Purple Daze Read Free Page A

shut.
Barbie Doll suitcases, black, zippers open.
A pair of perfect faces peer out, plastic grins.
    Â 
    The hard-packed dirt beneath the brittle
grass sucks up water, trying to breathe.

Nancy
    News time.
    Â 
    Walter Cronkite
reels a five-minute clip:
    Â 
    â€œGodless communism is why
we launch lethal weapons.”
    Â 
    Boom. Boom.

National Liberation Front
    For centuries peasants in South Vietnam accepted living in poverty because they believed it a punishment for crimes committed by their ancestors.
    Â 
    The National Liberation Front (NLF) seek to educate them in economics by explaining that 50% of the farmland is owned by less than 3% of the population. The NLF gains additional support by following strict directives:
    Never damage the land and crops or spoil the houses and belongings of the people; never insist on buying or borrowing what the people are not willing to sell or lend; never speak to them in a way that is likely to make them feel they are held in contempt; assist them with daily work, such as harvesting, gathering firewood, fetching water, etc.
    The NLF begins confiscating property of large landowners and distributing it among the poor. In exchange, the peasants feed and hide soldiers and often take up arms to help liberate other villages.
    Â 
    If the U.S. Marines or Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) gains control of a village, they are told their land will be confiscated. Consequently, peasants think of the NLF as their friends and U.S. military and ARVN as enemies.
    Â 
    These beliefs are reinforced as explained by U.S. Marine William Ehrhart, “They’d (peasants) be beaten pretty badly, maybe tortured. Or they might be hauled off to jail, and God knows what happened to them. At the end of the day, the villagers would be turned loose. Their homes had been wrecked, their chickens killed, their rice confiscated—and if they weren’t pro-Vietcong before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left.”

Cheryl
    Some girls put wadded up
toilet paper in their bras.
Mine has socks.
    Â 
    I mailed in the Free Trial coupon
in Silver Screen magazine under
a photograph of Jayne Mansfield.
    Â 
    BE A BUSTY BOMBSHELL IN JUST TWELVE WEEKS
    Â 
    When the package arrives there’s
a tube of cream and a photograph
of a man’s hand.

Mickey
    Me and Ziggy swap spit at the drive-in,
an old flick called Cat on a Hot Tin Roof .
    Â 
    Don is in the backseat with Cheryl, moaning
like a sick animal, so I grab my squirt gun
to cool him off. He swears, totally pissed.
Cheryl just busts up.
    Â 
    Brick and Maggie sound like Mom and Dad
before Mom took off with that guy who sells
fake-leather encyclopedias.
    Â 
    I aim the gun in my mouth, all quiet like Brick.
“Nothing’s gonna ruin my liquor.”

Cheryl
    Don tickles my tonsils with
Juicy Fruit and I wonder why
    Â 
    I can’t be more like Ziggy
and less like me,
letting him go all the way,
    Â 
    then Mickey blasts us with a
Screwdriver-filled squirt gun.
    Â 
    What a kick in the glass!

Don
    Less than ten minutes
until the world blows its top.
I’m still a *_ _ _ _* virgin.

Prayer For Peace
    â€œOn this Memorial Day, May 30, we will pay homage to our honored dead who gave their lives that this county might live in peace and freedom. Their numbers are legion, their deeds valorous, their memories hallowed.
    Â 
    â€œThey fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania, in the trenches at Verdun, and in the foxholes at Guadalcanal. Now America’s sons are again making the highest sacrifice to protect for this and future generations the liberty won in past struggles.
    Â 
    â€œMan possesses now the capacity to end war and preserve peace. We are able to eliminate poverty and share abundance, to overcome disease and illiteracy, and to bring to all our fellow citizens the fulfillment of their dream of a better life. We have the means to achieve these victories....
    Â 
    â€œ Now, Therefore, I,