Rescue

important parts.“
    “Good answer.“ Another pause. “Then how come you joke around about the scars instead of telling me what they’re from?“
    “Because it might... it kind of sounds like bragging somehow if a guy talks about things he’s been through.“
    “Oh, well, as long as it’s ‘guy stuff,’ then I can see why I shouldn’t know.“
    Not heavy-handed, just soft and deft and deadly. “Okay, Pick another one.“
    “Topic?“
    “Scar.“
    Nancy ran her fingernails up over chest, throat, and chin to the eyebrow. “This one.“
    “What one?“
    “This.“ She pushed on a calcium deposit. “I’ve always Pondered about this little bump between your eyebrows.“
    “It’s not exactly a scar, Nance.“
    “Tell me anyway.“
    “Okay. It’s from when I was in Saigon . Another MP lieuenant—Justo Vega, he’s a lawyer down in Florida now-Justo and I were in this bar, kind of a quiet one where the MPs could drink off-duty without getting into brawls with the troopers on R and R. We got to arguing about professional wrestlers: who was the toughest if it wasn’t all orchestratedwho’d be the hardest to take in a street fight.“
    “True guy stuff.“
    “Verily. Anyway, we went through Antonino Rocca and Lou Thesz and so on, but Justo kept saying BoBo Brazil was—“
    “BoBo
    “ Brazil .“
    “This is a real person?“
    “Yes. Justo kept saying BoBo Brazil would be the tough« because of the Coco-butt.“
    “The... ?“
    “C-O-C-O-B-U-T-T. Brazil would be nearing the end of a match, and his finishing shot would be a head-butt to the other guy’s forehead, like bashing a coconut.“
    “I get the picture.“
    “Well, Justo and I disagreed on that, so we started practicing the Coco-butt on each other, to see if it really would work.“
    “You practiced it?“
    “We did. No more than six or eight times, I think, before the bar owner started to wonder about the people his government had invited to come over and fight for it.“
    “Six or eight times.“
    “Yeah. Justo kept saying, ‘You must be patient, John; BoBo himself, he did not learn this in one night.’ I think we even got to the point where we were pretty good.“
    “But?“
    “But I was drinking, and either Justo kind of missed or I did, because you’re supposed to use the crown of your forehead for the actual impact.“
    “And that’s how you got the bump between your eyebrows.“
    “Yes.“
    “I take back what I said before.“
    “About what?“
    “About you being Mars. It’s more like you’re from Mars.“
    “You asked me a question, I gave you the real answer.“
    Nancy didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “You know, each time I’ve asked you about the war, you’ve always de flected it a little at first.“
    “I thought I already explained that.“
    “You did, it’s just... it’s hard for me, for anyone my age, to keep asking somebody your age about the war if we’re... put off when we first bring it up.“
    “Nance, it was hard for me to ask my father’s generation about World War II, because the really good ones—the good soldiers, I mean—never brought it up themselves.“
    “And you don’t either, John. And I can understand why you wouldn’t. But when you’re asked about it directly, specifically, it’s okay for you to talk about it. I want to know about those parts of you, too.“
    I closd my eyes. “Message received. I’ll try.“
    Another pause, longer this time. “John, you haven’t been down to see... the Wall, have you?“
    The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, where all the dead—Suddenly Eddie Straw’s left eye was swiveling in front of me, and it all came back, the vague memory now roaring through my head.
    Tet, the lunar new year in January, 1968, when the Vietcong attacked Saigon with rockets, mortars, and small units of infantry. All of us piled into jeeps or two-and-a-half-ton trucks, hitting the streets as soon as we could. I dropped off two troopers, both PFCs, from my deuce-and-a-half at an intersection near Tu Do Street . As MPs, none of us had anything heavier than forty-five-caliber side-arms, and we were all jumpy as hell.
    One of the PFCs was a French-Canadian kid from northern Maine named Duquette. His first name doesn’t register, but I remember the other MPs calling him “Frenchy.“ Duquette was facing the alley near the intersection, his left eye swiveling like Eddie Straw’s as he strained to keep me in sight while watching for