by Roy Scranton
“Look,” Aaron said, “Matt, Rachel, you seem like nice people and this is a great barbecue. I’m gonna say this one thing, then . . . Maybe let’s talk about something else, okay? Because Iraq’s a fucking disaster. The whole thing. Staying’s a disaster. Leaving’s a disaster. It’s a fucking shithole. And it doesn’t matter what the fuck we think about it, because the guys who run shit don’t give a rat’s ass what people like you and me think. Or do. Or say. Unless we’re blowing shit up or donating money, they could give a flying fuck. So I don’t know what to tell you.”
“That’s a pretty negative world view,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, well, I’m all traumatized and shit. You know what it’s like. You saw the movie.”
“So why’d you go, then, man,” Mel asked, “if none of it matters?”
“Because they told me to.”
“But why’d you join the Army?”
“National Guard. I was National Guard.”
“Okay, man. Why’d you join the National Guard?”
“College money, patriotism. Service, challenge, honor. Nine-eleven. Same things as anybody else.”
“But now you think it’s all bullshit,” Mel said.
“I think we all gotta make hard choices,” he said, “and how you feel about shit doesn’t really matter. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
“And all you had to do was kill people.”
Aaron laughed. “What?”
Rachel put her hand on Mel’s thigh and squeezed. Mel brushed it off. “No, he made a choice. He wasn’t drafted. All he had to do was kill people.”
“Yeah, sure,” Aaron said. “Not a bad deal, either. Easier than working for it.”
“I just don’t understand how you could do that, man.”
“Mel,” Rachel said. “Hey.”
“You don’t understand how I could do what?” Aaron asked.
“How you could kill people for money.”
“Okay, you got me. I joined the Army so I could fucking kill people. Big secret: It’s a blast.”
“But doesn’t it bother you at all?” Mel asked. “Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Ashamed of what?”
“I mean, you know the war’s fucking bullshit, but you go do it anyway. You know it’s illegal, but you do it anyway. People die and you don’t even fucking care. You could’ve not gone. You could’ve been a conscientious objector. You could’ve gone to Canada.”
“I signed a contract. We had a job to do.”
“That’s all you got? You had a contract? A job to do?”
“This is real nice, Wendy,” Aaron said. “I’m glad I came.”
“Man,” Mel said, “I just can’t understand how you can take part in an illegal war that kills thousands of innocent people—for college money—and then act like it doesn’t matter. Like you didn’t choose. That’s what seems completely fucked to me.”
“Mel, honey,” Rachel said. “Lay off.”
“Yeah, Mel,” said Dahlia, “let it go.”
“Hey,” Wendy shouted, “anyone else here see that movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? With that actor, whats-his-name, Ace Ventura? I watched it on DVD the other night and it was so good.”
“Fuck that,” Mel said. “This shit’s fucked up. This shit’s real. Don’t you see that? Killing people for money? And then you wear that fucking t-shirt like it’s all a joke. That’s just wrong. I mean, if that’s not evil, I don’t what is.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“It’s like the Nazis,” Mel said. “Like some people do it just because other people tell them to.”
“Mel, that’s not fair,” said Dahlia.
“No, really, man,” Mel said. “Think about it. Loads of German soldiers were just doing their jobs. Loads of German people were just doing what they were told. They all thought it made sense, they all thought what they did was fucking justified, but it wasn’t. They don’t get to say it’s okay. It’s like that Eichmann book, man. Evil is evil.”
“Call me a Nazi one more time,” Aaron said.
Matt put his hands out: “Whoa, now—let’s all chill out a little bit.”
Mel stared hard at Aaron: “Did you kill anybody?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Well did you?”
His eyes closed slow, then he smiled and opened them. “No. I didn’t. Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but no, I didn’t kill anybody. It wasn’t my job.”
“But it was someone’s,” Mel said.
“I just held the camera.”
“Hey, y’all,” Dahlia said, getting up, “how ’bout some dessert? Mel, Rachel, you wanna help me with the pie?”
“Bullshit,” Mel said. “I can’t fucking believe I’m fucking sitting here with a fucking American Nazi I don’t know what, and everybody’s like, ‘Play nice, Mel. Lay off, Mel.’ Like it doesn’t fucking matter. Fucking sheeple. This is why. This is why.”
Aaron stood up. “I’m done here. Let’s go, Wendy.”
Mel stood to face him. “I know you. I know what you are. I can see it.”
Aaron’s voice went cold. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
“Admit what you did was evil.”
“It’s called reality. You need to grow the fuck up, bitch.”
“Bitch? You fucking Nazi asshole!” she screamed, jabbing her finger in his chest.
“Listen up,” he shouted, grabbing her wrist, “this shit”—then Xena—Mel yanking her hand away and whacking Aaron’s arm, Aaron shouting in Mel’s face and Matt leaning up going whoa and Xena—Xena barked, leaping snapping at Aaron who turned smooth and kicked the dog hard in the side, sending the animal rolling yelping and Mel surged, hitting Aaron in the neck and he caught her forearms in his fists and she kicked but then Dahlia was between them and Wendy and Rachel too, pulling Mel back, Aaron walking off cold, Mel held by Rachel, still raging, still flailing.
“Motherfucker!” she screamed. “Fucking motherfucker Nazi fuck!”
“Watch yourself,” Aaron hissed.
“Easy now,” Rachel said. “Easy.”
“I’m gonna fucking kill you, motherfucker!”
“Somebody shut that bitch up,” Aaron said, stalking back and forth along the fence line.
Dahlia went to Xena, the kicked dog hiding behind a bush near the back door, keeping an eye on Aaron the whole time. Rachel and Wendy whispered to Mel. Matt stood between them, near the barbecue again, feeling confused, until Wendy pointed at Aaron.
“Hey, uh, Aaron, you wanna go out front for a minute?” Matt asked.
“Fucking asshole!” Mel shouted after them as they disappeared. “Fucking fascist puke!”
“Mel, sit down,” Rachel said, gently pushing Mel into a chair. “Calm down. We need to calm down.”
“I think Xena’s okay,” said Dahlia.
Wendy took a step toward the gate, came back. “I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t know—he seemed a little tense but I didn’t know . . . That was completely insane.”
“Mel, please, you need to calm down.”
“Get the fuck off me!” Mel shouted, swinging at Rachel.
“Easy,” Rachel said, holding up her hands.
“Whose fucking side are you on?”
Rachel took Mel’s chin in her hand and pulled her face up: “Melanie. You will calm down right now. You need to breathe. Breathe. You are not going to behave like this. You’re a grown woman. Now breathe.”
Mel took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Rachel knelt and held her. Wendy went over, then back to Xena, then stood alone staring up into the night sky. After a few minutes, Mel straightened up and wiped her bleary eyes.
“I’m alright,” she said. “I’m okay. I just . . . I don’t know what the fuck happened. With all the whiskey, I guess, I we
nt a little sideways.”
“You went, like, diagonal,” Rachel said.
“That was crazy, Mel,” said Dahlia. “You just called Wendy’s boyfriend a Nazi.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Well, he’s not a Nazi either,” Dahlia said. “He’s a soldier who just got back from a war zone. He’s a person.”
“I know, man. I’m sorry.”
“Honey, I love your political passion,” said Rachel, “but goodness gracious. You might as well have just called him a baby killer. We don’t do that anymore. You know how messed up your dad is.”
“I’m know . . . I just . . .”
Dahlia stood between the flickering tiki torches in the dark, feeling the adrenaline course through her arms and legs, thinking who decides things? Who makes choices? You go do a thing, you commit to things, then something happens. Sometimes you just do things. Sometimes things just happen. “I’m going inside for a minute,” she said to no one in particular, then slid away into the house, through the kitchen, down the hall and into the bathroom where the lightless gray and black wrapped around her like blankets. She locked the door behind her, felt her way to the toilet, and sat. She didn’t want to see his eyes in the mirror. She didn’t want to feel him. She rubbed her arms hard, trying to scour away the electricity, the gold flecks in his green irises, the way he sat too close, his chipped incisor, the way his knee bumped hers. His body pressing on her as she came between him and Mel, his arms, his muscled chest and shoulders. His smell that seemed to catch in her throat.
Why’d Wendy even bring him? Some jerk. He could do anything.
You have to stop.
But not if it happens to someone else. Who says I always have to be the same when I’m always different? Always different. Pull yourself together. Pull together what? Who? And what would it feel like?
Does Matt know? Is he gonna take you home?
I am home. You gotta get out.
Pull yourself together. You’re the one who got her shit together. You make choices. You’re the one who does what you do, this life, right now. Ride it.
babylon
between men and lions wolves and lambs
continued strong techniques, life’s blood TV detainees
use of stress is essential
two CSHs with four sites out and Operation Iron Hammer when these fail an Arab’s honor can cause him to react by interpreting the facts to suit himself or flatly denying them. Therefore a Westerner should remember the “yes” you hear does not always mean yes and might mean no. That he answer “yes” whether it be true or not. In the American world, a flat “no” signals you want to end the very indirect approach toward corrective remarks and include praise of any good points. Similar to this by grace of God, our friend the Sheikh Talat, those rounds were close. People demand we stay for lunch, continue past as we turn along a street, pointless to question the political blue decorating
the edge of Babylon
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blood TV
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therefore about a minute use auditory stimuli hoods six operating tables, some between us till mild physical contact and mobile hospitals Operation Planet X Department of Defense by the grace of God global consensus my spear Rumsfeld fully functional in 24 to 48 hours his story from the bombs over Operation Longstreet and goes to work for the US as a translator. As the insurgency mounts, he’s threatened by Operation Ripper Sweep to give them intel and/or quit the Americans. Even as revelations have been made and behavior exposed, oil policy throughout all running a mathematician who doesn’t know where action might be warranted and
we see distinctions that
are not distinctions:
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“Humvees”
will be his lie and if CIA case officers local Hard Site
initiation of the abuse once the importance of a method used at GTMO you (with) surely Allah facilitates Operation Vigilant Resolve majority of Iraqis are delta until the government regardless, for example, appearances and politeness automatically require an answer of “still checking” or something similar means “no,” an indirect response also means “I am still your friend, I tried” therefore when dealing with Operation Bulldog Mammoth polite way for an Arab to say no is to say “I’ll see what I can do” no matter how impossible after the Arab concerning his success have fled to Iran from Baghdad works as a journalist. When the uprising begins in earnest Operation Warrior lives in the flood plain
heart of the TV
according to Military Intelligence
knowledge or implicitly of what will be yours my spear the Kingdom this day
I could hear the water I threw up
fall back on
the frequency of interrogations and the middleman’s hands: having failed punishment of Allah to come victorious out of interlocking to circumvent public rage, buildings and the leashed hotel, pyramids naked, naked blood, heading off some report, the collective flattened and critically wounded patients sealed off from the responsibility made to spare those targets on the edge, the heart
your leader will
control your fire
(operation iraqi freedom, 2003)
i am an american, fighting in the forces which guard
my country and our way of life
i am prepared to give my life in their defense
The major in the lead truck took a wrong turn and we all followed. We drove two miles down the wrong highway before looping back to the intersection with the chipped concrete barrier spray-painted MSR Cleveland TO BAGHDAD.
We got lost again just the other side of the border and wound up driving down a dirt road behind a line of tank pits. Blackened hulks jutted up from the sand.
Later we saw our first Iraqis, a farm family thin as whippets, standing outside their hut watching us go by.
We stopped and dismounted. All along the line, men clambered down and stood or knelt on the road or shoulder, rifles aimed at the empty desert.
No radio traffic.
We stood in the sun while the wind whipped sand at us. Waves of silica slid and ebbed across the blacktop like the ghosts of snakes. Engines hummed. We watched the horizon.
The radio crackled and beeped twice. We looked to the truck in front and to the one behind. I wiped dust off my glasses. I drank water, then dug for an MRE. Chicken Cavatelli. Beef Teriyaki.
A few minutes later, the call came to roll out.
We crossed a bridge near a village, and on the far side, Iraqi kids ran at us waving knives.
“Watch those kids, Wilson,” Captain Yarrow said.
“Roger, sir,” I said.
Sergeant Chandler in the back leveled his rifle out the window.
“You buy!” they yelled. “Ameriki! You buy! Baynet!”
“Stay back!”
Men rose up behind the kids, grinning under mustaches and dragging coolers. “You buy, Ameriki,” they sang out. “You buy Pipsi.” They held up cans of red, white, and blue, wet with condensation, dripping ice. I could taste the sand in my throat.
The radio barked: “All elements, Deep Steel Three. Be advised of unknown contacts both sides. Do not stop, do not say again do not buy anything. Say again, do not stop.”
“Can I shoot one, sir?” Sergeant Chandler asked.
“Balalalalalalala!” Lieutenant Krauss shouted. The kids laughed and pointed. One of them jumped and danced, his knife shining in the air.
Captain Yarrow turned to me: “If they get in front of us, honk. And if
they don’t get out of the way, run him over. I mean it. Run him over.”
I imagined the Iraqi boy’s body dragged beneath the humvee’s tires, three tons of steel rolling over his chest, squirting intestines onto the road.
“You buy! Ameriki! Baynet! Pipsi!”
Captain Yarrow double-checked his pistol. “Roger, Specialist?”
“Roger, sir.”
When it happened, I thought, I’d speed up to make it quicker. I wouldn’t look in the rearview at the stain of blood on the road. I’d keep my eyes straight ahead and not even from the corner would I look at the boy I’d killed.
Of course I’d look.
No. I’d watch the taillights of the truck in front. I wouldn’t look.
Of course I’d look. I’d speed up—but would I even feel the body under the humvee’s tons?
face the target, place the weapon to your shoulder,
move the selector lever from safe to semi
Night fell. Against the bruised and blackening sky, flames shot up from distant towers. Armored ruins lined the road in squads, charred corpses scattered in among the blasted metal. A dead Iraqi grinned where fire had burned away his face, leaving yellowed teeth in a black ring, eye sockets smears of shadowed flesh.
The convoy slowed.
Coils of wire bloomed along the highway.
A sentry directed us in, her pale cheeks washed in humvee light and smudged with dirt and soot. Refinery fires shone gold and red in her empty eyes. She swung her arm again in front, again, directing traffic.
To our left burned a great fire into which three joes shoveled trash. Beyond that some kind of rusting, latticed, industrial turret, erratically lit, rose in the dark. To our right loomed the shadows of the big green, lines of hemmets and trucks, machines rumbling low. Guided by soldiers with chemlights, red lines floating in the black until our lights hit them and they flinched, we circled along avenues of wire, down mazes of green steel. We stopped.
