Authors: David Zimmerman
I try to
stay behind for a moment so I can speak with the lieutenant about the Ahmed situation, but he orders me to leave. He takes off his steel-rimmed glasses and presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. I pause at the tent flap, hoping he’ll change his mind. When he bows his head, I notice a raw patch of scalp just behind his left ear. It’s a bald spot the size of an M16 bullet casing. I open my mouth to say something, but he shouts “Out!”
Ahmed waits outside with shovels. If I killed him, I’d probably be hauled up in front of a court-martial for murder, but I have no doubt he’s the most dangerous person on base. We walk to the burial place without speaking. The old woman hisses at us as we pass. Sergeant Guzman laughs.
“Durrant, your girlfriend here’s jealous of the little chickpea chicky who gave you that stuffed animal.”
Ahmed stares at me, puzzled. Then, something in his face changes. His eyebrows bunch up and his eyes narrow. He looks as though he’s doing long division in his head. When the answer finally comes, it arrives with a gruesome smile. “You have hajji girlfriend, Mr. Toby?”
I decide to ignore him.
“Who told you that?” I ask Sergeant Guzman with maybe just a tad too much anxiety in my voice. I immediately regret saying anything at all. I should have told him I do have a hajji girl and that she’s smoking-hot and puts out like a nickel slot machine. Then he’d think I was full of shit and forget the whole thing five minutes later. But no, I have to be a dumbass and act freaked out about it. Worst of all, Ahmed is standing here taking notes.
“Boyette.” Sergeant Guzman’s grin grows an inch wider. “He thinks you’ve got a girlfriend in town. Says she gave you an ugly stuffed dinosaur.”
It’s an elebear.
“Yeah, right,” I say, only now getting the tone right, when it’s too late to do any good. “Sure, Sarge, I’ve got a girlfriend in town. A real looker.”
“Maybe it is not girl,” Ahmed says with a sly and deeply repulsive grin. “Maybe it is little boy.”
My heart seizes up and stops completely.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Ahmed,” the sergeant says with fake sternness.
I cough up the obligatory laugh. Ahmed blinks at him and attempts to work out the joke.
Sergeant Guzman tries to help him. “Faggotry, little man, you hear me? I’m talking about ass-spelunking, cock-smoking, moustache rides.”
Ahmed looks lost, so the sergeant continues.
“Fudge-packing. Rectum-wrecking. Nutsack-nuzzling. Wiener—”
“I think he’s got the picture, Sergeant.” Jesus, what is it with soldiers and fag jokes? Nothing tickles a grunt’s funny bone faster than cracking wise about two men touching wee-wees.
“Nope,” Sergeant Guzman says, “look at him. I don’t think he does.”
Sure enough, Ahmed’s face could be an illustration of befuddlement.
“What is all this?” he asks me.
“Should I draw him a picture?” I say. “In the sand with a stick?”
For some reason this makes Sergeant Guzman break up laughing. Throughout this entire episode, the old woman glares at us from under her stained head wrap. I’d almost forgotten about her there for a mike. Thank God she doesn’t speak English. Ahmed laughs along in a polite but insincere way. His expression indicates that fake laughter gives him a feeling similar to a mild earache.
As we walk off, the old woman points at us and hisses something.
I look over at Ahmed for an explanation. He shakes his head furiously.
“She tells us not to bother the dead peoples with our sex parts.”
Maybe she does understand English.
When the old
woman drives her mule cart out through the gates, Ahmed tells me he needs to go back to the village. I see his purpose in his eyes. He wants the old woman. I’m filled with a rage so sudden and intense that I very nearly hit him with my shovel. Ahmed senses something and takes a few steps back.
“First,” I say, “let’s put away the shovels.”
I lead him to the storage area behind the garage. Wind whips sand across the parade ground. Somewhere a door creaks back and forth. This gives me an idea. When we step inside, I direct him to the small room where we store tools and extra uniforms. A few weeks ago, Cox had got stuck in here when the door closed behind him and locked. It was Ahmed who found him. I hand Ahmed my shovel.
“Watch out for the door,” I tell him.
He smiles warily. “Yes, the bad door.”
“Put them on the shelf at the very back,” I say. “I need to ask the sergeant something. Meet me at the gate and I’ll give you a ride into the village.”
“Yes,” he says, “I do not need ride.”
As soon as he disappears inside the storage room, I nudge the door with my foot. It creaks closed very slowly and locks.
I am the
only one in line for the telephone.
“Did you get my letter?” Clarissa asks. She doesn’t even say hello. Her voice is tight and she speaks very quickly. The line hums and crackles. There’s a half-second delay that drives me crazy. I’m tempted to hang up and call back. Our phone connection seems to get a little worse each time.
“No,” I say, “we haven’t gotten any mail in a while.”
“Damn,” she says, “I thought you would have gotten it by now. Why don’t you have e-mail any more?”
“I don’t know. It’s a crappy posting. We don’t have anything.”
“Damn,” she says again.
“Well, just tell me. I don’t mind reading it again.”
“Damn.”
“Whoa,” I say, “what’s going on, honey?”
“I’m seeing someone else.” The words tumble out of her mouth, almost on top of each other.
These are perhaps the worst words any soldier can hear from a loved one back home. It’s like hearing of a death in the family. Each of us with a girlfriend or wife worries over the possibility constantly. We listen for clues in the anecdotes of home life they tell. We read and reread the letters they send looking for meaningful absences, small slips. We talk about the stories we’ve heard of soldiers back home seducing other soldier’s wives. Jody stories. And although most men will tell you the worst possible thing one soldier can do to another is steal their girl while they’re stationed overseas, it is almost always another soldier who is responsible.
“What?” I say. “I don’t understand.” I don’t want to understand. I want to believe it’s a mistake, that I misheard.
“I met someone, Toby. It’s hard. I can’t—”
“Who?” I sound breathless, as though someone has just punched me in the gut, and that’s exactly what it feels like.
“Jack, from work.”
“But Clarissa—”
“I can’t do this any more, Toby. It’s not fair to either of us.”
“What can’t you do any more? Keep a guilty secret?” I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. “Was this a one-time thing, and it’s making you miserable keeping it from me? What is this? Do you mean you went on a date with him? Kissed him? What are we talking about here? Clarissa—”
“Stop,” she yells, her voice distorted by the earpiece. It’s too much emotion for the satellite to process, so it breaks it down into digital chunks. “Listen. I think we should end it, Toby. It was a bad idea. The whole thing. I’m too young. You’re too young. I can’t even remember why I liked you in the first place. We hardly know each other.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “It isn’t true. You know it.”
“It
is
true. You don’t really know me. I mean,
really
know me. At all. I’ve changed a lot. Look, Toby. It was a fun little thing, but we took it way too far too fast. I should have known better. It seemed romantic.
Romantic
. I actually remember thinking, I’m getting married to a soldier. La, la, la. Now I know what a load of bullshit that is.”
“Clarissa—” The muscles in my legs twitch and quiver.
“This stupid fucking war. If it wasn’t for you leaving to go over there, I would have thought it out more clearly. I’m not blaming you, Toby. I should have known better.
I
should have known. I should have—”
“Hold on, baby. Wait, wait, wait. Let’s not do something drastic. It’s this distance. It’s hard to talk. I couldn’t explain how it feels to be here even if I wanted to. I admit, it’s changed me some, too. That’s probably why you feel like you don’t know me any more. So when I get back, we’ll get to know each other all—”
“That’s not what I mean. You’ve got it backwards. Like always. Listen to me, Toby, I—”
“—over again, but I’m still basically the same guy you met that day in the nature preserve. And when I get back, we can pretend like we’re meeting up for the first time. I know what this is. I understand. I do, baby, I do. I’m lonely. I know you’re lonely. So you went on a date with some guy. So what? I don’t like it. I don’t like it all. But I can deal with it. Just tell him it’s over. It’s done with. We won’t talk about it again. Maybe you need to hang out with your family a little more. If not your parents, then Sarah. Go and see your sister—”
“You’re not listening to me, Toby. Stop. This is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like you don’t hear what I’m saying.”
“I hear what you’re saying. I just think you’re lonely and stressed out. You’ve got a baby coming. You’re not thinking straight. I forgive you, but—”
“I don’t want you to forgive me!” Clarissa shrieks. I pull the phone from my ear.
“What the hell was that?” I say.
“I can’t do it.”
“You’ve barely given it a chance. I’ll be back in a few months, and we can work this shit out. Baby. Honey. Come on. This will kill me. I’m not joking. You and the baby are all I have to come home to, to plan for—”
“No, Toby, no.”
“What about the baby?” I’m trying to maintain, but my anger slips away from me. “What about the fucking baby?”
“Don’t curse at me.”
“Sorry, but the baby is—”
“I don’t know, Toby. Okay? I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing to know. We have a baby coming. It deserves to have a mom and a dad.”
“That’s just it.” She sighs, filling the earpiece with a sound like an ocean storm. I think about the time we drank a jug of wine and spent the entire night on the beach at Tybee Island. The tide came in and woke us up. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can have it.”
That yanks me back. My eyes throb. They feel very dry.
“Don’t do this,” I tell her. I want to go down on my knees. “You can’t do this.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Jack says—”
“I don’t care what fucking Jack says. I’ll raise the baby. If you don’t think it’s a good idea, then
I’ll
raise it. My grandpa raised me by himself.”
“No, Toby, that’s different. You were older and—”
“I won’t let you do it. No fucking way. No one else is going to raise my child.”
“I’m not talking about adoption, Toby,” she says softly.
A strange sound comes out of my mouth.
“It’s
my
body,” she says.
“It’s half my child. If I could take it out of you and put it in me, I would. Or put a fucking lock on there and—”
“Don’t be stupid, Toby. You can’t lock up my womb like a safe. It’s not even a baby yet. It’s not much more than a clump of goo, a tablespoon of Goddamn jelly.”
“No,” I say, “no, no,
no
.” My voice gets louder with each word.
“It’s not your choice.”
“Don’t you fucking do this.”
“Read the letter,” she says, and hangs up.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I scream at the wall. Then I kick it.
Sergeant Guzman comes out of the office. “Don’t abuse my fucking trailer, Joe. I don’t care what Jody did to your girl. Go outside and kick a Goddamn rock if you want to break your foot on something.”
I give him a look. It must be a pretty ugly one, because he tenses up and squares his shoulders.
“Don’t do something stupid, Durrant.” He says this very quietly.
I close my eyes and shout, “Fuck.”
“You’re right about that, Joe,” Sergeant Guzman says. “That’s where all the trouble comes from. Hold up a sec.” He ducks into his office. When he comes back out, he tosses me something. It’s a cigar. “Cuban,” he says. “I bought it in the capital a couple of months ago. I was saving it for I don’t know the hell what. But. You need it more than me. Go take a walk around the wall. Blow some smoke.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I leave before something bad happens.
The cigar is
good. It tastes like a better life. One I might have had if my parents had taken a left instead of a right, if I had said no instead of yes, if I had kept my eyes on the ball, if I had cleaned my plate, brushed my teeth, and said my prayers. It tastes so good I can barely smoke it. The better life makes me choke a little.
The convoy rolls
in at four that morning. I wake to the sound of excited shouting. From this distance, it’s impossible to tell if this is good or bad. I jump into some pants and sprint to the mobilization point. A sharp wind whips dust across the base. The stars are so bright they bleed together. They left in two Humvees; they come back in one and a half. The lead vehicle is missing a bumper and two side windows. The doors are peppered with bullet holes. The armor kit seems to have worked, but just barely. The second Humvee’s windshield is demolished. There’s a hole the size of a basketball in the center and the rest of the glass is only held together by the sheet of plastic shatter-proofing. It sags.
I look around for Rankin. He’s not with the rest of them. The men look tired but relatively unharmed. Sergeant Oliphant has blood on his cheeks, but I can’t make out where it’s coming from. Boyette, Rankin, and Nevada are missing. I grab Doc Greer by the sleeve.
“Where is he? Where’s Rankin?”
Doc Greer stares at me, eyes blank. After a while he says, “Go look in the back. Your girlfriend’s sleeping like a baby.”
The relief is physical. Like when an abscess bursts and the pain melts away. For a moment, I was almost certain Rankin was dead.
“It was a close thing.” Doc Greer shakes his head and looks weary. “A cunt hair away from buying the ranch. If it wasn’t for the old woman, you wouldn’t be talking to me. I just fucking wish—”
“Old woman?”
But Sergeant Guzman pulls Greer away before he can answer me. “Come on, Doc. You can’t quit yet. Somebody still needs stitches.”
“What that
some
body needs is a halo,” Doc Greer mumbles as they walk off together.
Both Humvees are empty. The second one is splashed with gore. Blood covers everything. The muscles in my neck and shoulders contract. It’s too much blood. A human can’t lose this much blood and survive. In the starlight it looks like chocolate syrup. The back windows are smudged with bloody handprints. A puddle of blood thickens between the seats. Wads of bloody field-dressing pads cover the sandbags on the floor. Behind me someone shouts. And then howls. Thousands of brass shell casings glitter on the dashboard. Even these are smeared with blood. I don’t want to know. I really don’t. I want to stay here and hold this moment when I don’t know.