Coop wondered briefly just how the hell he’d managed to get himself into this mess.

Vietnam, spring of ’69. He, four other PFC’s, and a nineteen-year old punk corporal from their platoon had been sent on a simple recon mission. Scout the small village, return back with details. They’d gotten in easy enough. Checked the huts, done a quick head count. Nothing but women, children and old people. Coop had found it curious that several foxholes had been dug about the village, but passed it off as remnants from a battle already fought.

They were about to head back to base camp, mission complete, when corporal punk spotted a fourteen-year old girl who suddenly and miraculously caused a pang in his heart, and he knew he was in love. So he ordered the men to stand guard about the village while he raped her in her hut.

Coop had wandered off to the southern edge of the village, where the clearing turned to jungle. He thought he heard some rustling far into the brush, but thought little of it when a small flock of birds flew off from that direction, rising above the trees. Coop was leaning against a tree when Samuel, the blackest man Coop had ever seen, and his closest friend in the platoon, strolled up.

"You still got it?" Samuel asked.

Coop patted his chest where under the poncho and coat, protected in a plastic sandwich bag in his shirt pocket, was a joint he’d rolled that morning.

"Let’s do it now," Samuel suggested.

Coop saw no rationale not to, and was starting to reach inside his poncho, when suddenly a reason was provided. The rain that had been threatening all day all at once started to pour from the sky. "Damn," he cursed as he and Samuel sought shelter. They were nearly to an overhang of a nearby hut when the shot rang through the village. It came from the hut where the corporal and his newfound love were. Coop and Samuel headed in that direction, noticing as they went that there didn’t seem to be any villagers about. Most probably, Coop reasoned momentarily, the rain had driven them all inside their huts. Coop and Samuel arrived at the hut as the other three soldiers got there. They stormed inside, where a small boy, no more than five or six, was holding the corporal’s rifle. The girl was curled up in a corner, naked and crying. The corporal was on the floor, staring lifelessly towards the ceiling, a bullet hole through his head.

The boy dropped the weapon. He was staring at the soldiers, neither scared nor defiant. Instead he looked proud of himself, as if he’d just done the noblest thing he could have possibly done. In truth, he had. It was also his last. One of the men, Anderson, a southern boy as dumb and redneck as the corporal had been while he was still living, pulled a pistol and shot the boy through the chest. He turned to the girl, pointed the gun at her, but before he could fire the butt of a rifle connected squarely to his jaw knocking him to the ground and the pistol from his hand. One of the other soldiers, Turner, turned to Coop.

"What the hell’d you do that for?"

Coop stared angrily. "We’re not here to kill kids."

"They killed the corporal," Turner replied.

"The corporal had it coming," Coop answered.

"Who the hells side you on?" Turner barked back.

Coop was about to answer when a mortar blast just outside the hut sent the men sprawling to the floor. Panicked, the men, all newbies, looked to Coop, who with six months service in Nam was the veteran of the group. His mind raced. Blasts continued to land about the village. He knew they were sitting ducks inside the hut. He looked to Anderson, who was still slightly dazed from the blow. "You okay to move?"

Anderson nodded.

"We need to get to foxholes. Turner, you got the handheld?"

Turner nodded.

"When you get to the hole radio for help. We’ll need to sit tight till air cav arrives. Okay?"

The men all nodded.

Coop looked to Turner, Anderson, and the third soldier, Brown. "You three go first, head left, take cover in the first hole you come to. Samuel and I will go right. We ready?"

Again the men nodded. Coop motioned, and Turner, Anderson and Brown headed out the door. They made it safely to a hole, took cover. Samuel and Coop were about to go when Coop looked to the corner of the hut, saw the girl there, still curled up and trembling.

"Damn," he said, "I forgot about her."

"Leave her," Samuel said. "These people obviously tipped us off to Charlie."

Coop sighed. He looked to the corporal’s body, spotted his poncho on the floor next to him. He crawled over, grabbed the poncho, tossed it to the girl. "You get out," he said to her, motioning to the door. She stared at him a moment, then smiled ever so slightly, obviously in appreciation for him having saved her life moments before. Coop nodded, then turned to Samuel. "Let’s go."

As Coop and Samuel sprinted towards the nearest foxhole they felt the power of a mortar blast behind them. They dove into the hole, where the driving rain had already created several inches of mud. With trepidation Coop peeked over the edge of the hole. The hut from where they’d just come was gone. A few feet from where it had stood Coop spied a bloody, detached bare leg. He saw no signs of the rest of the girl. He slumped back into the hole, stared off in to nowhere.

"What is it?" Samuel asked.

"The girl didn’t make it."

Samuel watched him a moment. Thought about a million things and nothing at all. "I sure could use that joint."

Coop finally looked at Samuel. "Me too."

Another mortar blast hit, this one barely ten feet from the hole. In spite of the bombs that could at any second end his life, it was the torrential rain that Coop cursed under his breath.

"I could hold my poncho over us," Samuel suggested.

"It’s raining too hard," Coop answered.

Samuel let out a sigh, until another shell exploded just outside the foxhole, sending a flash across the darkening sky, and scattering debris into the hole, including a chunk of something that caught him on the arm, knocking him face-first into the mud. He sat up on his knees, only his eyes visible through the glob of muck and mire that covered him.

Despite everything, Coop laughed.

Now Samuel was pissed. "I’m telling you," he demanded, spitting mud, "we’ve got to get that joint lit."

"You got any bright ideas?" Coop inquired.

He thought a moment, recalled a small shack he’d seen when the group had first entered the village, what seemed a thousand years ago. "There’s a burnt out shack, two o’clock, maybe a hundred feet. Bound to be something I can salvage from it to put over our heads."

Another mortar exploded near the foxhole. Both men ducked instinctively.

"You going out there?" Coop asked skeptically.

Samuel looked about the mud filled foxhole, stared up at the seemingly endless stream of water pouring down, rubbed the arm that ached now from where some-damn-thing had hit it. "I’ve got to, man."

Coop knew he should talk Samuel out of it. But the joint... "Wait for the next blast, then run like hell."

Samuel nodded, rose slowly to his feet. A former high school running back, Samuel envisioned himself in some distant backfield back home in Arkansas. He crouched into a three-point stance, as to take a handoff and cut through the line.

A shell exploded, and like the flash it created, just as soon as it was gone, so too was Samuel. He darted between debris from the explosions, hurdled a log, and reached the shack in mere seconds. He spotted a torn piece of metal siding, about three feet by four feet, perfect for a makeshift roof. Samuel swiftly picked up the siding, and started back towards the foxhole.

He was nearly there when a bush brushed his arm, causing him to fumble the metal siding. It was a problem that had plagued his football career as well, probably keeping him from being recruited to play college ball. Which would have kept him from being drafted; which would have kept him from having to go to Nam, where, as he was reaching down to retrieve the metal sheet, a mortar shell exploded nearly on top of him, shredding his body into several thousand unrecognizable pieces.

Coop knew soon enough that Samuel wasn’t coming back. He confirmed his fear just after a blast by quickly peeking over the top of the foxhole. He saw the piece of metal siding just a few feet away, but no sign of Samuel. He briefly considered sprinting out himself to retrieve the siding, but guilt, remorse, possibly a sudden flash of enlightenment, enveloped him.

He pulled the joint from its secured place and, without a second thought, flung it from the foxhole where it landed in a puddle of mud and guts.

Coop had not grown up in a religious household, but a sister of his mother’s, his Aunt Mary, was a born again who took it upon herself to, whenever the situation presented itself, enlighten her lost nephew. A scene flashed in Coop’s mind; a Sunday in a Pentecostal church, worshipers with their hands outstretched to the sky, all praying aloud to create a collective incomprehensible murmur. Could God understand? an eleven-year old Coop had wondered. But then one voice had risen above the rest in Coop’s own little ear. Aunt Mary had placed her hand on his head. "Oh God!" she’d screamed. "Save this poor lost little boy! Deliver him Lord! Let the blood of your Son cleanse his sin!" She continued to rant as Coop stood there shaking with fear.

Poor Aunt Mary, Coop thought to himself as he surveyed his life from there in the mud. All that praying, and for what? But then, trembling as he once had in a pew, fighting tears, Coop bowed his head. "Dear God," he started, to even his own surprise, "I know I’ve not lived my life as I should. I drink and do drugs and swear. But look at me, God. Look at this crap hole You’ve put me in. Everyday I watch innocent children butchered, women raped, friends of mine blown to shreds. I’ll make a deal with You, God. You get me out of here - I don’t care how - just get me out of this hole, this mud, this God forsaken place. Do that, God, and I will never smoke pot again. I will never drink. I’ll never curse. Just get me out of here."

At that very moment a mortar exploded at the top of the foxhole, spraying shrapnel throughout. Coop saw the flash only briefly.

*****

A nurse was making her rounds in a military hospital just outside of Da Nang when she stopped at the foot of a bed where a soldier had been sleeping for three days. The nurse saw more death everyday than she’d ever thought she would in a lifetime, and though she tried to disengage herself emotionally from each soldier who came in, she was pulling especially hard for this boy with the kind face. Maybe it was because he reminded her of her little brother back home, who would no doubt be in Nam himself the next year. The previous eve, while all the soldiers in the room slept, she had prayed over this boy.

Now, as she was going over his chart, he dazedly opened his pale blue eyes.

"Well, Private Coop," the nurse said, masking her elation under a cloak of professionalism, "you’ve decided to join us."

Coop looked at the angelic figure before him. Her appearance caused him momentary optimism that he was in heaven. Then, looking about the room, he sighed. "How did I get here?" he asked.

"By helicopter." When she got no reply to her joke, she asked, "How do you feel?"

"A little woozy."

"You suffered a pretty good blow to the head."

"Is that it?"

"That’s it," she affirmed.

Coop smiled, then commented, "I’m hungry."

"You should be," she answered. "Let me inform the doctor that you’re awake. He’ll want to see you first."

"Thanks," he said.

The nurse smiled and left.

Still smiling himself, Coop turned to his right, where a soldier who’d had his legs amputated was staring angrily. Coop stopped smiling. "I’m sorry," he said.

The man did not reply, rather he turned away, closed his eyes, prayed for sleep to come.

Coop waited anxiously for the doctor. As he did he looked about the room. Many soldiers had lost limbs. Several had bandages that covered their eyes. Coop thought for a moment about Samuel. And then he thought about his own fate. Why had he been so fortunate?

The doctor appeared after a few minutes. He was a burly fellow who could have easily been mistaken for a hardened Army sergeant. He looked down at Coop’s chart while he spoke. "Private Coop. How you feeling?"

"Extremely lucky, sir."

The doctor looked up. "You are lucky, Private. From what the medics who brought you in told me, you should have been blown to bits in that hole."

A flash as brilliant as the mortar blast that almost killed him went off in Coop’s head as his mind drifted back to the foxhole. "Will I have to go back?" he asked.

The doctor stared a moment, and his gaze softened. "No, Private. I’m sending you home."

Coop smiled with relief.

"You did take a rough blow to the head," the doctor continued. "There was barely anything left of your helmet. Though I don’t expect there to be any long term effects from it, I would be remiss to send you back into battle after this."

"I’m glad you feel that way."

The doctor returned Coop’s smile. "Let’s see about getting you something to eat."

*****

Coop arrived home to little fanfare. His mother and father picked him up at the airport. After fighting to get past the anti-war demonstrators, they drove to their home in the Northern California coastal town of Los Diablos, a place best known for its beaches, laid back liberals, and the local University’s unusual nickname, The Wacky Demons.

Coop was an only child, an unplanned birth while his parents were still dating and attending ULD. As Coop unpacked some of his things in the bedroom he’d grown up in, his father entered with two beers. He handed one to his son and took a seat at the end of his bed.

"Your mother and I are glad you made it home, son."

"Thanks, Dad," Coop said.

"But we were wondering…" the elder Coop took a sip of his beer… "how long you plan on staying here."

An old familiar knot wrenched at Coop’s gut. It was the same knot he’d felt early in his senior year of high school when he told his parents he wanted to attend ULD when he graduated. He thought they’d finally be proud of him, going to the college they’d both attended. Instead they told him that they couldn’t afford to send him to college, even though his father had just bought himself a new Mercedes and later that month his parents would be leaving for a two-week trip to Europe. It was the knot he’d felt on his eighteenth birthday, just two weeks after high school graduation, when his father asked him what his plans were, and when he planned on getting a place of his own. Soon, he’d said, and so he moved out on his own, worked in a local restaurant as a busboy while attending the local junior college. He did well in school, and as the end of his sophomore year approached, it appeared that, if he could save enough money, he would indeed be able to attend ULD the following fall. To save money that summer, he worked all the double shifts that he could and he moved in with two other busboy buddies of his from the restaurant. Coop soon came to discover that his two new roommates were heavy partygoers, marijuana being their particular drug of choice. Coop wasn’t hard to lead astray. Come fall he did indeed begin classes at ULD, but just a couple of months into his first semester his bad habits began to take their toll. He dropped one class, then another. He was struggling to get decent grades in the remaining classes. By the end of the semester he’d failed one of the courses and received D’s in the others. Coop was asked to leave ULD. Inevitably, Coop received in the mail a draft notice, and just a few weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday he reported for duty in the U.S. Army.

Coop took a long swallow of beer. "Not long, Dad."

After two days at his parents, Coop found a small apartment near the beach and moved in. That night he celebrated by himself with a six pack of beer and a joint he had purchased from a hippie on the beach. At the peak of his high he enjoyed a show on television called Laugh In. He found particular delight in the bits in which an old man sits on a park bench next to an old woman and makes lewd comments until she hits him with her purse.

The next day Coop walked down to the beach again looking for the hippie who he’d purchased the joint from the day before, intending this time to buy a lid. Walking along the sidewalk between the street and the beach, something across the road caught Coop’s eye. It was a small wooden building, with a fresh coat of white paint, and a tall steeple on the roof. The sign in front read First Lutheran Church of Los Diablos.

As Coop stared blankly at the church, his mind flashed back to a foxhole in Vietnam. The mortar fire was fervent. Rain was pouring down in buckets. His chances of survival appeared bleak, and Coop was making a deal with God. The image stuck in Coop’s mind until…

"Hey, dude."

Coop turned his back to the church, towards the beach where the hippie was standing.

"Hey," Coop acknowledged.

"Did you dig that joint, man?" the hippie asked.

"Yeah, it was good."

"Humboldt, man. The best."

"I’ll take a lid today," Coop said.

"Groovy," the hippie said, then, looking around, "You ain’t a cop, right?"

"No, man."

"Why the short hair?"

"Just got out of the service."

"Baby killer, huh?"

"You got the stuff or what?" Coop demanded.

"Yeah, man," the hippie said. "Peace. Be cool." He looked around again, then pulled the bag out from a pocket inside his vest, handed it to Coop. Coop paid him and went on his way without another word.

*****

Back in his apartment, Coop rolled a joint and smoked half of it while watching The Newlywed Game on TV. With a mellow buzz now, Coop decided to go downtown.

The sidewalks of downtown Los Diablos were lined with booths setup by folks peddling arts and crafts or protesters handing out fliers proclaiming their cause, whether it be women’s rights, giving the vote to eighteen-year olds, or denouncing the war in Vietnam.

As he walked along the crowded sidewalks, Coop took particular notice of the attractive college coeds, most of who were scantily clad in hot pants, mini-skirts, or even just bikinis.

Coop saw two girls that he recognized from high school (Los Diablos High, Class of ’65. Just four years before, Coop thought. It seemed like a million…) and thought he’d say hi, but as he was about to approach them the girls spotted two boys they knew and the four of them wandered off together. Coop sighed until he came upon a young lady who was protesting for women’s rights. Having drawn a small crowd, the young woman removed her blouse and bra, and set fire to the undergarment. The gathering, mostly young men, cheered her on, as she stood there smiling and topless. A cop broke up the fun after a few minutes by offering the young lady the option of putting her blouse back on or going to jail. Obviously not a martyr, she opted to clothe herself, much to the disappointment of the crowd, who booed and taunted the cop with calls of "Pig" and "Fuzz."

Coop continued on his way, passing by a couple more protest booths, including one urging young men to burn their draft cards. Two young men with shoulder length hair were manning the booth, and both shot Coop glaring looks as he passed by. Coop briefly considered setting the boys straight, but opted against it when another booth caught his eye.

The young man behind the booth resembled, in both appearance and dress, Jimi Hendrix. His booth was decorated with Hendrix posters and albums. But he wasn’t selling Hendrix paraphernalia. He was selling marijuana paraphernalia, including pipes, bongs, roach clips, and the like. Coop took particular interest in a water pipe that was hand blown with various colored glass.

"That’s one of my favorites too, man," the Hendrix look-alike said in a slow drawl, very obviously stoned.

"It’s cool," Coop said, still examining the pipe.

"You dig Hendrix, man?" the man asked.

Coop, who had been turned on to Hendrix by some of the black soldiers in his platoon, replied, "He’s one helluva guitar player."

"Oh, man, yeah, but he’s so much more," the man said. "He’s a revolutionary, man. He’s a preacher…a prophet…a poet, man."

Coop looked up from the pipe a moment, smiled an acknowledgement.

The Hendrix look-alike looked around, leaned close to Coop, whispered, "I’m not so uncertain that Hendrix isn’t the Second Coming of Christ."

Coop stared blankly a moment, recognizing at last just how bloodshot the man’s eyes were, before, finally, "I’ll take the pipe."

*****

Coop returned home, picking up a fifth of Southern Comfort on the way. He took a couple belts of the liquor before trying out his new water pipe. To his delight, he found that the pipe rushed the smoke to his lungs and blood stream much quicker and more intensely than smoking from a joint.

The sun was starting to set, and Coop decided he would enjoy the view from the beach. He poured Southern Comfort into a half-pint sized silver flask that had been left to him when his grandfather died, slipped it into his coat pocket, and floated down to the ocean.

The weather had been warm that day, but as the sun went down and a light breeze blew in off the ocean, the temperature dropped considerably. Except for an occasional jogger the beach was barren. Coop sat down in the sand a hundred feet or so from where the tide was rushing in. He stared morosely at the huge red ball that was sinking into the sea, and let his mind drift into the expanse with it, far away, to another time…

A crowd of people had gathered in a square in 19^th century France. In the middle of the square stood a guillotine. A man was being led to the guillotine.

It was Coop.

As Coop approached the guillotine, a man stood before him.

"Monsieur Coop…" the man spoke in perfect French, "…you stand accused of violating the beautiful Mademoiselle Marie…"

Coop looked beyond the man, saw a stunningly gorgeous young woman with shoulder length brown hair, big brown eyes, and pouty French lips. Coop smiled, and the young woman smiled coyly back.

"…the penalty for which is the guillotine."

Coop did not protest, rather he got to his knees, pushed himself against the bascule, put his neck in the lunette. The blade fell as the last sliver of sun sank into the ocean.

Coop took the last gulp of Southern Comfort from the flask, shivered from both the taste and the cold, and then laid back in the sand. As the sky blackened, Coop marveled at the brightening full moon and the billions of twinkling stars. Surely they’ve never twinkled quite so bright, he thought.

An hour passed. Coop had yet to move, still lying there in the sand, staring at the stars. His fascination with the constellations seemed to be stemming from more than just the high he was experiencing. Though he may not have been conscious of it, the heavens seemed to be sending a message to Coop.

He interpreted it, at last, as such: You must go into the water.

Coop removed all his clothes on the deserted beach. As brisk as the night air was, the ocean was, by comparison, warm and comforting, like a mother cradling her baby. As he dove through the waves and swam out to sea, he felt an exhilaration which he momentarily confused with sobriety, and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he swam out further past the breaks than had been his intention.

Treading water now, Coop stared defeatedly, exhaustedly to shore. He wondered in a panicked moment if he would be able to make it back in.

"Dear God," Coop said, "please just get me back in…"

If Coop continued to speak, the sound left his mouth in a flurried gasp. The beast’s jaws thrust down on Coop’s torso, and its teeth ripped effortlessly through his flesh. Coop knew in an instance the nature of the attack, as moonlight flashed on the dorsal fin of the shark as it retreated. Unaware of the extent of his injuries, Coop momentarily felt relieved, until the fin made a turn in the water.

Panicked, and without a fight left in him, Coop could think of no alternative but surrender. He put his arms to his side, straightened his legs, and began to descend slowly into the depths of the sea.

Coop’s stillness must have confused the shark, for when it returned for the kill, it could not locate its victim. When Coop, much to his surprise, found himself struggling for the breath he never thought would come, he managed to pull himself to the surface. To his further surprise, the beast appeared to be gone.

For the first time Coop was able to feel his injuries. The gash appeared to cover nearly his entire body, and he could tell that he was losing a lot of blood, and with it his strength. Though he felt as if he might pass out at any second, he started to dog paddle slowly towards shore, doubtful, even in his own confused and altered mind, that he would ever make it.

Copyright © 2002 Marc Bernier. All rights reserved.