by Roy Scranton
“You think the boys’ll want to?” Rachel asked.
“Fuck the boys,” said Wendy.
“I suspect they will,” Dahlia said, “but regardless, Wendy’s right. Fuck ’em. We can have us a girl’s night while they, whatever, jerk each other off and talk about computers.”
“They’re in there now,” said Rachel.
“Where?”
“They’re on the computer. They’ve been in there awhile.”
“I bet Matt’s showing him that dumb program.”
“It’s not dumb,” Wendy said.
“That’s sweet, Wendy, but it kinda is. It’s just blobs of color you can’t tell apart, and it doesn’t even really work. Plus, he can’t seem to finish. I mean, I don’t want to talk about him behind his back . . .”
“Even though that’s what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe you’re right. I’m just tired of hearing about it.”
“I’m guessing Aaron will be too in about five minutes.”
“So let’s get lit then before they come out and start talking about complex visual representations of turbulent systems. Please.”
There was a line of men in prison garb kneeling, black bags over their heads, their hands zip-tied behind them. Someone whose face was out of the shot was standing over them prodding one in the back with a baton.
“So, you get a bunch of new guys in and you have to establish control. You can’t fuck around. We’d line them all up and get them down and scream at them for about twenty minutes, poking them with batons and kicking them, then we’d leave them there for a few hours with a couple dudes and if they moved, the two guards would scream at them and knock them down. Click forward.”
One prisoner was standing in front of the line of kneeling prisoners. The kneeling ones’ hoods had been removed and they all looked up at the man standing over them. A male American soldier stood behind the standing prisoner, a female soldier next to him. The soldiers wore blue surgical gloves. The male soldier had a pair of scissors.
“This is sort of a mass technique we developed with the OGAs for when a bunch of fresh pucks came in. So after fucking with them for a while, we take one out of the line, the biggest fucker in the group, and stand him up in front. Then we take off their hoods, right, but not his, so they can watch. Then your point man here, with the scissors, Grimes in this case, he cuts open the prisoner’s outfit and strips him and whichever female we have, that’s Littleton, she points at his cock and laughs. Click forward.”
The standing man was naked now except for the hood, and the female soldier was pointing at his genitals and laughing.
“It’s all a big show we put on. We—Grimes—pokes this guy in the ribs, pokes him in the butt, while Littleton laughs and points at his cock, then we give him one good whack in the belly and he goes down. Bam. Makes a huge impression. Next.”
The naked and hooded man was on the ground and Grimes’s boot was slamming into his stomach.
“That’s a good one. Action shots are hard. The boot’s a little blurry but you can see the impact. I like that picture. That’s a good one.”
“That’s fucked up. This is fucked up.”
“Yeah. You mentioned that. Next.”
Matt clicked forward to a close-up head-and-shoulders of a mangled, bloody face. A middle-aged man with a thick gray mustache.
“That dude died. I mean, he was dead when I took the picture.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Fuck no. We just stressed him to the point where his body failed. He was kinda old, anyway, and the older ones can’t take much. I wished we’d had dogs. Dogs would have made life so much easier. We complained about that all the time, but our battalion K-9 had been tasked out to some other bullshit. It’s totally easy to stress dudes with dogs, and you don’t even have to touch ’em. Dogs scare the shit out of people. Next.”
Matt clicked forward. Another dead man. He clicked forward. Another man in a stress position, head hooded, passed out and dangling. He clicked forward. Two American soldiers punching a man in a hood. He clicked forward. Naked men piled on top of each other.
“That’s like the photo,” Matt said.
“Yeah. That’s basically ’cause we were bored. I mean, one of our OGA dudes came from Abu G, and he gave us guidance on a bunch of shit he said worked really well over there. Naked Dog-Pile, Electric Wire Box, Fake Menstrual Wipe, shit like that. But a lot of shit we did ’cause we were bored. I mean, plus all the normal shit—sleep deprivation, hostile environment, loud music, stress positions, beatings, immersion—you know, the basics.”
“Immersion?”
“It’s like waterboarding. You put their head in a bucket of water long enough to fuck with them, then you take it out. You gotta be careful though. It’s surprisingly easy to drown a motherfucker.” Aaron waved his hand impatiently. “Next.”
Dahlia got the bowl out and tapped the old ash and packed it fresh. She handed the bowl and the lighter to Mel, who passed it to Rachel, who passed it to Wendy, then Dahlia, then back around again. Everyone was silent, focused on the smoke drifting into the night, the streaking stars, the rustling trees, the skunky savor.
“I think that’s cashed,” Rachel said, tapping ash.
“Fuck yeah,” Mel said.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Dahlia said, “if we’re gonna watch the sun come up, we should hike up on the cliffs.”
“We can look for the cuckoo,” Rachel said.
“The cuckoo cock.” Mel burst into laughter and fell over.
“We can see rosy-fingered dawn,” Wendy said, “traipsing light across distant horizons.”
Mel laughed harder.
“I love the dawn,” Rachel said. “It’s so, like, nascent.”
Mel kept laughing. Rachel petted Xena.
“I think I finally got it,” Wendy said. “It’s not that you’re all in my mind, but it’s like the yous in my mind are reflections of the yous in reality. All I can see are the shadows you cast. None of this is really happening except how I make it happen. That’s not right. It’s happening, but I make it happen in my mind at the same time. It’s happening but it’s me.”
“I gotta get up,” Dahlia said. “I gotta move around.”
“What are they doing in there?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah, go get the boys.”
“Go get the cuckoo cocks,” Mel giggled.
Dahlia stepped off toward the house.
Matt clicked forward. More pictures of Connie, of Aaron’s fellow soldiers, of the gray concrete halls and brown outer walls of Camp Crawford, more pictures of hooded men, bleeding men, men in handcuffs. He clicked forward. A thin, mustached man stood handcuffed to a head-level cell-door crossbar.
“That’s the Professor. Puck named Qasim. He got picked up on a raid in Baqubah. He tried to tell us the first couple days how he worked as a terp for the Americans in Baghdad and he was in Baqubah because his wife was sick or some shit, and it was all a big mistake, he just got caught up in things, he didn’t even know the guys they picked him up with. The OGA fucks, on the other hand, said according to their information he’d been using his position as a translator to pass intel to al-Qaeda. We fucked that puck up.”
“You keep saying puck. What’s a puck?”
“PUC. Person under control. Click forward.”
The next picture showed Qasim hanging against the cell door, naked now, blood across his chest and thighs, his face cut, bruised, swollen, and bleeding.
“This was two days later, after some stressing and a couple beat-downs. I remember when I came on duty, I took this picture, right, and the flash woke him up and he started babbling, my friend this and that, mistake, mistake, Mista Mista, blah blah blah, my friend, my friend. Click forward.”
The next picture showed the man still hanging against the cell door but now
his eyes were open and he gazed up at Aaron, who’d opened the door and was standing next to him. One blue-gloved hand rested on Qasim’s shoulder and the other made a peace sign.
“I got Sergeant Dickersen to hold the camera for me. Click forward.”
The next picture was the same, except Aaron was pulling Qasim’s head back by his hair and holding his other hand flat in a karate chop against Qasim’s neck.
“That’s Judo Chop. It’s a joke we had, ‘Judo Chop. Hiyah!’ Next.”
“What happened to all these people?”
“The pucks?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, either they died or got transferred or got let out. Mostly they just got transferred.”
“Just transferred? Like, just sent to another prison?”
“Yeah. Click forward.”
The next picture was of the same scene, only now Qasim’s face was pressed into the cell bars. Aaron grinned, standing behind him forcing his skull into the metal, one hand pulling the crossbar for leverage.
“Just this once, right, I let someone else take the pictures. I mean, it wasn’t a real interrogation. Just fucking around.”
“I thought . . .”
“It’s a weird thrill, having that much physical control over somebody, knowing what you’re doing. It’s . . .”
The screen door leading out back squawked. Both men looked up. Matt minimized the photos just as Dahlia came in.
“Dark in here—what are y’all doing, looking at porn?”
“War porn,” Aaron said. “Wanna see?”
“Hell yeah!”
“No,” Matt said, yanking out the thumb drive.
“Hey, I wanna see,” Dahlia said.
Matt rose to his feet and shoved past Dahlia toward the back door. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
“Show me the pictures.”
“Dahlia, sugar,” Aaron said, “I’ll give you a private show later.”
“Will you—can we just go outside?” Matt said.
“We cashed another bowl,” said Dahlia. “We’re gonna go up on the cliffs and watch the sunrise. You punks up for it, or y’all gonna pussy out?”
“It’s late,” Matt said. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Matthew, give it a rest. You gonna party with us or not?”
“Fine. Sure. Whatever. Let’s just go outside.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Aaron, standing. “My thumb drive?” He held out his hand.
Matt looked at Aaron, then at Dahlia. Aaron snapped his fingers. Matt dropped the drive in his palm.
“Good work, citizen. Now let’s all take a hike.”
•••
Stones and stars. The journey undertaken, in ten minutes they reached the mouth of the narrow canyon leading along the dry creek to the heights, the plateau above town. It’ll be twenty minutes or half an hour before they clear the ravine’s brush and make it into the open. They warned each other to watch out for coyotes, snakes, cougars, then plunged in, up.
The noise of drunken revelers pushing through brush dried all summer long. The clatter of rocks and shoes, the murmur, the occasional shout.
Why doesn’t he do something? Say something? But no, there they are, whispering together, sharing some secret. He came up behind them.
“Hey, hero,” Aaron said. “What’s up? I was just telling Dahlia about Iraq.”
“What?”
“It’s terrible,” Dahlia said.
“Yeah, well.” Aaron frowned. “It’s always the children that suffer the most. I mean, we did what we could, you know?”
“The children?” Matt said.
“I was telling Dahlia how one time we had this VBIED attack on the ECP, and there was this bus full of kids coming in that got caught in the blast. It was bad.”
“It must have been so hard,” said Dahlia.
“It’s just—these kids, their lives are basically fucked. They’re never gonna get out of Iraq. Their schools are shit. Their hospitals are shit. And they were coming in for medical stuff, right, like basic vaccines, and when the truck blew . . . it just . . . We lost seven. I spent the whole day in the aid station, helping the medics with triage. The boots I wore that day—I had to get rid of ’em. The blood wouldn’t ever come out . . . Seven. We saved the rest, but we lost seven. And one of our own, Private Ballard. That was a tough day.”
“You have pictures of that, too?” Matt asked.
“Jesus, Matt, what wrong with you?” Dahlia said. She turned back to Aaron. “Sorry about him. You must find it hard now being out of the army—I mean after Iraq—the way people react sometimes.”
“It’s been difficult, no doubt. But you deal with it. You drive on.”
“I can’t even imagine. It must be so strange, such a strange and different world.”
“There or here?”
She laughed. “Either one.”
“Honestly, it was weirder coming back than it was going over, because . . . I mean, you go, and you’re thinking one thing, you’re thinking about the military and Iraq and America, and what you learn when you get there . . . You learn that nothing’s quite what you thought it was. It’s a cliché, but you really learn what you’re made of.”
“Ha, I bet,” Matt said.
Aaron and Dahlia looked back, then Dahlia tripped on a stone and flung forward. Before she hit the ground, Aaron had her, one hand on her arm, the other sweeping under and picking her up, setting her on her feet. She could smell him, close, the tobacco and fresh sweat and something else, something warm and hungry. “Thanks,” she said, flushing.
“Hey,” he said, stepping back.
“You should watch where you’re going, honey,” Matt said.
“Big help you are, riding my heels. I nearly took a face plant ’cause you’re hovering. You want me on crutches again? Is that how you like it?”
“I just . . .”
“Why don’t you go chill out somewhere?”
“Matthew,” Aaron said. “How ’bout you go check up on Wendy.”
“I do what I want,” Matt snarled.
“Jesus, Matt,” Dahlia said. “Go! Buzz off! Go chill out somewhere!”
“Yeah, fine! Fine. I’ll chill out. Totally chill out. Like ice. And you can talk with Rambo fucking Himmler here all you want.”
“What is it with you people tonight and Nazis?” Dahlia said. “Will you just go? We’ll talk later.”
Matt made a face and waved his hands in the air, stalking away.
Aaron looked at Dahlia and she at him. He grinned his crooked grin at her, and she shook her head and smiled. It burned her arm and waist where he’d touched her, and she knew she was hurting Matt and part of her felt terrible about it. But only part.
Once when she was young, she and her family went to a lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains where you could dive off this low cliff into the water. It was only twenty feet or so but it seemed stratospheric, and the water deep and cold, and she was terrified the first time, shaking with fear and about to throw up, but she closed her eyes and jumped and didn’t open them until she came back up through the water into the light, dizzy and gulping.
Which choice didn’t matter so much as that there was one, something being done. Who’s choosing? Didn’t matter. She was the one doing.
She touched her fingers to Aaron’s forearm. “Thanks for catching me,” she said. “I could have really hurt myself.”
Soon the interminable exodus, the weed-induced sense of ceaseless toil, dissolved against the newly exposed night sky, the moon cool and blue down upon them like a curved blade, the stars cold and far, and they came up the last stretch of canyon and scree to the plateau, where they found a circle of flat rocks around a charred smear littered with cans faded white by the sun, cigarette butts, and footprints. They pulled beers out o
f their pockets and realized no one had thought to bring an opener, so Aaron and Mel used their lighters. They lit another bowl and talked about how they couldn’t believe how long it seemed but how short it was, how the stars seemed so brilliant, how the sky seemed everything and the night, walking like forever, was just so yeah.
After a while they realized Matt had wandered off. Aaron touched Dahlia’s wrist. “Help me go find him?”
She nodded. Off they went, leaving Mel and Rachel and Wendy. Aaron glanced back at Wendy as they walked away. Wendy barely shrugged, her lip half-curled in a sneer. Aaron smiled and turned to follow Dahlia.
They chatted their way back down the canyon. Dahlia told him about the people who used to live in the region, the Ancestral Puebloans, and how recent evidence suggested they were cannibals. “The Navajo name, Anaasází, means Ancient Enemy,” she said. In fact, a dig just across the state line in Colorado had found seven skeletons whose bones showed evidence of defleshing, chopping, marrow extraction, and burning. There’d been a lot of skepticism until a biologist from the University of Colorado tested fossilized human feces at the site for myoglobin, a protein found in human muscle. “Their shit didn’t lie,” she said, laughing. She talked about how much she missed reading the marks and fractures in old remains. She’d studied biology until her soccer accident, then she got obsessed with bones, and an anthropology class turned her on to fieldwork. She confessed she thought she might have made a mistake coming out to Utah. She should have stayed in school and finished her PhD. “I got an exit strategy, though.”
“You and Matt gonna head back to Seattle?”
“One of us is, anyway,” she said.
Aaron admitted he didn’t have any idea what he was doing with his life, either. When he was a kid, he dreamed of fronting a punk-rock band. Then he was getting a BA in history, not really sure why except he liked stories about things that happened in the past, and now he didn’t know what the fuck. Everything seemed changed. Unfamiliar. Disconnected. The scales on which he weighed possible futures were out of balance, and he didn’t know how to set them right. “It’s hard to see what really matters now,” he said. “But I’ll figure it out. Maybe just ride my motorcycle back and forth across the country till I have a vision.”
