This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 34 (Saturday,, Jan. 14^th, 1967)

We got to the NCO club during the lunchtime rush. The woman in charge of seating was stressed with the crowd and decided to make a fuss about me. No trainees and certainly not in fatigues on a Saturday. Without a word Haruki turned to leave, but Sean stopped him. "We can't just let this go. Over there at that table are two buzz-cut trainees with that Staff Sergeant."

He smiled at Sean. "Probably his kids." Haruki chuckled because they didn't look anything alike. "Come on. Ben and I are used to this."

"Used to what?" Sean asked, walking along with us out to the parking lot.

I thought that I could explain this better, since I'd known Sean for a long time. He was less likely to take offence if I explained it. "Being told by white people that we're not wanted." Haruki nodded agreement but Sean was already shaking his head in denial.

"Give me a break, would ya, Ben?" He was bracing himself. Haruki proved to be the better user of psychological principles.

"Ben's not talking about you, Sean." He patted Sean's shoulder and squeezed it. I wondered if this had any significance, since I'd seen him do that to Sean before. "From what I've seen of you, today, you still haven't noticed that Ben and I aren't totally Caucasian." He laughed; I chuckled, and Sean was grinning. Good sign.

"You know." Haruki laughed some more. "Ben and I have been asked hundreds of times when we were in grade school and then in high school if we were brothers."

Sean finally laughed. "I'm speechless." He shook his head. "Anybody can see that you're at least part Japanese and Ben's basically South-China-Celtic mix."

Haruki looked at me. Of course, I'm grinning and nod that he should ask. "Okay, Sean, explain it to us."

"Well," Sean started out just before we got to the car. "Japanese, in this case you, have longer, oval faces, your jaw is squarer and more prominent, your hair is much finer than Ben's." He looked at me and snorted. "Provided, he has hair. And his eyebrows are much heavier, which is probably enhanced by the Irish in him. Typical for Southern China, Ben has a round face, a less prominent jaw, his eyes are more angular than yours. His lips are almost European, whereas yours are very full."

"Wow, I'll have to revise my prejudices." Haruki laughed.

"I guess that I've had more exposure to Asians than most white guys." Sean admitted and blushed, when he looked at me. "Of course, there's you." Moisture was forming in his eyes. "And you know I told you about Greg, my Crew Chief in Vietnam?" I nodded that I remembered. "His last name was Yamaguchi."

***

We arrived at Haruki's suggested restaurant in Mount Holly. When I told him, before getting out of the car, that First Sergeant had said that we weren't supposed to leave base, he replied: "Read my lighter.".

Sean was weaseling himself out of the small car. "What does the lighter say other than 'Sgt. Hernandez'? I didn't look at the other side."

I laughed. "Fuck it before It fucks you."

His laugh was restrained. "Does it have Snoopy lying on top of his doghouse?" He wanted to know and sounded hopeful for some reason.

Haruki replied. "No, Snoopy is something typical for you guys in Vietnam. I bought the lighter in Okinawa."

"Why did you ask?" I opened the restaurant door.

"Don't know." He was acting strange of a sudden. "Guess I'm feeling nostalgic."

"As in you want to go back?" I felt a surge of worry flash through me.

Sean nodded and his eyes were moist. Of course, I couldn't take him into my arms. We were in public, in uniform, and within a stone's throw away from the next MP unit. As I concentrated on Sean, off in the distance I heard Haruki. "A table for three in the back room, please."

***

We were alone in the back room. It was comfortable, but empty, as opposed to the front part of the restaurant. One of the other things, which I found really strange, was that the menus didn't have any prices on them. I traded menus with Sean; his didn't have any prices, either. Sean didn't seem to be with the program, since he obviously hadn't noticed. Haruki shook his head. "There is no reason to panic, Ben. You are my guests, and you don't have to know the prices."

"I can't do this." My voice was tense. I felt totally insecure without having the value of the food on the menu.

Seeing my borderline panic, Haruki gave me his menu, which was equipped with prices. Once I'd seen that the prices were only a bit more than moderate, I could breathe again and gave him back his menu. Haruki looked at me, worried. "Why do you panic, when the prices are missing?"

"When I was a kid, many of our neighbors ran restaurants in Chinatown. The menus in Chinese had lower prices than the English-language menus." I chuckled, more than just a little embarrassed that I had known about discriminatory practices, but could have done nothing about them. "I just don't trust businesses that clip their clients."

"You'll just love Vietnam, then." Nobody had said anything about my possibly going to Vietnam, although most everyone took it for granted, but no one was willing to say it, until just now. It was the elephant in the room that nobody cared to mention. That is, except for Sean who seemed to be in a world of his own. His features were slightly moody; he looked deep in thought or possibly daydreaming. His voice was low. "They have different prices everywhere and for everyone, but you never feel like you're getting ripped off. All you do is give them a fistful of Dong or a couple of MPCs, and they keep the food coming until the money runs out.

"Especially the street vendors, like Mamma San Nguyen and her Pho. It's their noodle soup. She would come to the base every morning around 1000 hours and have her Pho in pots, hanging off a pole, she carried across her shoulders. The entire base lived off the stuff. Beat the Hell out of C-Rations.

"But in most fancy restaurants, though, downtown on Tu-Do Street at one of the big hotels, you can get more exotic stuff, like duck in orange sauce, but you really have to like rice. You get loads of rice." When he refocused on us, and seemed again to realize whom he was with, his face turned beet red, and he burst out crying.

Tears literally shot out of his eyes. It lasted for less than twenty seconds, and he regained composure. "Sorry, Guys." He wiped his face and tried to smile. "Now, that's embarrassing." He took a long drink of water. "I'm usually alone when that happens."

"When what happens?" Haruki wanted to know.

"It's like two dimensions overlap." Sean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A few seconds ago, I could have sworn that we were sitting in the dining room at the Majestic Hotel about ready to order. You remind me so much of Greg. But, of course, the uniforms are all wrong. We'd generally go into town in civvies.

"But still, I was so sure that I was with Greg and Guiren, our pilot from San Francisco, in the dining room at the Majestic, down on Saigon River at the end of Tu-Do Street. That was our all-time favorite place to go on payday. We only did it once a month, but it was worth it.

"And then my mind tells me that they're dead. My brain then scolds me for becoming forgetful. They're dead, and you're not. But I feel that I have to go back. They're pulling me back. But then I realize that there's nothing to go back to. And if I went back as a soldier, if I re-upped, they'd eventually send me back here in a fucking box.

"But here's like there. There's no reason to be there or here. And if I went back as a civilian, I'd probably end up like the old French Soldiers I'd see, sitting in Saigon's French bars or at the Cercle Sportif keeping their dead comrades company as they drank themselves to death or slowly shut down on opium."

***

Dinner was delicious and didn't remind Sean of Saigon. This was a steakhouse and we had Porterhouse steaks with baked potatoes and salad. The after dinner Cognacs and cigars threatened to trigger him once again, so Haruki put on a thick New Yorker accent to dissuade any idea that he could be from Los Angeles. That seemed to do the trick.

By the time we were on our second Cognac and smoking cigarettes, there had appeared another elephant in the room. Sean was hoping to find a more appropriate replacement for Greg, and I thought that Haruki was looking to replace me with Sean. Both, having left me out of their conversation, seemed oblivious to my presence. But, having said that, though, I would be shipping out to who knew where, and Sean would be moving to Haruki's place in the Village.

Of course, Haruki offered to let me stay with them at the motel in Wrightstown, but I declined, since I really wanted to sleep in the barracks. I needed continuity, which I couldn't let be interrupted by a sleazy motel room. Having sex with Haruki was something I did in New York, as would probably be having sex with Haruki and Sean. My emotional makeup just couldn't cope with a neon-lit sign flashing 'cheap dive' in red through the Venetian-blinded window all night and the bathroom smelling of stale puke.

They dropped me at the barracks shortly after 2100 hours, and the place was quiet. The lights were on in the bay, but there was no ruckus, no roughhousing. Some of the guys were reading, some were dozing, and some were out. There were four guys playing cards, using a bunk as their table while they sat on the floor. I noticed the bottles of beer under the bunk, but it wasn't my place to say anything.

I was up in our room, lying on my bunk thinking about how being shipped off to Vietnam would affect me, and if Marv's plan was going to work. So far, what he and Haruki had told me was exactly what had happened. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I wouldn't be coming back. Maybe I would end up like Sean had said, drinking myself to death at the Cercle Sportif.

Sleep had just about overtaken me, when there was a quiet rap on my door. Since I didn't remember if I had locked it, I got up and opened it. Gerry Helmstedter was standing there, looking bemused. I stepped aside without a word and motioned him in.

"Wow, Drill Specialist sure can't make a bunk worth shit." He laughed, and as usual, his laugh was highly contagious.

"And he's the first one to admit it." I was still chuckling as I motioned for Gerry to sit on my bunk. And I put another scoop of coal into the oven, to keep it from going out during the night. "What can I do for you?"

The question seemed to make him go tense and slightly nervous, which wasn't his usual self. "Um, I got a favor to ask."

"Okay," I said as I sat down and offered him a cigarette, which he declined. "shoot."

"You know that we'll be needing someone to buddy up with during basic?" I nodded my head, as I lit my cigarette. He smiled hopefully. "So, I was wondering if you and me could team up?"

"Sure, Gerry, would love to." I patted him on the knee, as I got up to get the butt can off the table. "Thought for sure that you and Morton would be buddying up."

"Naw," He became fidgety. "Morton's asked Pierson to be his buddy." Gerry went quiet. "We sorta had a falling out this morning."

"What about?" I started unlacing my combat boots. Since smoke was getting into my eyes, I pitched the cigarette into the butt can.

"Well, it's kinda personal." He said quietly.

I looked up at him from fiddling with my boot laces. "Let's get one thing straight, here and now." I took off one boot. "If I'm going to be covering your ass in combat training, I have to know if you have some problems.

"Remember that Major at the hospital, when we took Sean in?" Gerry nodded that he did. "He's the pathologist, and he was waiting on some guy from the firing range, who had decided to suck on the wrong end of his M14's barrel and blew the back of his own head off." I paused for dramatic effect and for the importance to sink in. "And he killed himself because his girlfriend fucked off with Jody."

At the mention of our fictitious, 4F, civilian enemy, the guy who purportedly ended up with our Cadillac, our job and our girlfriend, Gerry laughed. And again it was a relaxed and contagious laugh. "I don't have a girlfriend. And I don't have a knife to kill myself with, like Evans tried." His laughter died down, and I managed to take off my other boot. "But I do have a problem that you should know about."

I straightened up on the bunk and looked directly at him. And without any words, I knew what he was about to say. He coughed and looked at the floor. His voice was just above a whisper. "I would really like for us to be more than just buddies."

My smile was meant to put him at ease, so was the brush of my hand across his cheek. But the simple words of understanding, "Yeah, Baby, I know.", let him melt into my arms.