Koko Read Online Free Page B

surreal eighteen months back from Vietnam, Michael Poole had been able to
     tell if a man had been in Vietnam just by the way he held his body. His instinct for
     distinguishing vets from civilians had faded since then, but he knew he could not
     be mistaken about this group.
    “Hello, sir,” said a clarion voice at his elbow.
    Poole looked down at a beaming young woman with a fanatical face surrounded by a bubble
     of blonde hair. She held a tray of glasses filled with black liquid.
    “Might I inquire, sir, if you are a veteran of the Vietnam conflict?”
    “I was in Vietnam,” Poole said.
    “The Coca-Cola Company joins the rest of America in thanking you personally for your
     efforts during the Vietnam conflict. We wish to take this opportunity to express our
     gratitude to you,and to introduce you to our newest product, Diet Coke, in the hope that you will enjoy
     it and will share your pleasure with your friends and fellow veterans.”
    Poole looked upward and saw that a long, brilliantly red banner of some material like
     parachute silk had been suspended far above the lobby. White lettering said: THE COCA-COLA CORPORATION AND DIET COKE SALUTE THE VETERANS OF VIETNAM! He looked back down at the girl.
    “I guess I’ll pass.”
    The girl increased the wattage of her smile and looked amazingly like every one of
     the stewardesses on Poole’s flight into Vietnam from San Francisco. Her eyes shifted
     away from him, and she was gone.
    The desk clerk said, “You’ll find your meeting areas downstairs, sir. Perhaps your
     friends are waiting for you there.”
2
    The executives in their blue suits sipped their drinks, pretending not to monitor
     the girls walking around the lobby with their inhuman smiles and trays of Diet Coke.
     Michael touched Judy’s note in his jacket pocket. Either it or the tips of his fingers
     felt hot. If he sat down in the lobby bar to watch the arrivals coming through the
     door, within minutes he would be asked if he were a veteran of the Vietnam conflict.
    Poole went to the bank of elevators and waited while an odd mixture of veterans and
     Coca-Cola executives, each group pretending the other group did not exist, left the
     car. Only one other man, a drunken mountainous being in tiger-striped fatigues, entered
     the elevator with him. The man studied the buttons and pushed SIXTEEN four or five times, then stumbled against the railing at the back of the car. He
     emitted a foggy bourbon-flavored burp. Poole finally recognized him as the van driver
     who had smashed into the Camaro.
    “You know this, don’t you?” the giant asked him. He straightened up and began to bellow
     out a song Poole and every other veteran knew by heart.
“Homeward bound, I wish I were homeward bound”…
    Poole joined him on the second line, singing softly and tunelessly,and then the car stopped and the door opened. The giant, who had closed his eyes,
     continued to sing as Poole stepped from brown elevator carpet to green hall carpet.
     The doors slid shut. The elevator ascended and Poole heard the man’s voice echoing
     down the shaft.

1
    A North Vietnamese soldier who looked like a twelve-year-old boy stood over Poole,
     prodding his neck with the barrel of a contraband Swedish machine gun he must have
     killed someone to get. Poole was pretending he was dead so that the NVA would not
     shoot him; his eyes were closed, but he had a vivid picture of the soldier’s face.
     Coarse black hair fell over a broad, unlined forehead. The black eyes and abrupt,
     almost lipless mouth seemed nearly serene in their lack of expression. When the rifle
     barrel pushed painfully into his neck, Poole let his head slide fractionally across
     the greasy earth in what he hoped was a realistic imitation of death. He could not
     die: he was a father and he had to live. Huge iridescent bugs whirred in the air above
     his face, their wings clacking like shears.
    The tip of the barrel stopped jabbing his neck. An outsized