The Human Stain

"We figure, okay, we're gonna die, we're gonna die. So we went up there and we homed in on their signals, we saw one parachute, and we went down in the clearing, and we picked that guy up with no trouble at all. He jumped right in, we dragged him right in and took off, no opposition whatsoever. So we said to him, 'You have any idea?' and he said, 'Well, he drifted off that way.' So we went up in the air, but by then they knew we were there. We went over a little farther looking for the other parachute, and all freakin' hell broke loose. I'm telling you, it was unbelievable. We never picked up the other guy. The helicopter was gettin' hit like you wouldn't believe it.

Ting ping ping boom. Machine guns. Ground fire. We just had to turn around and get the hell out of there as fast as we could. And I remember the guy we picked up started to cry. This is what I'm getting at. He was a navy pilot. They were off the Forrestal And he knew the other guy was either killed or captured, and he started to bawl. It was horrible for him. His buddy. But we couldn't go back.

We couldn't risk the chopper and five guys. We were lucky we got one. So we got back to our base and we got out and we looked at the chopper and there were a hundred and fifty-one bullet holes in it.

Never hit a hydraulic line, a fuel line, but the rotors were all pinged up, a lot of bullets hit the rotors. Bent them a little bit. If they hit the tail rotor, you go right down, but they didn't. You know they shot down five thousand helicopters during that war? Twenty-eight hundred jet fighters we lost. They lost two hundred fifty B-52s in high-altitude bombing over North Vietnam. But the government'll never tell you that. Not that. They tell you what they want to tell you. Never Slick Willie who gets caught. It's the guy who served who gets caught. Over and over. Nope, doesn't seem right. You know what I was thinking? I was thinking that if I had a son he'd be out here with me now. Ice fishin'. That's what I was thinking when you walked out here. I looked up and I saw someone comin', and I'm sort of daydreamin', and I thought, That could be my son. Not you, not a man like you, but my son."

"Don't you have a son?"

"No."

"Never married?" I asked.

This time he didn't answer me right off. He looked at me, homed in on me as though I had a signal that was going off like the two pilots bailing out, but he didn't answer me. Because he knows, I thought. He knows I was at Faunia's funeral. Somebody told him that "the author" was there. What kind of author does he think I am? An author who writes books about crimes like his? An author who writes books about murderers and murder?

"Doomed," he said finally, staring back into the hole and jiggling his rod, jerking it with a flick of his wrist a dozen or so times. "Marriage was doomed. Came back from Vietnam with too much anger and resentment. Had PTSD. I had what they call post-traumatic stress disorder. That's what they told me. When I come back, I didn't want to know anybody. I come back, I couldn't relate to anything that was going on around here, as far as civilized living. It's like I was there so long, it was totally insane. Wearing clean clothes, and people saying hello, and people smiling, and people going to parties, and people driving cars—I couldn't relate to it anymore. I didn't know how to talk to anybody, I didn't know how to say hello to anybody. I withdrew for a long time. I used to get in my car, drive around, go in the woods, walk in the woods—it was the weirdest thing. I withdrew from myself. I had no idea what I was going through. My buddies would call me, I wouldn't call back. They were afraid I was going to die in a car accident, they were afraid I was—" I interrupted. "Why were they afraid you were going to die in a car accident?"

"I was drinking. I was driving around and drinking."

"Did you ever get into a car accident?"

He smiled. Didn't take a pause and stare me down. Didn't give me an especially threatening look. Didn't jump up and go for my throat. Just smiled a little, more good nature in the smile than I could have believed he had in him to show. In a deliberately lighthearted way, he shrugged and said, "Got me. I didn't know what I was going through, you know? Accident? In an accident? I wouldn't know if I did. I suppose I didn't. You're going through what they call post-traumatic stress disorder. Stuff keeps coming back into your subconscious mind that you're back in Vietnam, that you're back in the army again. I'm not an educated guy. I didn't even know that. People were so pissed at me for this and that, and they didn't even know what I was going through and I didn't even know—you know? I don't have educated friends who know these things. I got assholes for friends. Oh, man, I mean real guaranteed hundred percent assholes or double your money back." Again the shrug. Comical?

Intended to be comical? No, more a happy-go-lucky strain of sinisterness. "So what can I do?" he asked helplessly.