The Embracing Woods

he called it. I refused over and over again, but eventually began to weaken as Willy became more and more desperate, more and more pathetic, in his begging.

“Listen,” he told me, “I’m nothing in the world. I fought in Viet Nam, and I’m still nothing.

I’m screwed up, you understand? You don’t know what it’s like, having everybody think you’re a psycho, a coward. Listen, just between you and me. Maybe you’ll understand. In Viet Nam, it was my nerves, you see? I cracked, I admit it. I had to be shipped back. But my nerves . . . you can’t understand what it’s like.

“You can save me, Snake. Listen, if I could bag a real trophy, a real set of horns, I’d be cured.

It’s eating me alive, thinking I’m a nut case, a coward, afraid of the woods, afraid of guns, afraid of everything!

“I got to prove it to myself that I ain’t. When I was in the jungle, my patrol got ambushed by the Cong. I saw one of them hiding and aimed my rifle . . . but it was my nerves, it wasn’t me . . . I just started shaking so hard I couldn’t shoot. Listen, I just got to know the truth. I’m begging you, Snake, take me to this place you been going to.

My life, my mind, is in your hands. I’m a drunk, a pot-head, but you can help me snap out of it.

Where’s your friendship? Where’s your humanity?

Please take me out there.”

The man wept like a child, holding on to my hand. I was embarrassed beyond the telling of it.

I didn’t know what to say. Willy slumped like a rag doll, limp and crying. His problems were real enough. I weighed his future against the future of 112