Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

of our bunch want you here in Five Corps, you’re at their service, too.” “Very good.”

Jimmy said, “We want to turn those tunnels into a region of hell.” “Jimmy went to mining school.” “You’re kidding.” “It’s all part of a master plan,” Jimmy assured him. “Did you graduate?” “Fuck no,” Jimmy said. “Do I look like a graduate of anything?” After coffee, during which Skip had his lunch—a sweet roll as pallid

and lumpy as his spirits—Storm drove them in the black Chevrolet to the Continental Hotel, where the colonel kept a room on the ground floor, in the back, removed from the noisy lobby. Evidently he kept it permanently—boxes of books and record albums, a typewriter, a phonograph, a desk for working, another desk that served as a bar. The colonel set a record spinning. “This is Peter Paul and Mary in Concert. Listen to this one.” And he bent over the player and squinted and with his thick fingers set its arm down on the trio’s rendering of “Three Ravens,” the melancholy ballad of a fallen knight and his doomed lover. They sat in silence, Skip and Jimmy each at one of the desks, while the song played and the colonel changed his pants and shirt. His mood, the mood Skip had put him in, had passed. He sat on his bed and slipped his feet into a pair of loafers while saying, “That Mindanao mission. That was a good report. Do you know what I liked most about it?”

Then he paused. “No,” Skip said, “I don’t.” It annoyed him, the colonel’s habit of wait

ing for answers to rhetorical questions. “What I liked about it was you didn’t mention me.” “I think I had legitimate reasons for being less than complete.” “I think you have an instinct for discretion,” the colonel said. “I assumed you’d be the first to read the report.” “The first and last, my boy. That was the intention, anyhow.” “I assumed you’d let me know if you required more detail.” “This guy has his jive down,” Jimmy said, resting his arm on the back

of Skip’s chair. “He knows how to skate.” The colonel looked very directly at Jimmy and said, “This man is

family in every sense of the word.” “Message received,” Jimmy assured him. “All right, then.” The colonel stood and said, “Guess who flew over

with me from Cao Phuc? Our good lieutenant.”

“Screwy Louie,” Jimmy said. “Now, now. Disrespect.” “That’s how his tag should read. The grunts call him ‘Screwy Loot.’ ” “He’s probably downstairs.” “Screwy Louie went blooey.” “Now, Skip, we are dealing with the American infantry. Let me sug

gest that we take our allies as we find them.” “He’s talking about the lieutenant,” Storm said, “not about me.” “I’ve got nothing against the army. I’m an old army air force man. But

the infantry isn’t what it used to be.”

“He’s a psychological operation all by himself.”

“Now, young William,” the colonel said, rummaging in his desk drawer, “I’ve got your document.” He tossed his nephew a maroon passport.

Skip opened it to find his own face looking out at him over the name

William French Benęt. “Canadian!” “Your rent’s paid by the Canadian Ecumenical Council.” “Never heard of them.” “They don’t exist. You’re out here on a grant from the council. Trans

lating the Bible or something.” “Benęt!” The colonel said, “Come on, Benęt, let’s get some coffee.” In the large, frantic lobby they sat in rattan chairs under one of a mul

titude of whirling fans. Around them beggars and urchins crawled at the feet of exiles and campaigners—at last, a wartime capital, a posh lobby full of sagas, busy with spies and cheats, people cut loose and no longer accountable to their former selves. Deals struck in a half dozen languages, sinister rendezvous, false smiles, eyes measuring the chances. Psychos, wanderers, heroes. Lies, scars, masks, greedy schemes. This was what he wanted—not some villa in the bush.

Sadly he asked the colonel, “Will I be seeing you out in the boonies?” “Sure thing. We’re getting you all set up. Anything special you’ll need?” “Just the usual. Pens, some paper, that sort of thing. The usual.”

“Paper cutter. Rubber cément.” “Very good. Wonderful.” “I’ll get you a typewriter too. I want you to have a typewriter. And lots

of ribbons.” “I’ll write your memoirs for you.” The colonel said, “The heat’s got you all prickly.” “Can I be disappointed for a half hour or so?” “Come on, it would be worse if you stayed in Saigon and worked for

our bunch. They’ve got fifty interrogation stations in the South. That’s one mighty mountain after another of reports to go through. It all stays in-country. They’ll put you in a hole and have you cross-indexing references till you’re shitting five-by-eight cards. You’d rather be out there in the villes getting to know the people—the land we’re at war in. We’re getting you squared away someplace nice, never fear. And eventually you’ll do important work for us.”

“I believe you, sir.” “Any questions at this point?” “In the files.” “Shoot.” “What is the significance of the phrase ‘Tree of Smoke’?” “So you’ve come to the T’s in the files.” “No. I just heard the phrase today.” “Jesus,” Storm said. “I mentioned it, but I thought we were all kind of

sharing our germs and diseases here, you know?” “He’s family,” the colonel reminded him. “So what’s the meaning?” Jimmy said. ” ‘Tree of Smoke.’ ” “Oh, God, I wouldn’t know where to begin. It’s embarrasingly poetic.

It’s grandiose.” Skip said, “That doesn’t sound like you.” “To be poetic and grandiose?” “To be embarrassed.” Jimmy said, “Here’s a question: Who said, ‘Keep your friends close,

keep your enemies closer’?” “Is this an interrogation?” the colonel said. “Then let’s have cocktails.” Cocktails were served in a succession of louder and danker establishments mostly on Thi Sach Street, tavern darknesses where during a sin

gle play on the jukebox whole eras passed before the vision like scarves. In each one Skip nursed a beer and tried to stay alert, taking it in, though there was nothing to take in but pop tunes and small joyless go-go dancers. He felt dazed, didn’t know why he didn’t go home. At some point, he hadn’t noticed when, the lieutenant had joined them, the one they called Screwy. He certainly seemed it—his tense face, his eyes deliberately widened, as if his message to the world were, Look at me, you’ve made me a frightened child—certainly inviting no conversation. Meanwhile, “I’ll tell you what tells me about Voss,” the colonel was saying. “First time I met Voss we sat down for San Miguels in Manila. He ordered one and he never once touched it. It sat at his feet like a prize.”

Skip said, “In my presence he drank half a beer,” making sure he followed this statement by taking a sip of his own.

The Screwy Loot seemed hypnotized by the knees of a go-go girl skipping, four feet away, to the Caribbean rhythms of Desmond Dekker while Sergeant Storm shouted in his ear, “Ain’t no big shit whether we win or lose this thing. We live in the post-trash, man. It’ll be a real short eon. Down in the ectoplasmic circuitry where humanity’s leaders are all linked up unconsciously with each other and with the masses, man, there’s been this unanimous worldwide decision to trash the planet and get on to a new one. If we let this door close, another will open.” The lieutenant paid no mind.

The colonel also seemed deaf to Jimmy’s nonsense. He drank deeply of his zillionth highball and announced, “The land is their myth. We penetrate the land, we penetrate their national soul. This is real infiltration. It may be tunnels, but it’s in the realm of Psy Ops most definitely.”