Seeds of Fear

produce a whole generation with shit-green eyes.

Gil let his own eyes drop to the caption just below the half-caste's tiny breasts: Come Back to VIETNAM.

Come back.

Come back.

Come back, GI… I no bite

She was standing next to him in the glass, wearing the same bright blue ao dai she'd been wearing the day Gil killed her.

Watching him.

You wan me suckee you good, GI? she asked, her voice a whisper as she slowly lifted her hand to his shoulder. I be your numbah one girlfriend Vietnam.

Gil was shivering even before he felt the coldness of her hand through the thick layers of tailored wool. She was just as lovely as the last time he'd seen her.

And just as dead.

You wan me suck —

' — ee you good, GI?'

Gil tightened his grip on the limp rice-paper bag he was carrying and rolled his shoulders beneath the sweat- soaked uniform tee. Ignored the sweet-soft voice as he forced himself to take another step through the morning's almost liquid heat.

When he got to the next stall — a seller of plaster Buffies and other objets d'art — Gil wiped the dripping skin below his boonie hat and cursed softly to himself. Seven-fucking-A.M. and he already felt like a used rubber. wrinkling into himself and leaking juice like a sieve.

'You wan me suckee you good, GI?'

Jesus, didn't whores take ANY time off?

Gil quarter-turned again and thumped his boot-heels hard against Duong Cong-Ly's rutted, monsoon-pitted asphalt; ignoring the muffled squawks of a half dozen dusty chickens the same way he'd ignored the whore's «come-on» line.

The first time.

Halfway around the plywood and hammered-tin stalls that made up Centertown's 'business district' and Gil could still feel the silent, angry stares collecting along his backbone like starving leeches.

Had been collecting there from the first moment he stepped foot in country.

He knew no amount of shoulder rolling would detach them.

That no amount of bug juice would keep them off him.

For long.

Gil didn't like being stared at. Never had. But now it was worse. Now his life might be threatened by one of those stares.

Because you never knew.

Never knew when Charlie might be the one staring.

never knew

He'd even heard about whores with glass up their snatches just waiting for horny GIs.

They were still watching. He could feel them.

Didn't they know he was one of the GOOD GUYS? Didn't they know he was there to try and save their fucking country for them? Why the fuck did they have to WATCH him all the time?

To keep himself from drawing the service «piece» on his hip and taking out a few of the WATCHERS (because you never knew when Charlie might be one of them), Gil ran a greasy hand over the back of his neck and took a deep breath.. almost gagging on the combined stench of his fear sweat and Vietnam's pungent ambience.

Something had died nearby. Either that, or the wind had shifted and was blowing from the direction of the nuc mam seller. A thin-legged boy pulled down his shorts and added to the overall olfactory effect.

Watching him. Watching Gil with hate-filled eyes.

The gun would have felt so good in his hand.

Rolling his shoulders, turning away from the (eyes) child, Gil opened the soggy bag and looked inside — reassuring himself that it was still there.

It was.

Although the humidity had already gotten to the plastic (unbroken) shrink-wrap covering the jacket, fogging over the full color photo, Gil could still make out some of the lettering: Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Featuring their hit single: 'Devil with a Blue Dress.'

Gil sighed and nodded, carefully folded the bag closed and tucked it under his arm. Felt better knowing it was still there, even though it was the reason he was out wandering the marketplace; collecting hard-edged stares the way a turd collects flies.

But that was okay, he reminded himself, because he had the record.

The night before he and seven of his barracks-mates had each pitched in twenty-five cents for the weekly 'record run,' then drew straws to see who the runner would be.

Gil made sure he lost.

Almost ten months in country and he hadn't realized how much 'Devil with a Blue Dress' had meant to him. back in the «World». when he still had a future that wasn't measured in firefights and hostile stares.

The rest of the 'record runners' would probably be pissed when he got back with the classic, but fuck 'em, he sure as hell wasn't going to tell them the reason behind it. Couldn't tell them that it was the song blaring on the radio of his dad's Chevy the first and last time he'd had sex.

Made love.

Screwed.

Fucked.

Gil hugged the record to his chest and found himself stopped in front of a fruit stall, staring at flat-topped green coconuts.

They were the only things in the display he could recognize.

Something familiar.. like the constant bulge straining against the front of his fatigue pants.

Both his family doctor and the 90th Repo'-Depot's medic had warned him about 'sticking his pecker where it don't belong.'

Gil shook his head when the fruit seller lifted one of the nuts and heard his dog tags jingle — in three-part harmony. Two STANDARDS, dull tin gray, and one NONSTANDARD. Blood red.

If, however, he did 'stick his pecker where it didn't belong' and caught something 'more aggressive than crotch rot,' the NONSTANDARD tag would tell the medic in charge to avoid the rush and just hand him a body bag. Because he was gonna die.

Allergies to penicillin and most sulfa drugs did not a 'happy soldier' make.

Especially when pussy came cheaper than a crew-cut coconut.

Especially when his «buddies» back at Tan Son Nhut would be keeping time to the Wheels' driving beat between the legs of some hooch maid while he, Corporal Gil 'Can't Get No Satisfaction' Thornton, humped the barracks' communal stereo system.

And watched.

'Fuckin' shit!' Gil snarled, waving aside the seller's jabbering makee deal makee deal, and spun on the balls of his feet. The lug soles of his boots made soft crushing sounds as he turned.

She was standing directly behind him; black-almond eyes smiling up at him.

watching him

'You wan me suckee you good, GI?'