We’ll both make it out of the bush, out of the Nam.
We’ll both escape this hell.
I say it. I think it.
I don’t believe it.
Chapter 23
August 13, 1979
I spent a quiet weekend at home, and Monday morning I met William and Todd at Nini’s. I never got the impression William had said anything to Todd about Eric or about the sledgehammer, so I also kept my mouth shut. I did learn from Todd that William had moved into the room above Todd’s garage until he found a place of his own.
William and I were sent back to the house in Burlingame to perform a massive cleanup around the property. When we arrived, William was quiet. I asked William how Todd had made out on the remodel, but he only shrugged, remote. It being just the two of us, I decided to ask if he was all right.
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“You don’t look good, William. You’ve lost a lot of weight and . . . Look, it’s probably none of my business—”
“It’s not your business.”
“Okay,” I said.
After a few minutes William said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m a survivor. Worry about yourself. You don’t know shit. The world is playing chess and you’re playing checkers. It’s going to piss all over you.”
“Okay,” I said again.
William didn’t speak for another minute or two. I figured I’d pissed him off. But I didn’t care. Someone needed to ask him if he was okay. We walked around the site picking up spent nails and scraps of lumber and filling a blue dumpster.
“I’m drinking too much and I’m doing too many drugs.”
William made the statement without looking at me. Then he squatted, as he always did, but this time he brought both hands to his face, as if in prayer. I noticed the tremor. His eyes were moist. “I can’t get things out of my head. I can’t forget. I could always forget. I could always put shit behind me, tell myself, ‘That’s no big thing.’ File it away. Now I can’t. I can’t seem to forget.”
“Can you get help?”
“I made a call to the VA in Napa,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about checking myself in.”
“I think you should, William. If it could help.” As I said it, I wondered what the hell I knew, and I half expected William to explode at me. He didn’t. He simply nodded, several times.
“I called,” he finally said. “I have friends who had their claims denied because they’d been home for too long, but now they’re taking guys. They’re calling it post-traumatic stress disorder.” He took a breath, and I sensed he was struggling to hold himself together. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“About what?”
“Why I made it home.”
I was about to tell William he came home because God had plans for him, but he no longer believed in God. “It was just luck,” I said. “That’s what you told me. You got lucky. Nothing to feel guilty about.”
He rocked, slightly, as if in a rocking chair. “Did I tell you about Victor Cruz?”
“Yes,” I said.
“No.” He shook his head. “Did I tell you about him not coming home?”
Oh shit, I thought. I had assumed Cruz made it home. “No.”
“It was after I got shot. After I recovered and went back.”
I knelt in front of him.
“I went back to my platoon. I could have taken a clerk’s job in the rear, working for my former captain, Dennis Martinez. Cruz had called in the favor, but I didn’t take the job. I didn’t want to leave Victor in the bush. I returned so we could watch each other’s backs. So we would leave together.”
This much I knew. William had told me this, but I didn’t say anything. I just let him talk.
William shook his head. “Cruz was pissed. He said the war had ended for me, that I shouldn’t have come back. That’s when something clicked. I could see my mom. I could see my house, my home, my brothers and sisters, my father. I could see them all clearly when before I couldn’t. And I knew I’d made a mistake going back into the bush.”
Again, William had told me this. He had told me he thought his luck had run out, and he had a premonition of death. “What happened to Cruz?” I asked, gently nudging him forward.
“Victor was close to his thirty-day DEROS, a short-timer. He wasn’t supposed to go outside the wire anymore. He was going to ship back to Da Nang and shine a seat with his ass. We got word we were going back out to secure a hill for the ARVN. It was supposed to be a walk in the park. Secure it, let the ARVN move in, and come back. Victor and I would leave the bush, and I’d take the clerk’s job. When I went into the bunker, Victor was packing, I thought, for the rear.”