Deros Vietnam (17 page)

Earl stopped suddenly as he and the others became aware that the men and women in the group ahead of them were asking questions about Wallace Terry. The next section of the exhibit was dedicated to the man Earl was talking about.

Drawing closer, they saw an old manual typewriter, a camera, photographs, magazine stories, Black Power flags, and copies of
Bloods,
Terry's oral history about black soldiers in Vietnam.

“Why did these soldiers have their own flags?” asked a slight, middle-aged woman.

The guide looked directly at Earl and Reggie. “I think we have a couple gentlemen here who can shed some light on that.”

Reggie felt like running and hiding. Earl rested his hand on Reggie's wrist, looked him in the eye, and smiled.

“It was about who we were, our identity.” Earl offered. “The good Reverend Doctor King referred to the Vietnam War as a white man's war but a black man's fight. When they shot him down,” he paused, “happened right down the street from here.” Dwight recalled the shame and anger he felt for that moment in his hometown's history. “Some white soldiers in Vietnam celebrated by burning crosses, putting on Klan costumes, and flying the Confederate flag.”

The woman who asked the question groaned. Earl reached out his hand to console her.

“Thank you,” the guide said to Earl as he nodded to Dwight's father. “As I said at the start, this exhibit is a social tapestry of how the Civil Rights Movement paralleled the experience of the Black soldiers.
Soul on Ice, The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
sayings like ‘Right On' and ‘Solid.' It was all there in Vietnam.”

Dwight turned to look at his father. For an instant, he saw himself in Reggie's face. And his grandfather, Carl, who worked as a janitor in a library while Reggie was overseas in Vietnam. Then it hit him.

“Pops,” he murmured in Reggie's good ear. “Pops …” Reggie looked directly into Dwight's eyes. “The stick, the one in your bedroom all these years…” Dwight paused, afraid to go any further. Reggie closed his eyes and his face tightened before he opened them and embraced his son.

Dwight and Reggie froze, while Earl, Sharif and the others moved on to the next part of the exhibit, a recreated Vietnam barracks filled with footlockers, C-rations, stereo equipment, flags, and posters.

“Next, we'll see how some soldiers began demanding Black-only hooches, or barracks, which were sometimes referred to as
hekula,
the Swahili word for temple,” the guide's voice trailed off. “Black GIs also created elaborate bootlace bracelets, which some called slave shackles, as a sign of solidarity.”

Holding his father's arm, Dwight conjured the vision of the gnarled piece of wood that stood in the corner of Reggie and Pearl's bedroom at home. His father's walking stick was really his Vietnam salvation. Dwight recited in his head the names carved on it that stick, what he knew now as the names of every black soldier who had joined Reggie's unit in Vietnam.

Johnson. Smith. McNeil. Bradley. Moore. Bell. Simmons. Allen.

“Say it loud,” Dwight hugged his father, directing those words into Reggie's shoulder. “I'm black and I'm proud.”

Postcard from Hell

“Fuck 'em,” the scowling soldier muttered under his breath as he got off the military bus at MACV headquarters.
They think they're so bad ass, riding in cyclos and expensive taxis over to TuDo Street where they'll spend all their hazardous duty pay on Saigon teas and cheap whores.
He was still smarting from being abandoned by his buddies, who obviously preferred the company of ladies to joining him for a walking tour of the Saigon of his idol, Graham Greene.

“When they get their hearts broken,” he said aloud to no one in particular, “or better yet, when they get the clap, I'll be the one who's smiling.”

He was standing in front of the legendary Majestic Hotel on Rue Catinat, just down the street from the Continental Palace Hotel. The Palace was where all the lazy-ass correspondents hung out because that's where they thought Greene had written his greatest book,
The Quiet American.
But understanding Greene as he did, he knew they were wrong because an upper-crust dude like Greene would much prefer the opulent Majestic to the trendy Palace.

And what a jewel the Majestic Hotel was! Tucked away from the noise and dangers of Rue Catinat, it housed a cool central courtyard, a ridiculous pool, and an amazing rooftop bar. He recalled standing up there one of his first nights in Saigon when the fucking Army wasn't sure if he was supposed to be stationed at MACV or USARV.

Soaking in the heat and the sounds and the smells of Saigon that evening, he pretended he was the all-knowing Camera Eye in John Dos Passos'
USA Trilogy.
Zooming in, he could see everything up and down the Saigon River. In those few moments, he knew all there was to know about this city, the country, and the fucked-up war. Graham Greene knew that, too, because he had stood up there and seen the same things.

He walked a little further up the Rue Catinat to the Palais Cafe, where Thomas Fowler had played
quatre cent vingt-et-un
with Lieutenant Vigot of the
Sûreté.
The bar was crowded, so he headed down the street to apartment 109 where Greene had once lived. There was nobody home.

Reluctantly, he made his way to the Continental Hotel because he knew he had to include it in his tour. Sure enough, it was stuffed with journalists from all over the USA and almost every country you could imagine, getting drunk, pretending to be part of some heavy political intrigue. He remembered Greene himself saying that the Continental had a slightly more traditional Vietnamese feel than the distinctly French-influenced Majestic and Grand. The outdoor bar spilled over with would-be authors and make-shift spies. Modern day Fowlers rendezvousing with their Pyles.

He paused, knowing that if he went any further he'd be too close to his buddies, near the place the French called “Le Parc au Buffles,” which Greene had dubbed “The House of 500 Girls.” Not far from there, off to the left, stood his greatest temptation, the place he knew he'd eventually wind up. He could hear strains of “96 Tears” amid the din of wheels rumbling over wooden floors. He could smell the opium. He could feel the high. He would go no further.

He knew he would never be a great author. He knew he would never get the story of Vietnam straight. He knew he didn't have the language to explain anything about any of this.

But, as he sat down at his usual table in the rear of the room and begin to pull on his pipe, he started feeling the old, enjoyable sensation. “A gradual, creeping thrill,” is how one of the den's patrons described it. The anticipation was almost as good as the high itself.

The smoke spread through his body, painting him in pleasure from head to toe. It was in this state that he'd take out his pen and write another of his postcards home.

“Weather's fine, wish you were here,” he'd begin. “It's such a magical time in Vietnam right now. Hand-to-hand combat is way down, the black market is up, and the dollar is strong. If you want to see Vietnam while its charm is still fresh, now is the time! Flak jackets are optional.”

The Quiet Americans

I'm one of those maladjusted vets you're always hearing about. Been through a string of jobs and girlfriends. Drink too much. Edgy. Can't stand it when people order me around.

Charlie's just the opposite. He's my best buddy from ‘Nam, and it's as if he hadn't ever been in the goddamn place. Hell, he comes back home to the missus, lands a good fucking job just like that, has a couple kids, buys a house, and, presto, he's right back in the mainstream.

Charlie and I pledged to talk on the phone every week and be there for one another, but we'd drifted apart a little. That's why I made a special point of stopping off in Kansas City for a few hours during one of my trips between the coasts. It was almost the second anniversary of our return to the world.

He and I had spent an entire year—365 days on the button—together in Vietnam. We were statewide together for six months prior to that. You could say that we had served the same sentence.

Besides, I liked Charlie. I could talk to him.

I was surprised when Charlie said he'd meet me at the airport and not at his house. He didn't give his reasons, so I cooled my heels at the terminal and waited for him.

“Rick,” Charlie greeted me, extending his hand.

“Charlie,” I shouted, holding back the hug I usually give him.

“How's Diane?” he asked.

“Deborah,” I corrected him. “She's okay,” I lied.

Charlie fidgeted. “Where the hell are you going from here?”

“Chicago. I've got about three hours. What's going on?

“You wouldn't believe it,” Charlie said, slowly shaking his head. “You just would not fucking believe it.”

Normally, this was my line. Charlie never swore.

“Try me,” I volunteered.

“Let's go sit down somewhere,” he said, motioning toward one of those nondescript airport fern bars.

The bar wasn't very crowded this time of day. We walked toward the rear of the narrow room, seeking out the most remote seats.

“What the hell is it, Charlie? Something with Cathy and the kids?”

“No, no,” he waved me off. “It's crazier than that.”

I sat back, took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself. I looked over at the table nearest us and noticed four Asians huddled together. Vietnamese. Ever since my tour of duty in South Vietnam, I'd been able to tell them from Chinese or Japanese. Shit, I can actually tell a Vietnamese from a Hmong or a Cambodian.

“You remember Tom Nevin?” I nodded. “Well, I got this out-of-nowhere call from him a couple months ago. He was having a blowout party ‘cause he was leaving Boston and the
Globe
to head west to work for some new weekly in Colorado.

“Anyway, he begs me to come up to the party. Says he tried contacting you but your phone was disconnected …”

“Bullshit,” I interrupted. “Nevin knows how the fuck to get a hold of me. He didn't try. He likes you better. Always has.”

Charlie didn't go for the bait. “I broke my butt to get up there,” he continued. “It was one wild party. I have never seen anybody drink more than those newspaper reporters, except for us at the USARV IO hooch.”

A commotion arose at the next table. Our Vietnamese comrades were arguing over what looked like diaries or journals laid on the table. My Vietnamese was so rusty that I couldn't really make out what they were saying, except for an occasional “Bac Si” and “Dien Cai Dau.”

“Finally, it's almost four in the morning and Nevin and I are sitting in some god-awful Worcester bar,” Charlie continued, oblivious to the disturbance at the nearby table. “Then Nevin pulls his typical ‘wasted at 4 a.m.' stunt—you might remember this from his DEROS party at Long Binh—champagne and popcorn. We were both completely out of it by then.”

I couldn't take my eyes off the Vietnamese. The argument was really heating up. Something to do with the images in the diaries. By now, I was almost certain I recognized one of them from Vietnam. USARV headquarters? MACV in Saigon? Or was he the guy who ground the lenses for my granny glasses?

“Rick” Charlie grabbed me hard by the arm. “For Christ fucking sake, Rick, this is important!”

His voice surprised me. There was something in it I'd never heard before.

“After some good natured BS-ing, we started reminiscing about the guys we knew in ‘Nam—you, Peter, the three Steves, Murphy, Ward, Marvin Miller and the rest. I forgot that he didn't know everybody since he was TDY with us off and on for four or five months.”

Charlie paused. “Eventually, we both flashed back to that afternoon at the Continental Palace.”

As soon as Charlie mentioned the words, my mind went off like a claymore, exploding with the most vivid images.

It was August, 1971. A hot, sticky day during the middle of the monsoon. About 11 a.m. or so, Charlie, Nevin, me, and Nevin's replacement at the First Air Cav paper, Marvin Miller, were sipping gin and tonics on the veranda of the beautiful Continental Palace in downtown Saigon.

We'd all been giddy from more than just the good booze. For the moment, we all believed that we were honest-to-goodness war correspondents, that we'd joined the ranks of Hemingway and Orwell—and even Halberstam and Sheehan.

Suddenly, Miller and Nevin launched into their Graham Greene routine, reciting passages from
The Quiet American.
According to them, Greene had written the book out there on that exact veranda nearly 20 years ago. A lot of the scenes in the book took place right there as well. I sipped my gin and tonic and smiled, amused by their playacting.

“But haven't you finished with him already, Pyle?” Nevin had asked, pretending to be Thomas Fowler.

“I can't,” Miller had replied as Pyle, the “Quiet American.” “In the long run, he's the only hope we have. If he came to power with our help we could rely on him.”

“How many people have to die before you realize …”

“Realize what Thomas?”

“That there's no such thing as gratitude in politics.”

“At least they won't hate us like they hate the French.”

“Are you sure? Sometimes we have a kind of love for our enemies and sometimes we feel hatred for our friends.”

“You talk like a European, Thomas. These people aren't complicated.”

“Is that what you've learned in a few months? You'll be calling them childlike next.”

“Well …in a way.”

Nevin and Miller stopped acting. We shared a moment of silent reflection. Graham Greene had predicted what Vietnam would be like for us. We four were living proof of that.

Nevin had ordered another round to break the silence, but our group epiphany hung in the stale Saigon air, floating in our gin and tonics.