PHI - Part Three

     A clutch of soldiers formed a loose semicircle around Sergeant Carrillo. Squinting against the dipping afternoon sun, he studied their faces, all of them hardly a half step over the line between adolescent and man-child. Some barely shaving peach fuzz when they arrived. Didn’t fucking matter, though. Not now. He made up his mind as he went, deciding which of them would get the shitty job, finally settling on two. This was a job for all the FNGs, Fucking New Guys—Cherries. He jerked a thumb over his right shoulder. "I found a dog tag over there," he grumbled wearily.
     The grunts regarded the churned area behind Sarge. Less than an hour ago it had been a rudimentary volleyball court, crudely scraped out of The Turd’s landing pad. Gone was the net, a small crater marking what had been center court. They knew Pee-Pee’s body parts were scattered out there, and somebody was about to get the crappy end of the stick.
     Sarge extended a twisted metal identification disk toward Cheyenne, who reached hesitantly for the dog tag, twitchy fingers giving away his nervousness. "Take the goddamned thing!" barked Sarge.
     Cheyenne recoiled from the bluster and jerked back his hand, stung by the harsh tone, face reddening, emotions awash with a mixture of immature anger and sick revulsion at the realization of what he was expected to do.
     Sarge easily read the Cherry’s expression. "Easy, kid. It won’t bite you—but I sure as hell will, if you don’t grow some backbone." He stepped closer and poked Cheyenne’s chest. "Like right fucking now, soldier!"
    Cheyenne lowered his eyes and reluctantly stuck out his right palm. Sarge let loose the revolting disk. Perhaps it was his overactive imagination playing tricks on him, but the instant the dog tag touched flesh a starburst went off in his mind's eye and he envisioned Pee-Pee’s head flying away from an eviscerated torso. His hand flicked involuntarily and he dropped the disk.
     "Jeezzus Kee-riiist, Cheyenne!" Sarge bawled. "Are you a pussy, or what? Huh? What say Crawl, is your buddy here a pussy?"
    Crawl convulsed with a nod and ducked to pick up the disk. "Yeah … I guess so, Sarge," he mumbled weakly.
    Sarge twirled a raised forefinger, revving engines. "Pass it around ladies so you all know what to look for. Crawl, you and your girlfriend got scoop duty. The rest of you ladies go find the other tag." He fixed each soldier with a momentary glare, then said, "Unnerstan’?" Slight head jerks didn’t satisfy him. "Out loud, ladies. Out loud!" 
   Satisfied by their chorus response, he said, "Awright. Now get busy, ladies!" For emphasis, he directed a move-along boot at Cheyenne’s ass. "And the two of you make sure you get all of that dumb-ass picked up and bagged!"
     Crawl and Cheyenne picked up their folding shovels as Sarge wheeled about and started in the direction of the stifling shade beneath the poncho covering his foxhole. He covered a handful of yards, then stopped, remembering something. He turned with a last instruction. "Hey! Don’t go thinking you’re done unless that other tag is found."
     The two pasty-faced soldiers moved woodenly through the dirty chum littering the ground, hating the chore they were saddled with, and complaining in a low mumble Sarge couldn’t hear. They decided to look for bigger chunks first. Motor Mouth passed by and whispered, "Cover up the small shit."
     They scouted the area, then suddenly Crawl hollered, "Fuck me with a ax!" He’d spied Pee-Pee’s head a few yards from the shit trench. The eye sockets were hollow and a shredded tongue lolled out the side of a shattered jaw.
     Cheyenne froze in his tracks. He wanted to turn away from the disgusting sight, yet he was mesmerized. Suddenly his face turned spoiled-milk yellow and bitter lava coursed his throat; a rancid taste in his mouth. He hawked a loogie but a deluge of vomit erupted from his mouth as his stomach overflowed like a backed-up toilet.
     The puke smell and Cheyenne’s gagging turned Crawl’s stomach and he doubled over, emptying his guts until his single thought was that his asshole was gonna come out his mouth any second. But after a few minutes the upheaval lessened and he struggled to stand erect, snorting snotty puke to clear his breathing. He wiped mucous strings from his nose with the back of his hand and searched for a patch of clean dirt. How stupid is that, looking for clean dirt? he thought. He spied a likely spot and scooped up a double handful of soil, using it like soap.
     Cheyenne was still hawking and spitting, and oddly enough it sounded all too familiar to Crawl. For the briefest of comfortable moments he was six years old and back home in the safety of his bedroom, a red plastic 45 RPM record spinning on the miniature turntable inside his green suitcase of a record player. Squeaking from the single speaker was the tinny heaving and chugging of "The Little Red Train That Could" struggling uphill. Too weird, man. Letting go the memory, he frowned and steeled himself against the grisly ordeal at his feet. He plodded over to a body bag, bent to pick it up, and instantly felt lightheaded and dizzy. He teetered, then spun sideways and dropped to his knees, doubling up until his forehead almost touched the ground. He fought weakly against a queasy wave threatening to tip him over. He sucked deep breaths. The nausea passed and he soon became aware that Cheyenne was watching him. Mortification spurred him to rise up and stop making a fool of himself, but his body rebelled at the thought and he was forced to hug himself to try and still the shaking that made his teeth chatter.
     "Get to your goddamned feet, you cherry-ass punk. Get with it! Time’s wasting!" Sarge was on a rampage. "This goddamnable shithole is beginning to stink to High Heaven and I want it cleaned up before all the friggin’ bugs in this part a the friggin’ world get here."
     Dimly, Crawl realized Sarge was yelling at him. He waved Sarge off and struggled to his feet, keeping a weak grip on one corner of the body bag. He began to drag it toward where Cheyenne stood over the shattered skull, but lost his hold a few times. Angry with himself for the public display of weakness, his temper ignited and he cursed vehemently until he felt better.
     Cheyenne turned to him with a peculiar expression and made a circling motion at his temple with a forefinger.
     Crawl spat. "Fuck you. Wasn’t that you yodeling in the crapper earlier, assbreath?" He tugged at the body bag one more time, then let go. To restore his dignity and display senior soldier quality, he volunteered to handle the unpleasant task of retrieving Pee-Pee’s head.
     Cheyenne was surprised by the offer. "You sure ’bout that?"
     "Yeah, I fuckin’ said I would. Go find sumthin’ else." As Cheyenne sauntered off, Crawl added, "And don’t forget to look for the other tag. The sooner we find it, the sooner we’ll get to the beer."
     "Right on," Cheyenne said, flashing a thumbs-up sign.
     Crawl stubbornly approached Pee-Pee’s mangled head, trying to avert his eyes and lessen the impact of what he had to do. Still, he watched from the corner of one eye in order to make sure he didn’t venture too close. He finally reached the boundary of his comfort zone and halted. He held the body bag like a curtain and shielded himself from the skull, as if Medusa herself lay there in ambush. He flopped the body bag into position; careful not to glance at the dreadful thing he now searched for with his toe. His blind boot collided with what felt like a mushy soccer ball and he grimaced in horror, dropped the body bag over the skull to block Medusa’s curse, and retreated.
     "Godddddaaaammmmiiiitttt!" roared Sarge.
     Point made. Crawl knew his ass was gonna be grass and Sarge was the lawnmower if he didn’t get with the program. It didn’t matter that he was officially no longer The Cherry on The Turd; he was still only one rung from the bottom. He edged forward and lifted the body bag, then rocked back on his left leg and braced himself, hooking his right leg around the other side of the bag. Using the edge of his boot like a hoe, he slid Pee-Pee’s head between the giant zipper tracks and into the bag. As an extra measure, he scraped the ground in a four-foot circle around his position, hook-dragging the filth into the cavernous bag. As he checked the area, he shook the body bag fiercely to make sure the contents shifted to the bottom out of sight.
     Cheyenne watched Crawl with empathy because he was going to have to do the same thing in a moment. When Crawl was finished, Cheyenne whistled hoarsely to get his buddy’s attention.
     Crawl towed the body bag over to Cheyenne. "What’s up?" Silently, Cheyenne pointed at the ground. Hands on hips, Crawl gawked at the devastation. He’d seen dead bodies before—road kill torn apart on the highway. Once he’d seen a squirrel that had been run over so many times it was almost three feet long and looked like a cardboard cutout. Then there was the time his old man slowed at an accident and he’d seen some blood. But, man, this was way different. Bad, man; really bad. It looked like an ax murderer had gone ape-shit. Limbs everywhere—including a forearm and hand. He couldn’t decide whether it was a right or left without first looking at his own hands and flopping them over and around. He ended up deciding it was Pee-Pee’s right arm and hand. The mangled foot was anybody’s guess. All of it convinced him that in no shape, manner, or form was he gonna get used to this shit. His throat started burning again and he swallowed repeatedly against the urge to upchuck. He spat. "See what I tole you. Dumshit was at the latrine."
     Cheyenne nodded solemnly. "C’mon, open the bag."
     Crawl spread the flaps wide and Cheyenne shoveled his load into the bag. Neither soldier wanted to handle the foul gunk any more than they had to, so they figured being a little careful with the shovel should eliminate double work. They scanned the area, not observing any larger chunks identifiable with Pee-Pee, but the worst was far from over. They bitched and groaned while they roamed the area, trying to spot the missing ID tag, sorting hesitantly through clumps of sod and meaty bits, occasionally finding sinew imbedded with volleyball netting. These Cheyenne picked up daintily between thumb and forefinger, pinkie stuck out as he eyed them with obvious distaste. Crawl had his own problems: dingle-balls, which he held away from his body and shook like a tiny dinner bell in hopes the meat would come loose from netting—but the flesh stuck like a fly in a cobweb. Damn, if this shit falls off, I gotta clean it up! came the sudden thought, and he ceased the bell ringing. Stumbling across the rough surface, he peered at the grotesque collection suspended from his fingertips with an expression of a child who’d picked up dog doo-doo and now couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the disgusting stuff stuck to his fingers. He wiped a naked forearm at the drool pooling at the corners of his mouth and checked for Cheyenne, spotting him in time to witness his buddy drop his own grisly collection of goo-balls on the ground and shuffle-step them into a small pile. He hurried over and plopped down his specimens, grateful to be free of them. Cheyenne nudged the concoction into a larger pile, and thereafter a pattern of action developed until the area was dotted with little mounds every few yards. They paused for a moment and took stock of their efforts.
     "It’s really weird how this reminds me a the times when people came over to visit my folks and I hadda rake the dog crap outta the lawn," commented Cheyenne. "I’d make little turd mountains, like those, then I’d shovel the stuff into a wheelbarrow and dump it on the compost heap behind the barn." Lost in thought, he stared at a large mound for a few moments, then said: "Funny thing, me sayin’ turd mountains like that and here I am, stuck on The Turd." Amused, he glanced at Crawl to see if he saw how funny it was.
     Crawl forced a laugh. "Yeah, fuckin’ weird all right," was all he volunteered. Then he wandered off to check an area he thought they might’ve overlooked. A couple of minutes later he hailed Cheyenne over to his position. They huddled and Crawl outlined the easiest and quickest way to finish the job without leaving evidence of their haste. He argued that no check would be made of what they put in the body bag, at least not here on The Turd—maybe at the morgue in Saigon, but by then it would be too late and he could give a fuck less.
     "But what if Sarge does check?" asked Cheyenne.
     "He ain’t gonna move from the shade," countered Crawl.
     Cheyenne stole a glance at Sarge’s make-do canopy. Sarge was wearing only green skivvies and was fanning his crotch with a paperback book. "Yeah, looks that way."
     The pair set to work recovering bits and pieces they suspected were Pee-Pee. Questionable shit got covered with dirt. Muttering obscenities under their breaths, they haphazardly worked the ground outward in expanding concentric circles, taking turns dragging the body bag behind them as they scavenged the hillside. Hoards of blue bottle flies circled close to the ground like miniature vultures, alerting them to likely bonanzas. Frequently, but surreptitiously, they checked to see if Sarge was watching their progress until they reached faint talcum powder lines marking the volleyball court’s peripheral boundary. Crawl’s camouflage shirt was soaked. He stripped barechested, indicating his companion should to do the same.
     "Nah, I’m okay," the pimply kid grunted, averting his eyes.
     Crawl peered at him quizzically. "You crazy, man? You’ll roast if you don’t strip it off."
     Cheyenne’s head swiveled as he checked for anybody that might be watching him. "Geez, man, I’m blanched as chicken meat. I don’t want’em makin’ fun a me."
     "Screw that. Ain’t you The Cherry? So then they’s all gonna know you gotta lily white ass, so it ain’t gonna make no dif’rence."
     Cheyenne fiddled with a button. "It ain’t that. I don’t wanna getta ribbin’ ’bout sumthin’ else. Okay? That’s why I don’t wanna take my shirt off."
     Crawl had an inkling what that sumthin’ might be. "You got boobies, aincha?" Cheyenne blushed. Crawl slapped a thigh. "Hah! Knew it."
     Cheyenne got pissed. "So what? It’s juss that I’m a little chunky." He balled his fists. "I juss need to work out a little is all." He gave Crawl a little head jerk. "Besides, you ain’t no Hercleese yoreself, asshole."
     Amused, Crawl said, "Hey, don’t get uptight, man. Ain’t nobody gonna fuck you in the ass cuz you got little girlie titties."
     Cheyenne took a threatening step toward Crawl. "I oughtta kick yore ass for talkin’ like that."
     Crawl gestured for him to move back. "Take it easy, man. I was only fuckin’ witcha." His grin suddenly disappeared as he looked past Cheyenne. "Damn! Sarge looks like he might head this way enny second if we don’t get movin’." He glanced back at his buddy. "Do what you want. Sooner or later you’ll be shed a the shirt, and then the shit’ll get heaped on you ennyhow. Now or then, makes no matter to me."
     Cheyenne thought it over momentarily, then shrugged. "Guess you’re right, man." He removed his shirt, making sure his back was to other grunts.
     Crawl figured a little mind-fuck wouldn’t hurt. "Nice titties," he teased.
     "Screw you!"
     "Maybe later," Crawl shot back. "Till then, we’d better start humpin’ or Sarge’ll have our asses for sure."
     Their upper bodies soon were covered with a sweaty russet patina as they slogged through soil that stuck to their boots. A witch nose of gray ashes formed at the tip of the cigarette dangling from Cheyenne’s lips. He inhaled frequently to kill the bilge taste in his mouth.
     Crawl thought that was a good idea. He fished a pack of Camels from his leg pocket, shook one loose, and fired up, tossing the burning match on the ground. He inhaled deeply, wondering if Cheyenne knew just how fuckin’ close he’d come to getting his head blowed off. Freakin’ out like he did and standin’ up to see what was goin’ on. Fact was if he hadn’t pulled the kid back down into the trench, he might just have to be pickin’ Cheyenne up in clods too. Dumb-fuck Cherry—He whistled softly at his buddy and held up the pack of cigarettes.
     Cheyenne sauntered over. "Nah, but, hey, thanks. Believe it or not, I juss started smokin’ and those unfiltered coffin nails ’bout done me in." He unbuttoned his leg pocket and removed a fresh pack of Salem menthols. "Right now I prefer these. Helps to kill the taste in my mouth."
     Crawl took a deep drag on the Camel, then blew three good smoke rings. He gestured at Cheyenne’s cigarette. "Fuckin’ gooks’ll kill you juss to get those and no other reason. Hog’em close cuz you can score two BJs and a hand-job with a pack—if you ever get offa this shit pile." He inhaled again and then blew a smoky question. "What say we call it quits?"
     Coincidentally, Sarge hollered, "You ladies got it all?!"
     "Juss sausage makins!" Crawl yelled back at Sarge.
     "Then get humpin’ till you find the missing tag, dammit!"
     "Up yores," Crawl muttered under his breath as he turned away. He signaled to his pal. "I’ll check this way, you head up there."
     A short time later Crawl hooted at Cheyenne and waved him over. Cheyenne’s blue eyes shot Crawl a question. Crawl drew a finger across his throat like a knife. Cheyenne gave one last swat with his shovel at the flies crowding on a crimson clod, then arched his sore back as he wiped ocher sweat from his face with the back of a grungy hand, just like he’d seen Joel McCrea do in a movie. He moved to where Crawl was squatting on his heels.
     The broiling sun had traversed a few more degrees westward since the teenagers started the gruesome task. Now the broken terrain played host to dancing heat waves, adding to the oppression. Like a misshapen flatworm, Cheyenne’s shadow wiggled up and down the pits and mounds of shattered ground, finally crawling up Crawl’s hunched form in an embrace that provided his buddy little relief from the heat.
     Crawl glanced up when Cheyenne stopped nearby. He shielded his eyes with one hand, and with the other motioned Cheyenne to the left a few steps until his buddy completely blocked the sun’s rays. "Much better. Thanks. Did you find the other dog tag?"
     "Nope. You?"
     "Nah, but Sarge don’t know that, and I doubt he’ll double-check, so I’ll juss have to make do." Crawl dipped his hand in a pocket and came out with the dog tag Cheyenne had dropped. He worked to straighten it a little and then affixed it to the snap ring attached to the zipper on the body bag. "Hey, that don’t look too bad. Sarge won’t know."
     "If we’d found the other one, what would happen with it?" Cheyenne asked.
     "It’d go inside to double-check for identification. Sarge tole me if there was ’nuff big parts left the second tag’s s’posed to be attached to the body somehow. But we ain’t got no second tag."
     An incredulous look appeared on Cheyenne’s face. "Geez, Crawl, the dude’s blown to bits. Even if we hadda ’nuther tag, how’s it s’posed to be attached?"
     "Hey, man, it ain’t like I done this a lotta times; it’s my first go at it, too. Sarge says G.I.s come up with all crazy kinds a ways to do it. He tole me once a grunt got blowed up and all that was left all over the place was his head. Sarge says he wedged it in the guy’s teeth. He said some guys tie it on usin’ muscle or skin like string." Crawl had a disgusted look. "You think that’s fucked? Sarge tole me how one time some sick bastard stuck it up a gyrene’s bung-hole."
     "Fuck!" exclaimed Cheyenne in revulsion. "Screw that shit, man. I hope this is gonna be the last time I gotta do this shit. This shit sucks, man. This shit really sucks." He pointed at the bag. "What’ll we do ’bout not havin’ the second tag?" He grew worried. "Think we’ll catch hell from Sarge for not findin’ it?"
    Crawl motioned to Cheyenne to lower his voice. He cleared his throat, then spoke in a compressed angry whisper. "Look, we worked our asses off lookin’ for the freakin’ thing. It’s not our fault that dumb-ass got his nuts blowed off." He rose and took a step closer to his buddy, looking back over his shoulder to check on what Sarge was doing. "Lissen. Long as there’s a tag on the outside, the troops workin’ the morgue maybe won’t check inside. It’s only when there ain’t no tags things get tough. Besides, I bet Sarge ain’t gonna reach inside that bag for enny fuckin’ reason. So if he asks, I’ll tell him I tossed it in there."
     "You really think it’ll work?" asked Cheyenne in wide-eyed innocence.
     "Hell, man, Whaddaya think they’s gonna do to us when they find out it’s missin’? Court-martial us? Send us fuckin’ home? Extend us? Shit, man, how they gonna tell it was us? We ain’t gotta put our names on the damned thing. Screw it, man, I could care a fuck less." Crawl fixed his sweaty pal with a mean eye, studying him momentarily. Then he nodded at the bag. "You got a fuckin’ problem with that, Cherry?"
    Cheyenne was hesitant to agree with what Crawl was suggesting. "Hey, man, this ain’t cuz I'm The Cherry. You tole me Sarge’s word is law, so I don’t wanna get my ass inna sling." From the scowl on Crawl’s face, he could tell his buddy wasn’t exactly happy with him. He tried to rationalize his uncertainty. "Look, man, I’d want somebody to make sure I wasn’t ID’d wrong if … you know, if I got blasted like that—like Pee-Pee, man." He swallowed the lump in his throat and his eyes grew misty. "I’d want my folks to know for sure it was me in there so I’d get a proper undertakin’."
     Crawl strained to check his temper, a glower pinching his face. "Look, you wanna tell Sarge we didn’t find the tag and have him climb our ass, tellin’ us we gotta roam the goddammed hill again lookin’ for it in this friggin’ heat?" He scowled. "Well, what’ll it be?"
     Cheyenne didn’t like being pushed this way, even if he was a Cherry. A glimmer of rebellion appeared in his eyes. "Fuck off, man," he snarled.
     Crawl knew Cheyenne would get over his little hard-on after being toughened up a little. "Back atcha, asshole. Why don’t you stop bein’ a chump pussy like Sarge said and make yore fuckin’ mind up. We ain’t got all day."
     Cheyenne felt his loyalty was being sorely questioned. The mortar bombard-ment terrified him shitless, and if it hadn’t been for Crawl’s grip on his shoulder, he would have bolted from the trench and probably got it like Pee-Pee did. Crawl was most likely right, him bein’ on The Turd longer and knowin’ the skinny ’bout what you could and couldn’t get away with. Still, Crawl’s mean talk stung. Eyes downcast, he said, "Look, man, don’t get all pissed off at me. I juss didn’t know what to do. But I guess whatever you say is fine with me."
     Crawl smiled. "Righteous, pardner." He rocked forward and poked Cheyenne’s shoulder. "Good choice. Now let’s get this over with." He withdrew his lucky quarter from a pocket. "Heads you drag the bag over to the LP, tails I do." He flipped the coin high and they moved apart until it struck the ground. The coin bounced and then landed against a rock, tipped almost vertically, with more heads than tails showing.
     Cheyenne shook his head in dismay. "No friggin’ luck, you ask me," he drawled. He switched hands holding the shovel, grabbed one corner of the body bag, and dragged it the twenty-odd yards across the scarred terrain to the cliff at the landing pad’s southern lip, where he let go unceremoniously, sweating too much to mess with outward expressions of reverence for its contents.
     Holding the entrenching tool above his head to block the sun, Crawl watched his buddy amble back to him.
     Cheyenne sidled up and then glanced back in the direction of the body bag. "I was juss wonderin’ how much we found. Whaddaya think?"
     Crawl shrugged. "Dunno, maybe forty, forty-five pounds, all tole. Doubt we’d find ennymore that’d count."
     "We gotta tell Sarge we’re done, right?"
     Crawl nodded. The tired duo headed down the incline toward their squad leader, who was curled up in the thin shade provided by his makeshift lean-to. Sarge glanced up from the fuck-book he was reading. It was too goddamned hot to carry on much conversation with these jerk-offs. Crawl nodded towards where they’d been shoveling around for Pee-Pee, then dipped his head with a hopeful look at the noncom.
     "Tag?" Sarge inquired.
     Crawl glanced at Cheyenne, who nodded affirmatively, confirming his co-conspirator role.
     Sarge signaled with a circled thumb and forefinger. "What da fuck, over."
     Crawl bobbed his head in thanks and then motioned for Cheyenne to follow him. They trod sluggishly back up the hill toward their own digs. "What’d Sarge mean by that? When he said, ‘What da fuck, over’?"
     "Aincha heard that afore?"
     "Nope."
     "Best way to explain it is like sayin’, ‘What’s it matter ennyhow.’ It ain’t a question. It’s like, ‘Who gives a shit.’ Not like askin’ a question, juss sayin’ it don’t fuckin’ matter. Unnerstan’?"
     "I guess so," replied Cheyenne, not sure at all.
     Ten steps later the weary grunts dropped into their enlarged dugout and plopped down with heavy sighs. Crawl reached under the crate and snagged two cans of warm Schlitz beer. They commenced a game of cribbage, with Crawl dealing dog-eared cards as Cheyenne set up the pegboard made from a crate slat. Splinters filled in as pegs.
     "So, man, back to where you left off," Crawl entreated. "Yore hand was down her panties and …"

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