Vietnam

Tell you what…
If you hand me that drink there, boy, I’ll tell you one more story. It’ll be a short one. It’ll be a good one, but I don’t have the time to make it lengthy. I don’t have the time to take sips. Give me that drink and let me drink it down, and I’ve got one more story in me before I go.

It was after the war. You’ve heard that before.
Fwoom boom kill boom OH LORD OH LORD. One time on my LST I was gunning and BOOM shit got heavy. Friend O’Leary came and said we gotta ditch! And I said one more stitch
Bumbumbumacross a line-a trees they shootin from
And chop chop chop a line a trees went down.
He grabbed and spit ‘lets go yold fool’ and pulled me by my shirt WE RAN
And BOOM an RPG went bam

You’d never believe it. The thing went off right behind me. Poor O’Leary thought it ended me. He told me later that he saw the fire and that was that, thought I was gibbed for good. He hit the deck.

And BOOM the RPG went BAM. Before it hit I’s runnin and it hit I’s runnin still, and I look down and see my friend pissin hisself all knocked out and spread across the deck. I landed on my feet, boy believe me when I say I landed on my feet runnin, Oleary thought I was good as dead. I picked him by his collar and said ‘Lets get the fuck out!’ and I mighta been a ghost the way he looked at me. Wasn’t till the bullets stopped that he said he saw me dead. NO SUCH LUCK I said and took a smoke from’im. Never said no since.

It was after the war. You’ve heard that before. I was home again in my hometown, my homeState, VERMONT, and I spent a few months kicking it, that habbit, picked up, you know, from the war. It was like that there. My CO sold the stuff, and half of us was hard on it. Somin when we needed it, need that slow down cool down, shoot down sneaky fucks doing sneaky shit…

They’re not kidding when they say them little girls had grenades strapped their backs. Why you think we shot em down when we went into town? It’s no joke. All kindsa nonsense. Crafty fucks. You know they use’ta ride stationary bikes to power their hospitals down in them tunnels. HELL YEAH! No joke. Crafty folk. Now you see on TV some mother-fucking yuppie spinnin smoothies in his driveway thinking he’s the hottest shit since hot fudge Sundays. Fuck’em. I ever tell you the time they put up mines round the dock at HoTonWayne? We came in and luckily had a SEAL team at the time. One of these bad mothers on deck saw the bobbin porcupine headin’ to the side and he dived right in. All by himself he swam the thing aside.

But yeah, my CO sold the stuff and all us boys thought, ‘Why not?’ Hell, we used to soak our joints in the stuff and smoke before battle, sometimes spark ‘em if it came. You never knew when it would happen, but it did, and we were ready. I tell you what, if it wasn’t for that stuff keeping us calm, keeping us numb, that woulda been that. I took a bullet myself, stoned as fuck. If I wasn’t, It’d be a whole nother story! Took a bullet and kept going. Saved a buddy a mine. If I wasn’t, SHIT. I’da lied there like a bitch. It was just an arm, but that shit hurts, if I wasn’t so high I couldn’ta rammed him down that bayonet.

Red, a black boy straight offa farm from Carolina. That boy never owned a pair’a boots before he joined. Red, you know them kind, a little Indian blood in’em. Anyway, I heard the poor bastard went home and offed himself. He knocked up some whore and couldn’t get a visa to bring her home. After a dozen years he lost it and put on his dress, medals and all, he told his mother he was going back to Vietnam and BOOM, went into the bathroom and blew his brains out. They say you never get away; she’ll gets ya sooner or later.

So I got home and it took me a while to kick the stuff, but I did. Ever since I only drank, god bless. I found a woman and I found a job. Roofing, but it was a job. I’d saved enough to buy some land, and I made enough to buy some wood, so I built ourselves a home. Me and my woman lived in that home, we couldn’t have kids, but we lived in a home.

That reminds me, a friend of mine found a woman and a home. He rented it from his Mom, but it was his. At that point he was a cop or something, and he lived on the beach, I only talked to him on the phone—never saw it. Sounded like a good deal, but the poor bastard got cancer. Bitch left him. Yeah he smoked, but he was out there in the thick of it. Agent Orange. Miracle then, but shit, since--anything but. Uncle Sam saw him through, but Sam’s the one who stuck it in his chest to begin with. God damn shame. Couldn’t hold his head up by the end of it. Died at the beach. Not a bad place to go, but still. You never get away, she’s gonna get’ya sooner or later.

So yeah, where was I? Yeah,
So there I am in my home with my job. The home I built with my bare fucking hands. But you know what? That wasn’t enough. I “DRANK TOO MUCH”-- that bitch, blonde bitch. What she know? What’d she ever do? Suck my dicks’about all, and she got my house for it. So yeah, how’s that for one last story? How’s that for one last story? S’why I’m here on this bench eating the hotdog you bought me. That’s why I’m here in my boots with my guitar you’re holding. Why don’t you fuck off home back to your mommy?