We ended up at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a very somber end to the day, and spent a long time there, especially at the center where the two wings meet, the dates 1959 and 1975 resounding. The remembrances and tokens left at the base of the wall included a Superman comic book from 1965 with a note that read, "Is this the one you wanted?" Pictures, poems, stories, letters. A single flower. But the one that really got to me was the box of Bandaids, the kind that are for blistered feet.
The Pretty Days
from a novel in progress
In Chu Lai the base was spread out in a fan of tents, once white, turned a rusty color. Sand and wind. Wind and sand. South China Beach. That wasn’t your first visual, though. The first was the mountains. The green of the hills. The vast flats of rice fields. And the river like a long blue-black snake. All the places where you carried your guns, radios, half-empty canteens. All of the places where you expected to die.
The best part about Chu Lai was the beach. The sun, the crabs you caught and cooked, the bottles of tepid beer you drank, the hours you slept. Until you woke up to the sirens. And to the bright flares overhead, gold and red waves of light against the sky as you beat your way past the weight of sleep into the long, insistent sound of the sirens, of sergeants, of shouts that stretched out of the bunkers into the sand where, still, there lay the corpses of the crabs, their shells cracking under your boots, under your massive black boots.
And eventually the morning would come, more gold for your faces, your eyes like gashes against the early cloth of daylight. And the fighting would dismiss itself like something only the dark was allowed to know and discuss. Somehow there was breakfast and then more sleep, for some of you sooner than others. An eventual swim in the dark waters beside darker fishing nets. Another day, another blue sky. You didn’t ask your purpose; you knew your purpose. And yet it wasn’t that simple; it was clouded by the red dust of too many trails; it was complicated and out of control. Still, you cleaned your weapon, packed your gear, and got ready for the next camping trip. You knew you’d smell more than the sharp green scent of trees, you’d make your way through more than elephant grass, you’d flatten yourself into the days and then the nights and make it through.
But for the moment the view through the rip in your tent was the beach and the sky and a thin line of horizon. Those were the pretty days. The days in Chu Lai.
Breathless with expectation...
for the 50th Anniversary Restoration of Jean-Luc Godard's
"Á bout de souffle" with Jean Seberg & Jean-Paul Belmondo.
A Different Sort of Beach
Destin, Florida - September 2010
The sand is still sugar fine, just like it was in the 60's, the 70's, even the 80's. Even last year. But now there is something new. A coating of green that buckles and kicks up under your bare feet like sheafs of wallpaper. And further down past the navy chairs, there's a layer of seaweed. No, not seaweed. This is seagrass that once lived on the bottom of the Gulf. A member of the brown algae family, the grass now lies in great sodden blankets, thick layers of olive- and coffee-colored cloth, that no beach-goer wants to touch. I imagine lying in bed with this blanket up to my chin, but the stench of something rotting, a pond in trouble, reminds me that this is nothing usual, nothing comforting.
If this grass now lies in folds at the edge of the water, then what is at the bottom of the Gulf where the grass once grew? Go ahead, guess. Dispersants, oil, a little supper of BP crude for all you fishes. Sometimes the little fishes float up to the surface and end up on the beach amongst the soft dead grasses. Algae as funereal bed.
Swimmers wade through the algae and into the waves that are laden with more algae, fresh from the deep. If one swims out far enough, the water is clear, a luscious turquoise. Paddle surfers, ocean kayakers, infrequent pods of dolphin do better out there than swimmers. Still, some are determined to get past the brown-green detritus. Heads bob, laughter floats to shore, and soon they head in, once again through the algae, and on the beach the sunbathers eye them, perhaps expecting the brave ones to emerge covered in slime, sporting gills, like so many modern-day sea monsters.
Louisiana and the Gulf Coast
When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig went up in flames, a friend in New Orleans wrote that you could smell the fire all the way in the city, describing it as the sweet, acrid smell of burning crayons. And then he added a few words, which called up the five years spent in recovering from Katrina: “Here we go again."
The Gulf Coast is plain tired of recovering. Would it be out of the ordinary if the region could thrive and enrich the nation with seafood, commerce, energy sources, music, and culture that no other city in the United States can match? Without all the disaster drama? Well, darlin, life just ain’t that simple.
1999 BP advertisement
According to some of our Gulf coast representatives, the BP oil spill is a “statistical anomaly,” whereby the deepwater drilling moratorium is unfounded. Really? British Petroleum has such a good record? Well, let’s see: the 2005 BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City, TX, which killed 15 workers and injured 170; the 2006 BP pipeline leak in Prudhoe Bay, AK; several more spills in Alaska; and add to all this charges of manipulating propane prices. Yeah, sure they’re clean: as clean as the waters their pipes in the Gulf of Mexico are spewing crude oil at – what is it now, 100,000 gallons a day? According to the radio program, Democracy Now, it is now apparent that the “BP Oil Spill Confirmed as Worst in US History.” So much for that anomaly idea.
And then there’s the fact of the many oil rigs that continue to operate in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the moratorium, and the 49 offshore drilling plans approved without complete environmental assessments. Hold on though: it’s even more complicated than that. On the Gulf coast the fishing and oil industries have worked side by side for decades, each providing a wide base of support for the economies of Texas and Louisiana. So when the companies running a rig don’t have a backup plan for emergencies – yes, like this one – everyone gets hurt. That workers die is unforgiveable. That the coast, along with its fragile wetlands and wildlife, is mired in an ongoing deluge of oil is unbelievable. That the billions of dollars BP has accumulated over the decades were never invested in research on “how to cap a leak immediately if one should occur” is unthinkable.
Louisiana shouldn’t have to feel forgotten, a lost cause, “Lose-iana.” The depth of culture in New Orleans and the delta lands is immeasurable. And by culture I mean, the people, all of them: musicians, culinary chefs, Krewes, waitresses and waiters, writers, fishermen and fisherwomen, oyster shuckers, artists, mechanics, Saints, preachers, singers, deck hands, therapists and teachers. From all this humanity, surely new ideas will grow from old ones, and oil will sink back below the surface and new sources of energy will grow. It’s the Gulf, after all, where the sun shines and the wind does indeed bend marsh grasses against its shores.