Again, Dangerous Visions Part 32

"Don't you want to hit somebody?"

"You did it for me. Your husband. More ways than one. I'm not sure he's the one to hit, but as long as you enjoy it."

"He's the one enjoys it, Blake. A good wife doesn't deprive her mate of his intensest pleasures."

"I thought you were enjoying yourself somewhat."

"In your bed I was."

"Long before."

"Don't make a big thing of how I took off after Greg, Blake, I was drunk, that's all."

"Think about this, drunk comes in four parts, jocose, morose, bellicose, comatose. You start on bellicose and end on bellicose. You're fixated on fight even when much less than drunk. Your private war is peculiar, each shooting the other to make him happy."

"Public wars may involve some of that altruism, too. Was I bellicose with you?"

"You're a smart enough strategist not to start offensives on two fronts at once. Remember Hitler."

"Tomorrow the world. Today there's you."

"Today there's the Taybott people, don't try to make them happy, all right?"

This was a proving ground for some types of field and air ordnance. Deep in the desert a Mekong Delta jungle hamlet had been reproduced, a cl.u.s.ter of huts, camouflaged underground hideouts, ammunition dumps, snipers' perches under thatched roofs and in trees. Taybott technicians and Marine Corps officers, Air Cavalry men, were on hand to explain how the insurgents' installations had to be got at, to cut their deadly fire, when our troops moved into such hostile areas.

Technicians and officers explained that no hostile personnel would be indicated here, not by mannequins, not by dummies, not by cutouts. The reason for this was, today's mission was to show things being destroyed, not, primarily, people, so our troops could move in without bitter casualties. The emphasis, for purposes of this demonstration, was on things, not people. The implications, though, had much to do with people, ours. If things designated as military targets could be knocked out, caves, dumps, perches, many American lives would be saved, Asian ones, too, in the longer view. The point was that traditional weapons were of little use against the guerrilla refuges, since they couldn't be seen and located. Therefore the invention and use of napalm. Today's show would point up how vital to our overall goal of saving lives the new anti-guerrilla weapon, napalm, was. The technicians and officers hoped Blake, as anchorman of this news team, would see the logic in this emphasis on things, with the overtone of vastly lowered casualty lists, meaning, people.

Blake said he saw the logic. He wondered, all the same, if such a show was entirely realistic without a hint, through the use of dummies, or cutouts, that a hamlet of this type was inhabited by people, noncombatants who might be in the line of fire.

The officer in charge, Colonel Halbors, said there were no villagers shown precisely because the targets of napalm missions were things, along, of course, with whatever hostile troops might be manning the things, and to show villagers would shift the emphasis from things to people. He hoped Blake appreciated the logic behind featuring the military mission and not dwelling on incidental casualties among civilians, which had been wildly exaggerated, especially by the enemy and those naive about military exigencies. This being, it should be kept in mind, war.

Blake said he appreciated it, yes. He just felt that as a reporter he ought always to be looking for the whole picture.

As he spoke he was watching Mari, who stood to one side holding Bisk tight by the leash. She was chewing on her lips, her eyes were fixed, but she kept her mouth shut.

The cameramen left for shielded blinds from which they could shoot at a variety of angles. Blake, Mari, and the rest of the crew were led to the concrete bunker a distance from the mock-up village, a structure mostly underground but with a viewing slot some two-feet wide, protected by a wide concrete overhang. Colonel Halbors came with them, to explain the operation step by step. There was the rouping of unseen helicopters from some part of the sky.

After some minutes Colonel Halbors signaled through an intercom that stage one, the approach, could start. At the same time he pressed a b.u.t.ton on his control panel. Instantly large glare-orange arrow markers swung into sight in and around the village, pointing to the hidden installations which were the targets in this mission, rather than people.

Certain things, not people, had to be sought out and destroyed, Colonel Halbors said. Artillery and air-to-ground missiles could not do the job. The idea was to watch how napalm got in there and did the job, to save lives, as well as rout the enemy and deal him a costly blow.

The thrum from the sky had been getting louder, now three helicopters came into sight, approaching from the black, broken-spined mountains. Mari was still biting on her lips. Suddenly, she stood.

"Colonel," she said, "did you happen to read the paper today?"

"Yes, yes, I did," Colonel Halbors said, surprised. "Why do you ask?"

"Did you happen to read the item about VC's knocking out the whole village of Daksun with flamethrowers, people along with things?"

Blake was waving to her to sit down, she remained standing.

"I did. What is your point?"

"My point is, the VC doesn't attack mock-up villages, it attacks real villages, as we do. In these attacks they don't pretend to separate people from things, they say people are things, that's what war is, and that's how we act in war too, when we go into villages not mock-up but inhabited. The VC's honest, at least, they say there are no people in war, can't be, there're only things, except a lot of them walk around on two legs-"

Colonel Halbors' face was hard. He said, "Are you trying to say we annihilate whole local populations as the enemy does, purely and simply for the sake-"

"Colonel, when you drop napalm on a whole village, and the village is full of people, not mannequins, not mock-ups-"

"Hold it right there, Miss," Colonel Halbors said in command voice. The helicopters were now circling over the village. He spoke into the intercom, saying the drop could begin, as Mari fought off Blake's efforts to get her back in her seat. "Now. Did I hear you right? You were actually saying-"

"Colonel, the survivors at Daksun said, they threw fire at us. Colonel, in the real hamlets, not pretend ones, we throw fire at them. Can you tell me how from their point of view one thrown fire is different from-"

The words were still coming from her mouth when a small, energetic body, a jackrabbit, went arcing fast across the desert on the near side of the village. Heading for the village, with mathematical, measured bounces.

At this moment Mari stopped talking and screamed. Screamed again. Shrilled, "My G.o.d! Here! Bisk! Back, Bisk!"

There was Bisk on the desert, going fast toward the village. The rabbit was streaking across the sands, Bisk was streaking after it.

Blake saw what had happened. In her outburst, Mari had been gesturing strongly at Colonel Halbors, with her hold on the leash relaxed. Bisk, seeing the rabbit, had simply pulled the loop off her fingers and dived out through the viewing slot. The leash was trailing after Bisk as she flashed along, the happy hunter.

"Happened so fast!" Mari bubbled. "She goes crazy when something on four legs moves fast! Bisk! Please! Bisk, girl!"

"Colonel," Blake said fast, "can you possibly, is there any chance-"

"Started," Colonel Halbors said, pointing. "Can't call back what's dropping."

He was right, objects were descending from all three helicopters.

The rabbit, Bisk hot after him, was tearing around the bamboo huts, Mari, face come apart, was halfway through the bunker opening, trying to climb out. Blake took her by the hips, slender, boyish roundings, well remembered, pulled her back.

"Nothing to do," he said, holding her down on the bench. "Easy now. You'd get yourself killed and that's all."

Mari was shaking, looking around wild-eyed.

"You couldn't give up your war," Blake said, holding her. "If there's a casualty, it'll at least have a different dogtag."

Black objects from the helicopters were dropping on things, not people. One by one, things belched up, and out, in flame.

An ammunition dump gushed flame. A sniper's platform in a tree spewed orange. A machine-gunner's blind, hidden with piled brush, erupted in an all-directional lick. Huts kept popping flashes of flame, here, there, everywhere. Bisk kept d.o.g.g.i.ng the rabbit between the igniting huts, full speed.

"Bisk-you-come-back-here!" Mari screamed from the deeps of her lungs.

The rabbit shot into view around the comer of a hut, Bisk inches from his heels. At this moment the hut metamorphosed, as by the push of a b.u.t.ton, from structure to flame, and at that moment, Bisk metamorphosed. One second, running dog, next, standing flame.

She'd skidded to a halt, frozen as in a stop-action movie. Through his binoculars Blake saw how she stood still, puzzled, how she turned to bite the attacker all over her body to find her jaws closing on flame.

She looked everywhere overhead, as at sneaky birds, as she burned. She found no explanations, the big birds in the sky only burred, in a language that to her was only loudness. Burning, she turned her eyes at last toward the bunker, to the one source of all correctives, to all impedings and hara.s.sments, Mari.

Mari moaned, pushed again toward the opening. Blake pressed hard on her shoulders.

"Don't look," he said, forcing his body in front of her to block her vision.

Bisk stood motionless, looking to Mari, a fire with four legs. Now she did the only thing she knew to do, when the ultimately wanted was not forthcoming, flopped over on her back in the bisquit position. Paws flabbed over chest, barely in touch, were burning, paws stretched wide were burning.

She begged, she burned, mouth totally open for the ultimate bisquit, a cessation of heat, of being eaten by enemy with no bulk or outlines. Eyes still looking to Mari.

"Put your mind on something else," Blake said mechanically, blocking Mart's eyes.

The choppers rattled away. It was two or three minutes before Colonel Halbors judged it safe for Blake to go out, provided he was careful. The other members of Blake's crew took Mari's arms to hold her back.

When Blake got to Bisk, the colonel right behind, the dog was still alive, still burning in places, still on her back in position of ask, still asking.

Flames flicked from her belly, forehead, one foreleg. Black smoke came from these points, as from other points where the flames had subsided. Bisk was diminished. In places, instead of fur, dark smoking patches. In others, no flesh, bone bared within the charring.

All fur and flesh were gone from the soft, soft neck. Lower jaw gone, except for the armature of surprisingly frail bones.

Left eye gone. What had been eye was black hole, smoking. Above this hole, where the fuzzed brow had been, small flames fighting to live.

Bisk's right eye, intact, looked straight to Blake, with all its uncomprehending blue. Asking all the questions.

The asking front paws were charred, bones showing, flames eating vaguely, afterthoughts, about the remnants of paws. An end to heat, this haphazardly cremated animal from a vanished dynasty of the icecaps, displaced monarch of remote snowlands, was saying, as the cremation continued.

Remnant of mouth, ringed with small flames, leftover mouth was in total crazed grin to total crazed environment, which must in the end relent and produce the bisquit of bisquits, a taking back of cannibal heat The inch by inch cremation continued.

"Need a gun," Blake said. "One around?"

Colonel Halbors shook his head. Much napalm here, no guns. "Terrible thing to happen. You'll turn this footage over, I a.s.sume."

"Network decision, I don't make policy. There's got to be a gun somewhere."

Colonel Halbors shook his head. "Would you rather I confiscated all your reels?"

"What're you afraid of?" Blake was looking everywhere. "Shots of one dog burning'll give you another Dien Bien Phu?"

"You can't leave this area with that footage, Mr. Arborow."

"All right, you get it."

The nearest hut had just caved in, its understructure was creeping with spent flame and smoking. The supports on which the hut had rested; were four-by-fours, good. Blake ran over and pulled a charred beam free, a four-foot length. He ran back, holding the beam by one end.

"Couldn't even save the film. Be cool again," he said to the dog, and brought the beam down as hard as he could, on the head.

Bisk jerked, her head shook, then her good eye settled on Blake again, asking. Manipulating him full force with the eye.

"Go home to snow, Bisk. What's so worth seeing out here. You've got the whole picture."

He swung again, with all his strength.

Bisk's body shook, the eye rolled away, came back, gelled again, held steady on Blake, asking.

"Leave us to our leashes, Bisk," Blake said, and swung again.

The magnificently blue eye quivered, began to take the dim view, then dimmer, then closed altogether, and Bisk was cool again, as finally, Blake thought, with luck, with luck, we'll all, the invaded and the sucked, all bisquit wanters, be free from burning.

2: The Girl With Rapid Eye Movements On the night of April 22, when I got back from lecturing to FANNUS (For A New Novel Undergraduate Society) on Hemingway ("A Psycho-Statistical Survey of the Broken Bones in Papa"), my answering service gave me a cryptic message. From Kid Nemesis, p.r.o.nounced Quentin. Call no matter what the hour. There was no way to call at any hour, the number he left was wrong. The harpie at the other end said in Placidyl tones that she didn't know any Quentin, and if she did she'd turn him in for what, considering he was a friend of mine, must be his main activity, child molesting. I said she had no grounds for a.s.suming I was in a child molesting ring since the people I molested on the phone sounded 300 years old, and senile. She said she wasn't too senile to know that molestation professionals will practice on anybody when there's no child around, to keep their hand in, in what she wouldn't say, being a lady. I said if she was a lady any one of the Gabor sisters was Miss Twinkletoes, and asked if anything she kept her hand in was mentionable, a question I hinted was in order about any member of her s.e.x, lady or not, who went to sleep before nine. She said if she could get within reaching distance of me she'd show me what she'd dearly love to put her hand in, my mouth, and rip out my filthy degenerate's tongue to use for a pincushion.

Enough of this conversation. I reproduce its high points mainly to show how frayed nerves everywhere are getting, maybe due to Vietnam. What made me boil was not the old h.e.l.lhag's tone but Quentin's typical sloppiness in leaving a wrong number, urgently.

I didn't call him the next morning. I gave him until noon to feel urgent enough to call me. When my curiosity peaked and threatened to zenith, I dialed his home number. The phone rang a dozen times before he answered; his voice seemed to have its origins at the bottom of a barrel, out of a mouth br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mola.s.ses. More simply put, out of a mouth in a mola.s.ses barrel.

"Gordon, zow, I'm desperate for sleep. Can I ask what this is in reference to?"

"Your call last night. Its reference."

Time went by.

"You're crazy. I didn't call you."

"You mean my answering service is hallucinating?"

"They probably make up calls so you won't feel n.o.body cares. No kidding, they really said I called?"

"And gave the impression lives were at stake. And left a number to call back. A wrong number, as a result of which I was treated to a long string of insults from somebody I don't even know."

More time pa.s.sed.

"That nibbles, Gordon. Dhzz. I remember calling Cedars of Lebanon, zhmm, yes, and the L.A. Times Information Desk, right. But you, uh, uh."

"Reconstruct the circ.u.mstances. Where were you?"

"Some friends' house off Laurel Canyon, I've told you about them, The Omen. May be pertinent that we were stoned to a tilt, the third time down, and I have the impression I still am. We were really stretched out on this gra.s.s."