A Requiem for Crows: A Novel of Vietnam Read online

  He sat down to spend a quiet minute with her before he had to get serious about the last details of his departure. He would miss her. He remembered how she had looked when he was a small boy. She was pretty then. Her bright smile came sparingly now. Her hair was stiff with too much hair spray. Gone was the warm straw color he’d remembered from a decade earlier. Now, it was brassy. Her makeup was caked and smudged—applied in successive layers as she had gone from one job to the other during her long day. He didn’t care about those things. He only knew for his entire life there’d only been one person he could count on, one person he could trust, one person who hadn’t left him—Kitty Hayes.

  She had no one and he had her. He worried about her health, the stream of losers she took up with and her ever-present loneliness. He was torn over leaving, but he couldn’t stay. He had to report to Fort Benning, still a whole state and over five hundred miles away.

  He looked around the room, knowing he might not see it for awhile. On the corner of her messy makeup table she’d wedged a portable record player in between an oval mirror balanced on the table and the wall of the small bedroom. The script on the side of the record player proudly announced Hi-Fi. The box itself was laminated with grained vinyl in an alligator skin pattern. On the spindle three more 78s stood ready to drop down on top of the Johnny Mathis album resting on the flocked turntable. Scotty had heard those same albums over and over again, complete with the popping and scratching unique to each.

  The room smelled of Kitty’s perfume and was overpowered by something in the makeup she used liberally to hide imperfections in her once smooth complexion. Scotty noted the compact containing pressed powder showed more shiny bottom than product, reminding him how short the money had always been. He wondered how much he would be able to afford to send her once he was actually in the Army.

  She stirred without waking up. He still had things to do, but first leaned over to gently kiss her on the forehead before he quietly slipped out of the room.

  He had waited for Kitty to wake up, but hesitated to wake her just to say goodbye. She needed her sleep more than she needed an emotional goodbye. Hell, he was only going to be gone for nine weeks and he’d be back on leave before he would be stationed somewhere for any length of time.

  He looked at his watch one more time and made up his mind to call her later on during the day, after she got to work. He picked up his bag to leave, but stopped at the front door to look around the cramped quarters.

  He wouldn’t miss much, especially the plastic laminate furniture or the couch so sunken in the middle getting out of it was a chore. The aluminum foil on the rabbit ears of the Emerson black and white TV was less effective than wishful. And the kitchen floor was in bad need of new linoleum. What was there had given way to worn spots where most of the traffic had broken through to the cream colored fiber beneath the speckled yellow and maroon pattern. Maybe he’d try to replace it while he was home on leave. Leave—it seemed such a long way off. For sure, he had slept his last night there as his home. Once he walked out the door he’d forever come back as a visitor.

  He was excited about going somewhere new but anxious it was off to the Army as he opened the door and stepped out into the humid Florida morning. He walked to the end of the front walk which died into a curbless side street and stepped through the small wire gate in the fenced-in front yard. He took a moment to glance back at the aging, mildew stained Florida cottage with its cracked jalousied windows.

  With his entire summer’s savings—thirty-nine dollars—in his pocket, Scotty stuck out his thumb along the interstate snaking its way north to Georgia. A trucker whose most distracting feature was a large, bobbing Adam’s Apple gave Scotty his first ride and spent the first two hours telling Hayes how he was making a huge mistake by not enlisting in the Marine Corps, like the driver had done. He hammered on about how wimpy soldiers were when compared Marines and how the Marine Corps made a man out of him.

  Hayes tried to politely nod in agreement, but the Army wasn’t his idea, it was his local Draft Board’s.

  The truck driver dropped Scotty off in Waycross about the time the roads were filling up with people threading their way home from work. He was cutting off toward the coast and Scotty would have to find another ride to Columbus.

  As the truck pulled out Scotty looked around. There was nothing close by except warehouses and the rail head. He had no idea which direction would be most likely to take him to food and lodging, so he just set out toward the brightest lights, all neon.

  The signs on the wall said pizza and Budweiser. Scotty looked around inside the small bar before picking out a stool. The place was almost empty and smelled of beer and stale cigarettes. A jukebox in the far end of the room pounded out a Beach Boys tune still high on the charts, repeated often on radio stations across the country.

  The bartender, a withered woman in her fifties wore a stained apron to protect her as she washed glasses in the bar sink and stacked them on the drying rack next to it. She looked up at Scotty, “What’ll it be, sugar?”

  “A Bud. And a slice of pizza,” he said as he threw his leg over a stool right in front of her.

  As she wrote the order down he pulled a five out of his pocket and placed it on the bar between them.

  She stuffed the order up under a clip on a hanging wheel connecting the bar to the kitchen through a small window. “Guess you’re over eighteen, hon,” she half asked and half announced then picked up two glasses and dropped them into the sink.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, suddenly feeling a little foolish for emphasizing the difference in their ages. He reached into his shirt pocket for his Camels, a new habit he had thought would make him look older. He lit a cigarette with a cough and experienced a wave of nausea.

  The barkeep looked up at him, her arms elbow deep in sudsy water. “You gonna’ make it there?”

  Covering, Scotty blew a small amount of smoke skyward and touched his tongue with his fingertips. “Loose tobacco. I’ll be okay.”

  She wiped her arms on her apron and a bar towel and nodded toward the two taps behind the bar top. “Draft or bottle?”

  Scotty tried to sound worldly, “Draft. That’s my poison.”

  She poured his beer and tilted the excess head off before finally topping it off. “It’ll be a bit for y’er pizza.”

  The beer was cool and welcoming. He was no stranger to drinking. Around Palms High he had enjoyed the reputation as one who could hold his liquor. He didn’t get wild or hostile when he drank. Still, he wanted to look like having a beer in a bar was routine rather a relatively new experience.

  While he waited for his pizza Scotty crossed the room to the pay phone and called Kitty at work. Actually speaking with her was nearly impossible. The noise in the background at her bar coupled with the Johnny Cash record on the jukebox in Scotty’s bar and marked the conversation with pleas on each end to repeat things. He was frustrated by the call, knowing there’d probably not be many chances to speak with her once he got to Fort Benning.

  The pizza came with a second beer and Scotty enjoyed both, half watching a black and white television on the corner of the bar top. Customers came and went but mostly stayed. Soon all of the stools at the bar were occupied and the noise level completely drowned out the juke box and the television set.

  Scotty played with the ring of water on the bar top. Should he continue to thumb his way to Columbus, Georgia that night or find a place to stay? Before he could decide an argument broke out behind him.

  A drunk was trying too hard to convince a woman to sit down and have a drink with him. She kept refusing and he kept insisting. Finally, he grabbed hold of her wrist and tried to force her to sit down.

  Before he realized it Scotty heard himself say, “Hey, leave her alone.” It wasn’t like him. The words just spilled from him without warning.

  The drunk tried to focus on Scotty. “Butt the fuck out, asshole.” He tightened his grip on the woman and pulled her toward a chair at his table.


  Scotty looked around the room hoping to find someone else willing to get involved. No one was volunteering. He took a sip of his beer, not wanting to get in the middle of it but wanting even less to appear like he was backing away. He stood up from his bar stool hoping the gesture would be enough.

  The drunk thrust his chin out defiantly. “What? You got a problem, asshole?”

  Scotty stepped toward the drunk and tried a less confrontational tone. “Listen, pal. Can’t you see she wants to be left alone? There must be a dozen other women coming here tonight who’d like to have a drink with you.”

  The drunk dropped the woman’s wrist and made a failed attempt to stand up in Scotty’s face. He fell back into his chair and became even angrier because he had made himself look so stupid. On his next attempt he leaped to his feet and overshot his mark bumping into Scotty’s chest, headfirst.

  Scotty hit the man’s shoulders with the heels of both hands, stopping his forward momentum and propelling him backward, over his chair and onto the floor.

  Unsure of how the man would react next, Scotty braced for a fight, but the drunk only got up on his hands and knees and began to vomit.

  Scotty threw his arm out to ease the woman away from the splatter.

  The bartender cried out, “Shit, Earl. Your ass is out of here this time. Get out of my bar! Now!” She flipped up the hinged section of the bar top with a bang, ran into the middle of the room and bent over Earl screaming at him, pointing out someone would have to clean up after him and she wasn’t going let him into her bar ever again. She finally threatened to call the cops as Earl staggered out the door.

  “How do I ever thank you, hon?”

  Scotty turned to find the woman from the argument standing next to him, her hip leaning against the bar. Up close she wasn’t as young as he would have guessed. Maybe twelve or thirteen years older than he was—in her early thirties. He wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Ah, I’m sorry he was such a jerk.” He stumbled over his words.

  She was tall which added to her nice shape. He quickly recognized he was staring and hoped she hadn’t caught him eyeing her.

  “Buy you a beer?” She hopped up onto the stool next to his and reached for his pack of cigarettes.

  He looked around the landing at the top of the stairs leading to her apartment, uncomfortable. The place was quiet and clean and even had a carpeted hallway. But he was too excited by the prospect of spending the night with her to take in more of her place. He tried to act like going home with her wasn’t a big thing for him. But he, like his friends, had talked more about sex than they’d actually experienced. And spending the night with an older good looking woman was simply unheard of. Still, he didn’t want her to know the night could be a milestone for him.

  It wasn’t as if he had never been with a girl. He’d enjoyed some stolen moments in the back seats of cars and more than a little hurried petting in forbidden places, but he had never been with a woman. Not a woman like her.

  Her name was Liz. Inside the apartment she excused herself and told Scotty to make himself at home while she showered. The apartment was very small—one room with a hotplate in the corner and a bathroom. He picked up a magazine off a table near the bed and flipped through it without anything grabbing his attention. He could smell the freshness of a woman in her bath coming through the door left ajar. He wondered if she expected him to join her of if she was just letting the steam escape from the windowless bathroom trapped in the center of the apartment building? He opted to wait for more encouragement from her.

  He felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach when he heard her turn off the shower. Whatever the evening held was going to happen as soon as she came out of the bathroom.

  He’d been so sure she was coming on to him in the bar but wasn’t quite so sure as they walked to her apartment and she had chosen neutral topics to talk about.

  He looked up from the magazine to find Liz standing in the door, her hair trapped in a towel, drying her naked body with another. She seemed so comfortable. Her body was toned and just short of muscular but very feminine. Long legs and a very small waist set off her breasts.

  He’d never seen a totally naked woman before. And he’d never been completely naked with one either. This wasn’t like exposed body parts with nervous high school girls worried about being caught.

  She smiled, stopped drying herself and nodded toward the bathroom. “Your turn, honey. Want me to wash your back?” She laughed.

  Scotty wasn’t sure if he should just exit the bathroom naked or if he should wear his jeans. Still unsure of her intent, he opted to wrap a towel around his mid-section and see if it wouldn’t provide him some middle ground to go either way.

  He opened the door only to find her already in bed, still naked. Her damp hair brushed her shoulders. Her arms were gently crossed over her midsection, the sheet just covering her lower torso. Scotty felt awkward and didn’t know exactly where to look.

  “You coming to bed?” she asked, pulling back the covers for him.

  As he stepped to the side of the bed, she reached up and untucked the corner of the towel around his waist, letting it fall to the floor. She placed her other hand around the back of his upper thigh and gently pulled him toward her.

  Chapter 2

  BY NOON THE NEXT DAY Scotty was still looking for another ride out of Waycross. He spent eighty-one cents on a Coke and a bag of salted peanuts at a truck stop along Highway 41. His money was running very low, but he’d get twenty dollars as soon as he got to Benning to be deducted from his first month’s seventy-eight dollar paycheck. He’d never much thought about money before. They didn’t have much money, but Kitty had taken care of most of the money in his life. He’d never thought of money from his few odd jobs as paying for essentials.

  “Hey, you need a ride?”

  Scotty saw an enormous woman wearing a muumuu and a scarf covering her hair. She pumped gas into a two-gallon gas can sitting on the fender of her Corvair. “Sure do,” he said.

  “North or south?”

  “What?”

  “Which way you goin’?

  “Columbus,” he said.

  “You stationed there?”

  Hayes felt cramped in the small Corvair. She was so large she spilled over her bucket seat, across the divide, onto the side of his seat. “No. I mean, yes. I’m reporting in tonight.”

  “My boy went through basic there and what’s that thing you go to after basic?”

  “AIT.”

  “Yeah, advanced training, or something. He’s in Germany now. Who’d a thought my boy J.D.’d ever be over there in Europe? Hell, he’d never been out of Waycross ’fore the Army. You ever been away from home?”

  “Sure. Plenty of times,” he lied, not wanting to admit his lack of worldliness. “But I don’t know where I’ll be going after basic.”

  “Your momma gonna miss you?”

  Scotty was uncomfortable with the woman, not sure what she had in mind. He felt like she was pumping him to tell her more about himself than he wanted to. He tried to recall what he’d packed in case he had to bail out and leave his bag in the trunk. “My mom died when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, honey,” she looked over at Scotty.

  Her eyes seemed sincere. He guessed she was really just a mom herself giving a kid a ride. He relaxed a bit.

  “What ya’ want to do in the Army?”

  “Don’t know. It really wasn’t my idea.”

  “Drafted?”

  “Yeah. But it would have happened sooner or later anyway. Just about everyone from my graduating class seems to be getting draft notices.”

  “Maybe you can learn a trade.”

  “Like what?”

  “My boy’s in the Signal Corps now. He puts in phones and stuff. Seems to me he could do the same thing when he gets out if he was a mind to.”

  He hadn’t thought about being a student again. “I’ll just be happy to get through basic wi
thout killing myself.”

  “Oh, you’ll be okay, baby. Think of all the boys who’ve gone through basic. Why would you be any different?”

  He thought about how many times he had failed—at school and a couple of jobs. He hoped this time would be different.

  It began to rain.

  “My name is Asa Russell. We’re going to spend the next two months together. And you’re not going to like me. I won’t lose any sleep over that,” the tall Negro sergeant said, his hands on his hips standing squarely in front of the assembled ranks of new recruits.

  Scotty was relieved the sergeant’s eyes quickly sought out another recruit at the opposite end of the ten-man file to hassle. He tried to blend in and dodge some of the hazing and yelling going on all around him from several cadre NCOs. He had come close to being the object of Sergeant Russell’s attention twice in the last hour as they ran from building to building filling out forms, drawing equipment, signing for weapons and getting assigned to squads. Each time, just before Russell pounced on him for some minor infraction or failure to follow instructions, another soldier committed an even greater sin drawing the sergeant’s attention and his wrath.

  Scotty didn’t know much about the Army, but he knew a few things about Russell from few glimpses he had stolen. Russell outranked the other sergeants by a simple count of the large yellow stripes on his shirt sleeves. And he must have been a parachutist because he wore bright, shiny black paratrooper boots like his father had worn. But mostly he had eyes like a bird of prey. He didn’t miss a move, a twitch or a mistake committed by one of the recruits.

  The best possible way to avoid becoming Russell’s object of ridicule was by not getting noticed. Which was what Scotty was trying to do. He knew he had to work on lowering his profile, except he stumbled, fell onto the asphalt and spilled his armload of bedding in front of him. The other recruits kept running in formation, none of them willing or able to stop to help Scotty Hayes spread eagled on the parking lot outside the company supply room.