Out of the Grave: Bad Choices

By Robert Noyola

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 19, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469111896

Robert Noyola

Robert Noyola was born August 24, 1937 in Port Arthur, Texas. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1956 where he developed a strong interest in journalism. Robert served in the United States Air Force for thirteen years as a journalist. Attended Woodbury University at Burbank, California. He was later employed by the Los Angeles Times as a translator and information specialist. Mr. Noyola, a retiree, residing in El Paso, Texas.

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Copyright © 2001 by Robert Noyola.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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You will travel far in safety and not even know the way.

Gospel hymn

Reading the Port Arthur New that July day I glanced over the top and noticed my mother massaging her knees with Mentholatum. Instantly, I recalled back a few years when it flooded here on the Westside. This whole city has flooded. Sticks, mud, and grass floated all around over wood framed house. Small animals either climbed aboard something or drowned later to be found under houses. Other animals that also live here move about their own backyard. Men with rifles would go out in small boats in brownish waters shooting Gars, snakes, or an occasional crocodile. All the city was wet and cold. Even the walls and floors of our house were sweaty and cold. At night my knees and legs ached and pained from rheumatism. When my mother heard me moaning she would appear in the dark, sit on my bed with a jar of Mentholatum and rub my knees, without words, silently in the dark. She must have sat there for at least a couple of hours but I slept comforted by strong, warm hands. Her hands guaranteed security, food, and clothes. I though sure she would live a hundred years and she did. We always like to think mothers live a hundred years. Mine did. That way we can dispel any fear of the future knowing that mom will always be there. She will never get sick or she will never get tired. No, she never denies or refuses anything.

My dad built this house, that is, he bought the lot, lumber and labor to build it with money suffered for at the Texas Company. When he got paid he would place his green check on the kitchen table for her to see. Then after careful calculation, he would go in his 1940 Pontiac and buy food coupon books at Plettmans store. That was part of my job. Right outside the main gate at Texaco across the tracks was the store on Houston Avenue. What a grand store it was! Everything that was needed for the kitchen or the house or the yard was in that one store. We paid for everything with coupons; coupons purchased at a high cost of labor. Once a week we drove to the ice house where a great big burly man that with leather aprons on front and back. He frowned at everything. Ice picks and an ice tong gave him an even greater look of something menacingly wet in his black rubber boots. Dad held up two fingers and the wet creature snatched two ice tongs off the wall, opened the Igloo, then emerged with two blocks of ice. The old Pontiac lowered some when he dropped them into the rear metal bumper. Dad made a U-turns and sped off. While he unloaded them into our icebox Mon was emptying flour sacks into a big blue lard can. She saved the sacks for me. From those sacks she cut a pattern and sewed me two new shirts on her Singer. I was the only kid at Franklin school which wore shirts with blue or orange flowers.

I was a happy kid at Franklin. Took up Boxing too. Best of all none of my teachers laughed at me when I expressed an interest in American writing. For I had seen their credits at the movies. But I guess my courage developed from a familiar tie, especially that kind of emotion that can convey courage across two-thousand miles of desert, all the way to Los Angeles. It was that love that sustained, fortified, and comforted me when I was in danger or pain.

Later at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High my teacher enlightened me read more serious books and stories. I was a lucky kid to be in the Texas school system. Learning too much too fast can also be destructive, especially without a strong sense of responsibility. Me and my friends learned how to drink or rather learned how not to drink. At Thomas Jefferson High I was really ready to hit the streets and make money or see something that I had already read about. About this time, too, Mary Kerr was scribbling notes in the big Chief tablets for what would become her big courageous book.

The only supernatural occurrence that took place before I left town was when a grown man sawed himself right off a tree limb. So naturally he was taken to our Curandera, Senora Maria. She was eighty at the time and lived alone. Her house looked like a store inside and she kept birds in cages throughout, even in the back yard. Nine cats were scattered about, eyeing the emergency suspiciously but unafraid. The tree trimmer had sprained his back and dislocated his shoulder. After he was laid down I noticed another room where a young woman lay. Curandera explained she was suffering from Susto or somebody had given her the evil eye. Underneath the bed was an aluminum pail full of water. Into the water she broke an egg and uttered moans, whispers, salutations, condemnations, and general entreatment. Then she clapped her hands and with a flourish closed the curtains and stepped into the kitchen. Out she came with layers of leaves, soaking wet, on a towel; then more herbs, lotions, alcohol and a duster made out of real parrot feathers. Four men held down the patient. She put one knee against his ribs. Both her arms twisted and pulled expertly as she set his arm back in place. Then together with the same act as before the man was relieved and comforted. With a final back massage she was finished and awaited her pay. Eagerly everybody contributed. Just as we were leaving Senora Maria opened the curtain ceremoniously. The young girl’s white dress contrasted with the Curanderas’ black robe. She stood there smiling, stretching backwards. She did not look sick at all, but peaceful.

Curandera, I asked, What did she break, she looks nice.

The spirit. Undemonio was after her. Curandera died long ago but I never forgot her admonition to be earful of demons. Tomorrow is the last day of school.

Mary Karr and I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. While she embarked on a writing career, I started working as a shipping agent for Texaco. As I did not appreciate driving from bank to ship carrying large sums of money; and not being allowed to carry a gun, I quit that job and joined the Army. The Golden Triangle was economically depressed and there was not much chance for a college career at Lamar College. So at the Federal Building I signed up and my Mom and Dad took me to Greyhound. On the bus to Houston I read in the paper where Defense Secretary McNamara was touring South Vietnam; there was a look of horror in his eyes. Satan was also in Vietnam and this is where I was going. In school, I never even heard of Vietnam.

The narrative that follows is what happened to a soul displaced, allowing Satan to seize upon it; then empowering the soul, bring it back to life and fullness.

That day I finally arrived after five days on a C-130 Transport Troop Carrier. We came from Fort Benning, Georgia to California, then Hawaii, Wake Island, Okinawa to there in South Vietnam. We landed in Naa Trang and stayed there for two days, hot as hell. Then we flew to the Central Highlands nearby a town named An Khe. We are camped next to the airstrip with the rest of the advance party. The main division should land in about two weeks, then we will be at full strength. All of us feel we can win this war in six to nine months; no more than a year.

I do mostly security work for those who are clearing the valley where the main division will be stationed. Once in a while we go into the jungle to cut away weeds so we can spot the enemy. They all look alike and we cannot tell which is which. When we first got there, there was no sign of Viet Cong but today four were spotted approaching us and we exchanged fire. This is the first time that I have ever fired at a man. Well, they split back into the heavy jungle and disappeared. We stayed in our positions. Last night a village was overrun by Viet Cong about five miles from here.

For the few days that I’ve been here, I think that I’ve lived just like a VC, but our equipment should be here soon. I hope so.

It’s raining here more and more every day. At first it wasn’t so bad, but now we are always wet. They tell us it will get worse.

We are starting to get mail every other day if we are lucky. We got tons of beer here, today.

Well, that’s it for now. Got to clean up for tomorrow. We’re going out again like we’ve been for the past week. Got ten months and three weeks to go. Shorttimer now!

It’s Saturday morning and things are quiet. For a while we were working seven days a week. The division is almost all here, and we just finished working in our company area. We cut out tree stumps, dug latrines and showers and put up some big tents for our platoon.

It’s been said that the division isn’t committed to attack until October 1st. But, if we are attacked, we are to take defensive action only, and that’s all we have been doing at night. We fire when we are not in our permanent position so Charly won’t know where we’re located. That’s what he wants to know. When we can, we throw grenades at them, but the area is so thick with brush they bounce back. It happened once and killed two of our own men.

Two of our outposts were overrun last Monday and two more men were killed. Also, a sniper killed a medic as he was walking out of his tent. That is the first sniper to kill someone, and they have been firing at us since we arrived in August.

The area (An Khe) has changed a lot since we arrived. When clearing the valley (while the division was arriving), the civilian workers wore black pajama uniforms. After about a week, when the GI’s were here, the women could afford to buy clothes. They no longer wore the sandals made of tire rubber, but instead would buy the shower shoes. They also like bright colors. With all the colors they wore to work after that first week, it looked like a circus around here. They also like C-rations, eat the hell out of them.

These people are smaller than the Koreans and don’t smell as bad as they do. The village that I’ve been in is An Tuc, it’s a cool town, people are coming in all the time. It’s like a western boom own.

They might put the bar and whorehouse off limits. Too many men are getting syphilis and other venereal diseases.

There are a lot of villages in the area which the army is occupying and these people are being moved out into An Khe. They call us The Big Men With Little Guns (the M-16). The kids holler Number One and ask for a smoke. The girls are shy and fine, and they all have pierced ears. The old men and women chew beetle-nut and it turns their teeth black. Whenever we are around them, they become shy and suspicious, but once we are accepted they try to teach us their language. They look us up and down and look especially for watches, rings, medals around our necks. They have a fascination for shiny things. That’s what they like. Some of the women still go around wearing swastikas from World War II.

They wear the Iron Cross around their necks. I didn’t know the Germans come this far.

The country in the central highlands is pretty and peaceful and not so hot as the coast of Nka Tiang. There are places there where you can live and never be found. There is a mountain in the valley called Hong Con we climbed and secured, but at night there is a firefight from the base of the mountain. We found areas where a few people could live and never be found unless one goes in and cuts his way through.

We also found Pongee Pits which are holes in the ground about four feet deep with sharp bamboo sticks in the hole about one foot off the ground. When one of our guys step on these it puts him out of action and maims him. These sharpened bamboo sticks are also off the trail in the weeds where you can’t see them, till you hit the ground in which case it can be fatal. Although I haven’t seen any with shit on them, they say they do put shit on them to give you gangrene.

I bought envelopes in town, but there is little glue on them. All the stationery they sell us in town was taken from the defeated French Army at Dien Bien Phu.

Every other night it’s our turn to guard the helipad, and tonight is our night.

Last night there was a big fire fight, but Charly didn’t make it to the helipad. The brass only wanted to know our position so they could bring in the mortars. In Korea, he was called Joe Chink, here he’s Charly. I don’t know who named the Viet Cong Charly, but when we had classes given by the Special Forces Team, they kept referring to him as Charly. The S. F. gave us classes on VC tactics, habits, and things he depended on. We were shown us charts on how his men are placed for ambushes; he’s always using booby traps. They showed us where he puts them. Also, we were shown the weapons that were captured from prisoners. They had the American M-1, submachines, French machine guns, German, Russian, and weapons from China. They also have Polish guns and others that I’ve forgotten. Some of the names were so foreign that I couldn’t recognize them. There is also a lot of French equipment, canteens, packs, helmets, etc. They left plenty of mine fields in the area, but most have been marked.

A drop of wax from the candle just fell where I’m writing.

One day last week, the 101st were sweeping a valley and lost about 14 men most from one platoon. The Sergeant who had that platoon was in our company for support, but later it was known that his position was retaken by the 101st. While he was here, he talked about what happened and cried during the briefing. He said they walked into an ambush and were pinned down till dark. VC’s started getting them confused, and they started shooting each other. They can really move at night.

While we were clearing an area about three weeks ago, I took my camera and got some pictures. I sent the roll home because I can’t have it developed here.

I started writing this morning, now it is 7:10 p.m. We were just told we didn’t have to guard the helipad.

I also want to mention not marking letters Air Mail, just put a five cent stamp on as that’s all it needs.

We moved into tents and are sleeping on cots after more than a month on the ground. We live out of one laundry bag and AWOL bag. The other things are stored in the corner, our laundry is done in An Tuc, a small village—it costs $.20 for fatigue jackets and pants, $.05 for under clothes, and handkerchiefs are free.

The beer is good and liquor is O.K., but cheap. Sometimes we get cold American beer. We have trouble getting ice because the Viet Cong shot the iceman and stole his truck on Route 19. Better split. Tomorrow I will have nine