The narrator and Bon kill the crapulent major

The narrator and Bon kill the crapulent major in a planned attack shaped by weeks of surveillance and by the narrator’s effort to control the circumstances of the killing. The event turns an intelligence operation into a personal moral crisis: although Bon fires the shot, the narrator helps arrange the encounter and must live with its consequences.

Background and Surveillance

From May through the end of June, the narrator watches the major on six Sundays, beginning as the major leaves the gas station at eight o’clock and walks home with his lunch box. The major’s route and pace remain consistent: a walk that might take a fit person five minutes takes him about eleven, and the narrator keeps at least a block behind. The careful repetition allows the narrator to learn the route without drawing attention to himself.

The narrator also studies the major’s apartment complex and the carport where the major disappears. On the first two Sundays he watches from the corner; on the next two he waits beyond the apartment and observes the entrance in his mirror. During the fifth and sixth Sundays, he stays longer. At about ten o’clock, a car enters the previously vacant parking space, driven by a Chinese man in a chef’s smock carrying a paper bag. The surveillance thus extends beyond the major’s predictable walk to the activity around his home.

Preparation and Killing

On the night of the attack, the narrator and Bon wait near the gas station from seven-thirty, dressed in UCLA sweatshirts and caps to suggest they are students. The narrator has fitted the car with stolen license plates, keeping its legitimate plates in the glove compartment. He also expects the noise of the United States Bicentennial celebration to cover their actions: distant fireworks and occasional gunfire mingle with fireworks set off illegally in the neighborhood. The distractions are part of a plan built around circumstances the pair can exploit but do not control.

The noise unsettles Bon. As they wait, he recalls a soldier outside Sa Dec stepping on a Bouncing Betty: the blast left Bon unharmed but castrated the man, who survived. Bon’s tension and refusal to let the narrator turn on the radio connect the planned killing to his memories of war. The narrator says he wants the major to feel nothing, making the intended manner of the killing part of his preparation.

The narrator approaches the major in the carport with a plastic bag presented as a United States Independence Day gift. It contains firecrackers and oranges. Bon waits concealed nearby, but when the major turns toward him, Bon pauses before firing. He then shoots the major, and the narrator retrieves the bag and joins Bon in leaving. Their encounter has transformed the gift into a means of luring the target within reach; the ordinary greeting and holiday pretext end in the major’s death.

As they drive away, the narrator describes feeling numb. Bon explains that he could not shoot the major in the back, while the narrator reflects that the major did not feel anything and wonders instead whether he himself feels anything. In an alley, they replace the stolen plates with the car’s legitimate ones. At home, the narrator notices blood on the toes of his white sneakers and wipes them clean before calling the General to report that the task is done.

Aftermath and Moral Consequences

At home, Bon emptied the crapulent major’s wallet onto the coffee table. Its contents included identification, receipts, a small amount of cash, and photographs: one of the major and his wife on their wedding day, another of their infant twins. The narrator ordered the photographs burned and planned to dispose of the wallet, the license plates, the gift bag, and the ashes. The ordinary traces of a private life made the killing harder to keep at the level of an operation.

The two men drank rye while television programs celebrated the United States Bicentennial celebration, then ate three of the oranges from the gift bag. The public spectacle presented a nation recovered from its recent foreign campaigns, while the narrator’s attention returned to the murder. He describes the crapulent major’s third eye as an image that remained with him whether his own eyes were open or closed: the killing had become an accusation he could not put away.

In a later account to The Commandant, the narrator says the crapulent major’s death troubled him because the man was relatively innocent. He contrasts his isolation in the reeducation camp with his former Sunday conversations with Man at the basilica, where he had brought other moral doubts, including the consequences of passing Man film of a Ranger battalion’s assault plans. The narrator understands Man’s revolutionary answer—that revolutionaries cannot be innocent because they know and have done too much—but the principle does not absolve him. The assassination thus leaves its central contradiction unresolved: the narrator helped carry out a political killing and can explain its logic, yet the major’s death remains a personal burden.

Corruption, Complicity, and the Limits of Absolution

Before the killing, the narrator had seen the crapulent major profit from the abuse of a tax collector: after the man was beaten for a week and judged not to be a Viet Cong operative, his wife brought the major a substantial bribe, from which the narrator received a share. He accepted it to avoid suspicion, then gave the money to Man at the basilica for the revolution. The episode complicates the narrator’s later insistence on the major’s relative innocence: the major’s corruption was real, but the narrator’s own participation in it was real as well. Claude had offered an explanation grounded in Original Sin, yet the narrator could not take comfort in a familiar doctrine learned from his father’s sermons. Neither the major’s wrongdoing nor the political cause erases the narrator’s involvement in the chain of corruption and violence.