That's not the actual title, but I am writing a story. It's about halfway done at the time of posting. Here's that half.

“We don’t have a large.”
“Excuse me?”
“We don’t have a large.”
I look up at the menu again.
“What kind of a place is this? This is America, I’m not ordering this crap in French.”
I glance to you. You shrug.
“Sir, may I just get you a vente?”
“Sure, if it’s a large.”
“That’ll be five-sixty-eight.”
“Shit… Back in ’76, you could get a cup a’ Joe for a tenth of that…”
I pull the money from my pocket and drop it on the counter. Checking behind me, I see the young hipsters quickly averting their eyes back to their laptops.
“Let’s go sit down,” you tell me. We sit at a table, one of the few not ringed by overstuffed armchairs, next to the window. The rain lightly tapped the window.
“It’s been awhile, Jim,” you say, resting your chin on your hand.
“It has,” I say back.
You look a little uncomfortable, and you bite your lower lip slightly, trying to think of what to say. You look down and slightly to the right, just like you used to in high school.
“You want to ask about the letters.”
You look up. “Why did you stop mailing me? I thought you were dead…”
I fold my arms, look out the window, lean back a little bit. “It’s complicated.”
“Tell me.”
I keep staring, and I see you lean forward a little from the corner of my eye.
“Where’s our coffee?” I ask, looking back at the counter and avoiding eye contact with you. I watch the pretty barista girl take another order.
“Jim, don’t try to change the subject. You have no idea how worried I was about you.” You put your hands down on the table, palms down. I know that posture well, and just what it means. “Even after all these years, I’ve still been wondering what happened. Why didn’t you even call me when you came home?”
“I’ve been… Busy.”
Our orders are called. I get up to get our coffee and you stare me down the whole way.
“It’s not something I like talking about,” I say as I sit down.
“I think I deserve to know.”
“I haven’t told anyone anything about it before.”
“You can tell me.”
Then, suddenly, for a second, it’s 1973. We’re eighteen years old, the light of a summer sunset slips through the window of your dining room. We stare into each other’s eyes over the draft notice lying folded on the table. I think I see the start of a tear glistening on your lashes.
I hesitate. The rain stays at the window.
“April of ’75 was not a good month…”
- - -
“’Ey, Jimmy, you find a working bar out there?”
The sun pounded down on the jungle. It was one of the hottest months of the year. I returned to the squad as we walked towards the chopper’s LZ. “You took a damn long time to piss. Thought either your bladder shriveled up like an old man or you found something to fill it back up with.”
“I wish. It’s too hot out here.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead. “We’re only a few miles off, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m not feelin’ too bad about that, though. I’ve heard bad stuff about what goes on around here.”

Lance Corporal Sykes was a New Yorker, with shifty eyes and a tight grip on his weapon. He was a small man, at least for a marine. That didn’t really matter, though. Out here with the Corps, if you could shoot, you were a man, regardless of size, and if you couldn’t, you were dead.

“You hear the story about the guys and the nun?” He asked me as I returned to my position on point.
“Yeah, I did. Scary stuff.”

The story about the nun is something I suppose you would call a rural legend, since it’s not exactly urban here. The story goes that there was a platoon of marines on patrol around Saigon, searching for people to evacuate and commies to ice. As they were walking through the city, they passed a covenant, and a nun came out to ask them for help. The guys dropped their guard since, well, it was a nun. That wasn’t a good idea. She pulled a pistol from her robe and took out one of the guys before they could move. The others killed her, but it just goes to show that out here, you have no idea what the hell’s coming. Just the suspense alone might break more guys than the bullets.

We kept moving through the jungle, and it slowly started to thin. The trail widened slightly ahead. “Watch your intervals,” I yelled absent-mindedly over my shoulder. I didn’t even check to see if out intervals needed watching, but that was just the kind of thing I had to yell since the platoon leader took a hit last week. I got a field promotion when his Huey came.

It wasn’t a very big or dramatic event when Gunny got hit. We were just on a rare, normal recon mission, and we hear this shot ring out. Everyone hit the dirt, and we were just looking around, wondering where it came from and if we should return fire, and then Gunny just said, “Little bastard got me.”
He was hit in the back of the thigh, a few inches above the knee. It was probably just some sixteen-year-old kid with a Chinese Kalashnikov out in the trees somewhere, which was lucky. There weren’t any more shots.

It was an easy patch-up; the round didn’t hit the femoral artery, so it didn’t bleed too much. Our radio man, Pork (so nicknamed because of a lost bet with our machine gunner, who goes by Beef, both long stories) called in evac, and as we were loading our wounded Gunnery Sergeant in, he told me that as a corporal, it was my job to lead the platoon until we got a replacement. I never did figure out what a Gunnery Sergeant was doing out here with a bunch of guys half his rank, or why he let a medic take the platoon. I had been promoted for fixing people, dealing with chunks of missing flesh, not for my tactical abilities. I had to work with it, though. He gave me his map, and the chopper took off.

We haven’t had another confrontation since, which I count as a blessing, but I was already worried. Things were heating up in Saigon, and it was starting to look like we’d be packing up and leaving soon. The VCs had already taken Phuoc Long, and just a week and a half ago, a few days before Gunny got hit, they got Da Nang Air Base up north.

We walked another hour or two through the blistering heat of the Vietnam dry season, and we finally reached our clearing, the LZ for the helicopter that would take us out of the jungle and into Saigon for security detail.
“Alright, everyone, take a rest,” I said. “Call our lift, Pork.”
“Oorah, sir!”
“Oorah?”
“Yeah, sir, haven’t you heard it before? It’s like, ‘yeah!’ or ‘alright!’”
“Whatever you say, private…”
He looked down, embarrassed. “Private… First Class, sir…” He went to setting up the radio while I found some shade. Some guys started cleaning their weapons, some added more Kool-Aid powder to their canteens. In this hot clearing, we seemed oddly detached from the war. I don’t think anyone was worrying about snipers, or mortars, or Hue, or Quang Tri. It was like we were in our own small bubble of existence, being detached from where we had been and where we were.

It didn’t last. What seemed like a few minutes later, we heard the roar of twin engines coming over the trees. A CH-47 lumbered into view. “Pack it up, boys, daddy brought the truck!” I yelled over Boeing’s thunder. The beast set down lightly in the center of the clearing, whipping the surrounding brush with its powerful rotors. The cargo ramp lowered, and a minute later, we were underway for Saigon.

The inside of the helicopter shook violently, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. I didn’t want to meet a nun in Saigon. I thought of home, and pulled out my pen and paper. Writing a letter could get my mind off where I was going. The helicopter kept shaking and I drew a jagged line where a date should have gone. I hesitated a moment, then put the paper away. I couldn’t write here. I looked up and around at my platoon. Pork fiddled with an 8-track player. Sykes examined the minigun mounted on the cargo ramp, sometimes saying something to Beef, who would nod, and maybe give a short reply. Beef didn’t talk much, although he seemed oddly contemplative for a machine gunner. Sometimes he broke intervals to examine the wildlife. Strange guy.

The pilot and co-pilot started talking. The co-pilot pointed to something, and the crew chief looked over as well. I got up from the bench seat, using my hand to steady myself against the shaking, and slowly approached the crew chief’s seat. They were talking a little faster now, and I heard the engines accelerate. “What’s going on?” I asked loudly.

“Co-pilot thinks he spotted an AA emplacement, so we’re takin’ her up higher. I wouldn’t worry about it, this area’s been swept recently and there wasn’t anything there before. I think he might just be getting nervous from flying out here, with how the Congs have been spreading la—”

Blood splattered to the floor and onto the front of my jacket. “Son of a bitch!” the crew chief screamed, pulling his arm in toward his body. There was a fat hole in the floor behind his seat, under where his arm had been resting. There was a stain on his seat, and his arm was bleeding heavily. I heard the heavy chatter of an autocannon below us. Another round tore clean through the floor and the ceiling. “Grab something!” the pilot shouted back at us. The helicopter pitched forward violently, throwing me against the crew chief’s seat. I looked down at his wound and saw red quickly spreading across his sleeve, the hole only a little smaller than the one in the floor, the bullet had passed straight through, a bone fragment jutted out from the remains of his skin. The chatter continued, the Chinook moved faster and faster. The airspeed indicator was tickling one-seventy. A bullet pierced the cargo door, and I heard more hitting outside. The wall was peppered with dents. Outside, I heard another ping, followed by a coming crunch. “One engine down,” the co-pilot calmly told his comrade.

“One engine is fine, as long as the don’t hit—”

Another ping. The sound of gears unmeshing, but still moving, like an old car’s transmission. I felt a lurch in my gut. The helicopter was going down.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 27 2009, 2:30 am by FatalException. Reason: Moar line braks

Ahh... too much chunked text.

Could you highlight who's saying what?

Yeah, sorry about the lack of line breaks between paragraphs, my teacher doesn't allow those, and I didn't bother to indent because of all the dialog.

But, in there, there's never a conversation between more than two people, so if there isn't a extra line break before the quotation, it's the same person talking. If there is, it's the other person, just like any novel.

Second half:
The rotors were spinning freely, which was good. We still had some lift. The chopper tipped back and forth like an autumn leaf as it half-flew toward the ground. I watched the jungle rush up to swallow us.

When we hit the ground, I was thrown against the ceiling, then, I think, to the back of the aircraft. I felt like I felt a stop. I opened my eyes and the helicopter was spinning, my head full of the sound of metal skidding across wood and rotors breaking on the ground. The spinning slowed and I sat up. I looked to the front of the craft and saw that the cockpit was crumpled in. A tree branch poked through a hole in the roof. All the windows were blown out. I felt a wetness on my hand and I looked back to see that one of the hydraulic rams on the cargo door had split open. “Everyone ok?” I asked. I heard one call for medic, coming from the crew chief. I got up and moved to the front to see that his arm was still bleeding. Small splinters of bone stuck out, and the veins were ripped. I pulled out my canteen (which didn’t contain Kool-Aid) and rinsed out the wound. The crew chief shuddered and I saw even more discomfort in his paled face as the water moved through the hole. I imagine it would feel a bit like touching the quick of your fingers if your fingernail comes off; that odd, overly powerful and uncomfortable feeling of having something touched that is never touched. I quickly applied a tourniquet and took note of the time so he wouldn’t bleed out. “You’ll be fine,” I told him reassuringly, although I knew that with a wound like that, out here, he would probably be losing his arm from the elbow down.

Looking back at my platoon, I saw Beef forcing the cargo door open, Sykes brushing himself off, Pork shaking and looking slightly green. The cargo door opened with a hiss, and the men filed out to form a perimeter. I noticed that both pilots were unconscious, and the way the nose had broken had pinned them into their seats. “Pork, radio this in,” I called. I leaned against a section of the wall that was moderately unbent and put my hand to my head. It felt almost like I had a concussion, but my helmet probably saved my life. I felt along the top of it and found a dent near the back. It must have been where my head hit the ceiling. I pulled an aspirin from my medical bag, took another glance around, then retired to waiting for dustoff.
* * *
That night, I was back at the recruitment office. The Army is for all the dropouts, I thought. I don’t want to fly, and spending all that time cooped up on a boat seems dull. I looked up from my draft notice and saw a great hall before me. I entered the hall and gazed at the Marine Corps tapestries that hung from the walls, the emblems of the many divisions on banners hanging from the ceiling. I walked down the deep red carpet with gold fringe toward a table at the end of the hall. At the table sat a throne, and on the throne sat a warrant officer. He stood and his medals slapped against his chest. “Doth thou wish to join the Royal Order of the Marine Corps?” he asked me. I said nothing, but handed him my draft notice. He looked down his nose at it, then gave a dismissing grunt. He gestured to a door on the left wall and sat back down, looking bored. “Enter, if you please.”

I walked through the door and fell into an open field. The grass was yellow-green, like it had been lightly baked by summer heat. The sky was golden. I saw my friends playing football against my platoon. My friends wore the jerseys of the Canucks, my platoon wore their fatigues. The referees were Viet Congs in black and white striped shirts. I heard my mother’s voice. “Why the Marines, Jimmy? Why the Marines?” it repeated, softly at first. As it grew louder, the grass started turning slightly red, like it had been watered with exclusively beet juice for weeks on end. A puddle of blood started to form beneath my feet.

“Why the Marines, Jimmy?”
More puddles, deep red puddles started forming in the golden grass, just like the rug of the hall. The puddles joined, and it became a pond, and it rose, becoming a lake. My friends and my platoon still played football.
“Why the Marines?”

The blood kept rising, as far off as I could see, all uniform. The football players splashed through. An arm floated to the surface, a severed human arm, I jumped with surprise and fell backward. The blood seeped into my clothes, it felt like it went under my skin. More arms floated up, and these ones grabbed me. I felt a whimper escape my throat.
“Why?”

Another hand clamped down over my mouth. It turned my head sideways. My hair dripped blood onto my face. A single eyeball floated to the surface and stared at me. I had the strangest feeling that it was mine. A mirror shot up from the sea of blood, and I saw myself emaciated, pale, broken, bloodied, and missing my left eye. I started to scream.

I sat up drenched in sweat. My lips were salty. I sat in my foxhole, alone. I heard my platoon starting to move. I rinsed off my face and got up.
- - -
Your eyes stayed locked on mine the whole time. Your coffee is half empty. Mine is untouched. I stare out the window as the rain starts coming down harder. “Is that why you didn’t mail me?” you ask at length. “Were you too upset by that dream?”
I hesitate again.
“My… Story isn’t done yet…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Please, go on.”
“This is the part I have trouble with.”
You stare at me, and you look a little confused and a little scared. Your bottom lip tucks slightly back under your teeth.
“I know what you’re thinking. Do you really want to hear this?”
“I know you know, and yes, I do.”
In 1973, you look at the draft notice again with disbelief, you think, this can’t be happening, this can’t be right.
“We marched that day, starting just as soon as we were up…”
- - -
Since our lift to Saigon was down, we had to spend the next few days walking to get there. “So, what were you planning on doing before you got sent out here?” Sykes asked me. “I always forget.”
“Well, I kind of thought I’d go to college for something, but I guess I’m kinda enrolled in the School for the Damned now. You were going to work in your uncle’s garage, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m surprised you remember that.” He took a swig of Kool-Aid. “Was gonna get myself an apprenticeship, maybe.”
“You had a girl, too, didn’t you?”
“Nah, just my old lady. No way she counts.”
I feigned surprise. “You mean that’s not how they do it in New York?”
He laughed. “’Ey, shut it, man. I’m surprised you could hold down a girl like the one you got if you can’t even stop yourself from talkin’ about your buddy’s mom like that.”
“Yeah, well…” I looked wistfully away and nodded. “Special girl.”

At this, we were both silent a moment, like it was some deeply philosophical comment straight from the mouth of Aristotle, and we had to stew on it. “Alright, men, let’s stop here a minute, radio in our coordinates, see if the top’s got any advisories for us.”

This place didn’t look like it was particularly good for stopping at; it was flat, at least, but the foliage was think, and there were some huge, mossy boulders around that were making movement through difficult.

“… Hey, Sykes.”
“Yeah?”
“Is it just me, or… Does this place seem a little eerie? It’s a little too quiet here…”
“Yeah, little bit. I’m gonna go take a leak real quick.” He walked off to the other side of the platoon and took a few steps into the bushes. I heard the zipper come down. It was definitely too quiet. I looked around carefully, but this place looked just like any other part of Vietnam. Plenty of trees and rainforest shrubs, a thin trail. Nothing out of the ordinary, until it hit.

Boom.

“Mortars!!” I screamed at the platoon. Everyone started scrambling for whatever cover they could find. I ran for one of the boulders, away from the platoon. I looked back to see a round hit right underneath one of my men. His left leg was practically disintegrated The rest of him arched through the air for a few, streaming blood, and the rest of him hit the ground. He had a perfectly straight cut up his entire torso leading to a piece of shrapnel in his chin. His tongue stuck out like a taunting child, but blood dribbled from his mouth and his eyes were glazed over. I heard the screams of my wounded comrades, the dripping of those who couldn’t scream. I ran and ran and ran. “’Ey, wait up!” Sykes was right behind me. We kept running toward that rock. I felt an explosion behind me and I was knocked forward. I closed my eyes and covered my head. I waited.

Boom.

It was over as quickly as it began. After the echo of the last explosion faded, I opened my eyes and looked to my right to see Sykes’ face.
“Are you ok?”
But then I knew the answer.
I stared at him.
His eye stared at me, dull and lifeless and half-closed. The left side of his head was slightly crushed in… The blood covered his other eye. A piece of his brain stem dangled out of his neck, or what was left of it. I slowly got up and walked back to the platoon. Pork had a piece of the radio transmitter lodged between his skull plates. I walked away from him and found Beef… He was face down, his back full of shrapnel, and in his hand, a small book, now soaked in blood. I picked it up… And it was full of poetry. Hand-written poetry. He had a haiku about this place that he was writing… ‘Eerie quiet, trees \ Tranquil forest.’ That’s as far as he got. They were all dead… Every last one. And so…
- - -
“And so I spent some time in a hospital…” I tell you, starting to feel like I’m choking up. You just keep staring at me. There’s a true sadness in your eyes, but it doesn’t compare.
“I’m… Sorry…” you tell me, again not sure what to say. “I didn’t know…”
“Well, now you do.” I put my fist at my chin and stare up at the clouds. You don’t say anything for awhile. You look down at the floor off to the right. You know why I didn’t write. You know why I didn’t call. You feel terrible for asking. I know you do. “I’ve had that dream again…” I say. “Again and again…” You look up. “Except sometimes… I would hear you speaking…” You look genuinely confused, and worried. “Jim…” You reach your hand out to the center of the table, but stop.
In 1973, you hugged me and told me you loved me.
Now, I apologize, get up, and leave before you have the chance.


The rain doesn’t wait for me.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 27 2009, 2:34 am by FatalException. Reason: Moar line breaks