Читать книгу SQUIRRELY - John Mahoney - Страница 3

I don’t think I’m crazy. Others might disagree, but for the longest time I’ve thought of myself as the last sane person on Earth. If I am crazy, I know I wasn’t born that way, and it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly when I became crazy. People who know me best might say I became crazy when I came back from Vietnam. Others say I was probably driven crazy by my mom and dad, or by the Post Office. Just about everyone thinks I became crazy when Nancy died. But I’m not crazy. Crazy people are insane, and I’m far and away from being insane. I don’t even like the term “crazy”. It’s insulting and demeaning and I would apologize to anyone who took offense at me suggesting they were even remotely crazy. If I have to be labeled, I preferred to be called squirrelly. That’s a nice word. What could be nicer than to be linked with one of suburbia’s best loved creatures? Squirrelly. I can live with that.

Seventeen months and nine days. That’s how much time I spent in Vietnam. I would’ve been there longer if I hadn’t been wounded. I didn’t want to come home. I was there to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. But the army—in its infinite stupidity—decided I was of no more use to them. So they sent me packing to the land of the big PX. First Hawaii, then Oakland, then finally McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

I was to be discharged from the army in about a week, but in the meantime I had to stay at Walson Hospital in Fort Dix. With my hand in a cast I couldn’t be assigned to any work detail, but I was able to walk around. Walking wounded, the Army called it. The doctors agreed there was little sense in making me stay in bed all day, so I was permitted to go where I pleased as long as I didn’t leave the post. The quartermaster wasn’t about to issue me new fatigues since I was getting out soon, so I wore my Class A’s. I wish I had the lightweight khakis to wear instead of that heavy green uniform. July in Fort Dix was almost as hot as Vietnam. I couldn’t button the jacket because my arm was in a sling. The empty sleeve had to be pinned so it wouldn’t flap in the breeze.

That last week before my discharge from the army I walked around the basic training areas of Fort Dix. I enjoyed watching the newly inducted simpletons being chased through their paces by maniacal Drill Instructors. Too bad the trainees didn’t know it was all a big joke. In my wanderings I often saw trainees in the PX or in snack bars, indulging themselves on pizza and sweets and having a good time. When I was in basic, we weren’t allowed to go to the PX unless we were buying toilet articles. And we certainly weren’t allowed to go to any snack bar. Woe onto us if we were caught sneaking sodas or snacks into the barracks. In fact, one time a guy in our platoon received a big box of cookies from his girlfriend, and our Drill Sergeant gladly allowed us to partake. When the cookies were gone he made us double time around the PT field until we puked.

But that was the old Army. Earlier this year, in January 1971, a lot of changes had been made to attract new enlistees. The one thing I noticed that hadn’t changed since I had been in Basic training was the GI haircut. It was still as short, and repulsive, and humiliating as ever.

I was one of the idiots who enlisted for three years. I thought volunteers would get a little better treatment than the guys who were drafted. The army gave a prefix to everyone’s social security number. It was either RA, which meant Regular Army (an enlistee), US, which meant a draftee, or NG, which meant National Guard. But the Drill Instructors had their own meaning for those prefixes. RA meant Regular Asshole, US meant Useless Shit, and NG meant No Good.

When I got tired of walking around I went to snack bars frequented by basic trainees. I’d sit myself at a table with a glass of coke and a self-imposed dazed look on my face. My Class A uniform was completely devoid of ribbons, medals, or insignia of rank. The only patch I wore was on my right shoulder, the patch of 8th Cavalry. That catatonic look and my bad arm attracted the curious trainee who wanted to know what life was like in the real army.

“You just get back from Nam, man?” was a question most asked of me.

I’d put down my coke, give the trainee my best Clint Eastwood squint, and say, “Yup.”

“Like, how was it? What happened to your hand?”

Since basic trainees rarely ventured anywhere alone, there was usually a group of four or five around my table, their eyes wide open in awe at the returning combatant.

“You don’t wanna know,” I answered, staring at my glass.

“It was rough, huh?”

I always made it a point to take one last drink of coke before answering. “It was hell.”

“Didn’t they give you a Purple Heart? Nothing?”

“I don’t believe in medals, and I don’t believe in rank. That’s why I don’t wear either. I only believe in this,” I said, pointing to the arrow patch on my shoulder.

I was twenty-one years old, which meant I was probably only two or three years older than most basic trainees, but to me they were still kids. I could tell that they were terrified of me. They knew that at the slightest provocation I could leap up and rip their jugular veins out with my teeth. They had never met the likes of me. I was Private E-1 Mackenzie Peck, rebel, mercenary, a shoot first ask questions later take no prisoners soldier, back from the hell of war.

Basic trainees are some of the most stupid people on earth. Scared and stupid. Gullible and stupid. Innocent and stupid. They’ll do everything they’re told without question or complaint. If they were told to eat shit they would do it, because they’re too scared and too stupid not to do it. I know, because I was there once. I had my basic training at Fort Dix. Since New Jersey was my home state, taking basic training at Fort Dix eased the pain of being away from home.

Home for me was a ninety minute ride up the turnpike. It was an area of five separate municipalities known as the Oranges. There was North Orange, East Orange, South Orange, West Orange, and in the middle of all of them was the small town of Orange. I grew up in Orange, a square mile of churches and taverns. It was a town of wood frame houses, built an arm’s length from one another. It was apartment buildings, square and plain. It was railroad tracks and junkyards. It was macadem playgrounds and street corner hangouts. It was people of every ethnic background and color. It was a going nowhere town, leaning toward decay. But no matter where you’re from you always have a certain allegiance to your roots. I shouldn’t have been homesick for a town like Orange, but I was. Sometimes I felt I would never see home again, or when I finally did make it home I wouldn’t recognize anything. Before the army, I never travelled far from home. Wherever I went throughout the state, if someone asked me where I was from I would simply answer, “Orange”. There was no need to say “Orange, New Jersey.”

The cadre at Fort Dix were made up of Vietnam combat veterans, each well-trained in the fine art of intimidation, and each possessing a set of cast iron vocal cords. The Drill Sergeants and their assistants had a knack for brutalizing people without actually laying a hand on anybody. (A corporal once called me a six foot high pile of doo-doo.) Conversations between Drill Sergeant and trainee were usually one-sided and held nose to nose at a hundred or more decibels.

I remember our first barracks inspection during the first week of basic training. The Drill Sergeants and their cadre stormed in, ripping apart bunks, spilling duffel bags, turning over foot lockers. One Drill Sergeant planted himself in front of my bunk mate, a thick-necked, muscular kid from Texas. (We called him Tex.)

“Where you from, trainee?” the Drill Sergeant roared.

“Texas, Drill Sergeant!”

“Texas? Ain’t nothin’ in Texas ‘cept steers and queers. And I don’t see no horns on you!”

I was next. The DI was a little shorter than me. The brim of his smokey the bear hat pressed against the bridge of my nose.

“Where you from, trainee?”

Without hesitation I answered, “Orange, Drill Sergeant!”

“Oh yeah? Well, I’m from Pineapple! Orange what, trainee?”

“Oh, uh, Orange, uh, New Jersey, Drill Sergeant.”

“Are you a queer, Private Peck?” he asked, standing back an inch and allowing me to breath.

“No, Drill Sergeant!”

“What kind of name is Peck? Is that short for peckerwood?”

“No, Drill Sergeant!”

“I’m gonna keep an eye on you, Private Peckerwood!”

One thing basic trainees did have was respect. Not respect for themselves, but respect for everyone else. If you were in basic training for one week and you met someone who had been there two weeks, you had a lot of respect for that person. Corporals were God-like. Sergeants were God.

As I walked around the basic training companies that final week in the army I received a lot of respect. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have any rank on my sleeve, or ribbons on my chest, every trainee knew I was a force to be reckoned with. I walked at attention. I kept my lips tight, never smiling. I mastered the icy glare. Trainees all over camp moved out of my way, or held doors as I entered or exited snack bars. Some of them even saluted and called me “Sir”.

Unfortunately, the fun didn’t last long enough. I spent my last day at the hospital, getting instructions on when and where to have my cast removed. I was handed my General Discharge papers, received my last pay, and had my I.D. card cut in half. I was free.

I took the bus home.

After a year and a half of being away from home I thought at least some things would change in Orange; perhaps a new house here and there, or a new movie theater, a new store, or even a fresh paint job on the Old Towne Deli. But there was nothing new. It was just as if some omnipotent force had said, “Okay, everybody! Mackenzie Peck is leaving town. Stop all the clocks and don’t do anything till he gets back!” The only thing colorful about Orange was its name.

I was living at home again with my mom and dad. They were glad to see me; my mom especially showed relief that I was in relatively one piece. When my dad greeted me home that first day he shook my hand and handed me an application for the telephone company. For some strange reason my dad thought that working for the phone company would be the greatest job in the world.

“Good pay. Job security,” he told me.

Even before I joined the army he said I should consider working for the phone company. When I was growing up I used to see telephone men climb poles with nothing more than a single spike attached to the inside of each shoe. It seemed very dangerous to me, and everytime my dad mentioned phone company, all I thought about was having to climb one of those poles then falling off when I reached the top. Plus, there were so many wires to work with I would probably connect everything wrong, resulting in a mini A-bomb explosion, with its subsequent mini mushroom cloud, followed by me falling to the ground in a heap of smoldering flesh. I managed to convince my dad that I needed some R&R, maybe two weeks worth—maybe two months.

Four weeks after my discharge I went to the VA Hospital in East Orange to have my cast removed. If you didn’t know this place was a hospital you would swear it was a fortress. Granite blocks made up most of the exterior. Some of the windows had bars on them. The front doors looked as if they could withstand a direct hit from a .155 Howitzer. There were about five acres of moderately well-kept grounds, completely surrounded by an iron bar fence.

After receiving directions to the doctor’s office I made a right turn through an arched doorway, down a four mile long corridor, left at the end, walk ten feet, turn right, it’s the 32nd door on the right. It was a memorable trek. Not only had the linoleum floors just been waxed and polished, but I was also wearing new sneakers. It sounded like a cat being skinned alive.

The nurse took my DD forms and had me sit on the examining table in the doctor’s office. While waiting for the doctor I stared out the window. There were only one or two patients outside, probably because of the heat and humidy, but the hot weather didn’t stop two squirrels from chasing each other around a tree trunk. I always liked squirrels, and who wouldn’t? They never bother anyone. I never saw a squirrel chase a child down the street or dig up an entire flower garden. They just play amongst themselves, chattering in a friendly manner to all who pass. And they’re so cute the way they sit up and eat with human-like paws. I don’t think I saw a single squirrel while I was in Vietnam. I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I got home.

It’s funny how you take for granted the things you see every day. Without thinking about it you accept whatever is around you. You adapt yourself to every sight and situation. You adapt yourself to the things which are pleasant to look at, and you adapt to things which if you really studied them you would realize how ugly they are. Like telephone poles for instance. Have you ever taken a good look at a telephone pole? They epitomize ugliness. And those wires! It’s like living under a giant spider web. Just imagine if you woke up one morning and there were no more telephone poles. You would probably wonder what made you adapt to such an ugly sight in the first place. Even the squirrels wouldn’t mind if the telephone wires were gone. They’d just find another way of getting from place to place.

That’s another thing I like about squirrels. They’re so tolerable of humans. You can remove one part of their environment and they’ll adapt to another part. When’s the last time a squirrel woke you in the middle of the night and said, “Hey! Why the hell didja cut my tree down for?” No, if they lose one tree they simply move to another without a fuss. Talk about adaptability!

When the doctor finally came in I said, “Greetings, Bac si.”

He was an army doctor. A captain. He didn’t respond to my greeting him with the Vietnamese word for doctor, so I assumed he was never in Nam. He set about cutting off my cast without saying much of anything. I thought he might ask me how I was injured, but he probably already read how in my records. I’m glad he didn’t ask. I didn’t feel like explaining it.

Since my return home I hadn’t done much of anything. I thought about getting a job, but then decided to wait until I was out of money. I spent most of my nights at Henry’s Bar on Freeman Street. It felt good to be drinking Rheingold again. A lot of the guys I grew up with or had seen around school hung out at Henry’s, just as our dads had done when they were single men. Some of these guys were good friends, others I just knew by name. Most of them had not been in the military, opting instead for a draft deferment by going to a community college. Now they all had degrees in Liver Cirrhosis. One good friend was John. He had been out of the army nearly six months, after having served nineteen months in Germany. He was always trying to convince me he had seen more action in Germany than I had seen in Nam.

“Look,” John said, “do you have any idea what it’s like to sleep on the ground during a blizzard?”

“We didn’t have blizzards in Nam.”

“We were in constant training,” John whined. “Forced marches. Target practice. PT tests.”

“We were on alert twenty-four hours a day,” I said.

“Sometimes we ate nothing but C-rations for days at a time,” he said.

“Sometimes the temperature reached 110 degrees,” I told him. “And that was in the shade.”

When we finished comparing complaints we’d clink our beer glasses together and agree that we were glad to be out of the Army.

“And how did you get out of the army so soon?” John asked. “I thought you were a Regular Asshole.”

I answered by holding up my still stiff hand.

“You probably got that by punching out a wall.”

John was close to the truth.

I had another friend at Henry’s named Bill. Bill was about to enter his senior year at college. And he wasn’t going to any “just pretend you’re awake and you’ll pass” community college. No sir; Bill was in Rutgers. He was always asking me what I had planned to do with the rest of my life. He urged me to go to college, get a degree, get a good job. But I was twenty-one years old and I didn’t want to be a college freshman at twenty-one. Besides, I had read about the anti-war rallies at colleges, and I didn’t want to be spit on by a bunch of pimply-faced, pot smoking, draft dodging, hippie babies. Not that Bill was one of those, of course. No, I told him, I already had enough of an education. “I’ve seen more and done more than you or any of your college cronies will ever see or do.”

Bill never talked much about the war. Being a non-military, college-type person he had probably heard only the worst about returning vets. Maybe he was afraid the wrong words from him would set me off on a wild bottle throwing, chair smashing tangent. But one late night at Henry’s Bar he did ask me how I was wounded.

I looked at my hand, then at my near empty glass of Rheingold and said, “You don’t wanna know.”

He never asked me again.

John lived in an apartment not far from my house. There were no apartment buildings in Orange more than four stories tall, so on Lincoln Avenue where John lived, all the apartment buildings were made by the same cookie cutter. During the steamy days of summer I would’ve much rather gone to the shore, but I didn’t have a car. My dad had a ‘61 Chevy two-door sedan which he used only to transport himself to and from his job. When the original paint color faded from years of neglect, my dad painted the car with gray house paint, using a very stiff brush. Each year the painting procedure remained the same, but the color changed. I guess my dad was experimenting to see which house paint would best adhere to a large metal object that was left out in every weather extreme. Because of the horrendous current color (much faded Forest Green) and the fact that the car emitted three different colors of smoke, depending on the time of day, I refused to drive the car even when it was offered to me.

John had a car; a nice Pinto. Unfortunately, John’s work schedule didn’t allow him to take enough time off to go down to the shore. John was a cashier at Shop-Rite, working a lot of nights and weekends. But the good part was that he had a lot of free afternoons. It was the hot and cloudless afternoons that I’d visit John and we’d go up to tar beach. We’d split a case of beer and talk about the good ol’ days: high school, the army, German and Vietnamese girls, gonorrhea, beer, malt liquor.

I laughed and said, “Remember the time we were throwing crab apples at cars and one guy stopped his car and chased us through someone’s yard and we all got caught in the clothes line?”

John laughed too and said, “Remember the time we went to Staten Island and we got drunk and threw up in Bill’s mother’s car?”

The roof of John’s apartment building was the greatest place in the world. I never wanted those days to end. I remember standing on a milk crate, peeing into the parking lot, and listening to John talk about his future, where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do. He had met a girl at work, Cornelia Birdwell, and it was with her he was planning a future.

“Cornelia?” I said, not trying to hide my amusement. “What do you call her, Corny?”

John responded seriously. “No, she doesn’t like her first name, so everybody calls her Birdie.”

“Birdie? Well, why don’t you bring her up here and see if she can fly?”

I was a little surprised that John had had any plans for the future, since my future plans only went as far as the next can of beer.

By the end of summer it was clear I would soon be out of money. My dad, up to that point, was understanding about my wanting to stay unemployed. I had been through an ordeal, or so he thought. But now we both knew I had to get my ass out of the house and start contributing to the household in particular, and to society in general.

My dad stopped me one Saturday afternoon as I came staggering home from Henry’s. “You know, Mac, now that your cast is off it’s time you started thinking about a job.”

“I know. I’m thinking about it.” Actually I wasn’t.

“The police and fire department are always looking for new recruits. And of course there’s always the phone company.”

There were those words again. Phone company. I didn’t tell him about the dream I had one night where I climbed a telephone pole and just as I reached the top my spikes broke off and I slid down the entire length of telephone pole, ripping and tearing my face like I was on a giant cheese grater. With all his sugestions, my dad never once suggested I go into his line of work—driving a bus. I don’t think it was because he didn’t think I’d be a good bus driver. I just don’t think he liked his job; in fact, now I realize he hated it. He just didn’t want me to be as miserable in my job as he was in his. He drove the number 44 bus from Orange to Newark. In all the years that I’ve known him to be a bus driver he never came home in a good mood. He rarely had a funny story to tell, and likewise he rarely complained. But when he did complain it was always about the same thing—people. The jerks with twenty dollar bills, the women with baby strollers, the rambunctious teenagers.

Once I overheard him say this at a family party: “It was raining. And this jerk gets on the bus with an umbrella, and as he’s closing it he’s shaking the water all over me. Then he starts yelling at me because the bus was two minutes late.”

With that in mind, I decided I would never, never, never get a job where I had to deal with customers.