Dirty Work

I read this novel Dirty Work (copyright 1989) by Larry Brown about the Vietnam War.
Brown dedicated it to "Daddy, who knew what war does to men." One of the 2 main characters got his face blown off in the war. The other one was a quadraplegic - lost his arms and legs. The ending of this novel left me gasping in shock. I forced myself to read it, remembering my cousin, Dexter Bentley, a Vietnam vet, who was my same age. He died alone in his house somewhere in Asheville, North Carolina in October last year. The local sheriff found my name in Dexter's address book and called me to ask me what to do with the body. His ex-wife had long since left him, taking their two boys with her. Most folks thought he was crazy. He would make you feel uneasy - on edge - just being around him - like he might explode any minute. He used to visit me sometime--drive all the way from Roanoke to Richmond by himself. I accepted him and I understood PTSD. His father (my father's brother) worked on the railroad. His mother was deep Southern Baptist religious, and I guess she was the first one that messed him up. He talked incessantly about Jesus. He was never "right" after he got out of the service. We were kissing cousins in our teens.

Critiques from various newspapers:

"A powerful and original work all its own that moves along in short, staccato chapters with indisputably authentic language." - The New York Times

"Not only one of the best books about Vietnam but also one of hte most powerful anti-war novels in American literature. -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"[Brown] has created two fully realized, believable--and often very funny--characters....No one who reads this book is likely to forget them." - Houston post

"Stunning power...Dirty Work makes the human cost of war achingly real." - USA Today

"Courageous...It's hard to imagine a more powerful effect than the one Brown creates with his attentive, unsparing prose." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

a few favorite passages...

"Bursts with power and humanity." - Chattanooga Times

"A marvelous book...Brown's swift, intuitive dialogue explodes like a land mine and leaves the reader dizzy with shock." - Kansas City Star

a few favorite passages:

"I woke up, just wide awake. I was leaving that day. Boarding a plane at Memphis, going for orientation and weapons fire before we jumped off. What we called jumping off. Jumping off the world. I had all that in head of me and I woke up in my mama's house with her cooking biscuits for me. Smelled the same way every morning. Always smelled the same. She never woke me. Didn't have to. Biscuits woke me. I heard her tell people, That child can smell them biscuits in his sleep and when he smells em he wakes up. My mama was so good to me.

"I laid in there that morning. Had my uniform hanging up in there. Soldier of them ost powerful nation in the world. And all I could think was Why, you know, why? I didn't even understand the whole thing. Just went cause it was my duty. I'm sure there was plenty who went didn't understand the whle thing. Just went cause it was their duty. This my country, I'm gonna fight for my country. Sentiment was strong for God and Country, young boys, listen up. Everybody's daddy had been in World War II. Some daddies, anyway. Now they telling us we won't never be in another one like that one again. That one taught us a lesson. We ain't having no more futile wars. Til we have one in the Middle East. Or down in Nicaragua.

"Ain't no need in having a war lessen they just bomb the hell out of you like Pearl Harbor or something. Then all you can do is just bomb the shit out of them right back, and fight, and get a whole bunch of people killed and finally not accomplish a goddamn thing except get your economy ruined forty years later.

"Everything just pisses me off. The world gets worse all the time. Had one man one time that would have stopped it. Of course they had to kill him. And then things just went to shit."

--pp.23-24


"...people has been fighting since God made the first one and they always going to. Nothing don't change but the reasons, man. All you can do is love the ones close to you and try to do right. That's all God expects. God can't be blamed for what happens to me. Ain't God's fault what happened to you, to your daddy, or what happened to me. Fifty-eight thousand of ours was lost. Think about it, Walter. Each one thought it wouldn't happen to him. You oknow how many friends I lost? Seventeen. I mean friends. People I was tight with. Seventeen. i don't have to tell you. I mean you get to know a man, you get to talking to him, he pulls out some pictures sometime and show you. Show you his little girl. His crib. His mama and daddy. He alive to them. Theya ll taking about him at home, wondering when he gonna come back. Is he gonna come back. And then he be dead two or three days before they even know it. They don't know you, but you know him, and you the one have to put him in the bag and zip it up. I done that seventeen times.

"World don't change for no man. World gone keep going on. Don't make no difference what you do, what I do. World keep turning. God got a plan for everything. Man may suffer in this world. But God got a better world waiting. I been waiting to see it twenty-two years, Walter. You ain't no man if you don't do this for me. I tired, Walter. I tired and I want to go home. Want to see my mama. She waiting, too.

"You think you got trouble? You don't know what trouble is. Trouble when you laying in a rice paddy knowing both your arms and legs blowed off and are they gonna shoot the chopper down befoe it can come and get you. Trouble when they pick you up and you ain't three feet long. The people in my fire team started to just let me lay there and bleed todeath. Cause they knowled I'd wind up like this if I lived. Knowed I'd lay like this no telling how many years. They ever one of em has come to see me. And they each said the same thing. You know what that was?

"We wish we'd left you, Braiden.

"You been sent to me, Walter. You been sent and I ain't gonna be denied."

p. 225-227

"That joke I was gonna tell you. They were having preaching one Sunday morning in this black church and they had a new piccolo player playing along with the choir. Well, they played two or three songs there and somebody all of a sudden hollered out in this real deep voice, The piccolo player's a motherfucker. Everybody hushed. The old reverend was up in the pulpit and he looked out over the congregation. He was just shocked. He said, Who was that called my piccolo player a motherfucker? Nobody said a word. Everybody was looking around to see who it was. The old revered stood up there for a minute. Said, All right. I want the man who's setting next to theman who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. Nobody said a world. The old reverend was just getting madder all the time. He said, All right. I want theman who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. And hell, nobody stood up. Nobody said a word. The old revered stood up there and just got pissed off as hell. Then he hollered, All right! I want theman who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. Finally there was this one little bitty guy in the back who stood up. And everybody was looking at him. He said, Reveren, I ain't the man who's setting next to theman who's setting next to theman who's setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. I ain't even the man who's settingnext to the man who's setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. And I ain't the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. What I want to know is, who called that motherfucker a piccolo player?" pp. 128-129