| General Fiction posted January 8, 2022 | Chapters: |
...9 10 -11- 12... 
|
  |
Lee is going further into the Bunker.
A chapter in the book Concertina
Not a place to be.
by Yardier
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
| Background Lee Morason is a Vietnam veteran with the aftereffects of combat clouding his view of life. He avoids the symptoms and denies he is heading to a psychological and spiritual break down. |
"Check this out, Lee." Zip snapped his thumb and forefinger, igniting a small yellow flame atop his finger like a birthday candle. He held his empty bourbon glass up to the ceiling with the tip of his finger flickering softly and toasted. "To those I missed… may their lips never be kissed."
He smiled a wicked smile and winked at Lee and, with a slight puff, blew the flame out and said, "You should have seen those slopes Di-Di-Mau out of the tunnels at Cu Chi when they saw my finger coming. It was like they thought I was some kind of timeless fire demon or god or some such paranoid bullshit."
"I thought you said you were an M-2 humper buster?" Lee asked.
"Ya true, wouldn't want ta lie 'bout that. It's not good, ya know, to lie about one's military service. But, I did do my soldiery part, so to speak, to light the way soz the tunnel rats could flush those commie bastards out and leave them smoldering in a rice paddy. I mean, as frustrating as it was, life was simple back then." Zip looked wistfully into the clouded mirror. "And hotter too. I like the heat. I like it so hot sweat evaporates before becoming sheen, but that isn't the case now. Something's changed, affecting the environment and all. It's just a little too cool for me these days. I'd like to raise the temperature a few more degrees just to keep things honest, if you know what I mean."
Lee caught Zip looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Ya, sure." Lee gulped down another beer wondering why he found himself agreeing with Zip, lying really. It disturbed him.
Zip continued to push the conversation while reminiscing about Monks who burned their selves to death in Saigon. "Immolation, who does that shit but a crazy Buddist gook. They didn't even get to enjoy it. Hell, I'd ah done it for nothing. I bet they regret wasting the gas on their shaved head, right?"
"Don't have a clue," Lee said as he glanced around the crowded bar and wondered why 'Fire Exit' signs weren't posted.
Zip continued, "Wouldn't that just be dandy, if one could remain clueless, no harm, no foul, right? Be a fence rider forever, but someone's got to pay the devil, and as much as I've tried, I'm still coming up a little short." Zip leaned in close to Lee with a tortured face and clutched Lee's forearm and, with feigned sincerity, asked, "Say, brother, can you spare a dime?"
Lee chuckled nervously, motioned for another beer, and tried to avoid the odor of Zip's terrible breath. "Sure, as long as you don't mind MPC, but right now I've got to take a piss."
"MPC, now that's funny. I haven't heard that in a while." Zip let go of Lee's forearm and laughed while pointing at what looked to be a side exit out of the bar and said, "The head's right over there, troop."
Lee swigged half the beer down, slid off the barstool, readjusted his balance compass, and took what he thought was going to be the first step toward relief.
He pushed his way through the crowd of veterans toward a greasy plywood door autographed with hundreds of military unit names scrawled haphazardly over the years with drunken hands that obscured the word, 'HEAD'. He stepped inside the small water closet, which barely provided enough room to squeeze by the flimsy plywood door. The back of the door revealed a felt pen drawing of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse jumping their steeds over a stone wall toward the viewer. Someone with less skill had defaced the drawing with crude letters of unsolicited advice; YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!
The advice was an understatement.
A small dim light revealed the water closet had been built as an extension of the main building with rough concrete blocks stacked and grouted unevenly. The uneven concrete floor, wet with urine and water, revealed a simple 'pisser' and nothing more. Lee avoided leaning against the rusty urinal as the sound of his piss dribbling into the filthy trough joined with the sound of rain dripping off the corrugated tin roof onto the greasy alley. This discordant liquid composition seemed familiar, inviting, almost comfortable. Maybe things are going to calm down, he thought.
After relieving himself, the slight movement of a Gecko near the small two-foot by two-foot ventilation opening drew his attention to a faint cry rising from the alley. Lee reached up, gripped the rusty security bars, and pulled himself up on his tiptoes for a better look as a wet cat darted across the alley into a pile of trash. He listened intently for the cry but could only hear soft melodic sounds of Vietnamese music coming from an open door or window in the distance. The Gecko skootched to the edge of the opening and looked down the alley, then back at Lee. It cocked its head as if waiting for Lee to say something, but Lee could not see anybody, much less hear a baby cry; maybe it was the cat.
"Did you hear something, Lee?" The Vietnamese voices whispered in his head.
Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door! "Hey, man, you gonna take all night? I'm about to blow a kidney here!"
The Gecko darted into the shadows of the urinal.
Startled, Lee turned quickly and fumbled the latch open and faced a fat, red-faced veteran with purple lipstick smeared on his neck and collar. Both men sucked in their guts and avoided looking at one another as they struggled to squeeze through the doorway with urgency.
As Lee struggled past the huffing vet and cleared the door, he could have sworn he heard the man say, "You're not going anywhere."
Lee hesitated and looked over his shoulder to see the plywood door close slow enough for him to see a Viet Cong peeing in the urinal. He blinked and shook his head to see the image of the Viet Cong had morphed into the fat veteran standing at the urinal just as the door shut with spring-loaded purpose. He backed away from the door on unsteady feet and found himself on the backside of the stage as the Vietnamese band, in hot rock and roll mode, played and sang, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place." Loud drunk veterans cheered and sang the chorus over and over as they pressed to the front of the band dancing and toasting their memories with long swigs of beer. Some surfers joined in upping the tempo with their dance moves as the temperature rose with the chorus mingling with the thick smell of sweat, beer, and cheap perfume.
Lee's head began to pound from the loud music. He needed quick relief and desperately wanted to get back to his beer. He wondered, Was that Viet Cong part of an act?
He looked around and was surprised to see private restaurant-style booths made of sandbags behind the band's simple stage. The first booth caught his eye as he stepped over the band's sound and power cables. A low hanging table lamp light revealed a U.S. Marine arm-wrestling with a North Vietnamese soldier. Even though they grunted with anguished faces and their forearms bulged with effort, neither man prevailed over the other.
"No act, soldier boy, this is the real deal," the Vietnamese voices taunted. "You better hang on and find a tunnel because there's an ARC Light heading your way."
Lee's head began to spin; nothing seemed real, and yet everything seemed more than real as if he had been transported into one of his 'Nam dreams. Lee passed the booth quickly, not knowing if the two soldiers were participating in some weird bar theater or part of a dream. A thick, sweet fragrence from the next booth invited Lee to peer through a wafting cloud of incense partially obscuring an old Mamasan. Wearing a tattered red silk dress that revealed too much of her bony chest, she leaned forward out of the shadows and offered her aged hand to Lee and asked, "You buy me tea, GI?" She smiled at him with beetle-nut-stained teeth, patted the seat beside her, and said with a chorus of all too familiar Vietnamese voices, "We'll love you long time GI, you numba one." Lee recoiled, tripped, and fell against the band's backdrop onto the drummer causing him to miss a beat and struggle with the tempo.
Lee stumbled from the rear of the stage to the next booth, where a veteran with a grungy beard and long oily hair held his index finger to his temple as if it were a gun. His jaundiced eyes glassed over with years of substance abuse matched his tired, smoked-out voice as he threatened, "I'll do it, I swear I'll do it. I mean it. This time I'll really do it."
Lee wanted to get back to his beer but hesitated with concern for the veteran. Finally, he stepped forward carefully with an outstretched hand and said, "Hey, brother, no. Don't."
The veteran cocked his thumb and commanded, "Stay back, REMF. You don't know. You don't know what they made me do."
Lee put his hand up. "Stop."
The veteran pressed his finger tighter against his temple. "NO, you stop, you lifer maggot."
Lee took a breath and held it.
The veteran pointed his finger gun at Lee and then waved it around to include the whole bar. "I'll kill you and every one of your lifer maggot buddies. Don't think I won't, I will." The vet placed his finger gun back to his temple and slid back into the shadows of the booth, and said, "And I'm not your brother, maggot."
The Vietnamese voices laughed. "Go ahead, pull the trigger Lee; it's your turn now."
Lee exhaled slowly and carefully backed away from the booth. He turned and approached the back of the stage where he could see Zip sitting at the bar. Even though the bar surged with thirsty drunk veterans, Lee's stool stood empty as if it had been reserved just for him. His beer stood tall and proud in plain view, waiting for his return and worship. But first, he had to walk past another booth before he could sit at the altar of fantasy and denial. And, even though he was thirsty for that buzz, he was determined not to peer into any more shadows. He just wanted another cold beer, and he didn't want any madness to come with it. However, as he approached the center of the next booth, his foot slipped on a greasy substance on the floor. He fumbled for the edge of the table and jostled a low-hanging table lamp. As the lamp swung back and forth, its harsh light revealed U.S. government documents scattered on the tabletop stamped "TOP SECRET." Rivulets of blood stained the documents and trickled to the table's edge, landing onto Lee's hands, and the floor. As he strained to regain his footing and avoid getting more blood on his hands, he was shocked to see what appeared to be an accountant sitting across from him, struggling to saw his nose off with a dull K-Bar. Panicked, Lee bolted from the table, slipped on the bloody floor and became entangled with the band's instrument cables. Frantic, he stumbled forward into the dancing crowd dragging the lead guitarist off the stage causing the music to come to a discordant end.
"There's nowhere to go, Lee." The Vietnamese voices mocked.
The veterans sang on and on and danced without music as Lee spun around and kicked the cables free from his feet. Desperate, he tried to wipe the blood off his hands onto his slacks rubbing furiously until his hands felt hot from the friction.
Suddenly, the blood was gone.
Not even a stain.
Perplexed and confused, he staggered through the crowd like a blind man. Someone pushed him, and another elbowed him sharply in the ribs. Someone else muttered with disgust, "FNG."
Unexpectedly, out of the crowd, Zip's leathered face appeared. "Hey man, you all right…?"
Relieved, Lee reached for his shoulder for support. "Ya, I think…."
"Come on, man, what were you doing back there," Zip asked as he looked over his shoulder to the dim-lit booths. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd opening a path for Lee back to the bar. "Your beer's probably warm. I'll get you another one."
Exhausted and alarmed, Lee followed Zip to the bar, grabbed the warm beer, and chugged it down. Zip ordered him another one and said, "You sure were putting on some crazy moves out there."
"Ya, crazy alright," Lee said as he tried to peer through the crowd at the now black wall behind the band. "Did you see what's going on back there?"
"Shush… don't let anybody know… they'll think you're another crazy Nam vet."
Rudy slid a cold beer in front of Lee and said, "Ya, they follow the band around. You know, like a bunch of 'Nam Roadies. So relax; they're just a bunch of goofs messin' with your mind."
He smiled a wicked smile and winked at Lee and, with a slight puff, blew the flame out and said, "You should have seen those slopes Di-Di-Mau out of the tunnels at Cu Chi when they saw my finger coming. It was like they thought I was some kind of timeless fire demon or god or some such paranoid bullshit."
"I thought you said you were an M-2 humper buster?" Lee asked.
"Ya true, wouldn't want ta lie 'bout that. It's not good, ya know, to lie about one's military service. But, I did do my soldiery part, so to speak, to light the way soz the tunnel rats could flush those commie bastards out and leave them smoldering in a rice paddy. I mean, as frustrating as it was, life was simple back then." Zip looked wistfully into the clouded mirror. "And hotter too. I like the heat. I like it so hot sweat evaporates before becoming sheen, but that isn't the case now. Something's changed, affecting the environment and all. It's just a little too cool for me these days. I'd like to raise the temperature a few more degrees just to keep things honest, if you know what I mean."
Lee caught Zip looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Ya, sure." Lee gulped down another beer wondering why he found himself agreeing with Zip, lying really. It disturbed him.
Zip continued to push the conversation while reminiscing about Monks who burned their selves to death in Saigon. "Immolation, who does that shit but a crazy Buddist gook. They didn't even get to enjoy it. Hell, I'd ah done it for nothing. I bet they regret wasting the gas on their shaved head, right?"
"Don't have a clue," Lee said as he glanced around the crowded bar and wondered why 'Fire Exit' signs weren't posted.
Zip continued, "Wouldn't that just be dandy, if one could remain clueless, no harm, no foul, right? Be a fence rider forever, but someone's got to pay the devil, and as much as I've tried, I'm still coming up a little short." Zip leaned in close to Lee with a tortured face and clutched Lee's forearm and, with feigned sincerity, asked, "Say, brother, can you spare a dime?"
Lee chuckled nervously, motioned for another beer, and tried to avoid the odor of Zip's terrible breath. "Sure, as long as you don't mind MPC, but right now I've got to take a piss."
"MPC, now that's funny. I haven't heard that in a while." Zip let go of Lee's forearm and laughed while pointing at what looked to be a side exit out of the bar and said, "The head's right over there, troop."
Lee swigged half the beer down, slid off the barstool, readjusted his balance compass, and took what he thought was going to be the first step toward relief.
He pushed his way through the crowd of veterans toward a greasy plywood door autographed with hundreds of military unit names scrawled haphazardly over the years with drunken hands that obscured the word, 'HEAD'. He stepped inside the small water closet, which barely provided enough room to squeeze by the flimsy plywood door. The back of the door revealed a felt pen drawing of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse jumping their steeds over a stone wall toward the viewer. Someone with less skill had defaced the drawing with crude letters of unsolicited advice; YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!
The advice was an understatement.
A small dim light revealed the water closet had been built as an extension of the main building with rough concrete blocks stacked and grouted unevenly. The uneven concrete floor, wet with urine and water, revealed a simple 'pisser' and nothing more. Lee avoided leaning against the rusty urinal as the sound of his piss dribbling into the filthy trough joined with the sound of rain dripping off the corrugated tin roof onto the greasy alley. This discordant liquid composition seemed familiar, inviting, almost comfortable. Maybe things are going to calm down, he thought.
After relieving himself, the slight movement of a Gecko near the small two-foot by two-foot ventilation opening drew his attention to a faint cry rising from the alley. Lee reached up, gripped the rusty security bars, and pulled himself up on his tiptoes for a better look as a wet cat darted across the alley into a pile of trash. He listened intently for the cry but could only hear soft melodic sounds of Vietnamese music coming from an open door or window in the distance. The Gecko skootched to the edge of the opening and looked down the alley, then back at Lee. It cocked its head as if waiting for Lee to say something, but Lee could not see anybody, much less hear a baby cry; maybe it was the cat.
"Did you hear something, Lee?" The Vietnamese voices whispered in his head.
Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door! "Hey, man, you gonna take all night? I'm about to blow a kidney here!"
The Gecko darted into the shadows of the urinal.
Startled, Lee turned quickly and fumbled the latch open and faced a fat, red-faced veteran with purple lipstick smeared on his neck and collar. Both men sucked in their guts and avoided looking at one another as they struggled to squeeze through the doorway with urgency.
As Lee struggled past the huffing vet and cleared the door, he could have sworn he heard the man say, "You're not going anywhere."
Lee hesitated and looked over his shoulder to see the plywood door close slow enough for him to see a Viet Cong peeing in the urinal. He blinked and shook his head to see the image of the Viet Cong had morphed into the fat veteran standing at the urinal just as the door shut with spring-loaded purpose. He backed away from the door on unsteady feet and found himself on the backside of the stage as the Vietnamese band, in hot rock and roll mode, played and sang, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place." Loud drunk veterans cheered and sang the chorus over and over as they pressed to the front of the band dancing and toasting their memories with long swigs of beer. Some surfers joined in upping the tempo with their dance moves as the temperature rose with the chorus mingling with the thick smell of sweat, beer, and cheap perfume.
Lee's head began to pound from the loud music. He needed quick relief and desperately wanted to get back to his beer. He wondered, Was that Viet Cong part of an act?
He looked around and was surprised to see private restaurant-style booths made of sandbags behind the band's simple stage. The first booth caught his eye as he stepped over the band's sound and power cables. A low hanging table lamp light revealed a U.S. Marine arm-wrestling with a North Vietnamese soldier. Even though they grunted with anguished faces and their forearms bulged with effort, neither man prevailed over the other.
"No act, soldier boy, this is the real deal," the Vietnamese voices taunted. "You better hang on and find a tunnel because there's an ARC Light heading your way."
Lee's head began to spin; nothing seemed real, and yet everything seemed more than real as if he had been transported into one of his 'Nam dreams. Lee passed the booth quickly, not knowing if the two soldiers were participating in some weird bar theater or part of a dream. A thick, sweet fragrence from the next booth invited Lee to peer through a wafting cloud of incense partially obscuring an old Mamasan. Wearing a tattered red silk dress that revealed too much of her bony chest, she leaned forward out of the shadows and offered her aged hand to Lee and asked, "You buy me tea, GI?" She smiled at him with beetle-nut-stained teeth, patted the seat beside her, and said with a chorus of all too familiar Vietnamese voices, "We'll love you long time GI, you numba one." Lee recoiled, tripped, and fell against the band's backdrop onto the drummer causing him to miss a beat and struggle with the tempo.
Lee stumbled from the rear of the stage to the next booth, where a veteran with a grungy beard and long oily hair held his index finger to his temple as if it were a gun. His jaundiced eyes glassed over with years of substance abuse matched his tired, smoked-out voice as he threatened, "I'll do it, I swear I'll do it. I mean it. This time I'll really do it."
Lee wanted to get back to his beer but hesitated with concern for the veteran. Finally, he stepped forward carefully with an outstretched hand and said, "Hey, brother, no. Don't."
The veteran cocked his thumb and commanded, "Stay back, REMF. You don't know. You don't know what they made me do."
Lee put his hand up. "Stop."
The veteran pressed his finger tighter against his temple. "NO, you stop, you lifer maggot."
Lee took a breath and held it.
The veteran pointed his finger gun at Lee and then waved it around to include the whole bar. "I'll kill you and every one of your lifer maggot buddies. Don't think I won't, I will." The vet placed his finger gun back to his temple and slid back into the shadows of the booth, and said, "And I'm not your brother, maggot."
The Vietnamese voices laughed. "Go ahead, pull the trigger Lee; it's your turn now."
Lee exhaled slowly and carefully backed away from the booth. He turned and approached the back of the stage where he could see Zip sitting at the bar. Even though the bar surged with thirsty drunk veterans, Lee's stool stood empty as if it had been reserved just for him. His beer stood tall and proud in plain view, waiting for his return and worship. But first, he had to walk past another booth before he could sit at the altar of fantasy and denial. And, even though he was thirsty for that buzz, he was determined not to peer into any more shadows. He just wanted another cold beer, and he didn't want any madness to come with it. However, as he approached the center of the next booth, his foot slipped on a greasy substance on the floor. He fumbled for the edge of the table and jostled a low-hanging table lamp. As the lamp swung back and forth, its harsh light revealed U.S. government documents scattered on the tabletop stamped "TOP SECRET." Rivulets of blood stained the documents and trickled to the table's edge, landing onto Lee's hands, and the floor. As he strained to regain his footing and avoid getting more blood on his hands, he was shocked to see what appeared to be an accountant sitting across from him, struggling to saw his nose off with a dull K-Bar. Panicked, Lee bolted from the table, slipped on the bloody floor and became entangled with the band's instrument cables. Frantic, he stumbled forward into the dancing crowd dragging the lead guitarist off the stage causing the music to come to a discordant end.
"There's nowhere to go, Lee." The Vietnamese voices mocked.
The veterans sang on and on and danced without music as Lee spun around and kicked the cables free from his feet. Desperate, he tried to wipe the blood off his hands onto his slacks rubbing furiously until his hands felt hot from the friction.
Suddenly, the blood was gone.
Not even a stain.
Perplexed and confused, he staggered through the crowd like a blind man. Someone pushed him, and another elbowed him sharply in the ribs. Someone else muttered with disgust, "FNG."
Unexpectedly, out of the crowd, Zip's leathered face appeared. "Hey man, you all right…?"
Relieved, Lee reached for his shoulder for support. "Ya, I think…."
"Come on, man, what were you doing back there," Zip asked as he looked over his shoulder to the dim-lit booths. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd opening a path for Lee back to the bar. "Your beer's probably warm. I'll get you another one."
Exhausted and alarmed, Lee followed Zip to the bar, grabbed the warm beer, and chugged it down. Zip ordered him another one and said, "You sure were putting on some crazy moves out there."
"Ya, crazy alright," Lee said as he tried to peer through the crowd at the now black wall behind the band. "Did you see what's going on back there?"
"Shush… don't let anybody know… they'll think you're another crazy Nam vet."
Rudy slid a cold beer in front of Lee and said, "Ya, they follow the band around. You know, like a bunch of 'Nam Roadies. So relax; they're just a bunch of goofs messin' with your mind."
~~~~
Glossary.
ARC Light – B-52 bombing run.
Di-Di-Mau – Vietnamese for: 'Go Quickly.'
FNG – F***n new guy.
K-Bar – Military fighting knife.
MPC – Military Payment Certificate. Replaces cash dollars in combat zone.
REMF – Rear echelon mother f****er. Pejorative for soldiers who avoid combat.
The title Concertina refers to razor wire used to secure a combat perimeter. It is also used on prison walls. It is designed with barbs and razor type hooks intended to snag a person from entering or attempting to escape a secure area.
Concertina, in the context of this novella refers to psychological and spiritual entanglement. Specifically, it refers to a Vietnam combat veteran who is ensnared by the deepest and darkest fetters of torment and denial. Those fetters consist of alcohol abuse, guilt, and resentment.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Concertina, in the context of this novella refers to psychological and spiritual entanglement. Specifically, it refers to a Vietnam combat veteran who is ensnared by the deepest and darkest fetters of torment and denial. Those fetters consist of alcohol abuse, guilt, and resentment.
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