Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

A week later, sitting in his mother’s kitchen drinking instant coffee, Bill answered the phone: his younger brother James. “Who’s that?” James said.

“Who dat who say who dat?” Bill said.

“Well-I’ll be.”

“How’s that Saigon pussy?”

“I guess Mom ain’t sitting right there.”

“Done left for work, I think.”

“Ain’t it six a.m. there?”

“Here? No. Closer to eight.”

“It ain’t six a.m.?”

“It used to be. Now it’s eight.” “What are you doing there at eight a.m.?” “Sitting here in my Jockeys, drinking Nescafe.” “You done with the navy?” “Done with them, and them with me.” “You living at Mom’s?” “Just visiting. Where are you at?” “Right this minute? Da Nang.” “Where’s that?” “Down deep somewhere in a bucket of shit.” “I haven’t seen you since Yokohama one year ago.” “Yeah, that’d be about right.” “That’s funny to say.” “Yeah, kind of.” ” ‘Haven’t seen you since Yokohama.’ ” James said, “Well …” and there was a silence. Bill asked, “You getting any pussy?” “Oh, yeah.” “How is it?” ” ‘Bout like you’d think.” Bill said, “Did you know your gal came by?” “Who?” “Stephanie. Your little gal that you dated. Yeah. She paid a visit.” “So what?” “Bothering the old woman about you.” “About what?” “Says you don’t answer her letters no more. Wants to know how

you’re going along.” “Are you living there now, or what?” “I just thought you should know. So now you know.” “So now I know. Don’t mean I care.” “You’re a funny feller. Yeah, she’s all upset about you doing another

tour.” “Are you living there for sure?” “I’m just visiting a few days till I get squared up with a job.” “Good luck.” “I appreciate it.”

“Where’s Mom? She at work?” “Yeah. What time is it there?” “I couldn’t care less,” James said. “I’m on leave. Three days.” “It must be seventeen or eighteen hundred.” “I couldn’t care less. Not for three days.” “And it’s already tomorrow, ain’t it.” “It ain’t never tomorrow, not in this fucking movie. Never ain’t noth

ing but today.” “You seen any actual combat yet?” “I been in them tunnels down there.” “What’d you see?” His brother didn’t answer. “What about the fighting? Have you been in battles?” “Not so’s you’d notice.” “Really?” “It’s sort of off over there somewhere, never right around where

you’re at. I mean, I seen dead guys, hurt guys, guys all tore up, over at the

LZ, the landing zone.” “No shit.” “Yeah. So, yeah, there’s shit going on all over. But it never gets to

right here.” “You’re probably lucky.” “That’s about it.” “What else? Come on.” “What else? I don’t know.” “Come on, brother. Tell me about that pussy.” His young brother’s voice came small and echoing over the wire,

seven, eight thousand miles. Anybody’s voice. Talking about the one thing. “It’s all over hell, brother Bill. It’s falling out of the trees. I got one I keep in a hooch over at the ville. I never seen anything like her, I mean never. Her ass never once touches the bed while I’m on her. She couldn’t weigh more’n eighty-two pounds, and she keeps me lifted up halfway to the roof. She must eat atomic fuel for breakfast. Listen: I don’t think I could take her in a fight.”

“Goddamn. Goddamn, little James. I don’t know how I’m gonna get laid now I’m back at home. I don’t know how to talk to a natural white woman!”

“You better get back with the navy.” “I don’t believe they’ll have me.” “No? They won’t?” “They got a little tired of me, seems like.” “Well …” said James. “Yeah …” During the silences came a faint wash of static, in which you could

almost hear other voices. “How’s old Burris?” “He’s all right. He’s a funny feller too, just like you.” “Mom doing okay?” “Just fine.” “Runnin’ with Jesus.” “Sure enough. Did you get my postcard that she sent?” “Yeah, that postcard? Yeah.” “I was in the brig when I sent that.” “Uh-oh.” “Yeah …” “Listen, don’t tell that Stevie gal I called.” “Stephanie?” “Yeah. Don’t tell her you talked to me.” “She said you don’t answer back when she writes you.” “Everybody else just thinks about their girl back home, that’s all they

think about.” “What do you think about?” “Sideways pussy.” “Whorehouse pussy. Paid-for pussy.” “Nothin’s free on Planet E, brother Bill.” Dead guys, guys all torn up. In this James could have been lying. He

might have felt pressured, in an overseas long-distance phone call, to produce experiences worth telling. Bill Houston had heard there wasn’t much fighting over there. Not like Iwo Jima, anyhow, not like the Battle of the Bulge. Bill Houston saw no point in calling him on his bull. James wasn’t his little punk brother anymore. You didn’t want to kid him and keep him in his place.

“I got to go, brother Bill. Tell Mom I love her.” “I’ll pass the word along. What about your Stevie gal?”

“I done told you,” James said, “just don’t mention me.”

“All right.”

“All right.”

“Keep your head down, James.”

“It’s down and staying down,” James said, and the phone clicked dead.

January came and nearly went before Bill Houston found work in the rural environs outside Tempe, near Phoenix. He took a room on South Central Street he could pay for by the day, week, or month, and bused back and forth. At 10:00 p.m. each Tuesday through Saturday he arrived in darkness at the gates of TriCity Redimix, a sand-and-gravel outfit, for his duties as night cleanup man. By ten-thirty the last of the second shift had left and he tossed aside his mandatory hard hat and presided over fifteen acres of desert—mountains of crushed rocks sorted by size, so that each mountain was made bewilderingly of the same-sized thing, from fist-sized stones down to sand. From one hopper leaked a thread of fine dust that made a pile at the end of a tunnel some twenty feet long; for each shovelful he crept down its tight length toward a distant lightbulb burning in a hemisphere of wire mesh, holding his breath and approaching, a mist of dust exploding in slow motion when he jabbed the blade into the pile, backing out step by step carrying the one shovelful and tossing it to the chilly currents circling the earth. He washed the concrete troughs under the crushers’ conveyor belts with a violent fire hose and scraped each one clean with a flat-nose shovel. The nights were wild with stars, otherwise empty and cold. For warmth he kept fifty-five-gallon drums full of diesel-soaked sand burning around the place. He made a circuit among the maze of conveyor belts under gargantuan crushers and was never done. The next evening the same belts, the same motions, even some of the same pebbles and rocks, it stood to reason, and the same cold take-out burger for lunch at the dusty table in the manager’s trailer at 2:00 a.m.; washing his hands and face first in the narrow John, his thick neck brown as a bear’s, sucking water up his nostrils and expelling the dust in liverish clumps. Not long after his lunch the roosters alone on neighboring small farms began to scream like humans, and just before six the sun arrived and turned the surrounding aluminum rooftops to torches, and then at six-thirty, while Houston punched out, the drivers came, and they lined their trucks nose-to-ass and one after another drove beneath the largest hopper of all to wait, shaken by their machines, while wet concrete cascaded down the chute into each tanker before they went out to pour the foundations of a city. Houston walked a mile to the bus stop and there he waited, covered with dirt and made sentimental by the vision of high school punks and their happy, whorish girlfriends walking to class, heading for their own daily torment, sharing cigarettes back and forth. Houston remembered doing that, and later in the boy’s bathroom … nothing ever as sweet as those mouthfuls from rushed, overhot smokes … stolen from the whole world… In his heart—as with high school—he’d quit this job on the first day but saw nowhere else to go.