Of course, on the street, especially by the early ‘80s — whether on Ponce de Leon in Atlanta with Al who was 1st Cav, or Ian who was Army Ranger, or with the tunnel rat, sort of the mascot at the Gypsy Belle, the now burnt to the ground biker bar in St Augustine, Fla., or under Key Bridge in Georgetown with the Nam vets laid out drinking or passed out on the cement shelves like shackled slaves on a galley ship, or some survivalist, who'd brought the jungle home and carried it with him in his knife sheath, out on the road, met in some shelter in Raleigh or Missoula say — there were homeless vets. Fellas for whom the America they came back to made no damn sense at all. It just wasn't something they felt good participating in.
Not always the wisest company to be in when they be drunk and fucked up and back in the jungle, embedded with their nightmares and lost buddies and all that stuff they'd talk about then, reliving traumas and actions that seemed to reside in a vast lake. The memories were like monsters beneath the surface, occasionally leaving subtle swirls to indicate they were there but otherwise invisible until the booze or whatever brought them to the surface and they showed what really owned the lake. What the war had really won for American patriotism.
Most rarely spoke of any of this. For most, the focus was simply getting on with it. The actual experiences over there were cornered and meant to stay that way. Except, as I say, when the anger and the loss and hard feelings loosed by the booze got the better of them. Which seemed to happen after being back and trying to adjust, over several years say, and then the nightmares set in. The flashbacks, which led to the booze, which led to....
Which was why the ’80s seemed to find so many out on the street, all those elements combining and society being so uncongenial and irrelevant to everything they carried with them over there, and brought back. It was the Reagan years after all. Fraud and the realization that the Dream was a lie fabricated out of thin air by advertisers for gullible kids, willing believers like them, and benefitting only the handful at the top whose kids never left the country club. And attachments fell away, the moorings failed. On these rare occasions when things came to the surface and were released, I would listen, saying nothing. I watched it knowing there was nothing I could offer even though shortly before we were still the best of buds drinking Guinness or Vokker. All I could do was stay the hell away when the shit went down. Freeze and bystand.
And then there was Raymond. The gunsmith from New Sharon, Maine.
