Gentlemen II

Two young soldiers, of totally different social classes, find solace in each other when they are separated from their squad, in the midst of their Vietnam service.

GENTLEMEN II
Sara L. Jackson

Somewhere in North Vietnam, some time in ’69.

It was the same day Richard Nixon locked himself in his little secret room, undisclosed outside the regular American castle, and wrote on his little legal pad on the other side of the world. In Washington, it was raining rather hard, and the President felt a cold coming on in his throat.
Sometimes in the night, the yellow lights of rumbling army trucks would pass under darkness like ghosts or bison. They would pass in a parade, their engines roaring and their tires shaking, their blazing headlights like dragons eyes. Young boys with guns sat inside, some speaking in different languages, and some so scared they could have thrown up their guts a hundred times.
There were young people outside, with long hair and flowers and loud voices.

The sky above the jungle was overcast, and a few drops of rain began to plop into a small clearing within the thickness of green, pointed, exotic plants. All was quiet, except for the distant voices of shouting men, and chirping bug’s legs. Six bodies of boys from the states, freshly dead, laid in a disorganized manner all about the place. There was one boy in particular, a young kid of the Vietcong, who had been shot the instant he tripped over a downed tree. His dirty legs hung black with earth, like an upside-down marionette. Another poor kid from New Hampshire sat upright against a tree trunk, shot straight between the eyes, pinned against it. Some kind of peace sign hung around his neck, beside his dog tag. It looked almost as if he was sleeping.

The garden of dead soldiers was silent and still. Yet the plants began to rustle and bounce as rather large raindrops began to hit their leaves. Crickets and dragonflies began to take refuge amongst the wildflowers. The boys would slowly turn into dirt, and begin to melt into the earth if someone did not come to find and mourn for them soon.

A living boy’s face was stained with mud and dirt. He had blood on his lips and a crack in his glasses. He huddled like a fetus in a divot, trembling. He was a nice little Catholic boy, the kind of kid that wore his gym socks almost up to his knees, and who had sick, taboo, erotic fantasies about the kids he liked in his school; a building mimicking the shapes of brutalism. He was the kind of kid who really did enjoy those claymation Christmas specials, and working for a good standardized test score eight months in advance; he was a kid who could never attend track meets, as nausea would be a constant weight.

This lanky and weepy kid who loved his mommy, and feared God and his old man as he should, slowly peeked his head from over the divot to see his fire team. A fierce instinct rose inside of his throat, to pull the trigger on himself, and to finally go home. He saw Riley, who never liked him, but that was alright. He saw Billy, with his jaw blown off and away, who not even two hours ago was reminiscing about “the craft”, and telling him of the Illuminati conspiracy that surrounds us all. It would never end.

The boy slowly began to stand with his gun to his chest, and looking over the wreckage, the ghosts of his friends somewhere else by now. He noticed once someone dies, the face is gone. At least it was to him; they slipped into the uncanny valley and became eerie human-like animals. His stomach burned, and losing control was on the horizon. He felt by the end of the day, he would be dead by his own hand, and the war would be over.

Two hands snatched his shoulders like a snake catches a critter, and the boy could have shat his pants right there. His rifle shot once in the air out of his start, echoing and leading fearful Oriental voices to their target. Those hands quickly spun him around to reveal the dirty red face of a comrade. Immediately the boy bent over and began to cry like a baby, but the soldier wasted no time and pulled the boy away from the horrible scene by the arm, gesturing for him to get low and shut up. The boy had no time to recognize the face of his savior.

The strange soldier led the boy through the jungle; the whole world now shaded a dark blue under the canopy, the two of them quiet and wordless. Both of their guns were held upright, stepping very quietly to be as noiseless, as safe from those crazy booby traps and Vietcong mother fuckers as possible. The soldier suddenly stopped and hid the color of his arms and face to only be the dull green of the forest within his own green clothes and gear; the boy did the same. He held his breath as a few bushels of huge plants rustled not even ten feet away, and the voices of two conversing men sounded; they laughed to each other in Cantonese for some reason. It felt like it took days for them to pass by, as the boy had tightened every part of his body, and the soldier kept his eyes half closed. As if it would disguise them.
Somewhere in a large clearing the last of the medic helicopters flew away like a giant dragonfly, and the last of the platoon had retreated somewhere deep into the forest, like spirits. The grass flowed as a woman’s hair blows in the wind, growing up to their waists.

The bodies of dead boys and dead Communists lay in separate rows as statistics. Some were covered in brown tarps, some Vietcong boys had playing cards stuck in their mouths, with one or both ears cut off. The soldier emerged with the boy, looking over all the dead, unsure where the living had gone, his skin shiny with sweat. They could just barely hear the last chopper disappearing into the dark grey sky ahead. After a moment the soldier spoke, removing all the sacks and various heavy and deadly things he carried with him at all times. A drop of rain kissed his face before it stopped.

“Okay, you can cry now.” He said as he lay against a slab of the rock that separated the two soldiers from the deserted battlefield.
He removed his helmet as well, loosening all the muscles in his body, catching his breath, gaining his composure. The boy still stood, with his pack and all, his held rifle close to his heart.

“Sorry.” Quoth the boy. He finally took a moment to study the face of his rescuer; he was truly a man and not a kid like the boy was himself. His skin was red; he had large, deep set eyes framed by strong, black, expressive brows, and a big hooked nose. A slight smile of relief curled on his face as he strangely enough went into a doze. He didn’t say anything else; he only listened to the rumbling sky, and the bizarre and haunting sounds that were unexplainably parts of a war in the jungle. The boy only continued standing, mulling over the faces of his dead friends in his head over and over again, as a tremor began to eat away at his body.

“Hey chill out.” The voice of the soldier startled him. “Sit down; it’s over for right now. C’mon.”

“Where’s the squad?” The boy’s voice trembled, his tone full of frightened demand. Who would have blamed the poor lanky virgin.

“Oh.” The soldier sighed. “They’re kind of all over.”

“F**k you! Don’t joke about that!”

The soldier shushed him, seeing as the boy was on the verge of tears. Not acceptable; this was a man’s war. He urged him to put everything down and to sit, as it felt rather good. So he did, only to begin hyperventilating into his hands.
“Calm down, calm down, I didn’t mean it. Sometimes you gotta have a morbid sense of humor when you’re surrounded by morbid s**t. Keep your sanity, you know?”

The boy couldn’t answer as his heavy breath was forcing him to gag, so all he could do was nod without knowing what he was nodding to. The soldier became startled, and raised his eyebrows to a muffled boom in the distance.

“Geez, you’re making me wanna throw up.” He paused. “Do you need to go throw up, kid? Go nuts.”
The boy rushed back into the very edge of the jungle, where putrid sounds of regurgitating and liquid pouring orange all over the ground made the soldier turn his neck away and to diverge his thoughts. By the time the boy had finished standing and wheezing over his sick, the soldier had gotten into one of his knapsacks to find a Moleskine, flipping through the pages of rudimentary drawing after rudimentary drawing. He especially got a kick out of one depicting a Jewish girl in a turtleneck sweater he had his eye on back home. The soldier knew he meant to make her pretty, but the way the whole thing was smudged made her eyes too far apart, and gave her a sort of five o’clock shadow. The soldier indulged himself in a loud laughter; making noise felt good too.

“Hey, no! What’re you doing? Give that back!” The boy lunged for his sketchbook but to no avail.

“Jesus Christ all mighty, chill, man!” Keeping the boy away from the sketchbook, he flipped another page to some drawings of helicopters, one of them baring a face that looked rather like President Truman.
“You know I have no idea what your f*****g beef with me is but now we’re out here together so show me some goddamn respect! Aight?”

“I ain’t got any beef with you-”

“Psh, yeah sure.” He continued flipping; he found what seemed to be a self portrait in formal navy attire. “Then why don’t you ever talk to me? I’m a part of the squad too, right? -- You’re still not even making f*****g eye contact with me, what the hell!”

“Sorry, I just talk to who I talk to.” The boy relaxed, feeling a rather guilty sensation that wasn't welcomed, adding to the distress that made his body weaker every passing day. He stayed silent, glugging at his canteen and then resting his arms over his knees, trying to think about nothing. Like at his first cashiering job, where it was easy to think about nothing all day long.

He only caught a glimpse of this soldier in his squad before, talking in some romantic language to a few other colored guys, like him. He felt intimidated, but wouldn’t dare admit it.

“Geez, your drawings are really bad, man.” He paused because he remembered that he was supposed to be angry. “Also yo, I f*****g saved your a*s back there, you don’t need to give me no reward or nothing but damn, son, show some f*****g gratitude.”

“I know.”

“You know what?”

“You came and got me. Thank you.”

“Damn right I came and got you, cracker-jack.”

The both of them paused when the soldier turned to a page where a man in a helmet and all was shooting an Asian woman dead in the face. The soldier stared at it a good while, and the boy in turn stared at him staring. The picture had a hum that no man could hear, but could feel in the pit of his stomach.

“What’s your name?” said the boy.

“Yeah, don’t gimme that, you don’t care.” The soldier closed the sketchbook a moment and turned away from his comrade.

“No really, what’s your name?”

The soldier paused to let his shoulders sink, opening the Moleskin again to stop at yet another page. This one was rather complex, filled with flying helicopters and plants; a peaceful scene was hidden from it all, depicting a group of handsome, heavy built boys in camouflage sharing soup. “Rodriguez.” He said. “Uh, Awan Rodriguez.”

“Oh, groovy.”

“You’re too scrawny and white to say ‘groovy’.”

The boy dismissed this. “My name’s Beav. ‘s not my real name, I’m actually named Joseph but my folks have this affinity with Leave it to Beaver, so everyone just calls me Beav.”

Awan turned another page, which wasn’t drawn in, but written in for the next few pages in some indecipherable hieroglyphics of swirly handwriting. Below that was an angry drawing- one of a blond boy in blue short shorts, with white and hairy legs. His eyes were scribbled over. Two phrases were legible in the storm, “my fault” and “quitting”. It made the soldier smile a little.

“Don’t read that, please.” Said Beav; in turn Awan slowly closed the book and offered it back to him, letting it hang in the air.
There was some kind of sadness about him at this point. Beav watched him suddenly go silent and stare into the jungle with an eerie blankness in his eyes. Beav followed. The forest melted black in between the vegetation on the surface. Somewhere far deep inside a man was moaning.
Beav shook himself back to earth. “What’s your name mean?”

“Hm?”

“’Awan’, that’s a weird one. What’s it mean, man?”

“Oh um, eh, dunno.” He leaned back, picking up his helmet and putting the brim of it over his eyes. Beav noted the WAR IS HELL written on a piece of tape that wrapped all around the bowl, something he had seen a million times on the heads of other boys. “I’m Navajo; well my mama is, so it means somthin’.”
Beav sat in undeniable awe for a moment or two; Awan was the first Navajo Indian he ever saw. It was exhilarating, but damn he thought, it made him wonder how racist he really was deep inside.

“Can you speak Navajo?”

“Enough so me and mama can talk in private. I speak Spanish, I lived in Mexico for a while with my birth dad when I was younger- Spanish was the only thing he really spoke and junk.”

“I know some Italian, you know.”

“Really now? You Italian? Know every word of Italian there is, huh?” Awan briefly peeked from under his helmet to look his comrade in the eye, but only for a fleeting moment.

“No �" Hey, can you say something in Spanish?”

The soldier was breathing rather placidly, his hands on his abdomen, lost in his state of rest. “Like what?”

“Anything, I wanna hear it.”

“Fine.” He took another moment to observe him from under his helmet. “Eres un marica endogámica.”

“Gee! What does that mean?”

Awan, after a beat of silence, progressed into the taunting laugh of a hyena. His laugh got louder and louder until he was in a state of hysterics like a man trapped inside himself. He fell over on his side, cackling into the dirt and covering his face as if ashamed of himself. Beav only watched him, feeling dick-teased, unsure of what to think; whatever he said must have been really, really god damn funny. Though at that point Beav couldn’t decipher a knowing laugh from Awan breaking down and beginning to cry. It could have been either.

By the time the sun was disappearing, the two soldiers trudged on the edge of the jungle, looking over the length of a lake that never seemed to end. It was a lake entirely covered in pale emerald gunk, as beautiful as it was foul, smelling of human s**t. Dragonflies buzzed about all over the place, stopping and hovering, then zipping away. Sometimes they would float before the soldier’s faces, evaluating them like assistant managers of the jungle. They were nature’s helicopters.

Under the canopy was a dark and stuffy existence, and Beav longed to jump in that lake, be it disgusting, and to feel freedom and yell American profanities.

“Hey Awan, why are-“

“Shh!” Awan urged him to whisper.

“Sorry,” Beav spoke very quietly from there on out. “How do you know where we’re going? Do you have any idea where base is?”

“It was north or something; the sun’s over there, so we go this way and we’ll find somebody that won’t be trying to kill us, eventually.” The sky was orange with the end of the day.

Beav tried to breathe away his anxiety. How dare he make him fear the future. You can’t afford to let fear consume you during a war, or you won’t be able to do a damn thing.

“Hey wait, Awan where’s your compass?”

The next step Awan took was almost the last; suddenly the edge of a rake-like wooden contraption was stepped upon, and two parallel planks of wood with long, sharp metal spikes pointing in his direction shot up like a python. The sound of banging piano keys rattled inside their organs as they stared into the teeth of the beast.

“S**t!” Awan quickly dodged the trap only to fall out from the plants and go head first into the lake, and he immediately began to writhe and drown. The packs and weaponry he carried were hastily dragging him below.

For a split second Beav was frozen, face to face with the medieval style booby trap before it slammed back to the ground. It was then Beav turned and saw his comrade desperately flailing, and choking on green water, disrupting the solid sludge that make the surface smooth as glass.
Beav dropped his helmet, glasses, and all his packs quickly and pounced into the water like a tiger. He had no choice but to try and swim with Awan, trying desperately to stroke with the heavy equipment he would not let sink. It was a nightmare; a constant bobbing over and under murky water left the both of them coughing and gasping for air by the time they reached the shore. He held his eyes open seeing the last rays of sunlight streaming through the murky lake, over and over again, every stroke getting harder to do. The swim to an outsider didn’t take long, but for Beav it lasted for hours.

Awan collapsed, under the weight of all his water logged gear, lying down to cough and gag on the slanted mud bank that crowned the jungle. There wasn’t a word to be said, Beav had to hurry to put on his own gear, and help up his comrade. His vision was in a constant state of vertigo.

He heard voices, angry Vietnamese speaking voices not too far off. The blood rushed through his veins like lightning as he pulled Awan in his entirety onto his feet, and grabbed his arm to run through the forest. He heard shots being fired into the water, as the forest rushed by like a painting.

Beav pulled Awan along hopelessly, who was still dazed from the whole endeavor. A few shots from a machine gun whizzed through the air, an inch from their heads. Beav never stopped thinking about Jesus. He must think about Jesus just in case.

Another line of fire came whizzing the other way, and immediately Beav forced himself and Awan down to the ground, and the both of them laid there completely still, his arms over his helmet. His comrade did the same, and they laid there playing dead for a good solid hunk of time, until they felt deep in their soul of souls that the Vietcong went their separate ways. It’s like a drill in elementary school, the boy tried to convince himself. All American boys were prepared for Communist invasion. Remember duck and cover, Beav? Burt the Turtle? Remember?

Feel the linoleum against your forehead, and hear the siren in the air. Feel the air conditioning in the room and the cries of a freshman girl who had peed herself.

The nights in the Vietnam jungle were itchy, dark and uncertain- there was nothing but blackness, the sounds of frogs, bugs, and other creatures rustling through the night. It felt like cotton balls stuffed in your eyes.
Beav laid in the middle of the forest, possibly under the curve of a large rock, possibly with Awan close by his side keeping a look out. Through the pitch black he could hear Awan shivering, the sound of shaky breaths coming from his nose gave it away. He was still dripping wet.
It was almost like a giant chalkboard had cloaked over the universe. The boys were trapped in a strange way, and could swear they saw white line where everything was supposed to be. Like white chalk. Taking them back to acid filled nights in America.

The squeal of mosquito’s wings kept Beav on alert; over and over again they pulled a kamikaze on his face and neck. Somehow their bites didn’t itch; maybe it would take a bit of time tonight. What if my face gets itchy and blows up, I ain’t got any Benadryl.

“God damn these f*****g mosquitoes.” Beav whispered, wondering if Awan was still there.

“Power through it. It means it’s warm out and we won’t freeze to death at least. Kinda nippy out, if you ask me.”

“Sullman; he carries around bug spray with him all the time. I would kill to have Sullman here.”

“Sullman was a nice kid.”

A sloshing and rustling was heard from one of his drenched nap sacks. He made a “glech” sound in disgust. “I got something even better,” Beav suddenly felt Awan’s hand glide all over his shoulder, then to his glasses, to finally find his own hand to place some kind of small plastic bottle in his palm.

“Hey watch it! What is this, anyway?”

“It’s my mouthwash- well I think it is- what you do is you pour it in your hand and dab it all over yourself and it keeps the bugs away. Like cologne, see? Works way better than any goddamn repellent, trust me.”

“Are you sure this is scope?”

“The f**k is scope? It’s my f*****g mouthwash, I don’t have any other bottle small like that- listen if you’re so worried, smell it first.”

Beav took a whiff after struggling to figure out the child proof lock in the dark. “Ew.”

“Did ya smell it?”

“Yeah that’s um�"mouthwash alright.” Beav dabbed it wherever he could, though the high pitched whine of mosquito drones still came one after the other. He guessed it needed time, as all great inventions do.

“Do you need any, Awan?”

“Hm? Nah, just give it here�"buggies don’t bother me. Try going to sleep, kay? I’m right here for ya and I’ll wake you up to look after me in an hour.”

“How’ll you know when it’s an hour? Don’t you turn on that dang flashlight less you kill the both of us.”

“I’ll know when it’s an hour. I have an internal clock, always have.”

Beav felt Awan was a snake oil salesman. One hour of sleep for him, the rest of the night for the soldier.
There was a nagging obligation to worry, in the darkness of the night. There were no tents, no promise of seeing the whole platoon ever again. There were no whispers amongst men, no army surplus blankets, no ration, and no promise of brothers to die with you or come home with you and be your brothers for life. There was only nature, a stranger, and the s**t on their backs.

“Will we find somebody to help us soon?” The boy stuttered.

Awan took some time to breath it all in; something smelled like skunk, and reminded him of home. “Yeah, sure. There’s got to be some boys we know poking around here somewhere. I hope they don’t think we’re dead or nothing.”

“Oh Lord.”

“It’s alright, don’t worry about it�"we’ll find a base somewhere, just don’t get too ahead of yourself.”
The mosquitoes, as Awan predicted, were steering clear of Beav, which he was very thankful for. That was one good thing that God allowed him to have. He felt a hand on his neck too, not a threatening hand, but a warm resting hand. Beav submitted and let Awan rest his hand there, imagining getting choked to death. He let it be his gratitude. It reassured him in some sort of cosmic way, some sort of way that he could not explain because he was too much of a Melvin to describe as “groovy”.

The next few days were the same; it was all a blur of conversation, green, hiding, and wild boars rustling through the jungle. Awan always lead, with Beav close behind, often in silence. It could end anywhere, a few yards to the left, or go on for miles straight ahead. The whole thing made Beav’s consciousness come into question, made his throat thick and uncomfortable, and messed with his progressing dizziness and nausea. Awan Rodriguez on the other hand was just plain going crazy inside himself. He began to think about getting poisoned, and many another thing.
Both of them still were humping around with a million pounds on their backs, sloshing in damp clothes and the only pair of boots they possessed, both of them still filled with water.

At night they rested together, Awan on the defense. Beav would ask the strange leaves to work like melatonin, some possessing yellow blotches to the point that they looked like faces. Yellow like the tile in his locker room, on the other side of the world. Yellow like the suit and bell bottoms of a guidance counselor with manic depression. Awan would tell him they were spirits, and Beav never figured that he was being serious. He imagined his guidance counselor on fire.
Beav wondered what his pop was doing, whether he was a worried mess like his mother should be. Would either of them be mad that their son had killed men, breaking his Catholic duties?
Rich kids were playing slap a*s without him.

Beav contemplated and hated the bumps on his skin one morning; mosquitos were making little hairy white freckled islands all over his arms and neck, like little tumors.
Awan suddenly stopped the boy, putting an arm to his chest in mid step. The Navajo man had found a pair of brown feet, hiding a man from under a large leaf. it was as if these massive plants came from a Mexican painting, and the boys were as small as forest fairies.

With his gun aloft, his steps as light as bug’s feet, he inched to the leaf, slowly lifted it to reveal a pair of legs. A hoard of brown gnats were livid in the stranger’s groin, decomposing into the jungle and buzzing without end. They wriggled like nightcrawlers, flying up to greet Awan, bombarding into his eyes and nostrils.

“Hey, you alright?” Awan said, gently lifting up the rest of the leaf and swatting gnats away, to reveal the man’s head has been blown clean off. Bugs and odors were violent and brown, pulsing around Beav’s body, making him gag and gasp for breath. He hid his face in his hands, as he was a bad soldier, and probably wets the cot. He’s a just baby.

“Ooh, you’re not alright.” Awan feigned concern, bending over and shoving his fingers into the dead man’s breast pockets, the buzz of the gnat swarm overwhelming.

“Awan, don’t touch! Jesus!”

The soldier had found little more than a lighter, for that was all that was worth stealing. That and some foreign ammunition. The smell of the man began to overwhelm him, though he showed no sign of it. Quickly coming out from under the leaf, Awan then held out his free hand towards the boy, shoving the lighter in a pocket. There was a woman spreading her legs engraved on the side, and something angry in Vietnamese.

“Hey Beav, ya got a knife or something? I want to take a finger.”

“Awan!”

“Come on! He won’t bite! He dead, boy!”

“Go f**k yourself! I’m not letting you take his finger!”

Awan smiled a little, embarrassed for himself and all people. He lifted the leaf to take one more look at the man. It was worse than a snuff film. Red and yellow bubbling gunk everywhere, the flies, the maggots, rattling like demons, his skin turning black in some spots. Awan wondered how many people he had sex with in his life, and if he ever hooked up with a man before.

“Hey bud,” he murmured, “Beav don’t want you comin’ with us, and I don’t want to scare him, so--” He shrugged at the body, and lingered in silence for a while. The boy watched, imagining him covered in the man’s blood.

When Awan turned back and let the leaf fall, the swarm of gnats was disturbed. They turned into a thin cloud over the two soldiers. Awan payed no mind, and then stopped to look at Beav, right before knocking the back of his helmet, making it fall to the ground.

He walked ahead, and Beav strangely fell into despair that day. They kept moving, and the skin in their clothes became sticky, and suffocated.

A clearing on the very top of a mountain was their sanctuary. It was so small it could be a dirt Jacuzzi, but it was a place to have the eyes adjust to light, a place to rest and to breathe fresh air was enough. The ground was riddled with twigs, dried leaves, and shrapnel. There was a small patch of green bamboo that sheltered the perimeter, growing amongst a few vestiges of Vietnam’s art; a broken slab of wood painted with a complex, detailed red dragon laid in fragments all along the bamboo, as if it had exploded. Above was a massive flare-up of giant mint colored leaves, like a volcano. A satellite for Bushmen everywhere.
With Beav close behind, the soldiers stomach's in knots, Awan through a few stones into the clearing to check for any landmines. Though they both knew, without the body of a man, it would do no good.
He then scanned the perimeter for booby traps and Vietcong men and women amongst the brush, his rifle always upright. This clear space atop this holy mountain was almost too good to be true, the view was heaven for all good people. Nothing but hills, mountains, and mist as far as the eye could see, and strange echoes of rattles and voices.
Awan soon straightened himself, looked upward, and said “F**k, the sky’s pregnant, man.” Beav took that as an all clear, and that it looked like rain.

They settled themselves in no time. Both of the boys hung out together shirtless, finally letting their undershirts, their coats, and all their other wear dry, though the humidity would be no sport. Beav and Awan shared one of several bags of beef jerky Beav carried with him, to keep his blood sugar steady, and to keep hunger pains away. They told horrible, distasteful jokes and laughed their asses off, and said horrible mean things about each other that they also loved to hear and retaliate against.
They also let themselves lean back and relax, catch some R & R until they were promised some time in Saigon.

Awan found himself forehead to forehead with Beav later on, looking down at a pair of clear red dice Awan had got in Las Vegas some time ago, when things were better.
“See I used to have this loaded pair in junior high, and I’d wager on myself getting seven on every first roll and of course I won quite a few times, but eventually everyone caught on, heh. My a*s was beaten blue man. F**k- Dice, Dados. “

“Gee,” Beav lit a cigarette that he had been saving for quite a while now; it was time to taste it. “If my pop had ever caught me playin’ Craps he’d throw me across the room.”

“S**t I didn’t know you had no smokes, got one for me?”

“Sorry, ‘s my last one.” Beav took a long drag, the tip glowing orange, before offering it to Awan’s ready face. “We can share?” His comrade was delighted to partake.

After taking a long, smooth drag, Awan began to cough uncontrollably, coughing like a goose coughs, and then he spat into the bamboo patch. It was one of those things that Beav got a kick out of; he wasn’t dying, so it was alright. It made him feel stronger. Beav called him a wuss.

“I should have brought some weed along with me.” Awan said when he had all the smoke out of his system.

“Hah! You’ll cough that s**t up too!” Beav had the power to destroy his ego, he felt God had given this to him.

Awan looked him dead in the eye, grinned a tiger’s grin,, and slowly began to stalk Beav like the born predator he was. “You know what? Smart Alec?” Beav clamped the cigarette hard in his teeth before Awan got him into a headlock, and forced a hard noogie upon his greasy scalp.
“There, how you like that?” Awan chuckled as Beav urged him to knock it off, struggling to keep his one and only cigarette from falling, and burning the arm of his comrade.

As the hours flew by, they figured to let their shirts hang and air dry on some branches, cleverly between some sticks of bamboo. Beav and Awan examined the blue veins in their wrists, looking like tree branches. Blood was like a river inside them. They hadn’t seen any of their friends die, and haven’t had to burn any villages of unfortunate strangers, in days. The freckles all over Beav’s arms and face were like stars in the universe; freckles on a white boy. Awan was made of clay. They felt dizzy and more connected, as if pollinating each other like orchids.

They sat with their thighs close on top of one of Beav’s dry knapsacks. The Moleskine was unharmed, Baruch Hashem, and the two of them sat naked shoulder to naked shoulder as Beav struggled to start some kind of drawing. It was all he had.
Awan watched in fascination, his helmet still steady on his head. Bev imagined every soldier wearing a helmet stopped walking, and became a giant mushroom. He saw just a field of man sized mushrooms in a field, guns on the ground, and hanging around the stems.

“Agh, I can’t seem to get this started here.” Said Beav.

“Go ahead man, start drawing and just don’t care so much,” Awan had a strange yet quiet excitement about him. “Don’t be afraid to make me a f****n’ beast�"gimme me a-a really really big nose, oh and um, really big bulging yellow eyes like mine, yeah, put my eye-jaundice in there.”

“What’s jaundice mean?”

“Oh it’s um, I dunno, it makes my eyes yellow and it means something’s up with my liver. Oh! Draw me surrounded by f*****g guts and s**t, man! Like I just killed a bunch of lions or something.”

“Hah, what about Amazon women? Want some Amazon women? With big b***s and pube mounds?”

“Sure, kiddo. Wanna hold that thought? I gotta piss.” Awan stood up and gave Beav two hard slaps on the back. Strangely enough, the boy caught himself staring.

He never knew until he was behind his torso how strong Awan’s back looked. Strong in the sense that he had lived off pulling trains and doing the labor rich white men didn’t do; strangely there was very little muscle to tone on his backside, but his shoulder blades bulged in such a way that was like a cheetah.
In this light his skin looked reasonably sweaty, red, and covered in pock marks from various stages of acne.

What a strong, able, and well designed back. A back little hands could run over, and be carried across a field on, in the rain, sick and about to die on a solid, noble back. He heard laughing the he distance of prepubescent boys, laughing at him. The taste of male sweat and the linoleum of a gym room. Metallic bangs. Hairy little people with horns and tails dancing in hellfire.

“Hey! Quit lookin’ at me! Get your head in your book and�"I dunno, sing a song or something.”

Beav’s heart palpitated, and he spun his head back to the book but he began to panic, it was like someone drew this monstrosity for him. On the paper, Awan’s head was massive, roaring, like an Aztec God. He stood on a pile of red mush, and a painfully long phallic symbol extended from his torso. It almost got him in a cold sweat.

A sudden noise in the distance made Beav’s neck hair stand on edge; there was a very faint sound of something cutting through the air over and over again, probably over several mountains. There was also the soft hiss of a distant jet, and a muffled boom that never the less shook the earth.

“Awan! You hear that?”

Awan had emerged from the forest, and listened very closely as he zipped up his fly. The beating sound of a propeller was now certain.

“Beav�"that’s a chopper. That’s a goddamn chopper!” He smiled and hopped to getting himself clothed, and to throwing out all the things that were too wet to use out of his knapsacks, leaving them behind, like an idiot. Beav hurried to do the same, and the two of them rushed into the forest like frightened deer.
Booby traps were in the back of their minds yet they were still waiting; dreams going home, taking a shower, having someone to cry to, hot food, a cot, and some form of civilization danced in their heads.

The forest zoomed by faster than it ever did before as they ran like the wind down hill, and they eventually came to another, even larger clearing filled with maybe hundreds of downed trees, lying dead under a grey sky. White men have been here. It looked much like the place had been deforested, but the development was forgotten about. Such as many things are.

Hell, Beav got so excited he began to run ahead of Awan into the clearing, the sounds of choppers getting closer and closer. His knapsacks were swaying to and fro in order to affect his balance, like an elementary school kid, running down an icy driveway for mama.

“Beav! Stay on the edge, mines! Mines!”

Beav and Awan ran along the edge of the clearing as far as they could, knowing the choppers were somewhere at the very end. The propellers were loud and creating wind in their faces, though they were nowhere to be seen, like ghosts. The trees rushed by in a blur. In the clearing a woman laid face down, dead, caked with grey mud.

Soon enough once the clearing ended on the edge of a shallow cliff, Awan had to run as fast as he could to grab Beav, to stop him from running of the edge and killing himself, and coming head first into what took away the sounds of the choppers now flying away, into the great expanse of the sky over Asia. There they were, like specks of charcoal in the sky, going home without them.

The roar of a jet ripped through the air, leaving a trail of massive orange and black explosions amongst a line of jungle not even 1,000 feet away, killing a whole line of trees and bushels. The explosions clapped like runaway fireworks, cutting into the ear of anyone who was nearby. The force of the napalm was so strong, that the two men were nearly knocked straight onto their backs, making their inner organs feel slapped with every blooming cloud of fire. Black and orange everywhere, the high-tech whining of creatures in the blaze

“Oh -- God! Oh s**t!” Beav struggled to rise as he kept his eyes on the departing helicopters, and the silver jet making a u-turn in the air straight to where the soldier’s stood, to the line of jungle beside them.
The two men turned and bolted for their lives, dropping some of their supplies in order to run, but it wasn’t long until three more explosions of napalm clapped and roared close behind them, for a moment making them airborne, and then crashing them into the ground with a strong ringing in their ears, and stars in their vision. The heat, and the blast had touched them, but a miracle had happened. They escaped in one piece with clean skin.

The jet glided along in the sky like a Jesus-bug on water, business as usual, away from the two men as the fire on the jungle raged, and the boys struggled to regain their coordination to run. Their hearing came back, and the first sound they heard was the roaring of the plane’s engine; a mechanical scream amongst many that were human, rising up out of the napalm.

The colossal balls of fire and black smoke bloomed like mushrooms and waved like the ocean, glowing a fierce orange and regurgitating horrible black smoke into the air, merging the daytime into night. The roar of the fire was the most tremendous sound you’d ever hear; along with the sound of screeching strangers, women and children, somewhere in the towering flames.
Awan didn’t look back; he ducked for cover wherever he could, dragging Beav by the shoulder. Somewhere his glasses had dropped to the ground, and he had become a hopeless and vulnerable creature for natural selection to take it’s course upon.

Once a safe patch of jungle was reached, running beside a rather wide dirt road and farmland, Awan stopped running, and sank to the ground against a tree trunk to catch his breath and collect himself.
Beav, without a sense of vision, dazed and confused by the whole thing, still heard the fire crackling in the distance, and a few voices screaming in panic and pain, running down the road they rested beside. The thickness of the trees kept the soldiers out of sight.

One was a girl, stark naked, running with her arms out like an albatross. Her mouth couldn’t close and she wailed like a banshee, baring stinging wounds all over her body as the napalm ate away at her. She was not alone. There were others that carried their children, and a young father with the remains of a broken rifle slung over his back.

Beav fell to his knees but Awan quickly caught him, then the two of them sat, trembling and embracing each other as the parade of the wounded wandered past them, and their eyes and lungs continued to burn with sulfur and heat.
As Beav began to feel and see everything around him, Awan whispered for the boy not to look, to keep his head down, it was too much to see. They held each other, bathing in their upset, for a long time.

They broke their embrace after the voices of all the people yelling and screaming for aid had became distant. They were alone again, the fire still cackling, not an American, or a friendly soldier to be found.
“You alright?” Awan kept his head down, rummaging for something in his breast pocket to reveal Beav’s glasses. Without another word, he grabbed Beav’s hand to place his glasses in his palm, and to close his fingers around them.

He then left Beav to sit against the tree by himself, still dazed and trembling, as Awan quietly made his way to the edge of the forest to peek out for only a second. Awan didn’t tell poor old Beav what he saw. He quickly forced his head down, as if to ask some strange, invisible divine being forgiveness.
Beav was haunted. “What did you see?”

Awan stood quietly, saying nothing.

“Talk to me.”

The path beside the edge of the jungle was riddled with abandoned clothing. The open space was as long as a football field, the kind boys could play on.

Beav’s comrade slowly descended out into the road, revealed at last, but to no one. Silence was thick in his ears like cotton.
Awan’s rifle hung down; he approached the body of a girl, lying dead and abandoned on the road. He stopped a good four feet from her, and just looked. She must have been no more than eight, he thought. She was nude, and her face was black and brown with the burns of napalm. Her whole body was covered in sores, and in sticky substances.

Beav peeked his head from the pointy leaves, watching the body of his comrade stand still like a pole over the girl’s body. It was like watching an animal. He made no sounds, but eventually he kneeled before the girl, and sat there for a few moments more, his chest hurting like hell.

The sound of the medic helicopters still rang in their ears, taunting them. Beav thought they sounded like his pop, and the wiping of the mud flap on his station wagon. It sounded like Alabama.
Wandering continued despite this.

The sun had begun to sink as the day went on, turning red like a big maraschino cherry, dowsing the jungle in a thin orange haze. The boys settled for a few hours by a small babbling brook, where a whole mess of white cabbage butterflies fluttered about and made a home for themselves, hundreds of them.
On a large slab of rock hanging over a small whirlpool, Awan lay stark naked, holding his gun, feeling lost. He needed relief from his gear, his boots, and his clothes. All of them were still damp and sticky, and his skin was pruning, drowning to death.

On the side of the rock Beav stood with his back turned from him, his rifle held aloft, protecting Awan in his vulnerable state. It took every bone in his body for Beav to keep himself from turning, and looking at Awan. But the forces kept his eyes locked forward. He thought to himself; the air felt sad. Sad and heavy, but everything in this country felt like this. There was no other way to describe it.

The boys were wordless together, bathing in each other’s auras, but not one one soldier daring to look at the other.
Beav stood tall and still, like a statue. White butterflies began to flutter by his face, like fairies, curious of his being. It was then Beav turned his head, and clearly looked at Awan’s body without fear. He hadn’t seen a naked male since high school, but the circumstances were different.

Awan laid with his forearm over his eyes, dozing, letting a few white butterflies land on the red skin of his body. Beav thought Awan could be a figure skater if he really wanted to- he possessed the slimness required. He drank in the body of his comrade, and turned away, the feeling of bugs crawling under his skin was more powerful, now. Chiggers, yes, chiggers. The butterflies meanwhile were gently licking and tickling on Awan with their wings, their tongues, and their feet.
He sank down and leaned his back against the rock, closed his eyes, and kissed the end of his rifle. He contemplated his divine duty to the Lord almighty. Pride swam like sperm in the back of Beav’s head, to be protecting Awan like a man, who in any other state could very well protect himself. That svelte, sensual cheetah of a man.

The call of a kingfisher, hiding at the top of a tree, sounded in a soft, high pitched rattle until it caught a butterfly in its beak. Awan shot up immediately after like a cobra, and without hesitation he fired his rifle six times at the bird. He could have been sweating blood.
The loud bangs of his gun echoed away in the distance, but the kingfisher still sat in the tree, unshaken and untouched, swallowing the butterfly whole.

“Awan, are you f*****g crazy?!.” Beav gasped, almost submissively urinating himself out of fright. Awan didn’t verbalize. He looked down at his comrade with angry, piercing eyes, and heavy breath like a predator. Their gazes were locked, and Beav eventually caught the fear deep in Awan’s yellow eyes. An understanding had been reached between Beav, and the beautiful animal.

There was a small patch of forest where the trees were sparse. It was wonderful; before they came to it they saw the dead calf of a water buffalo hanging by its neck from a tree, its eye sockets and mouth infested with a swarm of brown gnats and worms. It only added insult to injury. Beav asked if this would be their lives from now on, and Awan didn’t answer.

The night was beautiful- the clouds had parted to reveal a full, silver moon, leaving very little of the night to the imagination. Blue and purple shadows casted off every tree, off every tiny little detail of nature, and everything seemed to glow blue in the moonlight. The whines of all the different winged insects were like music; they were distant, and hovered in the sky, looking like little people on high. It was a magical, challenging time for all insects.

Awan sat up against a rather large log dressed in his boots and trousers, his rifle resting against his clavicle, chewing a piece of Bazooka Beav had found and gave him. The boy dozed beside him with his head resting on a knapsack. Their shirts and such were off once again, as the night was rather warm; they left their uncomfortable and damp attire to dry on the branches, but to no avail. They had almost forgotten what it felt like to be cool, dry, and comfortable like human beings usually are.

“You sleep with your glasses on?” Awan kept his voice very low, and soft.

Beav yawned, “No.”

“Then take ‘em off, dumbass. You don’t need them right now.” Awan took the liberty to remove his glasses, and shove them somewhere in the knapsack Beav rested his head against.

He let his gun sit by his side after that, like an old friend, and just took a moment to listen. There were peeper frogs chirping all over the place. It felt like a bog in New Orleans, without the jazz or the swamp people.

He caught himself looking down at the fresh, frameless face of Beav. “Hey, you should get contact lenses or somethin’. You look good without your glasses.”

“Hey, I do?”

“Yeah.” Said Awan. “You look real cool. You’re still a scrawny white boy but you look real cool.”
Beav smiled, and tried to bring himself to sleep once again, his arms crossed around his own torso. Something was eating him from the inside out, and making his chest hurt. Slap-a*s was a word that escalated in his mind. Memories of high school. Beav felt certain that he could trust Awan, if he didn’t tell someone God knows what kind of things would happen inside his head. He felt bold and raised his head.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Sure kiddo, what’s up?

Beav’s face was terribly close to Awan’s bare side, though the boy became lost in thought, not sure of how to begin. The slightest trace of blood was trapped in the nail beds of his dirty fingers. “Can I tell you about my track team?”

“Yeah,” Awan felt a disturbance when he looked down at this frail, filthy boy. “Shoot.”

“Well before I got my draft card, my pop had me do the track team at my school for a couple of years.”

“Really?” Awan was a snarky a*s hole and he knew it--Beav knew it too. He went on.

“Yeah.” Beav took a deep breath. “I’m scared that I’m going to have to keep doing track or sports or something if I come home. I don’t want to do it anymore.” Awan listened. “He’s not gonna care that I came home from a war or nothing, even though he knows what it’s like and s**t. He saw the concentration camps, you know.”

“Yeah man, he should know alright.”

“But I just know he’s gonna make me go right back to work with sports and s**t. And�" I can’t do it anymore, Awan.” Beav paused to wipe the stinging out of his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Hey, Beav, what’s wrong? Why you getting so worked up over track and s**t?” Awan asked, trying his best to meet eyes with his comrade, but to no avail.

“I’ll tell you,” Beav gathered himself, choking on his words just a little bit. He noticed a mosquito had bitten his upper lip. “It’s because of the locker rooms, and all that mostly. The locker rooms.”

Awan spoke softly. “What about them, Beav?”

“I�"just don’t like the kids I have to work with, is all.” Beav swallowed, and the both of them lay silent for a moment, listening to the buzzing of nighttime creatures around them. A man shouldn’t cry. “I had this um, friend that got a what-for by them.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Yeah�"“

“What happened to him, kiddo?”

“Well�"He got beat up one day by a big guy on my team. Rich kid named Jazzlow or something; he’s not a soldier or anything. My friend um, he got a back-brush up his a*s and got left in the showers.” Beav paused to take a deep, cleansing breath, clearing his head, but only further upsetting his being. The warmth of Awan’s side sort of comforted him, like a propane floor heater. “He got left in there because he was too scared to come out, um�"it was a whole big deal in school for weeks afterward. There were seminars about it and s**t.”

“Aw man,” Awan breathed. “Why’d they do that, Beav?”

“Cause, um�"they thought he was a flit I guess. You know?” Beav paused, but Awan was silent, and stiff. “The congregation and the folks weren’t happy, let me tell you. With my friend, I mean�" I remember people laughing, and um, saying he screamed like a girl. “

“Ouch, man.” Awan then slowly reached downward to pick a small beetle out of Beav’s hair. That’s when he noticed that Beav had been crying, silently, like a woman. “You shouldn’t have gone back after that.”

“I had to.”

The metallic taste of blood, s**t, something arose in Beav’s mouth. The image of blue short-shorts on hairy white legs, and yellow bathroom tiles flashed before his eyes. It made his breath shaky. The crippling feeling of friendlessness in an open student center filled his lungs, and he cringed at the memory. Beav took a hand to his face to stop himself from bawling, fighting back the shame that welled inside his person.

“Pop still made me g-go to track after that, like he didn’t care! I hate him, man!” The boy’s voice was corrupted by an upset soul. “I hate all of them, I wish they were here, getting shot or some s**t, Awan. Jazzlow’s home right now knocking down mail boxes and s**t, I bet.”

“Dirty stupid b*****s. Try not to worry about it Beav, try.” Awan listened as Beav was briefly in distress, sucking in a loud breath; the soldier moved his hand down to touch his back, gently rubbing it up and down with his fingertips in an effort to comfort the boy. “Hey, I’ll tell ya what, anybody ever touches you or hurts you I’ll kill ‘em. I’d kill them like a hundred times!”

Beav smiled a little, closing his eyes tightly and nodding.

“You want me to kill that guy on your track team, too? I’ll go over right now to your little white boy state and kill him. Want me to kill him, Beav?”

“Oh�"“Beav sniffed, and laughed just a little, appreciating all of Awan. He was a good soul to tell things to. “That would be great, hah.” Without even realizing it, Beav had placed a relaxed hand on Awan’s stomach. It was firm, and red, and Beav just didn’t notice until now, who could’ve blamed the kid.

Nothing forced Beav to pull his hand away. He just stared, and felt spacey, as if coming out of a panic attack. His pale porcelain hand against the warm skin of another man; it was hazy, and surreal, like an Otto Dix painting.

“Beav,” Awan stared down at the boy, reminding him a bit of a naked mole rat. “Come here, it hurts just lookin’ at you.”

After a minute, Beav was scooped up by his comrade, who rested Beav’s head right on his chest, having him sit up only a little bit, as any good friend would. It might have been the only time in his life that Awan had felt like a mother to anyone.

Beav listened- it was the sound of another man’s heart. It was freaky; Beav had a feeling in his stomach, anxiety convinced him this wasn’t right, somebody was going to get him for this. Far off he smelled roasted meat from a fire and the pounding of Awan’s heart was disturbing his inner ear, nausea setting in. As they were in this state, Beav began to investigate Awan’s hand. Their fingers ran through each other like yarn. They both had a clammy way about their skin, covered in all kinds of cuts, dirt stains, and blisters. Awan tenderly felt the purple knuckles of his comrade, which were worn to the tendon for unknown reasons. As if he had been punching brick walls.

The soldier felt the boy shiver against his breast, and he placed an arm around his shoulder, in order to stroke his hair with only a hint of reluctance. “Heheh you’re a weird a*****e. Be cool, man, be cool. You’re alright, okay?”

Beav scanned the skin of his comrade, dirty just like his own, with a bit of little hairs here and there that you wouldn’t notice unless you look up close. “Thanks Awan.”

The soldier sat in silence with Beav under his chin, pulling him closer and closer. Suddenly Awan sat up, and began to kneel, forcing Beav on his knees as well. The two of them held a tight embrace, burying each other’s faces in the smalls of their necks. They each breathed heavily, tenderly rocking each other. White rabbit skin enveloped them, Beav thought, as Awan’s fingers locked in his hair.

“I’ve hurt like that too, kiddo.” Awan then gently brushed the side of the boy’s face, kissed it, and slowly led Beav and himself into a laying position with their heads on their knapsacks. They rested with their faces close together, and Awan kissed the boy again, gently on the lips. The two men briefly exchanged affection, hastily kissing each other on and off, then laying silent, stopping themselves.

They stayed that way for a long time, resting face to face and breathing into each other’s mugs, before Awan decided to sit up, and let the boy catnap against his stomach. He leaned against the log again; his face stained with brown, dirty tear streaks, and held his rifle aloft.

Beav slept very safe and soundly, his arms steadily wrapped around the soldier’s torso. Dreams of demons from Hell were dancing in his head, smoking joints as big at their forearms. On the other side of himself was a feeling of safety. He opened his eyes only once to imagine what his pop looked like, barely remembering. The only thing left of his Dad was all of that nose hair. He thought he could almost see Dad in a rather dated American cadet’s uniform. Beav witnessed his father staring at him, shake his head, then turn and disappear into the thickness of the jungle.

As if his soul had turned red and separated from his earthly body, Beav rose and followed him. He dreamt of walking into a tunnel of darkness, where his room back home lay in a beige haze on the other side. There were photographs, everywhere, Beav was smiling in his track shorts in all of them, luminous like a bride. Beav saw the silhouetted back of his father before the thin mattress where his sweater laid, dry cleaned and folded, a remnant of Norwalk high school. Beav watched his father lift the sweater in his hands, and then hold it to his face to sniff it. It still smelled like Beav, as if he were only in the other room, showering.
Dad held it to his shoulder like an infant, cradling the sweater, dancing with it, whilst alone and quiet in the cosmos. He kept dancing with it, and Beav pretended he was there, and the boy proceeded to place his hands on his shoulders and rock his own self, as if being held, and tears of shame rolled down his virgin face. He never wanted to be a sweater as badly as right then.


Meanwhile Awan sat lookout for Beav, willing to lose sleep or and arm in order to tend to him, gazing at the white moon, his thoughts blank and serene.

He looked down and saw the patch of the flag on Beav’s canteen. A small brown cricket was molesting it with its feelers. He watched it and counted his breaths as he did so, and the flag and the cricket stared back.

Morning came in a blink; it was the moment that Awan let his eyes droop and then open again, the night had gone away. He awoke with a lovely sad song by Joni Mitchell stuck in his head, though he wouldn’t dare admit it. The image of a wolf carrying a woman on its back was looping over and over again in his imagination. He awoke lying on the ground, alone, watching Beav take down their undershirts from the branches they hung from, fluttering like banners.

Awan’s yellow eyes were all for Beav, tending to his things, a dark heaviness weighing on the boy. Beav put his shirt back on with weary eyes, and noticed two mysterious blood stains, shaped like planets. They bloomed like mushroom clouds on both his and Awan’s undershirt, though not a park pierced their bodies.

“Hey, Beav, help me up will ya? I’m kinda sore.” He lied, feeling the isolation, and wanting his touch.
Beav approached him, grabbed him by the arms, and hoisted him. The boy’s eyes stayed to the ground. He then tended again to the undershirts, feeling the brown blood stains on Awan’s. He rubbed it between his fingers, and smelled it. It was metallic.

“Beav, s-something the matter?”

“Yeah.” Beav felt his torso, damp like pond scum. “Yeah Awan, something’s the matter.”

“Beav, hey, is it ‘cause we kissed a little? I thought that’d be alright�"“

Beav saw Awan’s unmoving stance out of the corner of his eye. “You can’t kiss me. You can’t kiss other men, end of story.” Awan’s figure killed him. The boy closed his eyes, crossed his arms under his armpits, and absorbed the heat in the air, like a cactus.

“Oh, Beav, I didn’t know.” Said Awan. “Kiddo, you should’ve told me that you didn’t want me touchin’ you or nothing, I woulda stopped, I swear�"“

“No man.”

Awan kept his hands in the pockets, still as a tree. A dragonfly flew over his head, and he stared at the boy. The reflection of his body lingered in his pupils. “No man?”

“I did like it, I mean.” Beav stooped to tie his boot. “I’m scared I’m gonna like it too much, you know?”

“Oh, Beav,” Awan’s boots crunched under all the twigs below, and he kneeled to meet eyes with his comrade. But Beav kept them tightly closed. Their eyes were crusty with sleep. “Then, whatsa matter?” He paused, and Beav was silent as their foreheads touched. “Nobody’s gonna find out Beav, I won’t let you get discharged, I promise. I’m not gonna go shouting it off the highest mountain or anything.”

Beav and Awan slowly rose, their heads held together. Awan’s hand brushed the side of the boy’s face, like the ocean. Beav hesitantly kissed his thumb as it gently swiped his lips, but his eyes still remained shut. Male breath was close to his face and made of think of Jazzlow; he wished he was dead. As Awan persisted all the voices from High school came flooding back into Beav’s mind. Their voices were like nails on a car door. The track meets were hell with all those boys in their goofy blue shorts and white legs, smelling like genitalia and piss; clammy strong hands everywhere like a forest of electric eels. Beav choked on the air because his comrade smelled like hell. He smelled like hell.

“Beav, look at me,” Awan murmured and kissed the place where Beav’s eyebrow meets his eye socket, tilting his glasses. “Open your eyes and look at me Beav. I know what you’re doin’.”

“How do you know what I’m doing? You’re not me.”

“God you’re funny. Your breath’s all shaky.”

“What you expect when you’re in my space?”

Awan, in the midst of kissing his cheek nodded a bit, and took his arm away from the boy as he backed away. They stood like this in silence for a while. A breeze rattled all the plants yet Beav didn’t flinch.

“Beav, Jesus. Nobody will know. Honestly I just kinda need some--human affection or something. It’s rough out here,” Awan paused to see if Beav would interject. He continued, “I mean, God, I just need something to help me get by�"Oh s**t, I’m not gonna make you my b***h if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“Well that’s what your kind usually does.”

“What you mean?”

Beav avoided his eyes and kept his mouth shut.

“Beav what kind of ignorant s**t is this?” Awan paused. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re too little- I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you. You’re an ignorant virgin but you’re still a real nice kid and I sure owe you a few�"you’ve really grown on me.”

The boy cringed; Awan’s grown on him too, like a patch of lichen. Beav gave in and slowly turned his head to take a ginger look at the Navajo soldier. Awan took on a kind face when they met eyes, it made Beav crack a very small smile.

The longer they shared this tongue-tied glance, the more Beav began to doubt himself. He suddenly slapped his hands over his face.

“Beav?”

“I’m not a f*g, okay?”

“The f**k, Beav? “

“You’re not gonna turn me into a dirty f*g!” Beav’s hands shot down and he began to boil without warning. His locked eyes with the soldier, deciding to challenge him as that was the only way out.

“Quit tryin’ to be ugly, Beav!” Awan approached the boy, crossing his arms, standing strong like a bull, menacing and tall as a tree. “I know what you’re doin, you’re scared.”

“F**k you! I’m not scared!”

“Yeah you’re scared. If you’ve hated me this much this whole f****n’ time, nark on me why don’t ya? You’re not hard to read, Beav, you don’t have the balls.”

“F**k you, dirty f*g-f****t! F**k you!”

Awan and Beav’s faces were as close, as intimate as before. The soldier kept his voice low, and his eyes locked like a tiger. “Say whatever you want, it won’t bother me, kid. Trust me; I’ve heard everything from scared little twerps like you.”

Beav’s chest rose and fell as he seethed before the great big Navajo man. It was a familiar feeling he had. A feeling of trying to concentrate, compete, run for the coach while pop shouted from the sidelines to do better. Them and their station wagons, and their money. His pop kept shouting and hollering angry nothings into his chest like the rattle of a machine gun; he began to grind his teeth.

“Beav, I’m gonna leave you alone. I ain’t gonna touch you, or talk sweet to you. I’m not gonna rape you neither. You’re ‘specially scared of that, I know, kid.”

Beav spat in his face, “Suck dick in hell.”

“Oh come on, my Ama can do better than that!”

“I hope your dick falls off!”

“Try again you little prick!”

Blue shorts and hairy legs as white as a fish’s underside hit Beav in the back of the head. Beav roared like an angry schoolgirl, and shot out his hand like a viper, smacking Awan across the face.
The bang of skin against skin exploded like a runaway bomb.

For a minute, as Awan gained composure, the boys gawked at each other. After that, Beav was quickly punched to the ground, his teeth and the back of his head slamming like a bullet against the dirt. For a minute, everything went black, but soon enough the boy felt the blood gushing out of his nose, and looked up at the Navajo man looming over him.

Awan’s heart hurt while he watched Beav on the ground. He hurt his kid. Beav took a minute to feel the blood under his nose. Awan covered his mouth with his hand, as his intend wasn’t cruel, even though he was cruel never the less. Beav was so little, and to the boy, Awan looked like war and assault by sophomore boys.

Awan and Beav would thus explode.

The boy wasted no time to grab the ankles of Awan’s boots, pulling him down, his body slamming to the earth like a fallen tree, in order to straddle and slap the red skinned man in the face again. Beav held both of his arms between his elbow, hitting Awan over and over, though the soldier tried to keep his sense of decency and pride intact.

Another upward sock to the jaw almost knocked out one of Beav’s teeth. They proceeded to roll on the ground together, biting, hitting, and struggling like wild animals. All kinds of dry sticks accumulated in their clothes, their boots, their hair.

It went like this: Beav always ended up on the bottom as Awan held him down to the ground, as that was the Lord’s plan for him. Awan would try his best to hold Beav back as he smacked his face. A greater, angrier power possessed him. His jaw took on the appearance of a dog’s.

When Awan had enough, another heavy bunch to the skull came Beav’s way. They rolled in the dirt all over the place, and the boy panted and growled like a trapped raccoon. The air was red. Beav no longer saw Awan but saw the blond hair of a track mate. Helicopters hummed over his head and he began to panic.

Once finally on top, Awan was punched and slapped numerous times as Beav had lost his sight. Kill him. Make him into dirt. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Beav still wished somewhere deep inside himself, as he found it harder and harder to look away from Awan; the man who made him think of New Mexico and the heartbeat of another man.

Suddenly his rage subsided. They were still, and color had returned in their eyes.
The boys looked at each other like bulldogs.
Beside Awan’s face, bruised almost as purple as Beav’s, was the decomposing set of teeth of another man. Awan held his breath; the boys were tense. A skull of the soldier that once was touched the both of them. Black dirt lived inside all the holes and crevices of this stranger, white cob webbing over the eye socket. Long, broken, brown teeth like an amphetamine induced nightmare.

“Beav, stop--” Awan’s eyes were wide with terror, but the boy couldn’t move.

The leaves of the jungle were suddenly disturbed and began to rustle, and gave the two soldiers a start. A lone Vietcong boy covered in dirt emerged a few yards behind them, armed with nothing but a machine gun and skinny legs to run with. There were twigs and small leaves in his hair. There were rather expensive yet worn looking sandals on his feet.

He stumbled onto the side of a tree, clutching his mouth with one hand and holding his gun in the other, and bending over in pain. Strange enough this was a rather silent, rabbit-like boy; his injury was not vocalized in anyway.

Without a moment to lose, Awan squirmed from the hypnotic grasp of the skull, and pushed Beav over, knocking him down to the ground. Awan grabbed his rifle and immediately shot multiple times at the Vietcong boy, shooting to kill with the force of five BANGs. Awan’s face was unchanged, but this was also the case for the Vietcong boy. He hadn’t even flinched, and the bullets that had been so precisely aimed hadn’t even passed through his body.

Awan held his gun back, frightened as Beav was, blood seeping out of both of their noses
and their lips. This boy must have been some sort of ghost, because he didn’t even acknowledge the two soldier’s presence. He went about his business, pulling out a broken piece of mirror from a bag in his pocket to inspect his mouth. His long yellow teeth were bleeding like tomato guts.

Awan spun round, snatched Beav’s arm and made a run for it into the jungle, dragging the boy as he stared back in shock and confusion. It took great effort to run in the forest without your eyes on the ground, it’s a fantastic spectacle. Beav remembered one must always have his legs bend high, however ridiculous it may look.
The Vietcong boy remained where he was, gargling and spitting bloody water from his canteen into the dirt.

The boy’s faces were pulsating with pain, and a small trail of blood followed them on the ground. They stepped on several bodies of snakes as they ran, and they burst and died under their boots.

Eventually Beav caught up with Awan and they ran side by side for a while, until Beav tripped and fell face first into the ground, his teeth clanking in his head. His injured nose and his eye were electric with pain. The earth was like a massive hand.

“Get up!”

Awan pulled Beav from the ground so hastily that the boy’s neck was almost snapped backward. He briefly glimpsed behind to see it was a rope that tripped him, tied to some white trees that that were parallel from one another. In India, he thought, white trees were holy.
He looked up and saw a man, also of the Vietcong, perched in a tree like a bald eagle, wearing a large hat meant for work in a rice field. His machine gun hung loosely in his arms, and he scanned the area and looked past Awan and Beav as if they were born of thin air.

The soldiers continued running, as the wild pigs that live here in the jungle always run. The confusion and instinct to flee was coursing through their veins.

They came to a sudden halt under the slant of a huge, protective rock. The spinal cord of an animal lay decoratively on one of the smaller boulders below. Out of panic, almost as soon as the boys stopped, Beav threw away his anger and lunged at Awan’s sweet body.

His fingers locked behind Awan’s neck, and they both fell to the ground into one another, panting furiously.

“Awan�"“ Beav gasped, feeling the dirt and sticks of the forest poke at his back. Beav took one look in the soldier’s eyes, and began to bawl like a baby. His nose ran, his face went red and tight, it was the worst thing. Awan in turn through aside his gun, and returned the embrace. “Beav,” he said, “You okay?” All they had left were the undershirts on their backs, and Awan’s rifle that lay abandoned on the ground. Their thirst would creep on them quickly, and without their canteen, nothing could be done.

Beav couldn’t speak yet, so he forced Awan into the small of his neck, gasping for breath.
“What the hell happened kid�"it’s like we’re invisible or something crazy, right? Beav?” Awan lifted himself, kneeling into the dirt, carrying Beav up with him. He held his face against his collar bone and let him cry until he coughed up his balls. He made suffocating noises. Awan couldn’t stand the sound of it. “Oh Jesus kiddo calm down, it’s okay�"I’m sorry I hit you. I’m an idiot kid, I’m sorry.” A bit of blood from his nose fell on the back of Beav’s neck, but he didn’t mention this.

Beav was sorry too, but felt the euphoria of God all around him. The greens and browns, pinks, reds, yellows of the jungle all began to swirl around and glow like the wax in a lava lamp. Awan was in focus and he gained his composure. “I’m a queer, Awan,” Beav tried incredibly hard not to make the wrong breath, and blow his nose in all directions. “I’m a dang homosexual, man!”

“Shhh, Beav don’t say that out loud! Are you crazy?”

“Awan, I’m a queer! Holy s**t!” Suddenly Beav’s sobs turned into manic laughter, like the cackle of a cartoon witch. Awan panicked; he looked behind his back and then covered Beav’s mouth with his hand, muffling him.

“I know, kiddo. I know. Say it inside yourself, okay?”

Beav cackled under Awan’s hand, taking deep, laboring breaths, watching himself, and he slowly but surely came down again. A tightness in his chest was relieved, and the wind seemed to whisper inside his mind, I owe you everything Awan. A bit of blood dripped from Awan’s nose and onto Beav’s hand, and he bathed in it.

He led Awan back down to lie on the ground with him, cradling his face, letting his breath shake. It was then that their eyes locked, and Beav assumed that Awan was disgusted, seeing the worst in him. Awan’s eyebrows raised, and his big yellow eyes were different from any other man Beav had ever met. The boy recoiled when he saw the damage he had done to the soldier’s noble Indian face.

“Don’t let anyone else know for our sake Beav, nobody should know but me, okay?”

Beav nodded under him, controlling his sinuses with all his soul, his glasses crooked on his face. “I’m sorry if I get snot on you�"“ The boy’s were finally connected as the blood from their faces had mixed into each other. They were filled with oil paint.

“That’s the least of my worries, kiddo.”

Beav pulled the back of Awan’s neck in order to softly kiss him, and immediately the two stared back at each other after the fact. Beav’s eyes darted every which way, and then the soldier heavily sighed the sigh of a blue whale, as the overwhelming feeling to touch and kiss the boy crashed over him like a garbage tsunami.

“Oh Beav.”

Awan and the boy shared a deeper kiss. Beav loosened when the soldier affectionately cupped the side of his face. He became curious and at ease with a male in his space, and he pressed his hips forward, against the pelvis of Awan, but army surplus trousers separated them. Inside himself he pretended to be a woman.
The red panther was on the attack; Awan straddled the boy.

Their gentle tennis match was a beautiful sort of haze, like the light of a car passing by at midnight. Like the National Anthem and feeling of isolation after WTBS signed off for the evening. Beav heard sounds of sex in the cosmos; the guitar strings of Jimmi Hendrix, and all the things he used to imagine on acid. The soldier was a firm yet soft place to land in; his entire being was one big phallic symbol. All guns, all planes, and all nuclear missiles are phallic symbols.
Somewhere a young American’s arm was ripped clean off.

In another place, a small girl was burnt alive and men in white uniforms rushed to throw water on her, and roll her body in sand.

Awan quickly peeled off his undershirt, riddled with mysterious blood stains, and then proceeded to bite and kiss down Beav’s neck, who clung to his strong Navajo back.

“I sound like a lady.” Beav labored his words as he listened to his own lungs deflate; he was moaning, vocalizing gentle pleasure in a man’s mouth on his skin.

“Oh, You do.” purred the soldier. Their hearts were pounding and it hurt their sweet souls.

A strange bird made a loud, koo-koo-ing noise somewhere nearby, but Beav heard only himself. Awan’s breath was warm, and his kisses grew gentler as he worked his way down. It was a wonderful feeling to knead his fingers through the soldier’s crew cut. Awan made soft, male sounds in Beav’s ear, and it sounded like the ocean.

The soldier trailed nibbles down to his collar bone, and slipped his hand over the groin of Beav’s trousers, feeling the erection that was undeniably there and growing stronger. A mass of humid flesh and pubic hair that smelled awful, but that was alright. It was a time of war. Everyone smelled awful.

Mushrooms were blossoming in Beav’s prostate, lungs, and kidneys. It was a sign of good fortune. As this happened they were enveloped in a haze of pastel colors. It was warm, and it was comforting.

They kissed each other deeply, and their bodies melded together, turning into a single crocodile. It crawled away down into its pond, the monster’s beak made from the intimate faces of the two men. All of ‘Nam grew in a heavy green, burning mass on its back.

Father watched from behind the leaves in the jungle like a phantom, crouching, waiting, and crying.

They finished their lovemaking some time later, walking very slowly through the forest, side by side, Awan’s rifle hanging passively by his hip, acting as if there was nothing to fear. They felt free in many ways, especially without the burden of knapsacks, equipment, and the like. They hadn’t been hungry in days. Awan threw an arm over the shoulder of his lover, helping the boy who walked with jerky, uneasy motion.

The need to march on was very faint within them; they stopped to rest frequently, wherever they could, feeling quite alright with being part of the jungle as their fate. Pointless roaming was their marriage. They sat on a large rock in an area where the ground became soft and marshy, the bugs flew wild and the bullfrogs croaked like moaning baritone men. They looked up, and felt a wave of existential despair; A dead, mutilated American soldier hung from a tree, but he was nothing more but meat, blood, uniform, and a yellow spinal column. The work of a merciless land mine.
They watched it, their faces met, and they held each other, enveloping their bodies into a ball of terror. But they were soon comforted. Awan pressed his naked chest on Beav’s back, and held him like a doll.

That’s where they made love a second time. Their handprints were imprinted like chalk in stone.

The marsh went on into a small river, deep and wide enough to be worth a damn. The water was sparkling grey, and bitterly cold. Spots of sunlight littered the marshland, riddled with blooming skunk cabbage, and swarms of mosquitoes. That’s where the boy settled, contemplating the loss of their belongings. Beav kept the memory of his sketchbook close to his heart. Goodbye my friend, I’ll never forget you.

Beav sat between Awan’s thighs on the edge of the babbling river with their hairy legs dangling in the water, stark naked, bushels of giant green leaves hanging over their heads. They washed the dirt and blood off their faces, revealing the wounds they had inflicted on each other. Awan’s nose was crooked, possibly broken, but it was too soon to tell. The pain was dull, yet persistent. The cracked lens in Beav’s glasses was long gone, and the eye below the frame had turned purple and swollen shut.

They sat together very quietly, lost in contemplation, becoming centered with the jungle that surrounded them, allowing their beings to be vulnerable before each other. Beav rested the back of his head on Awan’s collarbone, watching the water. In turn, Awan’s arm tenderly wrapped around Beav’s body, like a python. His face was buried in the small of Beav’s neck. He kissed the side of his face, starving to death.

“I wish we had some weed, don’t you?” Awan insisted in a gentle tone, his breath warm on his ear.

Beav began to laugh, only to himself. “Wanna know something dumb?”

“You know it, kiddo.”

“I’ve never smoked weed in my life.”

Awan bit his neck ever so slightly, in order to make Beav laugh a little, and it worked. “I have no idea how you managed to pull that off.” He gently bit the boy’s neck again. “You smell really good.”

“What’re you talking about? I haven’t taken a bath in forever, I smell like s**t!”

“No you don’t.”

Beav was a beaming mess, and reminded the soldier of a certain kind of sunflower he couldn’t name. The boy slid off the edge they rested on and stood in the rushing water, curious, his pelvis hidden. He looked down wide eyed and full of childish wonder; it had been so long since he had been touched by cold water. It was the best, cleanest thing he experienced in a long time. Before Beav waded further into the water, Awan grabbed his hand, and removed the boy’s glasses.

“Don’t let me float away, Awan.” Said Beav.

“I won’t sweets, I gotcha.” The soldier clasped Beav’s hand as he inched further into the water. Beav’s fingers skimmed the surface. He then dunked in his head and his back, and quickly shot back up like a dolphin. He gasped with animalistic pleasure as the water from the river cleansed him, ridding him of the dirt and sweat that built up on his skin for weeks. ‘New Baptism’ would be a good name for a band, he thought.

“Hey, lookit you! You’re like a little uh�"“Awan twirled his free hand, searching for the word, “�"a water nymph.”

Beav smiled like a toddler smiles. He swished his way back towards Awan but didn’t rise out of the water. The boy’s arms were held forward like a toddler, and Awan tenderly pulled him in, and they loosely held each other.

As Beav kept his head down, the freedom to explore Awan’s body washed through him as the leaves in the water built up against his hip. The boy traced his fingers along and felt Awan’s chest, his abdomen, his groin, his thighs, spiritual energy coming from all of these places. The soldier was deep and red like the Grand Canyon, symbol of all Indians to all little white boys. He wanted to ride a horse and pound his hand to his open mouth over and over again, riding down Awan’s stomach. He wanted to paint blue circles around the eyes of mammoth donkeys under the blue sky, under the canopy of the soldier’s thighs. He wanted to drink the tears in his eyes, and be hydrated forever.

“How you doin’, Beav? You okay?”

“Yeah, I feel good.”

“Ai, ai! That tickles, quit it.” Awan’s abdomen caught a tremor as Beav’s fingers ran it over. The soldier took the boy’s hand in his. The soldier breathed, “Oh Beav.”

The boy’s insides were aching, and sitting wasn’t easy anymore. He kissed Awan softly on both sides of his injured nose as he saw many Italian mothers do so back home. His own mother kisses on both sides.
Beav’s hips moved in a strange way, making him wince.

“My guts hurt.” Moaned Beav.

“I know. That usually happens, it’s normal. You alright?”

“Oof, yeah I’m alright.”

Awan’s face hurt from smiling, “I’m sorry, Beav. You’re good. You’re a good one, you.” He gently bit Beav’s earlobe. They were naked as animals are, and became a part of Vietnam, it was only natural.
Suddenly Awan caught Beav staring at something beyond the trees like a deer in headlights. He didn’t make one remark about what he saw-he only stayed still and listened very closely.

“What’s the matter?” Awan raised his neck high, trying to hear as well.

“I’m hearing voices.”

“What kinda voices?”

“They’re talking about grabbing things; they’re American voices, Awan.”

Beav jumped out of the water with the help of his lover. They quickly collected their pants, their boots, and the one rifle to be shared between them. They followed the river, Awan leading the boy by the hand, until the river spilled into what looked like a long lake. The water progressively became as smooth as glass, green gunk accumulating on the surface. White butterflies returned, greeting them amongst the patches of skunk cabbage on the other side of the water, quickly growing further apart and disappearing into nothingness.

Past a thin layer of trees were a few American and South Vietnamese soldiers lingering around the edge of a lake. The sun was out, and gave everything and almost heavenly white glow. The anticipation for dry clothes alone made Beav’s stomach swell with happiness. He turned to Awan with a big old happy smile, like those kids in Ovaltine commercials.

“Oh my God we found them! I can see the NCO, he’s alright!”

Beav’s excitement dissipated when he turned to see Awan’s face; his mirth was gone, and he sighed before speaking to him. “Beav, if we go back, we can’t be like we are.”

Beav remembered that. His hands rested against a tree in distress, now itching to hold onto his freedom. He glanced at the familiar soldiers across the lake. He thought of melting into the jungle, becoming a crocodile, to be lost forever, to be just a legend and to live wild with Awan until they eventually were killed.

“We gotta keep us a secret or our lives are over back at home. We gotta lay low.”

“Awan, I don’t know if I can do that--”

“You have to. If you don’t we’re fucked. We’re fucked.” By Awan’s waist was the white trunk of a tree, and he gently touched it with both hands, like the torso of another man. “They’d f**k us, man.”

A flash of yellow tile hovered before Beav’s eyes. “I’m in love with you, Awan.”

“No you’re not. Trust me, you’re not.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Because I’ve been around a few times.” Awan turned to take a longer look at his kid. “Beav, I wanna go home and just, you know, let myself be sad about everything without worrying about getting blown up or some s**t, kiddo. You know-- I want to get mail from my mother, and I want to feel some sort of bed sheet again. I wanna be safe, man. I keep playing this scenario over and over in my head of what I’d do if I explode from a mine or someshit. I practice thinking of the life I had and what exploding meat pieces will feel like so when it happens it won't be so bad. I’m terrified, man! I want to go home, I don’t want that s**t to follow me anymore! Beav, if you loved me, you’d want that for me too. You know what I mean?”

As the boy observed the soldier, a familiar sense of betrayal wafted in the air, like being shot between the ribs.
Beav then stumbled forward, fell onto Awan’s sternum, and pressed his face into him, groping onto his back.

“You know what kiddo, I want that for you.” Awan said as his arms curled around the boy, running his fingers through his hair. The smell of urine was rising like plutonium out of the lake.

“Awan,” the boy lifted his head, meeting eyes with the soldier, and Awan in turn cupped his hands around Beav’s ears. “You’re gonna act like you never knew me, aren't you? Please don’t do that. Holy s**t, please--”

“Beav, you don’t gotta worry, you’re always gonna be my kid. I promise I won’t about forget you.”

The soldier’s breathed on each other’s faces. “I love you, man.”

“Kid, you’re out of your element. You know nothing about me.”

Never the less Beav and the soldier continued to tightly embrace, and kiss each other over and over. Their boots were sinking into the mud, and American voices of comrades that would mock them if they witnessed the scene echoed inside their bodies.
The boy, enveloped in red skin, body odor, and warmth, wanted to lament how much the soldier had freed him, and how much he no longer was a human, but a wild Vietnamese boar. Wild, hairy, angry and free from all humanly burdens.

The boy’s bodies were closer than sex,; one could absorb the other. One soldier could swallow the other whole, and walk around the mine fields, pregnant, until the war was over. Awan pondered it, and then kissed the boy.
They shared a deep, strong kiss only two soldiers were strong enough to do, drinking in every nano second on the pretense that it wouldn’t end. They were aggressive inside each other, until the distant sound of a chopper melted into the air.
The faces of dead women with their skin ripped off, red and black as they lay bottomless in the dirt entered the boy’s minds, and they broke their kiss and looked at each other. Their faces were the worst.

Awan swallowed, scratched Beav’s hair, then took his little virgin hand. “Time to go, okay?”

Beav nodded, as the soldier slowly began to pull him out into the daylight. It felt clammy, unnatural and sad. Their fingers interlocked blindly, a gentle squeeze given from Awan’s red hand to its white and frail counterpart.

Beav let himself be pulled toward a hard strip of naked land that ran beside the lake, to be exposed to the men on the other side. The boy clamped onto the soldier like a sloth, but he felt skin sliding against skin. Soon Beav’s hand was empty, and they were exposed; Beav saw Awan’s red skin glow in the sunlight with a strong neck like a stallion, a neck to grab onto and ride naked like lady Godiva. It was the most horrible thing to think about. If Beav gave into the will of the universe, grabbed his neck, and touched him like he wanted to, the country, and Awan himself, would never forgive him.

Awan then continued to lead alone, just as he always does. Beav on the other hand, felt a limb had been severed from his body. He tried to see his face in the surface of the lake, as his inflamed eye was burning. What horrible evidence of his distress was he expressing?
The lake was covered in a familiar green sludge, so the only face he saw clearly was Awan’s. It made him feel sick.

“Hey! Guys we found you! Hey!” Awan cupped his hands around his mouth to shout at his comrades from across the lake. Beav’s eyes were locked on him.

The men across the lake lingered at the edge of the water, white cloths being held over their mouths and noses. The one South Vietnamese soldier was prodding at the water with a long rod, made of iron and wood, with a large hook like a badger claw at the end. They did not bat an eye, nor raise a question of concern.

“Hey! A******s! Eyes forward, quit trying to be funny! You’re not f*****g funny!” Awan then turned to Beav, who forced his head down to look at his shoes, and the pale emerald gunk that occupied the entire surface of the lake.
“Jesus we’re right f*****g here, I can’t believe this s**t, Beav.”

“Awan, this is the lake you fell in, remember?”

Awan raised his brows. “Oh yeah, s**t, it is�"we went in a big circle.”

“What are they pulling up with that hook?”

The Asian boy began to drag the body of an American soldier up on the shore, and with a white planter’s glove, the short statured NCO bent over to grope for his dog tag.
Beav looked upon that dead soldier across the lake; his face was mutilated, looking as if it had been impaled by several long iron needles, the entire body was a bit bloated and muddy, as it retained water; and its skin, though a bit transparent, was unmistakably red. He heard the faint declaration of “Rodriguez” uttered by the NCO, who looked over the bullet wounds which made an identical pattern to Awan’s own undershirt, which he had left behind.

“Oh s**t, man! Awan, that’s not you, is it?” Beav’s gaze shot to Awan, desperate for an explanation.
Though his comrade did nothing but stare in horror at the body of the soldier, with a hand over his mouth.

“Awan?” The boy’s breathing became heavy, but all Awan did was take the hand from his face, and slowly begin to point across the lake. His finger hovered there like a tree limb; it must have been the most eerie thing Beav had ever witnessed; the worst feeling he ever felt in his life.

He turned his head back to the soldiers and felt a stabbing sensation in his chest when another body was pulled from the water. The body of a scrawny, dweeby white kid laid there before him, blue and waterlogged, baring bullet holes that mimicked the spots of blood on his own undershirt. The body of a suburban kid that was too square to say ‘groovy’.

“Oh no-- Joseph DeWinkler--Poor kid.” Beav heard the NCO mutter under his breath.

The moment Beav turned his head back to his side for support from his comrade; he found that Awan had vanished without a trace. It was as if his electrons had burst, and he was no longer a man, a solid being. He was energy, but he was no longer there.

“Awan?” Beav looked from side to side frantically. “Awan?! Oh s**t, Awan!” He fell to his knees, holding his head with both hands, igniting. Awan’s face was flashing in his mind, smiling, always smiling. “Awan! Oh God oh s**t, where are you?! Awan!”

Across the lake, the NCO and the boy soldier had recorded what was written on the boy’s dog tags. A slight breeze suddenly rustled through the North Vietnam jungle. Nobody could express how good a breeze felt, though it blew the handkerchief the stout little NCO man was using to cover his nose and mouth, and it sank into the gunky green water.

Across that lake, on that strip of firm land reaching out from the jungle, there was no one there at all.
The two soldiers were only air.

They were the humidity, the putrid smell of the lake, the bright red dragonflies, the sweat and blood, and the croaking of the bullfrogs.

They had never suspected that all along, they were nothing.

Somewhere in Washington D.C. meanwhile, President Richard Nixon had fallen asleep in his chair. Two little stick figures in helmets occupied his yellow legal pad, standing proud and crude atop all his curly writing. The room was silent, and the room was shaded by the rainy day outside and the approaching dusk. The sound of a grandfather clock ticked softly, the rain pitter-pattered on the large, presidential windows, and our nation’s prince snored like a big, white whale. God bless him.
Goodnight, bless you sweet boys.



End

Author's Note

Wrote this when I was younger, so it's really not great. I've never experienced war before, so in no way is this a masterpiece nor is it to be taken seriously. Enjoy anyway, i you want to.

Reviews

[Belle]

I did enjoy it, very much so! Can't comment on military accuracy, but in terms of written accuracy - it's stunning. It's got such a pervasive, steamy atmosphere, like the Vietnamese jungle. There's such a sense of futility - the futility of war, I think, like in a Wilfred Owen poem. This is exceptionally good (but writers know in their own minds when they're happy with a piece).