Tim O'Brien - The Nuclear Age

Over the course of those evening seminars, it became clear that both Nethro and Ebenezer were true professionals. They never preached or proselytized; there was no evidence of ideology. Combat veterans, of course—nothing theoretical. They were mechanics. Turners of nuts and bolts.

“A guerrilla-type war,” Ebenezer told us. “Which means we take a page from our good brethren Uncle Charlie. No trenches, no battle lines.”

“Tell it,” said Nethro.

“Ghost soldiers. Invisible. Like in the Nam, we hit here, hit there, then beat sweet feet.”

“Oooo!” Nethro said.

“During the day we wear our civvies. We melt away, we nowhere to be found. And then at night—”

“Ooooo!”

“At night we do our business. Slick little operations. In an’ out, like surgery, then presto, we vanish, we gone . Nothin’ but boogiemen. Ghost soldiers.”

It was important stuff, I suppose, but I had a hard time digesting the implications.

Ghosts, I’d think.

Tombstones and cemeteries, all the consequences of ghost-hood.

I wanted out.

A motivation problem, I told Sarah. Not enough mobility or hostility. A shortage of spirit. Turned around, I said. I’d walked in blind, I hadn’t understood the terms.

Sarah stepped out of the shower.

She toweled off, dusted herself with powder, examined her breasts in a mirror, and stood on the bathroom scale. One hundred and twelve pounds, but each ounce carried authority.

“Well,” she said, “you’re crawling up on a conclusion.”

“Hard to say.”

“Say it.”

I wiped off a damp spot at the small of her back.

“Everything,” I said. “Start with treason. And this boot camp thing—those two zombies. Like a death squad. Can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, they’re all gunslingers. Completely scrambled. But it’s lethal. I know that much, it’ll kill somebody.”

“Lethal?” Sarah said. She stood facing the mirror. Her skin was a glossy brown, freckled at the shoulder blades. I wanted to touch her but it seemed inappropriate. After a moment she turned. “Funny coincidence, William, but that’s exactly what the folks in Da Nang keep saying. When the artillery comes down. Kaboom. Lethal, they say.”

“Granted.”

“Lethal times. Take it or leave it.”

“Yes,” I said. “Leave it.”

“Walk?”

“Maybe.”

For a moment she looked at me without expression. Then she smiled. It was a neutral smile, not angry, just dense with indifference.

“Sissy-ass,” she said. “A sad case, man.” She aimed a hair dryer at me. “Anyhow, you wouldn’t last ten minutes out there on your own. What about cash? Connections? And this minor legal hassle with Uncle Sam—you guys had a date, remember?”

I nodded. “There are places I could go, maybe. Hibernate for a while. Wait for things to quiet down.”

Sarah dropped the hair dryer.

“Fucking hibernate! Animals hibernate, people act . That’s why we’re here—to stop the goddamn killing! ” She slapped her hip. “No lie, you amaze me. William the victim. Fuck conscience, fuck everything. Vietnam, you think it was cooked up just to ruin your day. That’s how you think . All the big shots, all the world leaders, they got together at this huge summit conference, and LBJ jumps up and says, ‘Hey, there’s this sissy-ass creep I want to fuck over,’ and Ho Chi Minh says, ‘I got it! Start a war —we’ll nail the son of a bitch!’ A persecution complex. Almost funny, except it’s so contemptible.”

“My error,” I said.

“Terrific. That’s your only comment?”

“Not quite. I get the feeling we’re growing apart.”

We stood facing each other.

The shower curtain was bright red. There was some steam in the room.

Sarah turned away. “This conversation,” she said slowly, “has outlived its utility.”

If you’re sane, you see madness. If you see madness, you freak. If you freak, you’re mad.

What does one do?

I froze. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t move my bowels. At night I’d roam the villa’s hallways, thinking this: If you’re sane, you’re not completely sane.

By daylight, too, the bombs were real. Nethro explained the physics. He showed us how to make big bangs out of small household appliances. How to bait a booby trap and adjust the tension on a pressure-release firing device. All around us, for three days, there was the smell of cordite and gasoline.

Down on the beach, taking turns, we pitched grenades at mock enemy bunkers. We learned how to set up a Claymore mine—the angles of aim, a geometry lesson. If you’re sane, I decided, you can calculate the effects of petrochemicals on bone and tissue. If you’re sane, but only then, you understand the profundity of firepower.

“Blammo!” Ollie yelled.

Nethro folded his big arms. “Shit, man,” he said softly. “You don’ know shit.”

But Ollie did know shit.

And Sarah, too, and Ned and Tina. They knew the whys and wherefores of deadly force.

So I froze.

It happened first on the weapons range, where I locked and loaded, taking aim, pressing my cheek to the rifle’s plastic stock. I closed my eyes and drew a breath and squeezed the trigger. Then I froze. Full automatic—twenty rounds.

The rifle seemed to pick me up and shake me.

I heard myself squeal. I heard Sarah say, “Christ.” Behind me there was laughter.

I tried to release the rifle—drop it, throw it—but I couldn’t, because then the freeze came, and the panic, and I turned and watched the bright red tracers kick up sand all around me.

The black rifle kept jerking in my hands, I was part of the weaponry.

Then silence.

A soft, watery sound. The blue Caribbean, wind and waves, Sarah looking down and saying, “Christ.”

I was smiling. I dropped the rifle and squatted in the sand.

“Audie fuckin’ Murphy,” Ebenezer said.

Ollie giggled.

Ned Rafferty put his hand on my head, just holding it there, and there was still that silence.

Strange, but I didn’t feel shame. Emptiness and relief, but not shame. Later, when the jokes started, I thought: If you’re sane, you don’t feel shame. You feel helpless. You feel a stickiness at the seat of your pants. But not shame.

Rafferty helped me up.

“This development,” said Ebenezer Keezer, “gives scared shitless a whole new meaning.”

“Ain’ roses,” said Nethro.

“Let him be,” Ned Rafferty said.

“Yeah, but that smell .”

Rafferty held my arm and said, “Let him be.”

And again that same night.

A final exam, Ebenezer called it. He was grading on the pass-fail system.

At midnight we formed up in the courtyard. We smeared our faces with charcoal. We wore black sweat pants and black cotton jerseys. On our backs and belts, we carried C-4 explosives, wire cutters, Claymores, blasting caps, fuses, electric firing devices, rifles, and rucksacks.

“Tonight,” said Ebenezer Keezer, “we baptize the Christians. You people will get shot at. You will not commit messies in your shorties.”

He looked directly at me.

“Shitpots,” he said, smiling. “Regulation panty-poopers.”

Nethro briefed us on the details.

A simulated commando raid. The object, he said, was to make our way across a two-hundred-meter stretch of open beach. To move with haste and silence. To attack and destroy a twenty-foot wooden tower that had been erected that afternoon. Along the way, he told us, we would encounter certain obstacles. Barbed wire and booby-traps and tear gas. Then he grinned and snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, an’ two machine guns. M-60s—live ammo.” Nethro opened his hands in a gesture of reassurance. “No sweat, we aim high. Four feet, more or less. Just don’ take no leaks standing up.”