LAST DAY

by
Eddie Jeffrey

It was hot, just like every other day. Hot and miserable. His fatigues were drenched. Dark, salt-ringed patches of sweat oppressed his arms and neck, bowing his back so he sat hunched on his gnarled little stump like a wizened village elder, wilting in the rippling haze of the sun. All that heat and still they dropped fire from the sky. He couldn�t believe they were fighting a war in this oven. Cold beer, air conditioning, and scantily clad, frolicking roundeye women...that�s what this place needs, he thought...some casinos...all night buffets...then the smell brought him back. Crotch rot, dysentery, immersion foot, piss, blood, gasoline, sulphur, death...all mixed up like a steaming mulch pile, got up his nose so far he�d never forget.

�Fuck it...last day, anyway,� he said and reached down beside him and grabbed another warm beer. A duffle bag drag and a bowl of Cornflakes, and he�d be on that freedom bird home. He was so short he was invisible.

Tompkins, Bill. He�d made First Lieutenant in only a few months of LRRPing. He got a silver star for assassinating an NVA Colonel, two bronze stars for �special� bravery under fire, and two purple hearts for getting in the way. No big deal, he thought. Hadn�t been me, then some other fucker.

It was amazing the things you got rewarded for in the Army. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Victor had put a bounty on his head. He'd taken a leaflet off a dink a few months back with his face an old Wild West mug shot staring comically, nefariously back at him (all that was missing was a handlebar moustachio) and kept it rolled up in a plastic bag in his pocket wherever he went. He thought maybe they had the right idea.

No sweat. Last day.

Tompkins wasn�t a big guy. Five-eight or so, slim build, but big compared to the Vietnamese. Only good thing about this whole shitty place, he thought. Taller than average for once. It was a sub-conscious thing, something he knew was bunk, but standing around a bunch of people he always had to look up to really irked him somewhere he couldn�t quite get to and throw back the switch.

Like Bingham. Tall, lanky Private from Lauderdale. Goofy kid. Always yucking it up or falling off the trail or something. One time they were running to an LZ with hot pursuit in tow and Bingham was pulling up the six. He took a quick look back, fired a few wild rounds, and crashed blind right into a tree. Straight out of a Stooge reel, just the way he would�ve liked it. Knocked him cold. Tompkins had to ruck him all the way to the LZ, and then he gave him a solid week of burning shit from the latrines.

He took another swig of beer. It was getting thicker and he could feel it clinging to the roof of his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, like swallowing a spider web. He looked at his watch. It wasn�t even eight.

Tompkins had wanted some privacy, so he�d grabbed a sixer and trudged it up to the top of the hill just overlooking base-camp opposite the arty hill to the north. It was quite a hike, had ruined the whole idea of taking it easy, but that was fine. No more humping the boonies on Uncle Sam�s nickel. Might as well get one last peek of the ancient world while he could. Off to his left a break in the bamboo afforded a quaint view of anthropology at work, alive and breathing right there in the good old twentieth century.

�Bomb �em back to the Stone Age,� he sniggered. �That�s rich.�

They were Montangards, or just plain Yards. About three hundred of them lived to the east just down the road. Tompkins could barely make them out, the men wearing their tight-wrapped turban things he could never recall the proper word for. The women, some of them, anyway, also wore the turbans, but mostly they went bare-headed. They all scurried about their morning chores, collecting eggs, tending gardens, washing up, sweeping out their dirt-floored huts, cleaning weapons... The children either slept or ran about making mischief. They�d been living this way for a thousand years and more. Only thing had changed was they�d traded in their spears for old Army M-1 carbines and hand grenades. These were the �hearts and minds� they�d won over, not the Vietnamese. The Yards were about as Vietnamese as a Huichole or an ostrich. They just didn�t fit...or maybe not anymore. They were the backwoods people...hill people...mountain people...relics. But, the average Vietnamese villager lived no better than the Yards. Not really. And, when he heard the top brass or some white-washed asshole politicians from the World talking about bombing the country back to the Stone Age, Tompkins� stomach curled up inside, felt like it�d press its way through his navel, and then he�d smile.

�Bunch of fuckin� screwheads.�

Well, he�d volunteered, hadn�t he? He�d pretty much asked for it. No point blaming anyone. But hell...he�d done it so he wouldn�t have to go. That was the real pisser. He figured if he stayed in training long enough he�d miss out on the whole show. How the hell was he supposed to know Uncle Sugar�d still have his mitts in Vietnam in 1970? Even so...he wouldn�t have made it through all that without some of it rubbing off on him eventually, no matter his motives.

He sure as hell didn�t want to get his ass blown off in a shoot-out 15,000 miles from home that was, at that late date, a pointless foregone conclusion. The Vietnamese were going to have it their way one way or another. They didn�t care how long it took. They felt they�d been pushed around long enough. It was their civil war, but everyone else in the world wanted a piece of the action. Bigger than the Super Bowl, the World Series, World Cup, the fucking Kentucky Derby and Indy 500. He�d be goddamned if Vegas didn�t have a line on it.

Something had changed in him along the way, though. Rangers and Airborne were one thing. Snipers, though. That meant only one thing. And, instead of dragging it out through Special Forces training, he just went. He had to go, wanted to get his hands dirty, get waist deep in the muck and the shit. Sniper. One thing only. That was a school of purpose, not procrastination.

And now, here he was. He�d made it through the mud and the rain, the goddamned heat, the fucking mosquitoes, malaria, lizards, cobras, leeches...napalm, booby-traps, tunnels, walls of bullets, nights lying in his own faeces trying to melt into the earth while re-supply columns on the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed just a few feet away from him...and now it was all over. It was his time to pack up and leave.

The battery of 105mm�s opened up on the hill across from him, and it gave him a start. FOOM! There was something else he�d never forget. It woke him up at night on the rare occasion he was in camp and getting some rack time, jerked him right out of his dreamland Hometown, USA, and he�d roll over and curse the assholes calling for support, and curse the other assholes who�d made it necessary. But, when he was out there and those shells screamed over his head and tore mammoth fistfuls from the terra and heaved them skyward, his heart jumped, and his eyes would well up, thankful for that last second chance.

Tompkins jumped to his feet then, and threw the half-empty beer can up into the air as hard as he could, pulled the .45 from the holster on his hip, and put three holes through the can, each shot sending it back up in the air like out of some Jimmy Stewart film. He sat back down, scratched his forehead with the barrel, and cracked open another beer. A plasticky head foamed out and over the sides of the can. It was ruined. They all were.

He unloaded on the rest of them, plugging at them till the .45�s slide stuck, that last click that said �No more�. Just a few shards of steel sticking up from the wet, frothy ground were left, and suddenly he felt stupid and useless...shameful...the feeling he got after the first time he masturbated...when he shit himself the first time under a mortar barrage. Something grabbed at his chest, and his throat caught, but he stifled it.

�Sorry, Bingham.�

Ralph Stanley Bingham. His parents were big country and blue grass fans. Bingham�s dad was a foreman on an orange plantation, and when he came home after a long day on the job they�d have dinner and listen to the Grand Ole Opry. It was a routine, a ritual in which his folks were immersed, an unspoken creed of their lives they tried to impart to him that said it was the simple things that mattered, like hard earnest work, family, love, and hoedowns. Ralph liked jazz and the neo-classical stuff, though. Tompkins remembered him talking about Mancini one night on watch out in the bush while the two of them squatted in a muddy ditch by a road leading into an NVA compound the other side of the 17th parallel. �Nights here are like that Lujon,� he said. �Fuckin� Mancini. And he ain�t even been here, man. How the strings draw it out...that tension...while everything seems peaceful, like at a ball or some such shit and you got your arms around that big-boned girl with the big tits you been scopin� out all night, and you just know you�re gonna get laid, and it all seems to fit. It�s all right. But, those strings...they�re tellin� you something else. You better fuckin� believe it.�

He was also a voracious reader. He loved Joyce and Pynchon and Dumas and Dickens (who, for some reason, cracked him up to no end). Ralph wanted to go to college, but he was a blowhard, a true intellectual, and instead of studying, he spent most of his time partying and chasing girls. His parents couldn�t afford to send him to school, not even to State, so Ralph went and joined the Army for the G.I. Bill. He had the same plan as Tompkins: stay in training as long as possible, and hope that the whole mess in Vietnam was over and done with by the time he was through. But, Bingham�s reasons for acquiescing were different. He didn�t want to go at all, unlike Tompkins, who had succumbed to the gung-ho esprit de corps. Bingham was such a goof and a pain in the ass that he�d pissed off his DI and other instructors so much he thought he�d have more of a fighting chance against Charles. At least he�d get to return fire. In Basic and Rangers the instructors could walk right up to him and punch him in the mouth and there wasn�t a damn thing he could do about it.

Turned out Bingham�s chances for survival in Vietnam were pretty good. He�d just broken through a hundred days and become a double-digit midget without getting so much as a scratch until a week before when he�d stepped on that Bouncing Betty. The mine cut him right in two, and Tompkins and Seilander and Poniatowski and Kanagalingham grabbed all they could, but they couldn�t seem to find all the pieces. Such a beautiful day...a beautiful day, the last day of Tompkin�s last mission, and they were headed home.

Tompkins had been behind him pulling up the rear when he heard that awful CLICK and CHUNG, and Bingham turning around, that quarter smile he got when he was about to tell a joke, probably about some whore he met the week before in Bangkok where he�d gone on R&R.; And then he was shattered, a bloody, bony, gutty mess strewn about everywhere Tompkins could see.

Tompkins was drenched with Bingham�s fluids. A piece of the private�s uniform clung to Tompkin�s face, dangled there, dripping from his cheek. Bingham still smiled. Never knew it. Never heard it. Died like he lived, like some fucking prank, his big �FUCK YOU!� an invisible audience applauding as he exited stage left.

Most of him was there in two halves, or maybe thirds because his midsection... From his sternum up and his dick down, everything was intact, not a scratch. That middle, though, was gone, scattered across the void.

Tompkins knelt over him and scooped up a handful of what had been. He stared at it as if it were a piece of puzzle that didn�t fit. It didn�t seem to belong anywhere. It sure as hell wasn�t Bingham. He was from Lauderdale, a tall, lanky, goofy, numb-nutted smart-ass private with a penchant for Pynchon, always cracking jokes about yo-yo�s and the whole sick crew and Rocketman that nobody ever got, but he smiled anyway, amused with himself. He was the only person outside of college Tompkins knew who�d even heard of Pynchon, let alone liked him.

He heard a high-pitched buzzing sound like an abrupt change of pressure, and then his ears popped. They�d drawn fire and rounds zipped by his ears and chewed up the ground at his feet, but Tompkins just sat there waiting [Poniatowski: L.T.! We gotta roll! Let�s go!] for everything to reverse back to that moment, and instead of that CLICK and CHUNG, [Poniatowski grabs Tompkin�s web-gear and drags him up: We gotta didi, sir! {Seilander and Kanagalingham hoist what�s left of Bingham and head off}] there�d be a rim shot and a symbol crash.

�TA-DA! How�d ya like that shit, L.T.?� Bingham�d say.

Sure.

That was any second.

Now.

Any second.

Come on.

Get up, fuckhead.

Move.

Bingham�s body was being transported back on his flight, so after trying and then failing to get drunk that morning, Tompkins cleaned himself up, grabbed his things, and hopped on the next chopper to the hospital at Cam Ranh Bay to say his last goodbyes. When he got there, he had one of the candy stripers tell him where the morgue was.

It was cold inside, and he immediately hugged himself with his hands clenched tight up under his arms. The overhead fan gave him a chill like a fever, and he almost turned about face and left when a gruff voice addressed him from a dark corner of the room.

�What can I do you for, Lieutenant?�

A dumpy, almost comical looking man with big, bushy eyebrows waddled toward him. His tag said Crain. His chevrons said he was a sergeant. He had thick, curly black hair like scrub brush on his arms and back, but he was balding.

Tompkin�s eyes shifted around the room. There were body bags everywhere.

�I�m looking for a Private Bingham. Ralph Stanley.�

�What a coincidence. He�s right over here. I�m just finishing up.�

Crain led him over to a table in the center of the room. Tompkins stood there, hugging himself, shivering, his sweat-soaked clothes suddenly heavier, weighing him down. Bingham lay there, naked, his dress uniform laid out neatly beside him. His nakedness didn�t bother him. That wasn�t it. It was that damned expression, that half-grin, that same look he�d had the other day on the ridge.

�Yeah. I never seen anything like it,� said Crain. �What was it?�

Tompkins rocked back on his heels and almost fell over. The smell of formaldehyde was almost overpowering.

�Bouncing Betty.�

�Jesus. That musta been some freak mine, L.T. I don�t need to tell you most of the guys I get in here got hit by one of those don�t look much different than a pile of hamburger. No offense,� said Crain holding up palms of parley.

�It�s okay, Sarge,� said Tompkins. He imagined Crain was able to get away with quite a lot.

As he moved closer something else caught his attention. He hadn�t noticed it right away, and wondered how he could have missed it. It hadn�t occurred to him until just then how Bingham would be presented back home. A third of him was missing. What�d they do? Sew the other bits back together? Make it a short casket?

He�d been blinded by that fucking smile.

�What�d you use here to keep him spread out? Are those...?�

�Sawn off crutches,� said Crain. He was from the south side of Chicago. Crutches came out cruch-ess.

�Even still, there�s a huge gap there. How are you going to keep his clothes from...you know...�

�No sweat, L.T. Got this mesh wire. Does wonders. I�ll wrap it around there... nobody�ll ever know anything�s missing.�

�Yeah...�

Tompkins turned on his heels and split. When he stepped back into the heat he doubled over and puked. A couple of guys wearing cut-off fatigues and Acapulco shirts walked by and laughed. Fuck them, he thought. Wouldn�t notice...nobody�d notice anything missing...had to use crutches and mesh wire to hold their son together so he�d look normal, so his uniform wouldn�t droop and sag where there used to be a gut...so they wouldn�t miss anything.

The plane sucked its landing gear back into its belly. Tompkins sat in a window seat near the back of the plane wearing his Class A�s like everyone else. They�d arrive home in safe anonymity. Throwing shitbags had gone out of vogue. A few Airmen toward the front were whooping and hollering, grab-assing with the stewardesses. One of them kissed the window and yelled,

�Xin loi, mothafuckas!�

Tompkins leaned his head on the glass of the window next to him and watched as Ton Son Nhut and the surrounding villages lost their individuality. Everything finally blurred into a green mass, and the nightmare receded. He felt a little light-headed, and that was all right. When he boarded the plane, he told one of the stewardesses he had a thing about flying. She gave him some Dramamine, and it was starting to take hold. He just wanted to sleep and forget what seemed like the last hundred years.

A burst of AAA exploded just off the starboard wing, and the pilot rolled the plane hard to port before banking into a steep climb, but there was no need. It was just a pot-shot, a goodbye from their little yellow friends in the black pajamas. It happened all the time. The Airmen up front stopped laughing, and Tompkins snapped out of his blissful haze. It wasn�t going to be that easy.

Tompkins rarely smoked, but he was shaking and bummed a cigarette and a light from a G.I. sitting in front of him.

�Fuckin� A,� said the G.I. who also lit up.

Tompkins agreed. He took a long drag and held it for a second, letting the smoke swirl about his lungs before letting it out.

�I bet Bingham�s getting a fucking kick out of this,� Tompkins said.

The G.I. looked at the empty seats next to Tompkins.

�Who�s that?�

The G.I. couldn�t decide if he was being told a joke and was supposed to smile or not.

Tompkins took another drag.

�He�s in the hold.�

He got it, and shrugged.

�Fuckin� A,� he said, and turned back around.

� Eddie Jeffrey
Reproduced with permission

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