sitting against a wall and he was clutching his leg to his chest, like he was afraid somebody was going
to steal it. He bled to death like that, just clutching that leg. This old man, probably, I don?t know,
maybe sixty, sixty-five, too old to do anything to anybody. I started thinking, Holy shit, there?s some
weird people over here. Whoever?s running this war needs to get his head rewired.”
He was nodding along with me.
“It was the ultimate scam, Nam,” he agreed. “Nam the scam, the big con. Shit, from the day we?re
born we get sold the big con about war and manhood. We get conned up for that all our lives. The big
fuckin? war payoff. Be a hero—except there weren?t any heroes in Nam. All it was was a giant fuckup with a high body count.”
“That?s what you wanted, Stick? To be a hero and have a parade?”
Stick laughed. “Would have been nice if somebody had made the offer.”
“I never did figure out what it was all about,” I said. “That was the worst part of it.”
“Guilt is what it?s all about.”
I knew about that. First you?re exhilarated because you?re still alive and others around you are dead.
You don?t want to admit it, but that?s the way it is. The guilt sets in later. That?s the way it was with
Teddy.
“Anyway,” I said, “you get over the thing about camaraderie the first time one of them takes a shot at
you. That?s part of the scam.”
“I didn?t mean to get off the subject,” Stick said. “The thing is, the GRIPS were mean motherfuckers
and Nance was one of them.”
“Why all this interest in Nance?” I asked.
“I?m about to show you.”
He peeled off Ocean Boulevard just before we reached the bridge to Oceanby Island and the beaches.
The city docks were clean, well-kept, concrete wharves, stretching several hundred feet along the
river. It was early for the shrimpers. There was one boat unloading. It was jet black, its nets draped
from the outriggers like the wings of a bat. The strikers were shovelling shrimp from the hold onto a
conveyor belt that carried it into a sheet-metal building that was little more than an elaborate icehouse.
Stick pulled into a large parking lot flyspecked with battered fishing cars and stopped near a beat-up
Ford that looked vaguely familiar. Zapata peered out of the front seat and grinned.
“Hey, amigo,” he said. “How?s everything at the track?”
“I got an education,” I answered.
“You?re about to get another one,” he said.
“How?s that?”
He reached out between the cars and handed me a pair of binoculars.
