DX


So every night
you build a little house
You dig a hole
and cover it with logs
A house you
sleep beside
and hope not
to enter
Cover the logs
with sandbags 
against the
shrapnel weather
Some nights you wake
to noise and light
and metal singing
Roll out of the bag
and into the house
with all the scorpions
centipedes    roaches
but no bullets flying inside it
Most nights
you just sleep
deep sleep
and dreamless
mostly
from labor
This night was just sleep.
In the morninghours of work
You unbuild the houseagain
for nothing
Kick the logs away
pour out the sandbags
into the hole
Roll up the sandbags
for the next night's bit
of rural urban renewal
Eat some cold bad food
Clean your weapon
Drink instant coffee
from a can
Check the tape on
the grenades;
check the pins.
Most carefully
repack the demolition
bag: blasting caps
TNT plastic timefuse
det cord—
ten kilograms of fragile
most instant
death
Inspect ammo clips
(Clean the top
rounds with
illegal
gasoline.)
Then shoulder the heavy rucksack
Secure your weapons and tools
and follow the other primates
into the jungle
watching the trees
walk silently
as possible
through the green
watching the ground
Don't get too close
to the man in front of you
This is good advice:
don't let the enemy
have two targets.
Remember that: don't get too close to any man.
Only a fool, or an officer
doesn't grab the ground
at the first shot
even if it's rather distant
high-pitched
rattle
of M-16s
louder
Russian rifles
answer
even if it's
a couple of klicks away
manly chug
of heavy
machineguns
God knows which way they're shooting
grenade's
flat
bang
Like fools, or officers,
we get up off the ground and move
All that metal
flying through
the air—
and do we move away from it?
no
We make haste
in the wrong direction
making lots of noise now
who cares now
like fools or officers
we head for the action
but careful not to bunch up
Remember: Don't get too close to any man.
It's over before we get there.
The enemy, not fools
(perhaps lacking officers)
went in the proper direction.
As we approach
the abandoned enemy camp
a bit of impolite and
(perhaps to you)
incomprehensible
dialogue greets us:
"You wanna get some
X-Rays down here?
Charlie left
a motherfuckin'
DX pile
behind."
TERMS:
X-Rays are engineers,
demolition men,
us.
Charlie is the enemy.
"DX" means destroy;
a DX pile is a collection
of explosives that are no longer
trustworthy. When you leave
the camp finally, you
put a long fuse on the DX pile, and
blow it up.
(Both "motherfucker" and "DX"
are technical terms that can serve
as polite euphemisms:
"Private,
you wanna
DX that
mother-
fucker?"
instead
of
"Private,
kill
that
man.")
We'd been lucky.
No shooting.
Just a pile of
explosive
leftovers
to dispose of.
And we'd done it before.
It was quite a pile,
though,
taller than a man
enough to kill
everybody
with some left over
artillery shells
mortar rounds
satchel charges
rifle grenades
all
festooned with chains of
fifty-caliber ammunition
The major wouldn't let us
evacuate his troops
then put a long fuse on the pile
We had to stand there
nervous
and guard it
no
They'd been working hard
first they get lunch and a nap
then we can move them out
and we can blow it.
(we liked his "we")
We didn't know
it was wired for sound
it was booby-trapped
Remember: don't get too close to any man:
Don't know that Farmer
has an actual farm waiting
back in Alabama
and
Don't know that Crowder
has new grandbabies
and is headed
for retirement
when he gets home
and
don't know that Doc
was a basketball champ
in his black high school
and really did want
to be a doctor
Because they all are
one short beep
of a radio detonator
away
from
a sound
so loud
you don't
hear it
really
grey smoke
blood
It just hits you like a car.
everywhere blood
and screaming
Sergeant Crowder
separated from one foot
is unconscious
or stoic
Doc
both his long legs
blown off
dies quickly
Farmer had his belly spilled
but lived long enough to
shout
"Professor?
Where'd they get
you?"
and
since I didn't have
enough breath
for a complete
catalogue
(foot shins knees
thigh groin genitals
arm ear scalp and
disposition)
I settled for "the balls."
"Oh my God"
Farmer said
then he died
Two days later
I woke up in a dirty hospital
(sewed up like Frankenstein's charge)
woke up in time
to see Crowder leave
with a sheet over his eyes
and so it was over
in a way
the whole squad DX
but me
there is nothing for it
there is nothing you can take for it
they are names on a wall now
they are compost in Arlington
and somehow I am not
but give me this
There are three other universes, like this:
In one, Farmer curses the rain
wrestles his tractor through the mud
curses the bank that owns it
and sometimes remembers
that he alone survived
In another Crowder tells grown
grandchildren
for the hundredth time
over a late-night whiskey
his one war story that
beats the others all to hell
In the third Doc stands over a bloody patient
steady hand, healing knife
and some times he recalls
blood years past and sometimes
remembers to be glad to be alive;
in these worlds
I am dead
and at peace.
—Joe Haldeman