American War
A short story by Joanna Martodam

I’d never held a gun before; it was heavier than I’d expected. It felt cold in my hand, but not as cold as the sweat on my forehead.
“Are you ready?” He asked. I could tell he was pumped to be here, he had been waiting for this.
“No.” I replied with the little bit of voice I could muster. I was just supposed to drive the fucking car, remember? I thought. I didn’t have enough voice to say it out loud.
“I told you she was too pussy for this shit.” Preston laughed, that obnoxious smug little smirk on his face. “Lookit ‘er, she’s whiter than a ghost.”
“Screw you, Preston!” He was always giving me shit. “I can hold my own.”
“Just remember,” George lectured, “Keep it pointed to their head, but far enough from them that they can’t knock it out your hand. And no matter what happens, just be cool. Ready?”
I just told you, NO! “Yeah…”
“Let’s rock and roll!” I think Preston was as pumped as George was. For some reason they like this kind of shit.
“Hide that gun in the back of your jeans before you get out of the car.” George continued. “And stop fucking sweating!”
We walked up to the front door, and I tried to act normal. My hands were shaking so I tried shoving them in my pockets, but the gun pointed at my butt crack made the pockets too tight to fit in, so instead I’m just fumbling. Get your shit together! I tried to take a deep breath.
George knocked at the door and Tim answered. I was kind of sad. Tim was a pretty cool guy. He was a total hippie, a true hippie, with a long white braid and tats on his arm from when he was in Vietnam. Whenever I was out and needed a fix, he’d always help me out, even if it was just on front. And he never even tried to get anything out of me in return. I really didn’t want to do this to him, but I didn’t have a choice. I knew those guns tucked under George and Preston’s belts were pointed at me as much as they were about to be pointed at Tim. But I was a single white addicted female living on my own, and I needed a crew to protect me. It was either this or whoring, and I’m not a whore. Plus guys are less likely to bitch slap you when you’ve got a gun in your hand.
Hey dude, about time you showed up!” Tim seemed like he was almost giddy with excitement. “You’ve got to see this shit we just cooked. It’s bluer than the goddam Pacific Ocean.” I was looking around the room. It was a pretty big room, but the living space had been reduced to about the size of a large bathroom. The rest of the space was overflowing busted tools, computers and computer parts, old books, records, magazines, scrap parts, half digested bikes and partially consumed pizza. The smell from the cook was still strong. It smelled like a mixture of really nasty urine and oven cleaner that got sprayed into a hot oven. It was making my mouth water.
Sitting on a crate that was known to double as a chair was Tim’s wife, Sandy. She was a little younger that Tim, but just and gray and wrinkled and shriveled. She was busy cleaning her bong, I don’t think she even looked up. Across from her on the couch was Nate, another street tweeker, that’s about what I knew of him. He was probably a good 100 pounds bigger than me.
“Come on, sit down, I’ll load a bowl. Is that bong clean yet?” Tim asked his wife.
“Does it LOOK like it’s clean yet?” She snapped.
“Jesus Christ, you’ve only been cleanin’ it for four hours!” He chided as he walked into the other room. She grumbled something back under her breath but I couldn’t make it out. Tim walked back in with a loaded pipe. “Come on, sit down.” I sat next to Sandy on another crate-turned-chaise. “You got to try some before you buy it. This shit is KILLER!”
Halleluiah! I screamed in my head. The one thing that could help me right now. Some smokable courage, then I can do this.
“Ladies first,” Tim handed me the pipe. His wife seemed a little insulted. I lit the flame and held it under that beautiful bluish white pile of crystal happiness. I watched it melt, then blew off the cut. Then I took a crazy hit. The plume of smoke was so white and thick it enveloped me. It caught the back of my throat at the end and made me gag. But the hair started to stand up on the back of my head, then the goosebumps, then that warm-cold energy hit the back of my spine and sent shivers throughout me. I can feel my eyes are wider, and my mouth is watering like crazy. I take another ginormous hit. Smurf dope was always the best. Now I’m ready. Now I can do anything. I pass the pipe over to George, and it makes its way around the room. I could tell I wasn’t the only one impressed with the product. Tim hit it last.
“Damn,” He said, almost gagging at the same time.
“So how much of that shit you got?” Preston asked.
“Oh, probably a good three ounces, but it’s not all dry yet. How much you got money for?”
“All of it.”
Tim was obviously startled by this. Preston wasn’t the kind of guy to be walking around with $10,000 in his pocket. “You mean three grams?”
“Naw, you heard me, I want three ounces.”
“You know I don’t front.” Tim said.
Preston pulled out his gun and pointed it at Tim. “And you know I don’t bull shit.”
I saw Nate try and jump up, but George cut him off and pointed his gun at him. Game on. I pulled out my gun and pointed it at Sandy. I’d never seen a more surprised face.
“Now get the shit or she’ll blow your wife’s head off.” Just like Preston to put me on the spot like that. Tim hesitated for a minute. Preston pushed the barrel of the gun into Tim’s forehead. “Now.”
“Okay! Jesus.” Tim turned and walked back into the other room, the gun now pressed to the back of his head. I just stood there, my hand, and the gun, shaking like a leaf.
“After everything we’ve done for you,” Sandy said through squinted eyes. “You fucking bitch.”
“Shut up Sandy!” George yelled. I couldn’t say anything. I suddenly didn’t feel high anymore. I thought I was going to puke.
Then I heard the shot. It was so loud it made me flinch. Preston ran out of the room holding his gun and a fat sack of dope, yelling “Go! Go! Go! Go.”
I ran out of that house like it was on fire. We jumped in the car and I think I even had it moving before George got all the way in.
I was already starting to cry, “You killed him? You fucking killed him?!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you dude!” George screamed.
“He went for his gun, what was I supposed to do?” But his eyes were ablaze and he was obviously exhilarated. I think Preston had just found his niche. The tear in my eyes are making it hard to drive, but we make it back to the apartment.
We went inside and smoked out. I tried to get the drugs to make me stop thinking about Tim, but it wasn’t working. My eyes were still tearing up.
“Come on, get over it.” Preston sighed.
“Fuck you.” I said, my voice breaking more than I’d wanted. “He was a friend. He was nice to me. The man fought in Vietnam, for Christ’s sake, he fought a war, and for what, to have some punk kids cap him for trying to sell ‘em some shit? You said we were going to rob him, not kill him!”
“What, you don’t think we’re at war?” Preston asked, “Doesn’t this look like war to you? We fight every day to get what we need to make it, and we’ll do whatever it takes to get what we need to make it. Don’t kid yourself, girlie, you’re smack-dab right in the middle of a war.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, “And what side are we on?”
Preston took a hit, exhaled, then smiled, that same obnoxious, smug little smirk that always annoyed the crap out of me. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m on the winning side.”

On the Rainy River

“On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien is a short story detailing the emotional struggle a young man goes through after discovering that he has been drafted into the Vietnam war. The young man has just graduated from college and is planning on attending Harvard for graduate school when his draft notice comes. After spending a few weeks trying to adjust to the concept of going to war, and spending his time working in a slaughterhouse, his thoughts start to turn towards running to Canada, but he can’t decide which fate is worse; running to Canada to keep from fighting in a war he does not believe in, or going to war and living up to the expectations of his parents and his community. Finally, he breaks one day while at work, packs a bag, and starts to head north.
While still debating whether or not to run to Canada, the main character finds a small cabin resort and decides to stop there for a few days while he processes his thoughts. There he meets an old man named Elroy. This quiet gruff old man rents the young man one of his cabins, and the two spend some time together, and apart, before the young man makes up his mind and goes back home to face his future as a soldier.
While this story has a number of themes and possible extrapolations, one theme that really stood out to me is the connection, in the young man’s mind, between his job at the slaughter house, and his future in the war. The character states that he keeps “thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter” (O’Brien 42). Taking aim at that pig with his watergun and shooting the blood clots out of it, is very reminiscent to some of the things the young man thought he could never be able to do, like “charging an enemy position, and taking aim at another human being” (44). The memories he will have of the war will stick to him the same way the stench of those pigs did; “the stink was always there-- like old bacon, or sausage, a dense greasy pig-stink that soaked deep into my skin and hair” (43). What makes this analogy relevant is its own irrelevance; while the young man can just drop everything and run from his job, he cannot just drop everything and run from this war, as much as he may want to. This whole story revolves around his coming to terms with this fact. For those of us who may not fully understand the social climate surrounding the Vietnam war, you can get more information on the Vietnam war, please click “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien is a short story detailing the emotional struggle a young man goes through after discovering that he has been drafted into the Vietnam war. The young man has just graduated from college and is planning on attending Harvard for graduate school when his draft notice comes. After spending a few weeks trying to adjust to the concept of going to war, and spending his time working in a slaughterhouse, his thoughts start to turn towards running to Canada, but he can’t decide which fate is worse; running to Canada to keep from fighting in a war he does not believe in, or going to war and living up to the expectations of his parents and his community. Finally, he breaks one day while at work, packs a bag, and starts to head north.
While still debating whether or not to run to Canada, the main character finds a small cabin resort and decides to stop there for a few days while he processes his thoughts. There he meets an old man named Elroy. This quiet gruff old man rents the young man one of his cabins, and the two spend some time together, and apart, before the young man makes up his mind and goes back home to face his future as a soldier.
While this story has a number of themes and possible extrapolations, one theme that really stood out to me is the connection, in the young man’s mind, between his job at the slaughter house, and his future in the war. The character states that he keeps “thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter” (O’Brien 42). Taking aim at that pig with his watergun and shooting the blood clots out of it, is very reminiscent to some of the things the young man thought he could never be able to do, like “charging an enemy position, and taking aim at another human being” (44). The memories he will have of the war will stick to him the same way the stench of those pigs did; “the stink was always there-- like old bacon, or sausage, a dense greasy pig-stink that soaked deep into my skin and hair” (43). What makes this analogy relevant is its own irrelevance; while the young man can just drop everything and run from his job, he cannot just drop everything and run from this war, as much as he may want to. This whole story revolves around his coming to terms with this fact. For those of us who may not fully understand the social climate surrounding the Vietnam war, you can get more information on the Vietnam war, please click here.
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Reply to Sam Hamill’s Essay “The Necessity to Speak”
I was really intrigued by this essay, and I wholeheartedly agree with the Hamill’s ideas. The importance of communication is not a new concept. Corporations have workshops on developing communication skills. Colleges and Universities offer classes and degrees in varying types of communication. One can buy books to aid in the development and art of personal communication. But our focus, in this instance, needs to be shifted. Instead of focusing on how we communicate, we perhaps should focus on what we are communicating. We’re spending all this energy learning how to communicate, and yet doing our best to not communicate about some of the things that deem the most attention; tough topics like violence and abuse.
So why are we so scared, or at the least, resistant to discussing the tough topics, especially with our children? Hamill argues that this stems from our adult desire to maintain our “innocence.” “Knowledge is the loss of innocence. How desperately we want our innocence. How desperately we protect the innocence of our children!” (Hamill 550) Discussing topics like rape, violence and abuse with our children means not only that we have to admit that they exist, but also that we are at risk. This knowledge is like a sword; most parents don’t want their kids to get cut. But what we don’t understand is that this sword can also be protection, and can actually arm a child, or anyone, against such evils. If we choose to arm ourselves with swords of knowledge, maybe we could actually do some damage against the ignorance that has allowed such evils to run rampant.
I also believe that this tendency to cling to our ignorance is also related to our desire to see ourselves as innately good. If we admit that humans are innately flawed and capable of things such as rape, violence and abuse, then that means that we are innately flawed and capable of the same things. We don’t want to admit this about ourselves, so to avoid the implication we deny that a problem exists in the first place. More so, when someone is witness to such evils first hand, their ability to accept the fact that, yes, humans are capable of such bad things and yes, that means they are to, is paramount in helping them break the cycle of abuse and violence. “Only when those of us who have overcome the terrible cycle of violence bear witness can we demonstrate another possibility.” (Hamill 552)
I also want to comment on the poetic nature of this essay. The author states in his essay, “Take the rhyme out of poetry, there is still poetry: take the rhythm out of it, and there is still poetry… The words are only the frame which focuses the epiphany we call poetry.”(Hamill 549-550) Does this essay not contain it’s own epiphany, framed in it’s words?
As a single mother, it did for me. It reminded me that knowledge is power, and giving my daughter the proper knowledge, regardless of what whether our society agrees with me or not, is the best tool I can give her to survive this world. Innocence is subjective, and perhaps a little overrated. After all, who is really the more innocent one, the girl who knows how to defend herself when she gets attacked, of the girl who doesn’t even realize she can get attacked, and ends up raped and beaten in a ditch? I’m sure you can guess which one I want my daughter to be.

For more information on how to stop domestic violence, go to
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/info/domestic-violence

Poetry of Witness

The first poem that touched me was “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl. The speaker makes it obvious whom he was speaking, as it states, “for my wife” at the beginning of the poem. The title “Song of Napalm” is a fairly safe reference to the Vietnam war. The poem itself speaks to the difficulty the speaker is having at adjusting to life after the war, dealing with his flashbacks, and the strain this has put on his relationship with his wife. The speaker is most certainly male. I also believe that the speaker is the author, as this poem comes from a book of poetry Weigl wrote that is based on his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam.
The imagery in the poem is what grabbed me the most. When the speaker speaks of the girl “running from her village/napalm stuck to her dress like jelly/her hands reaching for no one/ who waits in waves of heat before her.” It is obvious in the text of this poem that the speaker is haunted by his image. “I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings/beat inside her until she rises/ above the stinking jungle and her pain/ eases, and your pain, and mine.” He tries to imagine that she got away, that she wasn’t hurt by fire, that he wasn’t hurt by the memory, and that his wife wouldn’t be hurting because her husband can’t move past this part of his life. His efforts, however, are futile. “Nothing/ can change that she is burned behind my eyes,/ and not your good love, and not the rain swept air/ and not the jungle green/ pasture unfolding before us can deny it.”
The second poem that struck me is a much lighter poem titled “Rite of Passage” by Sharon Olds. This poem reminded me of my little 4 year old daughter, who likes to put on my dresses and wear my heels and pretend that she is an adult. The speaker of this poem is obviously a mother, as she is talking about her son’s birthday party directly. The audience, however, is a little more ambiguous. To me it seems these are her thoughts in her own head, but there is nothing definite in the poem that confirms this. The poem is about the first 15 minutes or so of her son’s birthday party. The boys are milling around, trying to get to know eachother, sizing each other up, and trying to not seem vulnerable. “How old are you? –Six. –I’m seven. –So?” “I could beat you up, a seven says to a six.” The birthday boy, sensing the hostility, decides to take command and unite his troops. “We could easily kill a 2 year old.” The little birthday boy says. And his troops unite to help him celebrate his birthday.

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Weigl__Bruce.html

A good reader

I really enjoyed reading this article. I rather like his take on what really makes a good reader. I can understand where his students were coming from with their list on what makes a good reader. School teaches us to analyze, to process, and to digest and dissect. This is reflected in their list. The author's list reveals a completely different approach to reading, an approach to which many college students may not be accustomed. This concept is reading for the sake of enjoyment. To see the story, feel the story, and think the story, and not just analyze and process it. It takes a completely different part of the brain to do this type of reading, and unleashing that part of the brain comes easier to some than it does to others. Not everyone has the imagination to see a Jane Austen novel the way she truly intended it to be seen and felt.