by Roy Scranton
“Crusader Three-six, this is Crusader Six. I need a sitrep.”
My rifle bucked into my shoulder. The .50s punked away. It was like a carnival, a shoot-em-up stand on the midway, but as I fired again I felt light-headed and distant, third-person somehow. The figures on the overpass ducked from pillar to pillar, dodging fire, and finally disappeared off the far side. Porkchop shifted fire to the trees at the edge of the highway, dumping rounds into foliage.
Staff Sergeant Gooley ran out of the building and grabbed the hand mike. “Cease fire, cease fire, this is Crusader Three-seven say again cease fire.”
“Crusader Three-seven, this is Crusader Six. I need a sitrep.”
“Crusader Six, this is Crusader Three-six.” Lieutenant Krauss broke through. “We’re, uh, taking fire but, uh, it’s under control now. Standby for sitrep. Break. All Crusader elements, this is Crusader Three-six, return to the highway and give me a perimeter.”
“Three-six, this is Three-seven, we need to clear these buildings,” Staff Sergeant Gooley said into the radio.
“Three-seven, this is Three-six, give me a perimeter, now. Out.”
So we drove back down the highway and set up a perimeter, blocking traffic both ways.
Staff Sergeant Smith walked up to Lieutenant Krauss. “We gotta clear all them buildings, sir. They’re out there.”
“Sergeant, we’re not prepared to cordon off a whole . . .”
“Sir, we need to clear them fucking buildings,” Staff Sergeant Smith shouted up at him.
Krauss backed down. “Alright, Sergeant. Take some men and clear the buildings.”
We spent the next two hours waiting while the clearing teams went through the cluster of buildings along the highway, kicking in doors and screaming at hadjis. They didn’t find any weapons. After a while, Lieutenant Krauss called off the search, and we reformed the convoy, drove to CAHA Wardog, and ate lunch.
That night and the next day it was all anybody talked about, who shot what who where. I didn’t feel any better and my soul didn’t bleed like the wounds of Christ. What happened was the days got colder. I drew new rounds to replace the ones I’d fired. We ran patrols. We set up TCPs. We watched more Sex and the City, cleaning our rifles and arguing about who’d give better head, Charlotte or Carrie, and who we’d like to fuck up the butt.
remember, you are not alone
We got a speech from Captain Yarrow telling us what a great job we’d done. He told us we were transitioning to patrols now, covering neighborhoods southwest of BIAP, and training in Close Quarters Combat.
I was scheduled for environmental leave toward the end of December and started counting days till I left.
We practiced kicking in doors. We learned to follow each other through a house, checking in closets and behind furniture, leading with our guns, shouting “Clear,” “Door Left,” and “Stairs.” We learned to cover each other across open spaces, take out suicide bombers, turn and shoot without aiming.
On Thanksgiving President Bush came. We were out on a patrol that night, driving village streets in the rain and planning on MREs for dinner.
We watched Top Gun, Pumping Iron, and The Shawshank Redemption. We wrestled, played pool and ping-pong, played touch football in the parking lot, argued and laughed and got in fights. Reading kept playing “Gimme the Light” and that “Birthday” song.
One day I walked up to the CP and First Sergeant Beaman came out grinning. “They captured Saddam,” he said. “Caught like a rat in a trap.”
“Great,” I said. “We can go home now, right?”
“It’ll be a real turning point,” he said.
I nodded. “Now all we gotta do is find those WMDs.”
“Hey, Wilson,” he said. “Get down and push.”
“Hooah, First Sarnt.” I dropped and pushed until he told me to stop.
I decided to quit smoking. Attack Battery got hit with an RPG out on patrol, mostly minor injuries but one of the guys had to be evacked to Germany. Somebody in another unit was run over by a tank. I cleaned my rifle and waited for Christmas.
4 to 71 at 122nd. 9:59. Take the 10 to the 15, change downtown to the 77 and get off at 21st. 10:12.
I talk to my ex-girlfriend and we decide to try again. The trouble starts almost immediately, with my car’s clutch grinding out as I drive in over the coast range from Newport. I make it to my mom’s in Corvallis, but going to Portland the next day the clutch drops with a thunk, and I have to get the car towed back to town, where it sits in my mom’s driveway growing a skin of brown needles.
It’s a sign, of course—the sky full of signs that fall.
Things don’t improve in Portland. I take the bus across town to a 7-Eleven, fill out an application, take the bus back across town to a nursing home, fill out another application. Rain falls, and I go to the library to search the internet for jobs and wind up shuffling the stacks, reading The Coming Anarchy and The Clash of Civilizations.
4 to the 72 at 82nd. 11:37. 12:19.
We go to a dinner party with some friends of hers. We eat tempeh stir-fry and drink IPA and talk about jobs, the local theater scene, and good, cheap places to eat. After dinner we pass a joint and the conversation gets grim, somebody says they can’t stop thinking about on TV those bodies falling. Did we think everything had changed? Would they attack the Mall of America? We talk about blowback and globalization and how, yeah, on the one hand it seemed maybe we’d sort of caused it. Maybe we wanted it to happen. We talk about troop movements in the Hindu Kush.
3:58. 14 to 9 to 60th. 4:09. 5:23. Home.
I make pasta. We drink wine. The money dribbles away. I apply at Goodwill, Burgerville, Powell’s, Denny’s.
Thanksgiving comes and goes and Christmas too. Against the rain and winter skies, the garish decorations and relentless commerce bring not cheer but constant reminder of my downward spiral. No joy, no carols, not even Santa can save me.
One day, after spending two hours filling out a personality test at Walmart, I go down the strip mall to an Army recruiting office. The recruiter starts my packet. He asks me about drug use and criminal record. He tells me about bonuses and college money. He asks me what I want to do and where I want to go.
babylon
wounds to the stomach, prosecuted—many have moved to the cities, particularly Mosul, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyah Operation Resolute Sword divided into the Shi’a majority in the south and the Sunni who live mostly in the central part of the country around Baghdad have not been assimilated into the population are “Marsh Arabs” who inhabited the lower Tigris and Euphrates urban centers with Baghdad being Iraq my spear
population of two
already pleaded to be those targets on the edge of the gallbladder and transverse colon; only those acts which can be said to be half measures, the national Kalashnikovs
with a gunshot wound through the rectum; and two with possible war seen war that will be fourteen more casualties arrived Operation Sidewinder CIA secret prisons at the military’s Iraqi Advanced Trauma Life Support protocols for the administration of Bush’s decision was over the last six
sometimes they arrested all adult males present the
US citizen
military must adhere wholly by the low-value treatment often including pushing Saddam
punching and kicking and striking with rifles heart of the cover of darkness Operation Iron Saber after 2130, the White House by remote control, we’ve ravaged disarmament in the early morning hours Thursday they’re apparently exploiting the Arab fear of dogs and you, the city and two key avenues, DETAINEE-14 and a totally widowed mother—he, Astyanax, which meant the questions of the local Coalition less than a meter across and devoid of any more but the daintiest and choicest of morsels
surgical
burned down tired and went to sleep, he would lie
knowing ne
ither want nor care, whereas the version here is not simply the General might salvage judged (myself) and I do not make
filled with water, linking unstable
My spear! Surely I fear the prisoner’s head and do good and the people, the attacks brought coming, there is no doubt therein, Coalition forces in the early Operation Iron Justice turning but no gunfire in the government and the challenge upon me, I will answer you and defend the world TV from open rebellion: in the north, Mosul was a close call and over time the Bradley fades. The US-trained Iraqi police enter hell abased. Allah is striking selected targets of wounded and many dead. He urges them to surrender Operation Ivy Needle the west seems nervous, boys, most surely the opening stages
police stations other small attacksintense heat
center and the Pentagon, he and his team Allah, your Lord, Babylon where the rebellion is Operation Red Dawn another road
the fall
(baghdad, 2003)
Saddam smiled, white teeth shining. A common picture in a common frame, by law others like it hung all over. Thought or feeling made no change—hating the picture was like hating the sun. Even here, Qasim thought, in our musty office: Saddam Saddam Saddam. This one’s old, brown and fading, creased along one edge, the frame’s glass cracked at the corner. Surely we should have it replaced. The picture, the desks, the floors, the walls.
The office was windowless, unventilated, stale. Three desks crammed against each other left a narrow perimeter for chairs. Qasim sat alone, leaning, pencil in his mouth, staring at Saddam, the Americans’ deadline barely a week away.
Home? Or stay? For the forty-ninth time, Qasim heard Professor Hureshi tell him, “Go if you must, but I can’t promise you anything. You know I have done everything I can to keep you on, but if you leave before defending, I would be very hard-pressed to justify holding your teaching position when there are others whose service recommends them. Who have advocates. You have been given every opportunity, Qasim—”
“But Professor, my wife . . .”
“You have been protected like a son.”
“Let me . . . let me talk to my uncle. Please, Professor. Just a few more days.”
And your wheedling worked, again, and Hureshi gave you till Wednesday, the last day of classes before the deadline. And now? Give up everything after working so hard . . . or stay here, cut off from Lateefah and mother, while . . .
Qasim twisted the end of his mustache, replaying the hours of teaching uninterested students, the longer hours grading, the years of study, tutoring, working odd jobs, doing accounting for his uncle, all the effort he’d put into the dissertation. And now when he phoned Lateefah, drained to the point of hopelessness, she only made it worse. Punishing him with her silence. Blaming him.
Maybe going back would give us another chance. You don’t have to be a mathematician. Take some job in the Ministry of Water, teach high school geometry. It won’t make up for . . . but maybe Lateefah—maybe she and I . . .
The door swung open and Adham flew in, throwing down a pile of manila folders, slumping into his chair: “What, my cousin, can you tell me, is so bloody hard about turning in your homework?” Adham raised one hand to heaven and covered his heart with the other. “I understand yes, the end is coming. I understand, yes, the Zionist crusaders are going to bomb us to rubble. I understand—am I not understanding?—that there is a better than fair chance almighty God in his infinite compassion has willed that our beloved university will be destroyed, our city wiped from the face of the earth, our friends and relatives charred to ash so that even the vultures and rats will be left starving in a waste so total it will make the Mongols’ sack of the libraries seem like Eid al-Fitr, but my cousin, my brother, my friend, as a fellow mathematician and as a fellow teacher, let me ask you: is that any reason to not turn in your homework?”
“Well . . .”
“Do you know how many of my students turned in their work this week? Two! Barely half the class even bothered to show up! And Mundhir Hashir, the deputy minister of education’s miserable bastard, you know what he says to me? Professor, please, can I get an extension till next week? Next week! Because he has drill with the Hizbis. Oh sure, Mundhir. Whatever you like. Just the way I passed you on the midterm. Whatever you want, just don’t sic your daddy on me.”
“Adham . . .” Qasim twisted his mustache and squinted meaningfully at the third desk, where their colleague Salman worked and—if department rumors were true—kept files on nearly everyone.
“Pfah! Have you even seen the birdwatcher today?”
“No. No, not yet. Cousin, I know what you mean. Every class gets smaller and the ones that show up barely pay attention. But there is a war coming.”
“And those who cannot dance complain the floor is crooked. They’re students. They should attend class and turn in their homework. It’s very simple. Determination is the key to everything.”
“I can understand their trouble. I haven’t touched my dissertation in weeks.”
Adham jabbed a bony finger at Qasim. “Then the carpenter’s door is loose.”
“But the Americans . . .”
“But! But! There is always something! Nowhere in the Qur’an does it say life will be easy!”
“Well maybe the Qur’an can help me decide whether or not I should return to Baqubah.”
“‘Righteousness does not consist in whether you face east or west. The righteous man is he who believes in God and the Last Day, in the angels and the Book and the prophets.’”
“So?”
“So listen for the voice of God and the prophets.”
“Right. Of course. And you? What have God and the prophets told you?”
“Oh, I’m going home. My father insists on it. He says things will be much safer in Fallujah.”
“But your teaching . . .”
“I talked with Hureshi, and he told me to take all the time I need.”
Qasim blinked slowly and gritted his teeth, thinking, goatfucker! You backward, camel-riding bumpkin with your book and your kaffiyeh! You who maybe, yes, you’re in the party, but you don’t even believe in a secular state! You?
“Your wife is in Baqubah, isn’t she?”
Qasim exhaled through his nose. “Yes. My Lateefah. And the rest of my family.”
“Who’s taking care of them?”
“My uncle Jibril, my cousin Faruq, who lives in town, my little brother—I don’t know. There are too many of us.”
Adham spread his palms. “Cousin, it’s simple: Go. In times like this, you must lead your family. ‘Consider those who fled their homes in their thousands for fear of death. God said to them, You shall perish.’”
“But if I go . . .”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. Just . . . My sister-in-law will be there too. With their children.”
“Not your brother?”
“He’s in the army. He drives a tank.”
“God grant him victory.”
“God!” Qasim barked. “The same God that put him there on the front lines? The same God that brings the Americans?”
“Don’t be blasphemous, cousin.”
“No, Adham, please. Tell me what we’ve done to deserve this.”
Adham leaned forward, crossing the desk so his gleaming face hung before Qasim’s, his words harsh whispers. “Let me tell you, cousin, about what I believe. The fate God weaves is a song of many voices, and things that seem to be disasters today may be openings through which God’s hand will pass tomorrow. There are many of us who wait for the day when we will lead our people back to the virtues of our fathers, back to the Book and the Caliphate, to the days before petrodollars and satellite dishes and nationalism. Sometimes, cousin, a storm scatters our tents because it’s time for us to move on. When the wind blows, you ride it.”
“Well, I think we’re done for.”
Qasim snorted and stood, grabbing his satchel. Tool of the deceiver! I cannot believe the things that come out of his mouth. I need to get out of here. I should see when Luqman is leaving—God willing, soon, so I can call mother and make arrangements for going to Baqubah.
Is that what you’re doing now, Qasim, going home?
Yes. No. Yes.
Maybe.
The blind man stood in the courtyard feeling the sun on his face. He was very old and very frail, and where his eyes should have been were two pale and clotted scars. Hair like white wire sprouted from his brows, from within his ears and nose, from his cheeks and lips and chin, thickening over his neck in a tangled wave. In one hand he held his stick and in the other, his book and pen. From his bony shoulders hung a threadbare dishdasha.
“Ah-ham,” he croaked to himself and nodded, shuffling toward his bench along the wall. Soon, yes, he could feel it, coming from the sky. His little birds knew. Didn’t they always?
“Ah-ham,” he croaked, reminding them.
Near his feet, the one-legged half-wit echoed back “Aham!”
The blind man smiled and nodded. When a wound is tired of crying, it will begin to sing, he thought, sitting on his bench and listening to the life of the yard around him: the three men arguing, the others slapping down dominos, the idiots and cripples and crooks. He could just make out the voices in the women’s yard beyond the wall, and the sound of lunch being prepared in the prison kitchen.
The old man laid his stick across his thighs and then his book atop it. It was a large book and its leather was worn by years of handling. He’d written through it many times, each cycle over the one before, until the pages held all he’d ever known or thought or felt—or nearly all. The end was coming, but it wasn’t there yet. There was another sura to write.
