Fire and Forget

by Matt Gallagher

  Roy Scranton

  WE WOKE UP KUNKLE AND GERALDO: “Get up, fuckers. You’re relieved.”

  “Where’s Sergeant Barton?” Kunkle asked, blinking.

  “He’s off. Sergeant Reynolds is SOG.”

  Reading took off his Kevlar and set it on the Jersey barrier. His buzzcut red hair glowed a sickly brass in the fluorescent light, like a field of bruised pennies.

  “Where Sergeant Reynolds at?” Geraldo said.

  “He’s right behind us,” I said.

  “Aight. We out,” Geraldo took his rifle and stepped off down the road. Kunkle followed and they met SSG Reynolds at the clearing barrel, where he watched them unload and clear their weapons.

  When there was a pause in the radio traffic, I picked up the walkie-talkie: “Red Steel Main, this is Red Steel India. Radio Check over.”

  “RED STEEL INDIA THIS IS RED STEEL MAIN ROGER OUT.”

  SSG Reynolds came up, glaring at us with his bug eyes. “I want you to have your Kevlar on at all times, Reading.”

  Reading ignored him.

  “Now look, you need to make sure you clean up this AO. There’s cigarette butts in the dirt back there. This is a high-visibility area, and the Sergeant Major’s gonna come through. So clean it up. And get inside the guard shack, too.”

  “Hooah,” I said.

  “Now what do you do when you open the gate?”

  “One of us goes up and the other one covers him.”

  “Right. Now, if you’re gonna open the gate, I want both of you up there, one to handle the door and one to watch outside. Somebody could shoot an RPG right through there. That’s what I’d do, if I was them. I’d come by in one of those pickups and send somebody to knock on the door, and when you opened the gate, I’d shoot an RPG right through. Bam! Then what?”

  “Nobody’s gonna shoot an RPG through the gate, Sergeant.”

  “You gotta think tactically. Tactically. Now, what do you do if somebody comes over the wall?”

  “Shoot ’em!” Reading barked.

  “Right, and then you call it up higher.”

  “Nobody’s coming over the wall. It’s like fifty feet high.”

  “That’s what you think. That kind of complacency is what gets soldiers killed.”

  “Roger, Sergeant.”

  “And when ICDC come through, I want you to check each one. Don’t let the ICDC do it. They could have bombs hidden anywhere.”

  “No way,” Reading said. “Hajjis fucking stink.”

  “Roger, Sergeant,” I said. “We’ll take care of it.”

  “You know these ICDC,” he said. “They’ve taken an oath and everything, but they still could be Fedayeen or al-Qaeda or who knows what. Just because they’re on our side doesn’t mean you can trust ’em. One ICDC with a hand grenade could jack up your whole day. What would happen if they got into the chow hall? You don’t wanna be responsible for that. Check and double check.”

  “Shit,” Reading said, “I wanna blow up the chow hall.”

  “Roger, Sergeant Reynolds. We’ll search each one ourselves.”

  “Okay. You guys already get breakfast and everything?”

  “Roger.”

  “Make sure you do your radio checks.”

  “Just did.”

  “Okay. I’ll be back in a couple hours, and I expect this AO to be straight.”

  “Roger.”

  “And Reading, keep your Kevlar on. Carry on, men.”

  We watched SSG Reynolds walk away.

  Reading giggled. “In the case of an all-out assault, I’m gonna shit myself and throw it at ’em. Take that, hajji! Shit-bomb!”

  * * *

  It began with a knock at the gate, prom-prom-prom. The sliding rusted-metal door, thirty feet wide and twenty feet tall, trembled from the pounding.

  “F’tal bob,” I said.

  Reading snickered.

  The two ICDC looked at him.

  “F’tal bob, motherfucker!” I shouted, pointing at the gate, then pointing at the younger of the two hajjis.

  The light was a clear yellow-gray, the sun a white smear still low in the sky.

  The younger hajji got up and picked up his AK and started walking out toward the gate.

  “See who it is,” I said.

  “You,” Reading said back, not looking up from his Gameboy. “I’m in the middle of a level.”

  “Fuck your level. Go see who it is.”

  “Why you such a bitch, Wilson?”

  “Cause I hate freedom, motherfucker. Go see who it is.”

  “Whatever,” Reading said, pausing his game and setting it on his chair. “But don’t touch my game.”

  “I’m gonna kill your fucking Metroid, what I’m gonna do.”

  Reading flipped me off and walked around the barrier, putting his Kevlar on as he went.

  “Hey, John Wayne. Forget something?”

  Reading looked back at me, then scowled and shook his head. He came back for his rifle, picked it up, and went back toward the gate. The ICDC had unlatched the gate and was throwing his weight against it, sliding it slowly open with a rumble and a creak. Reading held his weapon at the ready.

  A hajji in civilian clothes stood outside the gate with a gym bag. Thin and scraggly, with messy black hair and a large mustache, he wore a checkered work shirt, track pants, and sandals.

  “ID,” Reading said.

  He pulled out his Iraqi Civil Defense Corps badge and showed it. Reading checked the badge against the man’s face and nodded, directing him inside.

  “Come here,” I shouted, waving him forward. I stood, picked up my rifle, and slung it at the ready. I nodded to the older ICDC sitting smoking against the shack wall. “Check his bag,” I said.

  He lurched up and went around the Jersey barrier, and when the hajji came up he took his bag and poked through it.

  “Pat him down,” I told the older ICDC. I looked at the one in civilian clothes and spread my arms and legs. “Search, search,” I said.

  The one in civilian clothes mimicked me and the older one patted him down. I caught a whiff of old hajji sweat.

  “Turn around,” I said to him, swirling my finger.

  He stared at me.

  “Turn around,” I shouted, swirling my finger again.

  He turned to face the gate. The older ICDC patted him down, then looked at me.

  I swatted at the Iraqi’s ass and said, “Check here, yeah.” I cupped my groin. “Check his package.”

  He shook his head and grimaced, but I told him to do it, so he stuck his hand between the other man’s legs and batted it around.

  “Mota dudeki,” I said. The hajji in civilian clothes laughed.

  The guard stepped back, scowling, and tapped the man on the shoulder, who turned back around grinning.

  “Go on,” I said, pointing down the road to the ICDC barracks. Meanwhile, more hajjis had showed up for their shift, and Reading checked their IDs and lined them up. I gestured the next one forward. First one by one, then in twos and threes, then one big gaggle, and at last the last stragglers. All of them carried their uniforms and boots in cheap gym bags, all of them wore castoff, dirty clothes, most had mustaches. Two or three had knives in their bags that I looked at then gave back. One carried a pistol that he handed over to me, which I cleared and put in an old MRE box by my chair.

  “Y’all stink,” Reading muttered to the last few through the gate.

  The sun was up now, the morning chill burnt off.

  Soon two new ICDC in ill-fitting fatigues and old boots came to relieve the two at the gate. The old shift handed over their AKs and second-hand flak vests and the new shift took up positions in the cheap white plastic chairs.

  One was middle-aged and walked with a limp. He had a mustache. The other one was younger, barely seventeen, no mustache. Both lit cigarettes.

  There was another bang at the door and I told Reading and the young ICDC to go answer it. Walid, our Iraqi rent-a-cop from Facility Protection Services, stood
at the gate in his blue shirt and slacks. He was a small and skinny man, with a shrunken chest and a thin mustache. The skin of his face stretched tight over his skull, his cheekbones sticking out like little ziggurats.

  “Walid!” Reading shouted.

  “Sadiki,” Walid said back.

  All three came in and Walid took out his pistol and cleared it.

  “Wally dudeki,” I said.

  The ICDC grinned.

  “You mota mota good,” Walid said to me.

  “You mota dudeki, good good,” I said, miming a blowjob with the barrel of my rifle.

  Walid grinned and went inside the shack and dropped off his bag. Then he walked down to the ICDC shack, drew an AK, and came back to the guard point. He sat next to the ICDC and lit a cigarette.

  “Well that’s done,” I said.

  “Three more hours,” Reading said.

  He picked up his Gameboy. I took off my Kevlar and dug through my backpack. I pulled out a Maxim and an FHM and a Harper’s, and the ICDC leaned toward me, staring. I gave them the Maxim and kept the other two for myself.

  * * *

  It went like this: the first day you report for guard mount at 0750, then you’re on duty in the sun till 1400. Then you clear your weapon and walk back to the barracks and sleep until 0100. You get up in the dark, get ready, and make it to guard mount at 0150, pull duty until 0800. The sun’s come up. Then you go eat breakfast, jerk off, and sleep until 1300. Guard mount 1350, on duty till 2000, clear your weapon, walk back to the barracks in the dark, think of some other life you had once, sleep, get up at 0700, back to guard mount at 0750, and the cycle repeats. Light, dark, dark, light, night day whatever.

  * * *

  Reading played Metroid in the doorway. I sprawled on the cot inside the shack, dozing in and out of consciousness. The two ICDC sat outside in the night, smoking and looking at bodyspray ads in FHM.

  “Shit man,” Reading said.

  I ignored him.

  “Shit, I’m so bored, I’m bored of Metroid.”

  I lay still, pleading with God to make him be silent.

  “I know you’re awake, man. When you think we’ll get off this shit?”

  “Let me sleep, fucker.”

  “All you fucking do is sleep.”

  “That’s because I don’t drink all those fucking Red Bulls.”

  “Shit keeps me alert. I’m a killing machine!”

  “You’re a fucking talking machine.”

  “Shit! Shit man. When you think we’ll get off this?”

  “Never.”

  “We gotta get off sometime.”

  “No. Never. The unit’s gonna redeploy to Germany and they’re gonna leave us here to guard the ICDC gate. We’re professionals. We’re mission essential. We’re the tip of the goddamn spear.”

  “I wanna go out on patrols like the other guys.”

  “So tell Lieutenant Perez you wanna go out on patrol.”

  “He’s pissed at me ’cause I shot up that house.”

  “You shot the shit outta that house.”

  “There was a dude with an AK up there.”

  “Yeah, he was up there fucking your mom.”

  “Shit. Whatever. He was up there.”

  “That’s why you got taken off the SAW?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dumbass.”

  “What’d you do to piss him off?”

  “I don’t fucking know, man. I read a book one time. I just fucking do what I’m told.”

  “Well, you musta done something.”

  “Maybe he wants me to watch your stupid ass, make sure you don’t shoot up the gate.”

  “Shit, whatever.”

  The radio popped: “RED STEEL MAIN THIS IS RED STEEL FIFTEEN. BE ADVISED WE GOT A VEHICLE STOPPED ACROSS THE ROAD.”

  “ROGER THAT, RED STEEL FIFTEEN.”

  “That’s our tower.”

  “Yeah.”

  “RED STEEL FIFTEEN THIS IS RED STEEL SEVEN. MONITOR THE VEHICLE. IF IT STAYS LONGER THAN FIVE MINUTES CALL US BACK.”

  “ROGER, RED STEEL SEVEN. STANDBY.”

  I sat up and grabbed my Kevlar. Reading paused his game. We looked at each other, then reached for our rifles.

  “RED STEEL SEVEN THIS IS RED STEEL FIFTEEN. THE VEHICLE HAS LEFT.”

  “ROGER RED STEEL FIFTEEN. RED STEEL SEVEN OUT.”

  I dropped my Kevlar and lay back down. Reading dug through his backpack and pulled out a Red Bull.

  “Hajjis coming,” he said. “Ali and Ahmed.”

  “Ali Dudeki?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck.”

  Ali was tall for an Iraqi, with a stubborn, dopey face and mischievous eyes. He liked to grab our nuts, though ever since Kunkle hog-tied him with zip-strips and left him like that for an afternoon, he was less inclined. Ahmed was shorter, a hunchback, and had some kind of rank with the ICDC—he was always policing the guards, berating them, checking their AKs. With us he played the clown, shouting the handful of obscenities he knew in English over and over. Ali seemed to be Ahmed’s sidekick; it was clear the hunchback ran things.

  “Sadiki! Sabbah h’annur!” Ali shouted.

  “Ali Dudeki,” Reading croaked, not looking up from his game.

  “Fuck shit, shut up!” Ahmed barked, slapping Ali on the back of his head. “Yeeeeeah,” he crooned, twisting back over his hump.

  “Ahmed, sadiki,” I said, sitting up. “Chaku maku?”

  “Very good, very good, yeeeeah! No problem!”

  “Sadiki,” Ali said, lifting his eyebrows and pointing at my bag, “you bring ne ficky ficky?”

  “No, Ali. No ficky ficky.”

  “Tomorrow and tomorrow, Sadiki? Any o’clock? You bring ne ficky ficky?”

  “Maybe if you’re good.”

  Ali tiptoed over to Reading and smiled back at me sneakily. Reading, absorbed in his game, seemed not to notice the big man as he reached out slowly for his nuts. Then, in a swift blur, Reading dropped his Gameboy, grabbed Ali’s hand, and lunged up, pulling his arm around his head and lifting him into the air, then dropped him down on the concrete. Reading fell on the big hajji, pinning him with his knees, slapping his face.

  “Shit fuck, cunt shit ass, shit!” Ahmed shouted in excitement.

  “You mota mota good, huh?” Reading asked Ali, slapping him, “You mota me, huh? Mota mota? Ali Dudeki? Ali Menuch?”

  Ali grinned and tried to cover his face and buck Reading off, but Reading had him wrapped up. “Now you’re getting zip-zipped,” Reading said.

  “No, no,” Ali said, cringing and shaking his head. “No zipzip. Sadiki no zip-zip.”

  “Then knock it the fuck off!”

  “No zip-zip. Ali no zip-zip.”

  “All right, fucker,” Reading said, standing and helping Ali to his feet. “No zip-zip—this time!”

  “Sadiki,” Ali said to him, very seriously.

  “What?” Reading asked.

  “Tomorrow and tomorrow, you bring ne ficky ficky? Any o’clock?”

  “No, you fucking faggot.”

  “Tomorrow you, you, meshi meshi, go home, ficky ficky?” Ali pointed at Reading, then at himself, then at the gate.

  “What? . . .”

  Ali made moon-eyes at Reading. “You, you, meshi meshi? Mota? Mota?”

  “I think he wants you to go home with him,” I said.

  “No fucking mota, dudeki!”

  “Yeeeeeah!” Ahmed crooned. “Shit! Fuck! Shut-up!”

  Then Ahmed the hunchback went outside and started talking to the ICDC. Ali sat on the edge of my cot but I kicked him in the side and he walked off, staring at Reading, who resumed his game. After a minute, Ahmed called Ali away.

  “Fucking fag,” Reading said.

  * * *

  Explosions in the night. We tumble out of bed and throw on our armor and wait for more mortars. Silence. Half an hour later someone comes and tells us stand down. The next day there’s a scar of blasted earth gouged out behind the guard shack.r />
  Two EOD sergeants and a First Sergeant from DIVARTY come down and do crater analysis, stepping in and out of the hole, divining esoteric data.

  * * *

  The radio squawked: “MEEEOW!”

  “What the fuck?”

  “MEEEOW.”

  “It’s the fuckers in the towers.”

  “MEEOW.”

  “THIS IS RED STEEL SEVEN. WHOEVER’S DOING THAT, YOU BETTER KNOCK IT OFF.”

  “MEEOW.”

  “Fucking retards.”

  “LIMIT YOUR RADIO TRAFFIC TO ESSENTIAL MESSAGES. I’M SERIOUS. RED STEEL SEVEN OUT.”

  “OR I’LL FUCK YOU IN YOUR EYEBALLS. FUCK-A-DOO!”

  “MEEOW.”

  “THIS IS RED STEEL SEVEN KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF. RIGHT NOW.”

  * * *

  Clouds hung low over the mucky earth, turning everything gray. Shots had been fired at the guard tower in a drive-by, so everyone was on alert. SSG Reynolds had warned us Sergeant Major might be coming through. Reading worked his thumbs on the Gameboy.

  “What fucking day is it?”

  “Today?”

  “No yesterday, motherfucker.”

  “Yesterday was the day before.”

  “What day today?”

  “Fucking shit day.”

  “Tuesday?”

  “Whatever.”

  Two ICDC guards sat smoking, flipping through my copy of the Vanity Fair issue with the big Michael Jackson exposé. One of the ICDC was younger, chubby, trying to grow a mustache and failing, the other was slightly older, his face pocked with acne scars. I watched them look at the fashion shots, the pictures of Neverland Ranch, the ads for J. Lo perfume and Philip Patek watches.

  “You like America?” I asked them.

  “Ameriki?” the younger one said.

  “Yeah. America good?”

  “Yes, Ameriki good,” he beamed.

  “Michael Jackson good?”

  “Yes yes, Michael Jackson. Ee-hee. Very good.”

  “You like Bush? Bush good?”

  “Boosh good, yes.”

  “How ’bout Saddam? You like Saddam?”

  “Saddam no good. Saddam Ali Baba,” the older one said, stamping his foot and spitting.

  “You shi’a?”

  “Sun’na.”

  “Ayatollah Sistani good?”

  He shrugged.

  “Moqtada al-Sadr good?”

  “Al-Sadr very good,” the young one said. The older one shrugged.

  “Shi’a?” I pointed at the young one.