He had a picture in his head of her at the other end of the long copper cord, her hand at first clenched white around the telephone receiver. As her voice softened he could sense the hand relax, the knuckles not so pale now. He was feeling good as the call ended. He hung the heavy black receiver back into its wall mount and only then recognized the choking gasp of repressed crying coming from the living room.
Penny was sitting on the couch beside Cliff, holding him as he sobbed into his cupped hands. “I didn’t… We was goin’ across this paddy, followin’ a bunch of Pathet Lao from ‘Nam back to where we knew they were runnin’, toward the Plain of Jars. I was with this asshole platoon of ‘Nam regulars, me and Bernie—Bernie from our class, Penny—and… this AR opened up right on us, an’ Bernie’s head jerked… He sat down in the mud an’ his helmet fell into his hands, he was reachin’ up for his face, an’ he started to pick somethin’ up out of the helmet and he fell over sideways. I was down behind him with the AR fire goin’ right over us. I crawled up to him an’ the water was all pink aroun’ him and that’s when I knew. I looked in the helmet and what he was tryin’ to get out was part of his scalp, the hair still stuck in it, the round musta run up inside there an’ gone in his brain after it smashed his jaw.” Cliff was speaking more clearly now, heaving great sighs as the words tumbled out and his palms worked in the sockets of his eyes. Penny hugged him and murmured something. She reached over his broad shoulders and kissed him on the cheek with a sad, vacant gesture. Gordon saw with a sudden, gnawing shock that she had slept with him somewhere back in those rosy high school days. There was an old intimacy between them.
Cliff looked up and saw Gordon. He stiffened slightly and then shook his head, his mouth a blur. He sniffed. “It started to goddamn rain,” he said clearly, as if resolved to go on and tell the rest of it no matter who was there. “They couldn’t get any choppers in to us. Those pissass ‘Nam pilots won’t come in under fire. We was stuck in this little grove of bamboo, where we pulled back to. Pathet Lao and Cong had boxed us in. Me and Bernie were advisors, not supposed to give orders, they’d put us in with this platoon ’cause we weren’t s’posed to make contact at all. Ever’body thought with the rainy season comin’ on they’d pull out.”
He hoisted the Brookside jug and poured himself another glass. Penny sat beside him, hands folded demurely in her lap, eyes glistening. Gordon realized he was standing rigid, halfway between kitchen and living room, arms stiff. He made himself sit in the Boston rocker.
Cliff drank half the glass and rubbed his eyes on his sleeve, sighing. The emotion ebbed from him now and there was a settled fatigue about the way he went on, as though the words drained away the small drops of feeling as they emerged. “This ARVN platoon leader went spastic on me. Didn’t know which way was up, wanted to move out that night. The mist came in across the paddies. He wanted I should go out with ten ‘Nams, reconnoiter. So I did, these little guys carryin’ M-1’s and scared shitless. We didn’t get a hunnert yards before the point man rammed a punji up his boot. Started screamin’. AR fire comes in, we waddle our way back to the bamboo.”
Cliff leaned back in the couch and casually draped his arm around Penny, staring blankly at the Brook-side jug. “The rain feeds fungus that grows in your socks. Your feet get all white. I was tryin’ to sleep with that, your feet so cold you think they’re gone. An’ I woke up with a leech on my tongue.” He sat silently for a moment. Penny’s mouth sagged open but she said nothing. Gordon found he was rocking energetically and consciously slowed the rhythm.
“Thought it was a leaf or somethin’ at first. Couldn’t get it off. One of the ‘Nams got me to lie down—I was runnin’ around, screamin’. The pissass platoon leader thought we was infiltrated. So this ‘Nam puts boot cream on my tongue and I wait lyin’ there in the mud an’ he just picks this leech out of my mouth, a little furry thing. All the next day I taste that boot cream and it makes me shiver. Relief battalion drove off the Cong around noon.” He looked at Gordon. “Wasn’t till I got back to base that I thought about Bernie again.”
Cliff stayed until late, his stories about advising the ARVN becoming almost nostalgic as he drank more of the sweet wine. Penny sat with her legs tucked under her, arm cocked against the couch back and supporting her occasionally nodding head, a distant look on her face. Gordon supplied short questions, nods of agreement, murmurs of approval to Cliff’s stories, not really listening to them all that closely, watching Penny.
As he was leaving Cliff suddenly turned manically gay, wobbling from the wine, face bright and sweating slightly. He lurched toward Gordon, held up a finger with a wise wink, and said, “ ‘Take the prisoner to the deepest dungeon’, he said condescendingly.”
Gordon frowned, puzzled, sure the wine had scrambled the man’s brains.
Penny volunteered, “It’s a Tom Swiftie.”
“What?” Gordon rasped impatiently. Cliff nodded sagely.
“A, well, a joke. A pun,” she replied, imploring Gordon with her eyes to go along, to let the evening end on a happy note. “You’re supposed to top it.”
“Uh…” Gordon felt uncomfortable, hot. “I can’t…”
“My turn.” Penny patted Cliff’s shoulder, in part as though to steady him. “How about ‘I learned a lot about women in Paris,’ said Tom indifferently?”
Cliff barked with laughter, gave her a good-humored slap on the rear, and shuffled to the door. “You can keep the wine, Gordie,” he said. Penny followed him outside. Gordon leaned on the door frame. In the wan yellow glow of the outdoor lamp he saw her kiss him goodbye. Cliff grinned and was gone.
He put the Brookside jug in the trash and rinsed out the glasses. Penny rolled up the mouth of the Fritos bag. He said, “I don’t want you bringing any more of your old boy friends by here from now on.”
She whirled toward him, eyes widening, “What?”
“You heard what I said.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Uh huh. And why don’t you like it?”
“You’re with me now. I don’t want you starting up anything with anybody else.”
“Christ, I’m not ‘starting up’ with Cliff. I mean, he just came by. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“You didn’t have to kiss him so much.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh God.”
He felt hot and suddenly uncertain. How much had he drunk? No, not much, it couldn’t be that. “I mean it. I don’t like that kind of stuff. He’s going to get the wrong idea. You talking about your old high school days, arms wrapped around him—”
“Jee-sus, ‘get the wrong idea.’ That’s a Harry Highschool phrase. That’s where you’re stuck, Gordon.”
“You were leading him on.”
“Fuck I was. That man is walking wounded, Gordon. I was comforting him. Listening to him. From the moment he knocked on the door I knew he had something inside, something those rah-rah types in the Army hadn’t let him get out. He almost died over there, Gordon. And Bernie, his best friend—”
“Yeah, well, I still don’t like it.” His momentum blunted, he grasped for some other way he could prove the point. But what was the point? He had felt threatened by Cliff from the moment he saw him. If his mother had been able to see through that telephone, she’d have known quite well what to call the way Penny behaved. She’d have—