“Peewee, go die.”
0800. The squad went on patrol. Jamal came by and I asked him if he had any softer Kleenex. He told me not to bother wiping.
I was still weak the next day, but getting around. At any rate I wasn’t in the bathroom every five minutes. Jamal gave me potassium tablets. There was a lot of excitement in the camp. A sergeant from Charlie Company refused to take his squad out on patrol. He said the war would be over as soon as the truce went into effect, and he didn’t want to be the last guy to die in Nam. I stayed in bed all day and read a supply of Ebonys that Peewee got for me. Everybody was talking about the possibility of a truce before the holidays were over.
Johnson and Walowick got into a fight. Johnson wanted something from Walowick, I think it was a cleaning patch, and called Walowick a farm boy. Walowick threw Johnson the patch and called Johnson a cootie.
“What you call me?” That’s what it sounded like Johnson was saying as he flew across the room.
He hit Walowick and sent him reeling across the floor. Then it was on. I had never seen human beings hit each other so hard. Everybody else in the hooch was trying to get out of it. There was blood everywhere. I got out just behind Peewee, and we both stumbled over Lieutenant Carroll trying to get in.
I thought about going back in to help Lieutenant Carroll stop the fight, but by the time I turned around, Lieutenant Carroll came hurtling through the doors. Then Johnson came out with Walowick around his middle. They went about three meters, hit a patch of mud, and went sliding into some crates of ammo. It took six guys to break them up.
Okay, the worst part of the fight was that Lieutenant Carroll got a broken tooth. His back tooth on the left side split right down the middle. He showed all of us. Also, it bled around the bottom and his jaw was swollen. Johnson and Walowick got called to the company commander’s office. Then I got called as a witness.
“Tell im what he called me,” Johnson said. “Tell im.”
“Before you open your mouth, Private,” Captain Stewart was chewing on the end of his cigar, “make sure you know what you’re talking about. I don’t want any rumors starting anything around here.”
“He called him a cootie, sir.”
“A what?”
“That’s what he called me,” Johnson said.
“What the fuck’s a cootie?”
“It’s a bug,” Walowick said.
“That’s like calling me a nigger,” Johnson said.
“Is that a racial thing?” Captain Stewart looked at Walowick.
“A cootie’s a cootie,” Walowick shrugged. “He shouldn’t have called me no farm boy. If he calls me a farm boy, I’m gonna call him a cootie again.”
That’s when Johnson hit Walowick again, and the fight started again. This time Lieutenant Carroll got out of the way. When the fight was over, Captain Stewart told them both to stop talking to each other. That was that.
Peewee asked me to write a letter to his girl for him. I had been right about her writing him a Dear John letter, and it really messed him up.
“Every time I get ready to write the damn thing I get messed around,” Peewee said.
“Peewee, I can’t write a letter to your girl for you,” I said.
“Hey, if somebody in Chicago is doing my night work for me, you can write a letter,” Peewee said.
We had some gung-ho stationery, the kind with a picture of GIs jumping out of a chopper on it. The picture was in light blue and you could write over it.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say, ‘Dear Two-Timing Slut.’ ”
“What’s her name?”
“Her name Earlene.” “Okay, so I’m writing, Dear Earlene.’ ’
“How can you leave me for that old, fat Eddie Thompson when his feet stink, he ain’t got no hair, and he got breath that smells like a polar bear what done died from eating too much garlic?’ You got all that?”
“Wait a minute.” I wrote it all down, then told him to go ahead.
“I know you need help with you and Little Mommy being on relief and everything, but I told you I would take care of you as soon as I got back into the World.”
“Who’s Little Mommy?”
“That’s her daughter. She’s real cute,” Peewee said. “Earlene was married before, but her husband drove a cab and got kilt in a holdup.
“I know it is hard to wait for anybody, but I will try to be worth waiting for, so give it a try. Yours truly, Peewee Gates.’ ”
“Hey, Peewee,” Monaco called over. “You gonna marry her?”
“If she wait,” Peewee said.
“I ain’t getting married,” Monaco said. “I’m playing the field my whole life.”
“That’s cause you so ugly there ain’t no pressure on you,” Peewee said. “As handsome as I am, I got all kinds of pressure on me to get married.”
I finished Peewee’s letter and gave it to him. “You think she’s going to wait for you?” I asked. “No, man, she already married this fat fool.” “Then why are you asking her to wait?”
“Just to break her damn heart,” Peewee said.
I saw Peewee put a stamp on the letter and take it out to the mail sack. When he came back, he was quiet. It wasn’t like Peewee to be quiet. I left him alone.
Johnson came in, and Brunner opened his mouth to him. Something about being called a name not being a big thing.
“You call me a cootie, and I’m going kick your ass, too,” Johnson said.
“You said what?” Brunner was about six-three and as bulky as a football player.
“I said I was gonna kick your ass if you call me out my name.” Johnson got up and walked over to Brunner.
Brunner looked at Johnson, shook his head, and picked up a magazine. He didn’t want any part of Johnson.
I couldn’t stand the smell of the insect repellent, and it woke me up in the middle of the night when I put my arms near my head because that’s where I put most of it. I looked around and saw Brew kneeling by the side of his bed, praying. It was a good idea. I felt a little guilty about waiting until I got to Nam to think about God. On the other hand I didn’t want to not be close to God. I checked Brew out again, and he was praying away. I started out with the Lord’s Prayer as best as I could remember it, got messed up with the part about trespassing, and gave it up.
When I was small, Mama used to say a prayer with me before I went to sleep. It was before Kenny was bom, and things had been pretty good for us. When I got bigger, she used to say it with Kenny.
The night Daddy left she came in and sat on Kenny’s bed and started saying it, and Kenny saw her crying and he started crying, too. When she got to the part about dying before you waked I put my head under the cover. I didn’t say it in Nam, either.
The sound of incoming choppers woke us up in the morning. A moment later we were being yelled at, whistles were blowing, and the morning cursing had started.
The air outside was still and muggy, but I could smell cordite in the air. Lieutenant Carroll was near a tree, and I went over to him and asked him what was going on.
“Beats the hell out of me,” he said. He had coffee in his canteen cup, a cigarette between his fingers, and was leaning against a tree to take a leak. He peed all over his pants. “The next time I join a war I’m going to get circumcised first,” he said. “How you doing?”
“Good,” I said. “How’d the patrol go yesterday?”
“Bad. Nothing happened, but I don’t think we should have been out there.”
“Stewart?”
He shrugged and walked away.
We got powdered eggs and cold potatoes for breakfast. Then Lieutenant Berger from Delta Company came over. I thought he had something important to say, but he had the mail, which was pretty important. Nobody in our squad got mail but Johnson. He got a bill from the telephone company.