Blood on the Moon Read Free

asked.
    â€œMy mommy read me from the picture book,” the little girl said.
    â€œGood. Then you know what it means to follow the rabbit down the hole?”
    â€œDoes it mean what Alice did when she went into Wonderland?”
    â€œThat’s right; and that’s what old Lloyd has to do now–the radio just said so.”
    â€œAre you ‘Old Lloyd’?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen what’s going to happen to your castle?”
    â€œYou inherit it, fair damsel–it’s yours to do with as you please.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œReally.”
    The little girl hopped into the air and came down square on top of the castle, obliterating it. Lloyd ran for his car and what he hoped would be his baptism by fire.
    In the Armory, Staff Sergeant Beller took his prize cadre aside and told them that for a few bucks they could appreciably cut down the odds of getting eaten alive in niggerland and maybe have a few laughs, besides.
    He motioned Lloyd Hopkins and two other P.F.C.s into the lavatory and displayed his wares and elaborated: “.45 automatic. Your classic officer’s sidearm. Guaranteed to drop any firebreathing nigger at thirty yards, regardless of where it hits him. Strictly illegal for E.M., and a valuable asset in its own right–but these babies are fully automatic–machine pistols, with my specially devised elephant clip–twenty shots, reload in five seconds flat, The piece overheats, but I throw in a glove. The piece, two elephant clips and the glove–an even C-note. Takers?” He proffered the sidearms around. The two motor pool P.F.C.s eyed them longingly and hefted them with love, but declined.
    â€œI’m broke, Sarge,” the first P.F.C. said.
    â€œI’m staying behind at the command post with the halftracks, Sergeant,” the second P.F.C. said.
    Beller sighed, and looked up at Lloyd Hopkins, who gave him the creeps. “The Brain,” the guys in the company called him. “Hoppy, what about you?”
    â€œI’ll take them both,” Lloyd said.
    Dressed in Class C fatigues, leggings, full bandoliers and helmet liners, Co. A of the 2nd Battalion, 46th Division, California National Guard stood at parade rest in the main meeting hall of the Glendale Armory, waiting to be briefed. Their battalion commander, a forty-four year old Pasadena dentist who held the reserve rank of Lieutenant Colonel, formulated his thoughts and orders into what he hoped would be considered a fierce brevity and spoke into the microphone. “Gentlemen, we are going into the firestorm. The Los Angeles police have just informed us that a forty-eight square mile portion of South Central Los Angeles is engulfed in flames, and that entire commercial blocks have been pillaged and then set on fire. We are being sent in to protect the lives of the firemen battling those fires and to divert through our presence the looting and other criminal activity taking place. This is the sole regular infantry company in an otherwise armored division. You men, I’m sure, will be the spearhead of this peace-keeping force of civilian soldiers. You will be briefed further when we reach our objective. Good day, and God be with you!”
    Nobody mentioned God as the convoy of armored half tracks and personnel carriers rolled out of Glendale toward the Golden State Freeway southbound. The main topics of conversation were guns, sex, and Negroes, until P.F.C. Lloyd Hopkins, sweltering in the canvas covered halftrack, took off his fatigue jacket and introduced fear and immortality:
    â€œFirst of all, you have to say it to yourselves, get it out in the air, say it–‘I’m afraid. I don’t wanna die!’ You got that? No, don’t say it out loud, that takes the power out of it. Say it to yourselves. There. Two, say this, too–I’m a nice white boy going to college who joined the fucking National Guard to get out of two years active duty,