"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

Rafter Man reads the letters out loud. He can still be touched by them.
To me, the letters are like shoes for the dead, who do not walk.


As dusk approaches, Rafter Man and I hitchhike back to the ISO hootch
in the First Marine Division HQ area.
Rafter Man writes a letter to his mother.
I take my black Magic Marker and I make a thick X over the number 59 on
the shapely thigh of a the life-sized nude woman I've drawn on the plywood
partition behind my rack. There is a smaller version of the same woman on
the back of my flak jacket.
Almost every Marine in Viet Nam carries a short-timer's calendar of his
tour of duty-the usual 365 days-plus a bonus of 20 days for being a Marine.
Some are drawn on flak jackets with Magic Markers. Some are drawn on
helmets. Some are tattoos. Others are mimeographed drawings of Snoopy, his
beagle body cut up by pale blue ink, or a helmet on a pair of boots-"The
Short-Timer." The designs vary, but the most popular design is a big-busted
woman-child cut up into pieces like a puzzle. Each day another fragment of
her delicious anatomy is inked out, her crotch being reserved, of course,
for those last few days in country.
Sitting on my rack, I type out my story about Hill 327, the
serviceman's oasis, about how all of us fine young American boys are assured
our daily ration of pogey bait and about how those of us who are lucky
enough to visit the rear areas get to see Mr. John Wayne karate-chop Victor
Charlie to death in a Technicolor cartoon about some other Viet Nam.
The article I actually write is a masterpiece. It takes talent to
convince people that war is a beautiful experience. Come one, come all to
exotic Viet Nam, the jewel of Southeast Asia, meet interesting, stimulating
people of an ancient culture...and kill them. Be the first kid on your block
to get a confirmed kill.
I fall into my rack. I try to sleep.
The setting sun pours orange across the rice paddies beyond our wire.


Midnight. Down in Dogpatch, in the ville, the gooks are shooting off
fireworks to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year. Rafter Man and I sit on the
tin roof of our hootch so that we can watch the more impressive fireworks on
the Da Nang airfield. One hundred-and-twenty-two-millimeter rockets are
falling from the dark sky. I open a B-3 unit and we eat John Wayne cookies,
dipping them in pineapple jam.
Chewing. Rafter Man says, "I thought this was supposed to be a truce on
account of Tet is their big holiday."
I shrug. "Well, I guess it's hard not to shoot somebody you've been
trying to shoot for a long time just because it's a holiday."
A sudden swooosssh...
Incoming.
I jump off the roof.
Rafter Man stands up, his mouth open. He looks down at me like I'm
crazy. "What-"
A rocket hits the deck fifty yards away.