Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Page A

kicked the end of Monaco’s bunk hard enough to knock some magazines onto the wooden pallets that served as a floor. Monaco reached under his bunk, grabbed a grenade, and pulled the pin.
    “Now what do you think you’re going to do with that, pretty boy?” Brunner said, looking down at Monaco.
    Monaco smiled, lifted the armed grenade high over his head, and flipped it toward Brunner.
    Everybody dove to the floor, screaming. I tried to pull my bunk down over me. I heard myself screaming, as if the noise I made would somehow cut off the impact of the grenade. Peewee was on the floor near me. He had one hand over his head and his helmet over his rear end.
    I didn’t stop screaming until I saw Walowick, who had rolled himself into a tight little knot, get up.
    Slowly we all got up. Walowick started the cursing, and we joined in. Monaco was on his bunk, laughing.
    “The next time I’m going to toss you one with the powder in it,” he said to Brunner.
    “You’re a fucking kid! You’re a fucking kid!” Brunner was screaming at the top of his lungs. “You call yourself a fucking soldier, but you’re a fucking kid!”
    We continued cursing out Monaco. He was called every low-life and every animal we could think of, and then some. Peewee called him a faggot baboon dog, which was different.
    When we finished the cursing we all laughed, all except Brunner and Brew. Brunner was still pissed, and Brew was praying. Brew’s praying bothered me. It wasn’t that I minded him being religious, it was just that I didn’t want him being closer to God than I was.
    Everybody was interested in the pacification thing we were going on. It was like the closest thing to a real answer about why we were in Nam. Sergeant Simpson said that the marines had done the bulk of it in the past but that they were digging in up north to establish positions for the Tet truce.
    “Keep your eyes open and don’t mess with the women folks,” Sergeant Simpson said. “Keep your weapons on safe. I don’t want none of y’all shooting me.”
    I thought about my going out with Charlie Company and how we had shot at our own men. Then it left my mind. I noticed that lately there were things I would let myself think about, and things I wouldn’t. But every once in a while things would come into my mind, not like a thought but like a picture, and I felt a little strange about that. I wondered if that happened to any of the other guys.
    We mounted the choppers and started out. My stomach tensed when I saw the choppers. They were like a trigger. Even when I heard them putt-putting into the area I would tense up. It meant that we were leaving the camp, leaving home. At the camp I felt safe. Outside of the camp anything was possible.
    It didn’t take us long to get to the hamlet. Lieutenant Carroll was showing Sergeant Simpson the map, and I looked at it. It showed all the hills and the streams mostly. That was how we got around, following the hills and streams and paddies. Sometimes there would be a plantation that we would use as a reference, or a field of rice paddies.
    The hamlet consisted of a cluster of little huts. They were put together well. Some kids came out to greet us. Most of them were young, four or five, seven at the most. The M-16 I carried felt bigger than it usually did. We came into the village to pacify the people who lived there. Lobel found me and came alongside.
    “You know who we are?” he asked.
    “Who?”
    “You remember those cowboy movies when the bad guys ride into town? You know, the killers?”
    “Yeah?”
    “That’s us,” Lobel said.
    “I’m not a killer,” I said.
    He looked at me and smiled. I hated him saying that. I hated his smiling as if he had some dark secret. Sergeant Simpson was up ahead. He didn’t walk, he loped. He was cool, simple. I trotted the few steps to catch up with him.
    “I wonder what they think of this war?” I said, half to myself and half to Sergeant Simpson. I was looking at a group of