"Good Morning, Vietnam"
Click.
Steve spat a low curse through his teeth. He'd sat on the lighter he was keeping hidden in his back pocket; the flare had shot right up his ass before he crushed it into the sand, but sweet baby Jesus it hurt worse than all fuck.
"Good morning, baby," Soda whispered as he squinted out to a glimmer in the east. His voice was raspy and sharp and his undershirt had patches of dark blue on it. "You're an hour overdue."
He straightened his back, forming a near J with his body pressed against the wall of sandbags.
The massive stench of the dead rat under Private Garcia's bed wafted through the windows; Steve blanched, but not because of the smell. Because of the sand. Oh, the sand. Sand everywhere. Sand got in his teeth and blinded his eyes and he thought piss in a pus pot would have tasted better than the fuckin' sand they had to drink. But he knew better than to complain.
His teeth gritted so tight he felt they would fall right out of his head.
"Up! Up! Up! Up! Up, goddammit, I shouldn't have to cock like a fuckin' rooster!" the sergeant roared. Everyone sprang from the mausoleum, his voice rattling the dead, and among the exodus of scuttling feet, coughs, Shits and What's-it-to-yas, the trainees lined up quickly against the walls.
"Makin' his rounds," Steve whispered. He knew the feeling; he'd rather turn around and light up a blind cigarette.
"Search and destroy," Soda murmured. "Even sons'a bitches gotta have a favorite sport."
"Just go ahead and lolly along, Anderson, you'll find another hole in your empty head." Anderson, the little one, skittered to the edge of his bunk and lined up against the wall. "Bed check, boys. I shouldn't see so much as a single asshair outa place."
Then, feeling the draft from the window, he straightened.
Two hours later a fat, wet worm was crawling its way up his intestines, clawing every possible cell and drenching his bones in the cold slither of terror.
He felt their voices vibrate in the air, felt the command grip his being, felt the pressure of the pin decompress as he ripped it out of its socket. The first time he'd done it, he'd drawn the pin out like a sword from a scabbard—too slow, too imprecise—and the grenade detonated just twenty feet in front of them.
"Pull it."
The sun had risen red, a liquid fire glaring down on him, only him. With every round he recited The Lord's Prayer as fast as his mind could deliver it. But no prayer was fast enough to catch him from the explosions that rocked the sand dunes.
DearFather, whoArtinHeaven, Hallowedbethyname—
"Pull it."
Raw friction burned his muscles, short-circuiting them. Then came the hiss from the pin; his big slow trunks for fingers delighted in teasing him. Sweat erupted in sheets along his back and his neck and his face, falling and staining his teeth with salt. His reflexes tensed like a snake, and—
The apple floated in the red liquid air.
Waiting. Waiting. Wait ...
His heart an angry, throbbing ball, pumping blood in and out of him like it was piss. His vision a narrow staircase; his ears underwater. Thoughts useless—prayers descending into the void threatening to swallow him—the dragon's mouth opening fucking wider—
Eons passed; he couldn't feel or see or hear anything except for the aftermath, shards of reality flying into the darkness: the echo of the boom rattling his bones, his heart descending to a fast pace, the grim nod of the senior officer indicating his punishment had been finished. Fluids sloshing around in his head, in his body. Fluids. Fluids. A curse as he realized there was a warm trail running between his legs. Fluids. The realization he didn't fucking care.
He crumpled in the sand, but they didn't bother to rouse him this time.
"You go bobbin' the apple, Steve?" Soda crawled into his bunk. His was the one on the far left beside the window. Right next to that asshat Garcia's.
Fuck.
Steve studied a crack in the ceiling that was patched with spiderwebs. Last week a huge stinger landed on his bed and he shoved it into his compartment box. He wondered if it was still there. If its family missed it.
He smiled.
"What'd you get?"
"47."
"Just one set?"
"No. 47 sets of 47." Soda slunk into the mattress, drawing the sheet over his legs. He grunted, falling flat on his back. "I'll be pushin' tanks 'cross the whole damn country at this rate."
Air burned between Steve's capillaries, busting them open like balloons.
"Y'know, one'a these days I'm gonna be ground beef."
"You don't hafta wait, son, if that's what you want," drawled one of the sleepy men.
"Shut up, John."
John murmured a curse which dissolved with a snore.
"So Steve, you go bobbin' the—"
Steve let out a sigh.
"You too, kid."
"Fine." Soda turned over in his bunk. His freshly-shaven head shone as a smooth pale yellow egg in the moonlight.
Then he murmured into the pillow: "Good morning, Nam."
Steve groaned as lightly as he could.
"Why d'ya always say Good mornin' at night?"
Soda smiled, letting the creases fall naturally on his face, shifted in his place, and decompressed in his pillow.
"'Cause I want that bitch to know she won't take my last day."
xXx
Um. Yeah. I've got total writer's block. Total.