Authors: Gordon Mackay
Nodding with a contained smile, Scott surveyed the blackened pots lying in a sink full of dark water. “Watch and learn, Chicago boy.”
“It’s all yours, limey. Just feed me something edible, that’s all I ask.”
Scott paused, restraining himself from starting to prepare a meal. “Hey, Mike. If I promise to make you a terrific meal, would you do me a favour?”
Mike’s eyes glistened with suspicion. “Yeah, maybe. Depends. Like what?”
“While I’m doing the cooking bit, could you maybe get yourself cleaned for dinner? With
maybe a change of clothes?” Scott waited with baited breath for his reply, as did the ladies. They all wondered how Mike would react to Scott’s suggestive request.
Mike, on the other hand, made no unusual moves or reacted in any noticeable way. It was as if he was considering the question, trying to work out why he should clean himself for eating when he hadn’t for as long as he could remember
. He stroked his beard while thinking, noticing a few bits of hard blackened rice falling free. He watched them land, bouncing across the floor like escaping fleas. It had been a long time since he’d tasted a meal made by another, something that might kick his taste buds back into life. And besides, he thought, perhaps he does smell a bit on the raw side. And with such lovely ladies looking on, why shouldn’t he make an effort? His widened staring eyes met Scott’s, making the three wonder if he might have taken offence. Then his face lightened with not so fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Sure. I’ll pop by my quarters and freshen up. As for changing my clothes, what you see is what I have.”
Scott tapped him reassuringly on a shoulder, saying that’ll be just fine. “Dinner will probably take about forty minutes so there’s no need to rush.” Scott had an ulterior motive for telling Mike there was plenty of time. He desperately wanted him to have a really good wash!
Scott detailed Belinda to scrub the pots while he located the ingredients he needed. Phyllis was to keep watch down the tunnel. The fragrance of cooking food began to permeate the hallways and tunnels, drifting along with ventilated air to give that part of the base a fragrance it had never known before. Questions might be asked. Suspicions may follow.
The meal was made in next to no time at all,
gently simmering until Mike showed up. He was clean-shaven and all spruced-up, although looking a little bit gaunt as he stood squarely in the doorway. He even smelt better. The food looked good as it was dished out, with all clamouring to taste the steaming treat. There was no conversation whatsoever between any of the diners until their plates were cleaned; vigorously licked clean in Mike’s case, showing just how desperate he had been for a decent meal. As they sat back in their seats, patting their bellies, Mike said he had never eaten so well in ages. The ladies were just pleased to have eaten something, they added for good measure. As for Scott, he just shrugged his shoulders to their comments, as if it was an everyday occurrence for him. On reflection, he considered, his wife back home wouldn’t allow him to make anything in their kitchen, with her claiming anything he’d made was either not cooked properly, had onions in it - which she detested; or it was something she just didn’t like the look of, which just happened to be everything. The fact she didn’t like most essential ingredients made cooking all the more difficult. Garlic was a no-go and onions were strictly forbidden. Any dish made by Scott and placed in front of her wasn’t worth eating, she always said. Her unkind comments would make Scott feel inadequate, which is what they were meant to do, of course. He never clicked onto her real reasons for bringing him down, to constantly try and make him feel beneath her status. His diet at home mainly consisted of liquidised soup that resembled silted mud, concocted from a suspect recipe book entitled, ‘Healthy Eating’. He noticed one day, through a glass pot, that as the soup settled after stirring it resembled sedimentary rock with its different coloured layers of sediments. In addition to this kind of meal, she made something like minced-beef that was supposed to be spaghetti bolognaise, and homemade pizza that resembled soggy bread with ketchup spread across its surface. He always looked forward to the few times she would go to visit her awful sister, egged-on by him to do so. It meant she would be away and he was home alone. Cans of Guinness would be bought by the dozen and a hot Indian curry would be delivered to the door. A succession of movies was watched while he ate and drank with gusto. It was a scene of a very happy man enjoying some quality time to himself without the nagging wife she had turned into. A very drunken husband would eventually collapse onto his bed, usually fully clothed, but always with a smile of contentment and the smell of curry on his breath.
“I’m just pleased you all enjoyed my creation,” he said, while also patting his happy tummy. “Compliments of Knorr
, Heinz and Uncle Ben,” he added, truthfully.
Mike slouched into his seat, relaxing after what he classed a fantastic dinner. “The best in years,” he emphasised.
“It was an interesting meal,” said Belinda.
“I’m not entirely sure what my bodily system will make of it,” added Phyllis. “But it certainly makes me feel better,” she assured them all.
Scott was just happy to have been able to feed them all with something filling,
“So … Mike?” continued Scott. “How the hell have you wound up here? You looked like something the cat dragged in with
that bedraggled beard and lack of a haircut you’ve lost.”
Mike almost seemed to reflect upon his past before answering. “It’s one hell of a goddamned story and I’m not so sure it makes a whole lot of sense, especially as it all seems like a dream to me.”
“Try me,” said Scott, as he and the ladies seemed to draw closer to him in anticipation of his explanation.
“I was in Vietnam fighting the gooks…”
“Holy shit, you were in Nam?” interrupted Scott with his own memory kicking in to the television broadcasts he heard as a youngster on the television’s newscasts of the day.
Mike sat back and folded his arms. “Scott,” he said. “Will you just shut the fuck-up while I try to answer your fuckwit questions? It’s bad enough adjusting to company, especially with two gorgeous broads sitting right next to me, without you jumping in mid-sentence
all the time.”
“Yeah … Sorry,” he apologised. “Please, Mike? Continue with the story, and I’ll shut the hell-up.”
“Okay. Where was I? Oh yeah,
Nam
! There never was a more god-forsaken place. The bugs bit hard, burrowin’ deep beneath the skin while the locals wanted to kill us, rip our guts and gouge our eyes out. What was even worse though, was the warm beer, when you could get some, that is. The water tasted something rotten as well.” Mike paused for a moment while he seemed to reflect on a time long ago, recollecting his thoughts and pains. “The women were real nice though. Long black hair, pretty faces and nice smiles; just enough to make us remember we were only human at the end of the fightin’ day.”
Scott looked at his female companions, noticing they were blushing.
“The dammed gooks didn’t want us there though, making it perfectly clear with each and every bullet they fired at me.” Mike leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, as if recalling the time was painful. Scott remained quiet, as did the women. They were listening to a little piece of personal history, related by someone who had experienced a traumatic time during a period of military conflict.
While still holding his head, looking at his feet, he continued. “We were operating out of a Special Forces Camp, situated near the Cambodian border. My team’s mission was to protect a relay station, and I was on point, sittin’ tight to protect the outer perimeter, along with all my good buddies. God bless ‘em all. The attack by the NVA was timed to coincide with a full moon, giving the fucking gooks every advantage to take us out while they squatted in the dark of the surrounding jungle like snakes. The fuckin’ heat was cooking us in our fatigues; the sweat soaked me just as if it was rainin’
. Ants, the size of my fuckin’ dick were trying to chew me for dinner too. And while all of this shit was going down, a two-steps would slither over my boots before I knew it were there. It was a real hell of a shit-creak place.”
“Sorry for interrupting, Mike, but what the hell is a … two-steps?”
Mike sat bolt upright, turning quickly to face them, as if he had seen something nasty coming his way. “Two-steps? They’re snakes, man. Slimy little green bastards with a bite that’ll kill you before you can take two steps to get the hell away!”
“Jees!” said Scott, almost wishing he hadn’t asked.
“Yeah, a real deadly bite.” Mike continued. “Anyways, the NVA attack came just as a small cloud covered the moon, giving them a little bit of extra cover to move in with.”
“And what does NVA stand for?” asked Belinda.
“North Vietnamese Army,” Mike replied. “Regular troops, all armed with Kalashnikov AK-47 Assault rifles, and all highly experienced in battle. The Frenchies had got it long before we did, so the NVA were already battle-hardened before we even set foot in the cock-sucking country. They may not have had the superior fire power that we had, but they were well experienced from previous wars, just like when they kicked the shit out the Frogs. Experience in battle is worth a thousand grunts an’ a million rounds of ammo, in anyone’s language.”
Mike’s shoulders visibly drooped as he recounted his story, his eyes squinting with returning memories; terrible memories that still haunted him after many years. He had suffered from post conflict disorder syndrome, but with no patronising councillors or soul searching shrinks to help him over the trauma of war and terror
he had found it hard to survive. His mind had tried to block the Vietnam ordeal from his memory and failed. And now he was reliving it, bringing his nightmares back to life. He didn’t mind dragging the sorry details from the darkest recesses of his brain to the fore, he felt it might do him good to relive the horrors, perhaps putting his bad dreams behind him once and for all. Sharing his fears with others, releasing his frustration of never being able to talk about them could help. After a suitably long pause, while he personally reflected on his own torment, he continued. “I heard the cries of my bro’s as they got wasted, cracking explosions ripping the life from them. The smell of charred flesh hung in the moonlight, with plenty of smoke drifting across the sky. Flashes of gunfire from barrel muzzles lit up the face of Charlie, making him look like a flickering actor from an old black and white. And just as I was getting a gook in my sights, another would try and put some holes in me from somewhere else. There were hundreds of the goddamn little bastards, scrawny little mother-fuckers in straw-coloured hats. I was aware that returning fire from my own guys was fadin’ fast, reduced to only a few
Pig’s
and
M-16’s
, hitting them with
Spray and Pray
tactics. Our fragmentation grenades were all used up and most of the ammo was gone too. We were in a real shit-hole of a mess with no back-up behind us. The perimeter wire was blown clean away, shredded and cut to ribbons by mortar fire. The gooks were all over us and there was nothin’ I or anyone else could have done to stop ‘em. It was when I was movin’ position, crawlin’ like a bug to plug a huge hole in the wire that I could make out a number of NVA heading through. I knew we would be overrun if they got access. I was dodging a hail of bullets when a tracer flashed by me, cracking next to my skull, shreddin’ the remains of a fence-post and coverin’ me with splinters, but I had to keep going. I was almost there too, having shifted my sorry-ass over the bodies of my buddies, when an almighty flash lifted me pure off the dirt, throwing me up and over the tattered wire like some li'l-ol’ rag-doll. I must’ve landed a good few metres away on the opposite side of the fence, blown right over the heads of the gooks that were comin’ on in. I didn’t know what had happened to me for some time, my head was spinning like a whirlpool on the Mississippi in the wake of a steamboat’s paddle. When I started to come-to, I felt around with my hands, discovering I had landing on scrub and dead bodies, only this time they were gooks. My ears were still whistling from the explosion and my night vision was shot to hell. I guess I’d been knocked out for a while, which is probably how I survived. I can only guess the gooks thought I was cold meat as I sailed over their heads, landing behind them like a crock o’ shit. When I did manage to recollect my thoughts, with my ears not whistling as loud and my eyesight kinda restored, the battle was long since over. Apart from some poor guy’s cries for his mother or another’s agonising screams, followed by a couple of shots that seemed to cancel their pain, the only other sounds was the euphoric laughter and cheering of the gooks as they relieved my bro’s of any valuables they might’ve carried. My own body was well fucked, badly wounded in the groin area around my balls. It felt warm and wet as I tried to physically examine myself in the darkness, trying to determine just how bad it was. I had the usual cuts and grazes round and about, and shredded uniform where near-misses had ripped through the cloth, but my groin wound was deep, real deep, more than enough to let my blood run free and easy. My legs were glistening in the moonlight, my fatigues too, all soaked with blood and sticking to me good and proper as it dried. I remember groping around inside my trousers, running my fingers around my shooter, making myself almost scream with pain when I touched torn flesh and ripped muscle. I thought my balls had been blown off as the scrotum bag was split wide open and they were dangling by tubes between my legs. I swear by almighty god, if my cock and balls had been blown clean off I would’ve finished the job myself, putting a slug through my head; I swear to god I would’ve!”