Summer of '69 Page 17

  7/12/69

  Loogie,

  I’m so tired of trying to make it through each day alive. It’s hell over here. WE ARE NEVER GONNA WIN THIS WAR. Everyone knows it. Everyone’s just trying to stay alive until they can get out.

  To make it worse I got the worst case of jungle rot. Everyone’s got it on their hands and feet. Your toes itch like crazy and the skin between them melts down to the red and oozes all the time. Now I got it in my crotch too. They tell us to practice good foot hygiene with air drying and powder. Whatever fucktard military desk jockey came up with that crap never spent a week tromping through rice paddies with the temperature at 120 degrees and 95% humidity. I can’t even remember the last time my feet were dry. Powder? The second you shake it out of the bottle, it turns into white mud.

  And how am I supposed to air dry my crotch? WALK AROUND THE BASE BAREASS NAKED?

  But that’s typical of what’s wrong with everything here. You got the brass hats sitting in air-conditioned offices in Washington that don’t know shit about what it’s like here. Probably they don’t want to know.

  You know all that stuff you used to say about military contracts going to the lowest bidder and American companies getting rich while they sell the army crap gear? You were so right, Loogs. The gooks have Russian AK-47s — a hundred times better weapon than our M-16s that jam all the time and need constant cleaning. The other day a squad got wiped out near here and when the rescue teams brought back the bodies and gear guess what? HALF THE RIFLES WERE JAMMED!

  When our weapons aren’t jamming, we get blown up by land mines and fall into punji stick booby traps that are so sharp they go right through the bottom of your boot.

  Know what a punji pit is? The VC dig holes about 4 or 5 feet deep with punji sticks sticking up from the bottom. They cover the top of the hole with tree branches and grass. You can’t see them on night patrol. Guys fall in and get impaled. And the VC cover the sticks with animal shit so the wounds get good and infected.

  So many guys refuse to go on night patrol now that if they court-martialed all of us there’d be NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT THIS STUPID WAR. A LT got fragged the other night for ordering his men to go out to the perimeter. I felt bad about that. The guy was a dick for sure, but I heard he had a wife and kids back home.

  It’s so friggin hard to live like this. If it wasn’t for Thai stick and horse I would seriously think of offing myself. A guy in the next company did it. Hung himself from a lychee tree so everyone saw him hanging there in the morning.

  Can’t say I blame him.

  What’s the latest with your draft status? DON’T EVER LET YOURSELF GET SENT OVER HERE, MY FRIEND.

  Peace,

  Chris

  Dear Chris,

  Every time I get one of your letters I’m just glad you’re alive (even though I know it sucks over there big-time). Man, the stories you tell tear me up inside. So that squad that got wiped out was being attacked and in the middle of it their guns stopped working? It’s unbelievable! I mean, it’s bad enough that the government has decided it’s all right if you die as long as ten VC also croak, but the same government giving you crap weapons to fight with? That is some seriously fucked-up shit.

  I hope the talk about offing yourself isn’t serious, man. I know it totally sucks over there, but it’s not forever. Every day you stay alive you’re one day closer to coming back. And careful with the horse, okay? Remember what I said. You don’t want to get to the point where you’re injecting. Promise me you won’t do that. . . .

  In the wee sleepless hours, my anxious thoughts once again drift to Robin. Did she really not have time to see me the morning she left for Lake Juliette? Or did she simply not want to? Is it possible that a friend of hers saw me with Tinsley at the Planting Fields and wrote to her about it? Doubtful. The Planting Fields freaks aren’t her friends’ types.

  The apprehension of waiting for her letter is unceasingly wearying. Should I call her again tomorrow? No. Acting desperate won’t help at this point. I wish I could sleep. Wish I could do anything but lie here in the dark, thinking.

  But when Mary Five-Fingers comes a-calling, it’s Tinsley I fantasize about.

  Alone in his room

  With music low.

  Sneak a toke

  Out the window.

  Get off, jerk off, stare off,

  Wonder what brand of shit

  Will hit the fan next.

  7/26/69

  Dear Lucas,

  There’s something I haven’t told you, but now I have to. There’s someone else. His name is Samuel and I’ve known him for a long time. He’s from Montreal and used to go to the boys’ camp across the lake. Now he’s a counselor like me. Until this year, it’s always been an innocent summer thing between us. But this summer it’s changed and gotten more serious. I’m not sure why, or what it means for the future. Next month he’s going to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

  I know you must be angry, but I want you to know that when you and I started going out last fall, I felt like I was going to be with you from then on. Being with Samuel never entered my thoughts. I had so much hope for you and me, that’s all I thought about.

  But now I know that I wasn’t seeing things clearly. I didn’t think the drugs and your lack of direction were that important. Like I’ve said before, I thought I could help you with those issues.

  But it didn’t work out that way. You didn’t want help. You didn’t want to, or maybe couldn’t, change. In a way, I respect that about you, Lucas. But as you know, even before I left for camp this summer I’d begun to have second thoughts. There are so many things I love about you. You’re kind and funny, serious about your beliefs, and smarter than you give yourself credit for. I think a lot of your issues, including the low self-esteem you sometimes feel, are a result of you blaming yourself for things that have happened in your family that aren’t your fault.

  I hope that someday soon you’ll figure things out and give yourself the credit you deserve. I hope you’re doing something about not getting drafted. Seriously, Lucas, don’t put it off. Do something while there’s time.

  That’s really all I wanted to say. I know it must come as an awful shock. I’m truly sorry about that, but it’s taken some time for me to get a handle on how I’m feeling. Even now I’m not completely sure. It’s hard to imagine that this thing with Samuel will last when he’ll be so far away next year. I’m trying not to think too much about the future.

  And as I said, in many ways I do still love you.

  Robin

  Mom stands in the doorway of my room, arms crossed, staring at the fist-size dent in the wall with a small hole at its center. She heard the muffled thump and came to investigate. The knuckles of my right hand throb.

  Robin’s isn’t the only letter I found on my desk this afternoon. The other was from Rudy, with the information on “the proper way” to cut off a finger. I’m not sure why I read it after reading Robin’s letter. Was I in shock? Denial? Simply unable to immediately digest Robin’s devastating news? (Robin with another guy? Someone she’s known for a long time? Someone she knew she’d be seeing this summer? Was she thinking about him when she said there wouldn’t be time to see me the morning she left for camp?)

  Rudy’s letter has come with a smudged and wrinkled piece of mimeographed paper that I assume I’m supposed to pass along to the next desperate draft resister who’s considering self-mutilation.

  Unless you happen to be in possession of a miniature guillotine, a proper finger-lopping requires three participants. (Don’t bother asking a doctor for help. There’s something called the Hippocratic oath.) Participant number one supplies the doomed digit, laying his hand palm side up on a wooden cutting board that’s been thoroughly doused with alcohol. Participant number two positions the sterilized, super-sharpened knife over the joint between the intermediate and proximal phalanges of participant number one’s ring finger. Participant number three holds the brick, rock, or other suitably heav
y object that he will slam down on the knife’s spine.

  Have plenty of antiseptic on hand. An elastic tourniquet to slow the bleeding is optional. (Apparently no one’s ever bled out after losing a finger.)

  Idly, I stood in front of the wall, my first clenched and drawn back, blocking thoughts of Robin from my head, imagining instead asking Milton and Arno to assist (the only question was who would pass out first), and wondering how much pain I could stand.

  But the momentous impact of Robin’s letter began to sink in. I started to think of how I wished I could be angry at her. How much I wanted to be angry at her. But I couldn’t muster the oomph. It was my own goddamn fault. Why hadn’t I taken her hints — about drugs and school — more seriously? Why couldn’t I have tried a little harder to be the person she wanted me to be?

  It wouldn’t have taken much of an effort.

  I’d blown it. Lost the best girl I ever had. The only one I’d ever loved. I wondered if I should write back. Could I beg her to give me one last chance? She did write that in a lot of ways she still loved me.

  And she didn’t say she loved Samuel.

  But she’s so levelheaded and thoughtful. So circumspect and deliberate. She had to know the effect the letter would have, which means she wouldn’t have sent it unless she was sure. Besides, upon careful review, one could see where to read between the lines: There’s something I haven’t told you, but now I have to.

  Why now? Take a wild guess.

  It’s always been an innocent summer thing between us. But this summer it’s changed and gotten more serious.

  She’s with him, soul and body.

  That’s when my fist made blunt contact with the bedroom wall.

  It hurts like hell. Note to self: when chopping off finger, take plenty of painkillers first.

  Standing in the doorway, Mom looks from the dent in the wall to me. “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I nod, even though we both know I’m not.

  Late at night, Icarusfish flails through liquid space toward the blurry yellow sun cemented in the sky blue ahead. His eyes sting and his lungs are starting to burn. Can Icarusfish get there before he runs out of air? He no longer recalls why, exactly, he wants to get there. Was it to prove that he wouldn’t melt?

  To see if he would?

  But this body is not built for underwater travel. Its spastic, gangly unstreamlined arms and legs hinder forward progress. What he needs is a tail.

  A pale dolphin torpedoes into the water, leaving a trail of shimmering mercury bubbles. The dolphin becomes a squid with long golden tentacles. The tentacles become billowing yellow hair. The dolphin/squid becomes a mermaid with pink nipples and dark pubic hair.

  Icarusfish kicks to the surface and gasps for breath. In his lungs, a zillion tiny red roses open to accept the fresh chlorine-scented night air. Icarusfish’s vision is a wavy rainbow kaleidoscope blur.

  Cousin Itt from The Addams Family surfaces nearby. Golden hair clings to his head, covering his face. Cousin Itt parts the hair and becomes Mermaid Tinsley. Tears drip down her face and off her chin.

  “Your hairline is crying,” Icarusfish tells her.

  Treading water requires effort, coordination, and concentration. The jointed appendages attached to Icarusfish’s body fail to work in the specific disjointed unison necessary to keep his head above water. Icarusfish feels his chin, then lips, start to slide under.

  “Here.” Tinsley pushes a pink raft to him. Lucas holds on while she tows him to the side of the pool, where he grabs the fat chrome ladder and climbs out. Tinsley follows. From the ends of her hair, sparkling streams run down her sides and back. The ridge of vertebrae along her spine is reptilian. Will she evolve into a bird? Will her skinny, jointed appendages grow feathers? Will she become a seagull tossing I Ching coins with an orange claw?

  Tinsley wraps herself in a big white towel and becomes Tinsley Polar Bear on a chaise lounge. Lucas stands wet and naked before her. Tiny droplets cling to the dark hairs around his nipples. Farther down in a dark shrub of pubic hair, his shriveled penis is hardly visible. “Pathetic penis,” Lucas complains, and he starts to shiver.

  “You’re cold.” Tinsley hands me a thick square of white terry cloth that unfolds into a towel. The post-swim chill has clipped my fins and returned me to the mortal coil (though hopefully not for long). I pull the towel around my shoulders and settle onto the lounge next to hers.

  Beneath the shimmering surface of the pool, the sky-blue walls billow. Rays of pool light separate into incandescent jiggling jellyfish. Tinsley dries her hands, places two cigarettes in her lips, lights both, and hands one to me. Multiple glowing-red afterimages follow. The red tracer tip pulsates when I inhale. The Federal Trade Commission orders the zillions of tiny red roses in my lungs to fold closed until further notice.

  This acid is amazing. As pure and unadulterated as any I have ever experienced. It came from the small glass vial Red-Eyed Clyde placed in my hand after the Led Zep concert. Yesterday, when Arno gave me the vial, it appeared empty except for the faintest dusting inside. Arno told me to wet the base of a paper match, make one small swipe along the inside of the vial, then eat the moistened paper.

  An hour ago, when Tinsley and I took the acid, we couldn’t even see the chemical clinging to the wet match. But Arno had warned that if there was enough to see, it was far too much to take.

  On the lounges beside the pool, Tinsley and I are pupae in white cocoons, smoking glowing red-tipped tracerettes. For the first time in astronomic history, waves of green, yellow, and purple northern lights wash across the dark night sky above Long Island. The gurgling pool filters are witches’ bubbling cauldrons. The outdoor lights are swirling pastel funnels. The lounges are life rafts on a boundless sea of phantasmagoria.

  When I reach over to take Tinsley’s hand, she squeezes and then lets go. I’m hip to that. At a trip’s apex, touching is dangerous. A hand becomes a spider and crawls up an arm. Fingers blend together and become inseparable. It was Tinsley who suggested skinny-dipping. Thoughts of sex have periodically skipped through my acid-infused synapses, but it’s out of the question right now. We can’t even hold hands without it getting mucho weird.

  Far above the Arctic Circle, lonely Robin shivers in an icy igloo. Samuel of the North in his caribou parka and polar bear chaps has been gone for weeks, plodding among icebergs, clubbing baby seals to death. Lucas the Narwhal swims under the ice pack beneath Robin’s igloo, wishing his unicorn tusk could break through to save her from her frigid solitary Canadian existence, but the permafrost around her heart is too thick.

  On the lounge beside me, a tear slides out of Tinsley’s eye. A real tear, not pool water. “I’m okay,” she says.

  I appreciate that she knows to reassure me. That she’s handling whatever is causing the tears. She’s a good tripping partner. It’s like getting on a tennis court with someone you’ve never played with before and discovering that you’re well matched.

  Somewhere in a family photo album is a picture of a towheaded toddler in a diaper, holding a child-size tennis racket under one arm and a tennis ball in his pudgy little hand. Thus from infancy is young Lucas groomed. Year-round lessons, a few weeks of tennis camp every summer. Musclini drags him out of bed at seven on weekend mornings to hit tennis balls. This, young Lucas will eventually realize, serves a dual purpose: practice for him and extra warm-up time for his father so that he’ll have an advantage over whomever he is scheduled to do battle with at eight.

  Mom is the reader in the family, but over the years, the books on the shelves in the den give way to ever-multiplying tennis trophies. Dad reads, too, but only about strategy and winning. (At the country club, his name is annually inscribed in gold letters on the champions plaques — singles, doubles, mixed doubles. Young Lucas is often introduced as Richard Baker’s son.)

  Lucas is eleven when Mom is assigned to drive him to regional tennis tournaments. Dad’s goal is for his son to earn a tennis ranking in the twelve-and-under categ
ory. (Lucas can recall winning only one match — against a kid who clearly hated being there even more than Lucas did.)

  Actually, Lucas likes tennis. It’s fun to play with his friends. Fun to race after a ball and make a good return. Fun to come to the net for a winning put-away. At the country club, he plays with Arno and pre–Rat Fink Johnny. They’re on the courts for hours, rallying, trying out trick shots, and sometimes doing wacky stuff like seeing who can smack the ball the highest and farthest. They make up games like double-court doubles, where there are four on a side and you can hit the ball anywhere as long as it’s in one of the two courts. Many a summer evening, they play until it’s too dark to see, then lie down and stare up into the starry heavens, the residual heat from the sun-blasted courts warming their backs.

  But Lucas hates the tournaments his father sends him to, which always feel weighty and crucial. Where the only thing that matters is winning. The more pressure to win, the more he chokes during important points. Then he gets down on himself and chokes even more until he’s trapped in a downward spiral and can barely get a ball over the net.

  The only way to save face is to convince himself that he doesn’t care. He forgets the score, lets his mind drift instead of concentrating on the game, serves into the wrong box, tries ridiculous trick shots. Anything to demonstrate to himself and the world that winning isn’t important.

  At home, the paterfamilias gives him books about strategy, about how to develop a winner’s mind-set. Lucas skims them, but they don’t help. They’re all about winning, and he is not a winner.