The Crackerjack Kid
by
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VietNam, July, 1968
It was too quiet. Eerie. It appeared the men were gone from the village, but Skip sensed he and the squad were surrounded.
He heard something, muffled noises coming from one of the thatch hootches.
"Cover me," he whispered to the F**king New Guy, thinking he was right behind him. "I'm going inside." But the F.N.G. had wandered off to look inside a rice basket.
"F**kin' cherry," Skip mumbled. He cautiously stepped inside the hootch. The sounds were coming from a Viet Cong brutally trying to rape a young naked girl.
"Chieu Hoi, Motherf**ker!" Skip angrily ordered him.
Startled, the little dink b**tard jumped up and stood, yelling and shaking his finger at Skip.
"Don't shake your f**kin' dink finger at me! Chieu Hoi, Now!"
Half grinning, the VC reached for his AK-47. He knew he'd never make it. Skip fired, putting a bullet between his eyes.
The girl was terrified, crying hysterically. She moved and Skip knew she was going to try something stupid. A gun maybe? Or a booby-trap? It was either him or her.
Quickly she reached over for something next to her on the floor.
"Stupid f**king VC b**ch!" he screamed as he clicked to auto and pulled the trigger. Uncontrollably he emptied the clip, watching the bullets riveting her body and peppering the floor around her...
Paytonville, Winter, 1961
"Ahhh! He's gonna getcha, Cissy!" the boys sprung on her.
"Oh, you guys!" she yelled, falling in the snow. "You know I hate that! You guys are brats!"
While summertime, of course, meant swimming at White Lake and attending the carnivals and state fairs, the winters were really the boys' favorite time because they'd tell Cissy the Abominable Snowman would get her, then hide behind a tree and jump out at her. She did not think this was the least bit funny, but she fell for it every year. It didn't matter, though, not as long as she was with Skip. And whatever they were doing, they were always together: Twins Buddy and Cissy Meyers, and Skip Archer.
Skip was from Des Moines, Iowa. Shortly after Tom, his dad, died his mother, Irene moved him and Mark, his younger brother, to the town of Paytonville. He was ten years old at the time.
Irene had to escape the painful memories of her husband's death and Paytonville was the perfect place to start over. With a population of thirteen thousand-a wheat and corn community-she could melt right in, make new friends...and forget.
She sent a resume to Mount Wood Hospital, and as soon as she was accepted, they made the move.
The boys were not happy about leaving their school and friends behind. "Gese, why do we have to move anyway?" they'd protest. "This is our home for cryin' out loud. Dad wouldn't want us to leave all of our friends and relatives," Skip protested.
"Yeah," Mark agreed, "We don't wanna leave. I don't wanna leave all my friends and my school."
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About the Book
The Vietnam War did not just end for a vet after his or her tour... The Crackerjack Kid is a powerful story about the troubled Skip Archer and twins Buddy and Cissy Meyers. Life in Midwest's Paytonville for these best friends and their pals reveals its cryptic youthful secrets through their childhood innocence, to their ambitious teenage hopes and dreams...during the Vietnam War Era. After serving nearly two tours, a hip wound took Skip Archer out of country. He returned home to another kind of war: An unexpected cataclysmic aftermath of dragons and demons from hell masked as anger, rage, solitude, abuse, nightmares and flashbacks. He bitterly ignored the pleas from his childhood sweetheart, Cissy, and family and friends to put the war behind him and just get on with his life. He couldn't. Helplessly they watched him descend deeper into his "war of hell": The volatile reaction to Cissy's playfulness which almost ended her life; his ongoing hostile high school feud with Gary; the mysterious agitation at his best friend, Buddy-Cissy's twin brother-the rookie cop; and...his bewildering battles that ultimately drove him to the chilling uncompromising conclusion. Grow up with these Midwestern kids with their high standards and old fashioned morals and principles; discover the hopes and dreams of youthful--often painful---innocence; then follow them from Haight-Ashbury to Army hospitals, to Skip's disheartening homecoming, and through his all-too-real nightmares and flashbacks that unleashed his savage war of Vietnam demons.
About the Author
Born and raised in Michigan, Penny began free lance writing in 1984 for Vet Centers doing articles, poems, and book reviews for publishing houses. She later was the writer and co-publisher with her husband, Greg, for a Veterans' newsletter, Pathfinders. She became deeply interested in the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder issue(s) and has spoken to a group of nurses in a hospital and, with Greg, to high school classes on Vietnam and PTSD. She is a strong advocate of and for Veterans' issues. Penny and Greg live in the Pacific Northwest. This is her first novel.