Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

with.” “What am I gonna call you?”

ŤT 77

James. “Not Jim?” “Never Jim.” They finished the beers and flung the bottles into the surf. James went among the coconut palms down the beach, Cadwallader

following with great, three-legged strides while James turned upright one of the odd round boats—giant baskets six or seven feet across, of woven thatch and batten, coated with something like lacquer—and dragged it in heroic, lurching fits toward the surf. Little naked children came around to view the struggle. If there were any grown-up people in the hooches beyond the palms, they didn’t show themselves.

He stopped for breath, still many yards from the water. “Where’s your mighty weapon at?”

Cadwallader pulled up his shirtfront. The gun butt protruded above his waistband. “If you’re riding with me, it’s liable to get wet. ‘Cause I’m liable to

sink us.” “Lift up that boat over there.” James raised the edge of another of the overturned boats, and Cad

wallader wrapped the gun and his cigarettes and lighter in his shirt and tossed it under. James did the same with his Marlboros and in one last explosion of effort got the craft out into the waves.

Up to his chest in the mild surf, Cadwallader laid his crutches in the boat and clambered aboard. The craft had one paddle. “Rock and roll!” cried Cadwallader while James nearly capsized them. “If we get in the wrong current we’ll never see land again. Do you care?”

James tried paddling on alternate sides. He didn’t know where to stand, or whether to stand at all in this rocking hemisphere. “This ain’t working. How do they make these things go?”

“Gimme that paddle. I’m a sailor in my blood.”

The children stood on the shore and watched the boat drift away. Goats bleated in the coconut grove. Soon James heard nothing but the surf behind them. Beyond the shore the grove, beyond the grove the hooches of thatch and straw … They go up like matchheads, he thought.

“We’re lost at sea!” Cadwallader cried. “My head is swimming from

the symbolism of it.” “You remind me of my little brother.” “Why—what about him?” “I can’t put my finger right on it. You just do.” They floated around and the current took them away from Vietnam. “Well, James, you gonna stay awhile?” “Maybe. I don’t know.” “I can talk to Frenchie about a discount.” “I got money. I don’t need a discount.” “That’s kind of a strange attitude.” “I’m just saying I don’t need no favors.” “Where are you at in your tour?” “A little ways into number two.” “You’re just a mess of strange attitudes. I don’t get why anybody

would go around a second time on this hog.”

“Ain’t no reason for it,” James admitted. “Are you short?” “Not that short.” “How far along are you?” “Eight months. Six months and eight days when they hurt me.

Halfway and eight. It’s fucked up.” “Just as fucked up to eat shit if you’re the new guy.” “Yeah. It’s always fucked up to eat shit. That’s part of the plan.” Cadwallader rose storklike on his single leg, tipped sideways, and

rolled into the water. James was entirely alone in the ocean until Cad

wallader broke the surface, blowing and spitting. “Hey, man.” “Hey what.” “Get back in the boat.” “What for?” “At least stay there.” “I am. You’re the one moving.” “I can’t paddle this thing. Come on, I’m about to lose you.” “Yeah?” “Cadwallader. Cadwallader.” “Adios, motherfucker!” “It’s a mile to shore.” Cadwallader floated on his back a hundred feet away. “Cadwallader!” James paddled hard but he didn’t know how it was done. He could

glimpse the boy now only when the low swells dipped. Cadwallader floated on his back, staring upward and kicking. “You’re coming the right way!” James shouted, but Cadwallader didn’t hear or didn’t care. James believed one of them was making progress toward the other, and this inspired him. The paddle seemed to function better if he worked it back and forth like a fishtail out behind. The work exhausted him. Cadwallader came near and James grasped at his hand, but he fended him off. James clutched at his hair. Cadwallader yelped and took hold of the side. James didn’t have strength to haul him aboard. He had no breath left even to swear at him. His chest heaved and the coppery taste of fatigue filled his mouth.

Cadwallader kicked away, turned over, and began swimming overhand toward shore. James paddled after. The current seemed to be with them now.

The teacup craft scraped bottom and the small surf pitched it around. James got out and dragged it to land.

Cadwallader lay flat on his back a hundred yards off. James trudged toward him, dragging a crutch by either hand and leaving two lines behind him in the sand. Meanwhile, the waves had reclaimed the boat. It bobbed in the foam and seemed to be heading out to sea.

“You’re fucked up, man. You’re all wrong inside.” “Obviously.” “I’ve had it, man.” “Gimme my sticks.” James flung each one as far from him as possible. “Get your own god

damn sticks.” He shuffled to where they’d stashed their gear and retrieved it and

examined Cadwallader’s gun, a Browning Hi-Power. “Hey,” he called. “This is officer’s issue. Are you an officer?” Cadwallader crawled bitterly across the sands like a cinematic Saha

ran castaway. “Are you an officer?” “I’m a civilian! I’m a fucking deserter!” He dragged himself to James’s feet. James ejected the Browning’s

magazine and yanked back the slide to clear the action of the last bullet

and said, “Now you can play all you want.” “Fuck you. I got plenty of ammo.” “Enjoy it, then, and I’m taking the weapon.” “Gimme back my boom-boom.” “Never happen, or you’re gonna kill yourself.” “You’re stealing my gun.” “Looks like it.” “Fuck your cracker ass. That’s my ticket to Paradise.” They both lit cigarettes off Cadwallader’s Zippo, and James said: “I gotta go.” He turned and walked off. “Halt. That’s an order. I’m a lieutenant, man.” “Not in my war,” James said over his shoulder. As he headed through the chink in the seawall he heard Lieutenant

Cadwallader calling, “Kill me a Gook, man!”

James caught a ride in a Mutt with two men of the Twenty-fifth from downtown Saigon out to the big base. They dropped him right in front of the Twelfth Evacuation Hospital in its fog of rotor dust and he went inside without talking to anyone and was instantly lost amid all the wards with their sickly hush and medical stench. He’d had a lot of beer that morning and felt irritable and hollow. First they told him Ward C-3, then no, C-4, and the nurse for C-4 guessed Ward 5 or 6, and finally a nurse in 6 gave him a doughnut and said she cared for the expectants and some of the bad ones and brought him to a curtain around a space in a kind of alcove and said to him, “Jim? Do they call you Jim?” She didn’t move the curtain.

“I go more by James.” She moved the partition aside a bit. “Sergeant Harmon?” the nurse said. “James is here. James from your unit.”

The sarge was in no kind of shape. James stood beside the bed and said, “Hey, Sarge,” and tried to work up something further, but failed. James wanted to say The guys are gonna drink without you around and say They were shooting the place up a while ago and say I was shooting the place up too. He was angry at somebody around here and possibly it was the sarge, who looked not very different from dead, certainly past provoking by news of undisciplined conduct. He looked like the Frankenstein monster laid out in pieces, wired up for the jolt that would wake him to a monster’s confused and tortured finish. The sarge even had gleaming metal bolts like the Frankenstein monster’s coming out the sides of his head—for what purpose? A sheet covered him up to where his navel would have been, if he’d had an abdomen instead of something that looked put together out of scraps from a slaughterhouse. A machine beside the bed made a regular hiss and thunk. Red numbers on a monitor’s screen told his pulse: 73, 67, 70.