Rod

When Rod finally told me what was bothering him I was jealous. As the years roll by I’ve found myself thinking about his experience. Not often, but occasionally. Primarily when someone mentions heaven.

Rod and I were on mess deck duty together aboard the USS Pickaway (APA 220). We’d never met until the day we both reported for duty. When there are only a half a dozen guys doing such a boring job you become familiar. Especially when our work day started at four or five in the morning, well before the troops were rousted out. Those of us on mess deck duty had a completely different schedule than the rest of the troops. Familiarity led to friendship. Rod was one helluva nice guy. Squared away. Pretty happy with himself.

Our outfit had already done one amphibious landing. We’d had a few casualties. It was rugged, but we came back to the Pickaway with a feeling of experience. We were veterans. We’d been blooded. We sailed back to the Philippines for some much appreciated liberty.

Subic Bay was undoubtedly the most outrageous, alluring port on the globe in July of ‘66. Lust. Liquor. What every nineteen year old Marine dreamt of. Rod had managed to get a two day pass to Manila. A few guys did. I wondered why, really, because the party was in Subic, and I really believe it didn’t get any better than that.

I noticed the difference in him the first morning after he got back. Under normal circumstances we were normally either griping or horsing around, but he was quiet. Subdued. Very unusual for a Marine, believe me. After afternoon chow, after we’d swabbed the area down, we had some time to sit down with a cup of coffee. When I walked over to his table he was lost in a daydream. He’d been this way all day.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothin’.”

That’s the only answer I could get outta him. It was mostly curiosity, but it was beginning to get on my nerves.

Our unit got orders to get all our guys back to the ship and pull out of port immediately. At dawn the next morning we were again at sea on our way to Vietnam. Our mess deck duties went as usual, but Rod continued to be preoccupied. That first morning out of Subic, right after morning chow, I approached him while he was sitting at a mess table staring off into space.

“This is stupid. You gotta snap out of it”

“What’s your problem, anyway?” He didn’t look at me.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” My curiosity was killing me by this time. I just couldn’t let this pass.

“I never believe any of your bullshit anyway. What makes you think I’d believe anything you said now?”

In his daze he uttered, “That Manila liberty was a real kick in the ass.”

“OK. OK. So what happened in Manila? Spit it out. You’re makin’ me nuts!”

“Sit down. I’m gonna tell you this, and I know you won’t believe me, but it’s got me all fu”¦. up.”

So I sat down across from him and he started to talk. He was looking at me, but you could tell his brain housing was someplace else entirely.

“Smith and I got to Manila about four and went to this bar. A nice place. A civilian place. Better’n anyplace in Olongapo. He and I were sittin’ there sippin’ beers when these two gorgeous blonde girls come in.”

“That’s it. You’re right. I don’t believe it. You’re so full of shit!

He snapped out of his little trance.

“Shut the fu.. up. I’m tellin’ you what happened. I told ya you wouldn’t believe me.”

I shut up and motioned for him to carry on with his stupid ass story.

He smiled a little smile.

“They were really fine. They sat at a table for just a minute, then they got up and just walked up to Smith and me and asked us if they could buy us a drink.”

There was no way I was buying this, but the story looked like it was going to be too good to interrupt so I continued to keep my mouth shut.

“We didn’t know what to do so we said, ‘Sure. Have a seat.’ I mean, what could we say? We sure weren’t gonna say no. As it turns out these girls were Swedish airline stewardesses. No shit. From Sweden. They spoke real good English, but you could hear the accent. I almost shit when they sat down, but after we talked for a while, and after a couple more beers, they were great. We got the juke box going. We danced. I was having the time of my life. The one I sorta teamed up with kept touching me. You know. Arm around my shoulder. Her hand on mine. That sort of thing. I was hornier than a three peckered goat, but I couldn’t just come out and say,’D’ya wanna fu..?’ They were paying for all the drinks and everything. Smith and I kept eyeballing each other like, ‘What the fu.. is goin’ on? This is too good to be happening to me.’ Then they decided we had to go someplace to eat. We went to a real nice place. Good chow. And wine. We had glasses of wine.”

Rod sort of drifted off into his little dream world for a few seconds, then softly said,

“It was fu..in’ wonderful.”

I didn’t want him to stop talking now!

“Well? What the fu.. happened then? Go on!”

He regrouped a bit and started again. “When we left the restaurant it was dark. We started walking down the street. She was holding my hand. Just walking. Then she just stopped and asked me if I wanted to go with her to her flat. That’s what she called it. A flat. It was her apartment, but she called it a flat. Smith’s girl had already asked him. The apartment belonged to’em both.. When they had flights to the Philippines they kept an apartment because it was too hard to get a hotel room after every flight. They normally had two to three day layovers in Manila so they got this apartment. It was huge. Two upstairs bedrooms that were thirty by thirty at least. Really beautiful. You could tell girls lived there. Everything was all clean and white. She had this big bed with one of those lace canopies over it. She said it was to keep the mosquitoes off. Smith went off to his girl’s room. I couldn’t believe it was happening.’

I had to say something now. This was just too much.

“You shithead. You’re so full of shit.”

He smiled again and started talking real slow.

“It was great. All night. She told me we had all the time in the world. Didn’t need to hurry. She was somethin’. Three times? Four? I dunno. All night.”

He started to drift again.

Just looking at him you knew he was telling the truth. Really pissed me off. I was disgusted. Jealous. I started to get up to leave when he said,

“But that’s not it. That’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

I looked down at him and said,

“Y’know, who gives a shit what you’ve got to say? I don’t believe any of it anyway.”

“I knew you wouldn’t. I told you you wouldn’t.”

He looked serious.

I sat down again and said, “OK. So what, exactly, did you want to tell me?”

“It’s when I woke up. I’d slept a long time. I was so warm and perfect. A breeze was blowing in my face. After a while I opened my eyes. I looked up at an angel. I forgot where I was. When I opened my eyes all I could see was this beautiful smiling face looking right at me with this beautiful blonde hair falling down into my face. She was blowing in my face to wake me up. Real soft. Honest to God, Holt, I thought I was dead. I thought I was dead and in heaven. For a second or two I really thought it. I was dead and she was an angel. It was so peaceful. Then it scared the shit outa me. I didn’t wanna be dead. I sat up so quick I damn near knocked her on the floor.”

“You’ve got no sympathy from me asshole. You had an all nighter with a Swedish stewardess, and you’re bitchin’ because she woke you up?! Fu.. you! If I were you I wouldn’t tell anybody. They’ll think you’re lyin’, but worse, they might think you’re nuts.”

Later that day he looked at me and laughed. I never told anybody else about it.

We landed just south of the DMZ a day later. Rod was killed in the stream-bed a week or so after that. When I heard Rod’s name I was stunned. When we finally set in that night on that nasty hill all I could think about was his story. I’ve thought about his story for nearly thirty nine years.

I imagine, I pray, that he woke up with an angel blowing in his face.

Author/PH