light-suspended buoyancy. The senseless grace of blood. Shins protruding from mud-stuck boots. The colorful mess of intestines. Who’d told him that men killed whatever it was they came to fear?
When Domingo had gone for R&R to China Beach, he’d slept solidly for five days. He’d skipped the surf and the steaks and the whores, mostly rousing himself to drink pineapple juice and pee. In the evenings, he’d smoked Buddha weed or a little raw opium until his brain uncoiled sufficiently to sleep some more. His dreams were hazy and oranged, like rotting film. He couldn’t remember a single one, only their persistent grinding light.
All the men there had just wanted to get back to the World. One guy from Arkansas fantasized about dying in his sleep, his family gathered around him, loudly grieving; a rosy, erotic death with pinup angels escorting him to heaven, sucking his dick along the way. Domingo didn’t understand this hunger to grow old, this clinging to life as though anyone owned it outright. Besides, who would want to live so long when you could die dancing or go up in flames?
His last night at China Beach, Domingo had hung out by the jukebox with the black Marines, drumming along on the tables and doing his Otis Redding imitation (“I’m a Changed Man,” “Groovin’ Time”). Then he’d returned to the jungle, refreshed, for another killing round.
Domingo looked out at the damp horizon, imagined death coming toward him from the trees. He pressed his thumbs on his eyelids and willed himself to see in the dark, like the vampire bats in the caves outside Guantánamo. It was rumored that the bats stuck themselves to the jugulars of sleeping horses and cows, guzzling their meals of blood.
One wing soot, one wing death,
the
guajiros
would say.
After all these months, what could he believe anymore? What could never happen happened every day. Men blown out like matches. A split second cleaved living from oblivion. Once in the interrogation hut, Domingo saw the lieutenant plunge a knife into a prisoner’s thigh and slash him down to his knee. He still got no answers. The prisoner was old, in his forties, lean as a kite. The old ones, everyone said, were the hardest to break.
Now all Domingo knew was this relentless feeding of death, as if feeding it were a specialty of the poor, like playing the congas or tending water buffalo. In-country, the motto was simple:
There it is.
Last Christmas Eve his platoon had gotten caught in a firefight outside Pleiku. Six men had died in five minutes. It’d been raining so hard and out of season that their socks had rotted inside their boots. The sun had been off brooding in Cambodia. Leeches had feasted everywhere. Domingo’s feet had festered so badly he could’ve scraped off his soles with a fingernail.
He remembered the Christmas celebrations when he was a kid, the pig roasting in the open pit, the fat dribbling from under the crackling skin.
Noche
Buena.
After the Revolution, pork was hard to come by and people made do with scrawny chickens and yams. Only Mamá hadn’t seemed to mind. She was the first to volunteer for everything, cutting sugarcane until her hands blistered and her ankles swelled with chigger bites. She never forgave Domingo for going fishing with his father on the first anniversary of the Revolution. Instead of joining the parade of his classmates with their paper flags, he’d sat by the Río Guaso waiting for the tarpon to bite.
When Papi had been arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary activities, Mamá had refused to come to his defense. She’d testified against him, reporting that he’d trafficked in contraband (a few packs of cigarettes here, a case of condensed milk there, just enough to get him in trouble). Then state security agents had tried to recruit him, but Papi refused to help. (Everyone knew that there were insurgents in the Escambray Mountains, plots to kill El Comandante, a flourishing black market in foreign weapons.) And so
When Domingo had gone for R&R to China Beach, he’d slept solidly for five days. He’d skipped the surf and the steaks and the whores, mostly rousing himself to drink pineapple juice and pee. In the evenings, he’d smoked Buddha weed or a little raw opium until his brain uncoiled sufficiently to sleep some more. His dreams were hazy and oranged, like rotting film. He couldn’t remember a single one, only their persistent grinding light.
All the men there had just wanted to get back to the World. One guy from Arkansas fantasized about dying in his sleep, his family gathered around him, loudly grieving; a rosy, erotic death with pinup angels escorting him to heaven, sucking his dick along the way. Domingo didn’t understand this hunger to grow old, this clinging to life as though anyone owned it outright. Besides, who would want to live so long when you could die dancing or go up in flames?
His last night at China Beach, Domingo had hung out by the jukebox with the black Marines, drumming along on the tables and doing his Otis Redding imitation (“I’m a Changed Man,” “Groovin’ Time”). Then he’d returned to the jungle, refreshed, for another killing round.
Domingo looked out at the damp horizon, imagined death coming toward him from the trees. He pressed his thumbs on his eyelids and willed himself to see in the dark, like the vampire bats in the caves outside Guantánamo. It was rumored that the bats stuck themselves to the jugulars of sleeping horses and cows, guzzling their meals of blood.
One wing soot, one wing death,
the
guajiros
would say.
After all these months, what could he believe anymore? What could never happen happened every day. Men blown out like matches. A split second cleaved living from oblivion. Once in the interrogation hut, Domingo saw the lieutenant plunge a knife into a prisoner’s thigh and slash him down to his knee. He still got no answers. The prisoner was old, in his forties, lean as a kite. The old ones, everyone said, were the hardest to break.
Now all Domingo knew was this relentless feeding of death, as if feeding it were a specialty of the poor, like playing the congas or tending water buffalo. In-country, the motto was simple:
There it is.
Last Christmas Eve his platoon had gotten caught in a firefight outside Pleiku. Six men had died in five minutes. It’d been raining so hard and out of season that their socks had rotted inside their boots. The sun had been off brooding in Cambodia. Leeches had feasted everywhere. Domingo’s feet had festered so badly he could’ve scraped off his soles with a fingernail.
He remembered the Christmas celebrations when he was a kid, the pig roasting in the open pit, the fat dribbling from under the crackling skin.
Noche
Buena.
After the Revolution, pork was hard to come by and people made do with scrawny chickens and yams. Only Mamá hadn’t seemed to mind. She was the first to volunteer for everything, cutting sugarcane until her hands blistered and her ankles swelled with chigger bites. She never forgave Domingo for going fishing with his father on the first anniversary of the Revolution. Instead of joining the parade of his classmates with their paper flags, he’d sat by the Río Guaso waiting for the tarpon to bite.
When Papi had been arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary activities, Mamá had refused to come to his defense. She’d testified against him, reporting that he’d trafficked in contraband (a few packs of cigarettes here, a case of condensed milk there, just enough to get him in trouble). Then state security agents had tried to recruit him, but Papi refused to help. (Everyone knew that there were insurgents in the Escambray Mountains, plots to kill El Comandante, a flourishing black market in foreign weapons.) And so
Similar Books
