Buzzy Bradford didn’t go to Vietnam to do any of the fighting and dying. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Buzzy didn’t care one way or the other who won the war. He wore an olive-green uniform and walked around the compound in dusty combat boots like everybody else, and he had even been issued a rifle because cooks had to pull perimeter guard duty now and then but soldiering just wasn’t his thing. Buzzy was a businessman.
If you needed discounted cigarettes, you went to Buzzy. If you wanted one of the Vietnamese girls who worked in the mess hall to meet you in a hootch bunker late at night, you slipped Buzzy the going price and he set it up. If you didn’t have time to go to the PX to pick up stamps and stationery to write your friends and family back in the world, Buzzy would go for you. If you needed to get some photos processed in a hurry, Buzzy knew a Vietnamese guy who could do it for half the price in half the time. And most important of all, if you needed some grass, Buzzy knew where to get the best stuff.
Buzzy’s cut was usually ten percent, and it had to be up-front. If he didn’t like you, it was twenty-five percent, so everybody worked hard at keeping Buzzy happy. His fellow soldiers included him in all the pickup basketball and flag football games, even though he was the most uncoordinated human being I had ever met. They allowed him to read their old letters because he rarely got one of his own. They let him bum smokes because they knew he was too cheap to buy his own, and they even played poker with him knowing full-well that he would cheat at every opportunity.
“Hey, California boy,” said Buzzy late one evening, sticking his oversized head into my hootch, “you interested in an advanced showing?”
“Advanced showing of what?” I asked him with suspicion.
“Come on,” he said, grinning like he always did when he was up to no good, “it’ll only take a few minutes. I want your opinion on something.”
“What are you up to now, Buzzy? And how much is it going to cost me?”
“This one’s a freebie,” he assured me. “I just need a guinea pig, that’s all.”
“For what?”
“Questions, questions, questions! You coming or not?”
“At least give me a hint.”
“All you need to know is that I’ve really hit the jackpot this time. Now are you coming or not?”
Buzzy’s little gold mine turned out to be an ancient 16mm movie projector which he had somehow purchased from one of the Vietnamese black-market vendors. He then wrote to one of his old junior college fraternity brothers and convinced him to mail off a half-dozen or so stag films, which had apparently arrived a few days earlier.
“Even at five bucks a head, I guarantee you my first feature presentation is going to be a total sellout,” Buzzy said with pride as he began stringing film from a little round tin can into his ancient movie projector.
“You’re going to show a pornographic movie right here in the mess hall?” I asked him in disbelief.
“That’s right, at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow night after all you soldiers have finished playing war for the day. And that reminds me, I hope you guys will do your best to stay out of trouble tomorrow since I don’t want the whole platoon still pinned down somewhere when the movie starts. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble getting the word out and just about everybody says they’re coming.”
“And the mess hall sergeant is actually going to let you do this?” I asked.
“Sure, for a small percentage of the take of course.”
“But what if the lieutenant or the major finds out?”
“I don’t think they will,” said Buzzy confidently, “but if they do, I’m going to give them this great spiel about how these kinds of flicks are really good for everyone’s morale, and I think they just might go for it. In the meantime, I’m going to milk this baby for every penny it’s worth.”
The black and white picture Buzzy finally managed to throw up on one of the mess hall walls was kind of blurry and hard to follow, but I could clearly make out what the naked co-stars of the film were attempting to accomplish most of the time.
“No sound?” I asked Buzzy.
“No, I can’t get it to work.”
“I guess films like these really don’t need a lot of dialogue, do they?” I volunteered.
“Naw, what’s to say? Plus, I bet the guys will make plenty of noise themselves.”
After Buzzy and I had watched all twenty or so minutes of the movie, he turned to me and asked, “So, what did you think of it?”
“I could have used some popcorn,” I said, trying to be funny.
“You know,” said Buzzy, always looking for another way to make a buck, “now that’s not a bad idea. Do you know what the markup on movie house popcorn is back in the world? I bet it’s something like 500 percent! Anyway, I’m not sure I can get popcorn, but having some snacks and drinks to sell is a really good idea. Thanks!”
“Well, Buzzy, I have to admit, that movie was definitely better than most of the ones they show us at the outdoor theater on Saturday nights. How many of them did you say you have?”
“Six,” said Buzzy.
“Have you checked them all out yet?”
“I sure have!”
“So, which one is the best?” I asked him.
“To tell you the truth,” answered Buzzy with the mischievous smile that always seemed to get him out of trouble, “although some of the actors are better than others, the movies themselves all have pretty much have the same climax.”