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TOUR 365
by
R. Signore
(Tour 365 refers to the military euphemism for one year of service in Vietnam)
*****
There must be somewhere out of hereSaid the joker to the thief There’s too much confusionCan’t get no release***
Saigon is sweating in the heart of December, two daysbefore another New Year. We smoke marijuana on a balconyrooftop and watch spider-leg flares slide down the night.Snuff and I, two friends from the start, smoke until ourforeheads buzz. Once in awhile we look at the stairway, afire escape that leads to the street. We worry that MPs,sergeants and captains, will rush up and find us and sendus to jail. But we know it won’t happen, we’ll smoke tillwe burn, our exile will end and then we’ll leave.There is a vague moon and slow moving night clouds andchoppers that carry the wounded and dead. Their spotlights
 
split open the marshlands and saw grass where VC burrowinto the earth. The enemy reminds me they’re smart likeinsects. They dream of digging beneath the hotels, set offexplosives and watch us fall down. Crowded hotels crampedwith soldiers who smoke and drink and wish they were home.They sell off their rations of cigarettes and all thegarbage they buy from the Cholon PX. They spend the moneyon whores and tea girls and tell themselves they areprotecting the world from the Communist bastards who wantto steal America from the Americans.Nine stories above Saigon, Snuff and I think we knowbetter. Our hotel is a bleak and crusty shell of concreteabandoned by the French in ’54. I sometimes think that atany minute the stairways will collapse and the moldy roomswill corrode into dust and Snuff and I will be trappedbeneath the rubble , smoking and talking to each other asif nothing happened. I have three months left in-country,but Snuff has only three weeks. Tonight, we’re celebratinghis…….well, I guess, his impending departure. He wants togo home but, at the same time, he wants to stay in Saigon.He loves the marijuana, and, unfortunately, he loves thewomen, too.Fuck!” he says as he leans toward the railing - seeds
 
crack, ashes scatter, “Fuck! I think I’ve got another caseof the clap.” He sways on the concrete bench and drinks outof his plastic canteen. The water smells like chlorine froma swimming pool. “This is the third time I’ve gotten it?You’d think I’d find just one whore who was clean enough tofuck. Just one. But no, I stick in my dick and out comes adisease. Why can’t I just stay away from them?”He rolls a tiny ball of hair between his fingertips.He has a bad habit of pulling hairs out of his moustacheand, with a small amount of spit, rolling the hairtogether. He leaves the little balls everywhere: on therims of chairs, beneath dinner trays, between teletypekeys, inside shirt pockets and underneath the shot glassesof bar-girl teas. He even left one underneath ColonelPearson’s glass desk cover, directly over a picture of thecolonel’s twin adolescent sons and a nine year old daughterwho looks like Pearson himself. In fact, they all lookalike. Pointed noses. An acre of foreheads. Beady, bulleteyes. All of them stand at attention in front of thecamera: the boys with white gloves and tightly creasedpants; the girl in a stiff, long-sleeved dress.“Shit, they’ll never get the clap,” Snuff says. “ I’dbet anything the fucking colonel shoves broom handles up
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