One to Count Cadence

"Why you do that?" Terri asked, as I got a beer. "Why?"

Everything spilled out at once. "Why? You want to know why? The weather, the Army, my screwed up life. You want to know something worth knowing, ask me why I didn't kill him. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to blow his fat, ugly guts all over the bar. But I didn't. Sometimes I get unhappy. Sometimes life is too much. Why? Why? I don't know why." I spoke mostly to my beer bottle, then took a long cool drink from it.

"You sound like Joe Morning," she said, seemingly far behind me. "Most time you are gentle man, Jake, but today you have kill in your heart. I sorry for you." She was crying; I could tell without looking around. I'd heard the sound before. "He offer me one thousand pesos a month to live with him," she said. "I am. Goodbye." She walked out after Mr. Garcia, but stopped at the door. "Maybe I keep him from having you killed," she said.

"You've been seeing to many American movies," I said without looking up.

She went on into the afternoon sunlight wearing the same black pants, the same black jersey, the same lovely bare feet soft in the grass. And I knew exactly how her breasts rippled under the jersey, knew exactly the animal smell of her body, satin skin over a cat's muscles, the way her legs climbed my body when she really wanted me, the night rain of kisses after she came. She was right, I thought, but I couldn't help thinking, What if I'd let him kick the shit out of me? Would she have stayed? No matter. It died aborning, conceived in violence, buried in hate, how could it be love? Once more Krummel loses to a loser. How fucking quaint.

I finished my beer and left. There was no rain as I walked back to the hotel down the stinking bay front. No rain. Nothing so conclusive as that.

Morning was still in the room, but drunk now, and the two large suitcases still sat heavily in the center of the room, not treasure now, but a sad burden.

"Off your ass, trooper. Let's sell some cigarettes."

" 'Bout time you did some work around this place, fella," he said, rolling off the bed to call the drop man.

The drop man came for us in an old Chevrolet. He was small, nervous, and in a hurry. Usually the transaction took place in the moving car, but he said it was too late and he needed to pick up the money at another place, so he drove us to Pasay City and parked in front of a wood and thatch house on a narrow dirt lane. Morning and I carried the suitcases in the house as the drop man hurried off down the street, explaining that he had to pick up the money. A tall, busty broad in a red dress met us at the door, laughed huskily at the weight of the suitcases, asked us to sit, then, in the same voice, the voice an American mother might use to ask a child if he would like cookies and milk, asked us if we wanted a quick blow-job. I said, thank you, no, but Morning asked, How much. Nothing, she said, A customer service, and laughed again. "Isthey inkstay," I said, "Let's cut," but Morning said "Onay," then followed the chick into the bedroom, her big legs rustling against the red satin of her dress.

Inside, he later told me, she stripped him quickly, laid his clothes on a chest at the foot of the bed, then undressed except for her bra, and went to work. With her body hiding his pants, the floor opened, or something, and one hundred sixty pesos disappeared from his wallet, leaving him, as Filipino thieves usually did, enough money to get back to Base. Morning asked her to remove her bra, but she just laughed, and spat against the wall, he said.

After ten minutes or so two men in loud baggy sport shirts walked in the front door. I stood, expecting anything. Neither of them were the drop man, but both looked like cheap hoods. My first thought was that Mr. Garcia was about to have his revenge (which may or may not have been true; if true, he revenged himself on Joe Morning, not me; a refreshing change, if true).

"You are off limits, you know, GI Joe," the younger of the two said. "You could get in bad trouble, GI Joe." His voice dripped threat.

"I'm in a private home, Jack, and my name isn't GI Joe, and just who the hell are you?" I said, the fire of fear and anger blooming again.

The older man looked on in disgust, then took out a battered card in a plastic case from his hip pocket, slowly, though, so I might mistake it for a gun.

"Pasay City Secret Service," the younger said, meaning, as I knew, a fancy New World name for the vice squad. Once more, slowly for effect, "Pasay City Secret Service."

"Spartanburg Mickey Mouse Club," Morning said in the doorway, tucking in his shirt. "What the fuck's up?"

"Talk nice, GI Joe," the younger said, flashing his card, too, which was only in slightly better shape than the other's. "We have report that two crazy stupid American GIs down here in off limits place. Bad place. Very bad. American GIs come here by mistake, sometimes have bad trouble. Sometimes fall down die. Sometimes," the threat now clear in his tone, then doing a silent movie double take, he saw the suitcases, "Those belong you, GI Joe?"

"Maybe. What about it, fuzz?" Morning said, his voice cool with anger now. "You boys fixin' to stir up a hornet's nest," he said in his best Ku Klux Klan voice, but they didn't understand.

"If not yours, then must be mine," the younger cop said, a fat grin on his thin face. This was getting silly. The older one was stocky, looking a little like a cop, but he was still small, maybe 5'7", 155, and the younger one was even smaller. And they wanted to take on the pride of the 721st. I didn't know if they had pistols or guys outside. One or the other though.

"They're mine, bud. All mine," Morning said, quietly, turning his left side to the two cops.

"Then captain must see," the younger said, smiling still wider, playing the game to the hilt. "We will take to captain, yes?" but not a question at all.

"How?" Morning said. "Just how?"

I looked for something to swing, but the room was furnished with a single rickety wooden table and chair, a cheap vinyl couch, and a whore's altar, plastic saints, nickel candles, and a slant-eyed Christ. Nothing a dissatisfied customer might get a purchase on.

The younger cop, smiling like a Buddha now, slowly raised the bottom of his gaily printed shirt, revealing the butt of a nickel-plated.45 stuck in his waistband. "Take it off, honey," he said, then did a bump and grind.

"Ease off, Joe," I said. "They'd love to shoot us in the backs and say we were resisting arrest. Keep your face to them, and your mouth shut, and we'll be all right."

"You shut your mouth, joe," the younger said, dropping his shirt back over the pistol as if he meant it to be a dramatic gesture. "This not California. You not mess with Beni Boys now," he sneered.

While Morning was looking puzzled, I got mad again that day. "You're not too smart, are you?" I said. "That gun's in a bad place. A good fast man could break your neck while you're reaching for it. Your partner might get him. But that ain't going to put your head back on."

"Hey, man," Morning said, smiling, too, now. "Don't scare the little man; he'll blow his balls off going for that ca

The younger cop suddenly looked afraid, then bent into a slight crouch, but the older one said to him in Spanish, "That's enough. Go to the car, now. I will talk now." The younger one didn't look happy, but he moved. As he reached the door, I said, "Si muchacho. Tu padre lo dice get out." Tex-Mex, but he understood and started back, but the old one waved him off again.

"You speak Spanish?" he said, turning to me.

"No, man," I said.

He turned to Morning and said, "You boys shouldn't talk to him like that. He's really a nice kid. He's just got a quick temper. He really likes Americans." His English was very good, his voice quite naturally kind. "Now, if you…"