MEMORIES

 

THE QUIET WOMAN

A True Story of the Vietnam Era

By Jimmie von Tungeln

             If the old woman hadn’t come on after the stripper, things might have started a little smoother. After all, who would want to follow a tall, dark Eurasian woman who took off nearly everything she had on in front of a thousand horny service men? And I do mean all she had on, except for a tiny strip of gauze across her bosom and a triangular patch covering her “Forbidden Garden.” Tony Grant would claim the next day, “I swear I could almost see nipples from where I was sitting.” The USO waltzed out some weird acts back in those days, some deliberately designed, it seemed, to drive men crazy. The generals allowed it and then wondered why men were so hard to control out in the jungle.

            Anyway, the stripper was finished. She wasn’t coming back out. It would have been dangerous, too much heat and too much beer. This was an enlisted men’s club in the I-Corp and not a gentleman’s joint in Manhattan. The next act better damned sure be a good one though. Feelings were running high. A half-decent rock and roll band would have been nice, anyone who could do a passable version of the Vietnam Vets’ National Anthem: “We’ve Got To Get Out of This Place.”

            But no. Out walks this tiny woman of indeterminate age, at least fifty. She wore a long sequined black dress that fell from her tiny shoulders almost to the floor. Her hair was short and showed some signs of gray. Cheap-looking earrings hung nearly to her shoulders. Her makeup looked as if it had been applied by a first-week beauty school student. Christ almighty!

Tiny and aged as she was, though, she had spunk. She walked up to the mike like she was at Carnegie Hall and waited for her piano player to get seated. The place was quiet for a moment, from sheer disbelief I suspect.

            Then the rumbling started and you could here someone yelling for the stripper to come back out. I heard a Grunt scream, “Get that old bag out of here.”

            The shouts of disapproval were so loud that only those in the first couple of rows could hear her when she said, “I know I can’t compete with that last act. I only know a few old songs, some Irish and some not. Maybe you’ll enjoy one or two of them.”

            With that, the piano hit a strong, commanding chord, and from that frail tiny body soared a sound so linear and pure that one could imagine it piercing the back wall of the club and flying straight into the jungle and beyond.”

“Over in Killarney
Many years ago,
My Mother sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low.”

The sounds emerging from that ancient (to us at least, young fools that we were) face were so strange and haunting that those nearest the stage hushed immediately and this allowed the full force of her voice to carry further.

“Just a simple little ditty,
In her good old Irish way,
And l'd give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.”

A wave of silence undulated across the room as the voice filled it with an assurance formed, no doubt, by many years of knocking about places with forgettable names and long-forgotten faces.

"Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby."

            By this time her voice was challenged only by the soft movement of hands moving cans of beer and heads turning to watch. She finished the song and, in perfect timing, the piano player led her into “My Wild Irish Rose.” A few in the crowd began to move with the music. Some even hummed along with the song. She finished it and looked at the crowd and smiled. It was sort of an impish smile if you can imagine. Then she dropped a shoulder, thrust a bony hip toward us, and pointed a blue-veined foot directly at those in the front row.

“I hate to see, that evening sun go down.”

            The piano player supported her with a sweeping blues chord and she was off. Somehow she didn’t seem as old as she had when she started. The crowd just watched in disbelieving approval. She finished this number and than stopped and looked us over as if to say, “What do you think now, boys?”

Now these weren’t college boys or Irish rovers. Twenty-four hours earlier some of them had been killing Viet Cong, unsuspecting villagers, or water buffaloes, anything that got in their way. But their minds sure weren’t on killing now. The applause started in the front and moved over us like a rolling artillery barrage. The building shook like it might fall at any moment. She just kept singing.

            Who can remember what all she performed that night? It seemed over before it started. Each time she finished a song, the room erupted and hundreds of beer cans pounded on tables. As she came out for her third encore, she thanked us and we knew we would never hear her sing again. Those USO shows moved around quickly and we were only there for “365 and a wake-up.”

            “I’ll leave you with this, for that special one back home,” she said and looked at the floor as if it had some secret message written on it. Raising her head, she looked at each one of us and smiled.

            “I’ll be seeing you,” she sang.

            “In all those old familiar places.”

            You didn’t dare look around at a goddam soul for you knew you were about to start bawling and then they would too. We couldn’t cry, though. Hell, we were supposed to be killers. And tomorrow we might be. Not tonight, though. Tonight we were just a bunch of homesick boys enjoying a moment of peace in a world that seemed to have forgotten about us.

“In that small cafe …that park across the way…”

Life does have its moments. I’ve never forgotten that one.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 A little piece in which I predict the future:

Morning began with a thud as an empty beer bottle hit a Christmas tree in the next room.
“Hon?”
There was no answer.
“Maria, are you okay?”
No one answered and Joe rose. Entering the next room, he saw his wife slumped on the couch, staring at the straggly tree with no presents beneath it, just the beer bottle.
He sat beside her. “What’s the matter,” he said.
“Everything.”
“Everything?” He put an arm around her. “Everything all at once?”
She moved her eyes to his and said, “Why? Why do they have to move here?”
“They are my parents,” Joe said. “They have no place to go. Can’t you understand? What if they were your parents?”
“Mine are both dead,” she said. “Remember the last flu epidemic? Why can’t he get a job?”
“He tried,” Joe said. “It’s hard. No firm wants to hire a man in his late fifties. Particularly with a break in his leg that never healed. He got that at his last job, remember? He’s on the list.”
“What about her?”
“There’s only stenography jobs,” he said. “And they go to the young ones. The ones they call ‘the company ink.’”
“Couldn’t we just give them some money to find a place?”
“You forget,” he said. “Having a child with smallpox doesn’t do much good for savings accounts.”
“Tommy can get a job when he gets out, can’t he? The damned government must let him out eventually.”
“Sshh,” Joe said. He glanced around the room and covered the cell phone in his pocket. Then he spoke toward it. “Now you know the government is trying to help. The news says incomes will rise even higher this year.”
She shook her head. “What did Tommy say when you saw him?”
“Good news,” Joe said. “He is pretty sure his lawyer can get ‘Helping Immigrants’ lowered to ‘Improper Empathy.’ Now doesn’t that make you feel better?”
“And the ones he helped?”
Joe looked around again. This time he was more nervous than before. “Now don’t you worry about them. They are being well cared for. Things are going to get better for us all.” He kissed her forehead. “And… “
“And what?
“Merry Christmas.”

MORNING THOUGHTS

More thoughts on obsessions.

Continuing my thoughts inspired by my current reading of “Moby Dick,” let’s return to the concept I call, “exclusionary obsession.” This refers to an obsession so strong and overpowering that it eclipses any concern for the welfare of all. Once afflicted, one will support, vote for, and follow the most otherwise evil of persons who swear to address the obsession.

Last trip, I mentioned abortion, now let us consider what may be the next in order of prevalence, the obsession regarding devices that use explosive force to propel a projectile through a metal tube at a high velocity. Yes, a gun.

Now I would never demean a gun owner. We store nearly a dozen, well-hidden and secured. Two we purchased. One served as gift to a 12-year old raised in a “cowboy culture.” The rest drifted down from the ownership of deceased relatives or their friends.

There was another. The federal government confiscated it from me on the second happiest day of my life.

But I digress. From whence comes this obsession that would cause a person to actually vote for a Donald Trump? Confiscation would be an impossibility. Future purchases fall under the protection of the United States Constitution.

As a result, some 46% of American households own a gun. They have that right.

The Constitution protected flintlock muzzle-loading firearms with a rate of fire of, maybe, three rounds per minute in the hands of trained users.

One of the heaviest weapons today that might be carried (by a strong soldier) today is the M-60 machine gun capable of firing between 500 to 650 rounds per minute using a caliber known in the civilian market as the .308 Winchester. A well trained and hefty father could protect his home and family with one, I suppose, if it were kept ready, handy, oiled, locked, and loaded.

Why would a person support the most despicable candidate possible simply because they feel denied personal ownership of an M-60?

Let’s return to “Moby Dick.” We might say Ahab hated the whale because he no longer owned both legs, but no. It was something more cosmic. The whale demoted him to a secondary status in the Universe, impelling him to vow, "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me,". What created and then nurtured this obsession? One wonders, but:

What if, each morning of his life, a messenger came to Ahab with a note from a trusted source saying, “The whale has plans to take your other leg?”

DEFEAT FASCISM

Journal of a Left-Wing Radical: Spent the evening watching a video about Blues Music in America. Of course it covered the enduring myth of the man who sold his soul to the devil in return for mastery of the guitar. This morning, my “hair shirt hour” featured reading Adam Smith on the development of currency. From Abraham's paying four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Machpelah to the modern evangelicals selling their decency for political power, we love the concept of bartering. This is true even though we’re not quite sure why Judas wanted his 30 pieces of silver. Sadly, we’re now bartering the life of our planet for a few generations of mobility and the fun it brings. And a cult is bartering the health of our children for the strained concept of “owning the libs.” When someone asks me why I accept being labeled a liberal, and thus “owned,” I’m reminded of the tale, a wonderful but likely apocryphal one, featuring Henry David Thoreau in jail for not paying his poll tax. According to the story, when friend Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau and asked why he was in jail, Thoreau is said to have responded, "Waldo, why are you not here?”

This draws one to the line from John Steinbeck’s "Sweet Thursday": “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen".

THE SLAVEHOLDER REVOLT

For some reason I have these weird flights of thought. Oh yes. I know you do too, but I have this horrible habit of writing them down and posting them. For example: At my age one thinks a lot about heart attacks. I take it to extremes.

Consider this. If Ulysses S. Grant had succumbed to a heart attack on November 6, 1860, one could find his name on the West Point class of 1843. With effort one might find mention of First Lieutenant, then Brevet Captain Grant’s performance in the Mexican American War. That’s about it. Maybe an obscure obituary in some Missouri or Illinois newspaper might appear. Then no mention of him in the files of either of the Americas.

Had, on the other hand, Robert E. Lee succumbed likewise on that date, he would rate mention as an ideal army officer and West Point Superintendent—overall the very picture of a modern Regular Army Colonel. Writing a glowing biography would be a simple task.

There we have it.

From failure to savior.

From paragon to traitor.

Isn’t it remarkable what the effects of a couple of bouts of good health will have upon a country? Is it fate that is granting us longevity?

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LONG MAY SHE WAVE

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical:

Watching a video of historian H.W. Brands, from the U. of Texas talking about his book on Ulysses S. Grant. He shared an interesting question he poses to a group of 18-19 year-old students: “What would make you go to war?” He admitted to a plethora of answers, and it made me think. Why did I?

Know what? It was my Sainted Mother. Anyone who has observed life at all knows how Southern boys are about their mommas. I know it figured as high as the rigging on a topmast in my decision.

I remember standing before the Great Tidepool near Monterey, California after a long walk from my Navy Base on the grounds of what was once the old Del Monte Hotel. In one pocket of a Navy Peacoat, I carried a letter instructing me how to begin an escape to Canada. In the other I carried orders for training as a member of U.S. Naval Security Forces at Da Nang, Vietnam. This meant I would carry a weapon for a year with the option of killing other human beings if ordered to.

I needed to decide that day.

That’s where Sainted Mother came in. Daddy? He didn’t care. He never thought I should have gotten involved in the military anyway, as if I had a choice.

SM wasn’t for war, but she disliked cowardice more. I remembered her words, “You don’t want to be like [unnamed relative]. They took him into the Army and he bawled and squalled and wet the bed until they sent him home.”

In the long run, I could not accept the fact that I might not ever see a woman with that kind of American spirit again.

She won.

Why would you go to war? Might better decide today for we are near one. The Forces of Darkness are closing in upon us fast.

I’ve decided. America took the place of Sainted Mother. Join me.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical

Remember reading once (can’t verify the veracity)  that Archibald Alec Leach, a young performer, fashioned a persona for himself by mimicking a number of famous personages, one for voice, one for accent, one for bearing, and so forth. Whatever, it worked for the result known as Cary Grant.

I’ve been thinking. These increasingly seem to be the “end times” for the American Experiment. How would I like to be perceived as the final curtain falls? Let’s amalgamate the personages, real and fictional:

• -          The Andy Devine character of the “Happy Soldier” in the 1951 film version of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
• -          The unidentified character in the 1958 film “A Night To Remember” who, as the Titanic sinks, retires to the smoking room and calmly reads on a tilting deck.
• -          Joseph Campbell, the American scholar who once sought refuge at Woodstock, NY and read for five years.
• -          Bill Moyers, who produced the marvelous documentaries on Josehp Campbell and then on the song, “Amazing Grace.”
• -          The actor Keanu Reeves who appears, from all accounts, to be one hell of a great person.
• -          Liberace: A person highly skilled in his profession who never denied who he was and never took himself too seriously.
• -          Any journalist who saw early on that Donald J. Trump was a total fraud and grifter who had the magaligarch backing and degenerate moxie to destroy our country.
• -          Oh, best of all: Mr. Rogers, from one who will pass from this mortal coil wondering how the same country produced him and Cadet Bone Spurs.

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