“Tomorrow and tomorrow, Sadiki? Any o'clock? You bring ne ficky-ficky?”
“Maybe if you're good.”
Ali smiled at me, then tiptoed over to Reading. Reading, absorbed in his game, seemed not to notice the big man as he reached out slowly for Reading's nuts. Then, in a swift blur, Reading dropped his Game Boy, grabbed Ali's wrist, and lunged up, pulling his arm around his head and lifting him into the air, then bending him onto the concrete. Reading fell on the big hadji, pinning him with his knees, slapping his face.
“Shit fuck, shit ass, shit!” shouted Ahmed.
“You mota mota good, huh?” Reading asked Ali, slapping him, “You mota me, huh? Mota mota? Ali Dudeki? Ali Menuch?”
Ali grinned and tried to cover his face and buck Reading off, but Reading had him wrapped up. “You fucked with the wrong motherfucker, Ali. Now you're getting zip-zipped.”
“No, no,” Ali begged. “No zip-zip. Sadiki no zip-zip.”
“Then knock it the fuck off!”
“No zip-zip. Ali no zip-zip.”
“Alright, fucker,” Reading said, standing and helping Ali to his feet. “No zip-zipâthis time!”
Ali stood up and smiled shyly at Reading. “Sadiki,” he said, very seriously.
“What, fucker?”
“Tomorrow and tomorrow, you bring ne ficky-ficky? Any o'clock?”
“No, you fucking faggot.”
“Tomorrow you, you, meshi meshi, ficky-ficky?” Ali pointed at Reading, then at himself, then at the gate.
“What?”
Ali made moon eyes at Reading. “You, you, meshi meshi? Mota? Mota?”
“I think he wants you to go home with him,” I said.
“No fucking mota, dudeki!”
“Yeeeeeah!” Ahmed crooned. “Shit! Fuck! Shut up!”
Ahmed the hunchback went outside and started talking to the ICDC. Ali sat on the edge of my cot until I kicked him in the hip and he walked off, staring at Reading, who resumed his game. After a minute, Ahmed called Ali away.
“Fucking fag,” Reading muttered.
Explosions in the night. We tumble out of bed and throw on our armor and wait for more mortars. Silence. Half an hour later someone comes and tells us stand down. The next day there's a pit gouged out of the earth behind the guard shack.
Two EOD sergeants and a first sergeant from DIVARTY come down and do crater analysis, stepping in and out of the hole, divining esoteric data.
The radio squawked: “
Meeeow
.”
“What the fuck?”
“
Meeeow
.”
“It's the fuckers in the towers.”
“
Meeeow
.
”
“
This is Red Steel Seven. Whoever's doing that, you better knock it off right now
.
”
“
Meeeow
.”
“Fucking retards.”
“
Limit your radio traffic to essential messages. I'm serious. Red Steel Seven out
.”
“
Or I'll fuck you in your eyeballs! Fuck-a-
doodle-doo
!”
“
This is Red Steel Seven. Knock that shit off. Right now. I'm Serious.
”
“
Meeeow
.”
â¢â¢â¢
Clouds hung low over the mucky earth, turning everything gray. Shots had been fired at the guard tower in a drive-by, so everyone was on alert. Staff Sergeant Reynolds warned us Sergeant Major might be coming through. Reading worked his thumbs on the Game Boy.
“What fucking day is it?”
“Today?”
“No. Yesterday, motherfucker.”
“Yesterday was the day before.”
“What day today?”
“Fucking shit day.”
“Tuesday?”
“Whatever.”
Two ICDC guards sat smoking, flipping through my copy of the
Vanity Fair
issue with the big Michael Jackson exposé. One of the ICDC was younger, chubby, trying to grow a mustache and failing, the other was slightly older, his face pocked with acne scars. I watched them look at the fashion shots, the pictures of Neverland Ranch, the ads for J. Lo perfume and Patek Philippe watches.
“You like America?” I asked.
“Al-Ameriki?” the younger one said.
“Yeah. America good?”
“Yes, al-Ameriki good,” he beamed.
“Michael Jackson good?”
“Yes yes, Michael Jackson.
Ee-hee
. Very good.”
“You like Bush? Bush good?”
“Boosh good yes.”
“How 'bout Saddam? You like Saddam?”
“Saddam no good. Saddam Ali Baba,” the older one said, stamping his foot and spitting.
“You Shi'a?”
“Sunni.”
“Ayatollah Sistani good?”
He shrugged.
“Moqtada al-Sadr good?”
“Al-Sadr very good,” the young one said.
“Shi'a?” I pointed at the young one.
“Naam. Shi'a.” He pointed at himself.
“Bush good, no Saddam?”
“Saddam no good.”
“Bush no good,” I said, shaking my head. “Bush Ali Baba.”
“No!” the older one said, aghast.
“Saddam, Bush, same-same,” I said. “Ali Baba, Ali Baba.”
“No, Boosh good,” the young one said.
“Ali Baba,” I said.
The older one pointed at me. “You Christ-ian?”
“La. No god.”
He seemed cross: “Yes God.”
“La.”
He shook his head. “No good.”
There was a bang at the door. I pointed at the young one and pointed at the door, got up and grabbed my rifle, and followed him to it. “F
'
tal bob,” I said, and he unlatched the gate and put his shoulder to and slid it open.
A middle-aged hadji stood outside in a dishdasha. A couple more stood behind him.
“Salaam a-leykum,” I said.
“Leykum-a-salaam,” he said back, bowing slightly.
“What's up?”
He started talking Arabic, then “Boom, boom, koom-ballah. Ali Baba.” He gestured back for one of his friends to come up.
“We have information,” the guy said. “Bomb and bad yes.”
“Okay, hold on.” I turned back to Reading. “Fucker,” I shouted. He looked up from his game.
“What?”
“Get on the radio and see if you can get a translator.”
“For what?”
“This guy says he has information.”
“About what?”
“About your mom. Fucking call somebody.”
Reading picked up the walkie-talkie and called Staff Sergeant Reynolds. They talked back and forth for a minute then Reading shouted, “Sergeant Reynolds gonna go see if he can get one.”
“Call up Red Steel Main and see what they say.”
“What I tell 'em?”
“Tell them we have an Iraqi who says he has information on a bomb.”
“He got a bomb?”
“He has
information
on a bomb.”
“Information.”
“Yeah.”
“So what?”
“So call Red Steel Main.”
He picked up the other walkie-talkie and called Red Steel Main. He talked to them for a few minutes, then shouted at me: “They say he gotta go to Foxtrot Gate.”
“That's the one on the south side, right?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Staff Sergeant Reynolds called Reading back so I waited, and when they were done Reading shouted, “He said he can't find a translator, and I told him Red Steel Main said send him to Foxtrot Gate and he said that's fine.”
I turned back to the hadjis.
“You go around, go to Foxtrot Gate,” I gestured around, pointing toward the southwest edge of the FOB.
“We have in-formation,” the one said again.
“Yeah, I know. You have to go around.”
“Go round?”
“Yeah, Foxtrot gate. The other bob.”
“You help? Ali Baba?”
“No, go around. You gotta go to the other bob.”
“We have in-formation. Koom-ballah.”
“Yeah, I understand, but you gotta go around. Salaam,” I said, grabbing the gate and yanking on it. “Sit'l bob,” I shouted at the ICDC.
The hadjis started shouting in Arabic, but we closed the gate and latched it and went back and sat down.
We got off shift. Daytime, nighttime. I slept about five hours. When I got up, I worked out, cleaned my rifle and watched
Malcolm in the Middle
. Reading slept.
We lost track of the other guys, the daily patrols, what the fuck was happening. We started talking all the time in pidgin English. The big news was that one patrol got attacked by a retarded kid throwing rocks. He threw a rock and hit Bullwinkle in the face, knocking out one of his teeth. The patrol stopped and Lieutenant Krauss and Nash covered the kid.
The kid picked up another rock.
“Put the rock down,” Nash shouted, but the kid lifted it up like he was gonna throw, so Nash shot him in the chest.
Healds was with them, so he patched the kid up, then they drove him to the hospital in the Green Zone.
A week or so later they got me and Reading up in the middle of the day, when we were trying to sleep, and made us go down to formation. They had a little ceremony and awarded Nash a Bronze Star for valor. Captain Yarrow talked about what a great job he'd done defending the patrol.
“The only thing Nash did wrong was forget his training,” the captain said. “We trained and trained,
two
rounds center mass! Maybe next time you'll get it right!” Yarrow chuckled.
Nash stared straight ahead.
Reading sat watching
Friends
. I read Chomsky's
For Reasons of State
. Headlights flashed at us from down the road and I shouted at Reading to hide his DVD player. I put on my Kevlar and stood and grabbed my rifle. A big black SUV rolled up and a sergeant got out.
“At ease,” he said. “You on guard here?”
“Roger.”
“Listen, there's a suspected VBIED attack tonight. We've got jammers in here but you gotta shut down your radios while they work.”
“Uh, alright. Let me call up higher and let them know.”
I called up Red Steel and Staff Sergeant Gooley and let them know we were gonna be out of radio contact. Red Steel verified the jammers had priority. I shut off the radios and the sergeant said thanks then climbed back in his truck.
Reading went back to
Friends
. I went back to my book. They stayed there for about two hours, then the sergeant opened his window and told us we could turn our radios back on. After that they left.
Ali Dudeki came by and asked for ficky-ficky magazine. I offered him the Michael Jackson
Vanity Fair
but he didn't want it.
“You bring ne ficky-ficky tomorrow, any o'clock?” he asked. “Tomorrow and tomorrow?”
“No ficky,” I told him. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”
Â
i can't tell you if the use of force
in iraq today will last five days,
five weeks, or five months,
but it won't last any longer than that
Â
Â
Seven days and a wake-up, then I'm on the first chalk out, with Sergeant Chandler, the newly promoted Sergeant Nash, and Bullwinkle. The rest of the battery would stage at BIAP, then drive to Kuwait, where they'd fly out as Chalks 2 and 3, leaving behind a small rear-detachment to port-load the equipment. Seven days, then freedom.
We got up and went to the gym, then Sergeant Chandler, Sergeant Nash, Bullwinkle, and I went to breakfast, then to the internet café. We checked our email. I read the news. Four American contractors had been killed in Fallujah and lit on fire, their burned bodies strung up over a bridge.
We went back to the tents we'd moved into and relaxed until lunch. At around three we went to the gym again and lifted. Then dinner, then we came back and showered, then we went to the hadji coffee shop for cappuccinos and ice cream. Then we came back to the tents and played volleyball till the sun set.
That night there was a mortar attack, three rounds. We sat in the dark in our battle rattle, waiting.
Slept in and after a late start, Sergant Chandler, Sergeant Nash, Bullwinkle, and I went to breakfast, then to the internet café. We checked our email. I read the news. There were protests and riots in Sadr City. Baghdad was in flames. I googled airline tickets from Frankfurt to Athens. Since Sunday was our rest day, me and Sergeant Chandler skipped the gym but Sergeant Nash went anyway, and around 1630 we met him at the chow hall for dinner.
“You read about this fucking Moqtada militia shit?”
“The protests?”
“Fucking Moqtada al-Sadr and his goddamned Mahdi Army. Shit's going crazy. Najaf, Karbala, Basra. Everywhere. Even here in Sadr City.”
“Fallujah, too.”
“Yeah, but that's fucking Sunnis.”
“Man, I can't wait to get back to Germany,” Sergeant Chandler said. “I got this girl there, we're emailingâshe just emailed me some fucking naked pictures of herself. I don't even hardly know her.”
After dinner we went to the hadji coffee shop for cappuccinos, then went back to the tents.
Staff Sergeant Gooley stood waiting. “Where the fuck were you guys?”
“Same place we go every day, Sergeant.”
“We got a platoon briefing in two mikes.”
So we went over and Staff Sergeant Smith and Lieutenant Krauss sat on MRE boxes and told us we needed to sign out with our chief whenever we left the tents, and also we had to get all our ammo together to be collected. They told us the nearest shower trailer was off-limits because it was broken. They said Second BCT had been extended and deployed to Najaf to assist putting down the Mahdi uprising, but as of yet nothing had changed about our redeployment. We were also told a convoy was going to BIAP tomorrow and they asked for volunteers. Sergeant Chandler and I looked at each other, then away. Sergeant Nash raised his hand. Four days.
Got up and did PT. Read the news. Moqtada al-Sadr had called for a general uprising against the CPA.
That night, as I was coming back from the showers, I could see the guys returning from the convoy. I ran into Sergeant Nash, strung out and sweaty, carrying a load of ammo into our tent.
“'Sup, Sergeant. What happened?”
“We got fucking ambushed is what the fuck happened.”
“Shit. Everyone okay?”
“Yeah, it's a fucking wonder.”
“Get anybody?”
“They ambushed us and fucking ran. Two RPGs and then small arms. We had the fucking colonel with us and the stupid fucker stops the convoy in the middle of the kill zone and gets out and starts directing traffic. Like we're a fucking I don't know what. I almost shot the fucker myself.”
Lieutenant Juarez gave the briefing that night. He told us about adjustments to the ROE. The Mahdi Army could be identified by a green armband or a green flag. They were considered combatants, and we were to engage them with deadly force.
That night we woke to another mortar attack. One explosion, then one more. I looked at Sergeant Chandler in the bunk opposite. He looked sideways at all the other guys slowly getting up and putting on their gear, then rolled over and went back to sleep. There was another explosion, then I went back to sleep, too.
Got up and went to the gym then to breakfast then the internet.
Each platoon designated a counter responsible for collecting all our rounds and grenades. We each kept one thirty-round mag each, but everything else went in cans to hand over to 1st Cav.
At around three we went to the gym and lifted, then to dinner, then to the coffee shop for cappuccinos. After that we came back and played volleyball and watched videos till it got dark.
About twenty minutes later, we were rousted for stand-to.
“Command's expecting an attack on the FOB tonight,” Lieutenant Krauss said, “so gear up and stand by.”
We got all gussied up then stood around bitching about having only thirty rounds apiece. When the LT came back, he picked five guys, including me, to ride in the back of C27. We were assigned to secure the northeast corner of the tents. Another five were put in C26 and sent to the southwest corner, and everyone else was QRF.
“They're expecting some kind of concentrated attack, so eyes and ears open. Maintain radio contact. If you see something, fucking radio it up first. The last thing we need is a friendly-fire incident.”
There was some shooting far away, a lot of shooting closer, a couple more pops very close, then quiet. After about ten minutes or so, we heard a barrage of machine-gun fire from the south wall.
Then the shooting died out and we waited another forty or fifty minutes before the call came to stand down. We got back to the tent and asked what happened but nobody knew, so we went to bed.
Thursday. Our Big Day. Chalk 1 got up and got our shit together and staged at 0545 for an SP time of 0630. Our convoy of five-tons was ready, but our escorts hadn't shown, so they told us stand by. At about 0730, they told us to go get chow and report back by 0900.
Bullwinkle, Sergeant Chandler, Sergeant Nash, and I went to breakfast. We ate a big meal and grabbed extra fruit and rolls and boiled eggs for later.
“I can't fucking wait till I touch down on German soil. I swear to God I'm gonna fall on my knees and kiss the ground.”
“I'm gonna kiss the first fucking German girl I see right on the lips. Just grab her.”
“Shit, I'm gonna kiss the first fucking German I see no matter what. Klaus, Dieter, Heinrich, Adolf. I give a fuck.”
“You know, we've been here so long, that ain't even gay.”
Bulldog Battery had already sent out their first chalk all the way to the airfield at Balad. We watched the last company of 82nd Airborne roll out.
We waited until 0850, then found Staff Sergeant Gooley and asked what was up. “Stand by,” he said. “Stand by until further notice.”
We waited. Some guys smoked, some guys slept. At 1015 they told us mount up. We cheered and loaded our gear in the back of the five-ton, clambered aboard, then waited, grinning like retards at lunchtime.
“Let's go!” Sergeant Nash shouted.
“What the fuck's the holdup?”
“Can you drive a five-ton?”
“I can, but I don't have a flight manifest.”
At ten minutes to eleven, Staff Sergeant Gooley came out and told us to download our gear and take it back to the tents.
“What the fuck, Sergeant?” Bullwinkle shouted.
“Your LT'll brief you. Download your gear.”
“Negative, Sergeant. Negative on that.”
“What the fuck's going on, Sergeant?”
“You'll be briefed by your platoon. Don't make me tell you again.”
We dispersed, dragging our bags behind us. Inside Second Platoon's tent, Lieutenant Krauss stood down at one end talking. He was saying words but not words. I couldn't hear anymore. The air was like water, like I couldn't breathe, like if somebody bumped me wrong I'd slide floating across the sky.
It sounded like something ninety days or until complete. Something about Karbala. Something mission essential. Something about not wanting to hear any fucking bitching, because we were soldiers and we were called on by our commander-in-chief, the President of the United States of America, and we would do our duty with pride.
T
he fog rolled
in off the sea, clouding the trees, closing in on the mountain so that when I woke it was as if from sleep to waking dream, a mirage of insubstantial gray pierced by great black spires. I'd make myself coffee and inhale the chill air and roll a cigarette and think.
I'd sit at the formica table in the trailer and, staring through the mesh behind the slatted windows into the fog, drink my coffee and scratch poems onto notebook paper, poems about the way memory shifts in and out of focus, the way we imagine things that never happened and remember other things wrong, the daily reconstruction work of being, who I am, what I'm doing, how can I be the same I was before and who am I tomorrow.
Sometimes I'd go out into the mist and listen to all the green held thick in the moist air, my palm on the trunk of a tree just to feel the heft of it. Sometimes a deer would come through, wild and wary, and I would fill with longing for the wholeness of animal life.
It took the sun a long while to come over the mountains and until it did my vision was bound to the few gray yards around the trailer. It was day but not day, dim but not night, a fugue of half-thoughts and disconnected images, pulsing with power beyond easy meaningâa crow flapping, glowing black against the grayâa shadow like a man crouched with a knifeâparking lots aching with pink blurâso overwhelmed by thought I'd have to sit back, set down the pen, set down my coffee, and it goes onâglass towers gleaming out of gray cityscapes, blinding silverâan old man with a red guitarâthe booming flame of rockets trailing smokeâa girl's face, her freckled cheek downy with fine hairs, fleshy lips spread in a smile over crooked teeth. I sink in reverieâand what, what does it mean?âthen scrape a few more lines with my pen. Nothing even approximate. Another failure.
I'd moved that June into the mountains just outside Newport because my uncle had finally bought a house and moved out of his trailer. He wasn't sure what to do with the land, so he said I could stay there over the summer if I did a little work for him. There's no TV, he warned me, no cable, no internet, no phone, no mail, but I could get letters delivered in town.
I was at loose ends, which I'm sure my mom had told him. I'd spent the winter in Eugene, taking a couple classes at Lane Community College and working as a delivery driver for an organic juice company. I'd been dating this girl but it ended badly and I was itchy to move on, tired of the scene with all its dreadlocked anarchists, tired of weed and patchouli, the protests to save trees, stop globalization, and free Mumia. I thought about trying again with the old ex-girlfriend up in Portland, but that just made me feel worse.
My uncle's offer seemed perfect. It'd give me a chance to get
my head on straight, really figure shit out. I thought I could work part-time and write some poems, maybe finish that screenplay. A good word from my aunt got me work at the bookstore, which was more than enough to get by. I closed shop three nights a week and the rest of the time just chilled, read, smoked a little weed, and helped my uncle with his odd jobs. I wrote letters to the ex-girlfriend in Portland. I wrote poetry. I hung out with this guy named J.J. who worked at
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
I hung out with Lisa from the bookstore and her husband, Mike, a house painter. I met a girl named Alice at Nana's Irish Pub and we started hooking up. She was a total flake, which I guess is sort of what I wanted.
The sun came over the rise around ten, burning off the fog, unveiling vivid green. I'd lose my sense of boundlessness then, my dreamscape of wandering intellection, and come back to the blood-filled breath of life, the hum of bugs and the warmth of sunlight. I'd come back to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing, that I was killing time, that when I went into town later I'd be the same aimless transient I was yesterday, still no goal, no point to my story.
Often I'd hike to the top of the mountain, about two miles from the trailer, to a clear-cut along the ridge where the view opened and beyond my farthest gaze unrolled the wide Pacific's endless sweep.
I'd watch the blue waves and think, today you're coming up with a plan. You're gonna figure your shit out. You going back to school? You gonna get certified at something, get a real job, be a plumber or a nurse or tend bar? Thirty wasn't quite around the corner but it wasn't so far away, either, and I felt the need to do some thing, accomplish some thing, do something
real.
Oh, sure, I knew it was all a con. I knew the system was out to get me. I knew we all wanted to be free and live our lives and make art and all that bullshit, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd been to the dentist. And what if I broke a leg, or got sick, or hit by a car? How would I pay for anything? And why did my circle of friends seem to be shifting, turning seedier, more addiction-prone, less aware of their own lives as a series of choices they'd made and more inclined to ascribe to events wholly metaphysical causesâI just had a feeling, you know, it was like the universe gave me a sign, sometimes you do a reading and it's just like so spot on, it was like there was this voice telling me
. . .Â
How much longer would it take till I was trapped in a world without responsibility, where things just sort of happened and we all just got along, stumbling in a fuzz of pot smoke, excuses, and superstition?