June 2010
Johnny Tiwa’s War Cry
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon in April. From the snowy peaks of Mt. San Jacinto a cool sweet alpine breeze blew down upon the mesa. Johnny Tiwa and Monroe had not seen each other in twenty years so they reunited with a backyard sweat that Johnny made out of willow branches, blankets and an old beat up blue tarp that still had a bad plastic smell. Black lava rocks were in a hot coals pit roasting to a bright red glow reminiscent of their own beginning.
Johnny said, “We call them rocks, Grandfather.”
“That so?” replied Monroe.
Johnny nodded. “I got it from my mother and she got it from her mother and her mother got it from her mother. That’s the one Geronimo knocked up, made a whole side of my family nuts over who’s got the rights to what.”
Monroe chuckled, “Really? What side you on?”
Monroe could talk like that because he knew they were both nuts, both had their epiphanies in the jungles of Vietnam and both shared the same cell in Saigon, where they met, then flown back to Oakland for their discharges in 1971. Johnny was perched in a tree ready to bag a Vietcong Colonel at nearly one mile away when he said, “What the hell am I doing? These people aren’t my enemy.” He then humped three weeks back down out of the Highlands, through mountain, forest, jungle and hell eating wild grass and weeds, catching birds and bugs to inform command that he, Corporal Johnny Tiwa was on the War Path and was about to kill every white officer from lieutenant on up unless they let him out of the white man’s war right then and there—and with his record, they did.
Lieutenant Monroe and what remained of First Squad were ordered back from patrol to await transport. Relieved, they all dropped acid. An hour later an incoming burst blew young Lieutenant Monroe head over heels, dazed, concussed and stark naked into the Song Tra Bong River where he managed to tread seven hours downriver through a dark new moon night. He was fished out of the early morning fog, still tripping, by some Marines being choppered up to Chu Lai. Reprimanded and detained, he was flown back to Oakland. Discharged, he bused into San Francisco for a shuttle to his flight home to Seattle. While waiting he ventured outside into the Financial District where he confronted what was to him the belly of the beast. He charged through the streets dodging traffic like trees in the jungle screaming, “Stop the killing! Stop the killing!” He screamed orders and issued commands to cease fire, tearing buttons off his uniform as he ran until they had him handcuffed in police custody, heaving madly, dribbling sputum, dressed in only socks and underwear.
A car entered the drive way. They could hear the tires bite into the sand and chew their way to the door. Johnny looked surprised. “Jill isn’t supposed to be home ’til tomorrow.”
He took another hit off the bong and passed it to Monroe. “Try some of this while I see who it is.”
He opened the door before the trio could muster themselves together and looked back towards Monroe with a grin.
“How do you do?” the first lady said. She was African-American which at the sight of Johnny’s Apache blood and long black braids may have prompted her to speak first. The second lady, white, in her sixties stood next to a bald man with a white mustache. All three smiled and clutched their Good Books.
“We’re with the Missionary Church of the Apostles and would like to invite you to our services and ask if you’ve had the blessings of Our Lord Jesus enter your heart? Have you accepted and experienced the miracles of God in your life?”
“Oh, thanks very much. That’s nice, but neither the wife nor I are church-goers and my heart’s ok. Thanks anyway.”
Johnny began to inch the door closed when the second lady blurted, “God calls on each one of us to open our hearts to His glory and share the blessings and miracles of His Son, Jesus. Have you been saved, born again by the crucified blood of Lord Jesus?”
Johnny paused at the bottom of a long breath and pulled the door wide open. “In that case,” he said, “my grandmother told me that all life is born from the Great Mother and we’re all her children. She said that life is its own blessing and all we had to do was stop stupid men from screwing things up. So what I’m saying is, nobody’s blood is going to save anybody from anything. The only thing that’s going to save us is when enough of you people wake up and vote to put the care and well-being of women and children before the dictates of that sadistic, war-mongering sky-monkey you call Mr. God and show more love for our planet than you do for all the scheming disasters of your greedy, fear driven egos.”
The man said, “Well yes, of course. It’s what God teaches, nothing could be more Christian. You must be a Christian and not even know it!”
“Your god says, Do Not Kill. Did you vote against war?”
The second lady interjected, “Oh, that’s different, it means do not murder. Defending our faith isn’t killing, not murder.”
Johnny smiled, “My grandmother said that when kindness and common sense get kicked in the head there’s nothing but madness, lies and violence. She said that nobody’s free until everybody’s free. Then she said this world was already heaven before the killers came. So let me ask you, Do you think might makes right or just a bunch of blind fools causing a world of hurt and needless sorrow?”
Their jaws dropped. They held their books close to their chest and stumbled back, courteous, more quick than nimble. The second lady said, “Well, we hope you have a nice day.&rdquo
Johnny nodded and closed the door. “Ha,” he laughed. “They must be human and not even know it. See how they put all that crazy-ass voodoo blood ‘a god on everything, before humanity—before life itself!”
Monroe looked up, eyes glazed and giggling. “Forked-tongue pale face is right—nearly scared ’em to death. They put it before country too, like barbed-wire; fencing people off, closing the place down, calling it theirs. It’s all they got Johnny, them and their too-good-to-vote apathetic enablers—nothing but lies, violence, and self-serving delusion. It’s their god and religion all rolled into one. That and money. What to do? They’re slaves of patriarchy, obedient to beliefs that abort their brain and grind them into gutless ghouls. Then like psychotic swarms of bloodthirsty maggots, they’re born-again to feed on what they kill, torture and pollute. It’s their heaven.
“But ha! Must ‘a made your grandma and grandpa happy. Let’s go say hello to ’em.”
Johnny said, “I’ll get the smudge.”
Monroe’s voice curled in from the coals. “Charlie ain’t Cong no more, but they still keep ‘a comin’.”
Johnny yelled, “Then fire one up, jefe, and we’ll smoke ’em.”