Knife (9780698185623) (4 page)

As Shaw made his way to the ramp a shorter man emerged from the dark behind Slausen, wearing the operators' mission tops and bottoms—a mixed salad of earth-toned camouflage. He had a salt-and-pepper crew cut cropped to cliffs on his head and the skin of his face was taut to the bone, lined like dried-out riverbeds. He offered his hand to Shaw and mumbled, “Shoot straight.” It sounded like he was chewing on gravel.

The man had four stars pinned to his top. His face, familiar from press conferences, took on a ghoulish pallor in the moonlight and the wrinkles cast deep shadows on his face. He looked like a corpse. Shaw realized that the man had just been appointed commander of Joint Operations and the new commander tried to strangle or otherwise break Shaw's hand. Shaw returned the death grip and the four-star clapped him on the shoulder. Shaw walked past him, and a priest standing at his side threw the sign of the cross at Shaw as his boots slapped the ridged base of the ramp. He felt the cool metal ridges under the balls of his feet.

A voice laughed out from behind him.

“No blessing, Father. I'm a Jew!”

“Then you're fucked!” someone answered from the dark.

Shaw smiled and the cabin of the bird filled with laughter.

The C-17 was a giant steel cross on wheels, more than half a football field in length, with a wingspan to match. Hundreds of men could cram into the empty cabin, but the squadron had two gun-mounted vehicles with .50-calibers on their roofs shackled down in the back of the bird and a few of the wooden pallets. The twenty men of Shaw's squadron could split up and enjoy the ample space left on the two birds as they saw fit, and the operators did so, spreading their belongings along the floor and canvas seats as if they were claiming territory in a dorm room. The other twenty men, of the other squadron, would do the same on the remaining two C-17s.

Shaw found a couple seats next to the shitter. He grabbed the seat closest to the plastic door and settled in to the canvas, Ambien in hand. He tried not to sleep a whole lot and didn't feel like tripping, so he aimed to trade. Some guys would give almost anything for the pills. Most men wanted as many pills as possible, but hounding medics would give off the impression of an aspiring doper, so they would get thrifty and trade among themselves. Hagan stood in front of Shaw right away. Hagan did not believe in caution.

“Neck pillow,” he said. “Neck pillow for your poppers.”

He thrust the black-padded crescent at Shaw, hadn't even sat down yet. Shaw nodded and tossed Hagan a pack and Hagan lobbed the pillow at Shaw's chest. Hagan took a seat across the aisle. He sat smiling and lusting at the packets, like they had naked women pasted on the plastic. Shaw sat on the pillow and waited for his ass to go numb as Massey moved Shaw's pack off the seat next to him and yelled over to Hagan.

“Did you trade with him, Hog?” Massey pointed his thumb at Shaw.

Hagan nodded and Massey asked for all of Shaw's packs. Shaw gave Massey the four he had left after trading and Massey held them up for Hagan to see.

“Oh, fuck you, butt buddies.”

Hagan flicked them off from across the aisle and Shaw laughed.

“Give him a couple more, Mass,” Shaw said.

Massey threw two packets across the aisle and shouted over the awakening engines. “Don't take more than three at once or they'll kill you.”

Hagan grabbed the three packs and mocked swallowing them all together. “Better these than Hajji.”

The ramp closed and guys started clearing space with their feet, calling spots on the floor and laying down their sleeping nests. Massey let himself sink into the canvas seat and drummed his fingers on his thighs. He looked at Shaw.

“I feel old, man. Tired.”

“We are old,” Shaw said. He put a chew in, a lighter one so he'd have less to worry about if he fell asleep, and tried to get comfortable in the canvas with the pillow under his ass. “And did you pop already?”

Massey nodded.

“Then there you go, bud. Shit'll make you drowsy before you nod off.”

Shaw offered him his pouch and Massey shook his head.

The metal clicks of belts buckling spread through the cabin of the aircraft and conversations died down. Everything seemed quiet for a second and then the frame of the bird shook as the engines fired up and drowned out the remaining voices. Guys shifted in their seats and ran things through their hands: rosaries, pictures, bullets that had been shot into their bodies and dug out by doctors, and other small stuff that wouldn't make much sense to anyone who wasn't holding it for luck. Shaw saw one guy holding a small pink blanket and running his fingers over a matching beaded bracelet on his wrist. Shaw remembered hearing about the daughter that'd just made the man a father a couple weeks ago. Dalonna had his eyes closed with some pictures on his lap and Cooke ran his fingers softly over his weapon, like it was an old guitar. Everyone looked at peace, calm.

Shaw didn't have anything to run through his fingers, but he was into smells during the fall in the South. The air is sweeter that time of year to a Yankee, especially when there's still a little heat left before the winter arrives and the leaves are starting to burn. He couldn't get enough of it the last couple weeks in September, had the windows open in his room at night and rolled down in his truck all the time. It was clean air. Pure. So he inhaled hard and tried to find any fresh air through all the exhaust fumes, hydraulic oil, and personal touches filling the cabin. The closest he got to the outside air smelled like a woman's perfume and he shrugged and figured Hagan probably had some panties in his bag. Then he thought of the waitress in the coffee shop and wondered if she'd watched him leave there a few hours before.

The bird rocked free from its blocks and carried them down the tarmac, away from their homes and families and dogs and cats and to a land that didn't want them.

•   •   •

T
he men were left to their thoughts during the flight carrying them to war. Fathers, brothers, and sons turned into trigger pullers while others enjoyed the highs from their Ambien or the whiskey they'd smuggled aboard. Shaw thought of his grandma, how for the first time she wouldn't be waiting for him on the Minnesota plains when he returned. Usually he'd get on the first flight back north after landing in the States and he'd let himself skip workouts for a whole week. Fatten himself on her cooking. She pampered him and he'd find himself venting, telling her classified information while they split a couple beers on the back porch, looking out over the snowdrifts or the mowed summer grass. He'd tell her about missions and she would shake her head lightly, not in judgment or displeasure but, so it seemed to him, out of a total surprise that the world moved as it did and that men like her grandson were involved in the pushing and pulling of it.

Hagan and Dalonna came across the aisle shortly after takeoff. The three of them got a poker game going with Massey and Slausen, but it wasn't serious—mostly just to kill the time until the Ambien kicked in. They were all terrible. The lights were blacked out in the cabin, so they played under red headlamps, legs splayed and locked with those of the next guy to form a playing surface on the floor. After the Ambien had weighed down his eyelids, Hagan kept saying, “Hit me,” and the rest of them stopped caring enough to tell him they weren't playing blackjack. They wouldn't hit him and he didn't seem to care. He must've just liked the way it sounded coming out of his lips while he was half asleep. Eventually he mumbled, “Bombers are fucked,” and then he grinned slightly and fell asleep sitting up. Dalonna checked Hagan's cards and then threw his own on the floor of the plane.

“Hog's got a damn flush,” he said. “I don't have shit.”

No one had anything to beat Hagan's hand, so they decided to quit as long as the sleeping one among them had the best hand.

“I'm gonna zone, boys,” Slausen said.

He put on his headphones and lay down across a couple seats above Hagan, who'd fallen asleep on the floor with his back propped up against a seat. Slausen was from Vermont, or maybe New Hampshire—somewhere in the woods of the Northeast—and seemed like he'd been a doper in a past life, or might still be. He'd pop an Ambien or any other sleep aid he had on hand, keep himself awake, and then ride out the high as long as it lasted. Then he would crash into a near coma. He'd come out of it with bloodshot eyes, snot and slobber splattered across his chin. After he put on his headphones he tore open a bag of pills, then another, and held the baggies delicately over his mouth, letting the white capsules tumble over his bearded lips. He crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. A smile spread across his face.

The temperature dropped the higher they flew, so Shaw and Massey took out fleece tops from their packs and Dalonna brought a field blanket out from his. Plumes of white breath started floating in the dark cabin like the clouds had seeped into the bird. The smell of moonshined whiskey and cool laundered clothing mixed with tobacco and farts and emerging hangovers. Hagan started to drool on his shoulder, so Dalonna eased him down to the floor and wrapped a corner of the blanket around his feet. Hagan lay scrunched on the floor with his knees huddled at his chest, a big man sleeping like a fragile baby. He was a man-child. A guy who brought an engagement ring he'd bought for a stripper to the team bay to get Shaw's opinion on it. The ring, not the concept. Shaw asked for some time to think about it, and before he told Hagan what he thought about the idea, Hagan had pawned the ring and bought a drum set instead. Hagan didn't play the drums, before or after he bought the set. Hagan's wallet was loose and he was known to drive remote-controlled cars around the pit with beers and nudie mags taped to the roofs. Some guys didn't like Hagan because his chest looked better than theirs or because his tattoos fit him well, but he was an animal on the objective—wouldn't know quit if it hit him in the face with a wooden plank. Shaw loved the contrast in Hagan. He could punch three full mags into a quarter from fifty meters away yet had a habit of gravitating toward kids on the objective. Shaw had seen Hagan put down two HVTs on a target once, then sweep up a little boy with the gentle arms of a father to keep him from running into the room with the dead bodies. Shaw imagined Hagan as the little brother he might have had if his parents' car hadn't hugged that oak tree. Hagan fought a lot in the squadron gyms. After one bout, when Hagan had mashed in a guy's face rather impressively, he'd looked defeated and worn out, the other man's blood still wet on his gloves. Shaw put a towel over his shoulders and asked him if he was all right.
It's so damn personal,
Hagan had said. Shaw asked him what he meant.
Hitting guys in the face,
Hagan said.
Don't like it.
Shaw laughed and asked him how punching a guy in the face was more personal than taking his life. Hagan shrugged and offered his upturned bear-paw hands in response.
That's different,
he said.
Our job.

“Hog's got the right idea,” Dalonna said. “I'm out, too.”

He brought out a black watch cap and pulled it down over his eyes. He sat with his back braced against Hagan's large feet—an arm draped protectively over his calves—and fell asleep immediately.

They were an unlikely duo, the short Filipino father of daughters and the womanizing hulk. Dalonna fought in Golden Gloves bouts growing up in Chicago and taught Hagan how to box right, with finesse and patience. Dalonna's fatherly touch must've appealed to a guy like Hagan, who appreciated anyone who didn't call him a dumbass or a meathead, and Dalonna must've seen Hagan as a big kid who needed looking after. The pair got along well despite their differences, and it was known throughout the squadron that if you wanted to fight one you had to fight both. Dalonna was paternal like that. He reminded the team of things constantly.
Don't
forget
water.
Extra
batteries.
Oil
the
shit
out
of
that
barrel.
Condoms,
Hog.

Massey looked over at Shaw and gestured to Dalonna. Dalonna's mouth hung open and his head kept falling back. As his neck strained, the tendons and veins would enlarge and pop out of the skin. Shaw could see Dalonna's pulse. Massey smiled and then his hand disappeared in his bag. He handed Shaw some papers.

“I made corrections.”

Shaw had finally convinced Massey to get out of the squadron and give college a shot after years of talking about it on foreign airfields. Shaw could see Massey as a doctor, going home to a beautiful blond wife and three kids after a day in surgery,
How was the day, honey?
and all that good shit. Massey was an operator but a medic still, his job centered primarily on saving lives, not taking them. The rest of the team seemed destined to grow old kicking in doors, but Massey did not. Massey started applications at around the same time Shaw's grandma died, and he would enroll in classes next fall. Massey asked Shaw if he would think about getting out, too. They could be neighbors and get drunk and fat together while their kids threw rocks at one another, Massey had said
.
Be normal people.
And Shaw entertained the thought for a moment, but normal to him had become having dirt under his boots at all times. Normal was being clipped into a Black Hawk or Little Bird, flying nap-of-the earth over foreign dirt on the way to raid some towel-headed motherfucker plotting to blow up the Statue of Liberty or his sweet grandma. And his normal was falling apart into something foreign and unknown, like the runoff of a glacier melting into the sea. He couldn't tell anyone who didn't do it himself what he did for a living, legal or personal reasons aside, and if he did, he knew they would look at him a little too long. As though if only they looked hard enough they might see the blood on his hands and recognize it, appreciate it as necessary but nevertheless unfortunate, before being relieved that they weren't the ones stained. There was no other world for him.