Agent of Orange

By Michael P Amram

Corporal Chauncy T. McClarren is a Vietnam Veteran. His ten years of service as a marine are glibly worn on the sleeve of his dress uniform well into civilian life. He went to Vietnam before the draft began with the hope of being a martyr. He is reluctant to admit this to his friend and even to himself.

Elizabeth A Spaarkes randomly selects Chauncys door. She fleas to Florida after two years in the Symbionese Liberation Army. She is the perfect woman. She is a redheaded goddess. Lizzy is a nymphomaniac who fills his every desire sexually, and eventually, domestically.

Gunnery Sergeant Harrold H. Coffman comes home from the war a paraplegic. He owes his life to his Corporal. One day he learns on the news of Spaarkess possible involvement with the left-wing group. He believes she is guilty. Chauncy chooses to give her the benefit of the doubt. He refuses to believe a woman that beautiful could be a fugitive.

Agent of Orange is the story of a Rheinlandbastard. Chauncy is a pragmatist who shifts the stations in life around so the logistics favor him. It follows his trail of passively sequencing fate from Vietnam to Florida. It leads him to the Bahamas where he takes an orphaned boy back to Florida. Fate leads him on a series of trips to Germany to learn his origin.

It is the story of a biracial miscreant who grew up unloved and beaten. It is one mans perception of racism in America and abroad. He is taught some manners and discipline in the marines. He faces a world that begs for his attention as he begs for its salvation. The marines outfit him with the diplomacy necessary to deal with what life has thrown, and continues to throw, at him. Chauncy T. McClarren takes his time in life. He orchestrates things while sauntering through life with a grifting nonchalance. He is methodical and pragmatic enough to see his various operations through to the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490725314

Michael P Amram

I have been a published author since 2005. I first published a nonfiction book called, rhetorically, Would God Move a Ping-Pong Table? It is sub-titled “a cumulative analysis of faith and religion. No, I honestly do not think God would move a Ping-Pong table. But it was moved in 1988 in a dormitory at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and my Christian dorm mate still insists I attribute this act to my prayers to God.I graduated from the University of Minnesota- Duluth with an English degree and a passion to write. I worked full time jobs and wrote on the weekends. I even kept a journal for a few years. In 1998, from a series of short stories based on experiences working at a health club, an obscure Canadian publication published “The Den of Antiquities” under the pen name M.B. Moshe.I wrote. . .and I wrote. I filled 3.5 floppies with text; fiction and vast catalogues of poetry. I look back now and see how I got tighter (in writing). I see how my writing pecked for, and finally found that voice that is imperative. I am always improving (you judge), finding the voice that is me, but still observant of my audience and their accessibilities.In 2011 I began writing about an incident I observed in a small local barber shop. An Orthodox Jewish man entered with his young son. He instructed the barber to take a little off the sides for his boy. From that happening, ideas surmounted, culminating into my first historical fiction novel, The Orthodoxy of Arrogance. I looked at some indie publishers and decided on one. The novel came on the market in January of 2013.When I was a single man, I traveled. I’d go to Europe and the Mid-east brash and free. Sometimes I bit off more than I could chew. In the spring of 2013 I published Scenes the Writer Shows {forty-one places a poem can go}, many of which are based on those travels.Now, at 50, I consider myself part of the comparatively small family of writers who follow only the direction of their muse. I have few commitments. For the foreseeable future, I have no intent of going back to the confines of a forty hour work week in the corporate game of drones. Slowly, with each publication, each tweet mentioned or morning haiku, I like to hope I am getting closer to not being.I published a second novel and poetry collection in 2014. I am currently compiling a memoir about growing up in the midst of the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) during the pivotal years of efforts to end the Vietnam War. I also published my third poetry collection in July of 2015. My published and unpublished work can be viewed at www.michaelpaulamram.weebly.com.

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© Copyright 2014 Michael P Amram.

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isbn: 978-1-4907-2530-7 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4907-2531-4 (e)

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 A Conscientious Objector

Chapter 2 A Genesis

Chapter 3 The Best Built Plans

Chapter 4 A Gypsy’s Wind

Chapter 5 The Lingering Reprieves

Chapter 6 Contraindications

Chapter 7 The Legitimacy of Psychics

Chapter 8 Option II

Chapter 9 Finding Saint Elmo

Chapter 10 Orphans and Thieves

Chapter 11 Where Edelweiss Blooms

Chapter 12 The Ausländer Bastard

Chapter 13 Some Sundays Need Topping

Chapter 14 Bystanders

Chapter 15 The Inevitable Pardons

Chapter 16 The Exodus

Chapter 17 The Incidental Absolutions

Chapter 18 Bavarian Nights

Chapter 19 The Breakers

Chapter 20 Hostage Situations

Chapter 21 The Final Solutions

Chapter 22 Freedom’s just another word

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

About the Author

to my biological father;

to the biracial sons who sometimes feel

a need to know their other half

Prologue

The wick of a war is rarely traced. When it is, it is often irrelevant. An act of belligerence, a poorly timed guffaw, or an ill-conceived phrase might spark years of conflict. This story grew from one fortuitous phrase. It escalated and proliferated like global conflicts lie prone to do. Like infantry men, my characters wade through the road blocks, hurdles, and prisons their respective conflicts create for them. Cpl. Chauncy McClarren carries wounds through life. Whether they are emotional or physical, neither is from the war. Wounds go through a stage of proliferation in which cells are rapidly reproduced to grow new parts.

Stories soon begin to realize why they’re being told. They zero in on an idea, a value, or a dream. The author’s task is to bring enough motivation to his characters so they want to see them through. The protagonist of Agent of Orange begins to justify his existence. He invents reasons for masquerading as a marine long after his service is complete. Conundrums are deduced and puzzles are solved. Two beings of physical perfection fight their own wars. Both are searching for something. There are no parables in in this story. It focuses on the human need for belonging. It takes events and faces from history and spins them. It takes pages from time. My characters take cues from winners and loser, the famous and infamous models of popular culture.

it alters life’s moments,

spinning history.

finding heels Achilles

hid for Him to see,

it finds the weary saints

who least likely know,

the trodden and jilted

guessers who run free

Chapter 1

A Conscientious Objector

His nightstand adorned a Purple Heart medal. It beat like a fist clenched in anger. A marine uniform hung dormant in the closet. It was in a black garment bag to distinguish itself from his civilian wardrobe. Corporal Chauncy McClarren had served two tours in Vietnam. A cargo plane deposited him back in the real world

May 5, 1975.

Outside a gentle wind sifted through the palms and made him feel welcome. He glanced out the window suspiciously and inhaled deeply. He liked what he smelled. There were no scents of gun-powder or errant wisps of death fighting to break wind.

His physique was extraordinary. The butt of a machine gun had often rested in his hands, hands that were large enough to suffocate someone. A fifty-inch chest had filled out his uniform with pride for almost ten years. His proportions wandered now in the banality of civilian clothes. Chauncy knew, after one month stateside, that his house in Palm Beach could never be his permanent residence.

____

I love the smell palms make when they sway in the morning, he murmured, taking a hearty breath.

The Corporal squinted as the sun pierced his home. In the summer of 1966 he’d woken up many mornings in the jungles of Đà Nang. He’d been blinded by foliage and deafened by latent mortar fire. His sight now was clear, untarnished and ready for illumination. The only sound was the ocean tide echoing what he’d left a world away.

He slid his chiseled face past the shutters. The Corporal gazed at the symmetry of his reflection in the window. Genetics favored him. He had a bronze skin tone. His back was muscled to perfection. When he ran shirtless along roads in Hanoi he felt the eyes of his buddies tracing his back like it was a relief map. His tight, black curls fit securely on a head that rested on broad shoulders. Its naturally sloping trapezius muscles created the illusion of a neck within itself. His head was strong and determined with a small afro that rarely let a hair go astray.

____

Elizabeth Spaarkes showed up at Chauncy’s door late in May. His door was randomly chosen, but she chose Palm Beach because it was quiet. It was a small, protected community, ideal for anonymity. Lizzy was the best looking woman Chauncy had ever seen. Their relationship soon became sexual.

Come back to bed Chaunc.

Lizzy rolled over, showing her nakedness to entice her man. Her evenly tanned breasts undulated in the light. Red hair fell around them as she propped herself up on her elbows. He studied her, pondering her motive. He stared long and hard, always looking for the next opportunity in life.

Penny for your thoughts, she offered.

You know Liz, when I first got my notice I thought of burning it and heading to Canada. I remember actually striking a match. Shit Liz, there was no damn lottery in ’64. I was lucky, I suppose. I beat the system by four years. The lottery began at the end of ’69. They’d stick little bits of paper in capsules. They were numbered one to 366, each representing some poor bastard’s birth date. Then the fortune-tellers put all of those capsules in a big glass jar. Suppose the Selective Service picked the one numbered 257 and you were born September 8, 1946, you’d be sent an engraved invitation to their war. The odds were against us. Shit, Lizzy, it was the old carnival shell game and we were the peas, he explained, concerned for his successors.

He stood naked before her. The comfort and originality of civilian clothes hadn’t sunk in yet with Chauncy. He’d hated every minute of the war; still he had gone back for more after coming out of the first tour alive. He was a pragmatist; but also an optimist who was hounded by a need to find the worth of everything he did. Besides, there was nothing for him in the States. No job, no ready girl, no prospects for a career, not even his real parents.

After going through a series of foster homes for the first six years of his life, Chauncy had been taken in by an elderly couple. They were the type of Catholics who hung rosary beads on the coat hooks. They were the pure white, sugary kind of religious people whose hypocrisy was usually a Hail Mary away. They wanted him to believe in their God; the God who applauded sinners for punishing themselves.

He promised himself that someday he would find his roots. To accomplish this, he first needed to make the world smaller. Going to Vietnam had shrunk the world a little and provided him the chance to be a martyr. Jesus, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Gandhi had all left something for the world. They all had tried to make the world a better place. Chauncy went to Vietnam to make the world a better place for himself and at least one other person.

____

Why did you go then Chaunc? Liz mused as she ran her hand through her thick pubic nest.

I guess I was scared to follow my instincts, he admitted. My head told me to object and go north but my heart said to fight for my country and go around the world. Before I could decide which I’d listen to my orders came and I was on a plane to Parris Island, South Carolina. It was bad by then, Lizzy. In August of 1965, brothers were comin’ home in bags by the dozen. All they fuckin’ cared about over there was having a casualty report to give to the Pentagon. They tried like hell to make us believe that if enough of us got killed we might see some signs of winning. They didn’t know shit, Liz. There was no end in sight. All I saw were the flashing lights of gun fire. The flashes burned into my brain. I can see them now; they blaze and when they’re gone so are my buddies, he said as his eyes moistened. Once, in October of ’68, we were under Major General Davis’s command. The dumb-ass leads us in a counteroffensive. There we are, like sittin’ ducks, in the northern border section below the DMZ. Every night the Viet Cong would cross the line and open fire on us. Christ Lizzy, I thought I would die. I saw buddies of mine picked off one by one. Liz, they never had a chance. But I needed to see how it ended. I had to see if my effort was worth its weight in spit. An answer finally came last month. We evacuated the South Vietnamese refugees and American civilians from Saigon. The operation was part of Option IV. Imagine Lizzy, it’s pandemonium, and hundreds of people are fleeing in desperation. The code words to begin the evacuation are ‘the temperature in Saigon is 112 degrees and rising.’ Then someone starts piping in Bing Crosby singing ‘White Christmas’ on the PA. I’m on the roof of the U.S. Embassy, he spoke with a passion, we marines are up there trying to control hordes of people piling on the choppers. At about 0330, President Ford issues an order that no more than nineteen additional air lifts be made. Less than an hour later that number is exceeded. So Major Kean goes on to the roof and tells General Carey that the lift is limited to U.S personnel only. Ah shit Lizzy… it’s all still so clear, he drifted off, "I think we beat them back. We were using barricades. Hell, I even recall orders to use mace on people. At 0458 the U.S Ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin boards a chopper and they fly him to the USS Blue Ridge. The message is sent that the tiger is out. The damn choppers are still buzzin’ around the embassy. They eventually leave and the chopper pilots think the mission is complete. So we’re still standing there on the embassy roof waiting for a lift. Mace fumes are in the air, bits of torn clothing and abandoned possessions are everywhere. Shit… it was a goddamn mess Lizzy. The choppers were piling up on the decks of the carriers and marines were being ordered to push them into the sea… he said shaking his head… So we’re up on the embassy roof at least three hours and a Chinook chopper finally comes to take Major Kean, me, and nine other guys to a carrier. By 1130, April 30, The People’s Army of Vietnam tanks had smashed through the gates of the presidential palace and raised the flag of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam over the building. It was over Lizzy," he said, smiling broadly.

Baby, you remember like it was last night. Do all marines remember times like that?

The more gullible ones do. The ones who have an interest in seeing who wins do.

And you were one of those?

Once… . Lizzy girl, it kind of grew on me, he looked at her perplexed. I saved a buddy’s life once. I knew something had made me burn my ticket to Canada instead of my notice. I vowed to see it through. He lay open to her, scratching his tight afro, You know though, I always thought it was no coincidence that us black dudes always got the first picks.

What do you mean picks?

Com’on Lizzy, think about it. Lotteries and notices begin and end with race. The government wants us to fight their damn war. Shit, nothing’s changed since the Civil War. We’re still fighting for our freedom Lizzy! He crawled in next to her.

____

Elizabeth Spaarkes was two years younger than Chauncy. She’d enrolled at UCLA in 1964 with a major in theater and a minor in political science. Her father owned a bank in the Bay Area and financed all of her education. Her parents believed their little Elizabeth would attend debutant balls and one day make a name for herself. She’d either rise to fame in Hollywood and get her star on the sidewalk or go into politics. On April 4, 1967, twenty credits short of a degree, Lizzy dropped out of college. She wanted to experience life in the world. In April of 1965 she’d begun a month-long affair with a film student named Jim Morrison. Upon consummating it, he encouraged her to go out and experience life. She knew Morrison was destined to be somebody and stayed in his shadow for weeks, hoping he’d take her wherever he was going. She met Morrison in the Theater Arts department. He left that summer with an undergraduate degree in film.

The year 1967 was the summer of love. Optimism was ripe. For years Lizzy hitched around California working odd jobs and getting scant commercial roles that usually began on the director’s couch. Then, in the winter of 1974, when her wandering spirit died, Lizzy joined the Symbionese Liberation Army. She knew there was something more in life than bouncing from couch to couch to get a part. Originally the Symbionese Liberation Army claimed their motive was to feed the poor of California. She thought the left-wing group was sticking up for the lower-class. It was politics and it could be construed as urban theater. The end justified the means, and to her the end was charity.

She gave herself the pseudonym Gita. The name was a reference to the ancient Sanskrit epic. On April 15, 1974 she drove members of the SLA to 1450 Noriega Street, a mile from where her parents lived. At 10:00 that morning, Patty Hearst, Michael Bortin and James Kilgore robbed the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia bank. Lizzy waited in the car. More than twenty minutes elapsed. Exhaust fumes filled the car. She suspected something was wrong and abandoned her post. Through the glass door she saw the bank’s employees on the floor with their hands behind their heads. Timidly, she entered and walked behind Hearst who wore a black beret and a short black flannel coat. The kidnapped heiress stood behind velvet ropes naïvely wielding an M1carbine assault rifle, yelling demands at her captives. Lizzy poked her head in far enough to be picked up on the security camera.

What the hell are you doing in here! Are you moving? Hearst yelled, aiming at a customer, I swear I’ll blow your fucking brains out!

What’s wrong Tania, it shouldn’t be taking this long, Lizzy whispered, using the pseudonym Hearst had assumed.

You stupid bitch! Get back in the fucking car!

Forgive me your highness, Gita said as she bowed out of the bank.

Hearst shifted nervously from side to side keeping watch on the bank as the other members gathered $10,000 in cash. Her image holding M1 Carbine rifle was caught on a security camera. Two civilians were killed in the heist. Patty Hearst became an icon. Lizzy was jealous of the media’s fascination with her and she was intent on achieving some level of fame herself.

____

After a second robbery and a police shoot-out the following year, the law caught up to the army. One by one its members were captured. In May, Gita left. She leased a Ford Buick and headed for Palm Beach, FL, taking her $500 cut of the $10,000. The stars were bright and fueled her optimism as she fled across the country. She drove straight through to Florida with one stop in Needles, a small town in the Mojave Desert. The Buick was in over-drive for the next three thousand miles. The desert heat burned and Lizzy gunned the roll-top convertible at seventy miles per hour on Interstate forty. She was a fugitive so she had an eye in the rear-view mirror. All she heard on the radio was the name Patty Hearst, the daughter of publisher Randolph Hearst. Lizzy had mugged for the security camera in the Hibernia job but her name or image was never mentioned.

____

Chauncy did not know from where his Lizzy had come. He asked no questions and she offered no clues. On the mornings she woke up at his beach house she’d go out on the patio to retrieve the paper for her man. One morning in September she read of a woman from Charlie Manson’s family who tried to assassinate President Ford. Lynette Alice Fromme gained notoriety with the playfully innocuous, self-inflicted sobriquet Squeaky. The name bounced off the pages of newspapers for weeks and infamously wedged itself in peoples’ brains. She envied Fromme for choosing a name that would likely be remembered for decades. No one would ever remember Elizabeth Spaarkes. The Squeaky Frommes got the press and went infamously into the footnotes of history books. No one cared about the woman in the shadow of a brainwashed publishing heiress. Lizzy had a tendency toward megalomania and claimed her destiny was to be famous or infamous. If the latter happened, she could at least meet her parents’ expectations halfway.

____

Lizzy winced.

"Oohhhhh . . . . slow yourself stud, save some for later," Lizzy gasped.

I can’t help it Lizzy. There’s something about you; something mysterious and intoxicating. Something feral and invigorating that keeps me wanting more. I had a steady girl in Nam but she never aroused passion like you do. Hell girl, you get my adrenals racing like when I ran barefoot in the foothills of Đà Nang. I ran Lizzy girl, I ran until my feet bled. I ran skipping over land mines and bamboo traps until the blood left prints in the leaves. I remember finally coming back to my tent and holding my feet up so my buddies could see. The blood on the pink bottoms of my feet made a ghastly shade of orange. I can see my feet now, Lizzy. I can see the blood coagulating in the lantern’s glow; conspiring to make me stay for more.

Baby, I got to split. I love you, you know that, she assured him as she shimmied into some jeans.

Suit yourself Lizzy. See you after taps, he said smiling. Chauncy knew her well, even after four short months of vigorous courtship. She’d be back for more of the sex that kept her running. He played it cool like Sammy Davis and left her wanting more. He knew she would. She was the maverick Philly, a rare breed whose libido surpassed a man’s.

Elizabeth A. Spaarkes was a nymphomaniac. She’d been intimate with all of the members of the SLA. It had been consensual or forced with males and the occasional female. She possessed a beauty that few men could ignore. Her breasts were large and shapely enough to convey she was a self-fulfilled women, yet not large enough so that they were ostentatious. Possibly, due to the sporadic diet she had endured for a year in the SLA, often consisting only of cocaine and gin, Lizzy had the metabolism of a rabbit. She could go for weeks eating burgers, fries, and malted milks and still step naked on a scale and not have to bend her head to see her toes. Her mane of fiery red hair covered her back like a glossy shawl and she had a perfect smile. Her green eyes would pierce into helpless suitors who looked into them. She was Medusa and charmed her way out of many traffic violations, often offering herself to the arresting officer. She knew though that the crimes she’d been an accomplice to were not going to be slept away. Time was on her side. However it was borrowed and she knew the lenders would come to claim it.

____

Shit, I missed her again? Why can’t you tell me when Liz is gonna be here? You know how we get along?

Hey Tubs, how was your day?

Same old shit, flippin’ bills at the strip clubs, Tubs smiled, genuinely happy with life.

Any women take you home last night? Chauncy routinely asked.

Nope. But I always say that around every street corner there’s another night and another woman.

Gunnery Sergeant Harrold Coffman had been with Chauncy since basic training. Harrold became Tubs to Chauncy and many of the Ninth Division. The name denoted his burgeoning belly and was a glib reference to the nineteenth century conductor of the Underground Railroad. Chauncy earned the Purple Heart saving Tubs from drowning. They were working on a bridge over the Hàn River when Harrold caught a sniper’s bullet in the back. Chauncy dove in to save his friend and carried Harrold through the rushing waters. He laid him down upon the banks and summoned the medics. Tubs was discharged with honor July 7, 1974, his 34th birthday. The bullet lodged just above the twelfth thoracic vertebrae. He was able to empty his bowels involuntarily, however he could no longer sense when his rectum was full. Harrold prepared himself for the loss. He accepted that he had traded his dignity for glory and honor. He would soil himself frequently because he refused to adjust the types and quantities of food he ate.

In the fall of 1964 Harrold had enlisted in the marines out of a sense of moral obligation. He was a page right out of Ron Kovic’s 1974 memoir Born on the Fourth of July. Unlike Kovic, who grew up in Massapequa, New York, Harrold grew up in the West Philadelphia projects. Coffman was born on July 7 and there were no screen doors closing gently and softly fading sunsets or fireworks shows; only race riots and gun fire. A deeply religious and principled young man, Coffman had a sense that he should do something for the country that had given him so much. In January of 1961 the television crackled and horizontal lines elongated the new president’s face in the Coffman’s apartment. Still, the president’s words ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country resonated with Harrold. The glory of the marines was in Harrold’s blood.

When he came home in 1974 Harrold was treated at a VA hospital. An orderly once threatened to give him an enema. Harrold’s bowels moved but the orderly insisted on inserting the hose.

You can’t treat me like this. I went to Vietnam while you chicken-shits were marching in the streets, making my duty even harder! I fuckin’ lost feeling in my legs and now you think you can treat me like this? Harrold screamed as the hose tickled him where bed sore had begun to form. The orderly laughed as his bed-side manner quickly became vengeful sadism.

Vietnam, no, shit… what the fuck do I know about Vietnam. You know what Sarge—the orderly leaned over Harrold’s shoulder and grabbed his dog tags—you can take your Vietnam and shove it up your ass!"

Harrold imagined the hose being thrust forward and shooting water through him like a geyser. The man laughed and pressed harder. When it was over, Harrold convinced himself the man acted that way because he had been afraid to fight himself. In August of 1974 Gunnery Sgt. Coffman wheeled himself out of a Beaufort, South Carolina veterans’ center, never having second-guessed JFK’s 1961 request.

Conversely, Corporal McClarren claimed he had known since the Korean conflict that the government could not be followed blindly. He had decided when he read about General MacArthur not returning to Korea that any U.S. involvement in another communist policing would be futile. Truman had relieved MacArthur of duty for stretching the orders he’d been given. Chauncy thought that if a highly decorated general was not trusted to know more about strategy than a near-sighted captain who never made it to West Point, the logistics of most wars should be questioned.

In May of 1975 he walked out of the tail end of a cargo plane to some cheers, but mostly his ears heard Maggot amidst other put-downs. His eyes felt wads of spit on them and he knew his service, the entire ten years of personal sacrifice, had all been for naught. What he heard was more like the slanders in basic training designed to break a man’s spirit and then build them up just before they snap. It was clear that no one would build him up now if he snapped. He promised himself he never would.

____

Summer would turn to winter in the hemisphere. Harrold loved the cooler climate. For a year he had wheeled through the channels of bureaucracy, spinning them indefatigably. Chauncy built a wooden ramp to his door which Harrold saw this as an open invitation. It was his refuge and his Corporal’s ear was a funnel for frustrations. Chauncy was there with his unwavering objectivity each time the government kicked Harrold in the ass.

Any luck with the VA?

Not much. I really got to climb a lot just to get a little bit. I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it. I have my women dancing for me, my drink and an occasional lay, or at least the thought of one, Tubs smiled.

Shit, you got nothing.’ The government owes you; they fooled you into thinking you were sticking your neck out for a worthwhile thing. Are they going to send you to school or teach you a trade? Hell no!

Under the GI bill I get close to $270 a month to spend as I see fit.

What do you mean close to? You better be getting’ every fuckin’ penny you’re due. I know my rights and I’ve read through their red tape. Shit, the Readjustment Assistance Act of 1972 says you should be getting $270, paid in full, signed by Gerald fuckin’ Ford! Chauncy ranted.

Chauncy T. McClarren most usually played it cool. Things always went his way because he did. Even when he dove in the river to save Tubs he remained calm. Chaunc just sauntered along the banks of the Hán looking for a place to deposit his friend as snipers’ bullets whizzed by him. He remained cool in the chaos of the evacuation of Saigon.

On April 29, 1975 Corporal Chauncy McClarren was one of the marines left in the Ninth Division executing Operation Frequent Wind. It became the war’s final campaign in which Americans, foreign nationals and various Vietnamese officials were evacuated by helicopters from the embassy roof to carriers waiting in the South China Sea. On April 29-30, over fifty thousand people were evacuated from Saigon, South Vietnam. The name of the strange operation was etched in his mind. He was convinced it was sub-consciously derived. The government had named the final gesture of a war, that by all human logic was pointless, to conjure the image of someone farting in the wind. The name and double entendre was a sly, bureaucratically hidden admission of an emission. The name implied that, in the end, the war had the effectiveness of flatulence. On the morning of April 30, South Vietnam’s newly elected president Duong Van Mihn surrendered to the Viet Cong, ending the war. Two hours later North Vietnam’s red and yellow flag was raised over the Presidential Palace. When he had told Lizzy about Operation Frequent Wind their first night together she laughed, picturing the entire Seventh Fleet farting in the wind. She agreed that the entire eighteen year affair was a colossal mistake. Likewise, Chauncy failed to see any lasting positives coming out of the Symbionese Liberation Army’s left-wing efforts.

____

Tubs’s visits increased as the cooler weather approached. Chauncy’s beach house was warm and beer was always on tap. The ceiling fan still turned slowly and reminded Harrold of the chopper blades. Chauncy heard the wheels of Harrold’s chair hit the ramp and the hollow sound it made as he ascended.

You home maggot?

Yeah, what you bitchin’ this time?

Nothin.’ Can’t I visit my buddy?

Mi Cassa es su Casa,¹ Chaunc feigned hospitality.

Thanks buddy. Got some beer?

Chauncy extracted two bottles from the refrigerator. He was hesitant to enable Tubs’s growing alcohol problem but thought he could always say that they were the last two bottles.

Harrold loved the lavish way his friend lived. Money was never an object to Chauncy. He drank domestic beer out of mugs from an expensive set. He bought leisure suits at wholesale and showered his ladies with jewels, although he had yet to buy anything of value for Lizzy. He opened McClarren’s Gym when he settled in Palm Beach with savings amassed during his years in the service. So, technically, it was a government-funded gym. The corporal had a way of arranging things to work in his favor. He profited off those seniors chasing youth assuring them he knew where it was. Between the sums of money he made from selling costly gym membership and the continuing proceeds of his GI bill, Chauncy had money to burn. He kept the gym overhead costs low and regularly invested in the stock market.

His living room showed his wealth and taste for the finest things in life. Twin recliners with a paisley pattern book-ended a hassock that was usually home to a neatly stacked Sunday paper. He rarely used lights and a black and white television illuminated the soft yellow walls. Next to the TV a fireplace waited ready to be ignited, although Palm Beach rarely got cool enough for its use. On its mantle, sprawled in a discreet, unpretentious manner, were his two stripes for private first class and lance corporal, his trophy from the 1960 Mr. California, a picture of Silas and Maggie and their daughter Margot, and a picture of his marine division during Operation Frequent Wind. On the end, in a polished mahogany case, propped open, was a hara-kiri dagger salvaged off a Japanese pilot by Silas McClarren, in WWII. Over the mantel hung a print of the Beatles called Renaissance Minstrels. Against the wall by the door a black, leather couch was carefully positioned.

Hey listen to this man, Tubs instructed as he hovered by the side of the TV.

"In the latest developments in the SLA case images of Patty Hearst’s accomplice in the Hibernia Bank robbery have been identified on the surveillance videos. She appears to have a thick mane of hair, very well figured and is average height . . ."

Damn, Chaunc, are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’ Tubs laughed as he rolled back. That bitch looks a lot like Lizzy. Chaunc took another swallow of his beer and shrugged.

So what if it is. That’d be wild though; having sex with a fugitive, he smiled as he imagined the implications. By screwing her I’d be doin’ the government too.

Shit man, this just happened… seven months ago, he said as he set his beer down to count his fingers. She came down here on the lam. Did you ever notice how she never lets anyone take her picture? She never tells you where she goes either. That doesn’t bother you, man?

Maybe she’s Native American, he said in her defense. I don’t ask people their business; life’s much simpler that way. Besides, she can’t be the only woman in California with a mane of hair and a killer body. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. When she comes over tonight, and she will, I’ll ask her straight up if she was involved with those nuts.

Maybe she won’t tell you if she’s seen this. She had to know it was only a matter of time until you caught onto her. Tubs finished his beer and put on a grimacing face to elicit more.

Sorry my friend, no more beer.

Shit. You know, Chaunc, if she is with the SLA you can be brought up on charges for aiding a fugitive.

I’m not too worried about it. How am I aiding her? I won’t allow her to live here. And if it does turn out she’s with the SLA I have no trouble turning her in to the pigs, he said defiantly.

You don’t love her, man? She loves you, she says so every time she leaves.

And you notice I never return the sentiment, and she is never hurt that I don’t. Assuming your suspicion is right; she’s just saying’ she loves me to buy time. By giving me plenty of sex and a false sense of emotion she thinks she can keep me silent. If I fall deeply in love with her in return and take her as my soul mate, she knows it’s a safe bet the law will forget about her for good. Shit, they don’t even know her by name; only by a blurry black and white security camera image, he assured Harrold confidently.

Well, what would you say she is then after… let’s see—Tubs slowed as he counted happily on his hand—four months?

The best built, best looking sex fiend I’ve ever had the fortune of knowing, Chauncy said without blinking. Ah Tubs, shit, she’s warm and caring and giving. I can’t even believe a woman like that would have anything to do with a bank robbery.

Really? On a scale from zero to one hundred where would you rank Lizzy in the sack, Tubs shot back, finally provided the opportunity to ask the question that he’d been yearning to ask.

I’d put her at ninety-nine. She’s incredible but there’s always someone better out there, the Corporal mused humbly.

What’s she look like naked Chaunc?

I don’t think I should answer that. Maybe you’ll see for yourself someday if you play your cards right, he assured his friend.

____

Hey baby! she bounded in and flew at him with wide open legs.

What’d I say Lizzy girl, back by 1800, Chauncy grinned looking down at his watch.

You always were great at keeping time.

Lizzy took off her blouse and jeans and flung herself on the recliner. She closed her eyes and rested. Her chest was heaving and her heart pounded as though she’d left wild dogs at the door. The two sat in silence for several minutes as Chauncy’s favorite program The Rockford Files began. Chauncy secretly based his life Jim Rockford; James Garner’s character who was cool. He wondered what Rockford would do if he were enjoying fantastic sex with of a suspected felon. He would lose all credibility as a private detective. Chauncy drifted off to sleep as Harrold rolled into the room.

Hey Liz.

Hi, Har… Harrold! Where the fuck were you, Lizzy jumped as she tried to cover herself.

Bravo! Encore, encore! Harrold shouted and whistled.

She quickly pulled on her pants and disappeared into the kitchen.

Baby, why didn’t you tell me he was here, she whispered as she rounded through the kitchen to the twin chairs. Chauncy was on the verge of sleep and annoyed by Lizzy’s commotion.

"Damn it Lizzy, I didn’t know