ST3.11 | "Virtue in a Boom Boom Room"

PROMPT: War . . . huh. . . good God, y’all . . . what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again. This month, give us noir directly from the warzone, however you define that. War is inherently bleak, but we want character-driven turmoil. Remind us why war is hell.

VIRTUE IN A BOOM BOOM ROOM

by AT Kessler

The men come like bees to the hive, dripping honey between their Queen’s legs, slick breasts, and sometimes, oddly, her hair. Their moans light up the room like napalm. Daddy said that our faith would be tested daily but we must endure the worst to save the most. Watching these men line up for pleasure, and watching their faces contort from fear to ecstasy, heats me up like the word of God. Flushed and tingling, I’m shocked by my own excitement. I know it’s the devil trying to worm his pitchfork between my legs. But this ache and longing will not let up. I’ve worked hard to save Bui but now I understand it's the men souls that need saving - and maybe even my own.

Wanting to understand the mechanics of sex and to put into practice enduring the worst to save the most, I had asked Bui to let me observe her work. She agreed as long as I promised not to baptize her. Deal, but I will find a way to save her. Bui fascinates me. She insists that she is a businesswoman and these men are merely her clients. Once trapped by tradition, she is now trapped by war, yet this is the most autonomy she has had since leaving her village. There, she was expected to work all day like a water buffalo, feeding, shopping and cooking for her large family. Now, she works on her back, and sets her own hours. A real feminist, as Daddy would say. I do not judge her. Only God can.

One day while I was brushing her hair, Bui said, “When I was a young girl, I would rebury the bones of my Bà and Ông so that they could have a nice time in heaven. It was . . .” She paused, looking for the right word. “. . . not so much fun. And when the heavy monsoon rains come, the bones float up and I trip all over heads, arms, legs.”

Looking down at the brush’s pearlescent bone handle, I stopped brushing. An image filled my vision of a young Bui in pigtails, barefoot, playing in the rain as she skipped over her grandparents’ bones, jutting out of the mud like stones in a stream.

“Hey!” she yelled, “keep brushing.” I obeyed. “Now,” she chuckled, “the men bury their bones in me so they too can have a bit of heaven. giống giống . . . same, same but different.”

***

Sitting on a mat in the corner of Bui’s room, notebook in hand, the men don’t seem to mind my presence, when they notice me. Often, I don’t think they even notice her, lost as they are in their lustful duties.

I used to look away. Lately, I watch these interactions with boredom. Even the most hideous sin can become mundane. I’ve started noticing the difference in the men’s performances. Some thrust into Bui like jackrabbits, while others take it slow and ask her a lot of stupid questions like, “Do you like it like that?” I’m certain she does not. Some get rough. They pinch and slap and call her filthy names. Bui is placid and says nothing to further enrage these men, while I pray quietly: endure the worst to save the most, until they stop. I’ve observed over the past few months that these men are getting younger—as if Nixon is handing out draft orders along with high school diplomas—“Congratulations, you’ve graduated to Vietnam!” It seems Nixon has wrung out the swamps and emptied farms of their sons and drafted them into almost certain death in Vietnam.

I’m here by choice and that fact allows me to have sympathy for these devils.

I take leave of Bui and her current client, who searches for her vagina like a pig rooting out a truffle. I pass by groups of soldiers running their beer cans across their foreheads in the sweltering heat. Most are drunk. Some dance slowly with bar girls. Others sit at the bar drinking and sweating. The GIs clap and whistle each time a bed frame hits the wall, knocking dust from the ceiling fan overhead.

The few regulars, journos and GIs, eye me wearily and step aside as I walk behind the bar to grab myself a Coca-Cola. I overhear one of them turn to his buddy, point at me and whisper, “Looks like mass is starting.”

Ha, I think to myself. It most certainly is, boys.

Scooping up a handful of spicy peanuts from a filthy communal bowl, I walk over and yank out the jukebox’s cord. Creedence Clearwater Revival abruptly shuts off. Everyone stares daggers at me as I stand on a table and preach fire and brimstone. Peanut dust flies out of my mouth like tiny missiles exploding on deaf ears.

“Save yourselves!” I boom at them. They mostly ignore me, but I catch one’s eye. “You can hear me, brother. I know you can.” He bows his head in shame.

The men jeer and throw peanuts at my head. “Hey, missionary girl,” a scarecrow of a boy yells, “you know what you can feast on?” He grabs his crotch and laughs.

Another GI, with a face that could launch a thousand medivacs, joins in. “See if you can still pray with my Yankee Doodle in your mouth.”

They high five each other and hurl the most vile and puerile insults at me. I use the bible as a shield to deflect them. Then out of the group steps a soldier, with an air of confidence as thick as the cigar smoke leaking out the sides of his mouth. “Davis” is sewn onto the breast pocket of his fatigues. He yells at the others to behave themselves in front of a lady.

“Ain’t no ladies here,” snorts a large man with a handlebar mustache and haunted eyes.

Davis gets in the man’s face. “I said, watch your mouth in front of the lady.”

Handlebar mustache pokes Davis in the chest, threatening him, “I only see one pussy here and that’s you.”

Smiling wildly, Davis puts his cigar out on the man’s forehead. Handlebar Mustache shrieks. The other GIs hoot and holler. Someone throws a beer. A full-on fight breaks out. Bottles whoosh overhead and shatter on the tile floor. Davis grabs my hand and yells, “Run.”

We dodge and weave through street hawkers and rickshaws and into a coffee shop, where we sit on brightly colored plastic chairs across from one another. We are both laughing and trying to catch our breath. Looking at him, I see that he’s actually younger than I first thought, maybe only a few years older than my twenty years. His thick framed glasses and black bushy eyebrows give him a Groucho Marx quality. Daddy would surely whip me if he knew I was out with a GI.

Davis orders from the waitress in flawless Vietnamese. She is as surprised as I am. “Not every day you hear a dink order in Vietnamese,” he winks. “What’s your name?”

“Gloria.”

“Like the song.”

He whistles that dang Van Morrison song, which usually makes me cringe, but he’s so out of tune that it’s charming.

“So, Gloria,” he drops his head into his hands like an excited schoolgirl waiting for her friend to divulge a delicious secret, “what’s a girl like you doing spreading the gospel in a boom-boom room in Saigon?”

Before I can answer, the waitress interrupts our conversation with a plate of something that resembles peanut brittle.

“Try this,” he says excitedly. “It’s called keo cu do.”

The keo cu do glistens. It tastes like home, like Tennessee.

“It’s better than spreading—”

“Your legs?”

“The gospel!” I fold my arms over my chest to communicate my displeasure at his crudeness.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” He wipes sugar from my lips and I find myself wondering if he tastes as sweet as this unpronounceable Vietnamese peanut brittle.

Stop it, I tell myself. These thoughts are dangerous and dirty—so deliciously dirty.

“Well, I guess you could say that I’m here on a spiritual internship.”

“Spiritual internship,” Davis laughs. “I like that. Like a spiritual tour of duty. Most of the men in my unit start off as men but leave as spirits. Kinda like you, they intern, but in the afterlife.”

I’m attuned to the cynicism behind his humor. And cynicism, like a sin, only blackens your soul.

I shall not give into it. I will save you, Davis.

“So, Gloria, how many have you saved?”

“It’s not a numbers game,” I try my best to explain. “You know, we aren’t that different.” I sip my coffee and study the amused look on Davis’s face. “We are both soldiers sent here on a mission. I’m on a mission to save souls, just as you are here on a mission to stamp out communism.”

Davis slaps the table. “Onward Christian soldier! But aren’t you afraid? Hell, I’m afraid every god damned day, sorry.”

I gently take Davis’s hand in mine. “It’s not for me to decide. God has a plan, even for you.” Leaning in so close that our noses are practically touching, I whisper the only question that matters. “Davis, have you been saved? Have you accepted Christ’s love?” Slowly, I pull my hand from his, our fingers lightly hooking as I let go.

“No. And the only thing you need to save me from is a second serving of keo cu do.” Seeing my dismay, he changes tack. “Look, Gloria, I appreciate your concern over my mortal coil. But I need protection, not saving.”

“I can’t offer you physical protection, but I can offer spiritual protection.”

Davis’s smile fills his face. Did I say something funny?

“If spiritual protection keeps me out of a glad bag, then sure.”

Frowning at his sarcasm, I’m about to admonish him when there is a loud banging on the window. Turning toward the sound, we see Handlebar Mustache and a few of the GIs from the bar beating fists on the window and pointing at us through the glass.

“Gloria,” Davis says, waving at our waiting assailants, “I think it’s time we go.”

We knock over the table as we run past them. Davis is practically dragging and cheering me on to run faster. Looking over my shoulder, I see Handlebar Mustache and friends are closing in, maybe 100 yards away, when I feel a wave of hot air like the devil blowing his fetid breath on my face, followed by a thunderclap. The shockwave knocks me into Davis and sends us tumbling to the ground, somersaulting towards Armageddon, until we come to a stop. The world disconnects.

A pinhole of light breaks through my vision; my nostrils fill with the smell of sulfur. Silence is replaced by a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Opening my eyes, I see the walking wounded dazed and bleeding, men and women turned inside out, cars flipped over, and a large smoking hole where, just moments ago, shop-houses stood. Davis stands over me yelling something I can’t hear. A stream of blood runs down his temple and pools in his shirt’s collar. Davis shakes me. I flop between his hands like a rag doll. Then he slaps me back to reality.

Immediately, I jump up to flee because Handlebar and friends are going to catch us. I’m frantic. Davis drapes his body over mine like a blanket, muffling my screams.

I’m covered in his blood. “You are hurt?”

“It’s nothing.” He grimaces, pulling a piece of glass from the side of his head.

I look down at the mangled corpses of our pursuers. Bloody confetti spill out of their torsos; their body parts are scattered amongst the fruit and vegetables from upturned carts. And I think, fleetingly, who will bury and rebury their bones?

The scene is so incomprehensible that I start laughing uncontrollably.

Davis looks around nervously. “Shh, you are in shock. We should get somewhere safe. And we need to go now, chuckles. Ok? Let’s walk, soldier. On your feet.”

Davis’s cool is unfathomable. I can only guess at what he’s witnessed on the battlefield to so calmly move us through the carnage while wounded. Davis steers me past Bui’s bar when I notice that the street is missing a tooth. There is a smoking crater where the bar once stood. The bar is gone. Bui is gone.

Breaking free of Davis, I run towards the burning bar, slipping in viscera.

“Bui,” I yell into the smoking hole of twisted metal. The guilt from not saving her knocks me to my knees. The world goes black.

I wake up on the street next to Davis.

“And she’s back.” His eyes are unfocused. “Congrats, chuckles. You survived your first bombing. How’s it feel?” He slurs his words, woozy from blood loss.

I fear he will die. I know what I need to do.

He smiles at me weakly as I baptize him in his own blood.

AT KESSLER is a writer and documentary producer living in Southern California with her husband, son, and two dogs. When not writing or on set, she can be found in her garden battling aphids. Her writing has appeared in the anthology Six Word Memoir and online.