Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“Man, the motherfucking judge throwin’ nickels and dimes like he motherfucking Woolworth’s!”

Wesley kept his eyes straight ahead and wondered if there was a way out of the courtroom. But even as his eyes flew around the exits and measured the fat-bellied bailiff, he knew he wouldn’t have any place to go but back to the block ... just to keep building a sin for himself, as he had been doing ever since he could remember. The State’s “training schools” hadn’t trained him to do anything but time. Prison was as inevitable in his future as college was for three other defendants he saw waiting: well-dressed young men, accompanied by parents, friends, and lawyers, who were awaiting disposition on a burglary charge. They’d cop probation or a suspended sentence. Wesley wondered why his gang always fought people just like themselves when it was really privileged weasels like those kids that they hated.

The Legal Aid lawyer ran over, excited, his chump face all lit up. Probably worked a great deal for me to make license plates for twenty years , thought Wesley, who’d been “represented” by the same firm since he was a little kid. The lawyer grabbed him by the sleeve and motioned him to step over to the side.

“Would you like to beat this rap completely?”

“I already pleaded guilty, man.”

“I know that; I know that ... but the judge is going to throw a Suspended at anyone over seventeen who agrees to join the Army. What do you say?”

“How many years would I have to be in the Army?”

“Four years, but—”

“How much time will I cop with this beef?” Wesley interrupted.

“With your record, I’d say five to fifteen.”

“Sign me up,” Wesley told him.

6/

And it went just like that. The judge made a big, fat, stupid speech about the opportunity to serve your country, while Wesley wondered if the Army gave you time off for good behavior. His next stop was a recruiting booth, where they finally removed the handcuffs.

Basic training was at Fort Gordon. Wesley didn’t like the heat in Georgia and he didn’t like the loudmouth sergeant and he didn’t like the gung-ho clowns. But it wasn’t prison. When his unit got transferred to Fort Bragg for infantry training, conditions didn’t improve. But Wesley was already trained to do his own time and he didn’t have anyone to complain to anyway.

He qualified Expert with the M1, the only non-hillbilly to do so. This was immediately noted and praised by the New York contingent, which had already clashed with the Southerners. But the city-breds were too used to fighting each other to mount any kind of sustained drive. Tension was generally discharged in beery brawls, with no one seriously injured.

Wesley stayed away from all that, and hoped like hell he wouldn’t get shipped to Korea.

7/

Camp Red Cloud was right near the northern border and the scene of many of the war’s worst battles. Wesley was assigned there and attached to a special hunter-killer squad. Because he rarely spoke, he was considered stupid and therefore, according to Army standards, highly reliable. He became the team’s sniper; again, the only city kid to be so assigned.

The only thing Wesley paid any attention to was his sergeant telling him that every time they went out on patrol, the zips were the only thing keeping him from coming back.

The sergeant was a lifer and respected by everyone for his ability to make an excellent living in a lousy situation. Unfortunately, the sergeant didn’t realize what a good listener Wesley was.

During a heavy firefight near Quon Ti-Tyen, Wesley’s company realized they were going down the tubes unless they retreated, fast. The ROTC lieutenant had already fallen, and the sergeant was in command. But the sergeant wasn’t thinking about retreat; he kept screaming at the men to advance.

It only took Wesley a piece of a second to realize that it was the sergeant who was keeping him from returning to the safety of the base, and he pumped four rounds from his M1 into the lifer’s back with the same lack of passion that had served him during his time in a sniper’s roost.

Nobody saw the killing; it was just another body in a whole mess of bodies. Wesley shouted “ RETREAT !” at the top of his lungs. He was the last man to pull out, a fact which later won him the Bronze Star from a grateful government.

8/

Two months later, Wesley was hit in the leg with a ball bearing from a Claymore mine that wiped out the three men just ahead of him. Sent down to South Korea for surgery, he recovered perfectly— just in time to take advantage of an R&R in Japan.

Wesley stayed away from the Japanese whores. He couldn’t understand how they could feel anything but hate for the American soldiers, and he knew what he would do if their positions were reversed. The crap games didn’t interest him either; gambling never had.

He was sitting quietly in an enlisted man’s bar when four drunken Marines came in and started to tear up the place. Wesley slid toward the door. He was trying to get out when he was grabbed by one of the Marines and belted in the mouth. The Marine saw Wesley falling to the floor and turned his attention back to the general brawl ... Wesley came off the floor as fast as he went down and smashed a glass ashtray into the back of the Marine’s neck. At the courts martial, he couldn’t explain how the ashtray had gotten into his hand or why he had reacted so violently.

9/

Wesley pulled an Undesirable discharge, but, in consideration of his excellent combat record and his medal, he was simply separated from the service without stockade time added on. The first thing he did was to go visit the Marine in the hospital.

The Marine was paralyzed from the neck down; he caught Wesley’s eye across the room. He was lying face up on a special bed, with tubes running out of his lower body into various bottles and machines. Wesley walked up close until he was sure the Marine could see him. They were alone in the semi-private room; the Marine’s roommate was getting physical therapy in the pool.

“You know who I am?” Wesley asked, not sure yet.

“Yeah, I know who you are—you’re the man I’m going to kill.”

“You not going to kill anybody, cripple.”

“Oh, it won’t be me , punk. But I got a lot of good buddies who know what you did to me.”

Wesley grabbed the pillow from the next bed and held it tightly over the Marine’s face. It was strange to see a man struggle with only his neck muscles. It didn’t last long. Wesley replaced the pillow, pulled the Marine’s lids down over his bulging eyes, and walked quietly out of the hospital.

Nobody saw him leave. The Marine was listed as suffocating to death in his sleep.

10/

Stateside, Wesley took the .45 he had smuggled back from Korea and went for a walk late Saturday night. He entered the liquor store on Tenth Avenue and 21st Street and showed the clerk the piece. The clerk knew the routine and emptied the cash register even as he was kicking the silent alarm into action, but Wesley was out the door with the money before the police arrived.

He found a hotel on 42nd Street near Eighth and checked in with his military duffel, his gun, and $725 from the holdup. A few hours later, the room’s door opened—Wesley grabbed for his pistol, but the shot that blasted the pillow out from under his face froze him.

On the way out of the hotel, Wesley looked at the desk clerk, very carefully. The clerk was used to this; as a professional rat, he was also used to threats of vengeance from everyone who walked past him in handcuffs.

But Wesley didn’t say anything at all.

The night court set bail at ten thousand dollars, and the judge asked if he had any money for a bondsman. Wesley said, “I’ve got around seven hundred dollars,” and the arresting officer called him a smart punk and twisted the handcuffs hard behind his back.