walk him down to the hospital mind I wait outside in the hall and there?s some guy screaming the
whole time I?m waiting. It gives me the crawlers. I wanted to just up and leave but that wasn?t right so
I sat there and after a while I put my hands over my ears so I couldn?t hear it anymore. Then the kid
from Wisconsin comes out and he?s crying and he?s like, you know, hysterical or something, and we
get outside and sit down near the hospital and this kid, he?s really torn up. But I don?t ask him
anything, I just wait, because already I?m learning about not asking questions.
About five minutes after we sit down for a smoke this Huey comes over and settles down almost on
the ground and they dump out half a dozen body bags, just like that, plop on the ground and whip off
again. I never saw anybody dead before. I started getting sick and the kid from Wisconsin is sitting
there staring at the bags and finally I says, “Let?s get out of here,.” and we go down to this other
hooch and have a couple more beers.
The kid gets pretty drunk and finally he starts talkin?. Real fast, it just comes bustin? out. He says,
“Bobby says to me, „Christ, how am I gonna tell Arlene, [that?s his girlfriend, Arlene,] how?m I gonna
tell her I ain?t got any balls left,? and I?m sittin? there thinking, Jeeze Bobby, you don?t have any
fuckin? legs left!? Ah, shit, it don?t make no never mind anyways. Arlene married some asshole from
over at the paper mill at Christmas and she never even wrote him or anything. You think I?m gonna
tell him that? There?s a lot of Arlenes in the world but Bobby, he only has two legs and two balls.
Now he ain?t got neither.”
And I just sit there listening because, what are you to say, right? Besides, my insides are really
beginning to churn and I?m wondering when I?m going up. And then he says, “What?s it like back in
the world? Do they really spit on soldiers?” And I says I never saw anybody spit on a soldier,
although once I did see a demonstration and I was in uniform and a bunch of them, y?know, they shot
me a bird like it?s my fault I got to go to Vietnam.
Finally I navigate the kid from Wisconsin back to his quarters and he?s really soused and the last thing
he says to me is, “I?m afraid to go home, scared shitless here and scared shitless to go home, shit,
they?re gonna hate me because of Bobby.”
I never saw him again but I know what he means now, about them hating him because of what
happened to his brother. You get so paranoid after awhile. After awhile you get so you think
everybody back in the world blames you for the whole thing.
Like this Jesus freak from Mississippi I meet at the Red Cross. He?s even worse. He kind of babbles,
you know, runs things to-get her, like he can?t get it off his chest quick enough, keeps talking about
the kids, about killing kids. “Kids?” I says to him. “Listen,” he says and he?s whispering, “don?t ever
shoot a water buffalo, hear? You can kill women arid children but you kill a water buffalo, man,
