Short Story / Dead By Suicide (Analysis)
A car backfires outside of Maverick Stangetti’s residential Colorado home and, for the millionth time, he has to force himself not to flinch and flatten himself to the ground in a crouch. He is sixty-one years old now.
I really gotta get over this, he thinks to himself. Vietnam ended a long time ago.
Maverick, or Mav, as all of his war buddies had called him, is about five feet, eight inches tall. In his prime, he was five feet and ten inches tall, but time has taken its cruel toll on his body. However, even through his age, it is clear that he keeps himself in shape. His legs are long and slender; his chest and shoulders are heavily muscled.
Mav’s face, though now wrinkled around the eyes and mouth, is long and slender, as an Italian’s should be, if he avoids an excess of stromboli and lasagna, with a long, prominent Roman beak of a nose, thick pink lips, high cheek bones, a sharp chin, and brooding, black brows that rest above eyes that are deep with old sorrows and darker than fresh-brewed coffee. His ebony hair is about three inches long and curls in copious waves around his face and ears; part of it flips onto his forehead like a silky black beret. In places, it is streaked subtly with strands of silver with only a few subtle hairs showing through the thick onyx hair, looking almost like glints of light instead of emblems of old age.
Very short black stubble, shadow really, covers Mav’s cheeks and sharp, dimpled chin, giving his lower face a velvety look everywhere except just below and to the left of his curved lips. Here, there is a thin, inch-long scar that shows pale against his tan Mediterranean skin. It is one of many evidential marks that are scattered over his body from his stay in a Vietnam prison camp. This small scar is a reminder to Mav every time he sees it in the mirror and every time he speaks:
Maverick Stangetti, Sergeant Stangetti by rank, had been a member of the Green Berets – one of the many in U.S. Army Special Forces teams sent to be captured and slaughtered during the politicians’ war in the small, volatile country of Vietnam. He was captured, along with one other Green Beret, named Lester Pibb, and his commander, Colonel Sam Carter. Their mission had been compromised, their plane shot down; they were captured and tortured by the sadistic Viet Cong. For nearly a year, Mav and his comrades planned their escape, but when the group finally made it out of the camp, they did not succeed in crossing the border safely. The colonel had been badly injured in the leg while in the camp, so Mav and Pibb had to half-drag him between them on their journey to the border into Laos. Unfortunately, only a fourth of a mile from the border, Colonel Carter’s boot had drug across a landmine, blowing both him and Pibb into pieces so small that Mav could not even gather enough of them to bring home in a shoebox for their families to bury. He had somehow escaped nearly unscathed, but for a small, inch long slice of shrapnel from the mine. It had lodged into his face, severing the nerve that controlled his lower left lip, giving him a slight slur in his speech and a perpetual scowl pasted on his face, as well as the white scar to remind him of the horrific incident.
Remembering this is painful for Mav, even though years have passed since his escape from the camps and America’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War. Once, he was the member of an elite team, the best in the entire army, carrying out dozens of missions that the bureaucrats who were safe at home in the U. S. of A. had never even dreamed of. His body had been in perfect condition, his instincts were honed to flawlessness and he knew every way to kill a human being that the U.S. Army thought practical. When he was finished with his training, he could hide in an immaculately mowed golf course in five minutes and the best men in the army, barring other equally trained Green Berets, would have no hope of finding him even if they were looking straight at him.
Maverick had been the best; now he was old, decrepit, and worthless.
At least he thinks so.
The world sure seems to think so too, with all of its ungrateful teenagers, lying politicians, corrupt leaders and ignorant denizens of the once-great country of America. He shakes his shaggy, wise head sadly; remembers better times. With a flair of furious anger, Maverick glances at his desk to the measly veteran’s check that the government sends him begrudgingly every month. Feeling the familiar ache from old injuries of war, he irately dwells on the thought of the thousands of citizens of America who give no notice to the battered, aging heroes that saved them from bondage, war and poverty with the sacrifice of their lives. Shaking the useless resentment from his heart, Mav decides that a tall cup of coffee, maybe something a little stronger, is just the thing he needs. He rises from his old office chair, scowling deeply as his joints creak slightly. Keys lay inconspicuously on the kitchen counter, quite obvious with their bright red keychain and silver penknife attached.
Searching furiously, old Maverick Stangetti walks around his house, scouring beneath papers, pictures and clothes. He digs his hand deep into the pockets of each of the crisply ironed pairs of pants in his closet. Where the hell have I put my flipping keys, he wonders to himself along with several other more unprintable slurs. Disgusted, Mav forces himself to stop and puts a huge, tanned hand to his forehead, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath through his nose, utterly sickened by the wheeziness of his breath, payback for all the cigarettes he had smoked during the war. Catching his reflection on accident, Mav sighs to see that he is no longer easy on the eyes. The deep wrinkles masterfully disguise the powerful soldier that is trapped within the decrepit body of an aged man. Mav knew that he was not what most would consider very old, but few knew how perfect he had been, how sleek and formed by numerous excruciating exercises that would make most average men sob within a minute of starting them.
Where are his keys? Where had he set them? In old days he would set mines, claymores and grenade trip wires, memorizing the location of each. Where were his keys? Mav spins in place, disoriented, scared. Where are his team mates? His mind, old, dazed, mournful, escapes back to the most familiar time of his life, his time of war. He sees himself once more, lost, hopelessly in the deep woods, terrified that he is surrounded by Viet Cong, terrified that he is alone. What happened? Where is everybody, he wonders, where is my team? Don’t panic, he tells himself, don’t panic. “Don’t panic,” ha, there are Charlie crawlin’ all around out there, and they’re going to get me and they’re going to kill me. Oh, God, I’m dying, I’m gonna die. It’s all over. Where is my team?
“Italian to Eaglehead. Italian to Eaglehead, do you read me? Sir? This is Italian, I’ve lost my location, I, uh, I have no equipment . . . I’m lost, guys,” Mav sobbed quietly. “Come in, Eaglehead, this is Italian, calling Eaglehead . . .” Stop it, stop it, this is absurd, Mav thinks. Shaking himself from his ridiculous, chaotic stupor, Mav wanders from his kitchen, past his keys, into his bedroom to check his pockets once more. He passes his medals, each pinned artfully to the wall, beneath a large picture of him in uniform. Mav’s brown eyes are widened in confusion, purposelessness, fury. Where are my keys? Where were all the claymores you set in that mission in Dong Da? What if you had lost them, you good for nothing . . . he allowed the thought to trail away. Where are they? Frantically thumbing again through the pants in his closet, ignoring as they fall with muffled thumps from the hangers, Mav looks up onto the shelf that holds old trophies and equipment. His old handgun sits pensively on the shelf, loaded, prepared for thieves or coyotes.
Sergeant Maverick Angelo Stangetti remembers his training. He remembers the necessity of keeping information from the enemy. He remembers that if a soldier is carrying valuable information, or will be used against his country that he should sacrifice himself to his own gun if he gets the chance. He remembers that he is the last soldier left from his team. He remembers that he is old and worthless. He cocks the gun peacefully, with a kind of calm logic in his mind that most men cannot achieve during a normal business day. Setting the barrel gently to his temple and sliding his finger confidently over the trigger, he embraces Death as a friend, leaving the cruel world behind to join his Special Forces teammates once again.
Martin Goldblum sits quietly at the bus stop, one long leg crossed over the other, a crisp newspaper laid across it, spanning the triangular gap. He scans the obituaries, as is his morning custom after he reads the front page, the comics and the sports articles. One in particular caught his eye a moment longer than usual and he makes a little disapproving noise in his throat, both sad and scathing at the same time.
“What a shame,” he mutters to himself, shifting the paper slightly so he can look at it better.
“What’s that?” asks another man awaiting the morning bus. Martin looks up casually and flippantly replies,
“Some old Vietnam vet blew his brains out all over his bedroom wall, I imagine. It’s not that important.” He closes the newspaper with a crinkle and sets it aside to soak up some of the dampness from the bench. “Probably some wash-out that wet his pants from his dreams about ‘Nam,” Martin laughs nauseatingly, his thin frame shaking slightly with his own humor. Wrinkling gently on the moist seat, its black ink blurring slowly, the newspaper reads,
“Sergeant Maverick Stangetti, 61. Vietnam veteran, United States Special Forces – Green Beret; awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor, three Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Bronze Star, and the Prisoner of War medal. No living relatives. Dead by suicide.”
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I think this was a great prelude to a story of Vietnam vets, a collection if you will, about their mental states. In the beginning of this selection, you forgot two key elements when writing a story 1. You did not put quotes where quotes were needed 2. You used, however, at the beginning of the sentence, it should either be used in the middle or in the ending of the sentence, because it is a transitional word. Now, I must commend you on having explained Maverick Sangetti’s purpose for existing in this cruel world, and describing him, in every detail.
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My father had post traumatic syndrome- from the war. Although you have not captured the painful dichotomy that that sickness brings you do give it a good try- and it does work. I get the symbolism of the key- key of life, etc. Would that lead a man with PTS to suicide? I thought it usually would take a great emotional tidal wave to overpower them. It has all the earmarks of a good story- yet something is missing and I can’t put my finger on it…
This is a pretty good story. I thought the author did a fine job with Mav’s breakdown. At times it seemed a little simple and cliched, at other times a bit too preachy, but the search for the keys degenerating down to suicide was masterfully covered. I would have given him a different nickname, Maverick always makes me think of Top Gun, which is a little distracting.
In grammatical terms there are some mistakes which detract from the reader’s experience. Sorry, this may just be the copyeditor in me but if you were ever sending in a manuscript for publication, things like these can work against you. For example, the keys are both inconspicuous and obvious, there are some inconsistancies in tense, ‘injured in the leg’ and ‘had drug across’ sound rather clumsy.
Ok – English teacher comments aside, I really enjoyed this story. It has brilliant characterisation: you describe Mav in such detail and use some really lovely phrases. The ending is poignant and well written, but are Americans really so dismissive of their war vets? That’s so sad!
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