Nuke the Kid
Nuke the Kid lives almost at the very end of the South End, meaning, he’s at the Head of the island, that promontory that gives viewers on a boat heading north up Saratoga Passage the sense Camano at its tail end is the bow of a great ship. The bluffs have eroded and its bare face falls 300 feet from the firs above to the beach below. Parked up there, almost an ersatz guardian, resides the Kid.
The Kid prefers to be called by his full name, Nuke the Kid, but his neighbors refuse to do so. You can give yourself a goofy moniker, but don’t expect others to respect it. He lives in the logged off nettle wetlands at the curve in the road where the highway loop cuts back north. His shack is hidden from view and …. Well, let’s leave it at that. I’ve said too much already but I do respect the Kid’s privacy and his xenophobic tendencies.
The Kid arrived here in ’72 after a Dishonorable Discharge from the army. He was at the siege of Khe Sahn and most of his unit died there. Part of the Kid died there too, but not all of him. If you ask him why he calls himself Nuke the Kid — and I seriously advise you don’t — he’ll give you a death ray glare that will leave you no doubt why he was discharged.
I’ve known the Kid nearly four decades. I won’t tell you we’re close friends, but I’m probably as close as he’s got. The Kid doesn’t want friends and he doesn’t need em either. His friends are buried in pieces back from Khe Sahn and when he came home, nobody thanked him for a job he never applied for in the first place, one he was drafted into. I don’t think the Kid wants any thanks anyway. He sure doesn’t want anyone’s pity. He just wants to be left the hell alone.
Most of us down here do too. But then again, we don’t have ghosts to keep us company or demons to scream in the night. People are more fragile than we like to think. We sent the Kid into the heart of darkness 40 years ago. He doesn’t ask why we did. But … he did name himself Nuke the Kid.
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