff of oxygen. Someone took a history, nodding approvingly. Everyone got hurt these days, accident, disease, organs breaking down, and no one had proper coverage. Living was expensive enough but dying now was a luxury. A veteran, though, he’s got his own hospitals, his staff, his lab tests, his food, his paid care, his security, yes a veteran, why he was home free.

At 0218 Looking Glass 24, a nightly infrared mission, vanished from the radar screens at I Corps air control in Da Nang. Radio contact was broken. The following morning search planes located the wreckage of a Mohawk reconnaissance aircraft approximately three hundred meters from the peak of a rock mountain. There wasn’t a section of wreckage exceeding six inches in length. A medical team arrived by helicopter. “I couldn’t find enough pieces to fill an envelope,” commented Flight Surgeon Beams, speaking of the mortal remains of the crew, Captain Alvin P. Fry and Specialist 5th Class Monroe Wurlitzer.

Kraft wouldn’t come out of his room anymore. He ignored orders directing him to the Spook House, he declined an invitation for a drive to the 92nd Evac. He wouldn’t move, he rarely spoke. He sat on the floor, head slightly cocked, the muscles of his face fixed in an expression of intense bafflement as though attending to a sound or an interior process distant and subtle. No one knew what was wrong with him. Sometimes when questioned, his hands would lift in gestures of helpless amazement, and he’d look away saying softly, “The plants… they’re so… the trees… I… I don’t know.” Finally they left him there like that because he was obviously useless and he only had forty days to go and no one cared anyway.

At last the landscaping, the interior decorating, the washing, the painting were done. Major Holly’s vision had become a reality. The hootches were spotlessly white, the polished roofs shone. There were rocks lined up neatly along the road, the sidewalk was swept daily, there were newly planted palm trees beside the mess hall and the O club, flowers were blooming around the orderly room. Everyone always wore a hat and all boots gleamed. The compound looked so neat it reminded Griffin of a Monopoly game. The hootches were the little houses lined up on Boardwalk and he was a metal shoe stuck on Chance.

There was no hope of escape now. The burning pickup bounced across the field, trailing gasoline and fire it couldn’t possibly outrun. The truck exploded. Through the open cab window you could see the bodies twisting in the flames. Out in the darkness restless shapes gathered now at the edges of the light. As the fire subsided, they crowded about the warm doors. Reaching in, they pulled at the meat with bare fingers. In the scuffle a handful of intestines spilled shiny and loose onto the ground. A man chewed on a heart, a woman crouched behind a tree gnawing at the charred flesh of an arm.

Someone said, “Wow!”

There were astonished whispers, hysterical giggles, shrieks of delight.

“Save me a breast!” shouted someone else.

The chapel echoed with electric laughter.

One of the men had been locked out of the farmhouse. He banged on the door with his fists. Deformed faces turned toward the sound of his cries.

“Uh-oh.”

“Poke ’em in the eyes with the torch!”

“Kick ’em in the nuts!”

A woman screamed. Arms were plunging through the walls.

Simon leaned over. “Is it legal to be showing us this picture?”

They sat on a bench against the back wall. Trips was staring open-mouthed at the images flowing across the white sheet tacked above the altar.

“Look,” said Griffin, dressed in field jacket and sunglasses, “I think this kid is gonna eat her mother.”

The audience began bouncing up and down in the pews.

Someone stood bowlegged in the open doorway. There came a noise of splashing water.

“Jesus Christmas, Mutant Man, ain’t you got no couth at all?”

The film rattled through the antique projector, its sound track scratchy and distorted. A polluted tide of blue smoke drifted along the cone of movie light.

Someone lying on the floor shifted position, empty beer cans went clattering over concrete.

The ghouls milled around in the night, searching for a way in. On the farmhouse porch dead feet tramped steadily across the boards.

“The one with the black eyes and rotten teeth looks just like the CO.”

“How about Sergeant Anstin’s twin there in the bib jeans?”

“Ma!”

The shadow of someone’s upraised hand formed a bat silhouette against the screen.

“This is the grossest movie I’ve ever seen,” murmured Simon.

“I like it,” said Griffin.

Armed gangs of potbellied men roamed the daylight countryside hunting for the ghouls.

“Burn ’em or beat ’em,” the sheriff advised.

When the sirens began everyone laughed. Then they jumped up, heading for the exits.

“Every time we get a good flick,” someone moaned.

“Makes you wonder if they’ve got a copy of our film schedule or something.”

Okay, thought Griffin. Okay. He crawled under the bench and covered his head with his arms.

In R&A a tray of Scrabble tiles was knocked to the floor. “Well, gentlemen,” drawled Sergeant Maloney, “looks like the Fifth NVA has found us first.” Huddled in his plywood box Lieutenant Tremble wondered if he’d survive the night. He had wanted so badly to make captain.

Around the Spook House the fence was electrified. A unit of Green Berets manned the bunkers.

In the NCO club Sergeant Sherbert put on his flak vest and poured himself a glass of Jack Daniels Black.

The First Sergeant, rolling out of bed, heard the Chinese bugles of the winter of ’fifty-one.

The first mortar round detonated in the empty field between the EM club and the laundry, the huge crunching sound of its impact resembling a monster chewing on bone. The second redistributed the garbage dump behind the mess hall. The third hit the gas tanks in the motor pool.

On top of the mess hall the sirens shrieked, a piercing mournful cry.

Griffin peered out from his hiding place. The chapel was empty, the projector ran on unattended. The warm wind coming through the door smelled of urine.

“There’s one,” shouted the sheriff. A shotgun fired. The ghoul went down like a rotten tree.

The incoming was making two sounds now. A mortar scored a hole in the basketball court, a rocket removed the kitchen from the rear of the mess hall.

The Officer of the Day and the Sergeant of the Guard ran through the compound, trying to round up the men assigned to this night’s reactionary force.

Scrambling for cover, Chief Winkly banged his head against the bunker opening. He lay down inside between everyone’s feet, a moldy towel pressed to his bleeding nose.

Sergeant Anstin ordered two privates to take down by flashlight and note pad the names of those without helmet and flak jacket.