We had been heavily attacked just a day prior having sustained two casualties and several wounded, but today was to be a calm and lazy day. The enemy was kind enough to let us have a day or two between rocket and mortar attacks. Don and I were sitting by our perimeter's nearby corner bunker drinking warm beer (ice not available) and listening to Armed Forces Radio while lamenting how life would have been so different if we had just gone to college after high school.
I shared with Don that there was just no way I could have started college after high school. My grades would not have qualified me, I had no financial means to afford college, and I felt I did not possess academic ability to meet the entrance prerequisites and much less the curriculum requirements.
Don mentioned he started college but dropped out after the first year. "I was doing well," he said. "But then I got hung up on this one gal who just cleaned my clock. I was madly in love with that bitch. I could not afford her, really, so I got a part time job working in a pizzeria after school to make some extra money. She was expensive as hell." He paused.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Well, we kept dating. I was really serious about that bitch. Trying to impress her, I took her to the best restaurants which I could not afford. Took her to dances where she'd dance with practically everyone else but me. I was determined I was gonna marry this gal once we graduated, but I started getting suspicious. I'd go home on weekends, and she'd say she had a lot of school work to do, so I went by myself. Her family lived close to my family. Then I'd find out from my friends that she had gone with another guy that weekend to a resort area near Philadelphia."
Don reached for another beer and threw the empty can over the triple barbed wire fence. Throwing our cans over the barbed wire fence was a common practice. By morning every aluminum can would mysteriously disappear. To this day I have no idea just what the locals did with those cans. We were listening to the latest hits on Armed Forces Radio. Don was getting sentimental talking about his lost love while "Cathy's Clown" was playing on the radio.
About halfway through the song with the lyrics "Here he comessssss....That's Caaaaa....thy's clownnnnn", Don jumped out of his chair forcing his chair to bounce up against the bunker and fall on its side. The guard posted at the corner bunker came around to investigate the disturbance and turned around and went back to his guard post. Don was fast pacing in a circle exclaiming "WHAT THE HELL!” He took a long hard swig of his beer and shouted, "I just can't get away from that goddamn bitch!"
With a cautious, controlled laugh, I asked "Don, you're not over her, are you?"
"Her goddamn name is Cathy!" he practically yelled. "That's the goddamn bitch who broke my heart! That's why I'm here in this goddamn hellhole, and I just can't stand that goddamn song!"
The song was over. Don picked up the chair and sat back down still quite agitated. "I finally realized she was just taking me for a ride. Every time I approached Cathy, her friends she was with would start singing that damn song. But the song was very popular at the time, so I never gave it much thought.
With a pained and forced tone, Don continued. “One dreadful evening she outright asked me ‘Do you understand why my friends always sing that song whenever you come around?’
"I never made the connection and guessed that they just loved the song."
"Think about it, Don," she said. "Think about it. Cathy's clown ?"
"I went back to my dorm and could not sleep thinking about it. Then it came to me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was her goddamn clown! I never saw the bitch again. It was towards the end of the semester. I completed the semester then joined the Army. I just wanted to get the hell away from the bitch and her goddamn friends. I never realized I'd be stuck in this hellhole dodging bullets."
Don was pissed. The mood was broken, and no amount of beer was going to fix it. I went back to my hooch to write some letters. Don headed for the club to drown his sorrow, sorrow brought on by a song and a persistent and painful clinging memory of a ruthless, shameless bitch.
Since I moved back to Texas in 2007, I have spent countless hours trying to locate members of our Advisory Team 99. I found four, but Don has escaped me. The only lead I have on Don so far is that he went back to Philadelphia, bought himself a pizzeria and is now a very successful entrepreneur and owner of several pizzerias in the Philadelphia area.
I doubt very much that Cathy is any part of Don's life, but I am hoping that Cathy-the-biache is well aware of Don's success and is living every waking moment regretting her treatment of my buddy Don. And to this day whenever I hear Cathy's Clown being played, I remember my buddy Don.
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