Help Wanted Read Free

Michael wondered if he should wait until the cartridges were in before he fired. He wanted to be fair. He counted to five—that was enough.
    "Now," Michael said to himself.
    Twenty yards away from the man, Michael fired and hit him—the paintballs exploded on his arm. The man let out a small chirp of pain and groaned, "Dead."
    Michael wondered if the shots had hurt. They must have because the man was holding his arm. He looked over at Turtle, who was giving him a thumbs-up. Then Turtle's hand flattened in a sign to get down.
    "Down!" Turtle blurted.
    A Vietnam vet had sneaked up on them and started firing from behind a tree at Michael. But the vet stopped when Turtle fired from his position. The vet collapsed to the ground, unhurt, and crawled into a hole that was deep enough for a coffin.
    Michael returned fire. Paintballs whizzed over the hole and exploded on the limbs of yellowish trees that appeared dead. He knew his fire was pointless, but his confidence grew every time he pressed the trigger. He liked the feel of the gun thumping in his hands. He liked the sight of the paintballs spitting out of the gun barrel.
    Michael glanced over his shoulder. Turtle was moving swiftly toward the hole. Turtle motioned Michael to climb back up the hill and go around. Michael nodded and hurried away, his flannel shirt snagging on brush and tearing. His tennis shoes slipped in the dust.
    "But he knows," Michael caught himself muttering. The Vietnam vet had been in a real war and knew that Turtle and he were going to try to flush him. The vet couldn't be that dumb, or could he? Michael had seen a lot of vets holding up signs in San Francisco that read: PLEASE HELP, GOD BLESS YOU . These men were gray-haired, with lined faces where their tears ran from the sadness of having no place to live. Pigeons pecked at their feet.
    But Michael shook off this image. He was at war, and this vet was trying to tag him. He moved up the hill, stopped briefly to get a drink of water from his canteen, and then started down again. He stopped twenty feet from the hole and wiped his goggles on the sleeve of his shirt. He could see Turtle, who was down on one knee. He was wagging his head no.
    They waited.
    Michael could see action on the other side of the hill. Paintballs were flying wildly and little explosions of dust rose where the squads scampered behind rocks, brush, trees, and tree stumps. Two soldiers were on the ground, dead and out of the game. He thought of his friends, who probably were speaking Vietnamese among themselves. He wished he could say something, in either English or Spanish, but who was there to talk to? He reached into his pocket and brought out the Milky Way candy bar. When he tore off the wrapper, the candy was a flood of melted chocolate. He drained the gooey chocolate into his mouth and licked his fingers. So what if he swallowed dust? He was hungry.
    "
Ay,
" he muttered.
    The shadow of a hawk scared him. And it didn't comfort him to see a lizard staring at him, its tongue like a lance.
Are these signs?
he wondered. And he had to wonder about his friends fighting against the Vietnam vets. Was Trung mad that his grandfather had been killed by the U.S. military? He didn't seem mad. In fact, Michael could make out Trung's laughter in the distance. Were he and the Vietnam vet taunting each other?
    Then Turtle began to fire at the hole.
    Michael jumped to his feet, gun raised. He advanced toward the hole, crouching, his shoulders tense. The vet swung around and shot toward Michael, but the
paintballs whizzed past. Michael stopped, felt his heart thumping, and leaned against a tree. He swung away from the tree and launched an attack as he moved from one tree to another. The paintballs burst at the lip of the hole.
    "Give up!" he heard himself say. Where did he get the guts to ask the enemy to surrender?
    "You wish!" the vet hollered, and then returned fire.
    Michael started to fire again, but his gun was empty. Michael brought