A person who has constantly accumulated irreputable damage throughout their entire life. Damage which cannot be easily repaired if at all. Ever feel like that? I do. Here's the thing though, and it really can't be ignored, it's all up to us.
No one is going to save us from a series of unfortunate events except us. A man once asked me, "how do I know when I've reached bottom" while in his drink. I told him the truth, "when you stop digging you'll know you've reached bottom." And so it is.
But what about God you might be thinking. Oh He's there and the good book points the way. But even God won't save you from difficult circumstances friend, He'll just walk through them with you.
So reset your expectations, accept what you can't change, look up and start changing what you can. If you've stopped digging, you've got no where else to go but up.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Sand Pit
The engine of his custom Harley Davidson roared as he sped eastward. He didn’t give two cents for the people around him. His every instinct served himself. A handsome powerful man with steel blue eyes and jet-black shoulder length hair, he drifted like a ghost through the poverty-ridden high desert towns of California. Known by a myriad of aliases, his true name was a secret. If some men’s sins go before them, then his definitely followed after.
Three hours later, he exited the highway and started up a dirt road. Eventually he parked at a vacant lot in the middle of nowhere. Killing the engine, his boots flattened out the gravel as he walked to the edge of a huge sand pit. For a brief second, he almost smiled. This would be his last visit here. After almost ten years he had accumulated enough money to last him the rest of his life.
The high desert is a dangerous place of poverty, clandestine drug labs, relocated sexual offenders, and crooked law enforcement. His friend and protector, the desert gave him what he needed to be successful: anonymity.
There had been a few close calls of course. Every now and then the Sheriff’s department swept down catching users, street level dealers and felony criminals in their occasional stings. A couple of times a suspect had tried to purchase their freedom by providing information. But no one had ever really come close to catching him. He was a hard, intelligent man. Amoral, he held no close beliefs save one: Everything was just base matter to him and it was temporary. The desert understood this and he loved it for that. Rubbing an old bullet wound on his left arm he remembered…
Need drove Jimmy down the dirt road past the matchbox houses, cheap apartments, and used motorhomes. It was late and he knew Roy would be waiting for him in the back office of the broken down fitness club. Jimmy checked his green army jacket for his “works.” His diabetic mentally ill mother had talked a naïve passerby into taking her through the drive thru pharmacy in town earlier that day to get the hypodermic needles. She had then placed some where Jimmy could “steal” them. She preferred he use clean needles than those off the street.
Jimmy arrived and rapped on the glass front window. It was dark and quiet this late at night. Shortly a muscular man in his early forties unlocked the door and led Jimmy into a back office. Jimmy and a couple other poor fatherless young men in this isolated town traded themselves to Roy for drugs, spending money, and some sick twisted form of fatherly affection. At one time or another, Roy had been a foster parent or “big brother” to each of them.
Tonight was different though. Jimmy had recently been arrested attempting to sell an ounce of methamphetamine behind a local arcade to an undercover Sheriff deputy. Roy felt there was no way that Jimmy was going to do time in the state penitentiary if he didn’t have to. And Jimmy had been offered a deal.
Roy motioned Jimmy to sit next to him and put his arm around the eighteen year old. “How you doing Jimmy?” he asked. Jimmy mumbled. “That’s good to hear,” Roy replied. He squeezed back tears as he laid out a gram of methamphetamine on a mirror and watched Jimmy go to work preparing it for injection.
Jimmy went through the ritual. He had been up for a few days and was starting to “tweak” pretty hard. Every now and then he would stop to pick at his skin or scratch some itch of his that twitched muscles erratically.
Roy talked reassuringly until Jimmy inserted the needle into his arm and then became silent. Within about 10 minutes Jimmy started to feel chills and spasms throughout his body. A few minutes later his vision blurred and he had trouble breathing. He sensed something was terribly wrong. He cried out and fell off the stool. His back arched and he flailed aggressively as the hallucinations began.
Roy panicked. “Jack! Can you give me a hand man?” he yelled. Jack stepped out of the shadows of a corner of the room and pulled a Colt pistol. He stepped over Jimmy’s body and pistol-whipped the head a few times. Jimmy’s body continued twitching of its own accord as he slipped into a coma. Roy’s face revealed his fear and anguish. But that wasn’t Jack’s problem. Jack laid out the body bag, rolled Jimmy into it, zipped it up, and lifted it, still quivering, to his shoulders. “I’ll be expecting the rest of the money within 24 hours,” he said to Roy who nodded as he stared vacantly after him. Jack stepped out the back entrance, tossed the bag into the back of a pickup truck and left.
The woman didn’t know him as Jack. She knew him as Dan and was one of his regular customers. Buying his drugs with the money her tribe distributed each month, she cut and resold them to her neighbors. You only had to be 15% Indian to receive benefits from her tribe which is one reason why she didn’t look much like an Indian at all. Dan could hear the television going in the living room of the mobile home as he stepped through the front door into the kitchen. She was on a plastic cordless phone and motioned for him to have a seat. He was sitting in a brown recliner watching TV when he heard the front door fly open and a man shouting. He got to his feet.
The woman slammed down the phone and began arguing with the stranger. She was promiscuous and this was obviously a lover’s quarrel. Dan started to sit back down when he heard two loud “pops” one right after the other. Gunfire! That brought him back to his feet fast. He didn’t carry a pistol unless he thought he was actually going to need it and today wasn’t supposed to be one of those days.
He crept up to the kitchen entrance and stole a quick glance. The woman was lying on her side on the floor. Blood ran from two gunshot wounds out the side of her head. The stranger spotted Dan and started to raise the Browning .25 pistol. Dan didn’t have time to think and charged arms outstretched. The first round entered his arm about half way up and came out near his shoulder. The second round went wide. Dan body slammed him hard against the cupboards before he could fire again. The stranger writhed in pain as the pistol fell to the floor. Dan kicked hard at the man’s face as he used a handkerchief from his back pocket to retrieve it. He pumped two rounds into the side of the guy’s head and then put it back in the dead man’s hand and left quickly. It was reported as a murder suicide in the High Desert Star.
In Victorville, he went by the alias Logan. Some cowboy had moved in from Arizona and begun stealing away his customers by undercutting him. Such actions were not tolerated. Logan followed the shadows quietly to the front door of the house taking care to avoid the light from the living room window. He listened for a minute until he could make out voices. He pulled two Glock .45 semiautomatic pistols from his waistband and clicked off the safeties. Kicking the door so hard the lock spun off one hinge as it broke, he charged in empting both clips. The man and woman jerked animatedly as the bullets found their marks. Logan left as quietly as he had come. No more competition.
Chris knew him as Merlin. He had left the usual message for Merlin and knew he would be receiving his delivery any day now. He had only seen Merlin a handful of times but their arrangement worked perfectly. Chris called in his order to a voicemail under what he presumed to be a fictitious name. He then placed the money in a secured drop and within a few days picked up the order in the same drop. The system had never failed. This time he ordered as much product as he dared.
Being the 28-year-old son of a once wealthy golf pro had been great until his father abandoned him for the south of France. And with his narcissistic mother in the middle of her third divorce while looking to remarry again Chris had been forced to find work. Now he managed the pro golf shop at one of the more prestigious Palm Desert resorts.
Things peaked during the winter months when rich and sometimes famous “snowbirds” flew into the Palm Springs airport, arriving by limousines to the resort. Chris worked hard during those months. The off-season, however, was different. He hardly worked at all. And even though the pay was adequate given the low cost of living in the area surrounding the resort, it was boring and lean. Which was something that this son of a once wealthy golf pro was not willing to accept. So he sold drugs for money. Lately, however, he had been spending more and more of his customer’s money on expensive luxury items forcing him to cut the purity of his product again and again. He had become greedy and his own habit and narcissistic personality had increased to the point where he was blind to his behavior. Lately it had gotten so bad that he had devised a plot to rip off Merlin. His friend Mike had negotiated a solid offer from a Nevada dealer.
Mike was a thirty something biker who frequented the resort’s bars. He was the muscle for Chris’s operation and they hung out frequently. When Chris complained one too many times about Merlin’s prices, Mike saw the chance to make a bundle. Together they schemed a way to rip off Merlin and then place future orders with the Nevada dealer at a discounted price. Tonight was the night. Once a reformed customer had told Chris, who hadn’t been listening, that drugs and alcohol could make a fool out of anyone.
Chris closed the golf pro shop at 10pm and headed up to a room the resort let him use. He hung near the phone waiting for some word that their plan had succeeded. At 11pm the phone rang and Mike told him it was done. The plan had gone down perfectly. Chris was excited and chalked up the jittery tone in Mike’s voice to nervous tension. He turned on the television and waited for his friend to show with the suitcase of drugs and money.
At 1am in the morning he heard the knock. The pattern was three swift knocks followed by two slow ones. That was their code. Chris opened the door. Merlin grabbed him powerfully by the throat with a gloved hand and bent him backwards while closing the door behind him in one fluid motion. He forced Chris to the floor, hogtied him using nylon rope, and then gagged him. He picked him up and placed him stomach down on the bed. Only then did he pull off the knapsack and release the buckles. Mike’s head rolled out onto the bed about 6 inches from Chris. It landed sideways with the eyes staring lifelessly into Chris’s whose ensuing screams were muffled.
So many memories... The man stepped out and walked onto the sand pit not sure if he even remembered all of the bodies buried beneath him. “No matter”, he thought to himself as he turned to leave. He had just retired. Just then the sand moved slightly in front of him. He bent down to inspect it brushing gently looking for some explanation. Suddenly a hand burst forth from the sand and grabbed his. He freaked. Cursing he struggled to free himself from the dead one’s grasp. The sand pit came alive as the limbs of past victims began breaking its surface. He pulled his pistol free and emptied it in a panic, seeking freedom. But freedom was not to be found. Soon bodies in various stages of decay climbed out of the sand pit each calling him by the names they had known him in life.
Copyright 2005 © West Coast Rockets. All Rights Reserved.
Three hours later, he exited the highway and started up a dirt road. Eventually he parked at a vacant lot in the middle of nowhere. Killing the engine, his boots flattened out the gravel as he walked to the edge of a huge sand pit. For a brief second, he almost smiled. This would be his last visit here. After almost ten years he had accumulated enough money to last him the rest of his life.
The high desert is a dangerous place of poverty, clandestine drug labs, relocated sexual offenders, and crooked law enforcement. His friend and protector, the desert gave him what he needed to be successful: anonymity.
There had been a few close calls of course. Every now and then the Sheriff’s department swept down catching users, street level dealers and felony criminals in their occasional stings. A couple of times a suspect had tried to purchase their freedom by providing information. But no one had ever really come close to catching him. He was a hard, intelligent man. Amoral, he held no close beliefs save one: Everything was just base matter to him and it was temporary. The desert understood this and he loved it for that. Rubbing an old bullet wound on his left arm he remembered…
Need drove Jimmy down the dirt road past the matchbox houses, cheap apartments, and used motorhomes. It was late and he knew Roy would be waiting for him in the back office of the broken down fitness club. Jimmy checked his green army jacket for his “works.” His diabetic mentally ill mother had talked a naïve passerby into taking her through the drive thru pharmacy in town earlier that day to get the hypodermic needles. She had then placed some where Jimmy could “steal” them. She preferred he use clean needles than those off the street.
Jimmy arrived and rapped on the glass front window. It was dark and quiet this late at night. Shortly a muscular man in his early forties unlocked the door and led Jimmy into a back office. Jimmy and a couple other poor fatherless young men in this isolated town traded themselves to Roy for drugs, spending money, and some sick twisted form of fatherly affection. At one time or another, Roy had been a foster parent or “big brother” to each of them.
Tonight was different though. Jimmy had recently been arrested attempting to sell an ounce of methamphetamine behind a local arcade to an undercover Sheriff deputy. Roy felt there was no way that Jimmy was going to do time in the state penitentiary if he didn’t have to. And Jimmy had been offered a deal.
Roy motioned Jimmy to sit next to him and put his arm around the eighteen year old. “How you doing Jimmy?” he asked. Jimmy mumbled. “That’s good to hear,” Roy replied. He squeezed back tears as he laid out a gram of methamphetamine on a mirror and watched Jimmy go to work preparing it for injection.
Jimmy went through the ritual. He had been up for a few days and was starting to “tweak” pretty hard. Every now and then he would stop to pick at his skin or scratch some itch of his that twitched muscles erratically.
Roy talked reassuringly until Jimmy inserted the needle into his arm and then became silent. Within about 10 minutes Jimmy started to feel chills and spasms throughout his body. A few minutes later his vision blurred and he had trouble breathing. He sensed something was terribly wrong. He cried out and fell off the stool. His back arched and he flailed aggressively as the hallucinations began.
Roy panicked. “Jack! Can you give me a hand man?” he yelled. Jack stepped out of the shadows of a corner of the room and pulled a Colt pistol. He stepped over Jimmy’s body and pistol-whipped the head a few times. Jimmy’s body continued twitching of its own accord as he slipped into a coma. Roy’s face revealed his fear and anguish. But that wasn’t Jack’s problem. Jack laid out the body bag, rolled Jimmy into it, zipped it up, and lifted it, still quivering, to his shoulders. “I’ll be expecting the rest of the money within 24 hours,” he said to Roy who nodded as he stared vacantly after him. Jack stepped out the back entrance, tossed the bag into the back of a pickup truck and left.
The woman didn’t know him as Jack. She knew him as Dan and was one of his regular customers. Buying his drugs with the money her tribe distributed each month, she cut and resold them to her neighbors. You only had to be 15% Indian to receive benefits from her tribe which is one reason why she didn’t look much like an Indian at all. Dan could hear the television going in the living room of the mobile home as he stepped through the front door into the kitchen. She was on a plastic cordless phone and motioned for him to have a seat. He was sitting in a brown recliner watching TV when he heard the front door fly open and a man shouting. He got to his feet.
The woman slammed down the phone and began arguing with the stranger. She was promiscuous and this was obviously a lover’s quarrel. Dan started to sit back down when he heard two loud “pops” one right after the other. Gunfire! That brought him back to his feet fast. He didn’t carry a pistol unless he thought he was actually going to need it and today wasn’t supposed to be one of those days.
He crept up to the kitchen entrance and stole a quick glance. The woman was lying on her side on the floor. Blood ran from two gunshot wounds out the side of her head. The stranger spotted Dan and started to raise the Browning .25 pistol. Dan didn’t have time to think and charged arms outstretched. The first round entered his arm about half way up and came out near his shoulder. The second round went wide. Dan body slammed him hard against the cupboards before he could fire again. The stranger writhed in pain as the pistol fell to the floor. Dan kicked hard at the man’s face as he used a handkerchief from his back pocket to retrieve it. He pumped two rounds into the side of the guy’s head and then put it back in the dead man’s hand and left quickly. It was reported as a murder suicide in the High Desert Star.
In Victorville, he went by the alias Logan. Some cowboy had moved in from Arizona and begun stealing away his customers by undercutting him. Such actions were not tolerated. Logan followed the shadows quietly to the front door of the house taking care to avoid the light from the living room window. He listened for a minute until he could make out voices. He pulled two Glock .45 semiautomatic pistols from his waistband and clicked off the safeties. Kicking the door so hard the lock spun off one hinge as it broke, he charged in empting both clips. The man and woman jerked animatedly as the bullets found their marks. Logan left as quietly as he had come. No more competition.
Chris knew him as Merlin. He had left the usual message for Merlin and knew he would be receiving his delivery any day now. He had only seen Merlin a handful of times but their arrangement worked perfectly. Chris called in his order to a voicemail under what he presumed to be a fictitious name. He then placed the money in a secured drop and within a few days picked up the order in the same drop. The system had never failed. This time he ordered as much product as he dared.
Being the 28-year-old son of a once wealthy golf pro had been great until his father abandoned him for the south of France. And with his narcissistic mother in the middle of her third divorce while looking to remarry again Chris had been forced to find work. Now he managed the pro golf shop at one of the more prestigious Palm Desert resorts.
Things peaked during the winter months when rich and sometimes famous “snowbirds” flew into the Palm Springs airport, arriving by limousines to the resort. Chris worked hard during those months. The off-season, however, was different. He hardly worked at all. And even though the pay was adequate given the low cost of living in the area surrounding the resort, it was boring and lean. Which was something that this son of a once wealthy golf pro was not willing to accept. So he sold drugs for money. Lately, however, he had been spending more and more of his customer’s money on expensive luxury items forcing him to cut the purity of his product again and again. He had become greedy and his own habit and narcissistic personality had increased to the point where he was blind to his behavior. Lately it had gotten so bad that he had devised a plot to rip off Merlin. His friend Mike had negotiated a solid offer from a Nevada dealer.
Mike was a thirty something biker who frequented the resort’s bars. He was the muscle for Chris’s operation and they hung out frequently. When Chris complained one too many times about Merlin’s prices, Mike saw the chance to make a bundle. Together they schemed a way to rip off Merlin and then place future orders with the Nevada dealer at a discounted price. Tonight was the night. Once a reformed customer had told Chris, who hadn’t been listening, that drugs and alcohol could make a fool out of anyone.
Chris closed the golf pro shop at 10pm and headed up to a room the resort let him use. He hung near the phone waiting for some word that their plan had succeeded. At 11pm the phone rang and Mike told him it was done. The plan had gone down perfectly. Chris was excited and chalked up the jittery tone in Mike’s voice to nervous tension. He turned on the television and waited for his friend to show with the suitcase of drugs and money.
At 1am in the morning he heard the knock. The pattern was three swift knocks followed by two slow ones. That was their code. Chris opened the door. Merlin grabbed him powerfully by the throat with a gloved hand and bent him backwards while closing the door behind him in one fluid motion. He forced Chris to the floor, hogtied him using nylon rope, and then gagged him. He picked him up and placed him stomach down on the bed. Only then did he pull off the knapsack and release the buckles. Mike’s head rolled out onto the bed about 6 inches from Chris. It landed sideways with the eyes staring lifelessly into Chris’s whose ensuing screams were muffled.
So many memories... The man stepped out and walked onto the sand pit not sure if he even remembered all of the bodies buried beneath him. “No matter”, he thought to himself as he turned to leave. He had just retired. Just then the sand moved slightly in front of him. He bent down to inspect it brushing gently looking for some explanation. Suddenly a hand burst forth from the sand and grabbed his. He freaked. Cursing he struggled to free himself from the dead one’s grasp. The sand pit came alive as the limbs of past victims began breaking its surface. He pulled his pistol free and emptied it in a panic, seeking freedom. But freedom was not to be found. Soon bodies in various stages of decay climbed out of the sand pit each calling him by the names they had known him in life.
Copyright 2005 © West Coast Rockets. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Gone Hunting
"Tracy! Front and center!” the sergeant yelled. Late, Tracy dropped his gear and came to attention before the sergeant. The rest of the platoon stood in formation next to their bunker. “This isn’t a game Tracy, it’s a war. How many times do I have to tell you men that?” The sergeant looked at his men in feigned exasperation. They weren’t expected to respond.
“Damn it now that’s enough, fall in!” the sergeant concluded. Tracy retrieved his gear and joined his company next to the bunker as the sergeant turned to face them. “As you already know, tomorrow is the Vietnamese lunar holiday Tet. That means a cease-fire’s in effect. That does not mean, however, that you are permitted to become slackers. I want you ready to go on a moment’s notice. Any questions?” The sergeant looked at his men. They stared back vacantly. There were no questions. “Dismissed.” He turned and strode away toward the HQ building. The platoon headed back to their barracks where they spent most of their free time talking, playing cards, and writing letters.
Tracy never actually played cards with the men but was always present when they were being played. He would calmly sit with a far away look rarely talking unless asked a direct question. Despite his idiosyncrasies he was well liked for his strength, high degree of intelligence, and abilities as a survivalist and sniper. Yet there was something about him.
The only direct questions Tracy never answered, it seemed, were those about his past. After more than a few beers one day, several of the men asked the sergeant about this. He refused to answer at first but they pressed him and pressed him until he finally revealed what he knew. Tracy was from Texas. His parents had driven him and his two brothers into the desert when he was thirteen, kicked them out of the car with a week’s worth of supplies, and driven away never to be seen again. After the supplies ran out, the kids started walking. Almost a week later, Tracy stumbled onto a ranch house. He alone survived. The state of Texas declared him an orphan and made him a ward of the court until such time as a suitable home could be found. None ever was and Tracy lived in an orphanage until he turned eighteen. He then chose from one of the only four career opportunities available to him: Army, Air force, Navy, or Marines. Tracy chose the Army.
He completed Ranger school at the top of his class but convinced the Army to transfer him to a regular company instead. No one ever knew the exact reason for it and he never offered any explanation beyond that which was required. “And that,” the sergeant concluded, “is how Tracy came to be in our platoon.”
The platoon’s routine and Tracy’s future would have remained largely unchanged except for two things that occurred. The first was that, unbeknown to the American military forces, the North Vietnamese were about to break the Tet cease-fire and the second was that Tracy had been complaining of nightmares and acting a bit manic of late. So, the sergeant sent him to see a doctor who referred him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was concerned because up until that year, 1968, the neuropsychiatric disease rate in Vietnam remained roughly stable and parallel with that of the rest of the Army. But this year, the Army-wide rates had increased and the rates in Vietnam were skyrocketing. The psychiatrist decided to enroll Tracy in an experimental program designed to test the effects of a certain new drug. That was six weeks ago.
Now, the men were noticing even more changes in Tracy’s behavior. He was finally talking and seemed happier on the one hand, but on the other, seemed to be losing his sense of conscience. And Tracy just laughed when confronted about it. Additionally, he was spending most of his free time writing morbid poems about a dream world he claimed existed and studying a lot of Zen philosophy. He would just zone out and talk about fate in a way that scared the men. The sergeant made a decision to transfer Tracy to the rear where he could get the help he needed. Before he could act on his decision, however, all hell broke loose.
Explosions rocked the platoon awake. The breathless sergeant returned from HQ and informed the company that the Tet cease-fire had just been broken. The North Vietnamese had hit every major military target in Vietnam and the United States Embassy in Saigon had actually been overrun. The platoon fell in and left the camp heading north along a main road. Their orders were to support a company of Green Beret paratroopers currently defending an old French plantation several miles away.
A couple of miles later they heard the sound of a truck approaching and got in position. When it passed, they opened fire. The truck was hit and exploded. N.V.A. troops jumped from the burning vehicle and were cut down where they landed. The sergeant yelled, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” after awhile and the attack ended. There were no survivors among the enemy. The platoon pushed northward. Helicopter gun ships flew over their heads on the way to action somewhere in front of them. There was no real battle line yet. Fighting was breaking out everywhere. The platoon was scared but resolute. Except for Tracy, that is, who appeared to be having the time of his life.
The road wound Eastward about 20 degrees until it bordered a small canal choked with sampans carrying refugees fleeing south. The explosions were much closer now. The platoon left the road and carefully made their way through a strip of jungle to the plantation.
Overhead, planes and helicopter gun ships released barrages into the jungle on the far side of the plantation opposite the platoon. Furious automatic fire exchanges were traded between North Vietnamese regulars and the Green Berets. One of the platoon members later remembered that Tracy was laughing as the platoon moved forward.
They made their way to a stone field wall and followed it to the plantation manor. The officer in charge ordered the platoon to assist a group of Green Beret soldiers in defending against attacks on the northwest wall. The platoon arrived just in time. The North Vietnamese were throwing everything they had at that section of the wall trying to break through and casualties were high. Within a short time the platoon fell to 70% strength. Tracy shot and dodged madly along the wall expertly taking out enemy soldiers.
The combined force fought commendably against the wave of NVA regulars. But finally the order came to retreat. The men fell back. Except for Tracy that is. He had acquired a shovel and was madly digging a hole behind a row of foliage next to the plantation manor. There was a hollow bamboo reed between his teeth and in the confusion he was left behind.
Several days later, two battalions of soldiers from division headquarters retook what was left of the plantation with the help of air support. Nothing of Tracy, save a freshly dug hole, a shovel, and a dirty hollow bamboo reed was ever found.
The Tet offensive officially ended and life returned to a routine of sorts. That is until the bodies of NVA and Viet Cong began appearing in the jungles north of the plantation. Not just a few either. There were a lot of dead bodies appearing.
At first Army intelligence thought they were simply enemy KIA from the initial battle. But as time went on and the discovery of fresh corpses continued, they abandoned that explanation. The other branches of the military disavowed any covert action in the area and that left the Army with only one option. They began sending in patrols to find an answer. But they found nothing except more bodies and angry NVA looking for revenge. Fierce fighting broke out whenever the opposing forces met.
Eventually the Army stopped sending out the patrols.
The NVA did too, but for very different reasons. They were mysteriously losing the patrols they sent out and many of the North Vietnamese soldiers now believed the twenty-mile section of jungle north of the plantation to be haunted and fearfully avoided it. The locals spoke respectfully of a tr¡ng danh tØ (a white ghost) that stalked the jungle at night animatedly killing his enemies. They said he laughed like a death angel. Only the sergeant and men from Tracy’s platoon knew the truth but it was so incredible that no one ever believed them.
Copyright 2005 © West Coast Rockets. All Rights Reserved.
“Damn it now that’s enough, fall in!” the sergeant concluded. Tracy retrieved his gear and joined his company next to the bunker as the sergeant turned to face them. “As you already know, tomorrow is the Vietnamese lunar holiday Tet. That means a cease-fire’s in effect. That does not mean, however, that you are permitted to become slackers. I want you ready to go on a moment’s notice. Any questions?” The sergeant looked at his men. They stared back vacantly. There were no questions. “Dismissed.” He turned and strode away toward the HQ building. The platoon headed back to their barracks where they spent most of their free time talking, playing cards, and writing letters.
Tracy never actually played cards with the men but was always present when they were being played. He would calmly sit with a far away look rarely talking unless asked a direct question. Despite his idiosyncrasies he was well liked for his strength, high degree of intelligence, and abilities as a survivalist and sniper. Yet there was something about him.
The only direct questions Tracy never answered, it seemed, were those about his past. After more than a few beers one day, several of the men asked the sergeant about this. He refused to answer at first but they pressed him and pressed him until he finally revealed what he knew. Tracy was from Texas. His parents had driven him and his two brothers into the desert when he was thirteen, kicked them out of the car with a week’s worth of supplies, and driven away never to be seen again. After the supplies ran out, the kids started walking. Almost a week later, Tracy stumbled onto a ranch house. He alone survived. The state of Texas declared him an orphan and made him a ward of the court until such time as a suitable home could be found. None ever was and Tracy lived in an orphanage until he turned eighteen. He then chose from one of the only four career opportunities available to him: Army, Air force, Navy, or Marines. Tracy chose the Army.
He completed Ranger school at the top of his class but convinced the Army to transfer him to a regular company instead. No one ever knew the exact reason for it and he never offered any explanation beyond that which was required. “And that,” the sergeant concluded, “is how Tracy came to be in our platoon.”
The platoon’s routine and Tracy’s future would have remained largely unchanged except for two things that occurred. The first was that, unbeknown to the American military forces, the North Vietnamese were about to break the Tet cease-fire and the second was that Tracy had been complaining of nightmares and acting a bit manic of late. So, the sergeant sent him to see a doctor who referred him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was concerned because up until that year, 1968, the neuropsychiatric disease rate in Vietnam remained roughly stable and parallel with that of the rest of the Army. But this year, the Army-wide rates had increased and the rates in Vietnam were skyrocketing. The psychiatrist decided to enroll Tracy in an experimental program designed to test the effects of a certain new drug. That was six weeks ago.
Now, the men were noticing even more changes in Tracy’s behavior. He was finally talking and seemed happier on the one hand, but on the other, seemed to be losing his sense of conscience. And Tracy just laughed when confronted about it. Additionally, he was spending most of his free time writing morbid poems about a dream world he claimed existed and studying a lot of Zen philosophy. He would just zone out and talk about fate in a way that scared the men. The sergeant made a decision to transfer Tracy to the rear where he could get the help he needed. Before he could act on his decision, however, all hell broke loose.
Explosions rocked the platoon awake. The breathless sergeant returned from HQ and informed the company that the Tet cease-fire had just been broken. The North Vietnamese had hit every major military target in Vietnam and the United States Embassy in Saigon had actually been overrun. The platoon fell in and left the camp heading north along a main road. Their orders were to support a company of Green Beret paratroopers currently defending an old French plantation several miles away.
A couple of miles later they heard the sound of a truck approaching and got in position. When it passed, they opened fire. The truck was hit and exploded. N.V.A. troops jumped from the burning vehicle and were cut down where they landed. The sergeant yelled, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” after awhile and the attack ended. There were no survivors among the enemy. The platoon pushed northward. Helicopter gun ships flew over their heads on the way to action somewhere in front of them. There was no real battle line yet. Fighting was breaking out everywhere. The platoon was scared but resolute. Except for Tracy, that is, who appeared to be having the time of his life.
The road wound Eastward about 20 degrees until it bordered a small canal choked with sampans carrying refugees fleeing south. The explosions were much closer now. The platoon left the road and carefully made their way through a strip of jungle to the plantation.
Overhead, planes and helicopter gun ships released barrages into the jungle on the far side of the plantation opposite the platoon. Furious automatic fire exchanges were traded between North Vietnamese regulars and the Green Berets. One of the platoon members later remembered that Tracy was laughing as the platoon moved forward.
They made their way to a stone field wall and followed it to the plantation manor. The officer in charge ordered the platoon to assist a group of Green Beret soldiers in defending against attacks on the northwest wall. The platoon arrived just in time. The North Vietnamese were throwing everything they had at that section of the wall trying to break through and casualties were high. Within a short time the platoon fell to 70% strength. Tracy shot and dodged madly along the wall expertly taking out enemy soldiers.
The combined force fought commendably against the wave of NVA regulars. But finally the order came to retreat. The men fell back. Except for Tracy that is. He had acquired a shovel and was madly digging a hole behind a row of foliage next to the plantation manor. There was a hollow bamboo reed between his teeth and in the confusion he was left behind.
Several days later, two battalions of soldiers from division headquarters retook what was left of the plantation with the help of air support. Nothing of Tracy, save a freshly dug hole, a shovel, and a dirty hollow bamboo reed was ever found.
The Tet offensive officially ended and life returned to a routine of sorts. That is until the bodies of NVA and Viet Cong began appearing in the jungles north of the plantation. Not just a few either. There were a lot of dead bodies appearing.
At first Army intelligence thought they were simply enemy KIA from the initial battle. But as time went on and the discovery of fresh corpses continued, they abandoned that explanation. The other branches of the military disavowed any covert action in the area and that left the Army with only one option. They began sending in patrols to find an answer. But they found nothing except more bodies and angry NVA looking for revenge. Fierce fighting broke out whenever the opposing forces met.
Eventually the Army stopped sending out the patrols.
The NVA did too, but for very different reasons. They were mysteriously losing the patrols they sent out and many of the North Vietnamese soldiers now believed the twenty-mile section of jungle north of the plantation to be haunted and fearfully avoided it. The locals spoke respectfully of a tr¡ng danh tØ (a white ghost) that stalked the jungle at night animatedly killing his enemies. They said he laughed like a death angel. Only the sergeant and men from Tracy’s platoon knew the truth but it was so incredible that no one ever believed them.
Copyright 2005 © West Coast Rockets. All Rights Reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
