Читать книгу Allied Zombies for Peace - Craig Nybo - Страница 18

Chapter 11

Tension grew as the Vienam veteran marchers neared the choke of NRPL protestors. Hundreds of hippies had gathered, decked out in tie-dye, wild color, and glazed eyes. Many of them held signs, rough cardboard plaques with slogans squiggled across them in manic, red paint. Their chant, “Hell no, we won’t go,” grew into a roar as the distance between vets and NRPL closed.

A half-dozen miscreant protestors peeled out of the mob and moved across the road towards the veterans, pumping their fists, shouting their mantra so brusquely that spittle pipped from their mouths and dotted the ground.

“Isn’t it illegal to desecrate a flag?” Chuck nodded towards the leader of the group of NRPL troublemakers, Schecky Lewis, with filthy hair, wearing an American flag that had been cut up and fashioned into a pair of pants.

“They have the same freedom of speech we do,” Dan said. “Lets hope they don’t cause any trouble.”

“They will; they always do,” Chuck said.

“Well if it isn’t the baby-killers,” Schecky shouted as he, Arnold, and a handful of others closed on the Vietnam Vet marchers. Someone deep in the veteran ranks barked out a curse at the hippies.

Dan noticed Chuck crunching his hands into balls and biting his bottom lip. “Just ignore them,” Dan said, “They aren’t worth your time.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“How many baby’s you kill in Nam,” Schecky spat the words like acid at nobody in particular. “How many girls you rape?”

“Shut your mouth,” a Nam marcher shouted.

“I got something to show you,” Schecky said and drew a small piece of paper from one pocket and a Zippo lighter from another. Both Dan and Chuck recognized the slip of paper as a draft card.

“Go back to your hole, you ass,” another of the Nam marchers shouted.

“Watch your language, sir,” a young mother yelled from the sidelines.

“That’s right,” Schecky said. “Watch your language. And while you’re at it, watch your murder, your rape, and your looting.”

“This is going to get bad,” Chuck said.

“Not if we don’t let it,” Dan said.

Schecky held up his draft card and flicked his Zippo alight. “You ain’t never going to make me into no baby-killer.” He touched the flame to the card. The slip of paper went up almost before Schecky could pull his fingers away.

“We don’t want you anyways,” one of the Nam vets shouted from deeper in the throng.

“Well that goes both ways,” Schecky said. “Why don’t you all do your country a favor and go back to Nam. Or better yet, why don’t you take those baby-killing guns of yours and put them to your own heads—put yourselves out of our misery.”

“That’s it,” Chuck said and cut towards Schecky, stolid steps, ice in his eyes.

“No,” Dan said, but he knew he couldn’t stop his friend.

“I’m going to take those red, white, and blue pants and shove them up your ass,” Chuck said.

The young mother who had told the vets to keep their language clean covered her toe-haired five-year-old boy’s ears. She fixed Chuck with a prudish look.

A dozen veterans fell in behind Chuck as he moved towards Schecky and his six friends. He stopped inches away from Schecky and fixed him with a baleful glare. Before Chuck even said a word, Schecky’s eyes flicked away twice, perhaps searching for moral support from Arnold and his other friends, who were backing away.

“You don’t even have the right to be here,” Chuck said.

“You’re wrong, man, the second amendment gives us the right to assemble.”

“The second amendment gives you the right to bare arms, dumb-ass, something we did for our country to protect little pricks like you.”

“Sir!” the young mother said, hands still over her five-year-old.

“We still got the right to assemble; it’s in the amendments,” Schecky said.

“You got the right as long as you assemble somewhere else.”

“Says who?”

“Says me and about fifty other guys that would love to skin you alive and feed you to the dogs. And believe me, we know how to do it.”

Schecky swallowed hard but held his ground. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

Arnold fidgeted, now ten yards behind Schecky and still backing away. “Schecky, maybe we should go back to Stan’s.”

“Your name’s Schecky?” Chuck sniggered.

“What’s it to you.”

“Nothing, except maybe you shouldn’t try to act like a big man with such a pansy-ass name.”

“Well at least may name’s not baby-killer.”

That’s all Chuck could take. He grabbed Schecky by the shoulders, wheeled him around and shoved him into the hoard of vets that had settled in behind him. Schecky went into the throng like a rag doll. Two veterans cuffed their arms around his shoulders and held him fast. Chuck moved in, balling his hands into two stones. His first blow landed in Schecky’s solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. Schecky doubled forward, fighting to regain air. The two Vets righted him. Chuck landed three more blows, two left jabs and a right cross, all to Schecky’s face.

Dan trotted up to Chuck’s side. “Let him go; we don’t need this kind of trouble.”

“I didn’t start it. It was this little asshole and his asshole friends.” Schecky’s little pack of friends receded a few more steps, collective fear on their faces.

The young mother shot Chuck a scowl and wrenched her five-year-old son into the crowd of spectators, away from the parade line. Against protests from her little boy, she took him home, a decision that she would later thank the Lord she had made.

“Just let it go,” Dan said.

Chuck landed a solid uppercut into Schecky’s face. He felt the cartilage snap under his fist and knew that the hippie would never look exactly the same after the day he had decided to taunt a group of Vietnam War veterans.

The two vets let Schecky go. Surrounded by angry G.I.s, all of them jeering and laughing, Schecky crumpled into a fetus on the pavement. Soldiers took turns landing well-placed kicks to Schecky’s legs and flanks. They slapped high fives, laughing and joking.

Schecky remembered the wood, slated door on the front of his father’s tool shed. He remembered the Master lock that kept that door shut tight. There had been only one key, the one his father kept on his jumbo janitorial work belt. He remembered what he had found in the shed on the day he had cut his way inside. He began to laugh as the Vietnam veterans continued to beat him. He loved his father, oh, how he loved his daddy. Someone kicked him in the ribs, causing a fresh wave of laughter to erupt from deep inside him.