RINCON
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I heard from him at Rincon. I wandered down the dirt trail to take a look at the beach, past the row of fences that line the two or three backyards that are visible from the path. I could see from the freeway as I passed the bay that there was no surf but I swung down Bates Road and stopped anyway. The absence of cars in the parking lot confirmed my observation. It wasn’t the right season for Rincon. Rincon is a premiere wave. If there’s even a ripple, people from miles come to hang on it. They have to come from miles because no one lives near Rincon except a handful of movie stars. It is an unassuming point formed by a rivermouth located midway between Ventura and Santa Barbara. When it’s firing, during the winter, it’s big and powerful and throws up beautifully formed walls of water that march around the point and through the bay. If it wasn’t for the clowns battling for position or taking off in front of you or sitting in the curl hoping you fall, it would be paradise. But as it is, all those factors spoil it. Like Malibu and Trestles and Steamer Lane and all the really great waves, the surf is ruined by surfers. Still, it was worth the couple minutes walk down to the cobblestones if for no other reason than to try to conjure up a session out of the past.
I stood for several minutes and watched the tiny lap of the water and then turned and slowly walked back up the path to my waiting auto and there he was.
“It’s been over 25 fucking years why are you here?”
It was Vietnam War. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t losing it. I can still tell an apparition from a reality. I didn’t get into my car, check the rear view mirror, see him there and then jump through the roof. But he was present nonetheless and as big as you please. I had no need to see him. I didn’t want to see him. His reappearance spooked me. I admit it. I should have known as I headed north after hearing about Rallio that he’d present himself.
Vietnam War was arrogant, as arrogant as ever. He knew he had been a major character on the scene then and that he still held power over those who had come into contact with him. I was wary of his presence not only because I didn’t like him but because he had been repeatedly underestimated. He had seemed like an annoyance, like a small infection but he was immune to the usual antibiotics of patriotism and humanism and he had raged out of control. Plenty of people had thought they could manipulate him but in the end, he was the great player. He was a character as sure as anyone I’ve ever met. He held dominance over me and many others greater than me, generals, politicians, soldiers, wives and mothers. I felt my stomach lump up.
In April of 1975 the last American helicopter rose from the American Embassy building in Saigon. Our long national nightmare was pronounced to be over. But that’s not the nature of nightmares.
“What brings you back?” I was determined to play it cool, to keep him from getting inside and working me over.
“I never left.
“Oh yeah? That’s not what I heard. Didn’t someone say you were through. Didn’t I hear that the Vietnam syndrome was over? I’d have thought you would take the hint.”
“So he steamrolled over a third rate country with a negligible military. So what? Don’t even begin to compare me with that little twerp, Gulf War. You know I saw it all coming way back when. Bush and his cronies taking sides, making money and exchanging services. Then they get pissed off at their business partner. It wasn’t even that clever an operation, not like Johnson. Then Bush has the nerve to pronounce me over.”
I was already falling into the trap of hubris. I, like so many others, thought I could contain Vietnam War. I had found a spot of venality and now I was certain I could exploit it. I decided I’d press my advantage.
“Vietnam War, you’re an aberration. We don’t have to acknowledge you anymore. It was an idiosyncratic conflict. It won’t come again.”
“An aberration?” Vietnam War wasn’t scowling, he was laughing at me and I felt a cold ripple up the back of my neck. “You’re never going to be through with me. I’m not a syndrome. I’m not an aberration. I’m not a noble cause lost. I’m not a flash in the pan. I’ve seared your psyche. I’m the father who molested you every day of your young life. You can’t forget me. Everything that follows comes after what I did to you.”
In the early '70’s there was much talk about who would be the heroes twenty years down the road. Some said the warriors because warriors are always glorified. Some said war protesters and social activists because they would be writing the college texts since the movement came out of the universities. Well, those who said no one, and I can't recall too many of those voices, were correct. There are no heroes to come out of the era. In some communities the POW's had brief moments in the sun but surely nothing to compare with what they endured. The warriors have been portrayed in film, literature, and the media as spaced-out veterans subject to homicidal flashbacks. Resistors have never had much of an official history. It's as though the state doesn't want to let on that resistance to its policies ever transpires.
But it does. And I remember them vividly. They stood before the White House lawn. Some looked like they had just returned. Some had been out long enough to let their hair and beards grow. Most wore fatiques. All had markings that told you where they had been. There were wheelchairs and crutches and missing limbs. There were those that were enraged and there were those that were in tears. There were those who could not speak and those who could not say enough. They waited their turn. And when it was their turn they threw their service pins, combat medals, and campaign ribbons over the fence. They threw them at the bastards who had thought that a patch or medal worn over the heart could cover the pain that burned within.
I wasn’t a match for Vietnam War. But I knew there were those who had been.