Grunt Life

by Weston Ochse

  WE PULLED TO the curb at LAX’s Terminal Three, and the two thugs stayed with the vehicle while Mr. Pink escorted me inside. We bypassed all the counters and went straight to security. Instead of getting checked like all the other customers, Mr. Pink knocked on a windowless door beside the security setup. When it opened, he flashed a badge. The heavyset black woman took one look at it, backed up, and decided she didn’t want any part of it. She motioned us through, then locked the door behind us. We walked down a warren of halls, passing ground crew, TSA agents coming back from break, and stewardesses, eventually coming out by a gate that was already boarding. The sign read Flight 1445 to Cheyenne. Looks like I was going to Wyoming.

  As he slid me into an aisle seat in first class, he said, “You’ll be met at the other end. Enjoy the flight.”

  I thought about saying something to him. Thank you didn’t seem appropriate, but I felt I had to say something. The problem was I wasn’t sufficiently in charge of my thoughts to even begin to know what. He made it simple, though, and left before I had to try.

  They closed the door to the aircraft and a flight attendant handed me a fluted glass.

  “Don’t want to leave you out, soldier,” she said with a twinkle and a smile. I could get used to looking at her.

  I took a sip and realized there was alcohol in the drink. I took another sip and stared at it.

  “It’s called a Mimosa,” said the woman sitting next to me.

  I glanced at her. She looked to be about fifty, wore a flowered suit and pants, and had more diamonds on her hands than a store in the mall.

  “Mimosa, huh?”

  She nodded.

  I leaned back and took another sip. I liked that word—mimosa.

  The flight attendant took my glass when I was finished and the plane prepared for takeoff. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, thinking about Mr. Pink and what he’d said to make me decide to give his Task Force OMBRA a chance.

  “GIVE ME YOUR best pitch,” I said, finishing the lunch, the taste of meat and cheese dissolving with the memory of the roadside bombs exploding.

  Mr. Pink smiled like an uncle who had something he wanted to tell you about the family. He’d been standing patiently throughout the meal, but now he pulled out a chair and sat on it cowboy style. He placed his elbows on the table, but didn’t turn towards me. “If you want to kill yourself, why don’t you let us do it for you?”

  I confess I’d expected a little more effort.

  “That’s your pitch? That’s the best you can do?”

  Mr. Pink shrugged, minutely. “I didn’t think I had to say any more than that. You want to kill yourself. If you come work for us, you’ll probably die, but at least you’ll die for something other than your own sense of guilt.”

  I felt the blood begin to boil beneath my skin.

  “At least your death will mean something.”

  My hands clenched until my knuckles burned white.

  “At least you’ll be able to ameliorate your own broken pride.”

  A thousand epithets begged to be spoken, but I didn’t trust my mouth to work around the ball of anger lodged in it. I barely managed to ask, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know.”

  I closed my eyes and flexed as every muscle in my body came alive, screaming to be set free, well aware that the goons in the room could see me and would most likely try and stop me. I almost didn’t care; my anger needed a release. I said as evenly as I could, “There’s nothing I could have done that I didn’t try to do to save those who died.”

  “Except die with them,” Mr. Pink said simply. Then he stood and straightened the front of his suit coat. He began walking away. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready,” he said over his shoulder. “Please note, Mr. Mason, that we have a flight in two hours.”

  I stared at his departing back, twin death rays scorching him. If only. What did he know, anyway? I’d been to the requisite counseling sessions. I’d learned about survivor’s guilt. I’d spoken with chaplains and social consultants and my chain of command. I’d checked all the boxes and was deemed no danger to myself or others. Was it such a bad thing if I’d reconsidered and decided to just fucking end it all?

  What’s so wrong about a little bit of suicide as long as I keep it to myself?

  What’s so bad about me dying with a little peace and privacy in the dark of a Los Angeles night?

  But Mr. Pink had known what he was doing. He’d struck a chord, which once heard, I wanted to hear again. I wanted to know more.

  “Get him back,” I said to one of the men.

  When Mr. Pink eventually returned, he sat and we talked and he told me about OMBRA Enterprises LLC. When I asked what they wanted me to do, he told me help save the world. When I asked him from what,he saidthat it was on a need-to-know basis. Now I was back in recognizable territory. After all, I was just a grunt. They’d tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it. In the meantime, I was in it for as long as it held my interest.

  Which was good enough for Mr. Pink.

  I’m not insane, sir. I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.

  John Scalzi, Old Man’s War

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHEYENNE AIRPORT WASN’T exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it was in the same zip code. Flat land surrounded us on three sides. The Rockies rose into the clouds to the West. I could see where the city of Cheyenne started, but not where it ended. The city was so flat that there wasn’t enough terrain to see it all.

  A cowboy wearing a denim shirt, pants, and weathered silver-tipped boots met me at baggage claim, with a cardboard sign that read simply TF OMBRA, in an uneven scrawl. His face wore the seasons like an almanac. Somewhere between forty and seventy, he had a stare that promised he’d seen it all, and if he hadn’t, what was left to be seen wasn’t important enough to matter.

  I approached him. “That’s me,” I said, pointing to the sign.

  “Waiting on one more,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows. Another? On my flight? I turned around and stood beside him, watching the passengers come down the gangway. Eventually, a slim muscular girl stopped and looked around. Her long hair hung in a waterfall of black. Her eyes were almond-shaped. Her nose held the memory of Spanish conquistadors. Her skin was the color of leaves just starting to turn. And beneath her dark eyes were full lips that looked as if they’d never smiled.

  Her eyes finally rested on the sign. She came over, gave me a who are you staring at look, then stuck out her hand to the cowboy.

  He took it.

  “Michelle Aquinas,” she said. As she shook his hand, her shirt sleeve pulled back, revealing white gauze wrapping her wrist. I glanced at the other wrist, but she saw me and shoved her hand in the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Follow me,” the man said. He folded up the sign and slid it into the back of his pants. He walked straight as a fencepost. We followed him out the door into the dry, hot air of the plains.

  He took us to an old pickup truck parked at the curb in clear violation of the law. A police officer glanced at us, but gave us no further attention. The cowboy got in and motioned us to do likewise. There was only the long bench seat. Aquinas and I appraised it.

  I saw immediate relief on her face when I said, “I’ll get in back.”

  The cowboy shook his head. “We’re going on the highway. Don’t want to get pulled over.”

  I looked at her to let her decide. She frowned, but then shrugged and got in the middle. I climbed in beside her. As I did, I brushed against her and she flinched. Jesus. We were already packed in so tight. How could I keep from making her uncomfortable? I strapped on the old-fashioned lap belt, and scooted all the way to the door, allowing her about four inches of space. I caught her looking at it. When she looked up at me, I smiled. She turned away. Yep. This was going to be a long ride.

  “Where we going?” I asked.

  “Middle of the state,” said the Cowboy.

&nbs
p; I wasn’t up-to-date on my U. S. geography, but I thought I remembered that Cheyenne was in the southeastern corner.

  I attempted to get him talking. “Pretty far, isn’t it?”

  It took a moment as he stared out the window to consider the philosophical implications of my question. Finally he said, “It’s a piece.” Then he put the truck in gear and headed out. Within minutes, we were cruising north on I-25. If I’d expected a briefing about who he was, where we were going, and when we’d get there, I was disappointed; we found ourselves listening to farm futures reports on the AM dial. I never knew you could say so much about corn.

  Two and a half hours later we reached Casper. By then I knew all about the price of beef on the hoof and barley futures. I’d tried to open a conversation with Michelle, but she feigned sleep both times. So I passed the trip in silence, watching antelope and prairie dogs scamper about the plains, wondering what they’d think about a few roadside explosions in their neighborhood as images of similar drives in Iraq and Afghanistan superimposed themselves on reality.

  We drove through Casper and up a dirt road, then eventually stopped in a field about three miles west of the city.

  “Get out,” the cowboy said, looking straight ahead.

  “Here?” I asked, looking around.

  He nodded. “They’ll be along shortly.”

  I glanced at Michelle. The doubt in her eyes mirrored my own, but she nodded in grudging acceptance of the order. She was right. No use arguing with the old man.

  We got out and the truck sped away.

  We stood there for a few minutes, observing the terrain.

  “Looks a lot like Afghanistan,” I finally said.

  She looked at me sharply.

  “Have you been?”

  She nodded.

  “Two tours. One in Helmand and one in Logar,” I offered. “You?”

  “Nangarhar,” she said, looking away.

  I stared at her. Nangarhar was in the middle of the shit. It was right in the teeth of the fighters pouring across the border during the fighting season. I’d seen more than my share in Helmand and Logar, but Nangarhar was the place we threatened to send people if they began acting up.

  I was about to ask her more when we heard the sound of a helicopter. It came in low over the hill to our west, a Black Hawk. It sat down fifty yards away, whipping up dirt and sand. We shielded our faces with our arms and joined the beckoning soldier in the helicopter.

  We lifted off and turned west.

  Above the sounds of the helicopter I heard the crewman who’d let us in say into his microphone, “Two more for TF OMBRA.”

  We spent the rest of the ride listening to the rumble of the engine.

  It is human nature to start taking things for granted again when danger isn’t banging loudly on the door.

  Col David Hackworth

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I AM FIVE years old and King of the Universe, or at least Count of the Cul-de-sac. I race my red, yellow and blue Big Wheel machine around and around in circles, the sound of the road against my plastic wheels a white static I leave in my wake to confuse the zombies. Ever since I saw Army of Darkness when my babysitter let me stay up instead of making me go to bed, I’ve had them following me when I’m on my Big Wheel. And I’m fast. They can’t catch me. They can’t even come close to me, trailing me like the tin cans we tied on my cousin Ronnie’s car when he got married to that ugly girl, Susan.

  Ernie and Ben come out with their bikes, all shiny and new. Ben still has trainers on his, but Ernie has barely a wobble as he pedals hard. He looks good and part of me wishes I could have the same thing, but I know my parents can’t ’ford it, so I love my Big Wheel even more.

  They wave.

  I wave.

  Then an explosion makes Ben evaporate, pieces of him and his bike and his trainers firing off in all directions at a billion miles an hour, becoming part of the land and sky. It rains Ben parts, the sound like M&Ms hitting the pavement. I raise my head and open my mouth and Ben tastes like raisins and bacon. I kind of knew he would taste like that. Everyone tastes like bacon eventually.

  My mom comes out and high fives the zombies as they rush by. She carries a basket, and begins to pick up Ben’s M&M body pieces. I know she’s going to stuff it into the chicken. I love it when she does that.

  Suddenly, Ernie races up to my mom. He turns to wave at me, then they both explode. But instead of pieces, I’m showered with blood. Cold and wet and hot at the same time, it covers me and the Big Wheel completely. I have a vision of Carrie, covered in blood onstage before she kills everyone, except I have no special power except to pedal, but I can’t pedal fast enough with the slickness of the blood making my feet slip and slide. The zombies catch up and grab me, and throw me down on the ground in a pool of my mother’s and Ernie’s blood, and they begin to eat me.

  They begin to eat me.

  I JERKED AWAKE as we began to descend, my hands scrabbling frantically at my sides. I’d twisted my shirt into knots. I glanced over at Michelle, who was watching me from the other side of the helicopter, cool and collected, as if she were an expert at extracting herself from her own nightmares and mine was nothing special. I let my gaze drift to her wrists and she crossed her arms and stared outside the window. We were coming up on a single story building in a wide parking lot with a smaller building next to it.

  If I’d thought Cheyenne was the middle of nowhere, I was terribly mistaken. Cheyenne was definitely a somewhere compared to this place. No roads led to it. No cars were parked in the spaces. Surrounding it, for as far as the eye could see in any direction, there was no sign of humans or human habitation, just lonely plains, antelope, and the occasional curious prairie dog.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  We landed with a jolt. The crew chief slid the door open and gestured us out. Michelle slid to the ground first. She grabbed her bag and started walking, then looked back for me. I grinned. Not exactly love at first sight, but at least she’d thought of me. A voice inside me explained it was probably because she was scared shitless and wanted me to be there in case she needed to kick me in the shin and run, leaving me victim to whatever monsters were going to run out of the small building. Still, when I stepped onto the tarmac with my own bag, I was smiling.

  She turned and shook her head.

  The door slammed behind us and the helicopter began to rise.

  We watched it leave, shielding our eyes with our hands. When it was about three hundred feet up, it turned a one-eighty and roared back the way we’d come, as if there was much to do in Casper and they didn’t want to miss it. More likely that they just didn’t want to hang around this place any longer.

  We looked at each other, then at the building.

  “I don’t think zombies are going to come out of there and get us,” I said. “If that’s what you’re worrying about.”

  She grinned for the first time. It brightened her Filipina features, transforming her face into someone who didn’t slash her wrists and end up signing up for TF OMBRA, which was quickly becoming the clearing house for the poor, downtrodden, and those unable to kill themselves. I reminded myself I was one of them.

  “Shall we?” I lifted my chin towards the building.

  As she began to walk, I fell in beside her, careful of her space.

  As we approached, there was a simple sign on the door that read ENTER in computer block type. I lifted the lever and the door opened outwards. We went into a spartan room covered in fake wood paneling. A single desk sat directly in front of us. An Air Force airman sat behind it, a laptop in front of him.

  “Wallets and IDs, please.” He held out a tray.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “You want my wallet?”

  “TF OMBRA will be caring for your needs from now on.”

  I shook my head. “I might want to buy a gift or something. Maybe for my mother.”

  “Your mother is dead. As is your father. Wallets and IDs,” he said, giving the basket a jiggle.
r />   I didn’t like him. His chin was too small, his eyes were too narrow. And where did he get off talking about my dead parents like that? Still, I jerked out my ID, handed it to him, then tossed my wallet in the basket. For a moment, I lamented the loss of the condom, the picture of a Scottish girl named Wren I fucked six ways to Sunday during R&R in Dubai, and a photo of my family when I was thirteen and we were at the lake. Then I wiped them from my mind. If I was willing to forget about them when I jumped off a bridge, it should be easy now.

  Michelle followed suit, not seeming to care one way or the other.

  “Against the wall, please,” he said, pointing to our left.

  I watched as he upended the basket into a large box behind him, already filled with wallets and purses, then I joined Michelle on the wall.

  “What now?” I asked.

  The airman grinned and pressed a remote.

  The wall opened behind us, and we turned and saw an elevator. I entered. Michelle did too. We stood facing the airman, who seemed to be enjoying our discomfort. Probably the only excitement he got except for pulling at his own pud.

  He pressed the remote one more time.

  The doors closed in front of us.

  There were no buttons, but I could feel us descending. I glanced at Michelle, who had her eyes closed. I did the same. A short time later we stopped.

  As I opened my eyes, the doors parted, revealing a painted red concrete floor, shined to a glossy finish. In front of us was a lean black man in black fatigues. On his head was a red beret, with a red flash with the black letters OMBRA stitched to the inside of a triangle.