Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle (30 page)

"What's going on?" I called out.
"Some of our guys got hit on a border run," a medic yelled back. "We've got wounded."

I turned and went back to my bed. Wounded men weren't my problem. I hoped none of them died, but if they did, someone would come let me know. I pulled the blanket up and started to go back to sleep, when suddenly a thought hit me like ice water: The wounded men had been on a mission to Cambodia. What if one of them was Andy?

I was up again in a moment, pulling my fatigues on and stumbling over my boots. Cursing, I managed to get them on and tie them, although my fingers refused to work properly and I fought to make a simple bow knot. Finally I was dressed, then out the door and headed for the airfield. Unless you're intimately familiar with them, it's difficult to tell one chopper from another. To make it easier, crews often painted names and images on their birds to distinguish them from the other ones in the fleet. Andy's team had dubbed themselves the "War Cocks," a childish but appropriate name for a group of men who prided themselves not only on being the best, but also on being the rowdiest while doing it. Their logo, naturally, was a rooster whose oversized comb and impressive beak looked down menacingly on the enemy below.

I saw the rooster before I saw anything else. It was badly burned, only the tip of the beak and part of the name intact. It had apparently taken a direct hit. I could only wonder what had become of the men inside. I could see stretchers on the ground, with medics hunched over them. There was much shouting as soldiers were directed what to do with the wounded men.

I ran up and peered over the bowed backs of the medics. I saw Andy at once. He was lying on a stretcher, his body covered by a blanket. As far as I could tell, he was alive, but I saw blood seeping through the blanket where it draped over his legs. Before I could talk to him, two soldiers picked him up and carried him toward the medical building. I could only watch as he was taken away.

"What happened to him?" I asked one of the medics who had been attending to him. "Bullet wounds," he said brusquely as he moved to another man.
"He'll be all right?"

"They tore through his femoral artery," the man answered. "He lost a lot of blood on the way back here. If he's lucky, he'll just lose a leg."

My heart sank as I realized my worst fear was coming true. Compounding it was the fact that I could do absolutely nothing but wait. Andy's life was in the hands of the men in the operating room. All I could do was go back to my hootch, sit on my cot, and prepare myself for the possibility that Andy would die. Like so many people in my position, I thought with regret about how angry I'd been at him recently. I chastised myself for trying to turn him into something he wasn't, and not just accepting him as he was.

Although flawed, I was certain that he cared for me. Maybe he wasn't in love with me, but he was undeniably my lover, and that was close enough. Could he help it if he wasn't ready to acknowledge that we meant more to one another than we ever spoke about?

I immediately forgave him everything—the irresponsibility, the aloofness, the inability to recognize his capacity for love. I swore that I would let him come to me on his own terms, without pushing for more than he could give or demanding that he accept more from me that he could handle. I would love him even more than I already did, and better.

I did something else then that is typical of those facing the loss of a loved one. I made a deal with God. We hadn't been on speaking terms for many years, God and I, but in tried-and-true human fashion, I suddenly found an infinite capacity for belief in his ability to save Andy's life. If he did, I promised, I would stay in Vietnam another year and pay him back by sending soldiers to him in the best condition I possibly could.

When I was done, I sat and waited for his answer.
CHAPTER 30

In April of 1972, giant pandas Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., a gift from China's Chairman Mao to commemorate the recent diplomatic thaw between our two countries after a visit by President Nixon in February. Excited zoo-goers waited hours in line for a glimpse of the black-and-white bears, while Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling, oblivious to their role as goodwill ambassadors, sat in their bamboo-filled enclosure and peered back at their visitors with the inscrutability for which their countrymen are famed.

The same week the pandas came to Washington, I left Vietnam bound for San Francisco. I was a few months shy of both my second anniversary at Quan Loi and my twenty-second birthday. I felt much older than I was, because of what I'd seen during the past twenty-two months, but also because of my health. In January, I'd contracted a gastrointestinal parasite, and ever since I'd been fighting a running battle with my bowels. It was this that had earned me a premature release from duty and a seat on the Continental Airlines Freedom Bird that lifted me from the airstrip at Bien Hoa and carried me across the Pacific Ocean.

My new assignment was to be at the Presidio, the military base on San Francisco Bay. Built by the Spanish in 1776, it had subsequently been a Mexican garrison until it was taken over yet again in 1846, this time by U.S. Army troops, who repaired the fort's adobe walls, which had gradually washed away during years of winter rains, and established it as a key military outpost on the West Coast. It would remain so for the next 148 years, changing and growing continuously as army soldiers used it first as a base of operations in campaigns against the Modoc and Apache Indians in the U.S. and Pancho Villa in Mexico, then as a coastal defense site in World War I, and later as a point of embarkation for the Pacific Theater during World War II.

It was also home to Letterman Hospital, which had cared for sick and injured soldiers during every military conflict since the Spanish American War. The largest facility of its kind, Letterman had seen many cases of men returning home from tours abroad with all manner of exotic flora and fauna inhabiting their innards, and it was to be my first stop upon arrival. Following the eradication of the bacteria currently using my intestines as a Slip 'N' Slide, I was to report for duty in the quartermaster unit, where I would serve out the remaining months of my enlistment.

I was thrilled to be in San Francisco. My enthusiasm for the city hadn't died since I'd first seen it during my layover on the way to Vietnam, and I'd specifically requested to be stationed there. But I wasn't excited about the city just because it was beautiful. I was excited because Andy was there. He'd survived the surgery and had, in fact, been far luckier than the pessimistic medic had supposed he might be. Despite serious damage to the nerves and muscles, it had not been necessary to amputate his leg. It was, however, the end of his military career. A few weeks after the shooting, he'd been shipped home for further treatment and ongoing physical therapy at Letterman. Keeping up my end of the bargain with God, I'd signed on for another tour.

During the intervening year, Andy had corresponded with surprising and welcome regularity, beginning with a letter every month and progressing to one or sometimes two a week. It was as if in letters he was able to say many of the things he'd been unable to when we were face to face. He thanked me for my friendship, and revealed his frustration with not being able to fight the war that had come to mean so much to him. He was, he wrote, proud of me for staying. He stopped short of saying that he loved me, but by then I was used to his detachment and hardly noticed. After my arrival in California, it was four long days before I saw him. During that time I submitted to numerous tests and to the inspection of my colon by various doctors wielding a succession of increasingly unpleasant instruments, all of which seemed to have been placed in a freezer for several days before being inserted into my rectum. At the end of this orgy of prying, during which the effluents of my system were collected daily and examined in minute detail with frightening enthusiasm, I was prescribed a program of antibiotics and pronounced fit enough to venture out into the world, albeit with a warning to avoid the consumption of raw eggs or undercooked meat.

That night, I met Andy for dinner at the Sausage Factory, an Italian restaurant in the Castro. Emerging from the cab that brought me from the Presidio, I was stunned by what I saw. The sidewalk in both directions was lined with men, almost all of them in Levi's so tight that their packages were clearly outlined. They leaned seductively against buildings and over apartment balconies, and paraded by singly and in groups, laughing and talking in the warm spring evening. A first exposure to the city's—and perhaps the country's—gayest neighborhood has often been likened to Dorothy's first glimpse of Oz after the drabness of Kansas, and while the comparison is admittedly overused, I can think of none that captures the moment more fittingly. Never having seen anything like it, I found myself staring.

"Hey, soldier. You looking for some action?"

I turned to see Andy standing behind me. He, too, was wearing jeans, his damaged leg hidden beneath the faded, well-worn fabric. He also had on a red-and-black-checkered flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a battered pair of combat boots.

"You saved them," I said, pointing at his feet.

 

He looked down. "Actually, no," he said. "Would you believe I bought them? I should have saved mine. Everybody wants these now."

I walked over and gave him a hug. Holding him in my arms, I almost started to cry. It had been so long since I'd seen him. He felt thinner, harder, as if he had been purified and all the excess burned away. To my surprise, he kissed me, briefly, on the mouth.

"You've got a moustache now," I observed.

 

He ran his fingers over the hair on his lip and smiled. "Like it?"

 

"It suits you," I said. "Let me guess—everybody wants one now."

 

He laughed. "Hey, it never hurts to look good. Speaking of which, it's time for you to grow your hair out. You're not in Nam anymore."

"But I'm still in the army," I reminded him as he opened the door to the restaurant and we went inside. I noticed that he was limping as we followed the host to our table. When we sat down, I asked him how his physical therapy was going.

"Not bad," he said. "I don't use a cane anymore. The doc says by this time next year I might be pretty much normal. At least until you see me naked."

 

"I can't wait," I said.

He ignored my intended come-on, looking intently at the menu. I wasn't sure he'd heard my comment, but I felt that repeating it would look like I was trying too hard. I wanted our reunion to be a good one, so I didn't say anything. Finally the waiter came and took our order. When he had gone, Andy asked,

"So, how are things at Quan Loi?"

"The same," I said. "A lot of the guys we knew are gone. Now it's mostly helo jockeys and special ops. I don't know where things are headed. They're talking about a pullout." Andy shook his head in disgust. "They're just giving up, man. They're letting those VC bastards win."

I didn't want to talk about Vietnam. I'd left it behind me, and I wanted to look ahead. Andy, however, wanted to go back and relive it all over again. I knew if I didn't find a way to change the subject, we'd be talking about the same old guys and telling the same old stories the entire night.

"What are you doing these days?" I asked him. "For work, I mean."
"Different shit," he said. "Mostly I bartend at this place not far from here."
"Bartend?" I said. "The army didn't set you up with anything?"

He gave a derisive snort. "Fuck no, they didn't," he answered. "I mean, they tried. They had me working goddamned carpentry with this guy who fought in Korea and runs a construction business. His whole crew is vets. But he was kind of an asshole, and with my leg and all, it just didn't work out. Besides, I make more bartending."

"Great," I said. "Where do you work?"

 

"Just down the street," he said. "Place called Toad Hall. It's a queer bar. We can go over there afterward if you want."

"A queer bar," I repeated, the word uncomfortable on my tongue.
"This whole neighborhood seems to be kind of, you know, like that."

"The Castro?" said Andy. "Yeah, it is. Used to be all Irish and German families. They're the ones who built all the painted ladies. I don't think they're too crazy about all the gays moving in, but there's not much they can do about it."

"And the bar you work at is gay," I said. I wanted to ask him if he counted himself among the gay population, but I just couldn't. I hoped he would say it himself. I wanted to see how far he'd come in talking about who he was.

"Gays tip the best," he said. "Especially if they think it'll get them into your pants. I can take home a hundred bucks a night easy."

 

"Wow," I said, impressed. "I can't wait to see the place you've got with that kind of money coming in."

 

"It's okay," he said. "I share a flat with a buddy. It's the second floor of a house over on Diamond. The stairs are a bitch, but it's big."

This was the first I'd heard of a roommate. Andy had never mentioned one in any of his letters. I found myself getting a little jealous, especially as I still didn't know whether or not Andy had thrown himself into the city's apparently thriving gay world.

Our food came and we began to eat. Used to dinners in mess halls, where time was often of the essence, I put my head down and ate quickly. It was only after I'd put away half my bowl of spaghetti that I realized Andy was watching me. I put my fork down and wiped my mouth. "Sorry," I said. "I guess I'm still not used to being back in the real world."

"This isn't the real world," Andy said. "This is Never-Never Land, and we're the Lost Boys. The real world is back there." He jerked his head toward the window and, eight thousand miles beyond it, Vietnam.
"Tell me what's new these days," I suggested. "Movies. Music. Television. That kind of stuff. I've really been out of it."

Andy shrugged. "I saw The Godfather last week. It's pretty good. Music, I don't know. They play that

 

‘American Pie' song every five minutes. You must have heard that one. I don't really pay a lot of attention to that shit."