PLYWOOD

My morning ritual is simple enough. Up out of bed, wake my daughters for school, get a cup of coffee, and check my email. On weekends, the girls sleep late and I read the news.

Years ago, I would have strolled out to the driveway like Tony Soprano to pick up the paper and glare at the neighbors. Now I get the electronic Times and click through the e-pages before my second cup of coffee.

The whole process is punctuated by grunts and weary exhalations. I have read so much news that the world often seems like a tired old sitcom: even the wildest occurrences have a way of flattening out before the third act.

This past Saturday morning, a New York Times article by James Brooke described how the U.S. Army is using re-supply helicopters to alternately carry cargo, ferry suspected Taliban sympathizers to and from interrogations, and carry out covert counter-attacks.

The headline read: U.S. Tasks in Afghan Desert: Hunt Taliban, Tote Plywood.

I stopped reading to recall my own experience “toting plywood” as an Army Sergeant nearly 34 years ago. A different time, a different conflict, but the same freestyle supply procedures that have been a part of every war and war zone.

Stored in my garage, between the Christmas decorations and luggage, is “the box.” In it, photos and documents, journal pages and medals hold the evidence of my two tours of duty in Vietnam. I dug into it, looking for the details of the deal and this is what I found.

THE DEAL – 11/69

I'm out at the Bear Cat compound trading with the Thai's and this “full bird” Colonel is bustin' up hashish temple balls from the Buddhists on his map of the Delta. Incredible bhong hits, body rush, bell tones, the works.

So here's this Thai commander an' me stoned silly in his hut an' all I could think about is how trippy it would be if I was getting high with my Colonel.

Anyway, this Bird leans over an' says real slow an' careful, "Sergeant, do you know what I want?" And the dizzy bastard is winking at me like a three-dollar whore.

Well, I freak nine-thousand, man! I got four, five different things running through my head at the same time, like a wall of yakking T.V.'s at Sears.

I'm flashing scenes in red-light Bangkok, feeling the Chicom pistol under my sweatin' armpit, scoring cases of that mess-hall monkey meat the Thai's like to trade, and Black Market greenbacks, all jammed together in the weirdest, shame-faced combos you might ever want to forget.

Well, I ain't got all day to dick around. What does baby Buddha want for Christmas?

He says, "Prywood"

"Plywood?" I start coughin' on the toke and spit's flyin' outta my nose. I coughed so hard it took two swigs from a Rolling Rock for me to catch my breath.

Plywood? I can't quite talk yet, but I start noddin' and he starts noddin' too, just like a couple of Dodger dolls in the back of a beachbound Buick.

It seems he wants to partition off his battalion's barracks into private rooms, so his troops can have privacy when their ‘girlfriends” visit.

I say, "How much plywood you want?" and he laughs this nervous little laugh, takes out a metal soda cracker tin and sets it on the floor between us. He pops the lid and there's dozens of these tawny hash goofballs inside, wrapped in plastic bags, sweatin' piss-yellow popskull sap under the pounding Bear Cat sun.

I'm thinkin', Merry Christmas Marc, Merry Christmas Tim, God Bless us every one.

Soon as I can blow the foam off my brain, I hit `im with the pitch, "Five plywood, one Temple Ball." He laughs that little, uneasy laugh again and takes the bhong away from me. "You smoke too much, you dinky dau."

"Bull!" I spit, fishin' a double hit of blotter acid from Boston outta' the heart pocket of my fatigue jacket, scored to split, ya' know, like for now `n later. I'll be damned if this peeny little squirt is gonna' yank my chain!

So I stare the Bird down and snap off half a hit, stick it to my tongue and send it down.

"Let's you and me savvy a deal." I say, holding out the other half hit, stuck to the tip of my middle finger. Now, Thai's don't dig acid. Puts `em on the wrong side of the gate; gets `em like "the ghost who walks" and other woo-woo nonsense.

So, he's lookin' at me like I'm holding a snake. The snake that lives under his mudhut mind and he r don't know if that snakebite would wake him up or shut him down; in three words, he’s scared stupid.

I wait `til he shudders then sing out, "All the plywood for all the balls!" Now I got `im by the shorts and he can dance my wide-ass jig.

"How much?" he says, screwing his face up in little twisted sniff.

"How much you got?" I crow, an' he's a Bird! Bird, bird, bird, buh, buh, bird is the word!

I set down my beer and it leaves a wet ring on the Recon map around Cat Lai on the Dong Nai River where the Navy's pullin' out. Every inch of Gia Dinh Province is hotter than a pot-metal pistol. Lotsa' empty barracks, lotsa' plywood, lotsa' Cao Boi's.

Little bastards, fourteen-year-old kids with AK's, no food for days, air buzzin' like a press of hornets, too hot to stop, `ceptin' rain. Gotta go in with the radio up full blast! One pistol, one grenade launcher. If the grenades don't stop `em, you got seven one-way tickets in the holster. You ever stop rollin'; you can kiss it all goodbye.

There's a non-com beer hall in Cat Lai built over an abandoned fortress. During the last war, the Japanese sealed seven French officers in its cellar and left them to die. While they rotted, the upper rooms were an Imperial Officers Club used for celebrating Japan’s imminent victory in the Pacific. Guess again.

In `65, 11th Transport made it their club, shining the Japanese shades, but leavin' the Frenchie spooks to roam: their room – always thirty degrees colder than the others, parle' vous chatter in the dead of night and, even when the air was tombstone still, no candle could hold a flame within its walls.

But, hey howdy, I ain't afraid of no French ghost.

Big Bird says "When?"

I drop down around on one ear and the snake pulls the walls in close up tight.

"Whenever."

He says, "You bring..."

"Hoo! Smells bad – cash and carry, Champ." Damn, I ain't the Mayflower man.

"No can do, you bring..."

I let him simmer a bit, and he tosses me a bag of temple balls `bout the size of your head.

I stay coo-cool. "Nah. Usin' my deuce an' a half? My fuel? My time? Risking my balls?

"How much?" he says.

So I toss the bag back at him. "Double it."

"No can do!" But he can't think clear about nothin'... but that half hit of acid stuck to the tip of my finger.

So, I get up, give him a lefty salute, and start to walk.

Well, he don't bat an eye, but gets up, goes over to his footlocker, lifts the lid and -- I ain't lyin’ here -- there's twenty, thirty kilo of them tawny blond vacations. The pine-skunk smell alone, enough to blast all your bees back to your bungalow.

Man! I'm thinkin', Gingerbread Victorian in Port Jefferson, `67 Dino Ferrari with spoke wheels, big blonde babe in the bucket, ya' know? Somethin'! Somethin’ to come home to…”

Hey, whoa! Somethin stinks.

The Bird's wearin' a gold Rolex. His teeth are... perfect. His blind mama-san walks in, stops dead in her tracks, spins and va-vam, didi mau back out the door scuffin' sandals sideways. Thai guys cockin' rifles on the berm, windows whispering, gut rumblin'...

The walls are sweatin' in here, and the Bird is bone dry!

What am I seein'? What do I see?

C. I. A., man. C.I.friggen’A.

Bird says, "When?"

I put the second hit of blotter on my tongue and wash it down with a swig of Rock.

"Screw it, Birdman, tonight. I'll go tonight. And we’ll square up in the mornin’"

And I got up, and walked. I steered my deuce to Xuan Loc, to get a steam bath, massage and enough beer to forget about the deal that I only ever make good on in my worst nightmare.

- end -

Martin Higgins