| General Fiction posted January 12, 2022 | Chapters: |
...10 11 -12- 13... 
|
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Lee begins to understand he has options.
A chapter in the book Concertina
666 or 777?
by Yardier
| 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. |
"Gooks… did you say gooks?" Lee slugged down his cold beer.
"No, goofs," Zip answered.
Lee caught a glimpse of Zip and Rudy, sharing a concerned look.
"Goofs with voices?" Lee asked.
"What…?" Zip asked.
"Nothing… never mind."
"No, you said something about voices." Zip pressed.
Lee tried to ignore him but was pretty sure he saw little flames in the back of Zip's eyes.
"Don't look too close, Lee… wouldn't want you to get burned… not just yet anyway." The voices cautioned.
Troubled and desperate for normalcy, Lee turned from Zip to a television mounted on the wall looping black and white footage of U.S. Military combat operations from the '60s. It featured a well-known war correspondent, Stan Blather, replete with a new helmet and flak jacket, interviewing a young soldier. He stuck a shiny new microphone into the scared young soldier's face and asked, "What do you think, soldier? Think you'll get out of this place alive?"
The young soldier peering from beneath a helmet too large for his head barely looked eighteen. He glanced over his shoulder at the Hueys lifting off behind him. Explosions, just off-camera caused Blather and the young soldier to wince simultaneously. "I, I don't know. I hope so," the young soldier said with wide eyes darting side to side. "I just got here. A year's a long time. Do you know where my Sergeant is?"
Lee's mind began to spin.
"Do you know where my sergeant is?" A surfer mocked with an embellished boy's voice. "I want to go home."
The crowd of Veterans laughed as the band started up again with the Rolling Stone's, 'Paint it Black.'
Lee felt the floor heave.
Lee wasn't entirely unnerved by what he saw. Still, he was beginning to consider what was happening around him was confirmation that something familiar and dark was revealing itself.
Lee turned from the bar. "I gotta go," he said with a tired voice.
"Oh no you don't." The voices sounded darker.
Like a dear friend, Zip asked, "Where you gonna go… Lee?"
"Ya, where you gonna go?" Rudy asked.
"Told you," The Vietnamese voices taunted.
Lee fumbled with the hotel business card in his breast pocket and handed it to Rudy. "Here, call the hotel, they'll send a driver."
Rudy looked at the sweaty card. "Hotel? What are you going to do in a hotel that you can't do here? I got some extra rooms upstairs. The sheets are even clean; the girls washed 'em two days ago."
"I think I need to take a break, rest a bit. I'm feeling a little messed up," Lee said as he looked for the door.
"I'll give you a discount." Rudy smiled.
"Ya, what good is it going back to your hotel? You're still in Saigon." Zip laughed devilishly.
"Still in Saigon, still in Saigon, still in Saigon," Vietnamese voices harmonized terror.
"Just call." Lee almost begged Rudy as he looked past Zip at the entrance door.
"Well, what is it?" Rudy asked. "666 or 777?"
"What?"
"The prefix is smudged. Is it 666 or 777?" Rudy held the smudged card up to the bar light.
"I don't know," Lee said while wondering how far he'd have to walk to get to his hotel.
"Run, walk, or fly. We'll still be with you," Vietnamese voices whispered.
"If you don't know the difference between 666 and 777, I can't help you," Rudy said.
“Just look it up in the phone book or something," Lee pled. He thought the hotel was probably two, maybe three miles away, but in what direction? His mind and feet were itching to get out of the Bunker, and if Rudy wasn’t going to call, he was ready to find his own way.
Rudy tossed the card onto the bar. "I don't have time for this. You'll have to find your own way back."
"Good luck with that," The Vietnamese voices chorused.
Zip picked up the card and considered the two prefixes. "Well, it's one or the other, that's for damn sure, can't get any simpler than that."
Determined to leave, Lee picked the card out of Zip's hand and stepped from the bar. He knew it was time to leave in whatever direction, and whatever distance it took to reach the sanity of his hotel room.
"You think that's going to help?" The Vietnamese voices laughed.
"Wait," Zip commanded as he grabbed Lee's arm.
"Get off me." Lee yanked his arm back and stepped quickly to the door.
Zip stood to grab Lee again but suddenly stopped when Lee reached the door.
Expecting fresh air as he opened the door, Lee stiffened as he stood face to face with Agent Chien.
"Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City," Agent Chien said with a polished smile. "Or would you prefer to call it Saigon?"
"Yes, indeed, welcome. Welcome to… where was it you served your time?" The Vietnamese voices asked.
Lee turned and gave Zip and Rudy a pleading look. They looked away with indifference.
"Would you mind stepping over here for a moment?" Agent Chien pointed to the side of the door. Lee hesitated then took a couple of cautious half steps as Agent Chien placed himself between the door and Lee. "Did you know that some time ago Saigon was known as the Pearl of the Orient? Can you imagine that? How beautiful it must have been, but now, well, as you can see, things are different."
"Just the way we like it," The Vietnamese voices said with dark approval.
Agent Chien's all-observant eyes watched as some of the prostitutes who had not paid him his required 'monthly permit' slowly made their way to the side exit. Simultaneously, he saw out of the corner of his eye, Zip's cautious movement to the back of the bar. He watched as Zip knelt and opened the hatch to the storage cellar and dropped out of sight into the darkness below.
Avoiding eye contact with Agent Chien, Rudy closed the hatch, stacked beer cases on top of it, then returned to diligently wiping the bar.
Agent Chien leaned forward with his ear cocked to Lee's face. "Did you say something?
"No…"
"Hmm, I thought you said something about liking the change."
"No, I… I didn't say anything."
"Odd, I could swear I heard you say something." Agent Chien chuckled with a mocking smile. "I must be hearing voices."
Lee smiled weakly.
Impatient, the Vietnamese voices asked, "That's us, O Great River One. He can hear us. You can hear us. We can all hear each other, but you are still missing the point. How long is it going to take?"
Lee felt nausiated and began to sweat as Agent Chien asked him, "Are you feeling well? You don't look so good."
"I don't, really. I think it was the flight over and too much to drink." Lee tried to smile, but his mouth was dry and his tongue thick.
Agent Chien toyed with Lee. "Yes, that flight can take a lot out of a man. It can produce changes a returning veteran had not considered. They weren't prepared for... how should I say this? Ah yes, clarity... the clarity of combat. That clarity can make demands on their memory, and sometimes what they remember can be too much for the ordinary veteran. But you are not just any ordinary veteran, are you?"
"Yes... I mean no, I was just a soldier really."
"Yes, I can see that now, ordinary but special, right? A real American Viet Nam veteran, wow, that's really something. It's almost a title, isn't it? A cultural classification similar to a Knight or an elevated position of sorts; one that requires you to be strong and humble, almost stoic.” Agent Chien studied Lee. "Our worlds are so far apart and our values so different, and yet, you veterans brag about having served your time in hell here, but still, you manage to return. The least I can do is make sure each man's return is as close to their initial experience of having served their time in hell here, don't you think?"
"Hell? Hmm, has a certain ring to it," The Vietnamese voices mused.
A bead of sweat trickled down Lee's back. "I just want… am trying to get back to my hotel."
"He's a deserter!" The lead guitar player barked into the microphone.
A tortured voice from behind the stage cried out, "He's a maggot lifer!"
Even with the interruption, Agent Chien didn't take his eyes off Lee. "You have some friends here, I see. Is it true?"
"We're his friends," The Vietnamese voices said with affection.
Lee tried to ignore the voices and looked nervously over his shoulder at the crowd. "No, they're not my friends."
"Yes, we are, Lee. We will never leave you," The Vietnamese voices pouted.
"You fly seven thousand miles to be with your brothers, but they're not your friends? Interesting, but is it true?"
"Is what true?" Lee asked.
"That you are a deserter."
"No way." Lee tried to make some sense. "I'm hoping to find a woman."
"Mail order or one night stand?" Agent Chien leaned forward and whispered with a look of mock disapproval that suggested he could arrange such an encounter for the correct fee.
"No, from a long time ago… the war." Lee tried not to offend Agent Chien but struggled with clarity. Finally, he handed the hotel business card to Agent Chien and said, "Look, I just want to go back to my hotel room and get some rest."
"It's that flight. You know." The Vietnamese voices yawned.
Agent Chien studied the business card and noted the address and the smudged telephone prefix. "Well, you could call, couldn't you? I mean, the choices couldn't be any clearer; 666 or 777. At the most you'd have to make is two calls, unless one of them required a payment you could not afford."
"I, I have an American Express card," Lee stuttered.
"I'm sure you do. No sense leaving home without it." Agent Chien smiled.
Lee tried to make a short shuffle step past Agent Chien to the door. "I'll make my way back to the hotel on my own, thank you. I think I'll be able to find my way."
"Yes, you are a capable man, I can see that, but we're going to have to take care of a little business first. You know how governments are these days, so intrusive and all, still; I will need to see your passport and visa. I'm sure you understand."
"Yes, absolutely." Lee reached for his passport and visa, then stopped. "I left them in my hotel room."
"You know you are supposed to carry them with you at all times, right?"
Lee sensed Agent Chien was playing a little game with him, that somehow, he already knew Lee's identity.
"Yes, sir, if you could take me to my room, I can show them to you." Lee hoped Agent Chien was a reasonable member of the Communist Cadre.
Agent Chien stepped closer. "I'm not your taxi driver, Mr. No Name, without any friends. But I'm going to tell you what I am going to do." He reached beneath his shirt.
Lee took a sharp breath and was relieved when instead of handcuffs or a gun, Agent Chien produced a radio.
Fearful, Lee sensed he was about to experience Agent Chien's version of hell in Saigon.
"Now we're getting somewhere," The Vietnamese voices cheered.
"We're going to take a little walk down the street to my substation and check in with immigration," Agent Chien said and then began to speak Vietnamese into the radio.
Lee understood one phrase as Agent Chien looked him over and said into the radio, "Beaucoup Dien-Cai-Dau."
Suddenly, Lee pushed Agent Chien with force, lifting him off his feet onto a table where two veterans reminisced about Madam Wong's Steam and Massage services. The table collapsed onto the knees of the veterans as Agent Chien slid to the floor baptized with rum and coke. Furious, he thrashed and struggled to get to his feet like a demonic dervish, pushing and hissing at the shocked veterans. Lee took advantage of the confusion and bolted through the front door into a crowd of arriving veterans. He pushed past them and forced the security gate open and focused on an alley across the street. Indignant voices from inside the bar shouted, "Deserter!" Others laughed and teased with, "Come back, GI, we'll love you long time!"
"No, goofs," Zip answered.
Lee caught a glimpse of Zip and Rudy, sharing a concerned look.
"Goofs with voices?" Lee asked.
"What…?" Zip asked.
"Nothing… never mind."
"No, you said something about voices." Zip pressed.
Lee tried to ignore him but was pretty sure he saw little flames in the back of Zip's eyes.
"Don't look too close, Lee… wouldn't want you to get burned… not just yet anyway." The voices cautioned.
Troubled and desperate for normalcy, Lee turned from Zip to a television mounted on the wall looping black and white footage of U.S. Military combat operations from the '60s. It featured a well-known war correspondent, Stan Blather, replete with a new helmet and flak jacket, interviewing a young soldier. He stuck a shiny new microphone into the scared young soldier's face and asked, "What do you think, soldier? Think you'll get out of this place alive?"
The young soldier peering from beneath a helmet too large for his head barely looked eighteen. He glanced over his shoulder at the Hueys lifting off behind him. Explosions, just off-camera caused Blather and the young soldier to wince simultaneously. "I, I don't know. I hope so," the young soldier said with wide eyes darting side to side. "I just got here. A year's a long time. Do you know where my Sergeant is?"
Lee's mind began to spin.
"Do you know where my sergeant is?" A surfer mocked with an embellished boy's voice. "I want to go home."
The crowd of Veterans laughed as the band started up again with the Rolling Stone's, 'Paint it Black.'
Lee felt the floor heave.
Lee wasn't entirely unnerved by what he saw. Still, he was beginning to consider what was happening around him was confirmation that something familiar and dark was revealing itself.
Lee turned from the bar. "I gotta go," he said with a tired voice.
"Oh no you don't." The voices sounded darker.
Like a dear friend, Zip asked, "Where you gonna go… Lee?"
"Ya, where you gonna go?" Rudy asked.
"Told you," The Vietnamese voices taunted.
Lee fumbled with the hotel business card in his breast pocket and handed it to Rudy. "Here, call the hotel, they'll send a driver."
Rudy looked at the sweaty card. "Hotel? What are you going to do in a hotel that you can't do here? I got some extra rooms upstairs. The sheets are even clean; the girls washed 'em two days ago."
"I think I need to take a break, rest a bit. I'm feeling a little messed up," Lee said as he looked for the door.
"I'll give you a discount." Rudy smiled.
"Ya, what good is it going back to your hotel? You're still in Saigon." Zip laughed devilishly.
"Still in Saigon, still in Saigon, still in Saigon," Vietnamese voices harmonized terror.
"Just call." Lee almost begged Rudy as he looked past Zip at the entrance door.
"Well, what is it?" Rudy asked. "666 or 777?"
"What?"
"The prefix is smudged. Is it 666 or 777?" Rudy held the smudged card up to the bar light.
"I don't know," Lee said while wondering how far he'd have to walk to get to his hotel.
"Run, walk, or fly. We'll still be with you," Vietnamese voices whispered.
"If you don't know the difference between 666 and 777, I can't help you," Rudy said.
“Just look it up in the phone book or something," Lee pled. He thought the hotel was probably two, maybe three miles away, but in what direction? His mind and feet were itching to get out of the Bunker, and if Rudy wasn’t going to call, he was ready to find his own way.
Rudy tossed the card onto the bar. "I don't have time for this. You'll have to find your own way back."
"Good luck with that," The Vietnamese voices chorused.
Zip picked up the card and considered the two prefixes. "Well, it's one or the other, that's for damn sure, can't get any simpler than that."
Determined to leave, Lee picked the card out of Zip's hand and stepped from the bar. He knew it was time to leave in whatever direction, and whatever distance it took to reach the sanity of his hotel room.
"You think that's going to help?" The Vietnamese voices laughed.
"Wait," Zip commanded as he grabbed Lee's arm.
"Get off me." Lee yanked his arm back and stepped quickly to the door.
Zip stood to grab Lee again but suddenly stopped when Lee reached the door.
Expecting fresh air as he opened the door, Lee stiffened as he stood face to face with Agent Chien.
"Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City," Agent Chien said with a polished smile. "Or would you prefer to call it Saigon?"
"Yes, indeed, welcome. Welcome to… where was it you served your time?" The Vietnamese voices asked.
Lee turned and gave Zip and Rudy a pleading look. They looked away with indifference.
"Would you mind stepping over here for a moment?" Agent Chien pointed to the side of the door. Lee hesitated then took a couple of cautious half steps as Agent Chien placed himself between the door and Lee. "Did you know that some time ago Saigon was known as the Pearl of the Orient? Can you imagine that? How beautiful it must have been, but now, well, as you can see, things are different."
"Just the way we like it," The Vietnamese voices said with dark approval.
Agent Chien's all-observant eyes watched as some of the prostitutes who had not paid him his required 'monthly permit' slowly made their way to the side exit. Simultaneously, he saw out of the corner of his eye, Zip's cautious movement to the back of the bar. He watched as Zip knelt and opened the hatch to the storage cellar and dropped out of sight into the darkness below.
Avoiding eye contact with Agent Chien, Rudy closed the hatch, stacked beer cases on top of it, then returned to diligently wiping the bar.
Agent Chien leaned forward with his ear cocked to Lee's face. "Did you say something?
"No…"
"Hmm, I thought you said something about liking the change."
"No, I… I didn't say anything."
"Odd, I could swear I heard you say something." Agent Chien chuckled with a mocking smile. "I must be hearing voices."
Lee smiled weakly.
Impatient, the Vietnamese voices asked, "That's us, O Great River One. He can hear us. You can hear us. We can all hear each other, but you are still missing the point. How long is it going to take?"
Lee felt nausiated and began to sweat as Agent Chien asked him, "Are you feeling well? You don't look so good."
"I don't, really. I think it was the flight over and too much to drink." Lee tried to smile, but his mouth was dry and his tongue thick.
Agent Chien toyed with Lee. "Yes, that flight can take a lot out of a man. It can produce changes a returning veteran had not considered. They weren't prepared for... how should I say this? Ah yes, clarity... the clarity of combat. That clarity can make demands on their memory, and sometimes what they remember can be too much for the ordinary veteran. But you are not just any ordinary veteran, are you?"
"Yes... I mean no, I was just a soldier really."
"Yes, I can see that now, ordinary but special, right? A real American Viet Nam veteran, wow, that's really something. It's almost a title, isn't it? A cultural classification similar to a Knight or an elevated position of sorts; one that requires you to be strong and humble, almost stoic.” Agent Chien studied Lee. "Our worlds are so far apart and our values so different, and yet, you veterans brag about having served your time in hell here, but still, you manage to return. The least I can do is make sure each man's return is as close to their initial experience of having served their time in hell here, don't you think?"
"Hell? Hmm, has a certain ring to it," The Vietnamese voices mused.
A bead of sweat trickled down Lee's back. "I just want… am trying to get back to my hotel."
"He's a deserter!" The lead guitar player barked into the microphone.
A tortured voice from behind the stage cried out, "He's a maggot lifer!"
Even with the interruption, Agent Chien didn't take his eyes off Lee. "You have some friends here, I see. Is it true?"
"We're his friends," The Vietnamese voices said with affection.
Lee tried to ignore the voices and looked nervously over his shoulder at the crowd. "No, they're not my friends."
"Yes, we are, Lee. We will never leave you," The Vietnamese voices pouted.
"You fly seven thousand miles to be with your brothers, but they're not your friends? Interesting, but is it true?"
"Is what true?" Lee asked.
"That you are a deserter."
"No way." Lee tried to make some sense. "I'm hoping to find a woman."
"Mail order or one night stand?" Agent Chien leaned forward and whispered with a look of mock disapproval that suggested he could arrange such an encounter for the correct fee.
"No, from a long time ago… the war." Lee tried not to offend Agent Chien but struggled with clarity. Finally, he handed the hotel business card to Agent Chien and said, "Look, I just want to go back to my hotel room and get some rest."
"It's that flight. You know." The Vietnamese voices yawned.
Agent Chien studied the business card and noted the address and the smudged telephone prefix. "Well, you could call, couldn't you? I mean, the choices couldn't be any clearer; 666 or 777. At the most you'd have to make is two calls, unless one of them required a payment you could not afford."
"I, I have an American Express card," Lee stuttered.
"I'm sure you do. No sense leaving home without it." Agent Chien smiled.
Lee tried to make a short shuffle step past Agent Chien to the door. "I'll make my way back to the hotel on my own, thank you. I think I'll be able to find my way."
"Yes, you are a capable man, I can see that, but we're going to have to take care of a little business first. You know how governments are these days, so intrusive and all, still; I will need to see your passport and visa. I'm sure you understand."
"Yes, absolutely." Lee reached for his passport and visa, then stopped. "I left them in my hotel room."
"You know you are supposed to carry them with you at all times, right?"
Lee sensed Agent Chien was playing a little game with him, that somehow, he already knew Lee's identity.
"Yes, sir, if you could take me to my room, I can show them to you." Lee hoped Agent Chien was a reasonable member of the Communist Cadre.
Agent Chien stepped closer. "I'm not your taxi driver, Mr. No Name, without any friends. But I'm going to tell you what I am going to do." He reached beneath his shirt.
Lee took a sharp breath and was relieved when instead of handcuffs or a gun, Agent Chien produced a radio.
Fearful, Lee sensed he was about to experience Agent Chien's version of hell in Saigon.
"Now we're getting somewhere," The Vietnamese voices cheered.
"We're going to take a little walk down the street to my substation and check in with immigration," Agent Chien said and then began to speak Vietnamese into the radio.
Lee understood one phrase as Agent Chien looked him over and said into the radio, "Beaucoup Dien-Cai-Dau."
Suddenly, Lee pushed Agent Chien with force, lifting him off his feet onto a table where two veterans reminisced about Madam Wong's Steam and Massage services. The table collapsed onto the knees of the veterans as Agent Chien slid to the floor baptized with rum and coke. Furious, he thrashed and struggled to get to his feet like a demonic dervish, pushing and hissing at the shocked veterans. Lee took advantage of the confusion and bolted through the front door into a crowd of arriving veterans. He pushed past them and forced the security gate open and focused on an alley across the street. Indignant voices from inside the bar shouted, "Deserter!" Others laughed and teased with, "Come back, GI, we'll love you long time!"
~~~~
Glossary:
666: Symbol for the Antichrist or, the devil.
777: According to many religions 777 is the number of God. It can also represent faith and belief.
Beaucoup Dien-Cai-Dau: Much crazy in the head. French, Vietnamese perjoritive directed to soldiers in Vietnam.
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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