Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

He was delighted to chance, next, on a book about Knute Rockne. He sat down and turned its leaves until he found on page 87 a photo of Rockne on the fields of Notre Dame in 1930 with the last team he’d coached; and among them, in the middle of the third row, with more abundant hair and his wrinkles erased and the familiar, eager sincerity on his face: Uncle Francis. A second-string freshman, but nevertheless one of Rockne’s blunt, confident young men—chests out, chins up, peering ahead no further than two or three minutes into the life to come. Francis’s older brother Michael, Skip’s father, had graduated from Notre Dame the year before and moved to his bride’s hometown of Clements, Kansas. Francis would join the army air force and leave it in 1939 to fly with the pseudo-civilian Flying Tigers in Burma. Michael would grow restless selling farm equipment and join the navy in 1941 and go down six months later with the Arizona in the first few seconds of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Death had too often visited prematurely among his father’s people—wars and accidents. The colonel had a daughter, Anne; a son, Francis Junior, had drowned one Fourth of July while sailing in Boston Harbor. A brother and a son, both claimed by harbors. There had been brothers and sisters and plenty of cousins, and many children from those sources, and everybody had somebody missing. It was a loud, sad family.

Skip stared at the ranks of the players. Men who raced from the benches to collide with one another in joyful bloodshed. Who let themselves be hammered and rounded into cops and warriors and lived in a world completely inaccessible to women and children. They stared back at him. An old ache sang its song. Only child of a widowed mother. Somehow he’d entered their world without becoming a man.

He shut the book and instead opened the fragile pages of the letter from Kathy Jones:

They were born into a land at war. Born into a time of trial that

never ends.

What I don’t think has been talked about is the fact that in or

der to be Hell, the people in Hell could never be sure they were

really there. If God told them they were in Hell, then the torment

of uncertainty would be relieved from them, and their torment

wouldn’t be complete without that nagging question—”Is this suffering I see all around me my eternal damnation and the eternal damnation of all these souls, or is it just a temporary journey?” A temporary journey in the fallen world.

And I might as well tell you, my faith has gone dark, because I started reading Calvin, wrestling with Calvin, and I lost the fight and got dragged down into Calvin’s despair. Calvin doesn’t call it despair but it’s despair all right. I know that this is Hell, right here, planet Earth, and I know that you, me, and all of us were made by God only to be damned.

And then suddenly I scream, “But God wouldn’t do that!” —See? The torment of uncertainty. Or I guess as a Catholic, you might ask yourself if this is a jour

ney through Purgatory. You’ll sure ask yourself that when you come to Vietnam. Five or ten times a day you’ll stop and ask yourself, When did I die? And why is God’s punishment so cruel?

He spent the afternoon in the cool of the library and rode the shuttle bus back to the BOQ.

He’d hardly been back in his room a minute when somebody knocked at the door, a man about his own age, wearing civvies, holding in each hand a bottle of San Miguel beer.

“These are the last in the bucket, my man.” The quality of the man’s smile was disconcerting. “The Skipper needs a beer.” Skip said—”Hey!” “Quantico!” He accepted a bottle and they shook hands, Skip flushing with a

warmth of recognition, although the name escaped him. They’d done a twenty-one-day ciphers program together at Quantico just after his training at the Farm—never buddies, but certainly, now, well met. They sat around chatting about nothing, and after a few minutes Skip felt the moment for getting his friend’s name had slipped past. “Where’s your home station now?” he asked the man. “Still Langley?”

“They’ve got me stashed in the District. At the State Department, the big building, Pennsylvania Avenue. But I make the rounds—Saigon, Manila, DC. What about you?”

“I’m being transferred. Saigon.”

“You get a good deal in Saigon —share a house, servants, that order of existence. Run of the place whenever you can get away. Hell —every weekend. Most weekends.”

“I hear it’s a beautiful country.”

“Surprisingly beautiful. You step out of a hooch to take a leak, shake off the last drop, and look up—God, you can’t believe it, where’d it come from?”

“Just like here, in other words.” “Considerably more dangerous. You do earn your hazard pay.” “I’m looking forward to it.” “You’re in Operations, am I right?” “Right,” Skip said. “Officially. But I seem to work for Plans.” “Well, I’m in Plans, but I seem to work for State.” “What brings you to the base?” “A free ride back to the war at twenty hundred hours. The clock’s

running out for me, son. Last chance for a San Miguel. Wish I could

take a keg with me.” “Do they sell San Miguel by the keg?” “Come to think of it, I’m not sure. But they sell it by the bottle at the

Officers’ Club. Let’s go.” “I’m all grimy. Should I meet you?” “Should I wait? —Or what about going into town?” “Well,” Skip said, “if you’re leaving at twenty hundred — ” “Or we could swing by the Teen Club, find out what the officers’ kids

are up to.” Skip said, “What?” “Say, that reminds me —I mean, speaking of officers’ kids. Aren’t you

related to the colonel himself?” “Which colonel, now?” “Aren’t you close to the colonel? The colonel Francis Xavier?” “I’m one of his favorite people, if we’re talking about the same guy.” “There ain’t but one Colonel.” “I guess not.” “I took that Psy Ops course of his. He’s a man with a message.” “He’s got vision, all right.” “You took it too? He titled it wrong. ‘Reminiscing and Theorizing’

would be more like it.”

“That’s the colonel.” “He’s put some of his thoughts in an article for the journal. Have you

read it?” “In the journal? You mean in Studies?” “Yowza.” They referred to the Agency’s in-house organ, Studies in Intelligence.

The colonel’s thoughts in the journal? What to say to this? Nothing.

He gulped his beer and wiped it from his mustache. He’d gone through the bushy Kennedy phase. Now they were all back to crew cuts again, flattops—proving they weren’t the Beatles. But Skip had kept his mustache. It was luxuriant.

“Do you read the journal much, Skip?” “I catch up in Manila. We didn’t have it in the boonies. I was up in

San Marcos.” “Oh, yeah—the Del Monte place.” “Ever been there?” “No. You haven’t read his piece?” “I can’t believe he’d get anything into shape for actual publication.” “It hasn’t been published. It’s just a draft.” “How did you happen to see it?” “I wondered if you’d seen it in a rough form.” “Man, I didn’t know he ever put a pen to the page. How’d you get

hold of it? Are you with the journal?” “So you haven’t seen it.” Skip now felt his heart coming to a halt. “No,” he said, “like I said.” “Well, I’ll be open with you. The piece is a little puzzling. One expla

nation is it’s meant to be satire. But if he’s submitting satire to the house organ, that’s puzzling in itself. That’s troubling too; that in itself is puzzling.”

“I see,” Skip said. “Look, obviously I remember you, but I’ve forgot

ten your name.” “Voss.” “Rick, right?” “C’est moi.” “The face was familiar, but—” “I’m getting porky.” “If you say so.”