But why would William care now?
Even if it were true, if Cruz knocked William out, why then would William have felt so much guilt to have survived? I looked back to the journal and turned the page. There was one more entry, also freshly written. Also in ink. But there was no new date.
The story continued, and so did I.
After the bodies were helicoptered out, we climbed down the hill. The ARVN, the South Vietnamese, never came. At dusk we took a short break in a field of rice paddies.
I sat alone, the only remaining marine left from my original squad. Nearby sat three marines smoking a joint. They shook their heads. “Shutter,” they said. “Take our picture.”
I was not thinking much anymore. I’d forgotten I still had the camera. I raised it and snapped their photo. They had soot and dirt in every crack of their visible skin, which otherwise had no pigmentation. It was gray. They didn’t look like men. They looked like ghosts, walking dead. They didn’t smile. Though only in-country a couple of months, they already had the lifeless eyes I’d seen in so many marines, like their souls had already left their bodies—the way EZ’s soul left his body.
One of them pointed across the paddy. Far in the distance a mama-san was bent over, working in the shin-deep water as if it were just another day. We’d just lost all these marines. We’d lost Victor Cruz. And she just went on with her life, like nothing happened. The guys watched her from across the paddy. One of them, I don’t remember who, it doesn’t matter, said, “I’ll bet Mama-san is VC.”
“Sure as shit,” said another. “They’re all VC. I’ll bet she gave us away, gave the NVA time to ambush us.”
I looked up and saw her in the distance, small and fragile, just a shadow really, her cone-shaped hat and white shirt against the fading light.
“What do you want to bet I can hit her?” one of the guys said.
I heard someone say, “Don’t bother. You’re just wasting ammunition.” And I realized it was me. I was not thinking, This is an innocent woman. I was thinking we shouldn’t waste ammunition.
The first guy took a shot. Mama-san never looked up. She never looked over. She just kept working.
The second guy shouldered his rifle, shot. Missed.
The third guy also missed.
They looked to me. Like I was one of them. But I was not one of them. I was not like them. I was not going to shoot at an old woman.
I looked to the old woman, and suddenly I was hovering over this shell of a marine I no longer recognized, this marine I did not know. I watched as he raised the barrel of his M-16 and put the stock to his shoulder. He’s not going to pull the trigger, I told myself. He was just going to put the sights on her and pretend to pull the trigger. He was not going to shoot an innocent woman.
She was a dark shape against the fading light and the red horizon. Too far. She was too far to hit.
He squeezed the trigger.
The old woman fell over.
I lowered the rifle and looked to the three soldiers. No one said anything. No one’s facial expression changed. They stood and fell out, humping across the rice paddies, past the old woman’s body. As we passed, they never looked over at her. They didn’t care.
But I looked.
I saw the face.
Not an old mama-san. A boy. Maybe seven or eight years old. A child.
His eyes were open, staring up at me, pleading for an answer. Why?
I had no answer.
I didn’t know why.
I see that young boy’s face every day.
He walks down the streets I walk, sits in a passing car, plays soccer on the soccer fields with other kids. He eats in the booth next to me in restaurants, sits in the movie theaters I attend, stands in line when I wait for anything. I see him at night when I close my eyes. I see him in the morning when I wake. I see him in the shower and in the mirror when I shave.
He is death.
Death follows me.
The young boy haunts me. He has a right.
I took his life.
He’s taking mine.
Chapter 26
June 17, 2017
I drove down to Los Angeles to pick up Beau after he completed his first year at UCLA. There had been some talk of him staying in LA, about a job working with a friend at a golf course, but ultimately, Beau decided he wanted to come home. Elizabeth had too much going on at work to make the drive, and with Mary Beth still in finals, we thought it best that Elizabeth stay home and keep Mary Beth on track.
I helped Beau carry his belongings to the car. It wasn’t much. I was amazed at how little one could live on, the simplicity of college life. It made me think of William again, what little he had in Vietnam. Beau’s freshman roommate, whom I had never met, had already checked out, leaving just the elevated bare mattress and pinholes in the wall where the Star Wars movie posters had hung.