Look where a bad attitude will get you

                    Blinding Texas sun reflected from the tarmac as if the ground were covered with snow. Macomber wore wire rim shades similar to those worn by Donald Sutherland in M*A*S*H , standing outside the hanger where an F4 Phantom was parked. He sucked on a breath mint. Lunch at the NCO club consisted of two whiskeys and a Slim Jim. Now he was managing the information booth for the Thunderbirds' Air Show at Randolph AFB, once famed as Westpoint of the Air. He hated public relations. He hated bullshit. He hated Tech Sergeant Timothy McSween, a dumb fuck who could give anybody a bad attitude.
                      "Macomber! I thought I told you to remove those sunglasses!"
                      "Indeed, Sergeant. And I explained these are prescription specs. I need them to see what I'm doing."
                      "Macomber, I don't see you doing anything!"
                      "Fuck you."
                      "I'll have one of your stripes!"
                      "Oh, gee. Well, I'm glad you're not gonna have me sent to Vietnam."
                      "Now that's a thought."


                                                                                              *

                       "Well, here I am in 'Nam," he said to himself for the millionth time, stropping a straight razor.
                       After a Barbasol shave and a splash of Lilac Vegetal  he would be a new man, hanging to the customary left once he had his skivvies on.
                        "Hey, pervert! Put some damn pants on!"
                        Erskine Brown popped him with a wet towel.
                        "Ersky, you're in the know. Are they going to unlock the armory anytime soon, or are they going to wait until Charlie delivers a telegram?"
                        "All I know is you and I each have an M-16 assigned to us and kept under lock and key. Master Sergeant Massey has the key."
                        "Massey carries an old M-14 and an even older Colt 1911."
                        "Which he owns personally."
                       
                                                                                           *

                         Macomber dropped off a roll of Tri-X at the photo shack.
                         "Expedite, OK?"
                         Mister Tran looked up from his paperwork and frowned. He glanced back at Tech Sergeant Morrison behind him, holding fresh glossies. "Rush rush rush, all the time rush."
                          "Like it's the Hindenberg," Morrison groaned. "All right Ace, leave 'em here and come back in an hour."
                           "Thanks, Sarge. Tran."
                           Macomber had snapped a batch showing Vietnamese kids kicking up water in a rice paddy.
                           "Lemme see your piece for a moment," Morrison asked. "Your stuff isn't as good as it used to be."
                           Macomber handed over his trusty Mamiya-Sekor 1000 DTL, a 35mm single lens reflex he had bought in San Antonio.
                            "And that extra lens too. Wanna check 'em both."
                            Macomber dug into his camera bag and took out a Vivatar 85-205 mm zoom lens, also bought Stateside.
                            Morrison had the bedside manner of a Flight Surgeon with a cancer patient.
                            Few moments later, the verdict was in.
                            "All fucked up with mildew. It's all over the mirror inside. The lens is shoddy. Sorry, Ace. Did anybody ever tell you, with those hippie glasses you look like that guy in The Doors?"

Macomber

               A wisp of ash from his Lucky Strike fell onto his olive drab undershirt. Macomber flicked it off and sat up. His cot stank of monsoon. Fungus between his toes, congo creeping crud, itched damnation. "Fuck it," he said. Dousing the immolation with Jack Daniel's: "I baptize thee in the name of unholy revelation."
                The jungle sat upon his hootch. He could hear the beating of its green heart. Words from the Rig Veda: there was neither non-existence nor existence; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
                 The sky above the rain throbbed with the bruising of the air: chopper blades. The Huey, gray as a dragon's foreskin, its snout daubed with a huge Day-Glo vagina, clambered down Jacob's Ladder with Intel that could not wait.
                 Macomber tried to meditate. His mind closed in on a flamingo lily, or boy flower, hermaphrodite and poisonous to eat. Penis on a platter, the botonist from Hue had called it. Her name was Nuyen, and it had been a month since they kissed behind the bamboo in a small garden where she worshipped her ancestors. Beneath the shade of a green papaya he kissed her almond eyes and then, lifting the gauzy blouse slightly, her brown belly-button.
                  "Wake up, Macomber." Erskine Brown, the cowboy from Flatbush smirked. Floral boxers and dogtags.
                  "I wasn't sleeping."
                  "Whatever. Your eyes were closed."
                  "The hell you want?"
                  "Peace and Love."

                                                                                            *

                   Dusky slats of light fell from French Colonial shutters across Nuyen's belly, guiding his hands and then, slowly, his lips. She had bleached her hair platinum. The thatch excited him. Her inspiration came from either a Japanese art film or a whore she had seen in Saigon. Either way, he didn't care. She rolled over upon her breasts and began to croon his favorite song. By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising--
                    "Play with me," she commanded.
                    Macomber stroked his guitar and it sang. Just like Glen Campbell.