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I Wasn’t There

John Poblocki

    I needed the money for an engagement ring. After all, it was the height of the Viet Nam War and there was a pale of resignation that life had to be lived right then and there or perhaps not at all. I had witnessed too many lives left unlived, so when Lloyd asked if I was interested in working overnight down by the river at the shoe factory stripping and waxing the office floors, I had to said yes. It’s a decision that I have carried with me to this day.
    I didn’t know Lloyd except through my part-time job pumping gas at the corner Sunoco station where he was a mechanic. I worked there during vacations from college and we had very little in common. He was a high school dropout who was drafted into the Army and did thirteen months in the jungles of Nam, returning home to a career of greasing car chassis. If you went to college you got an automatic draft deferment as long as you carried enough credits to be a fulltime student and didn’t flunk out. I was in my senior year waiting for a draft deferred job offer (there were plenty of those if you knew where to look), a 4-F physical draft deferment (which my doctor had virtually promised for a football knee injury), or worse case, a slot in the National Guard. Anyway, I wasn’t going to Viet Nam. In addition to the easy-outs, I was opposed to the war, which by 1968 had become very unpopular. I was never one to go against the flow of public opinion, so that may also have been a factor. And let’s be right up front: I was scared shitless of taking my last trip in a body bag; aka a coward’s deferment.

    Lloyd and I had barely spoken in the summer of ’68 when we worked together almost every day. When Christmas break came that December, we picked up where we left off, pretty much ignoring each other, until he needed help with an overnight job doing floors at a shoe factory. I was reading a book in the gas station office when Lloyd walked in stirring his coffee with his screw driver.
    “Hey college boy, how would you like to make fifty bucks for one night’s work?”
    “I’m game. What do I have to do? Drive the getaway car?”
    In 1968, minimum wage was something like $1.30, so fifty bucks was almost a week’s pay for someone like me pumping gas. Lloyd didn’t get my joke or chose to ignore it. He always looked like he was about to go off and he made me a little uncomfortable. I think I was afraid of him even though he and I were about the same size. There was something about him that was intimidating. Something unpredictable. I knew I could match wits with him intellectually but he had thirteen months of experience killing people he didn’t see eye-to-eye with. Or maybe that he just didn’t have fond feelings for. Either way, I didn’t want to piss him off.
    “The job is easy if you’re not too much of a pussy college boy who needs his mamma to tuck him into bed by ten. I’m used to going thirty-six hours on patrols in snake and tiger infested jungles and then sleeping in a swamp with leeches sucking my blood. Working all night waxing floors is like a vacation for me. For you, it’s probably too tough. I’ll just find someone else, pussy boy.”
    “What are you saying? Just because I go to college doesn’t give you the right to disrespect me.”
    “Yes it does. It gives me the right. Just because I didn’t go to college, doesn’t give you the right to ignore me and not talk to me. I’m giving you a chance to make some money, not be my friend. You want it or not.”
    “I want it. I don’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that, that...”
    “Forget it.”
    Next day, we both worked until 7 PM, me pumping gas and washing windshields, he replacing a clutch on a 1956 Buick. His normal appearance was a little unkempt, to say the least. I don’t think Lloyd had washed his hands, face or hair, or by the downwind odor, any other body parts in a few weeks. His pickup truck had a similar ambiance. Lloyd drove and I sat on the broken springs that served as the passenger seat. I could see the street through the floor. On the way to the shoe factory, we picked up some beer, burgers and fries and drove down to the base of a steep, mostly dirt driveway, past a nonchalant security guard in a shack. The sprawling red brick, four story mill complex had large, old windows (a few broken by kids with rocks), a flat roof and a loading dock that sat between two sections of the plant. It was dark with minimal outdoor lighting and other than the security guard, there was no one at the factory. The parking lot was surrounded by a broken and sagging chain link fence with more gaps than fence. An abandoned trailer with flat tires was parked up against the loading dock. The river ran along the other side of the mill complex opposite the parking lot.
    He parked his rusted hulk near the loading dock under a small flood light, and I pulled out the food and beer. Lloyd reached into the greasy fries with his greasy hands and left greasy stains not only on the bag, but on some of the fries. Then he licked his fingers and grabbed another handful. I decided against the fries and stuck with burgers and beer. We ate furiously without talking; then Lloyd ran up to the office to unlock and I lugged the stripping machine and buffer along with drums of stripping fluid and wax out of the back of his truck.
    By the time we got the equipment and supplies to the second floor. he downed three more beers. Said it was his lunch that he didn’t have time for. I was wondering how this night was going to turn out. We started by moving furniture from one office to the next. I was in charge of logistics and muscle power. Lloyd provided moral support. When the first room was empty, we began pouring stripping fluid on the floor; Lloyd said he was real good at pouring stuff and laughed. I didn’t get it, but by then he had had six beers, so I didn’t try real hard to get it either. There may have been nothing to get. I ran the stripper across the linoleum as he sat and watched, but I didn’t care because it was easy work and he was drunk enough to worry me.
    Suddenly, he jumped up and said, “Hey pussy, can I show you something, something I only show my friends?”
    “Sure. I’m game.”
    He ran or stumbled his way out to his truck and came back with a little bag made of what looked like Chinese silk, with a draw string at the top. He leaned into my face and shouted, spraying me with his beer spit. “Know what I got in here? Know what’s in my little bag of tricks? Huh, college boy!?”
    “Lloyd, whatever it is, it can’t be legal.”
    Lloyd was about six-foot three and a hundred and seventy pounds. He was wiry and had a wild, aggravated, fearless look. It got more fearless as he got drunker and he was making me nervous. He opened the bag and accidentally spilled the contents on the floor in the stripping fluid. It looked like a dead mouse or part of some dead and dried animal.
    “God damn it, pick my ears up, don’t let them get wet in that shit.”
    The contents looked a lot like little ears, only dried dark brown and black and all shriveled up. I thought it was a Halloween prop, like something from a joke shop and reached down to pick them up, when a hairy thing fell out of the bag and I caught it in my right hand. It too was brown and black and all scabby. I suddenly realized what this stuff was. And Lloyd was rolling on the floor holding his knees and screaming with laughter. He rolled into the scrubber and knocked it into me. I was freaking out with the sight of amputated body parts. I knew they came from Viet Nam; maybe from someone who had their ears and scalp removed while they were still breathing. Someone lying in a rice paddy gasping for their last breath, and perhaps looking up at buck-toothed Lloyd laughing at them.
    A few weeks before, the press carried stories about the My Lai massacre. I had wondered who could commit such atrocities; not what kind of person, but who, actually, the person. And here he was. Lloyd could see I was repulsed and this made him laugh even harder. He eventually stopped and picked up his ears and scalp. I went back stripping the floor, but after the shock wore off, I wanted to talk.
    “Lloyd, how did you get your trophies? How did that happen and how’d you get that stuff?”
    Grinning through his less than perfect dental work, Lloyd said, “Shit man, I can get some for you too. I sent some back home to my old man and he thought it was funny. My platoon did that shit all the time. If you saw what we saw, you would’ve got some souvenirs too. It was how we got along. We actually had cuttin’ contests. We cut off other stuff too.” I put up my hands for him to stop; I thought I was going to be sick, but he kept talking. I wanted to ask him why, but was afraid to and Lloyd seemed to be sobering up. He took a step towards me, looked right into my eyes and I thought I could see something in him at the verge, like he was about to breakdown. Instead he said, “There was nothing wrong with it. Everybody did it. You don’t get it college boy. These gooks were killing my friends. And I was getting even by taking their ears. Sometimes I took their eyes too. Those bastards deserved it.”
    I finally said, “Don’t you see something wrong with this? Don’t you see that killing and torturing people isn’t right. Was everyone dead when you started cutting them up for souvenirs?” Lloyd looked at me like that thought had never occurred to him, like it was a revelation that killing someone and cutting them up, not necessarily in that order, was not okay. He twisted his face into a corkscrew, which made him look deranged, or more deranged, and screamed into my face through a spray of spit with his arms flailing to the sides, “Fuck you. You weren’t there. You were sucking your mother’s tits when I was living in a fucking jungle. I saw my best friend half eaten by a tiger. You didn’t see what I did. You didn’t sleep in a swamp with snakes for six months. So shut the fuck up, mother fucker.” Blue veins were extruded in his neck and on his forehead.
    I thought now was a good time to get back to work. Lloyd looked like he could kill me; I didn’t want him to notice I had ears, eyes and a scalp. He started drying the floor, and I continued stripping the brown linoleum. He worked like an insane person, banging and throwing things that disagreed with his effort, all the while mumbling more curses under his breath.
    The job was pretty much finished around 4 AM. I had already put the furniture back in place, and Lloyd had brought the equipment back to his pickup. I walked down the stairs to the loading dock, and when I got outside, Lloyd was sitting at the edge of the platform with his feet dangling back and forth in a rapid, exaggerated, forced cadence, not like he was relaxing, but like he was winding up to explode. And with what I now knew of Lloyd, that was not a good sign. I said, “Hey buddy, job done. Let’s get some breakfast and get ready for work. It’s almost time to get back to the gas station.” I wanted to leave. I didn’t really want to be alone with this guy down by the river behind a shoe factory at 4 AM.
    He looked up at me from directly under the flood light which gave his face a monster shadow mask. He looked like he was drunk again, but when he spoke, I could tell he was completely sober. He said, very deliberately, “Pete my friend. You don’t know shit. You weren’t there. You can’t judge any of us. Unless you saw your friend blown up right in front of your eyes because he said he would be point man for that patrol when it was your turn, then you can’t be my judge and jury. You and the rest of your hippy dippy ass friends against the war don’t know shit.” Then he started to sob with his face in his hands. He cried hard, his body heaving uncontrollably, “It’s not my fault. Joey said he would run point for me. I didn’t ask him to. He just volunteered. I think he knew the booby traps were everywhere, and he saved my life. Maybe he just wanted to die. It’s not my fault man. Not my fault. And don’t blame me for the ears and shit. I know it was wrong, and yes those bodies were already dead and cold. Stone cold. When we found them, they were already dead and rotting. Some were partly eaten by jungle animals. What the fuck do you think I am, crazy?”
    He went on, “Don’t you think I know it was wrong? Don’t you think I have nightmares every single fucking night? Every time I hear a noise I jump or duck for cover ‘cause I think it’s an incoming. I see Joey’s face on every street corner. I hear him calling me. I hear babies crying all the time, and when I look around, there’s none there. Where are the babies crying from? Their graves? I’m losing it man. I can’t take it anymore.”
    “Lloyd, you’ve got to talk to someone. Don’t they have people in the army who you can talk to about this stuff?”
    “The army is filled with crazy mother fuckers. I saw those guys over there. No way I’m going to talk to those piss ants, no way.” I was wondering what I had done to Lloyd. I was worrying about his frame of mind. I wanted to help; I really did. But I was so tired I couldn’t focus my eyes. I thought we would talk more in the morning and we got in the pickup, Lloyd started the cranky Ford engine that coughed, sputtered and spewed blue smoke as we drove up the ramp out of the parking lot at Hudson Shoes. It was 5:30 AM when he dropped me off at my house. I said, “See you in a couple of hours at the station, right?” He looked into my eyes and I swear I saw into his soul; I hope he saw into mine. I wanted to tell him it would be alright. I got to work at 9 AM and Lloyd should have too. But he didn’t show up for work that Saturday. He didn’t answer his phone all day. The gas station owner and I drove out to Lloyd’s rented, run down dump of a trailer that was about five miles up the river and backed up to the falls. His truck was parked in the back yard, with a German shepherd pacing back and forth along the river and barking at me. I knocked on the door and shouted to try and wake Lloyd. It was already 3 PM and he should have been up by now, even after working all night.
    They found Lloyd’s body hung up on a submerged branch in the river about a mile from his house, just west of Hudson Shoe factory, where Lloyd and I had our talk about what he saw and did in Viet Nam. Where I accused him of doing bad things. Where he told me he already knew it was bad. Where he told me about his nightmares and crying babies. Where I looked into his soul and then let him go.
    I was the last person to see Lloyd alive, so after the body was found on Monday, the police wanted to talk with me about what we were doing before Lloyd decided to fall into the river. I was the one who volunteered to the police that we were together. It wasn’t like they had conducted an investigation and discovered that I was with him or anything, but that’s the way they interviewed me. The sergeant said he wanted me to come down to the station so they could “complete our investigation,” which from what I could tell when I got there had consisted of three cops sitting around, eating donuts and telling jokes. I interrupted them in mid laugh when I arrived. The room smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes. They invited me to sit down in a heavy steel framed chair with a torn red vinyl seat. The floor was the same brown linoleum Lloyd and I had stripped and waxed two nights earlier. The lighting was bare fluorescent bulbs that kept flickering and buzzing, but no one seemed to notice.
    “Where were you Saturday night when you last saw Lloyd? And what exactly had you two been doing?” This guy must have gotten his training from Dragnet. I looked at the finest of the Town of Westbridge, and said, “As I told you over the phone, when I called you, by the way, Lloyd and I were doing the floors at the shoe factory Friday night into Saturday morning. He dropped me off. That’s the last time I saw him.”
    “But tell us what was his frame of mind. What did he say when he left? And what’s with the attitude? We just want to find out how he got into the river at 5 AM. Most people don’t go swimming that time of day.” The two other cops started laughing. This was hysterically funny stuff.
    “Well, I don’t know what was on Lloyd’s mind, and I can’t tell you why he was in the river, and I don’t see a lot of humor in this.” I was wondering myself what was on Lloyd’s mind, and whether I had pushed him too far, or didn’t reach out far enough. A lot of things were running through my mind, like babies crying from the grave, and things Lloyd had seen and felt. I was disgusted that these three fat donut eating jokesters were talking about something they were incapable of comprehending. What were they going to do with what I told them? Put it in a file and have another donut? Make joke out of it?
    “Look, we’re sorry about your friend, and we’re just trying to find out if this was an accident or a suicide. Since you were with him that night, you probably are in a position to help determine that. So if you want to help out, fine. If this is too much for you, then we’re sorry to ask you to come in, and you can leave.”
    I said, “Well, if you want to know the truth, Lloyd was killed by the Viet Nam war, just like his best friend and just like about 50,000 other soldiers who didn’t want to go over and fight this stupid war. He was tortured by what he saw and couldn’t live with himself. It was no accident. Add him to the war casualties. He was actually killed in Viet Nam.” I got up and walked out. I heard them laughing as I went down the front steps.
    I walked home thinking about Lloyd and what he lived through, how it wasn’t his fault, and how much I hated what the war had done to guys like Lloyd and to the country. I tried not to think about whether I was the reason he had jumped into the falls behind his house, or if he had thought about it before he even met me. But I wasn’t successful. It’s something I have thought about my entire life and the reason I never questioned another Viet Nam veteran about what they did and what they saw. I had no right. I wasn’t there.<

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