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Apocalypse Then

Drew Marshall

    The Ziegfeld Theater opened in nineteen sixty nine. It was located on Sixth Avenue and Fifty Fourth Street, in the heart of the Broadway theater district. The Ziegfeld was one of the last, single screen movie palaces built in America. It was a showcase theater for world premieres.
    The premiere of Francis Coppola’s epic, visionary film on Viet Nam, could only take place at the Ziegfeld. The legendary problems encountered while making the film were well known and documented. The man’s career was on the line.
    The director stood in front of the entrance, handing out programs. Once again he was defying convention by not showing opening or closing credits. As he handed the document to me, I thanked him and told this icon how much I was looking forward to seeing his film.
    My movie mate for this evening was Ben, a man I met several weeks earlier. We worked alongside each other as shipping clerks for an electronic parts store. The normally gregarious Irishman was strangely reserved. He was ten years my senior and had done two tours as an Army medic in The Nam. He arrived there just in time for the Tet Offensive and fought in the city of Hue.
    Ben insisted we sit as close to the screen as possible. Normally I sat back toward the exit doors. This close, the huge screen set to show a 70mm print and the six track Dolby sound system, were intimidating. The electric buzz in the air was palpable. Expectations and anticipation were at a fever pitch.
    The place was packed. The majority in this crowd were my fellow baby boomers. Audience conversation was at a minimum and silence ruled once the film began. A mesmerizing journey had begun.
    The silence continued when the film had ended. We were drained. Ben and I slowly rose from our seats. I looked at him for a moment.
     “That’s the closest you’ll ever get to Viet Nam,” Ben pronounced, in a dark, edgy voice that mirrored that of star Martin Sheen’s off camera narration. As we slowly exited the theater everyone in the crowd looked at one another. We knew we had been through a unique experience. Something that needed time to sink in and one we would not soon forget.
    The film went on to become a commercial and a critical success. Considered by many to be a masterpiece of filmmaking. The director himself said this was not a film about Viet Nam. It was Viet Nam.
    Ben and I were a bit disoriented as we hit the open night air. We decided to head downtown for a bite to eat. We got to know each other that night.
    He told me his war story. Nothing unique. Unfortunately, this was a common tale to be told by many veterans. During his second tour, his unit was ambushed. Ben was shot several times. Everyone else had been killed. He survived by burying himself under the dead bodies of his buddies. When the enemy left, he managed to shoot himself up with morphine.
    He wanted to die, to end the pain and suffering.
    Ben woke up in a Saigon hospital. He was shipped back home and did time in the Bronx Veterans Hospital. In the summer of nineteen seventy, Ben moved to Woodstock, in upstate New York. I was having fun at a summer camp, about ten miles away. I was closing in on sixteen. We would not meet for another eight years.
    In December of nineteen seventy two, I turned eighteen and registered for the draft. I can’t remember a damned thing about it. On the way home, I stopped off at Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand, in Coney Island. I sat down ready to devour a jumbo cheeseburger. I lifted the bun to drown it in ketchup. There was a huge, industrial size staple, resting comfortably, on top of the cheese. I called over to the middle-aged man behind the counter. I lifted the staple up into the air, so he could see it. This world weary soul threw me a dirty look, and returned to what he was doing, before I so rudely interrupted him.
    As history would have it, the war was over several weeks later. American forces were being withdrawn. The Vietnamization of this conflict had begun. I wound up getting a 3A deferment. Registrant deferred because of hardship to dependents.
    I was working in a grocery store and living with my mother. My father had served in World War Two. He was a psychologist, stationed down south. My dad interviewed soldiers returning from Europe, before they were discharged. He died a few weeks before my fifth birthday. I was an only child.
    Ben was a fighter and survivor by nature. The youngest of ten children, he grew up on a farm in rural, southern Ireland. He ran away from home in his early teens. Ben worked odd jobs in Dublin and Belfast, saving enough money to come to America.
    He lived by his wits. Ben was handsome and charming, exceptionally intelligent and fearless. He owned deep dark brown eyes to match his hair and thick, but neatly trimmed beard. When he flashed that killer smile, you couldn’t help but love him.
    Ben was possessed with a righteous zeal. He always stood up for the underdog. He became an activist, while living on New York’s lower East Side. By nineteen sixty eight, his luck had run out and Ben found himself unemployed and without a roof over his head. He enlisted in the army. He would claim that decision was a tragic mistake.
    Ben always referred to the war as a nightmare. His dark side was never far from the surface.
    He suffered from respiratory ailments and was always breaking out in rashes. He blamed this on his exposure to Agent Orange, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military, as part of its herbicidal warfare program, “Operation Ranch Hand.”
    Ben and I remained best friends for twenty three years. At age fifty three, he returned to school. He fulfilled his dream of becoming a Physician’s Assistant.
    He had trouble finding a job in New York and finally took a job at a small clinic on the West Coast. Towards the end of his first year out West, we lost touch. By the time I did get around to contacting Ben, his phone number was disconnected. Letters came back, stamped; “Return to Sender. Address Unknown.”
    In 2016, The Ziegfeld closed its doors to the public. The theater had been losing money for years. It will be renovated and reopen as a banquet hall, serving corporate events.
    After hearing the news, I couldn’t help but think about that special night, thirty eight years ago. A nerve was struck in our collective consciousness. I also wondered what I would have done, had the war not ended when it did, and I had been drafted.

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