Don't Mean Nuthin'

  Books by Ron Lealos

  Pashtun

  No Merci

  No Direction Home

  The Sixth Man

  Jaw of the Traitor

  www.ronlealosbooks.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Ron Lealos

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The Library of Congress has cataloged this title as follows:

  Lealos, Ron.

  Don’t mean nuthin’: a military thriller / Ron Lealos.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-62914-572-3 (hardcover: acid-free paper) 1. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Fiction. 2. Special forces (Military science)—United States—Fiction. 3. Assassins—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Don’t mean nothing.

  PS3612.E2193D66 2015

  813’.6—dc23

  2014035415

  Cover design by Ashley Lau

  Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-572-3

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-926-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  1969

  The 727 from McCord to South Vietnam. Blue-clad stewardesses in tight skirts and cute pillbox hats patrolled the aisles, nylons “swishing” as they squeezed past, handing out chicken cutlets, Coca-Colas, and wilted salads. The faint tang of Lysol lingered from the Freedom Bird’s last cleaning after touching down on its return from Da Nang. Three hours into the flight, the loudest sound was murmured prayers.

  Benzedrine made the grunt on the right lick dry lips. The yellow pills he dropped earlier forced the corners of his mouth to battle each other when he tried to smile. A tune danced in his head, and no one else had the beat. He snapped fingers and every few minutes smashed the back of the seat in front with a clenched fist. A quick look back and the cherry in the seat ahead knew it was terminal to say a word. When the song finished, the grunt stroked a deerskin pouch hanging from his neck by a leather braid. No one dared ask him what it held. On his wrist, a crude peace sign, carved with a knife, charcoal for ink. He reeked of beer, sweat, and vomit, and his green fatigues were a year in the bush from my tan, pressed uniform.

  The grunt chuckled. A private joke, punch line only he knew.

  Staring straight ahead, he said, “Listen up, cherry, I ain’t one ta give ad-vice, but hope ya’ ain’t thinkin’ yur here to protect yur momma from the dinks comin’ ashore in Los An-gel-ees. LBJ’s ‘maintainin’ democracy’ crapola is bullshit. We’re here for the party.” He rubbed the pouch like it was the smooth skin of a firstborn. “There’s only one rule. Keep yur balls covered. And get to the chow line before all a’ them other assholes.”

  The plane roasted, the cooling system not able to keep pace with the calories burned by fear. I wiped the sweat on my forehead with the sleeve of my tropical uni.

  The man stared at the folded tray table in front of him. Every few minutes, he kicked the frame of the forward seat and hissed, “Freekin’ slants.” Maybe he was cursing the North Vietnamese. Or a cheating woman.

  The cherry in the aisle seat to his left moaned.

  “Hear that?” the grunt asked. “You boys’ll be whimperin’ like baby-sans once we set down in the ’Nam. First, you’re gonna think the air’s been run through an F-4 engine and pumped inta yur cherry lungs. That ain’t even the worst. That Jesus fella’ a yours, he done added to the heat with what them college girl LTs call ‘hum-id-it-y.’ Feels like ya’ got yur face tied in a plastic bag full a’ boilin’ water. Rots out yur skivvies and makes yur balls think they’re in the swimmin’ hole.”

  The cherry started to shake.

  Turning to his left, the grunt said, “Ah, hell with it, boy. Don’t mean nuthin’.”

  The cherries wore fresh uniforms, butch haircuts, and clean shaves. They were awake, some with hands steepled in prayer, and sat inspection stiff, every few minutes wiping the sweat from their eyes. The grunts were sprawled in their seats, snoring. Lights were dimmed, and the stewardesses covered the snorers with blankets. The 727 didn’t carry enough air freshener to veil the terror stench.

  A new tune finished in the grunt’s head, and he looked at my chest.

  “Morgan,” he said. “That right?”

  The name was printed in white letters on a black patch above my pocket. I nodded.

  He looked away.

  “Ain’t gonna be no formal in-tro-duc-tion, cherry,” he said. “Don’t care and don’t wanna know. Just before I shipped back to The World, met another cherry named Jazinsky, or some such shit. He was only around a coupla’ days. Took off his helmet to get a drink a’ water in the creek. Gook sniper blowed his brains back ta Poland.”

  Three rows in front, a boy sitting at the window, who didn’t look out of high school, began to sob. A blond stewardess bent over the two cherries between her and the boy and whispered something in the crying one’s ear. He sobbed louder.

  Someone in the back of the plane had a nightmare. He screamed, “Dink motherfuckers. Don’t want no more stinkin’ rice balls.” Nobody said a word.

  A cherry passed, stumbling toward the head. He smelled like puke, and there was a stain the size of a canteen on his uniform blouse.

  “Now lookee there,” the grunt said. “Cherry musta eaten too many greasy cheeseburgers back in The World.” He laughed. “Soon, he’ll be thinkin’ a solid shit is a blessin’ from the Lord. Most a’ the time, it just runs down yur leg.”

  He slammed the seat again.

  “Hey, Morgan,” he said. “You ain’t laughin’. You one a’ them gung ho, straight arrow, un-i-vers-i-ty cocksuckers? You look too old ta be ridin’ with this buncha draftees.”

  The muted lights flickered like the power was going out. I looked at my watch. Two o’clock p.m. Seattle time.

  “Twenty-three,” I said. “Spent some time in college. My old man’s a colonel, and there was no way I could run to Canada.”

  He slapped his forehead.

  “Well, ex-cuuu-se me, troop,” he said. “Didn’t know I was sittin’ next to no pencil dick officer’s brat. Suppose yur gonna enjoy your tour behind a desk by Au Tau Beach. Workin’ on yur tan after ya’ get sucked off by the mama-sans.”

  No way to answer. Already condemned. But it was enough for the grunt to stop. He took a baggie from his pocket and gently removed three red pills, washing them down with the last of his coke. Within minutes, the grunt was asleep.

  Five hours later, the Freedom Bird touched down in Da Nang. The line of cherries and grunts moved slowly down the stairs into air thick as C-rat mashed potatoes. A band played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” sweat rolling from their faces and dress uniforms drooping in the sun, the last notes ending in a long sigh. A line of slicks ferried bodies to the evac hospital across the melting tarmac. In the distance, the boom of 155 mike-mike shells
landing in the hills. A DC-6 was parked next to the Freedom Bird, green body bags waiting to be loaded.

  The only thing I knew was there was no direction home that didn’t include a journey through Vietnam.

  The old woman had white hair. Two black crooked teeth were all that remained in her constant smile. A blanket sewn from pajamas held a sleeping baby snug to the old woman’s thin back. Her brown skin was wrinkled and creased, but didn’t stop the corners of her mouth from curling into the grin of a wise woman. A woman who had seen great joy. And great sadness.

  Around the old woman, two small, naked boys played a game with bamboo sticks in the red clay of the Delta, jumping and dancing to the rules of a game that was foreign to me. The old woman understood. She clapped her bony hands and made clucking sounds of encouragement through sun-cracked lips. Sores, running white with ooze, covered the bare legs of the boys. Grunts called them “gook sores.” Most Vietnamese peasant children had them, not as a consequence of the war or a plague imported by the white devils. The sores were part of the Delta’s history and hardship.

  The earth smoked in the afternoon sun. Paddies in the distance held ghosts of booby-trapped legs, trip wires firm in the swaying rice shoots. Reflections of the sun streaked from the muddy water below palm trees that drooped in another day of lung-searing heat, the humid air making each breath weigh a thousand pounds.

  Three scrawny chickens pecked in the red soil around the huts near a sleeping pig tethered to a hardwood pole. By the door, behind the old woman, clay pots stood as sentinels. A black metal drinking cup made from an old C-ration can sat on the top of the brown pot closest to the bamboo door. Usually, in other vils, the pots held rice or water. Sometimes grenades and Kalashnikov ammo. Or trip wires that made future handshakes a dream.

  Water bugs zipped around a puddle in a bomb crater left by a B-52 Stratofortress strike from thirty thousand feet in the sky. The raids were called Arc Light missions, but the grunts named them “Whispering Death.” Five hundred pounds of high explosives per bomb, more than one hundred death whispers on each plane.

  The trees scattered through the vil were scarred and blackened by the air strikes but still waved gently in the breeze, wounds healing in the tropical sun. Broken, rotting coconuts littered the ground below many of the trees. A ditch behind the hootches served as the latrine, and the smell drifted through the palms. Rats scampered into the jungle, white coconut meat between their sharp teeth.

  The old woman didn’t sweat like everyone in the recon patrol I led. We were crouched in the bush, waiting for this scene to turn into something sinister so we could destroy the peace with our ArmaLites and flamethrower. Intel claimed there was supposed to be a rendezvous between local Viet Cong leaders in this vil today.

  The baby moved, and the old woman slid the pajama backpack to her front, cooing. She tickled the baby’s chin and smiled as though the world was at peace. Not full of bloody stumps.

  The head of the meeting was said to be a Sorbonne-educated woman named Liem Tran, accused by the Phoenix program commanders of being the most important cadre chief in this sector of the Mekong. If I didn’t punch Liem’s ticket today, I was ordered to grease her later while she slept in a villa ten klicks south. A firefight this afternoon would have a higher enemy body count, much preferred by Military Assistance Command Vietnam, MACVN, in Saigon.

  The two boys ran behind the old woman, sticks in their hands. They formed a chorus of sweet talk aimed at the baby. One of the boys raced into the hut and came out with a piece of black plastic. He took the baby’s fingers and pressed them around the handle from a busted M16. The baby’s hand was too small to hold the toy.

  Only the one hootch looked occupied. Fresh palms covered the roof, the hardwood supports leaning much less than the other abandoned huts. Chipped plates and silverware made from shrapnel surrounded the smoldering cook fire. An uneaten rice ball, nearly black with a covering of flies, decomposed in the middle of one of the plates.

  A young woman walked toward the vil on a dike between the paddies, a woven basket on her shoulder. The sun beat on her back, outlined by the next grove of trees in the distance. Behind her, a water buffalo grazed. A conical grass hat covered her head and the top of the long, black hair that hung to her waist. As she entered the vil, the two little boys screeched and jumped in the air. They ran to her side and tugged on the wet pajamas that almost reached the young woman’s bare feet.

  The old woman slowly stood and tottered toward the young woman. Her smile made long furrows in leathery skin. The baby whimpered. The young woman handed the basket to the biggest boy and took the baby. She nuzzled the baby-san and walked toward the shade of a palm tree on the edge of the vil. The young woman sat and pulled up her pajama top. She fed the baby and shushed the two prancing boys. The old woman squatted next to the young one, watching.

  The patrol had been in position for three hours. The jungle, again, was alive with the sounds of birds, monkeys, rats, insects, growth, and slow decay. Fumes from the small cook fire in front of the hut mixed with the rotting fruit and vegetation to make the ever-present sweet, smoky smell of Southeast Asia. A smell that coated every inch of cloth and skin. Coated the red earth itself. Coated the greasepaint that helped us blend into the bush.

  A dog barked from behind one of the huts. It ran into the cleared area in front of the hootches and skidded to a stop, turning around and yapping back in the direction in which it had just come. The mongrel was the brother to every other dog in ’Nam. Long legs, pointed snout, yellow teeth, ribs pressed against short, wiry hair, scabs, and milky eyes.

  A tap on my shoulder. A finger pointed to the jungle behind the huts. Figures in black pajamas moved slowly through the bush, rifles searching. Ammo belts crisscrossed their chests. Soviet RKG grenades hung from the rope around their waists. The grenades were shaped like longneck beer bottles, but held no joy. Not one of the VC was over five-foot-four or weighed as much as the average housewife back in The World.

  Two more high-pitched yips and the dog ran off into the bush. The young woman covered herself and rocked the baby. The old woman moved closer to the young one, and the creases in her face no longer formed a smile. Huddled behind the women, the boys stared toward the approaching VC. The pig awoke from the nap and pulled its tether as far away from the soldiers as it could manage. Now, silence in the jungle, and the sun dropped behind a cloud shaped like Puff the Magic Dragon.

  The VC spread out and inspected each one of the huts. No one spoke. They used the barrels of their rifles to poke and prod at sleeping mats and the few belongings of the villagers. Two of the squad were women, black hair cut almost as short as the men. No one wore shoes. Mud caked their feet like tight slippers. None looked older than fifteen.

  If our intel was right, another squad would soon arrive. The mission was to blow both units into the soil of ’Nam. Take no prisoners. Burn the vil to the ground and set it free to make an example that would spread through the huts of the Mekong. Don’t fuck with Uncle Sam or he’ll be sure your relatives get to attend another cremation. Burn the vil to set it free. Pacification.

  The VC dispersed under the shade of the thatched porches of the huts. Didn’t bunch up. One grenade meant the end of the party. Canteens came off belts. Murmurs traveled across the open ground. AKs leaned against thighs.

  My breathing became as quiet as the centipede crawling across the jungle floor in front of me. The wind that had kept the flies away died. The buzz in my ear joined the nervous chatter in my brain.

  The young woman gently stroked the baby’s head while the old woman chewed and watched. The two boys peeked from behind the young woman.

  A VC, AK across his chest, walked to the young woman. He barked something and waved the rifle in her face. The young woman looked down at the clay, and the soldier grinned and kicked her foot. The baby cried.

  Another VC came out of the nearest hut carrying a doll made of elephant grass and pieces of red and blue cloth. He threw the doll into the air
and sliced its head off with his knife before it hit the ground. The squad laughed.

  One of the VC women passed out cigarettes, in her hand a silver lighter that must have been liberated from a “running dog” GI grunt’s dead body. After each light, she flipped it shut like James Dean and marched to the next soldier. The bandoleers across her chest and back made the woman move with a slight stoop.

  The soldier who had been questioning the young woman squatted next to the cook fire. He took a letter wrapped in plastic from his black tunic and began to read. By his interrogation of the young woman and the ability to read, he was probably the squad leader. The first to die. I was sure the ARVN Rangers behind me had already marked the soldier in the sights of their M16s.

  My escort for the day’s mission was a squad of Luc Luong Dac Biet Special Forces, better known as Rangers, the elite force of the South Vietnamese Army. The LLDB troops were only 5 percent of the ARVN and were as merciless as any soldiers in-country. Better paid, better trained, better equipped, and better housed, they were macho killers of their own countrymen. The detachment was permanently assigned to the Phoenix program to help in assassination missions and spread terror. They weren’t my buddies.

  For the next hour, we watched the VC smoke and chat. AKs were never more than an arm’s length from their bodies. Bandoleers and grenades didn’t leave their belts. The VC continually scanned the jungle, as though they expected enemy contact. One of the VC used a folding shovel to straighten the banks of the bomb crater, using it for a bunker. A Chinese-made Chicom Type 56 light machine gun lay on top of a pile of dirt next to the bunker.

  When they had to piss, they used a hootch. If the VC had to shit, they used “chieu hoi” propaganda leaflets for toilet paper. The leaflets were folded in their packs and encouraged VC guerrillas to surrender in five different languages. Chieu hois littered South Vietnam like hotdog wrappers at Yankee Stadium after the World Series. If a Vietnamese held up a chieu hoi, it was a white flag. Sometimes they weren’t shot.