Back Bay Blues by Peter Colt

Author:Peter Colt [Colt, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2020-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The flight from Logan Airport to San Francisco was as good as one could expect. The stewardesses were leggy in their blue dresses, pretty and as impersonal as bank tellers. When the captain came on the PA system, he sounded confident and assured. The food was sealed in plastic and microwaved within an inch of turning it into rubber. The liquor came in small, overpriced bottles. My seat was cramped and uncomfortable. The five-year-old behind me seemed tireless in his efforts to kick the back of my seat. His mother was determined to allow him the latitude to continue to “express himself.” In short, it was everything that one could expect from a flight in the jet era.

My head still hurt. Takeoff and the cabin pressure didn’t help. My ears still had a slight ringing in them from the car blowing up. I kept wondering what would have happened to Thuy if the car hadn’t blown up. I didn’t love her but I wouldn’t have minded getting to know her better. It was hard to think of her as an enemy agent, but it was also hard to think of her like any other girl.

When I told Watts what my plan was, she told me that I was nuts and that she thought I had a concussion. She agreed to take Sir Leominster in while I was away. No sense in him getting blown up, too. He wasn’t as experienced with hand grenades as I was. Junior behind me decided that his foot was tired from his self-expression. I built up a small collection of tiny, empty whiskey bottles. I wanted to sleep but my head hurt too much.

The first time I flew to San Francisco, it had been on the way to Vietnam. That flight hadn’t been too cheerful. Tony, Chris, and I had been pals during Special Forces training. We each had different job skills and graduated the Q Course at different times. All three of us wanted to go to Vietnam and agreed to look out for each other. Tony graduated first and was in-country first. I followed a couple of months later. I was hoping that he hadn’t forgotten us.

When I landed at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Saigon, someone called my name, and it was an overweight master sergeant. I didn’t know they could fit an REMF (Rear Echelon Motherfucker), a Leg (nonairborne), and a lifer all in one person, but his ample belly helped me understand how they pulled it off. He told me I was on the next plane to Da Nang and if I hustled I could make the next C-130. I ignored what looked like a barbecue sauce stain near his neatly starched and pressed pocket and moved out smartly.

The flight to Da Nang wasn’t long, which was good. The C-130 was fitted with canvas jump seats. The crew chief was not easygoing enough to let us stretch out and sleep on the floor; the good ones do. The wheels of the plane touched down, and we taxied to the terminal.

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