“You really are nuts…” Jason felt exhausted. “Coo coo.”
“Name calling…” Kaku shook his head. “Honestly, Jason, I thought you were above such behavior.”
“I’m serious…” Jason’s words slurred and he didn’t understand why. “You let me out of this chair…I’ll kill you.”
“Yes, Jason,” the doctor was inattentive. “I know, I know, I know. You will kill me. Let me tell you something, Jason…” As Kaku spoke, his words seemed to slow down “…we will see that letter again, you and I…”
Jason felt sluggish.
“…something you do not know then, mmm?”
His exhalation seemed to take forever.
“…after—you—kill—me?”
He felt like he weighed a thousand pounds.
Kaku’s mouth moved but the sound only reached Jason after what seemed an eternity.
After you kill me…
A million pounds
…you will shoot yourself.
“You’re crazy,” Jason turned his head from Kaku, facing the dark.
“They’re all crazy, love,” the woman with the clipped British accent commented, unseen.
“Who’s that?” Jason called out into the passageway. He could talk.
“There were never any weapons of mass destruction and they knew it.”
He didn’t know how he was with Kaku one moment then back in his cell the next. He didn’t know where he was anymore. “Yeah, well…” what mattered, Jason thought, was that he was here, now. “What about 9-11 then?”
“9-11 gave these guys an excuse, Jason. Let me ask you, you’re military. Where were you stationed?”
“Iraq.”
“Iraq. Jason, why do you think you were in Iraq?”
“You’re going to say the oil, right?”
“Well, if Iraq’s main resource was cantaloupe, you and I both know you wouldn’t have been there, don’t we? But it’s not about owning the oil, Jason, it’s about maintaining access to the oil.”
“What about Bin Laden?”
“Bin Laden? Jason, sixteen of the nineteen suicide bombers on September 11th were Saudi nationals. What about Bin Laden? What about Saudi Arabia then? What about Pakistan and Musharref? Or Karzai and his brother?”
“I don’t know if I follow you…”
“Certainly you do, Jason. The U.S. is never going to attack a country that might actually beat it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Think about it Jason. When were you born?”
“Late 1970s.”
“The late 1970s. Let’s see. Angola. Nicaragua. El Salvador. Grenada. Panama. Iraq. Kosovo. Sudan. Iraq again. And again. Do you see a pattern? Do I need to continue?”
“I know it sounds stupid,” Jason admitted, “but I just want to go home.”
“It’s a revolving door, Jason, between big business and big government. Look at the vice president.”
“What about him?”
“Sabian was on the board of how many corporations that these wars have made rich?”
“I don’t know…”
“He still collects a paycheck from Diogenes for god’s sake.”
“That’s not good…” Jason remarked, looking down at the ground in the passageway, trying to think happy thoughts.
“Let me tell you how it works, Jason. These companies are publicly subsidized—they get their R&D money from taxpayers—but they enjoy private profits…”
He closed his eyes and imagined that the cold stone under his feet was the cool sand of the beach. “I don’t know…”
“What don’t you know?” her voice was fading. “Companies like KBR, Lockheed, Diogenes…”
I know it sounds stupid…
I want you to know. They were walking side by side, hand in hand. A year had passed since they’d met. Jason had graduated college and was living in North Carolina.
Aspen looked at him expectantly.
I want you to know, he told her, I love you. I’ll always love you. When I’m not with you, you’re all I can think about.
The stars shone overhead.
I want you to be able to talk to me, he continued, to be able to talk to me about anything, okay? I don’t want—I never want any drama between us. If something’s bothering you, talk to me, please? I know it sounds stupid…
They were on the beach where they had met.
It doesn’t sound stupid, she smiled back at him. You’re too sweet.
Courtney and Jack had broken up sometime ago. They’d driven here as a reminder. It was Jason’s idea.
“What about you, main?” The voice came out of the sky, a clear sky, no rain. “Why you here?”
“You want the long answer…” Jason asked the unseen man in the cell next to his. “…or the short answer?”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“I was a teacher.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Was, huh? What happened, yo? You touch a kid?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. When I was a kid, teachers were respected.”
“Main, I’ll tell you—I spoke back to Mr. Moody once and my grandma laid it on me good when I got home. I can still feel that shit.”
“There was this idea that, sure, if you were a teacher, you’d never get rich, but you’d get your summers off. You’d make a decent living. And it was viewed as, I don’t know, a noble profession.”
“All that changed, didn’t it?”
“Sure it did. They started blaming us—blaming teachers, blaming students and schools—blaming us for everything. Some study comes out, says US students aren’t up to par on math and science internationally? Must be the public schools. Must be the teacher’s union.”
“Must be.”
“Kids graduating from high school, not ready for college? Not ready for a decent job? Our fault. Never mind that we see these kids for, what? Six, seven hours a day and then what? Never mind that the economy sucks and isn’t creating the kinds of jobs anybody would want to work, or the fact that colleges produce more drop outs than graduates. Never mind that test scores aren’t everything, but once they became everything education became all about raising them.”
“Never mind,” the other man echoed.
“I mean, the high school I taught in, we used to spend the last third of the year prepping kids for the state tests.”
“Fucked up.”
“You know what happens when that happens? Forget the big ideas. Forget ‘intellectual inquiry’. Forget sparking a life-long love of learning. You’re not just dumbing down individuals, you’re dumbing down a nation.”
“Allelujah, main.”
“That how I sound?”
“No, I’m just messin’ roun’ with you.”
“They started to ‘measure’ us, using our students’ performance on tests. All of a sudden everyone wanted to work with the A.P. kids—”
“Advanced placement?”
“Yeah. No one wanted to work with special ed. kids, with the English-language learners.”
“That’s who you worked with?”
“Yeah. That’s what I got into teaching for. I didn’t think they’d be as shortsighted as they were—I mean the politicians, the bureaucrats in state ed. Breaking the unions wasn’t enough for them. They wanted to privatize the whole enchilada.”
“And so you’re here?”
“After I was deemed ‘ineffective’ two years in a row, it was easy enough for them to get rid of me. They’d already scrapped seniority, scrapped tenure, collective bargaining.”
“So you lost your job?”
“I lost my job. I couldn’t make my mortgage payments. I lost my house. I was a real good time to be around. Boy was I. I lost my wife.”
“No?”
“She left with the kids. And I can’t blame her.”
“We’ve all got things we regret,” the other man noted sadly.
We’ve all got things we regret “I said I didn’t do anything I regret. Didn’t you hear me?”
“What? All right main, calm down. Shit, I didn’t say…”
We’ve all got things we regret
Jason’s head started to spin, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, the bars of his cell, knuckles rapping out a beat, the cold rock walls of the passageway, a little girl in a bee suit, we’ve all got things we regret, knocking, Rudy smiling knowingly at him, knocking…
She was knocking on his door so he let her in.
“Hey.”
It was spring outside.
“Hey,” she said. “We’ve got to talk.”
Like that. Boom.
She came into the living room.
He sat down on the couch, near the door. She looked beautiful but cold, an ominous portent. He knew what was coming. He’d lived this over and over again since.
“I met someone else…” as soon as she said it his head reeled. Her next words reached him in snippets and starts. “…I’m sorry, Jason…you don’t deserve this…” He sank into the couch, wishing he could dissolve away in the cushions, into the earth. “…I really do love you…” There were birds in the tree outside the house. “…I wanted you to hear it from me…” The birds sounded so goddamn happy.
And all I can do, Shannon Hoon had cried, is pour some tea for two…
…I’m so sorry, Jason. I really am…
Sometimes there were not two to drink.
He stood up, walked over to the door, and closed it to the birds. They didn’t deserve to be that happy. Not now. When he turned around she was watching.
Why’d you close the door? He sat back down. Jason?
He’d met her older sister.
He’d met her mom and her mom’s husband.
Jason. I’m sorry.
He was sitting between her and the door. His leg was shaking.
You’re too sweet, she’d told him.
So let me ask you, Aspen. She had hurt him. He wanted to hurt her, not hurt her. He wanted her to feel what he was feeling. What is it you fear most?
Recognition in her eyes. Was she trembling?
Her beauty had made him gasp.
She’d shut the fuck up. He was glad she’d shut up. His whole world was imploding and she was the cause. He wanted her to know what that was like. And he didn’t, because he loved her, even then.
He would never hurt her. Ever. Only his words…
She stood, hesitantly. It was not his finest hour. She brushed past him to the door. Eleven hours and twenty-four minutes. He made no move to stop her. She left him there on the couch, the door open, the birds. He’d done his best to ignore her, skipping rocks across the ocean’s surface. He listened to her car start outside, listened to her drive away. The birds were so happy.
And now he didn’t have her, but he was not alone.
“Jason. I’m not going to tell you my name…” He didn’t recognize the voice. It was a man’s. “And I’m not going to make up a name either.”
They’d forced him to crouch again, his hands behind his back, his forehead against the wall. Fuck them.
“…I respect you enough to not feed you any bullshit. And that’s the truth.”
Kill me already
In Iraq, in Chewville, behind the blast walls and sandbags and Hescos…
“Jason, I’m going to lay out your situation very frankly and present your options.”
…they’d had PCs with internet and email, porn and Facebook…
“You killed a family, Jason.”
…and that’s where the kid had found him…
“…and worse, you executed a little girl. Now, I think I understand why you did it. You didn’t want her to suffer, did you Jason?”
…sitting in front of the computer, on Facebook, looking at a picture of a woman he knew, two little girls with her.
“But that excuse doesn’t fly, Jason, even in the military. Even in wartime.”
She’s gorgeous, old man, Rudy’d remarked.
“Normally, you’d be facing a court marshal. Disciplinary action. But you’re here. And there’s nothing normal about this place…”
Jason had fumbled with the mouse, navigating away from the page.
“…in case you hadn’t noticed.”
What? Jason demanded of the kid.
“Your country needs you, Jason. We’re putting together a team…”
It hadn’t been the first time Rudy had found Jason studying her.
“…a team for an especially sensitive mission. Now, I can’t share the details of that mission with you…”
Why don’t you friend her? The kid asked, but Jason couldn’t do that.
“…all I can tell you is, if you agree to participate—and then, if you survive—you will be given a second chance…”
Who is she? Rudy had pressed.
“…you’ll be assigned a new identity, given a place to live, a comfortable job. Everything in the past…”
She’s no one, Jason had told the kid, she’s a ghost.
“…will be in the past. Your other option…”
Let me guess, Rudy so god-damned shrewd, she’s not your ex-wife, is she?
“…your other option is to stay here, with him.”
“Hello, Jason.” Dr. Kaku.
No. She’s not.
“Well, then, there it is, Jason…”
Shannon Hoon died of a drug overdose in 1995.
“…it’s your choice.”
What you’re doing, old man…
“Granted, it isn’t much of one.”
…it just ain’t healthy…
“But it’s still your choice.”
…it just ain’t…
“Your choice…”
…sometimes… you just gotta let go.
His legs were shaking and cramping.
“Well…?”
…sometimes…
And Rudy must have told Mook all about it, about Jason trolling the internet looking at pictures of a woman who wasn’t his ex-wife, cyber stalking her.
…you just gotta let go…
God-dammit.
“I’m in,” he growled.
What do you fear the most, Aspen had asked him.
Losing you, he’d told her.
Awww, you’re too sweet. Too sweet, she’d told him, the woman who would break his heart.
They’d held each other. She was warm.
What about you, he asked her, what do you fear the most?
I had a, she paused between her words, my cousin, uncomfortable recounting it. He closed the door, she shivered in his arms, remembering it, wouldn’t let me leave. Jason held her close and waited, let her tell it the way she wanted. He tried, I thought he was going to…
Did he?
…jason…
No. Thank god, no.
Thank god is right, Jason breathed a sigh of relief.
…Jason…
That’s what I fear the most, she’d said, that someone would do that to me, try to do that…
Never.
Somewhere in the distance the sound of a metal door protesting as it slid back.
Never, he had promised her.
“Jason!”
He sat up on the cot, alert. “What is it?”
“Listen to me—” the black guy in the cell next to his “—they’re coming for one of us.”
“What do we do?”
The clap-clap-clap of heels out in the passageway, drawing closer.
“If you get out of here, find Chandra. Find her and tell her—”
“I will!”
“And you? Jason—you got anyone you want me to?”
“My ex-wife…”
Clap-clap-clap, echoing nearer.
�
�…Susanne, her and the kids, she’ll…You know what? Just forget it. Forget it.”
CLAP-CLAP-CLAP
“Wait!” Jason cried out. “Wait! Who’s Chandra. And what do I tell her?”
He’d never seen the two black-clad men standing outside his cell.
“Come with us.”
There was a buzz and the door to his prison opened. Jason looked around his cell one final time. The cot, the sink, the toilet, no more than six by eight. He stepped tentatively out into the passageway. He saw that his cell was the last one before the passage ended abruptly at a rock wall. In the opposite direction, it stretched off into the dark.
“Come,” one of the two men prodded.
Jason turned and followed the man, aware of the second guy behind him. He spied the steel bars of the cell set a yard away from his own, and as he walked past he gazed in, hoping to catch a glimpse of his neighbor, to wave goodbye to the man.
The cell was empty.
“Keep moving.”
The light on the camera mounted to the wall flashed repeatedly.
Excerpt:
SUMMARIZED RECORD OF TRIAL – ARTICLE SESSION
PROCEEDINGS OF A SPECIAL COURT-MARTIAL
In the case of Carlos Aguilera, xxx-xx-xxxx,
The military judge called the Article to order at
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
HEADQUARTERS,
UNITED STATES
COURT-MARTIAL CONVEGING ORDER
NUMBER
DIRECT EXAMINATION
Yeah, I killed them. So what? What don’t you understand? You want to win this war? These wars? How the you think we gonna do that? You think we’re gonna pump, what, billions of dollars into these countries, and they’re gonna, what? Thank us? President think that? think that? Thank us. That’s just not a part of their mentality. Let me tell you about the mind. You want to win, you got to stamp them out. Kill them all. Like roaches. All of them. Cause that’s what they are. They deserve to die. I’d do it again I had the chance. It’s the only way.
The Dirty Dozen
Was he awake or asleep when the little girl in the bee costume came and stood where he lay, saying his name?
Jason.
He didn’t know. When Jason opened his eyes the girl was gone and he was alone.
Sitting up on the bunk, swinging his legs around, he placed his socked feet on the cool linoleum floor. He felt groggy and held the side of his head as he looked around. The room was enormous, filled with double steel bunks. Of all the beds he could see, each was neatly made except for his.
Warlord: Dervish Page 6
