A Marine Called Jason
(Revised)
by: Peter

(© 2007-2015 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 78
Leaving Vietnam 

We were ready to leave, I thought. We were on our way to pick up the boys when Jason suddenly punched me in the arm.

"We've got one more piece of unfinished business before we leave," he said as he took a side street.

I had no idea what he was talking about till I saw the church up ahead.  I stopped.  "Jason, you don't have to do this."

He stopped and turned around.  "Are you backing out?"

"No. Hell no, I just don't want you making promises you might not want to keep."

He shrugged.  "Well, you can come or not, but I've got some debts to pay off before I leave."

Of course I went with him.  He dipped his fingers in the holy water font and made the sign of the cross then strode up to a pew near the grotto and close to the main altar.  I was pretty sure, now, that he was Catholic, and not just following my lead with the rudiments. He stepped into the pew and knelt down, leaving room for me. My head was more full of thoughts than prayers but I did thank God and His saints for listening to my other prayers and bringing this man back to my side. I had my arms resting on the back of the pew in front of me, my hands folded, my eyes closed.  Suddenly I felt his hand take mine and our fingers entwined. 

We remained till Jason crossed himself. He glanced at me and stood. 

“Give me your ring,” he whispered as he was taking his off.

I removed my ring and gave it to him and he put his in my hand.

When he stepped out of the pew he went up to the grotto and stuffed some money in the slot of the metal box then picked up two reeds. He lit them both on a small burning candle then handed one to me and pointed to a small candle to light it. He lit the one beside it.  He snuffed his reed out in the sand took my hand in his.  He slipped my ring on my finger and held out his hand for me to do the same. Then together, we lit one of the large candles.  We stood for a moment and watched the candles flicker then he wet his fingers and snuffed out both of the smaller candles we’d lit.

"That oughta do it, do you think?" he said.

It wasn’t exactly a marriage ceremony but I understood the symbolism; the two smaller candles had become one light. I nodded, with a tight smile and we walked out of the church.

When we left the church I led us into the military surplus store where I bought four pairs of tan pajama pants in two different sizes.

“For the boys, for when they older,” I said.

“How about we get us a pair,” Jason said.

I bought two more pairs.

Leaving Vietnam was emotional on several fronts.  Just leaving the country after all the time we’d spent there, and me fighting so hard to return, would have easily been enough to stir the emotions, but we were leaving with two little boys in our charge. Then there was saying goodbye to Toby, and picking up the boys at the orphanage and the goodbyes there. It was more than that; we were saying goodbye to Vietnam, and the war and to our past that had brought us together.

At the orphanage the sisters sent Devon and Kyle to get their bags; heavy cloth satchels that the kind women had obviously made. They both rummaged through them to check that they’d gotten everything. Devon ran back to retrieve something he’d forgotten. Kyle followed close behind.  When they didn’t return one of the nuns started to go check on them but I stopped her.

“Let me go,” I said.

I found them sitting side by side on a narrow bed. They looked up at me with the saddest faces I’d ever seen and I could see they had been crying. I squatted down.

“You got everything?”

They nodded but then Devon dumped his satchel out on the bed. I was touched by his meager belongings and there was a flash of anger at the spoiled brats back home that had everything. There was a tattered Crayola box containing eight well-used crayons, a little bag of marbles, several sticks of chalk, a St. Christopher medal, a pair of chopsticks, a small American flag and some miniature army toys; a Jeep, a tank and a truck, all US Army, I noticed. I wondered where he’d gotten them.

“Where’s your chain?” I asked, picking up the medal.

“I never had a chain,” he said. “I just lay it out.  Sometimes I sleep with it under my pillow.  He’s the saint for soldiers.”

“I lost my medal,” Kyle said.

“And what’s this?” I asked of the colored picture Kyle was holding.

“We made it for the sisters,” he said.

I gently took the picture to look at it.

“We drawed it ourselves.”

“And colored it,” Devon put in as he was putting his stuff back in the bag.

“Well, let’s go give it to them,” I said.

They seemed reluctant to leave the room.  I picked them up, one in each arm, and they put their arms around my neck.

The boys didn’t want to leave the nuns or their friends.  They gave the nuns pictures they’d drawn and colored, and they fought back tears when they hugged their friends goodbye. But they held on tight to us when we picked them up to leave.

The boys were a little fearful but excited about getting on the plane. We got them settled in and the stewardess came by and gave them pillows and blankets. We were preparing for takeoff when it seemed to hit Jason. He was seated on one side of the aisle with Devon, his arm around him, and Kyle and I were opposite them.  Jason looked over at me and I could see the muscles in his arm bulging where he was hugging the boy tight.

“Do we know what we’re doing?” he asked.

“No. But now is a hell of a time to start worrying about it,” I said.

“Everything I’ve been through here, and this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he said, looking down at Devon.

When we were airborne and the excitement of the plane wore off, the boys went to sleep. I thought it odd that neither of them had said anything. Jason lifted the armrest that was between him and Devon and pulled the boy against him in a more comfortable position. I did the same with Kyle.  Then we seemed to go off in our own private worlds. It dawned on me, how it happened that I had Kyle snuggled against me and Jason had Devon. There was never any discussion about which boy we would take. I looked over at Jason.

“What?” he asked with a weak smile.

“You ever wonder how you ended up with Devon and I ended up with Kyle?”

He shrugged.  “No, never thought about it. You picked up Kyle and I picked up Devon. That’s just how it worked out.  Why, you wanta trade?”

“No,” I said, laughing.  “Do you?”

“No,” he said looking down at Devon.  “I’m getting attached to the little fucker.”

“Hey. You gotta clean it up,” I said. “You can’t go around calling him the little fucker.”

“I know.”  He smiled down at the boy.  “But he is, a cute little fucker.”

“I just thought of something,” I said.

“Whatever it is, it’s too late now,” he said. “What is it?”

“We forgot to get the pictures from Toby.”

Luckily I had remembered to get my money that Toby kept for me.

Jason looked over at me. “We didn’t finish it,” he said.

“We gave it our best,” I said. “We made a difference.”

“Do you think so?”

“You know we did,” I said. 

The red tape wasn’t over.  When we landed, we were pulled aside and taken into a small room; something concerning the boys’ papers. A supervisor was called into the anteroom, where several brief phone calls were made. I could tell Jason was getting impatient.  So was I, but he was starting to get angry.

“Would somebody please tell us what the problem is?” he asked, finally, in a tone that bordered on surly.  Nobody answered him.  I knew it was a mistake to ignore him.  He walked over to the supervisor, a smallish, pale man, and stood in front of him.  “Excuse me, I just asked you a question.”

“We don’t have an answer just yet,” the little man said. “Suffice to say, the documents for the one boy are lacking on several counts.”

“What counts?” Jason asked. I told the boys to stay put and went over to join him.

“Which boy?” I asked.

The man took the papers from one of his people and looked at it. “The one named Kyle.”

“That would be my son. You should be talking to me,” I said. I shot a quick glance at Jason and saw the look of surprise. I was surprised myself; we had not discussed how we would refer to the boys, or even which one each of us would claim as our own, although that had pretty much been settled on the plane.

The man looked at the paper again, then looked at me.  “You’re the boy’s father? This makes no reference to that, only that you are his sponsor.”

“So be it,” I said.  “What is the problem?”

One of the officials handed him another paper, pointing to something. The man looked back at me.

“Ah, so. Well, neither of the boys’ documents bears the official seal of the Vietnamese government,” he said.

“Meaning what?” I asked.

“The boys will very likely have to be returned to their native country,” the man replied.

Jason was all over the guy in an instant.  “You’re gonna play hell sending either one of those boys back there!” he bellowed. He snatched the papers out of the guy’s hand and inspected them himself. He showed them to me, pointing to the seals over the proper signatures.

“These papers are signed and sealed,” I said, calmly as I could, handing the paper back.  One of us had to keep his cool.

“Not by the current legitimate government,” the official said.

“That was the official Vietnamese government when the papers were finalized,” Jason said.  “If you’re suggesting we have to go back and start this all over again, forget it.  Who were you talking to on the phone?  Get ‘em back on the phone, I wanta talk to them.”

Jason’s aggressive attitude rattled them, and they seemed not to know what to do.  Jason snatched up the phone and handed it to one of the other officials.

“Mr. Seaborne, we are trying to get this straightened out,” the man said, with a helpless look at his supervisor.

“No, you’re not!  Not if your idea of getting it straightened out is to send those boys back, which is not going to happen.”

Finally, I’d had it. I put up a hand to quiet Jason when he was about to say something else and I looked at the other three.

“We could take these boys back and go through all the red tape again and by the time we’re back here the official seal of the Vietnamese government wouldn’t be official.  They change governments over there more often than you change your socks.  Now, you’ve let every long-haired, dirty, pot smoking, anti-war scum waltz right through, and you’re detaining two Marines and two innocent little boys returning from Vietnam. Now you call whoever you have to call, you call the president if you have to, but you get it straightened out, because we’re not spending more than about five more minutes here. We are going home. And if you have any ideas about stopping us from leaving, you’d better call in reinforcements, because I’m disgusted and I’m pissed, and he’s getting that way, and it’s going to take more than you to stop us from walking out of here.” I nodded toward Jason.

After a couple of minutes of consultation, the man made several more rather frantic phone calls. I wasn’t sure if we’d scared him and he was calling for reinforcements, but when he hung up he handed our papers back and told us we were free to go.

“It’s mighty nice to be free in my own country,” Jason snarled as he snatched the papers out of the man’s hand.

It was late; dark outside. We walked out of the terminal and stood in the soft evening breeze. Jason and I looked at each other, and I knew what he was thinking.

“I know, strangers in our own land,” I said.

“Here we are, no place to stay, no place to go and no way to get there.  Hell, I feel like a motherless child. And I’m hungry.” He laughed. “We didn’t plan this very well, did we?”

“They have car rentals, we can find a motel, then get something to eat and talk about where we’re going from here,” I said.

“Are you boys hungry?” Jason asked the boys.

They didn’t answer and it suddenly hit me why. They were afraid to say they were hungry, for there hadn’t always been enough food at the orphanage.  I squatted down to their height. My gut tightened as I thought of Jase in my dream; this was all too familiar to me. I had burned his memory in that ashtray in Toby’s, but he would return at times like this.

“Listen, guys, we have plenty of food here. So it’s okay to say if you’re hungry.”

“Oh, Geezuss,” Jason muttered under his breath as it hit him too. It really upset him. He choked up.

“So are you hungry? How about a real American hamburger, and French fries, and a milk shake?”  I asked.

They both answered, “Yes,” at the same time.

“I can see you’re going to be a lot better at this than I am,” Jason said. I wanted to tell him that I’d already had some experience, from another time.

We rented a car and found a motel across from a Burger King. We went to eat before we checked in. I had the thought that our first meal together in the United States should be a big celebration, but watching the two boys eat, it was a celebration.  What every kid in the US took for granted, was a feast for these boys.  It was a major event just watching them eat.

When we had eaten, we drove over to the motel and checked in.  When we went in the room there was only one bed.

“Damn, couldn’t that woman count?” Jason said.

“There’ll be room,” I said. “These little guys are probably going to be sleeping mighty close anyway.”

Despite the late hour, we put the boys in the shower together. I quickly realized it was the first time they’d ever been under a shower. It was funny; they pretended it was raining. I made a phone call to the front desk to arrange for late checkout because I knew we would be sleeping in the next morning.  When I went into the bathroom, Jason was in the shower with them. I was surprised, but shouldn’t have been.

“Thought I might as well get them used to no modesty,” he said as he was turning Kyle around to rinse off his back.

They spent an inordinate amount of time in the shower. I looked in on them again.

“This may take a while,” he said.  “I think this is the first time they’ve been in a shower.”

When I went in again, Jason set Kyle out of the shower. I dried him off and took him to put him to bed. I dug around in the single bag that their clothes were packed in and came out with only one pair of well-worn pajamas.

“Are these yours or Devon’s?” I asked.

“We traded back and forth but Devon can wear them,” he said.

“Okay, then how would you like to sleep in one of my T-shirts, like a night shirt.” I thought about what Jason had said, about the modesty thing. “Or do you want to sleep like this?”

“You mean naked? We weren’t allowed to do that,” he said.

“You are now,” I said.

Smiling, rather proudly I thought, he crawled into bed naked and I tucked him in.  I went back to get Devon.  I told him Kyle was sleeping naked and asked him if he wanted to or if he wanted the pajamas.  I assured him it was okay if he wanted to sleep naked.  He said yes, he wanted to sleep naked, like Kyle.

“Might as well get them used to it,” I said to Jason when I went back into the bathroom to join him in the shower.  There was no hesitation as we wrapped our arms around each other and pressed our bodies together. We needed each other as much as the boys needed us.

“How are we going to handle this part of it?” he asked huskily.  “We can’t get them used to this.”

“We’ll just have to be careful,” I said, just before he locked his mouth around mine for a hard, passionate, moaning kiss. When we parted I went slowly to my knees. Taking his cock in my two hands, I looked up at him.  “Right now I’m going to give you your first blow job on American soil.”

“Uhhh…..”  He smiled down at me. “It won’t be my first one,” he said.

“The first from me,” I said. 

We ended up making hard, passionate love on the bathroom floor.  We were home.

Next morning I happened to hand Jason's shirt to him and felt the weight and a bulge in the pocket.  "What's this?"

"Dirt," he said.

"Oh." 

Nothing else was said.

To be continued...  

Posted: 04/10/15 rp