The Writing on the Wall A Novel - By W. D. Wetherell Page 0,63

long time since I had any letters. I understand you’re shipping out.”

He wiped the suds off his lip. “Fine soldier, makes us all proud.”

“You’re not going to Vietnam with them?” I handed him another beer.

“That’s a lachrymose story. Been there twice. Two tours and the second was even better than the first. Got this minor wound in my shoulder here, those VC insurgents shot straight for a change, so they deployed me over to Louisiana to instruct all the youngsters and it breaks my heart not to go over with them and show them the sights.”

I handed him his fourth beer. The longer he talked the louder his voice grew so it seemed like he knew Andy was hiding in the house somewhere and wanted to make sure he heard every word. It was all about Vietnam and how much fun it was. The weather was perfect the accommodations were luxurious anytime you were at all concerned about anything all you had to do was pick up the phone and call in an air strike and go back to bed. The officers were handpicked for their leadership abilities all they cared about was the welfare of their men and the local people really appreciated them couldn’t do enough to make them feel at home.

I handed him his fifth beer.

And as much fun as it was out in the field that was nothing compared to how enjoyable the leaves were and when you saw how enjoyable the leaves were you wondered why you had wasted so much time back in the States. There were bars in Saigon three blocks long and behind every stool stood a gook waiting to take your order or fix you up with some weed or find you a girl all you had to do was ask and ten seconds later it was yours. Not just any booze either but the finest whiskey in the world and not just any weed but the purest money could buy and not just any girl but Eurasian ones meaning their father was a Frenchman and their mother was a gook and there was no better way to mix races at least not when it came to a bar girl’s looks.

I handed him his sixth beer.

Sure they were a little small on the boob side but that was more than compensated for by their asses which were tight enough to strike a match on and just a little bit bigger than a man’s palm. You could control them like a puppet just by putting your hand on a cheek and they would smile for you and make a fuss over you and if you kept squeezing you could generate just about any expression you were in the mood for and if their smiling got boring you could always squeeze a little harder and make them wince. After that it could be anything and that included having two girls suck you off at the same time which was the sweetest thing a man could hope for in life it was worth going over there just to experience.

“All that I’m describing is for a black man,” he said real amazement on his face. “You double the pleasure if your boy is white.”

I’d had that done to me before where a man starts being crude and waits for you to slap him down and keeps getting cruder if you don’t. But the longer he went on that way the safer I felt especially with him downing those beers. The sun sliced in on us through the porch rail but it didn’t have the power it had earlier in the summer and all it did was turn his Budweisers copper.

I gave him another one wondered how he could drink so much and not have to pee. For all he rambled on about Vietnam it turned out what he really wanted to talk about was China.

“Shit ma’am, that’s where the real peril lies. You think a piss ant country like Vietnam can cause us any peril?”

China was out to get us Vietnam was just a sideshow before the real battle commenced. He learned that back in Korea when he was just a rookie watching those hordes come streaming over the ridges and okay it was just a word people used hordes but it was one thing to throw the word around and another thing to actually be crouching in a frozen foxhole watching hordes come at you hordes upon hordes you could machine gun all you