Fire & Ice

The downtown sidewalk was crowded with shoppers and others, all trying to get to someplace else. Turley Mason limped along against the grain as quickly as he could, striding strongly with his left leg, half-dragging his right. His passage was rendered a little easier by his appearance and his aroma.

Over a stained, dirty t-shirt that had been white at one time, Turley’s olive-drab shirt hung open at the top where it was missing three of the large, smooth, green plastic buttons. The right breast pocket, having been torn loose by a drunk who had tried to take his shirt a week earlier, flapped down almost to his concave abdomen. He had no belt. His grease-and-dirt jeans looked as if they could stand on their own, and his shoes were not really shoes. They were leather thongs that had worn almost through at the ball and the heel. “Bum leg, man. Bum dumb damn leg. Garrett’s folly, man.” He jostled sideways, then looked to his right. “Hey, I can call it that if I want to, man. You’re the one took a round to the damn head and ducked out, man. What? Yeah, I know I’m all fire, man. How it’s gotta be.”

Thinking Turley was talking to him, a young man pulled up short, almost face to face. “Oh hi. I—” Then he realized he didn’t recognize Turley and that Turley wasn’t talking to anybody in particular. He glanced down at Turley’s leg, then looked up just as quickly, as if embarrassed. He frowned slightly and his lips parted.

Turley jerked his head hard to the left, away from the young farmer in the black pajamas peering through the brush in his direction, but his gaze remained locked on the man just in case. He whispered, “Bum leg, man. Fire and ice, you get it? It ain’t hit or miss or six of one, man. Fire and ice. It’s all fire and ice. You good, man? We good?”

As two other men and a woman stepped around them, the man nodded, unsure of what to say or do. “Well,” he said, then sidestepped Turley and hurried on his way.

Turley frowned, annoyed, and shook his head slightly again. He mumbled, “False alarm, man. Gotta be a farmer. No bogey there.” Stringy, grey-streaked dark-brown hair hung to his shoulders, framing his face. His eyes were deep set under dark eyebrows, and a pair of granny glasses perched precariously on the steep slope of his nose, which turned slightly left about halfway down and ended in a small bulb. A bushy, off-putting moustache and beard completed his mask.

Still limping, he glanced over his shoulder. Figures faded in and out of view. Figures in sports jackets and ties on a sunny sidewalk along Main Street were chattering and laughing and their shoes were slapping against the sidewalk, but the figures wavered into bushes and trees and shadows and the sounds dissipated into a hard, hot rain pounding the jungle canopy. Then the suits filtered back through the rain and fog and sweat. They faded again and were replaced with shadows, some darker, more substantial, some less, all still moving. “Garrett, man,” he murmured, “we gotta get clear of this place. We gotta get these guys out.”

A woman frowned and glanced sidelong at him. Too quickly she said, “Garrett whom? What guys?” Realizing her mistake, she pressed her lips into a firm line, looked at the sidewalk and moved on past.

He whispered, “The night got ears, man, and eyes. They’re everywhere, man.” He glanced at a man passing him on the left. More loudly, he said, “Everywhere, lieutenant man, but we’ll get ‘em out, me an’ Garrett.” Then he realized he didn’t recognize the man and said, “Bum leg, man. It’s us, man, fire and ice.” He dragged the fingers of his left hand through his hair, then used the same hand to turn his head to the front just as two more people sidestepped him.

Recognizing the local elders he bowed his head respectfully and made a gentle chopping motion with his right hand, the international sign to request passage. “‘Scuse me, man. Fire and ice.” He glanced at the sidewalk, shook his head and said quietly, “Fire and ice... fire and ice. Bum leg, man.”

When they had passed he glanced around.

They’d disappeared into the crowd, just like that day so long ago. Sweat beaded on Turley’s forehead.

As he turned back to the front, there was a sharp, burning pain in his right hip. Garrett’s face flashed past him, a hole above his left eye, the right side of his head missing. He looked to his right. Sure enough, Garrett was gone. “Damnit, man!” He shook his head. “Sorry, man. ‘S’all fire and ice.”

He looked behind him at the people he and Garrett were supposed to lead out. In an insistent whisper, he said, “Keep up, man! They’re all around us! Gotta make the LZ! Fire and ice, man! One or the other! This way!” He was moving quickly down the street when something flashed in the periphery of his vision and he dropped, crouching low behind the concrete base of a light pole. He pounded the sidewalk with his fist. “So close, man!” He glanced back again and offered a hand leveled palm-down. “Stay calm, man, and stay down... I got this.” Under his breath, he said, “Garrett, man, I could use you now.”

Breathing in shallow rasps, his face twisted in fear, he turned so his back was to the broad base of the light pole and drew his knees up to his chest. Holding his M-16 before him, every muscle in his tanned, sweat-and-rain drenched arms taut, he carefully scanned the jungle to his left, then to his right, peering through heavy foliage and trees that seemed in constant motion. He canted his head, trying to listen around the sound of the incessant rain beating on the canopy and dripping through to soak his clothes and rot his feet, but he seemed not to hear the occasional tittering laughter or the hushed discussions or the footfalls of those moving past him on the sidewalk.

After a moment, he took a deep breath, sweat beading on his forehead and forming rivulets down his cheeks. He took another breath as if to steady his nerves, then twisted to his right, careful to keep himself concealed behind the base of the light pole, and peered past the edge. He focused his attention across the street, his gaze darting from shadow to shadow as he scanned the storefronts. He quickly motioned behind him with one hand. “Shh! Stifle, man!”

Garrett said, “Hey, man, don’t be rude.”

Turley stared at him for a moment, then pointed past the base of the light pole. “See that? Right there, man! Treeline... go out about 4 o’clock.”

Garrett raised his field glasses. “Nah, man. That’s a stump and a branch.”

Turley stared. “You sure, man?” He looked again, then again. “Nah... you’re right, man, never mind. No bad boys in the treeline.”

“Yeah... hey, I gotta go man.”

Turley nodded, but watched for a few more seconds, squinting. He shook his head hard, looked again, then visibly relaxed as the storefronts came into focus again. He was about to rise when something moved to his right, and he jerked his head around.

A young woman had stopped and was watching him from a few feet away. She frowned. “Are you all right, sir?”

Turley looked across the street again, then looked up at her. He grinned. “Oh, you know... hey, I’m all right. You all right? Keepin’ your powder dry?” Out of the corner of his right eye he checked on his charges. They were still there, nestled in the brush.

The woman looked at him and took a step backward.

Turley turned slightly away. Through the corner of his mouth, to those on the ground behind him, he said, “Gotta watch ‘em all or you’ll get a bum leg... lose your friend. Ain’t no fun, man.”

In an instant he forgot the woman and peered one more time across the street. They were still storefronts. That was good. The world ahead, his reality behind him. He had to fight down the memory of Garrett and that day, had to fight taking that round to the hip again.

*

On that morning so long ago as they’d humped through the jungle on a retrieval mission, Garrett had mentioned an old veteran in his hometown who wandered the streets, reliving bad times. “Guy was a little nuts, I think.”

Turley said, “Yeah? You call the guy nuts just ‘cause he was remembering some bad stuff? That could be us someday, man.”

“Nah, man, he wasn’t rememberin’ it. He was relivin’ it. It’s different.”

Turley shrugged. “Reliving, remembering—it’s all the same thing, right? Six of one, half a dozen of another.”

Garrett had grabbed his arm, stopped him. “Hey, man, this is somethin’ you gotta get straight. I mean we’re here, an’ we’re gonna be there, so get this: rememberin’ is okay, man—ain’t nothin’ wrong with keepin’ a memory alive, but rememberin’s all ice. Relivin’ the fire, though, that’s bullshit, man. It ain’t at all the same thing. It ain’t all six of one, half a dozen of another. Ice is ice and fire is fire, man. You live with ice, you stay cool. You live with fire, it’ll consume you. Remember that. You can bet I’ll never relive this shit.”

*

As he remembered the last words his friend had said, Turley shook his head. “You were right about that, man.” Less than an hour later, Garrett had taken a round to the forehead. After a long moment, Turley sighed and watched Garrett fade as he had watched him fade a thousand times before.

But the others were still there, the ones he had to lead out. He looked at their leader, a slight South Vietnamese diplomat. “Hey, ‘s okay, man. ‘S okay.” Then he remembered the woman. He looked for her, but she had faded into the brush, the heavy rain covering her footsteps. He turned back and looked at the diplomat. “C’mon, man. I ain’t pissed. Hey man, she could’a snuck up on anybody.” He helped the man to his feet, and when they were all up, he moved along the sidewalk to where it ended in a park. There he slowed and crouched, motioning with his hand for the others to get down. He looked at the diplomat. “Listen, chopper’s inbound, man. When it drops over the canopy, you go, man!” He made a running figure with his fingers. “You... and they... all of you, di di mau!” As the man bowed, Turley said, “’S okay man, I’ll catch up! You di di!”

He remained crouched just inside the brush, watching. The chopper dropped into the LZ and hovered a few feet off the ground. His charges raced across the clearing and leapt for the wide side door. When the diplomat was aboard, he turned around and waved, trying to get Turley to join them. Then the chopper was moving higher, then swinging in an arc and disappearing over the treeline.

Turley turned back toward the jungle. “Just gotta get Garrett, man. One more hump.” As he left the park headed back the way he’d come, a light pole caught his attention and he froze, looking closely at it for a moment. The same woman was standing near it once again, dressed in a smart pantsuit waiting for the cross-street light to change. She seemed not to notice Turley, but of course he knew better.

He continued down the street, but soon glanced back to check on her. The woman was gone. Fear rose through his gut, but he fought it down. “Fire and ice, man. ‘S’all fire and ice. No incoming is a good day.” He shook his head and mumbled, “Good disguise though. Jus’ like an American chick.”

* * * * * * *