CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Quon had had enough. The prisoner would talk. This time, the prisoner would talk.

His back was raw and bloody, but as usual a simple flogging had not been enough. More creativity was needed, and Quon had some of the most imaginative minds in the Viet Cong at his disposal. He watched with grim satisfaction as these geniuses of misery went about their horrific work.

They put his arms in the manacles, the two thin W-shaped pieces that sandwiched the wrists, hinged on one side and locked on the other. For a minute, he had to struggle to keep his elbows as close together as he could, because if you didn't the narrow edge of the metal cut into your wrists and they'd fester. It was easier when they put them on with your hands in front of you, but he hadn't been lucky enough to have that happen since the early days at the Hilton. Today was no exception.

They didn't leave him to struggle long, however. Charlie was like that. Always ready to help you out. A noose of thin rope was slipped over his hands and up his arms. When it was snug enough that it wouldn't slip down, they threw the other end over the gallows and three guards hauled on it. The captive was hauled off the ground by his elbows, and the noose pulled tight. Even his scant weight when thrust upon the slipknot had more power to tighten it than human hands could have. The anguish was incredible already, and it had only just begun.

While he hanged there they stripped off his filthy pants and ragged shorts, depriving him of every shred of dignity. Then it was time to take a little coffee break from creative cruelty, so they beat his legs with switches cut of green bamboo for a while. He scarcely felt the blows because each one had him swinging like a piñata, and every time he swung the rope suspending him grew tighter and tighter. He could feel the blood pooling in his fingers, then in his hands. His wrists began to swell against their metal restraints, and eventually the skin broke and some of the pressure was relieved as the dark carmine fluid oozed over the shackles.

Break-time was over, and everyone had to return to the real business at hand. Beating him so he flinched and whimpered was and always would be fun, but it didn't produce results. Even Charlie couldn't play all day. They cut him down and he landed on twisted legs, his face biting into the gravely ground. Rough hands manipulated the rope from which he had been hanging, twining it again and again around his swollen forearms, melding them into a single limb of anguish. Then they locked his ankles in heavy irons, the U-shaped horse hobbles through which a formidible bar was run. This time the bar rested on his Achilles tendons, for which he was naïve enough to be grateful. Ropes encircled his legs now, binding them in the same manner as his arms: ankles to knees. The "V" tried to draw them tightly enough to cut off circulation, but here their own methods of deprivation thwarted them. One bowl of rice per day… maybe. His legs were nothing but flesh-swathed sticks. The mammoth discs of his kneecaps and the doorknob-sized lumps on each ankle prevented the ropes from binding him too tightly.

When this limitation became evident there was some angered consultation. In the end they worked out a compromise, and the bar running through the ankle restraints was removed and replaced by one about four times as heavy. As this weight fell upon his unpadded joints, the prisoner could not help giving them the satisfaction of a muffled but agonized moan.

Encouraged by the feedback, the guards forced his wrists forward, between his knees, causing still more torment in his shoulders and elbows. They tied them off there, his purple fingers poking through towards the front. Then it was time for a little breather, so sandaled feet bounced off of his stomach for a while, until he started into dry heaves. Each time he gasped for air they would shove a fistful of mulch from the jungle floor between his teeth, so that he would choke and cough and gag worse than ever.

All the while, Quon watched, black eyes glittering. That was the frightening part. He was usually more of a hands-on type of guy, at least once the dirty work was done and the really nasty stuff started. If this wasn't the nasty stuff…

They came at him with another iron bar, this one at least ten feet long. It was threaded between his back and his elbows. They tied ropes firmly around each side of the rod, and these were cast over the gallows. The ninety-four pounds that had been hoisted earlier was now closer to a hundred and fifty, two-fifths of it metal, and this time it took six men to lift it and tie off properly.

He wasn't raised far, though. Through swollen eyes, the prisoner could see the jungle floor three feet beneath his knees.

One of the interrogators started plying him with questions. He didn't answer. He wasn't going to answer. He knew that the smart thing was to lie, to fabricate crap too ridiculous to be of any use to them for propaganda but believable enough that things wouldn't get any worse. Never in his life, however, had he been one to do the smart thing.

Name. Rank. Serial Number. Birth date. Under international law, that was all that he was required to give these barbarians. Speaking through the slivers rammed into his gums from the rotting leaves treatment was difficult, but to each question he replied with his incantation, the mystical verse that still had some meaning, somewhere, despite the fact that it had become lost to him over the years.

"Calavicci, Albert. Born 15th June, 1934. Lieutenant. Serial Number B-933-852."

The pain grew, expanding like the shell of a hot-air balloon as it is filled. Empty. Meaningless. Larger and larger by the second until it blotted out the sun and left him in darkness with his hollow chant. Like a practitioner of an ancient religion familiar with the rites but not the mysteries, he uttered syllables without meaning, his voice flagging and faltering as the agony continued.

"Cal…lavicci. Alb-ert. Fifteenjune '34. Lieu-ieu-ieu-tenant. B-9. B-9. B-9. 338. Fifty-two."

After a while they gave up on the civil approach, and started bouncing him off of the ground. They hauled him almost to the crest of the gallows, the iron bar dragging on his elbows, and so his shoulders and through his wrists his knees. The weight of the other bar on his ankles was intolerable. Then, when his head was spinning with vertigo, the released the ropes, and he crashed to earth. Again and again, ascent and descent, he bounced, like a yo-yo operated by a child too short for the string. He was bleeding now from mouth and nose. His body was ingrained with small stones and gravel from landing after brutal landing. His shoulders twisted and finally gave up the battle to stay in their sockets. His torso hung from them by ligaments and skin, a sack of bones too weak to support itself.

Still, he wouldn't talk. He couldn't. The other men, Bobby and Zeke and Sparks, they were depending on him. If he gave in the VC would go after the others. Zeke couldn't take another beating. Not for a while. He needed time for his ribs to heal up some. And Sparks… the prisoner thought of the little kid from the Bayou. He thought maybe Sparks was close to cracking. To losing his mind. Maybe the next time Charlie tried to lick him he'd snap.

The pain was unbelievable. They slung him back up, three feet from the jungle floor, and tied him off. His eyes were swollen, but he could still see enough to realize what they were going to do. They had several objects: a length of fuel line from a motorcycle, matches, and a Coca Cola bottle. The captive recognized the first two and knew what they were going to do. The bottle was a mystery. He didn't have long to think about it, because they were ramming the matches into his ears, bulbs first. They hurt him, digging down towards his eardrums, pushing wax, and scabs and pus from previous treatments back down the canal. Yet it was a strangely refreshing pain: sharp, immediate, and so near his brain that for a few blessed seconds all other agony was superseded by this relatively minor discomfort.

Then the fuel line was folded in half, and one end rammed up each nostril and down the back of his throat. It was old, brittle stuff, but still, somehow, tasted of low-grade petroleum. The captive gagged, and his tormentors laughed. Once more they offered him the chance to confess. He spat it back in their faces.

Then Quon stepped forward, his favorite toy in one hand and the bottle in the other. For a horrible moment, the captive thought he was going to ram the neck of the piece of glass refuse down his throat.

He didn't. Quon had another orifice in mind. He rounded the prisoner, and stood behind him. Two guards grabbed each pole, holding the suspended man stationary for the delicate procedure ahead.

Fire from the base of his spine, shooting up into his abdomen and his chest. At first he couldn't believe it. The thought of what was happening was too much for his reason to grasp. Incapable of coping, he let go of logic and lost himself in the pain. The physical suffering was terrible, but it was better than thinking about what was happening. Unbelievable agony from every quarter, no avenue of misery left unexplored. And then, just when he thought there could be no more suffering, the cattle prod discharged against the sole of his left foot and all of Creation exploded in anguish. Then the right. Then he couldn't tell anymore, because it just kept coming. All control was lost. His shattered mind could stop nothing that his tortured body wanted to do. Not even the screams.

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The screams. They tore through the night, vulgar and horrific. Men awoke in terror, themselves transported for an instant back to Hell by their roommate's sounds of torment. Each reacted differently. There were those who hid beneath their blankets, willing the sounds to stop. One left his bed and tried to hide beneath it. Most looked around in confusion, seeking the source of the anguish.

Two men had the presence of mind required to overcome their own intrusions to help the one lost in remembered agony. One ran for the overhead lights, and the other towards the bed nearest the door, where Al lay writhing, his throat vocalizing the torture that should have been buried ten years in the past. The man grabbed him, hauling him into a sitting position and gripping both arms in an attempt to brace the twisting body against its own convulsions of terror and desperation. What he didn't realize was the suffering this caused in the abused shoulder. The dreamer's hoarse proclamations of wretchedness took on a new level of distress as the affliction became physical as well as psychological.

"Wake up, Captain!" the commander ordered, not understanding why the touch heightened the man's fear. "You're home. You're safe. It's over."

Al heard the words, and was dimly aware of the concerned faces gathering around him, but he couldn't shake the memory. It wasn't over. For him, it wasn't over. Not the pain, not the terror, not the war. 'Seventy-two, 'eighty-two, tonight there was no difference. A decade everyone around him had lived was suddenly lost. He screamed and struggled, trying to fight the pain, trying to control himself, trying, frantically, not to think about what was happening.

"Sir! Please! It's over! You're home! America! San Diego! It's just a dream!"

There was panic in the air now. It seemed plain that the MIA was going to hurt himself. Certainly what the men saw was a vision of the horrors they could still be living. Most had not been held in the deep jungle, far from the protective desire of the North Vietnamese government to use them as tools in a war of propaganda. Far more important, they had come home to family, friends, support nets. They had had help on their long road to healing. They had accepted help. Eleven pairs of suddenly sleepless eyes communicated with one another. There but for the grace of God, said each; go I.

He was still fighting the arms around him, and the hands of other men, pressing against his face and trying to ease the spasms in his legs, and somehow bring him back to reality. Someone checked his chart to refresh the memory of last night's introductions.

"Al!" he called. "Al, you're home! Wake up!"

"BETH!" the victim shrieked. "BETH! BETH! HELP ME!" Another scream, rattling in strained vocal cords, stole breath from the listeners.

"What's this?" The nurse was back, followed by two capable looking orderlies.

"A dream," said the commander holding Al. Trying frantically to reconcile the two conflicting worlds, the wretched man began to claw at his forehead, raising red welts with his nails. Instantly, four pairs of hands grabbed his wrists, and another jolt of anguish shot up his injured arm.

"Captain!" the woman said sternly. She was experienced and capable. Ten years ago she had been on the wards with these men or others like them. She had seen it all. "Captain Calavicci, wake up and stop this at once!"

Al wanted to obey. He wanted to believe the voices telling him that it was over, that he was home. Safe. But if he was home, why was there pain? Why could he feel thin cotton hanging off his shoulders? Why was he all but naked? Where was Beth? Why did the air reek of fear and horror?

He struggled, thrashing and trying to break free of the restraining hands. The voices were vague and muddled, and Quon was still there. Another scream tore from his throat.

The nurse drew back her hand and slapped him once. It wasn't a hard blow: it didn't even raise a flush on the ashen cheeks. What it did was give him an unexpected pain to distract from the others, a point of focus for his flailing mind. A hitching gasp was accompanied by sudden flaccidity of his limbs.

"All right," the woman said, her voice kind and understanding. "Everyone let him go. He's going to be fine. Isn't that right, Captain? You're going to be fine."

One by one the grasping hands released, and Al crumpled onto the mattress, whimpering piteously. He wasn't in the present yet. He was suspended in limbo between two agonies: the imagined one from the dream, and the real one from his shoulder.

"He's going to be fine," the nurse repeated, standing back so that the orderlies could take hold of the bony form and help him to his feet. "He's just going to have a session with Doctor Untreigner. Everyone lie down and try to get some sleep."

No one resisted. They all remembered these late-night sessions with the shrink. Over the years there had been fewer and fewer of them, but it was still standard procedure. The nurse turned towards Al, trying for modesty's sake to re-fasten the ties on his gown. He hardly felt her hands. He was too far gone, lost in the memories. The VC were still here. They were dragging him from his cell, bruised, bloodied and battered. God only knew where they were taking him, but he didn't have the strength to resist. Maybe they were taking him out to be executed. That wouldn't be so bad…

He stumbled, but they wouldn't let him fall. Down a long corridor, his bare feet cold on the floor. Into a small room, a white room. They eased him onto a bench, and he was surprised to find it was upholstered. There was a word for that. A bench with cushions and armrests and a soft back. He groped for it. Sofa. They were settling him on a sofa.

A female voice was addressing him. Gentle hands wrapped a blanket around his naked knees. Then a miracle! Plastic touched his lips and water lapped against his teeth. Cool, clean water. Al sucked frantically at it, draining away every drop. The woman spoke again, applauding him and settling his head against a cushion. She said something about a doctor, and then Al was left alone.

Alone? He couldn't bear to be alone. His limbs began to tremble and he drew his knees close to his chest. The pain shot through his shoulder again, and his mind misconstrued it, dragging him further away from the present again.

Yet reality was nearer, held close by the sofa, the blanket and the feeling of moisture in his mouth. He remembered a little. Starbright. Stevie. Sharon.

Sharon, he thought wretchedly. Where was Sharon? Why wasn't Sharon here?