Fire and Forget (26 page)

“Don't worry,” he said, waving an arm in a gesture of beneficence, approaching closer. “We're not gonna hurt you. I want to show you something.”

The older girl glanced down the path like she was thinking about making a break for it.

“No,” he said, his expression oddly serene. He moved his right hand behind his back. “Don't do that. I have a gun.”

Standing behind him, I could see very well he didn't. I stepped forward.

The younger girl started to cry. “Please don't kill us,” she said.

“I told you I wouldn't. But don't run.” He dropped his cane and began to unzip his fly. “I need to show you something. You should see what they did to me.”

He started to pull down his jeans, slowly, as if this were a striptease. The younger girl stepped back, her mouth half-open. Like diseased, molten flesh, scar tissue covered Sleed's left hip, now exposed. This was not right. This had gone too far. Before it could go any further, I rushed him and shoved him to the ground.

“Run,” I said. “Get as far away as you can.”

The girls took off. Sleed struggled to get up. I tackled him. We wrestled around on the ground, tussling, ending up with me on my back, him on top facing away, my legs wrapped around him, feet in his crotch, his neck in the crook of my forearm—a rear naked choke, a move taught to every private in basic. I cranked down. Sleed struggled valiantly, tensing his neck, clawing at my arm, and rocking back and forth, but I had him in a superior position, and without a solid base he didn't have the leverage to shake me from his back. His face turned red and then purple as blood drained of oxygen. His thrashing stopped and I felt him go limp. I released the choke and shoved him off. Scooting up, I
grabbed his cane to use as a weapon, just in case he had any fight left in him. It seemed doubtful. He looked downright pitiful, out cold, his jeans still unzipped around his thighs. He was a mess, down there, like a chewed-up Ken doll.

His limbs jerked involuntarily as his brain came back online. He took a deep, whooping lungful of air, then, wracked by coughing, rolled over on his side and pulled up his pants. He remained there in the fetal position until he caught his breath, at which point he began to drag himself toward a hickory growing near the bench where the girls had been sitting. His prosthesis had come loose in the struggle and lay disembodied in the center of the path. I placed his cane beside it. He made it to the tree and sat with his back against it, holding onto himself carefully and delicately.

I turned and started to walk away, back to the trailhead and whatever waited.

Sleed called out after me. “Hey, Rooster. It's funny. I can feel my heart beat through the leaves.”

It didn't sound like something he would say. I left him there, lying against the hardwood. Hailstones began to fall. They hit Big Hunting Creek like bullets ricocheting off depleted uranium armor.

“
R
EMEMBER KNOBLOCH?”

“IED, right?”

“Yeah. Mosul.”

“Motherfucker sure could play Texas Hold 'Em.”

“Damn straight.”

We were standing around after the memorial service. Seven of us, the ones who'd made it this far.

The afternoon wind kicked up and we bent our heads, tucking up under our Kevlars. Two of us realized the dust covers on our 16s were open and clicked them shut. To someone passing by, it might have looked like we were praying, huddled in a tight circle of faith and brotherhood.

Bullshit. It was just the motherfucking wind.

But yeah, God and the hereafter and all that come-unto-me crap was fresh in our minds, since we'd just wrapped up Carter's memorial service. We could hear the dog tags clicking against the receiver on Carter's downturned M16.

Twenty minutes ago, First Sergeant had bellowed out the roll call in the formal tradition of army memorial services. It was
down in a corner of the FOB, this makeshift outdoor theater where the Fobbits came for their entertainment—movies and boxing matches and USO shows. Last week, there'd been a country-western singer and two
Maxim
“Girls Next Door” signing autographs right where we were sitting.

Now it was set up for the memorial service. A plywood stage, rows of plastic chairs, a three-tiered platform that looked like something you'd see at the Olympics. At the top of the pyramid—the gold-medal winner—were the 16, the dog tags, and a pair of boots. Those boots weren't Carter's—his had cooked to char in the Bradley. These were a fresh pair someone had procured from Supply.

In front of the boots was a picture—a portrait someone had printed out on a computer and taped to the back of an MRE box. The face, at least, was Carter's. He was all sunglasses and attitude, real Clint Eastwood. The dumb fuck.

The chaplain had had his say and now First Sergeant stood up there in front of us, his face all red and puffy and shit. He unfolded the company roster and held it in both hands. He had to cough a couple of times before he could shake the words loose.

“Sergeant Guerrero!”

“Here, First Sergeant!” Guerrero answered.

“Specialist Kleinman!”

“Here, First Sergeant!” Kleinman replied.

“Staff Sergeant Daniels!”

“Here, First Sergeant!” Daniels responded.

“Private First Class Carter!”

Silence.

“Private First Class Carter!”

Silence. A faint rustle as some of us shifted in our seats. The wind picked up again and rippled Carter's face.

“
Private First Class Carter!
”

Still no answer.

First Sergeant stopped there and folded the roster. For a minute nothing happened. Even though we knew it was coming, we flinched when the volley cracked the air to our left.

Then we all lined up and, one at a time, walked forward to have our moment with Carter, saying whatever we needed to say to his rifle and boots.

Now we pulled in tight together against the wind. We cupped our cigarettes and made the best of it.

“How about Goldman from over in Delta? 'Member that faggot?”

“Shit yeah. Me and him bunked together for three weeks in Kuwait.”

“Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.”

“Why you wanna bring up Goldman anyway?”

“He just came to mind, that's all.”

“Well, next time, keep it to yourself.”

“What the fuck? Sorry.”

We fell silent, remembering the last time we'd seen Goldman on Route Irish. His chest plate had cracked and his DCU top had ripped open. You could see the wet jumble of Goldman's guts tumbling into the street. No one deserved to end up like that.

The wind surged in a roar, then died down like it was pondering some heavy shit, then started back up like before.

“Oh, fuck. Private Martinez?”

Someone barked a laugh. “Yeah. Shit. Little Manny the Moocher.”

A few of us chuckled.

“Damn, he was slick.”

“Like grease on butter.”

“He get hit by a sniper or something?”

“Hell no, asshole, he was in the Humvee that day. The one that went into the canal.”

“He
was
in there, wasn't he? Damn. Him and Sergeant Randolph.”

“Fuckin' Martinez. ‘Hey man, you gotta smoke? Gotta smoke?' Motherfucker never bought a pack of smokes in his entire shit-eating life. ‘Gotta smoke?'”

“Yeah, fuckin' Martinez.” Nobody mentioned his wife and kids, but those of us who smoked raised our cigarettes in salute.

“And Navarro.”

“Fuck
yeah
, Navarro.”

“Funny as fuck.”

“Damn straight.”

We thought about Navarro and his Kevlar. Huddled there, each of us imagined cupping that empty helmet in our hands, just as we had three months ago. On that day, standing beside the IED crater, we passed that Kevlar from hand to hand like a communion tray. We looked at what was inside. The paint-splash of brain, the splinters of bone, small as clipped fingernails. In the dry canal to our left, bitter smoke rose from a tire that wouldn't stop smoldering. The helmet went around. One of us lifted it to his face, announced it smelled like pussy. It sounded like something Navarro would have said.

“That Navarro,” one of us said now as we smoked after Carter's service.

“Fucker always had a joke.”

Somebody coughed, and it was like something hard came loose: the names started pouring out, dropping to the dirt in the center of our circle. It was like a game to see who could remember the most.

“Sanders, Washington—”

“—Hemmings, Arcala, Martinez—”

“We already said Martinez.”

“Bebout, Kaufman—”

“Kaufman doesn't count.”

“So, a foot and punched-out kidney don't count?”

“I'm just saying, he got medevacked. If you're gonna be consistent—”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, why don't you shut the fuck up? Kaufman counts.”

“Whatever.”

“As I was saying: Bebout,
Kaufman
, White—”

“Sterrett, that clerk-n-jerk in headquarters. And what the fuck was that fucker doing outside the wire anyway?”

“And Coston from 3–7.”

And on it went until finally First Sergeant called to us, his voice barking but gentle in a way we rarely heard. We looked over our shoulders. He was standing by the Humvees, waving his arm impatiently.

We stood, shouldered our rifles, sucked down one more drag from our smokes, then finger-flicked them into that motherfucking wind.

On the way back, we passed the jagged remains of Carter's Bradley parked in the sun-blasted motor pool. Nobody looked. We didn't want to keep thinking about Carter trapped in there, roasting like meat in an oven, rounds cooking off in his face. We'd already been at it all day, and still had a full shift waiting for us when we got back—not even any rack time, just pull up, load up, get the coordinates, then roll back out. We didn't have time to get distracted by Carter and his fucking dog tags slapping the side of his rifle.

Later, at the next memorial service, maybe we'd bring up his name and talk about it. Those of us who were still around.

“
I
'M SORRY TO BRING IT UP.”
Brett leaned across the table and placed his hand on Liz's arm. “But has he been, I mean, did he . . .”

At a coffee shop table overlooking a grey Koko Marina, Liz poured sugar into her mug. A summer wind wailed in the afternoon; palm trees and docked sailboats swayed to its will. A light rain rapped at the roof and the concrete sidewalks. Though the only customers in the shop, Liz kept her voice low and measured.

“No, no, it's okay,” she said. “And no, not anything like that. I'm sorry, Brett. We should study. We need to study.” She pointed to the law books piled on the table, but Brett, dressed in a checkered, button-up shirt, khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a yellow bracelet with the words “Live Strong” etched into it, shook his head.

“It's fine. That can wait. Talk to me.”

She sipped her coffee and laughed. “I just don't know anymore. Last week, I woke up and saw the light on in the living room.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I got up to see if everything was alright. And Will was sitting there on the couch, holding a poster of that Sadr guy.”

“Who?”

“He's an Iraqi terrorist. He brought it back with him from the last deployment.” She was silent for a moment, then continued. “I told him to throw it away a year ago. I think it was a year ago. It freaks me out. His counselor told him keeping stuff like that wouldn't help him move on. It's all crinkled up and has Arabic scrawl on it and terrorists in the desert with guns—big guns—and a big red moon and that creepy, creepy fat man. It's terrible.”

“Then what happened?”

“I told him to put it away because I thought it might trigger something. And then he turned to me and said, ‘Why the long face, killer?' I grabbed the poster and ripped it up and threw it away. He wouldn't . . . he wouldn't come back to bed.”

“What did he say the next morning?”

“We didn't discuss it. He doesn't like talking about his freak-outs. And they really don't happen that much, especially compared to some of the other guys. You should see what their wives and girlfriends have to put up with.”

“I don't even know what to tell you,” Brett said, removing his hand from Liz's arm. Their skin glowed with the layer of warm sweat native to the islands. Brett looked out the far window at a cluster of thunderheads cresting the mountains. He'd normally see a series of jagged, green cliffs and ridgelines, but the clouds concealed all of this. “I'm sorry, but I'm sick of him taking his issues out on you.”