Ghosts
or The Dead Man Shares His Thoughts
When I get out on the face of the bluff, Dewey's there, and he’s
anxious to get back to his meal and the warmth of the fire, hoping to
ward off the evening chill that’s crept across the wide plain from the
sea. He asks me if I’m having fun yet, and I tell him, of course,
because it’s the jocular, semi-cynical thing to do, and that’s what
Dewey expects me to say. He grunts in response, gets his rifle and his
cigarettes and heads back up to the top of the hill.
There’s
a foxhole dug into the side of the butte, but no one’s used it for some
time. Mostly we sit on the edge, dangling feet and flicking cigarette
butts into its depths, which right now are black and endless. I unwrap
a stick of gum and chew it, and with a flick, the wrapper floats down
into the hole. The night is young, and sitting on the face of the black
butte, I watch the moon rise over the plain, the shadows fading into
gray shapes, and a gentle breeze tickles my ear before it rustles the
sighing grass.
The
night is quiet, as the many nights before it have been. No dark shapes
hunched in the tall grass, monsters or men, are waiting to strike.
After a while, I can hear Chandis picking soft notes on his guitar, and
his baritone voice humming to himself, but even that fades after a few
minutes. I look at my watch, just after eleven, with little over an
hour to go on my shift. The chill is deepening, so I hug myself to keep
my body heat close. I can hear footsteps behind me, crunching down the
goat trail we’ve carved in the hillside, so I look back but I can’t
make out who it is, despite the moonlight. The figure raises a hand in
greeting, and returning the gesture, I turn back to the wide plain.
"Albert,
right?" says the figure, and I turn to see Michael taking a seat next
to me on the edge of the foxhole. I tell him, Yeah, my name’s Albert.
"Good. I scared the hell out of one of your buddies up there," he says
and we chuckle. Is he here to haunt me? "No. I’m here to let you know
there’s no hard feelings." That’s a relief. "I’ll bet," he says, and he
picks a stalk of grass from the edge of the foxhole and chews the
broken end. So no hard feelings? I ask. "None." We sit quietly for a
few minutes, and the gray grass waves in the breeze, and the moon
climbs higher and grows smaller as it climbs.
"You’ve
got my letters, right?" he asks around the stalk of grass in his mouth,
and I tell him I do. "You got them handy?" I reach for my ruck and dig
out the letters, and hand them over. Michael opens them up, scans them
one by one, and hands them back to me as he finishes each one. "It’s a
shame I can’t take these with me. So many memories," he says and trail
off with a sigh. "You got any regrets, Albert?" I tell him to call me
Al. "You got any regrets, Al?" A few, I tell him, and I’m thinking
specifically of Karen and the mess at home I came here to avoid. "You
ought to do something about that," he says, "before, you know, this
happens." He unfolds the letter from Marjorie. "Was there a picture
with this?" I tell him no. "Damn. I’d have loved to see that awful
picture again," he says. Awful? "Yeah, it was this terrible picture of
my sister. She hated it so much, and I gave her such a hard time about
it, it became kind of a running joke. That’s why she sent it to me," he
pauses, and her picture, smiling sweetly in my breast pocket has a
palpable weight to it. "We were old friends, Margie and me."
We’re
quiet again for a while, watching the horizon. "This is really
beautiful," Michael says around the stalk of grass in his mouth. I tell
him I love to sit out here, most nights. Rain and snow create a
problem, but most other times it’s pleasant. He turns to me,
serious-like of a sudden, and he says, "Al, you got to know something."
Yeah? "You got to know that on this island, carrying rifles and
posturing for the women caught up in the frenzy of pussy and
patriotism, man, all of that is worth exactly jack shit." I grunt, and
he says, "You’re no killer, Al," and he pokes my shoulder with a
finger, "you’re a fucking coward."
He
jerks his thumb in the direction of the camp, "The only real killer in
this crew is Ray; for the rest of you it’s a show. Pay attention, and
you're all scared little boys doing what you're told so you can look
tough." We’re all volunteers, I say, no one is making us stay. "You
think Ray will let you walk out?" he says with a snort, "Are you man
enough to face the other guys and tell them you’ve had second
thoughts?" I didn’t respond, and he nodded, "That’s what I thought.
Don’t worry about it, none of those guys are man enough to do it
either, no matter what they say."
"They’re
stuck, you’re stuck, and there are only two ways out: getting killed,
or sneaking off like a coward. Chances are, the former will get you
before you work up the courage for the latter." He laughs, but it’s a
hard, brittle sound, "People are dying and they’ve got no idea what
for; not for freedom or civil rights or anything; they’re just dying.
You think this whole mess is about making the people on this island
free?" That’s what I’ve been led to believe, I say. "You need to open
those eyes, Al," he says, "you need to let your subconcious mind
develop some alternate theories than what you’ve heard, because the
whole story has nothing to do with any of that."
Who the
hell are you to tell me what I need to know, I ask, you know, out of
curiosity. "The cosmos have been opened up to me, now that I’m a part
of them." He raises his arms over his head, saying, "I see things, Al,
and I know things. I’ve got the unlimited means of the universe at my
disposal." So you can knock this cryptic bullshit off and tell me what
you want to tell me, right? "No, man, the cosmos has rules against
that." Well, fuck you then, I say conversationally.
"Look
at me, Al. I’m supposed to be in my prime here, well on my way to being
a fucking doctor or a lawyer, but none of that matters now; nothing
matters now. You know why? Because I’m dead. My life has been given in
vain for a cause I understood vaguely before, and understand too well,
now that I can’t change anything."
"I asked
you about regrets earlier? Let me share one of mine. I got caught up; I
was drafted, but I was here. I didn’t run off like some did when they
got their draft notices. I had a real clear idea of what it meant to
love my country; I figured service was part of that. After all, how
could a patriotic citizen let revolutionaries split up his country just
because they didn’t want to be a part of the group anymore? So I went;
I climbed on a big silver greyhound bus and I came to the war, and I
learned that my idea of patriotism was different than the government’s,
but I adapted to what they wanted from me. I believed what they told
me, about what was going on, and the reason this whole shitty ordeal
was happening in the first place. I ignored the holes in their story,
because it was PR to keep us from questioning too much. I let it slide
in the name of love. You ever been in love?" Think so, I say. "Rough
ain’t it? If I could just go back, if I could unmake one decision? I’d
have stayed the hell away from that bus. I’d have run with the rest of
the cowards, who were braver than me, and I’d have lived at least a
little while longer." He looks me in the eye and says, "Patriotism is
great and all, but it’s like the love of a bad woman, if it’s even love
at all. It’s getting your ass kicked every goddamn day by every man she
brings around to parade in front of you with. It’s heartache and pain,
man, and she doesn’t do it because she loves you. It’s hate, and it’s a
dark fucking hate at that."
"I’m
dead because I couldn’t get clear, and if you can’t get clear, Al,
you’ll end up just like me. They’ll surely spend your life as
frivolously as they spent mine." Michael swings his legs out of the
foxhole and stands. "Don’t think I’ve told you more than you already
know. I haven’t told you anything I’m not permitted to tell. I’m
telling you that whether or not you find out what is really going on,
the longer you stay, the more likely it is you’ll end up a meal for
forest critters." He brushes the dust and debris from himself and
marches down the hill onto the plain. He stops at the bottom of the
hill and turns to stare at me for a moment. I can hear footsteps on the
path behind me, and I know it’s my relief, Wade or Tim most likely by
the volume, and I straighten up and arrange my gear as Michael watches
below me.
"You listening to
me, Al?" he asks, and, looking up, I tell him, yeah, I’m listening.
"Sure you are," he says and turns with a wave of his hand and walks off
into the tall grass across the plain toward the sea.