Thrown-away Child

reading Perry’s stories.”
    I pulled back the receiver and spoke into it. “You getting this?” Perry said, “Ruby thinks I write good?” I shifted the receiver back to Ruby. “That’s how you know what MOMS stands for?” I asked. “From the notebooks?”
    “No. Janny broke the news on her television show.”
    “Your sister knows?”
    “She quoted some anonymous City Hall source about its being a mysterious acronym.”
    “That’s all she said about it?”
    “Yes, she left the story an open question.” An open question, like the expression that played over Ruby’s face. “Cletus Tyler’s the misfit? Perry’s the orphan? Hock—is the killer telling a story?”
    “Delivering a message anyway.”
     
    Waiting for Charlie...
    Hot as it was, we paired off in trenches and slept as we could. Our arms and legs were wrapped around another for mutual protection. But there was no sure way to protect against dying alone, not even in crowded trenches covered in jungle timber and leaves.
    Many was the time we awoke to find a comrade with his throat hacked open. Just one of us, dead in the trench.
    The message was clear. If we stayed where we were, the Cong could get us whenever they pleased, one by one by one.
     
    “The taxi’s waiting,” Ruby said. “You’d better roll.”
    “Huggy isn’t going anywhere,” I told Ruby. Then I spoke into the phone to Perry, “Look—I have to see you, I haven’t got much time. We can meet at the shed.”
    “I left there; I ain’t one for gunplay.”
    “Then where are you?”
    “Ain’t saying to a po-lice.”
    “Hold the line.” I pressed the telephone receiver against my chest and looked at the notebook with Teddy’s name on it. I asked Ruby, “You’re planning to see your cousin?“
    “Yes.”
    “Good. I have to get to Perry, but it’s hard for him to trust me. Think you and Teddy can get to him?“
    “I’m way ahead of you, Hock.”
    Outside, Huggy leaned on the taxi horn. The urgent sound jump-started my own urgent plan of action. Sometimes the pieces fall into place, quick as honking a horn.
    “Slow down,” I said to Ruby. “Let’s run together. Teddy works at the dog pound, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Before you hook up with him, stop by City Hall. There’s something I need you to research.”
    “What’s that?”
    “See if any property owners have plans to make promises to the poor lately. Follow me?”
    “Follow.”
    “Teddy’s important. He’s the choir director, he knows how things go at the church. You’re important, too. You know about the stage.”
    “Hock...?”
    I took the phone from my chest and spoke to Perry again. “Believe it or not, pal, you and I are going to have a friendly chat when this is all over.”
    “What’s coming down?”
    “Extracurricular justice, like I promised. Be smart and play your part.”
    I hung up the phone.
    “That was Perry?” Ruby asked, as if she had to.
    “Later.” I looked again at the Big Chief notebook with Teddy’s number written down, and memorized it.
    “When? Later I’ll be someplace else—”
    The sound of Huggy Louper’s taxi horn interrupted.
    “Go on,” Ruby said.
    “Be careful.”
    “Same to you.”
    More horn honking.
    “You’re sure you’re—?”
    “Trust me, I’m all right. Go do what you have to do, I’ll do what I have to do. Meet me later tonight at a place called Tipitina’s, around half-past ten. Any taxi driver will know where to take you.”
     
    That was twenty minutes ago.
    And now I hear Vonny.
    He is complaining again about the smell from the doorway, the smell of burnt flesh. And here I am listening again to a southern voice telling me about life being cheap to some folks, and I have an army surplus oxygen mask strapped over my head. I imagine I look like a Martian.
    “Man alive!” Vonny shouts, laughing at the same time. “We going to have to find us a whole gott-damn barrel of Lysol. Here, you going to need these things, too.”
    Sergeant LeMay leaned over the edge of the army surplus crate as he said this, reaching inside. The crate was a bottomless supply of handy gear for horrible situations. He stood up, smiling with his albino lips. “With this here stuff, you could do some night fishing.”
    The grainy movie about murky rivers in Vietnam started up in my head again. I shook myself like I was a wet dog, which amused Vonny. I did not want to take what Vonny was holding out for me to take. I did not want to go inside the old power