I took the jar again, cold and heavy in my hand, and concentrated. Again, the world faded, but this time the colors melted together again in an eerie, not quite daylight glow. My eyes seemed to stretch their scope and vision into the jungle, reaching out almost like fingertips. In the strange space, people — soldiers — walked from between the trees. The whole scene vibrated inside-out, like a shimmering photo negative.
Some of these shadow soldiers approached me and reached out with black fingers. The jar vibrated in my hands, almost dancing as the figures approached. Each had one eye, the other just a space, and empty circle of white. I didn’t really feel anything — no fear, no repulsion.
One of the shadows stepped in front of the others. He touched the side of his face, the space next to his intact eye, and I suddenly stretched like a thin filament through space, drawing into his vision. Daylight burst in normal colors. Our company lined up outside the bunk houses, and an unfamiliar officer paced in front of the line of ragged grunts. I saw faces I knew, but no Gerard Karnowski or Lt. Terry Wucker.
Suddenly, blackness and stars leapt at me while The Surgeon chuckled at my side. “You’ll learn.” Then a pop, a nearby but muffled sound. I hugged the earth, fearing sappers — a surprise attack. As I hunched to the ground, my eyes were parallel to his boots, black but caked with too much of the red-orange dirt. The Surgeon hadn’t even flinched.
“That’ll be the Lieutenant.” He knelt down next to me as I pushed myself into a sitting position. His eyes flashed for a moment, almost fading to bright red before dissolving into his usual brown. “I tried to warn him.” I looked into camp and saw dark forms rushing about in the night as the raid sirens began to crank.
“What?”
“Look. You keep this.” He set the jar on the ground next to me. “I’m tired. It’s gotten too heavy.” He strolled back toward the hootches, tumult, and commotion, vanishing in shadow and movement. I sat on the ground next to the jar, just studying the eyes for a short while before scooping it up and heading for shelter.
Gerard Kowalski was gone the next morning. In his bunk lay his clothes and bowie knife, but nothing else, no letter, no clues to his disappearance. Lt. Wucker died, officially, at the hands of a VC sapper. Most of the members of D Company knew the truth. One of us — hell, all of us — fragged him for not following The Surgeon’s advice.
In time, I learned to rely on those shadow-soldiers. I learned to “see” like The Surgeon: avoiding mines, snipers, and helping to make the platoon one of the most efficient in the 1st Infantry. Our new Lieutenant learned to value the gift The Surgeon left behind. At the end of June, 1970, I boarded a Freedom Bird and came back to The World. The jar, wrapped in brown paper, rested in my lap on the plane. Disconnected from war, its power faded, but it sits, my one souvenir, on a shelf in my basement, next to old Christmas ornaments and board games — still wrapped in plain brown paper.
10: Bottom Feeders
We rode our bikes to Potter’s Pond on lazy Saturday afternoons in the spring, before school let out for the summer and the heat grew too oppressive. I struggled on my brother’s ten-speed while Joel raced his red Huffy. We traveled with our fishing poles balanced on handlebars, jutting out in front of us like antenna. Potter’s Pond was a forbidden place tucked behind Greenwillow Cemetery, a secluded spot to fill Saturday afternoons. Joel’s dad had lectured him about trespassing and how much trouble we could find — but we laughed at his warnings, and Elroy Jantz, the old owner of the bait shop, told stories that drew us like moths.
“Hope you’re not planning on heading up to Potter’s Pond,” he told us as he scooped baitworms into a brown paper sack. “It’s a pauper’s grave, full of folks who couldn’t feed their families or buy a small hunk of land of their own.”
We snickered at first.
“Dressed ‘em in old throwaway suits and dresses from the DAV for a quick service, then tossed the bodies straightway in the water, just as soon as the dead man’s folks left.” The old man leaned forward, examining us with his black gaze, and then laughed in a thick tone that killed our smiles but roused curiosity. “They died hungry, and they’re still hungry.”
The sky was clear, and the bright sunshine chased away any shivers spawned by Elroy’s story as we wound through the gravel paths of that immense cemetery. Generations of Spring County residents lay under the rolling grass with plenty of hills and trees blocking the view, so we couldn’t take in the whole place from any one vantage point. I struggled on the gravel roads because of the narrow ten-speed tires; Joel rode ahead and would mock me over his shoulder with lines from B-movies we watched on late night TV.
“They’re coming to get you, Denny,” he said that day.
We left our bikes at the back of the cemetery as usual, laying them down just outside a barbed-wire fence hiding in the tree line. That fence marked the border between Potter’s Pond and Greenwillow. Erected years ago out of crooked tree limbs and poorly strung, the fence wouldn’t hold our weight, so we took turns squeezing between the sharp wires while the other pried them open, crossing the threshold one at a time.
Through a path between trees — tall oaks perfect for climbing with low, untrimmed branches, dying brown pines, and knobby arthritic redbuds — we saw the green of the pond. The odors of dirt, moss, and decay floated in the air. Stout Kansas wind rarely broke the water’s surface because of the trees that encroached on its lip; only two small bare patches of packed dirt remained open for fishing. The pond wrapped around at the eastern end, bending out of sight. I’m sure it would be a sort of gourd shape if seen from above, with curved stem hidden from view by branches and aggressive undergrowth. The land around the pond was so green and alive, yet somehow twisted, crooked, and diseased. Sometimes old man Jantz’s stories were easy to believe.
Joel sat and busied himself with knots and fishing line. I worked a writhing earthworm onto a single barbed hook. We never used treble hooks in that pond anymore; the bullhead, these runty catfish, had small mouths, and we lost many hooks before learning our lesson. A worm threaded on a thin hook worked well enough on those eager bottom feeders.
“How many you shooting for today?” Joel asked as he tied the nearly invisible knot with his adept hands.
“At least a dozen.” I chuckled, casting my line into the slime, studying my orange cork bobber, waiting for the inevitable action.
After a few moments of silence, Joel stood and tossed his line in, angling away from mine. “I’m going for something big today.” He sat on the packed earth, staring into the water. “Something big has to live in there.”
We waited. Joel’s bobber was the first to dip below the still surface. “First blood,” he said. As he yanked the pole to set his hook, the line held.
“First snag,” I replied. Potter’s Pond may have been full of hungry bullhead, but it also contained more than its share of snags — bits of log, vines, and roots of trees that undoubtedly created a thick underwater labyrinth. This made a perfect home for bottom feeders, scavengers lying in wait, and a perfect spot for snags.
Joel tugged hard, walking his pole up the bank. “Whatever it is, I’m pulling it out.”
I glanced into the stinking water. “Are you sure you want to?”
“I don’t want to tie another damn knot and lose a hook if I can yank this out.”
I watched the spot where his line broke the surface. Slowly, steadily, the water split open and something green-black under the afternoon sun grew out of the pond. At first I thought it was a log, a mossy bit of fallen tree until the heavy vulture’s head of a massive snapping turtle rose from the surface.