Characters in Why We’re in Vietnam

“What about Malenfant? Any idea?” “Well, he never came to any of the reunions, of course, but he was alive the last I knew. Andy Brannigan saw him in southern California.” “Hedgehog saw him?” “Yeah, Hedgehog. You know where it was?” “No, course not.”

There was also at least one I went to that you didn’t. The year after the one on the Jersey shore? That was the one where Andy Hackermeyer said he was going to kill himself by jumping from the top of the Statue of Liberty.” “Did he ever do it?”

He left the car at Arnie Mossberg’s dealership on the West Side (when you were a Chevy dealer there was never a parking problem; that was one of the nice things about it), did some window-shopping on his way …

Usually the cancer started in the lung or the brain and then just ran everywhere, as if these men had left their immune systems back in the green. With Dick Pagano it had been pancreatic cancer—him and Michael Landon. It was the disease of the stars.

… themselves quite a talk . . . although Dieffenbaker actually did most of the talking. Sully wasn’t sure talking ever made a difference, but he kept thinking about the stuff Dieffenbaker said. How mad Dieffenbaker had sounded, mostly. All the way back to Connecticut he kept thinking about it. He …

… the melted nails, yeah, like that, not stuff you could tell people like Dr. Conroy, how when you pulled them parts of them came off, kind of slid off the way the baked skin of a freshly cooked turkey will slide along the hot liquefied fat just beneath, like that …

“I told you about the old lady, huh?” “Yeah.” “When?” “I think it was the last reunion you came to . . . the one on the Jersey shore, the one when Durgin ripped that waitress’s top off. That was an ugly scene, man.” “Was it? I don’t remember.”

Nor had Fowler or Hack or Slocum or Peasley or Sully himself. Even after Packer went down they had kept going. They were brave kids.

Carol” by Neil Sedaka over and over again, threatening to kill him if he stopped. On another Sully awoke next to Frank Peasley’s ex-wife. She was snoring because her nose was broken.

The more he considered it, the more Sully thought Sly Slocum had been the one to threaten the rectal implant.

Night and day he had played em, until one of the guys—it might have been Hexley or even Garrett Slocum—told him that if he didn’t quit it, he was apt to wake up one morning with the world’s first whistling rectal implant.

… Lieutenant Packer and Malenfant must have seen it happen, he was right there, but he never hesitated.” Nor had Fowler or Hack or Slocum or Peasley or Sully himself. Even after Packer went down they had kept going. They were brave kids. And if their bravery had been wasted in …

“Mary, this is John Sullivan. He served with me and Pags. Sully, this is my good friend Mary Theresa Charlton.” “Pleased to meet you,” Sully said, and put out his hand. Her grip was firm and sure, long cool fingers in his own, but she was looking at Dieffenbaker. “Mrs.

… jabbering six licks to the dozen, jabbering at Malenfant and Clemson and Peasley and Mims and the other ones who were shooting the place up. Mims had put a round through a little boy’s calf, maybe by accident. The boy was lying in the dirt outside one of the shitty …

… just right and the hisha-hisha-hisha of the lawn-sprinklers on Broad Street and how mad Mrs. Conlan got if you walked too close to her precious flowers and Mrs. Godlow at the Asher Empire wanting to see your birth certificate if she thought you were too big to be still under …

… Mrs. Conlan got if you walked too close to her precious flowers and Mrs. Godlow at the Asher Empire wanting to see your birth certificate if she thought you were too big to be still under twelve and the poster of Brigitte Bardot (if she’s trash I’d love to be …

Sully, this is my good friend Mary Theresa Charlton.” “Pleased to meet you,” Sully said, and put out his hand. Her grip was firm and sure, long cool fingers in his own, but she was looking at Dieffenbaker. “Mrs. Pagano wants to see you, hon. Please?” “You bet,” Dieffenbaker said.

… her towel and playing guns and playing pass and playing Careers and making arm-farts in the back of Mrs. Sweetser’s fourth-grade classroom and— “Hey, American.” Only she said it Amellican and Sully knew who he was going to see even before he raised his head from Bobby’s Alvin Dark–model glove …

Fuckin A, Sully; I mean fuck-in-A. She screamed and started jerking all around and he had his feet, remember, on either side of her, and the rest of them were running, Ralph Clemson and Mims and I don’t know who else.

The little men in the black pajamas had been in the high toolies and man, they had opened up. On the trail, Pags had grabbed Wollensky when Wollensky got shot in the throat. He got Wollensky into the clearing, but by then Wollensky was dead.