cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
BIRTHDAY
26 February 1969
Lai Khe:
I woke up in the morning and went about my routine. There was no anticipation of a party, a cake and ice cream, no presents to open. I would have felt silly if there had been.
I sat down at my desk and stared at a routine report I needed to complete. My mind left that task quickly and I drifted off to more pleasant thoughts. My 11th birthday, in 1954. The streets were covered in glistening snow, packed hard and slick by passing cars. Clouds were moving in, the air damp with the promise of more snow that night.
My friends and I made a steady procession up and down Malcom Drive, trying to locate the best routes for our sleds. Our cheeks turned cherry red from the cold and the rubbing of our wool scarves. The tips of our fingers burned inside wet gloves. We laughed as only prepubescent boys can laugh, a touch of devil, a pound of innocence. We ran with our sleds - seven, eight, nine steps - and then dove forward, hurtling down the street, flying in and out of the shadows and the cold blue light of the street lamps. We talked with hope and open prayers that the night would bring more snow and the morning radio announcement of "no school." We bragged about the sled run we would make the next day: buckets of water thrown onto key sections of our street: right in front of Wally Schere's house and up at the top, near the Wells' place. "Man, when that freezes we'll really fly! We'll go from the top all the way to Battan at the bottom."
Mom called me in for my birthday meal: pork chops, German fried potatoes, green peas and a big glass of milk. A long minute or two passed between the last bite of the meal and the moment when Grandmother Brandt ordered my dad to fetch the birthday pie. (I prefer pie to cake.) It was a beautiful, mouth-puckering-tart lemon meringue pie, the snowy top of which had been tinted a pale ice blue. Something only a grandmother would do: my favorite pie and my favorite color. The candles were placed about, the gathering sang "Happy Birthday" and I managed to blow out all the candles in one breath.
The sound of a Huey passing over the office snapped me out of my wintry thoughts. I looked outside and saw rubber trees instead of bare limbed elms and maples. Well those days are gone. I thought to myself. And look at you. You could be in Canada teaching high school. Instead you're here helping the army sell a bad war. You've screwed up two romances and you're about to screw up a third. You've really made a mess of things.
How had it all happened, how had I grown so distant from that 11-year-old boy, laughing and doing belly whoppers in the snow? Slipping into a pity party I became sure that I would never laugh that way again. that school would never be called off, no more sled rides, I would never open a present or hear "Happy Birthday Dear Woody."
I felt old. I felt corrupted. I felt life passing me by. I was supposed to be teaching. I was supposed to be settling down. Instead I was here, in Nam, in some sort of a Gilbert and Sullivan operatic comedy extravaganza, playing the role of a clown prince.
I pushed on with the anger and frustration until I could taste the bitterness of the thoughts on my tongue. I let it churn and boil and twist my mind around.
About 1500 I took myself over to the PX hoping to snap out of my funk. Inside the store I looked for some sort of prize to buy myself, some tangible evidence that I was remembered as I turned 26. I came back with one can of hard candies and another of pretzels.
Finishing up the paper work, I checked out the work of my detachment and played a few hands of solitaire, one eye peeled for the boss. I picked up my helmet and trudged down to the mess hall. Dinner finished, I wandered over to the O club and talked with Zurrow and Shannon over a couple of beers. A voice inside wanted to say, "Hey, my round, I turned 26 today." I swallowed the words each time they formed.
Back to the office I went hoping to find Willy and Wayne, maybe goof around a little bit, play some music or bull shit, but they were on KP. I went over to my desk and there sat a simple white envelope. I recognized the handwriting and the Lombard Street address. Good old Uncle Ray, the bachelor uncle, the one who never forgot birthdays, had remembered mine. I tore the envelope open and found a crisp, twenty-dollar green back tucked inside the card. I pocketed the bill. Fuck the rules, I thought, I'm not converting this to MPC so some finance officer can turn it over on the black market. Realizing my thoughts I added, man, you've really become quite the cynic in two short years.
Uncle Ray was never able to buy and send a funny card. This was no exception. There was some syrupy drivel about "special nephews" and "special days," which I endured like the wet smacking kiss of an aunt. Then I focused on the written line, "Dear Woody, hard to believe you're 26. It makes me feel old. Hope you have a happy birthday."
I tucked the card into my pocket, picked up my helmet and walked out to the perimeter. There was a space on the west side of the base camp where the ground sloped down to a narrow creek and a flood plain, one of the few places where yuou could see the horizon. I took a deep breath or two, expelling much of my anger in the process. I checked out the stars and the moon and the sizzling light of the illumination rounds. I listened to the night birds, the crickets and the lizards. I heard my reptilian nemesis from that first night as officer of the guard, "Phouc you! (pause) Phouc you!" He was somewhere up in a rubber tree, mocking me while trying to catch a piece of lizard ass and a few of those four-inch cockroaches Lai Khe managed to produce in such abundance.
I turned toward him. "Ah, phouc you too!" And then I laughed, a good, hard, 26-year-old laugh.
Cincibuck
26 February 1969
Lai Khe:
I woke up in the morning and went about my routine. There was no anticipation of a party, a cake and ice cream, no presents to open. I would have felt silly if there had been.
I sat down at my desk and stared at a routine report I needed to complete. My mind left that task quickly and I drifted off to more pleasant thoughts. My 11th birthday, in 1954. The streets were covered in glistening snow, packed hard and slick by passing cars. Clouds were moving in, the air damp with the promise of more snow that night.
My friends and I made a steady procession up and down Malcom Drive, trying to locate the best routes for our sleds. Our cheeks turned cherry red from the cold and the rubbing of our wool scarves. The tips of our fingers burned inside wet gloves. We laughed as only prepubescent boys can laugh, a touch of devil, a pound of innocence. We ran with our sleds - seven, eight, nine steps - and then dove forward, hurtling down the street, flying in and out of the shadows and the cold blue light of the street lamps. We talked with hope and open prayers that the night would bring more snow and the morning radio announcement of "no school." We bragged about the sled run we would make the next day: buckets of water thrown onto key sections of our street: right in front of Wally Schere's house and up at the top, near the Wells' place. "Man, when that freezes we'll really fly! We'll go from the top all the way to Battan at the bottom."
Mom called me in for my birthday meal: pork chops, German fried potatoes, green peas and a big glass of milk. A long minute or two passed between the last bite of the meal and the moment when Grandmother Brandt ordered my dad to fetch the birthday pie. (I prefer pie to cake.) It was a beautiful, mouth-puckering-tart lemon meringue pie, the snowy top of which had been tinted a pale ice blue. Something only a grandmother would do: my favorite pie and my favorite color. The candles were placed about, the gathering sang "Happy Birthday" and I managed to blow out all the candles in one breath.
The sound of a Huey passing over the office snapped me out of my wintry thoughts. I looked outside and saw rubber trees instead of bare limbed elms and maples. Well those days are gone. I thought to myself. And look at you. You could be in Canada teaching high school. Instead you're here helping the army sell a bad war. You've screwed up two romances and you're about to screw up a third. You've really made a mess of things.
How had it all happened, how had I grown so distant from that 11-year-old boy, laughing and doing belly whoppers in the snow? Slipping into a pity party I became sure that I would never laugh that way again. that school would never be called off, no more sled rides, I would never open a present or hear "Happy Birthday Dear Woody."
I felt old. I felt corrupted. I felt life passing me by. I was supposed to be teaching. I was supposed to be settling down. Instead I was here, in Nam, in some sort of a Gilbert and Sullivan operatic comedy extravaganza, playing the role of a clown prince.
I pushed on with the anger and frustration until I could taste the bitterness of the thoughts on my tongue. I let it churn and boil and twist my mind around.
About 1500 I took myself over to the PX hoping to snap out of my funk. Inside the store I looked for some sort of prize to buy myself, some tangible evidence that I was remembered as I turned 26. I came back with one can of hard candies and another of pretzels.
Finishing up the paper work, I checked out the work of my detachment and played a few hands of solitaire, one eye peeled for the boss. I picked up my helmet and trudged down to the mess hall. Dinner finished, I wandered over to the O club and talked with Zurrow and Shannon over a couple of beers. A voice inside wanted to say, "Hey, my round, I turned 26 today." I swallowed the words each time they formed.
Back to the office I went hoping to find Willy and Wayne, maybe goof around a little bit, play some music or bull shit, but they were on KP. I went over to my desk and there sat a simple white envelope. I recognized the handwriting and the Lombard Street address. Good old Uncle Ray, the bachelor uncle, the one who never forgot birthdays, had remembered mine. I tore the envelope open and found a crisp, twenty-dollar green back tucked inside the card. I pocketed the bill. Fuck the rules, I thought, I'm not converting this to MPC so some finance officer can turn it over on the black market. Realizing my thoughts I added, man, you've really become quite the cynic in two short years.
Uncle Ray was never able to buy and send a funny card. This was no exception. There was some syrupy drivel about "special nephews" and "special days," which I endured like the wet smacking kiss of an aunt. Then I focused on the written line, "Dear Woody, hard to believe you're 26. It makes me feel old. Hope you have a happy birthday."
I tucked the card into my pocket, picked up my helmet and walked out to the perimeter. There was a space on the west side of the base camp where the ground sloped down to a narrow creek and a flood plain, one of the few places where yuou could see the horizon. I took a deep breath or two, expelling much of my anger in the process. I checked out the stars and the moon and the sizzling light of the illumination rounds. I listened to the night birds, the crickets and the lizards. I heard my reptilian nemesis from that first night as officer of the guard, "Phouc you! (pause) Phouc you!" He was somewhere up in a rubber tree, mocking me while trying to catch a piece of lizard ass and a few of those four-inch cockroaches Lai Khe managed to produce in such abundance.
I turned toward him. "Ah, phouc you too!" And then I laughed, a good, hard, 26-year-old laugh.
Cincibuck
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