Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

same—almost in the same village.” “It was your guys? Your outfit? Somebody in your platoon?” “Not ours. It was some Korean guys, a Korean outfit. Those fuckers

are senseless.” “Now shut the fuck up,” Kinney said, “and tell us what the fuck you

did.” “There’s a lot of bad business that goes on,” the man said. “You’re bullshit. The U.S. Marines would never put up with that.

You’re so bullshit.” The guy held up both hands like an arrestee. “Hey, wow, man — what’s all the excitement about?” “Just tell me you cut up a living woman, and I’ll admit you’re not bullshit.” The bartender shouted, “You! I told you before! You want beef? You want scrap?”—a big fat Hawaiian with no shirt on. “This is a Moke right here,” their companion said as the bartender

threw down his rag and came over. “I told you to get out of here.” “That was yesterday.” “I told you to get out of here with that talk. That means I don’t want

to see you yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” “Hey, I got a beer here.” “Take it with you, I don’t care.” Kinney stood up. “Let’s get the fuck out of this shit-hole Moke joint.”

He put his hand up under his shirt at the level of his belt. “You pull a gun in here you gonna do time, if I don’t kill you.” “I get mad easy on a hot day.” “Get out, you three.”

“You making me mad?” The young bum laughed insanely and hopped backward toward the door, dangling his arms like a monkey’s.

Houston hurried for the exit too, saying, “Come on, come on, come on!” He was pretty sure he’d actually seen a gun butt in the waist of Kinney’s jeans.

“See—that’s a Moke, right there,” the bum said. “They act all rough and tough. You get an advantage on them, and right away they cry like little babies.”

They each bought a jug of Mad Dog 20/20 from a grocer who demanded they buy three loaves of Wonder Bread along with the wine, but it was still a bargain. They ate a little of the bread and tossed the rest to a couple of dogs. Soon they walked, drunk, surrounded by a pack of hungry strays, toward a glaring white strip of beach and the black sea and blue froth crashing on the sand.

A man stopped his car, a white, official-looking Ford Galaxie, and rolled down his window. He was an admiral in uniform. “Are you fellas enjoying the hell out of yourselves?”

‘Tes, sir!” Kinney said, saluting by putting his middle finger to his eyebrow. “I hope like hell you are,” the admiral said. “Because hard times are coming for assholes like you.” He rolled up his window and drove away.

The rest of the afternoon they spent drinking on the beach. Kinney sat against the trunk of a palm tree. The bum lay flat on his back with his Mad Dog balanced on his chest.

Houston took off his shoes and socks to feel the sand mounding under his arches. He felt his heart expanding. At this moment he understood the phrase “tropical paradise.”

He told his two comrades, “What I’m saying, I mean, about these Mokes. I think they’re related to the Indians that live down around my home. And not just them Indians, but also Indians that are from India, and every other kind of person you can think of who’s like that, who’s got something Oriental going on, and that’s why I think, really, there ain’t that many different kinds of people on this earth. And that’s why I’m against war …” He waved his Mad Dog around. “And that’s why I’m a pacifist.” It was wonderful to stand on the beach before this audience and gesture with a half gallon of wine and talk utter shit.

However, Kinney did disturbing things. With a dreamy look on his face he tipped his bottle above his shiny black dress shoes and watched the wine dribble onto the toes. He tossed several pinches of sand in the bum’s direction, speckling the bum’s chest, his face, his mouth. The bum brushed it away and pretended not to realize where it was coming from.

Kinney suggested taking the party to a friend’s house. “I want you to meet this guy,” he told the bum, “and then we’re gonna fix your bullshit.”

“Fine with me, asshole,” the bum said. Kinney held up his thumb and forefinger pressed together. “I’d like to get you in a space about that big,” he said.

They headed across the beach to find the house of Kinney’s friend. Houston was in agony, dealing with bare feet on the hot sand, and now on the black asphalt.

“Where are your shoes, you moron?” Houston carried his white socks in the pockets of his Levi’s, but his shoes were gone.

He stopped to purchase a seventeen-cent pair of zoris at a store. They had a sale on Thunderbird, but Kinney said his friend owed him money and promised to take them on the town later on.

Houston had loved those ivory-white bucks. To keep them white he’d powdered them with talc. And now? Abandoned to the tide. “Is this a military base?” he asked. They were in some kind of development of cheap little pink and blue dwellings.

“These are bungalows,” the bum said.

“Hey,” Houston said to their companion. “What is your name, man?”

“I’ll never tell,” the bum said.

“He’s totally full of bullshit,” Kinney said.

Maybe these bungalows seemed a bit slummy, but not compared to what Houston had seen in Southeast Asia. A mist of white sand covered the asphalt walkways, and as the three of them strode among the coconut palms he heard the surf thunder in the distance. He’d passed through Honolulu several times, and he liked it a lot. It simmered and stank as

much as any other tropical place, but it was part of the United States, and things were in good repair. Kinney checked the numbers above the doorways. “This is my

buddy’s house. Let’s go around back.” Houston said, “Why don’t we just ring the doorbell?” “I don’t want to ring the doorbell. Do you want to ring the doorbell?” “Well, no, man. He ain’t my friend.” They followed Kinney around the building. At one of the back windows, where a light shone, Kinney stood on

tiptoe and peered inside, then he pressed himself against the trunk of a palm tree beside the wall and said to the beach bum, “Do me a favor, tap on the screen.”

“Why should I?” “I intend to surprise this guy.” “What for?” “Just do it, will you? This guy owes me money, and I want to surprise

him about it.”

The bum scratched his fingernails along the window screen. The light went off within. A man’s face hovered in the window frame, barely visible behind the screen. “What’s the story, mister?”

Kinney said, “Greg.” “Who’s that?”

Its me. “Oh, hey, man —Kinney.” “Yeah, that’s right, it’s me. You got the two-sixty?” “I didn’t see you there, man.” “You got my two-sixty?” “You just back on the island? Where you been?” “I want my two-sixty.” “Shit, man. I have a phone. Why didn’t you call?” “I wrote you we’d be pulling in the first week in June. What do you

think this is? It’s the first week in June. And I want my money.” “Shit, man. I don’t have all of it.” “How much you got, Greg?” “Shit, man. I can probably get some of it.” Kinney said, “You are a lying piece of genuine shit.”

From his waistband he pulled a blue.45 automatic and aimed it at the man, and the man dropped like a puppet with its strings cut and disappeared. Right at that time Houston heard an explosion. He tried to understand where this noise had come from, to find some explanation for it other than that Kinney had just shot this man in the chest.

“Come on, come on,” Kinney said. There was a hole through the window screen. “Houston!” “What?” “We’re done. We’re going.” “We are?” Houston couldn’t feel his own feet. He moved along as if on wheels.