Seventh Wonder (27 page)

There was a guy standing nearby, one of the men waiting to board his flight out, and he caught my eye as I walked past him. “You’ll get used to it,” he told me. I was in awe. I can’t imagine ever getting used to something so ghastly.

We boarded buses that took us to a place called Long Binh, where we got a couple hours of sleep and they fed us breakfast. Then we stood in formation and they gave us our assignments. Johnny and I were both assigned to the division at Cu Chi, so we said our goodbyes to the men we’d flown over with and hopped a C-130 with all our gear.

Cu Chi is where I’ve spent the past 33 days. We went through in-processing and some training exercises, learned the kinds of things they don’t teach you in basic training. It’s pretty locked down, not much gets in or out, and so there hasn’t been much to worry about with regards to safety. I realize it’s a futile sentiment, but I really don’t want you to worry about me - we all look out for each other here.

Christmas will have passed by the time you read this. I hope you had a happy one. I can promise you, you’re all I’ll be thinking about - just like every other day.

Now look over your shoulder as if I’m standing behind you. Lift your head to me, and smile.

Truly,

John

* * *

12 January 1970

Dear John,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my love. It seems I was just getting settled in the 60s, and now here we are, positioned at the start of a brand-new decade. I wonder what sorts of things the 70s will be remembered for (I’m hopeful the end of the war will be among them).

Do you ever like to make up resolutions? I do sometimes. It helps, having a sense of purpose to get you through the winter months. This year I have only two: figure out what I’d like to do with my life, and give you my best love. One, I think, will be far simpler than the other.

We had a quiet Christmas here. Irene’s gift to me was a camera with several rolls of film. For as far back as I can remember, she has been on a quest to unearth some variety of artistry at which I have the potential to excel (ever since, at the age of six, she finally admitted defeat in teaching me to play the piano). You never know, she said - maybe photography will be my medium.

On the 30th, I had a surprise phone call from my friend Faye. Do you remember her from the Grand Canyon? I hadn’t spoken to her since, although she did send me a postcard from Paris back in September. She called to let me know she was visiting friends in LA for the holiday and to invite me to a New Year’s Eve party in the city. Against my better judgment, I said yes.

She gave me the address for someone’s apartment, so I took a cab. Much to my dismay, it turned out to be in Compton, a neighborhood in Southeast LA that isn’t exactly revered for its safety. I was still considering whether to ask the cabbie to drive me straight back to Rustic Canyon when I heard Faye calling my name from one of the fourth floor balconies.

She’d already snorted God knows how much coke, yet she claimed to be above taking any acid. I suppose it helps her to feel as if she has standards, even if they are rather arbitrary. My night very quickly devolved from the moment I walked in the door - as the only sober one, it became my responsibility to serve as Faye’s caretaker. It wasn’t until much later in the evening that I found out the reason for her self-destructive behavior. Her boyfriend, Don, had broken up with her just the week before, having decided he was in love with someone else. As blasé as she pretends to be, Faye’s heart is no less vulnerable to breaking than anyone else’s. Strange and sad though it may seem, there is some comfort in that, I think. When we suffer, we suffer together.

In any case, by midnight she was well on her way to running out of consciousness, so I greeted the new year from the back of a cab pointed back toward Rustic Canyon, where Faye slept in my bed while I half-slept alongside her on the floor. The following morning, she was both profusely apologetic and horrendously hungover. It was afternoon when she left. Quite honestly, I’ll be surprised if I ever hear from her again, which is actually somewhat saddening to me. I’ve seen enough glimpses of Faye’s unswerving loyalty to convince me that, given the right amount of direction, she could do just fine.

Since then, I’ve devoted much time to poring over job ads and researching graduate programs. For now it’s a life on hold, but perhaps soon my days will take on a greater design.

I dream of you often. Not a single night has passed when my last thought wasn’t of you, nor a single morning when, swimming toward consciousness, I failed to hope we would soon be reunited. Tell me what it’s like there. I want to know all about your life, the good and the bad. I’d like to know what to imagine when I think of you.

Always,

Meg

And I want my meaning

true for you. I want to describe myself

like a painting that I studied

closely for a long, long time,

like a word I finally understood,

like the pitcher of water I use every day,

like the face of my mother,

like a ship

that carried me

through the deadliest storm of all.

(Rilke)

* * *

27 January 1970

Dearest Meg,

I do have New Year’s resolutions. Frankly, I’ve never had much use for them before now. There’s something about being so many hundreds of miles away from anything the least bit familiar, though. Perhaps it makes me a bit sentimental, or perhaps it’s the sense of purpose you mentioned: the need to set goals that extend beyond my time here. Mine are:

1. Draw. At least a little, every day. To keep my mind sharp.

2. Embrace friendships. (I’m thinking of Johnny Beckinsale when I say this. I’d been closed off from him, I think partly because I questioned his motives in befriending me in the first place. Given our age difference, I wondered whether he was seeking a father figure, a role I have no interest in assuming. I no longer believe this is the case. Then, too, I was loathe to become too attached. I’ve realized, though, that a year without comradeship is a year wholly wasted.)

3. Keep a journal. Would you believe I never have? I don’t know that I’ll commit to daily entries, but I plan to scratch down some thoughts here and there, time permitting. This will be for you, Meg. One day I’ll share it with you, so that you can know me better.

And what is it like here? you ask. Vietnam itself is an intriguing place. We are in the cool, dry season just now, although “cool” is a relative term. At night it isn’t unusual to see temperatures in the 60s, but by midafternoon, they frequently climb into the 80s. Our camp is in a valley filled with elephant grass: tall, thick grass that’s trampled by the draft from the choppers when they take off and land. Then just north of us are the central highlands, a mountainous, densely forested area swarming with Viet Cong.

Usually we’re up with the sun each morning. Breakfast is served in the mess tent. We stand in formation long enough to be briefed on the day’s activities. Most of the day is spent on foot in the ruthless sun, running patrol, keeping an eye out for the bad guys.

It isn’t safe being out on the roads after dark, so a few hours after lunch break, we head back to camp to clean our weapons and enjoy a few precious moments of free time. Dinner actually isn’t bad, and we always get a quart of milk to drink with it.

At night we take turns on watch, which is for the most part uneventful. Oftentimes it’s difficult to keep from falling asleep. Night ambush is what everyone hates, myself included. The squads in our platoon rotate every few days. After dinner, the squad assigned to ambush restocks on supplies and heads back out. We’re supposed to hoof it to some appointed spot, set up some claymores (mines), and wait out the VC. We’re given orders to shoot if anybody happens by.

Off the record, though? That’s a good way to get yourself killed. We’ve scouted out all the best hiding places. Most times we just surround ourselves with claymores, then hole up and try to keep a low profile till dawn. We spend the whole night hoping like hell nobody shows up, and if they do, we stay quiet. I know it doesn’t sound like any kind of way to win a war, but that’s how it is over here. You see a band of soldiers walking by, there’s no way to tell whether they’re a detachment on patrol, or point men for an entire battalion.

So that’s a typical day. We take orders, we follow them. We keep our heads down and our mouths shut, and we wait for our time to run out so we can come home and forget about it.

I know it’s difficult not to worry about me, sweet Meg. I know that, because I worry about you, too. It scares me to think of you going to neighborhoods like the one you described, alone. I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you. I feel so helpless, because I know there’s nothing at all I can do to protect you, and I hate that more than almost anything.

Just promise me you’ll be careful. Knowing you’re safe is the only chance I have.

I love you.

John

P.S. I’d like to have a picture of you. Will you send one? Your face is burned into my memory, with zero chance of being forgotten, but I’d still like to be able to look at you.

* * *

Journal Entry

Thursday, January 29, 1970

Got promoted to sergeant. I’m a team leader now, in charge of eight other men. I guess I’m supposed to feel honored, but it doesn’t feel like much of a privilege.

Another mortar attack last night. This one was worse than the others. Bigger. I was on night watch, in my bunker with a kid from Arkansas named Rice. He’s new, so he was learning the ropes. When the first blast hit, he was talking sports, something about the Dallas Cowboys, while I pretended to listen. The quiet gets to be too much for some of the guys. They have to talk to fill the empty space.

We heard the first explosion right behind us, this deafening crack, the world splitting in two. A couple more explosions, and the flares went up, bright as daylight. I aimed my weapon out the hole, but I couldn’t see anybody. I wondered if this would be it. Wondered how you brace yourself for the end. No line of thought seems the least bit rational in that moment. There’s no way to prepare. No way to find peace when rockets are whizzing past and people are crying and yelling all around you.

Three more. I thought of Meg. Clung to the sight of her in my mind, loving her. Another kid, Russell, scrambled down into our bunker, bleeding out of his ear. Rice tried to ask him what the hell happened, but he couldn’t hear, probably because of the ringing in his ears.

Then a helicopter came into the landing zone, a Medevac. It was all over. A blip on the radar.

This morning at breakfast, the announcement came that three guys were killed. Mandatory memorial service. As if any of us needed to be forced.

—

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,

And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

(HW Longfellow)

* * *

14 February 1970

Dear John,

Happy Valentine’s Day, from my heart to yours. I hope you got my package. I picked out your gifts based on your New Year’s resolutions. The man at the art supply store said the drawing pencils are about the best money can buy. I bought the journal from an art bazaar in Santa Barbara. And the photo of me is a recent one - Irene snapped it when she was showing me how to use my camera several weeks ago. I’m afraid it isn’t my best, but I’m hopeful you won’t mind.

I’ve missed you dreadfully this past week. I always do, but it’s been especially profound of late. I wish I knew why. Absent a true answer, my imagination tends to run away with me. At times I grow frightened, believing we’re psychically linked and my pain is somehow connected to yours. Twice this week I’ve woken abruptly in the middle of the night in a panic, and I fear it’s because something has happened to you. I pray nothing has. Writing to you helps ease some of the pain, because it grants me hope that you’ll soon be holding this very sheet of paper in your own hands. I like to picture that.

It helps, too, being able to envision you in your everyday existence. When I was covering my shift at the library the day after I received your last letter, I found an atlas and a book about Vietnam. Based on your description, I think I was able to pinpoint your approximate location on the map, and in the book I found photos of the mountains and jungles and elephant grass you mentioned. They show occasional flashes on the news as well, but I try and shield myself from the media coverage as much as possible. I think paying close attention to it would be counterproductive to my carefully constructed peace of mind.

In other news, my job search has stalled, as I’ve been pouring all of my time and effort into prepping applications for grad schools. I’ve sent apps to Berkeley and Stanford, but after talking with one of the admissions counselors at Columbia, I think it might be my first choice. I’m terrified of leaving California, though. I’ve never lived anywhere else, let alone the opposite side of the country. Can you imagine me in New York City? I’ve never been, so the idea of it is provocative and horribly intimidating all at once. I would welcome your opinions on the subject.

I love you, always and forever.

Meg