“Wow, it just goes round and round. Everybody’s connected to everybody else some way that I never know about. I never knew people in town here. Never went to the U.”
“Also, you were gone a long time — from 66 ‘till what, winter before last. That’s almost a decade and a hell of a lot happened then —underground newspapers, demonstrators shut down the freeway, a whole alternative co-op culture grew up. All that time you spent in the Army and trucking? Things were happening here. And what did you see, Hayfields, Whoop Up Creek, Montana? The Little America Truck Stop?”
“Oh come on give me some credit. I saw New York City, folk clubs in the Village, Asbury Park, The Jersey Shore, Bruce Springsteen playing at the Inkwell in Long Branch. It was a different world but it wasn’t dead. You were gone almost as long. From what? 65 till 68 or 9? How did you stay connected?”
“Sixty-four to sixty-nine. For one thing, the antiwar movement didn’t really get rolling till after I was out. And then, I processed out in Oakland and just took the ferry across the bay to San Francisco and got an apartment in the Haight; like a block from Haight and Ashbury. It had been really happening place but by the time I got there the druggies had moved in and all my camera gear got stolen. So I stayed a few months and moved on. But I saw a lot of change real quick.”
“Hard drugs? Like heroin and coke?
“Yeah. GI’s had started bringing it into Oakland. They hardly checked baggage at all. Not like real customs.”
I released the parking brake and pulled back on the road.
“So about Halftrack. What’s he doing here? Him and Sandy? Why Sandy?”
“She’s his secretary, he says; but it’s window dressing. She makes him look good. James bond type with a girl, you know. Like the movies. He likes that image. But my guess is he’s here looking for mercenaries. That’s his new thing; soldiers of fortune. You saw the magazines. ”
“Mercenaries? For where? Cambodia? Laos?”
“I don’t think so. According to the first issue of Soldier of Fortune, the state department told the Viet Nam Volunteer mercenaries that they’ll get no support and even be thrown out of Cambodia. I read that a year ago. But we’ll know pretty soon. Mike’ll make his move in a couple of days. He’s checkin’ us out.
“Ya know,” he continued, “we really have a pretty comfy scene right here. Don’t need much money, got an endless supply of fire wood we can sell, nobody bothers us, got credit at the cafe and the gas station — so he’s gotta make a pretty good offer. But he won’t if he thinks we’re desperate. So don’t play up the broke hippie thing too much.”
“You talk like I’m in his recruiting sights.” I said.
“I’m sure of it. Why do you think he’s out here in the sticks? It’s because here’s two veterans with recent duty, or recent enough anyway, guys with mission critical MOSs; you mortar-locating radar and me underwater demolition. It’s two birds with one stone. If I guess right, he’s going to put together a team and he’s already moving on it.”
In The Belly Of the Beast 