Help Wanted (2 page)

"You!" Squirrel shouted. He was pointing at Michael. "Stay next to TUrtle." Turtle was one of the high school kids and looked like a turtle with his head sunk down into his shoulders. Squirrel told the four boys that they each had a name—Bird One to Bird Four. Michael was Bird Three. He was glad that he wasn't Bird Four because that would have brought his confidence down. He didn't know Tran, but Michael hoped that he would be better than him at paintball.

Michael turned to Trung—Bird One—and had the feeling that he wanted to say good-bye. After all, wasn't this kind of like war? He licked his lips and undid his canteen from his belt. He felt foolish. He was the only one with a canteen; everyone else had water bottles stuck in their oversized pants pockets. He drank long and hard, and then placed his canteen in the loose soil.

"Everyone get their goggles down!" Squirrel ordered. "Connect your hoses if you haven't done so! Safeties off!"

Michael worked his goggles down over his eyeglasses. They fogged immediately. Squirrel, in frog leaps, advanced toward Michael. He took the goggles off Michael's head and said, "Spit in them, Bird Three!"

"What?" Michael asked, confused. But when he saw Squirrel's Adam's apple bob as he gathered a gob in his mouth, Michael immediately spit into his goggles. Squirrel told him to rub it in. That would stop the fogging.

A whistle cried. The battle was on.

Michael sat down in the leaves, his gun between his legs. He looked down at the valley where the wind stirred the flag. He could see movement in the brush and he heard the click of a gun safety. He then heard TUrtle whisper, "Let's go!"

Crouching, he followed Turtle, and together they descended the hill that was worn bare from previous
wars. Michael looked to his right and saw Trung and Tran following someone called Crow. They were moving smoothly, as if they were born to combat.
I'm not jealous,
he thought—but he was, for he himself was descending the hill mostly on his butt. Jealousy was quickly supplanted by fear when he heard fire from the other side—a paintball whizzed over his head and hit a tree. Three shots hit in front of him. If he had been in that place, he would already be dead, out of the game. He was glad that he was slow, and glad that Turtle was starting to return fire. Turtle had a gun that spit rapidly.

"Bird Three," Turtle called. "Left flank, ten o'clock."

Michael thought,
Left flank, ten o'clock.
He knew that they were military terms, but could only guess at their meaning. He swiveled his head left.

Fifty yards away one of the Vietnam vets was crouching near a granite rock. The vet's teeth were shiny, a giveaway. He started to raise his gun.

"
Ay,
" Michael muttered and backed away on his butt. Dust rose up all around him.

"Shoot, Bird Three!" Turtle ordered. Turtle himself was firing at movement in a bush. When the fire was returned, Turtle went down on his belly and crawled like a turtle toward the bush. The smoke of dust rose around his body. He stopped to wipe his dusty goggles.

Michael raised his gun and fired blindly, a round of paintballs cutting through the air. The vet disappeared
behind the rock, still alive. The blood from his paintballs dripped on the face of the rock. Michael, feeling a little braver, moved to his right down the hill. He looked back; he didn't want anything to do with the vet—for now.

Turtle and the guy in the bush were gunning for each other. Michael could see the guy from where he was. He was a man in black, a sort of ninja. Michael thought:
I can get him.
He began to duck waddle toward the man, who was pinned down by Turtle's fire. The firing stopped, and he could hear both Turtle and the man changing cartridges. Michael wondered if he should wait until the cartridges were in before he fired. He wanted to be fair. He counted to five—that was enough.

"Now," Michael said to himself.

Twenty yards away from the man, Michael fired and hit him—the paintballs exploded on his arm. The man let out a small chirp of pain and groaned, "Dead."

Michael wondered if the shots had hurt. They must have because the man was holding his arm. He looked over at Turtle, who was giving him a thumbs-up. Then Turtle's hand flattened in a sign to get down.

"Down!" Turtle blurted.

A Vietnam vet had sneaked up on them and started firing from behind a tree at Michael. But the vet stopped when Turtle fired from his position. The vet collapsed to the ground, unhurt, and crawled into a hole that was deep enough for a coffin.

Michael returned fire. Paintballs whizzed over the hole and exploded on the limbs of yellowish trees that appeared dead. He knew his fire was pointless, but his confidence grew every time he pressed the trigger. He liked the feel of the gun thumping in his hands. He liked the sight of the paintballs spitting out of the gun barrel.

Michael glanced over his shoulder. Turtle was moving swiftly toward the hole. Turtle motioned Michael to climb back up the hill and go around. Michael nodded and hurried away, his flannel shirt snagging on brush and tearing. His tennis shoes slipped in the dust.

"But he knows," Michael caught himself muttering. The Vietnam vet had been in a real war and knew that Turtle and he were going to try to flush him. The vet couldn't be that dumb, or could he? Michael had seen a lot of vets holding up signs in San Francisco that read:
PLEASE HELP, GOD BLESS YOU
. These men were gray-haired, with lined faces where their tears ran from the sadness of having no place to live. Pigeons pecked at their feet.

But Michael shook off this image. He was at war, and this vet was trying to tag him. He moved up the hill, stopped briefly to get a drink of water from his canteen, and then started down again. He stopped twenty feet from the hole and wiped his goggles on the sleeve of his shirt. He could see Turtle, who was down on one knee. He was wagging his head no.

They waited.

Michael could see action on the other side of the hill. Paintballs were flying wildly and little explosions of dust rose where the squads scampered behind rocks, brush, trees, and tree stumps. Two soldiers were on the ground, dead and out of the game. He thought of his friends, who probably were speaking Vietnamese among themselves. He wished he could say something, in either English or Spanish, but who was there to talk to? He reached into his pocket and brought out the Milky Way candy bar. When he tore off the wrapper, the candy was a flood of melted chocolate. He drained the gooey chocolate into his mouth and licked his fingers. So what if he swallowed dust? He was hungry.

"
Ay,
" he muttered.

The shadow of a hawk scared him. And it didn't comfort him to see a lizard staring at him, its tongue like a lance.
Are these signs?
he wondered. And he had to wonder about his friends fighting against the Vietnam vets. Was Trung mad that his grandfather had been killed by the U.S. military? He didn't seem mad. In fact, Michael could make out Trung's laughter in the distance. Were he and the Vietnam vet taunting each other?

Then Turtle began to fire at the hole.

Michael jumped to his feet, gun raised. He advanced toward the hole, crouching, his shoulders tense. The vet swung around and shot toward Michael, but the
paintballs whizzed past. Michael stopped, felt his heart thumping, and leaned against a tree. He swung away from the tree and launched an attack as he moved from one tree to another. The paintballs burst at the lip of the hole.

"Give up!" he heard himself say. Where did he get the guts to ask the enemy to surrender?

"You wish!" the vet hollered, and then returned fire.

Michael started to fire again, but his gun was empty. Michael brought out a new cartridge from his fanny pack and clipped it in.
Easy,
he thought. He began to once again pepper the hole.

The vet returned fire at Michael, and then swung around as Turtle came running toward the hole. They each shot at the same time, and both let out a chorus of "Ahhh."

Michael waited before he approached them carefully.

"You're both out?" Michael asked.

"For now," the vet answered. He was examining the red stain on his T-shirt. He had gotten hit two times.

Turtle was looking at his shoulder, where he had taken his hits. He seemed mad at himself. He dropped cross-legged and took a water bottle from his pants pocket.

Michael left the two and moved down the hill. He walked slowly, each step from heel to toe, as he headed
toward the flag. When he was twenty yards from the flag, he heard Trung talking in Vietnamese. He thought he was addressing his brother or his brother's friend, Tran. But he was crowing with one of the Vietnam vets, who knew the language of his enemy.

"Weird," Michael muttered. He hurried over to Tran, who was sitting back and tossing corn nuts into his mouth. His gun was at his side, along with a sack of cartridges.

"What are they saying?" Michael asked.

Tran noisily chewed his corn nuts, swallowed, and rolled his tongue over his front and back teeth. "They're talking about where they bought their guns on the Internet," he answered. He tossed back a few more corn nuts.

Michael was confused. Was it okay to talk to the enemy?

Then there was firing from both sides. Tran was hit in his shoulder.

"Uhha!" Tran screamed, a half-chewed corn nut falling from his mouth. Michael thought at first that it was one of his teeth. He was going to ask if it really hurt when paintballs burst at his feet. He scampered down the hill and jumped behind a rock. He was breathing hard and sweat was washing over his face. His heart was thumping like a rabbit.

"I need a drink of water," he muttered to himself. But his thirst disappeared when he sensed movement
in a bush. He turned and, without thought, shot a round. He saw an enemy—an adult, bending over in pain, holding his stomach. Between his fingers leaked purple paint.

"It does hurt," Michael remarked. The man had a gut that wobbled like Jell-O, and Michael figured that if the fat around
his
middle hadn't softened the blow, then how would Michael stand it? He touched his stomach. He wasn't looking forward to getting hit there.

He retreated halfway back up the hill, and rested for a moment as he looked down on the fighting. When he heard footsteps behind him, he galloped once again into the valley. He stayed hidden in a bush while the paintballs began to fly at one of his other squad members. He took off his goggles, something he had been told not to do, and wiped the sweat around his nose. He quickly put them back on—a sniper had located his position. He scrambled out of the bush to his right, where he believed Trung and True were battling.

Someone said something in Vietnamese. He knew it wasn't Trung or his brother because the voice belonged to a man. From behind a rock, he saw the enemy, those who had been knocked out, and a few of his squad members. He swallowed. On the ground, not too far from the flag, were Trung and True. Both were facedown, splatters of paint on their backs and around
their armpits. A hawk swung in the sky, and its shadow touched both of them.

"Trung," Michael muttered under his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut. He imagined a vulture on Trung's back. The vulture was pulling a strip of flesh and raising his beak to get it down his throat. But Michael's eyes sprung open when he heard a branch snap. He saw movement in a bush. He rose to his feet and ran toward the figure, firing. The figure jumped from the sting of the paintballs, then dove into the cover of the bush.

"I'm down," a voice called from the bush. He sat in the dust.

Michael was breathing hard, sweat fogging up his goggles. He took them off quickly, wiped the sweat from the lenses, and put them back on. He gazed at his surroundings. He knew that most of his squad was down, even Squirrel, who was sitting with his arms around his knees. He was pulling foxtails from his cotton gloves. An empty water bottle lay at his feet.

Silence.

Michael could hear a car start up in the parking lot. He could hear a single-engine airplane. His senses were keen. He could even smell barbecue potato chips—someone was snacking on junk food before the next round of combat. His stomach rumbled. His ear twitched when he heard the flag snap. He was
only twenty feet away. Three leaping steps, and it could be his!

Silence.

Sweat dripped down the sides of his nose. He tasted salt and something close to blood.

"I'm going to try," he told himself. He scanned the valley. There was no movement, except two hawks were circling above. He envisioned his cadet uniform to give himself strength. He saw a row of ribbons on his chest and a single medal for marksmanship.
Nah, make that bravery.

He scrambled to his feet, finger on the trigger, and scurried to a tree, where he crouched, waiting for his breathing to calm and the pulse in his wrist to slow. He
was
tasting blood—the sun had caused his nose to bleed. He held his nose to his shirtsleeve until the blood flow stopped. He ran his index finger under his nostril—just crusted blood.

"You can do it," he told himself. "Win it for your squad!"

He stood up, mumbled, "You can do it," and shooed away the gnats that circled his face. He licked his lips, counted to ten, said, "Now," and dashed toward the flag.

A burst of fire from two directions hit him on all sides.

He let go of his gun, stung, and fell next to Trung,
who had rolled over onto his belly. His eyes were open, motionless.

"It hurts," Michael groaned.

Trung's eyes wouldn't move. He was playing dead for his friend.

Michael squirmed from the pain and then forced his body to be still, even as the nosebleed started again and rolled down the side of his cheek. If Trung could play dead, so could he. He pictured a vulture on his back and winced when he imagined the beak piercing his flesh. The pain was nothing, and his mom's crying next to nothing. He was a cadet. He pictured himself being lowered into the ground, a bivouac ribbon on his chest after all.

Carolina Wrinkled her nose when her little brother, David, tipped a liter bottle of Dr Pepper into his mouth, swigged a little, and then sent the flavorful backwash of soft drink flowing back into the bottle.