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| There's the chippie, and there's the tank right behind her. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).
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| Gallery, vol. 2, no. 2. |
The story: "Tank Town Chippie," originally published in Gallery, vol. 2, no. 2, April/May 1973. Credited to "Ann Gora."
Synopsis: The Vietnam War is winding down, so all the American soldiers will soon be headed home. This is bad news for a Vietnamese prostitute nicknamed Cobra, since she'll be losing her main source of income. Before the war ends, she needs to land an American husband. She sets her sites on a virginal soldier named Tony Armando. She manages to convince him she's a virgin, and they begin a relationship. Tony tells her that, back home, he only makes $100 a week at a factory. Cobra thinks this is plenty of money, and she marries Tony the day before he ships out. After some bureaucratic hurdles, she's allowed to move to America and rejoin her husband, only to find that Tony lives in a hovel. It isn't long before Cobra seeks out the wealthier neighborhoods in the area so she can resume her previous occupation.
Wood trademarks: "Tank town" (cf. Bride of the Monster); prostitution (cf. "The Hooker," "Private Girl," etc., etc.); soldiers at war (cf. "No Atheists in the Grave"); snake imagery (cf. Orgy of the Dead, Necromania); living in poverty in a crummy apartment (compare to Ed's own life); "love nest" (euphemism for vagina, cf. "Private Girl," "Scream Your Bloody Head Off").
Excerpt: "Six months later she was with him… in the sleazy tenement type apartment with the yelling brats, the mice and the cockroaches at nights… the smells of all the neighbors’ cookings and the rotting cellars, and the unclean clothing which had been hung out to dry… or hung in the halls…."
Reflections: I was really looking forward to "Tank Town Chippie" because of the story's outrageous title, an unlikely combination of two outdated slang terms. I figured, based on Ed's other stories, that the main character would be a prostitute or at least a woman of loose morals. I knew the term "chippie" from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and a Woody Allen story called "The Kugelmass Episode." And, yeah, that's pretty much what Ed's story is about.
But I never would have guessed that the "tanks" of the title would be literal Army tanks. I guess I should not be entirely surprised, since Eddie's novel Mama's Diary (1969), adapted to film as Operation Redlight, involves a chain of brothels in Vietnam. Apparently, Eddie was eager to return to that world. Perhaps it would give him an opportunity to relive his days as a Marine during World War II. Ed might not have seen much action back then, but I'm sure he made the acquaintance of a few prostitutes along the way.
My own knowledge of Vietnamese prostitutes is pretty much limited to the infamous "Boots Are Made for Walking" scene from Full Metal Jacket, featuring Papillon Soo Soo and her famous line, "Me love you long time!"
Thematically, "Tank Town Chippie" is another one of Ed's ruminations on deception and identity shifting. He loves to have his characters deceive each other. Cobra, as devious as her reptilian nickname suggests, misrepresents herself outrageously to poor, dumb, trusting Tony. Again, I was surprised -- in a good way -- by the direction this story took. I thought that squalid domestic life with a blue collar factory worker was going to be Cobra's ultimate punishment for being untruthful back in Vietnam, but that's not how this story goes. She doesn't change one bit once she's in America, and she learns nothing. It's pretty clear, then, how Ed Wood felt in the great debate about whether whores can ever become housewives.
Next: "Never Fall Backwards" (1972)