Harvey

Harvey and I were in The War together. Eight months, together--in the shit. You share a four by four foot foxhole with a guy for that long you learn things about them, intimate things, things no man would ever think to ask about. Something about being in such close proximity to death makes a guy open up.

 Harvey knew about life. He knew what he wanted and I’d be damned if he didn’t go out and get it. I knew a lot of guys back then who would do a whole lot of talking, but Harvey is the only one who ever followed through.

I hadn’t even been thinking about Harvey until the news came up that he’d been killed. One of my poker buddies, Walt Tyler, another buddy from Nam’, told me. I remember it well because Walt didn’t make no big deal out of it. Just brought it up one night when we were drinking beer and shooting pool. That’s the kind of guy Harvey was to most people. Un-extraordinary. Not me though, I know about Harvey. And it was for that reason that I didn’t let Walt know that it upset me when he said, very casually, that

“Harvey got tagged by some dope pushers in the Saigon”

I couldn’t sleep right for weeks after Walt told me. It wasn’t even that I liked Harvey all that much. I hadn’t even talked to the guy for damn near twelve years, but I felt a deep connection to Harvey, a connection that I have never felt to any woman or friend in my life.

 I knew that he had trouble transitioning out of combat and that he had been moving throughout Thailand and North Vietnam for years, no doubt doing what all the others had done, wandering. And the news of his death was not a surprise to me, at first.  I thought about it for weeks. Harvey was not one to mess up. He would know not to get involved in a dope deal with any loose ends. Harvey was very methodical in everything he did. He would not leave anything unaccounted for. So, I got on a flight to the Saigon.

As soon as I stepped off the plane my nose filled with the vulgar stench of damp heat, and it all came back. I was stunned, struck with awe at how similar everything seemed. It was as if I had been gone for a day.

I took a bus into Hanoi and went to see Mickey Cartoga. Mickey had been a machine-gunner, now he sold fruit. I was hoping Mickey could at least give me a direction to walk in.

            Mickey lived in a small, pale blue shack, outside of the city. The house smelled of cheap bourbon and tobacco.

“Take a seat Jack.”

“Would you care for a drink?”

I didn’t particularly want a drink, but I felt obliged. After a couple plastic cups of bourbon, I got down to business.

“You hear about Harvey?”

“Of course I heard about Harvey. Man didn’t know any better; it was bound to happen if you ask me.”

“When’d you last see him?”

“Gotta’ be no more than two months ago. He bought a semi-new Carbine and a machete. I got better stuff, for cheaper too, but you know Harvey; gotta’ be cold, heavy and kick like a mule if he’s gonna shoot it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Yeah, I know Harvey. Harvey buys old guns to kill old enemies. Harvey was a goddamn maniac. Harvey killed forty-three men. Harvey saved my life.

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            It was November and it was about as hot and muggy as it gets. I had only been in Nam’ for a month or so and hadn’t quite adapted, most guys never do. We were on a recon mission, had been in the bush for going on three days and the stench and heat of Death’s imminence were weighing heavy on me. Harvey and I were on patrol. Two shots fired from the north.

“Light rifle fire, nothing to worry about. Take it easy kid, have a smoke.”

            Well I couldn’t take it easy. I was having a real hard time with the whole war thing at that point and I was getting restless. I felt like I was just waiting to die and if I didn’t start moving my heart would just stop. But I trusted Harvey and I waited.

            More shots, same origin, but certainly not the same guns.

            “Shit.”

            When Harvey said that one word I almost died from sheer fright. Here’s a guy who knows infinitely more about the situation than I do and he’s saying shit.

Harvey grabbed me by the hook of my flak jacket and flung me into a trench. His heavy, combat hardened body fell on top of mine seconds before the first shell hit.

            The bombardment lasted ten minutes. I remember not being able to hear and lying in the trench for nearly half an hour after Harvey hoisted himself out, for fear that the guns were still firing and I simply couldn’t hear them.

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            I left Mickey’s place with little more than I had come with. Although Mickey didn’t know where Harvey was headed he did offer up the name of someone who might, “Terrence Wallace”. Terrence is not the kind of guy you want to ask a favor of. The very thought of talking to him made me anxious. But I felt that I owed something to Harvey. Something that he’d given me and I had yet to return. So I went.

            Terrence was exactly where Mickey had said he would be. I approached him apprehensively. Even lying completely prone in a rice paddy, Terrence was terrifying.

            “Te-.”

            Before I can finish, he has me in the mud with a .45 to my temple.

            “What the fuck you thinkin’ sneakin’ up on a man like that?”

            “Muh—my name is Jack, Jack Keitel.”

            “How the fuck you know where I am Jack Keitel?”

            He still had the cold barrel of his gun pressed into my skull.

            “Muh—Mickey sent me.”

            “I oughta’ kill that motherfucker.”

            “What the fuck you want Jack Keitel?”

            “I’m here about Harvey.”

            As soon as I mentioned Harvey, Terrence  removed his gun from my head and sat down in the mud.

            “Harvey was a crazy motherfucker. I seen that man do some fucked up shit. Shit I don’t feel comfortable speaking about. What the fuck you want with Harvey?”

            “He’s dead. I’m here to find who killed him.”

            “Any motherfucker crazy enough to kill Harvey is not the kind of man you want to get near. You understand me? You pick yo’ muddy ass up and go back from where you came.”

            “You don’t understand. I need to find who did this. I owe it to Harvey.”

            “You owe it to him? Don’t nobody owe nobody shit.”

            “Look, I need to do this and if you don’t tell me I’m just going to find it out from the next guy.”

            “Alright, I’m going to tell you this with the understanding that if you wind up face down in the shit, I aint in no way liable. I’m OK with you pokin’ the devil as long as I aint got no blood on my hands.”

            “Understandable.”

            “Harvey took a trip, bout’ a month and a half ago. Went north, paid a Gook to take him up the Viet Triv. In my opinion, you got no business going up there. If what you say is true, if Harvey was killed, you gonna’ follow him right down into that shit filled river if you get involved.”

            “Thank you, Terrence.”

            I decided to end the conversation there and turned and went back the way I had come. I got in to town and bought six banana leaf wrapped rice balls, three mangos and a .45 pistol with an extra clip and a box of bullets. I knew that if I ever had to use the gun it wouldn’t do me any good. The average Northern Vietnamese has more firearms than the entire country of Sweden, and my .45 would be nothing more than a toy in comparison.

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It was June, I woke up to gunfire. I woke up to gunfire more often than I would have liked. Harvey wasn’t asleep next to me. Harvey wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I checked the strap on my flak jacket, pulled my helmet tight and positioned myself at the edge of our foxhole. I peeked over the dirt line and saw nothing but smoke. The gunfire calmed down and I could hear screaming.

            Vietnam was no god damn cake walk; I had seen terrible things, but nothing that came close to paralleling the force of emotion visible in the scream of pure agony that I heard that night. It was silent, save the screaming. I still couldn’t see anything, and then, a dark figure dropped a flare at each side and I saw him. Cargo pants, no shirt, covered in blood. Harvey. In his right hand he held a large hunting knife dripping hot, fresh blood and his left he held a small, tan hand.

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            I did the same as Harvey had. I hiked out to where the three rivers meet and hired a small elderly Vietcong, the only one who didn’t laugh in my face, to take me up the Viet Triv.    

            Their laughter was justified. The river is the most god awfully horrifying part of the Saigon. Murky waters flowing through impassable walls of brush littered with a disassembled army of broken men. Its banks have heard too many blood curdling screams and seen too many disemboweled bodies to remain innocent. Although one wouldn’t expect it at first glance, once you get into the depths of the jungle you feel a fear more overwhelming than anything you have ever felt. A feeling of total abandonment, of all encompassing loneliness, as if you are the last person left on earth, but there is still something terrible and viscous alive to kill you.

            The war transformed Vietnam. It transformed it so that the only thoughts that any of us had in regards to the place were cruel and soggy, weighed down with death, despair and a longing that none of us had ever felt. None of us saw any beauty; it was veiled to all, except Harvey. Harvey loved the war. Harvey felt at home in a trench and he felt at home in Vietnam. I suppose that’s why he stayed there. Harvey was in awe, in true appreciation of his surroundings, at peace despite being at war.

            Harvey took up meditation sometime during his first tour in Nam’, before I arrived, and had taken to meditating regularly. Most of the guys thought it was queer, some thought funny, but I didn’t have a thought on it one way or the other. All I could do was watch Harvey in the hopes of some day understanding him.

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            It was July and it was raining. We were all huddled in our foxholes, trying our very best to keep dry, and failing. Harvey was sitting about ten paces away from me, out of our foxhole, eyes wide open, staring out across the plain. He meditated probably three or four times a week, which sounds like a lot until you consider the other recreational options.

            We had been hearing mortar fire all day and now as the sun was starting to set they were getting louder, closing in. I was watching Harvey, just gazing out, no concerns at all and then there was a deafening crash. There are several moments before a mortar strikes when all you hear is a loud screech, as the mortar gets closer the screech gets louder and then you can’t hear anything. Samuel Moretti, infantry, trauma to the right leg. I was ducked down in the far corner of my foxhole, mopping up the mud with my cheeks, but when I heard Sam’s calls for help I forced myself out. I moved quickly and slid in beside him. The medic was too far away. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to have to look at the raw flesh and exposed tendon of his knee any longer. I looked up to call for Harvey and I saw him, unmoved, sitting in the mud and shrapnel, as calm as ever. I tried to call out to him, but there was no yelling over the mortars. Sam was flown out later that night. His leg was amputated.

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We crawled for three days up the slow winding river before we saw it. I couldn’t make out the bodies at first, but what I recognized instantly was the muddy maroon of blood-stained water. The old man slowed to a stop and shouted something in Vietnamese. I took it to mean that he would go no further and I didn’t blame him.

I grabbed my pack and slid off of the boat and into the abyss. I rose out of the murky water and slowly approached the body riddled beach. There had to be at least fifteen people there, men, women, children, massacred and lying in a heap, some missing limbs, some with organs spilling out.

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It was March, Harvey and I were on patrol together while the rest of the platoon caught some rest. We were sitting, back-to-back, with our guns and packs at our sides.

“People don’t get it Jacky.”

            He called me Jacky.

“They just don’t get it, ya’ know?”

“What are you talking about man?”

“I’m talking about people, Jacky. God damn normal people, people like you and me. They don’t get it. Nobody gets it.”

 “And I suppose you’re going to say that you do?”

“That’s the thing, Jacky, ain’t a man alive gets it. Not me, not you, not even LBJ himself understands.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Hah, what do we do? We don’t do anything. We just watch. And don’t ever think you’re here to do anything else.

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I almost vomited but sprang up and collected myself as a loud screech pierced my ears. Then I saw him. I was unsure at first, but it was definitely him. Muddy-green cargo pants, no shirt, covered in blood. Harvey, who had saved my life, paused and turned. A sly grin spread across his lean, bearded face as he saw me. He didn’t have the slightest look of recognition on his face. He had absolutely no idea who I was. He held a large bow at his side and lifted a long bamboo arrow from a bag draped across his back. He moved and then all I felt was a warm curtain of liquid. Harvey, who I was in the war with.