Sympathy for the Devil Read online

  “Hey,” he said, “who gets credit for that first guy? Us or the Air Force? He was still alive when we got there. Technically, I think he’s ours. Goddamn Air Force anyway.”

  Hanson listened to the squeaking of his hammock strings.

  “I don’t like these fuckin’ Arclight sweeps,” Quinn said. “Body counters. One potato, two potato. That fuckin’ guy in the tree. Scared the shit out of me. And that first guy. Just standing there. I don’t know what he was looking at, but I don’t think it’s something I ever want to see.

  “And what about that little deer? The Yards got some kind of thing about them? Even Mr. Minh acted funny after we saw that deer. Seems like the Yards been acting funny ever since we started this sweep.”

  “Yeah,” Hanson said, “that barking deer’s kind of like a black cat. If you start a trip and it crosses your path, you’re supposed to go back and start over.”

  “You believe a lot of that Montagnard stuff,” Quinn said.

  “Mr. Minh believes it. It makes as much sense as God with a big white beard up in heaven. Remember those pictures in Sunday school? Like the one of Jesus, long blond hair, sensitive blue eyes, knocking at the door of the rustic little cottage, knock, knock, knock?”

  Hanson began to speak in a Southern drawl. “An’ that’s all you have to do, childern, when you hear him knockin’. That is Lord Jeezus knockin’ at your heart, an’ you need only to open up the door to receive his blessed love.”

  It had been while Hanson’s father was in Korea, and he was living at his grandmother’s. After Sunday school he would go to church, and in the summer they handed out the cardboard fans with the flat wooden handle like a tongue depressor. There was always a funeral home ad on one side and a gaudy color picture on the other—a pair of stocky blond angels hauling a portly man in a business suit into the sky, or a worried middle-aged man standing at a huge podium with a jury of thick-winged angels staring grimly at him. Beneath the pictures a short paragraph told how the artist had been a hopeless alcoholic until he found Jesus and accepted him as his personal Lord and savior, and was now using his talents for the greater glory of God.

  After the service everyone stood in small groups in front of the church, the men smoking and talking, the women just talking. Up the street there was a green concrete building, a hospital for crazy people and alcoholics. One Sunday, as Hanson was getting into the car to go home, a wild-eyed man in blue pajamas had come running barefoot from the hospital. Two stocky men in white coats and heavy black shoes were chasing him. The man looked directly at Hanson as he ran past and said, “They won’t ever let you finish, will they?” and ran on into the littered little park that smelled like sewage.

  One of Hanson’s aunts had pulled him into the car and rolled up the windows, but he heard the man scream when the other men caught him.

  “What’s wrong with them?” he asked as the car pulled away.

  “Why nothing, honey. We’re just goin’ to Grandma’s for chicken. Like we always do.”

  Every Sunday they had cold chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes. Then everyone drove to the cemetery—six to a car—to look at Grandpa’s grave. Each of Hanson’s aunts and uncles had a photograph of themselves standing next to the tombstone, like sportsmen with a trophy kill.

  Sometimes Hanson talked his way out of going to the cemetery; he hated riding in the hot crowded car, the windows rolled up to keep out the dust. It was one of those times that he became a born-again Christian.

  He was alone in his grandmother’s parlor that Sunday. A big picture of a kneeling Christ caught the afternoon light and seemed to move. His grandfather’s open coffin had been put on display in the parlor after his death, and one of Hanson’s aunts had lifted him up so he could see, saying to him, “Look at Granpa, honey, he’s going to heaven. This is the last time you’ll see him till we’re all up there together.”

  His grandfather’s face and hands had been powdered, and he looked very small.

  Hanson’s grandfather was the only corpse he had ever seen until he went to Vietnam.

  On that Sunday when he was born-again, Hanson turned on the TV in the parlor so he would feel a little less alone in the house. The Billy Graham Crusade for Christ was on. Hanson had expected the “Good Samaritan” show, where contestants told about their miserable lives, and cried, and the grimly smiling host asked people watching the show to send in donations.

  But that Sunday it was Billy Graham. Just when it started to get dark, the music swelled and Billy told the crowd to come down from the stands and give their lives to Christ.

  “Come down, come down,” he said. “Just look, my friends, hundreds of people are coming down to give their lives to Jesus Christ,” he said, throwing his arms up, “and you people out there who are watching from your television screens, get up, get up from your chairs and sofas, get up and walk to your television sets.

  “Stand up and witness for Christ there in your living rooms with us. Lay your hands on your television sets and pray with us.”

  And Hanson had gotten up, terrified, and pressed his hands down on the TV. The metal was warm and the tubes glowed through the grille work in the back.

  Hanson looked at the glowing face of his watch. He called the camp and waited.

  No answer.

  He pulled off the whip antenna and touched the copper contact points with his tongue for a better contact, then jammed and screwed the antenna back down on the radio set. It swished back and forth in the dark air.

  He called again. No answer. The radio hissed. A pink flare popped east of the river, dripping sparks and leaving a jagged trail of smoke.

  Hanson looked over at Quinn, then called again, “Formal Granite, Formal Granite, this is five-four, over…”

  Silver’s voice crackled through the static. “This is Granite, it’s your dime.”

  “It’s a comfort, you know, this instant commo.”

  “Yeah, yeah. All I get is complaints. Just like the phone company. You’re comin’ in weak—better change your battery. So, you got a message for me?”

  Hanson sent in the body count and two night artillery grids. One grid was H&I, harassment and interdiction fire, a corridor of high explosive to be fired throughout the night around their location. The other grid was plotted directly on the temple, to be fired in the event that they were attacked and had to run.

  “I get any mail?” Hanson asked.

  “Yeah. Last mail chopper. Three letters from that chick, and one of those Commie newspapers from New York.”

  “You reading my mail or what? Tampering with mail is some kind of federal crime.”

  “It’s all commo. Part of the job. Your partner there got one of those ‘GI Paks’ from his church in Iowa. Lotta good stuff. ‘What every soldier in the field needs,’ it says. Toothbrush, shoestrings, deck of cards—you doing any gambling out there—pair of white socks, little box of raisins, and a plastic packet of Heinz catsup, about enough for one hot dog if you got one, and some Bugs Bunny Kool-Aid. Card says that the ladies’ auxiliary is behind us ‘all the way.’ Yep.”

  Over the radio, Silver’s laugh sounded like a weak battery trying to start a car.

  “Any movies?”

  “Yeah, a Clint Eastwood flick. He kills a lot of Italian cowboys. The Yards loved it, said that the Italians were VC. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got on this end.”

  “Okay. Look, things don’t feel too good here. Have that stuff ready to shoot if we call for it, ’cause we’re gonna have to be steppin’ right along.”

  “You got it. Any more traffic? I gotta make radio check with Da Nang.”

  “Negative.”

  “Okay. Granite out. Catch you later. Hey, how does this grab you?” A hysterical mechanical laugh came from the radio, the accordionlike laugh box Silver carried around to comment on the absurdity of things.

  The radio hissed like a TV after sign-off.

  Hanson lay in the hammock listening to the big guns. They fired in pairs or groups of t
hree and sounded like distant box cars slamming to a stop. Moments later he could hear the shells coursing over and past. Some of the explosions sent shudders through the hammock strings. It was strangely comforting.

  A voice broke static on the radio, grinding like a gear box. “Granite five-four, this is Night Bird, over…”

  Hanson looked at Quinn. Quinn shrugged.

  “This is five-four…”

  “Uh, roger…Ah just wanted to verify your location an’ advise you that ah will be workin’ the area for a while…”

  Somewhere to the south there was a drone of engines.

  “Gunship,” Quinn hissed. “Night-vision gunship.”

  “Uh, roger that,” Hanson said into the handset. “Five-four copies.”

  “Uh, roger. Ah’ll be doin’ some huntin’ then. This is the Night Bird, out…”

  The engine noise grew louder and passed overhead. Hanson could see the glow from four engines flickering through the propellers, and a dark shape that blotted out the stars.

  The engines faded, and the minigun opened up. A solid shaft of red tracers flashed silently from sky to ground like a neon light suddenly switched on, and a moment later they heard the drone of the gun, the sound of a foghorn. Then the red shaft died, burning itself out slowly from sky to ground, eating its tail, and when the sky was black again, the drone stopped. The engine noise was gone. They watched, staring into the dark, and there it was again, flickering and droning in the distance.

  The moon had set. Mr. Minh squatted at the temple wall, facing the way they had come, toward the impact zone. He had arranged the contents of his katha in a semicircle: a pinch of rice, a green bubble of melted glass—excrement of fire—the tip of a buffalo’s penis, a tiny piece of quartz, a tiger’s tooth, and the bill of a sparrow hawk.

  He looked into the darkness and clucked three times, deep in his throat, then three more. All he heard in return were Hanson’s footsteps behind him. As the footsteps came closer, Mr. Minh said, “I had a bad dream, Hanson. I dreamed that the sky struck us.

  “I know this place. There was once a village where the bombs fell. There were big trees near the village, very strong spirits. It was the year we ate the forest of the Stone Spirit Goo. That was a long time ago.

  “So. All I do is fight now. Fighting is my work now, not the village. But I know. We must be very careful, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The tree spirits are angry. I have tried to call them, to talk, but they do not answer. Go back to your hammock. They do not know you.”

  Hanson lay in his hammock and watched the stars disappear. A rain squall was moving in. The wind picked up and the rain slanted down like thread on a loom. The artillery reports were muted, grainy, like old recordings. A flare popped across the river, swung up and down with the wind, making a fuzzy, peach-colored arc.

  Rain always benefits the attackers; it covers the sound they make as they move into position. When it rains at night in the jungle you are rendered deaf and blind. There is nothing to do but wait.

  Whenever a flare popped, the split-leaf palm fronds overhead blinked and raged in the wind, the slits like eyes and mouths squinting and gnashing.

  The radio hissed softly.

  One summer, long before he had ever thought of the war, Hanson had been hiking near the edge of a large swamp. It was a hot day and the scrub pines gave little shade. He came upon a clearing that seemed to be studded with fleshy horns. They were plants that looked like Easter lilies, but they had no stem or stalk. Each plant rose from the ground like a funnel. No part of them was green.

  The plants were a soiled white and seemed to be covered with bruises, though Hanson might have imagined that. The inside of the plants bristled with stiff black hairs. The hairs grew inward and down toward the narrow throat of the funnel, and they were sticky with a thick syrup.

  The overall effect was that of hundreds of huge nostrils snorting from the ground.

  There were insects inside all the funnels, stuck fast to the sweet syrup, unable to climb through the bristles of hair. As they struggled, they slipped deeper into the neck of the plant—flies, bees, beetles, and butterflies. For a moment Hanson thought about using his pocketknife to free some of the insects, to cut the plants off at the ground, but he realized that there was nothing he could do; there were too many. And anyway, that was just the way things worked in that place. Inside one of the plants he saw what looked like a tiny animal with brown fur, just visible deep in the neck. The sweet smell of the syrup and of rotting meat hung over the field.

  They collected their booby traps and moved out at first light as the faint pinks filtered through dark green mountains. It was still cool, but the heat was already seeping in, like an undertow. It was going to be hot. Hanson felt uneasy, like a runner waiting for the starter’s gun. The sun rose slowly at first, ponderous, the color of rotten fruit. Then it climbed and got smaller and tighter and bore down on them.

  The grave was fresh, probably someone who had survived the air strike only to die of his wounds. A heavy, sweet smell rode the heat from the circular mound of earth. They should have dug it up to check for documents and insignia, but they moved on.

  Hanson’s cheek itched, but he didn’t scratch it. He had a metallic taste on his tongue, and the backs of his hands tingled. He looked at Quinn and Mr. Minh. A patch of split-leaf palm fronds was the wrong color. It was something about the quality of the sunlight. The way the trail curved up ahead. He recalled some odd phrase in his last letter home. His cheek itched. He was afraid that if he touched it, a bullet would strike there.

  Someone back in the jungle coughed. There was the soft pop of a grenade fuse, and the grenade was floating through the air at him, a grayish green cylinder with cloth streamers. Bullets snapped past him as Quinn fired a magazine and began to run. The grenade went off. Something pulled at Hanson’s pant leg. The team was down in a low crouch, facing alternate sides of the jungle. Quinn ran past Hanson and said, “Shit.” Troc emptied a magazine and ran. The fire coming from the jungle was ragged. The ambush had been sprung too soon, before they were in the killing zone, because of the cough. Hanson smelled burned powder, fish sauce, and gun oil as Troc ran past him. Mr. Minh emptied his weapon and wheeled around. Rau began to fire. Mr. Minh was putting a new magazine in his weapon as he ran past Hanson, who was pulling the fat white phosphorous grenade from his shoulder harness. The brass from Rau’s weapon glittered as it arced out of the chamber. Hanson had to tear the grenade loose with his teeth and his left hand. The electrical tape holding it tasted salty. He fired toward the sound of the cough as Rau ran past. He pulled the pin from the pastel-green yellow-striped WP grenade and threw it over the palm fronds. And he ran. He pulled the quick release on his pack straps and ran. Shrugging off the heavy pack, he ran and tried to keep sight of Rau.

  DA NANG

  It was almost five, and the NCO club and bar was filling up. Janis Joplin was wailing from the tape deck behind the bar, uh-huh, UH-HUH, WOAH! uhuhuh, YEOW!

  Two soldiers in the bar were wearing camouflage fatigues. They had gotten off a chopper from the north only ten minutes before. Standing together at the slate-topped bar, they looked like two reflections of the same soldier. The baggy jungle fatigues were mottled and striped to blend with the jungle, the dead browns and greens of healing bruises or of a body left too long in the sun, a nimbus of fine orange dust catching the light. The backs of their hands were crosshatched with small scars and blood-crusted welts. The fine hair on the backs of their hands and wrists had been burned to brown stubble over hurried cook fires. They both had an easy, tireless concentration.

  But they were not at all alike.

  Quinn was much bigger than Hanson. He was bigger than anyone else in the bar. His features were as small and blunt as his eyes. It was a face that could take a lot of damage and still function. The milky blue eyes seemed to have been set in his head just so he could look for somebody to kill. They were eyes that tourists on back roads have nightmares about—the kind of
eyes that watch you from next to the Coke machine in that smalltown gas station, and keep watching as the old pump rings and rings and rings up the sale, while you check the locks on the doors and wish you were back on the Interstate.

  His hands looked out of proportion to even his big body, too big to be useful for anything but breaking furniture. They could field-strip an M-60 faster than you could name the parts.

  Quinn rarely smiled. When he did smile, it was not a comforting expression.

  He’d been a linebacker in college until he’d gotten into that last fight outside a bar after a game. During the fight the crowd that had gathered, at first laughing and shouting, making bets, slowly quieted as Quinn worked with the same cold anger that filled him when he chopped wood or stacked bales of hay on his father’s farm, that drove him to study the textbooks full of useless facts that got him off the farm and into college, where five afternoons a week and every Saturday he would trade blow for blow with others like himself for the entertainment of the same people who were silently watching him outside the bar.

  Quinn had stepped back, letting the semiconscious man fall to the ground, kicked him once, viciously in the ribs, and walked away.

  “Some of those fuckers started booing me. That was the night,” Quinn had told Hanson, “I realized I’d been doing shit I hated all my life. I hated the farm, I hated those goddamn books, I hated football—I didn’t want to tackle those motherfuckers, I wanted to kill ’em. Of course, three months later, three months after I stopped hurting quarterbacks and ends as bad as I could, blind-siding running backs right out of the game, while those college wimps up there in the stands held their weenies and their beers, and their date’s tit, three months later, the army had my ass. But what the hell, right? I was big enough, and mean enough, but I wasn’t ever fast enough to turn pro. And anyway, little buddy, I’ve found a home.”

  Quinn smiled when he told that story.