War of the Encyclopaedists

by Christopher Robinson

  Back home, he lay down on the couch and turned on the TV. The Last Samurai was playing on USA. He’d heard it was only okay.

  He had trouble focusing on the movie, partly because he was quite drunk and partly because he couldn’t help imagining Thanksgiving in Seattle. His mother, Susan, was an incorrigible prompter of party games: charades, Pictionary, Scattergories, or Celebrity, in which each person wrote down someone famous and stuck the paper to someone else’s forehead, then you went around the circle, trying to guess who you were. Corderoy hated this game most of all—perhaps it was something about the uncertainty of identity, the madness it implied in having to ask, “Am I dead?” or worse, “Am I fictional?” It was eleven in Boston, which meant it was eight in Seattle, and his mother was probably just now rounding people up for an interlude of games before dessert.

  Tom Cruise was annoying, which was to be expected, but Ken Watanabe played a badass samurai named Katsumoto. Near the end of the movie, when the emperor’s army had mowed down Watanabe’s rebels with their American-bought howitzers, only Cruise and Watanabe were left alive on a blood-drenched field. Watanabe was too weak to commit seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, so he asked Cruise to do it for him. Would that even count? It would be more like assisted suicide. Or consensual murder. It didn’t seem honorable so much as pathetic. Cowardly. But the thing that really got Corderoy was that the reverse seemed cowardly, too. To simply go on living until nature or genetics or circumstance or God snuffed you out. He tried to recall Hamlet’s To be, or not to be soliloquy:

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

  The pangs of despised love, the something something

  The law, patient merit something,

  . . . .

  With a bare bodkin . . .

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death—

  The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

  No traveler returns—puzzles the will,

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others that we know not of?

  He realized that, as an atheist, he did not fear the undiscovered country. In his equation, there were no other ills he knew not of. There were only the present ills. And the option of ending them at his discretion. Besides, life had to end eventually. And thousands of years ago, twenty-three was middle-aged. Would he be missed? Certainly. His parents and his brother, and Montauk, and a few others would miss him. Mani, in a way, maybe. Perhaps his mother, a devout Catholic, would be debilitated by the same conundrum that Hamlet faced. But Corderoy’s will felt significantly unpuzzled.

  He saw his life as a mediocre movie. There had been some funny moments, a few tragic ones, plenty of boring ones, some in which the acting was painful, and were he to stay in the theater, there might be some more touching or hilarious scenes, but there’d also be hours of utter banality, of poorly edited and poorly written dialogue, of plots that went nowhere, of flimsy two-dimensional characters. Why not just walk out of the theater? He could be a thing that existed and then a thing that didn’t.

  The credits were rolling on The Last Samurai, and Corderoy muted the TV. He thought about getting a knife from the kitchen. He thought about rifling through the medicine cabinet looking for pills, he thought about sticking his head in the oven, he even thought about taking a bath and throwing the toaster in the water. But he continued to lie on the couch, his thumb tracing slow circles over the springy rubber buttons of the remote.

  BAGHDAD

  19

  * * *

  The Black Hawk whipped low over the dun suburbs of Anbar Province. Second Lieutenant Mickey Montauk had a window seat, his boot dangling above clusters of brown houses with driveways and clotheslines. On the roof of a larger three-story, some teenagers sat in lawn chairs. Montauk was touched by a momentary envy. In Seattle, rooftops were angled and shingled, due to the rain. One of the roof kids jumped up and waved, his loose blue shirt flapping in the rotor wash. Montauk waved back. His cultural proficiency guidebook had warned about showing Iraqis the soles of your shoes—a sign of disrespect in the Arab world. No way the Arab foot-beef extended to people flying in helicopters, but he tucked his feet in anyway.

  He had volunteered to be on the advance party, arriving by helo. Olaf was supervising the convoy from Arifjan in Kuwait. Montauk felt guilty leaving his platoon to make the long drive without him, getting their first taste of anxiety about the ever present threat of roadside bombs. But as the city began appearing on the horizon through the thick haze, Montauk’s guilt gave way to amazement. Baghdad from the air was a land of fantasy, ripped right out of some cartoonish video game. Gigantic pastel mushrooms and blue eggs dotted the landscape. There were the Ba’athist pleasure domes, surrounded by greenery and kidney-shaped pools. The summer palaces on slopes where sheiks relaxed on their terraces while silken girls served sherbet.

  Many of the larger buildings hugged the Tigris, which curved in a lazy bend around the center of the capital. There was a large zoo with a Ferris wheel and a hippopotamus pond. Close by was an enormous white disc-shaped structure—the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, built in the wake of the Iran/Iraq war. And beyond that, the capstone of it all: the Swords of Qādisīyah, their massive blades gripped in hands rising out of the earth. Saddam was a cheesy son of a bitch, yes. But there was something awesome about commissioning an official government sculpture of your own hands holding 140-foot sabers, to be placed in the middle of the city.

  Montauk daydreamed his own self-aggrandizing public art pieces. Perhaps a bronze equestrian monument, with himself in late-­eighteenth-century costume—but did the world really need another of those? Then the vision came to him: looming over acres of tombstones in Arlington Cemetery, a hundred-foot-high statue of himself, shirtless, pointing a big-ass Rambo M-60 to the sky, Corderoy’s mom clinging to his side in a tattered dress, her romance-novel melons barely concealed, and Corderoy at his feet, hunched like Gollum with clawed fingers and giant yellow eyes. Montauk laughed to himself as the Black Hawk banked west over the Tigris.

  The Texans of 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division had installed themselves in the presidential palace on the river, with its turquoise dome and copses of palm trees out front, now browning and dying because the Cav didn’t give a good goddamn about Saddam’s landscaping. There was a nice fat hole in the side of the dome where some Tomahawk missile had slammed into it. Montauk wished he’d been around to see that. Those air strikes had happened just over a year ago; he might have been nerding out over transcendental poetry with Cor­deroy in Rome on the night this part of Baghdad had its face rearranged by the Air Force. He’d joined the National Guard back before the Twin Towers fell, a blink in the eye of history but a long time ago for Montauk. Even after the Iraq invasion, a combat deployment seemed an unlikely future to your average reservist. Foreign wars were for the regular Army. And yet here they were.

  The Black Hawk touched down on the dirt, and Montauk and his team grabbed their rucks and headed toward the main entrance, a fancy raised-up marble and brass deal with a valet parking–type turnaround.

  They entered and climbed the marble staircase to the rotunda, which was hung with a large Old Glory and an even larger Texan flag. It must have been forty feet long. No need for all those stars and stripes, just one stripe each of red and white and one big-ass star. Protected by niggas with big dicks, AKs, and 187 skills, Montauk recalled Snoop Dogg saying, apropos of something or other.

  “You like that, LT?” said a man coming down the staircase. He looked like a black Mr. Clean. An oversize horse-head Cav patch on the shoulder, captain’s bars on one lapel, and on the other what looked like . . . yes, cavalry sabers. He was Montauk’s liaison.

  “It’s huge, sir,” Montauk said, looking back to the flag.

  “Got it donated
from the DAR in Fort Worth. I spoke with Captain Byrd. He’s gonna talk to your colonel to get us a Washington flag to hang up there, since y’all are getting attached to Third Brigade.” He looked Montauk in the eye. “You got a big one?”

  “Probably not that big.”

  • • •

  They were shuttled in a Humvee to the Convention Center, a couple of klicks away at the other edge of the Green Zone. They passed traffic circles with memorial statues, palm trees, rows of small houses, some still occupied (by their original inhabitants, foreign contractors, journalists?), some damaged and vacant. They passed roadside food carts, convenience stands, more palm trees. The Humvee approached an entrance checkpoint manned by two soldiers with a tire ripper that they rolled out of the way when the driver flashed his ID. They took a right and rolled down a central boulevard divided by an L.A.-style median whose palms had been reduced to stumps by security-­conscious landscapers. Across the median and through a small parking lot stood the Al Rasheed Hotel, Saddam’s Ritz, which was for a while the most sought-after address in occupied Baghdad. Until the mortars and rockets started flying about six months after the invasion. Large concrete walls were erected around the Green Zone, and the occupation slowly hunkered down in the bunker that would become its prison.

  Montauk’s liaison dropped him off in front of two machine-gun towers and a long walkway that served as a pedestrian checkpoint; fifteen or twenty soldiers were spread along it, checking identification, searching, and swabbing for explosive residue. A steady trickle of Baghdadis in light, loose clothing or long, black abayas emerged from the gauntlet of the checkpoint and walked through the heat toward the Convention Center. For what? To apply for jobs, to get some kind of handout or reparations payment from the occupation, to report relatives missing or killed? Montauk looped his front sling over his head and arm so that Molly Millions hung straight down over his vest. A soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division stood at the Convention Center’s front door, checking to see that weapons were unloaded. He’d probably shot his way in here with the invasion force and was still cooling his heels. Montauk yanked the bolt back to show Molly’s empty innards and was about to walk through when the soldier stopped him. “Pistol, too, sir.”

  “Right. Sorry,” Montauk said. He did the same for his pistol, feeling like the new kid in school. You didn’t belong until someone newer than you came along.

  The main hall was wrapped in a mosaic depicting the history of the Babylonians, from Hammurabi’s conquests to the recent “victories” over Iran and the US, represented here as a dragon with a red, white, and blue tail. Soldiers and flak-vested American-looking civilians crossed the tile floor, along with Iraqis in loose blue uniforms who looked to be custodial staff. Montauk asked around and was pointed toward a door off to the side of the main hall. He opened it and guessed he had found his future home.

  It was some sort of office corridor, though the desks and cubicle partitions had been replaced by bunks and stacks of equipment. Camouflage ponchos hung on green 550 cord to make little living-space partitions. It looked like a couple hundred troops were living here.

  Montauk asked around for the CO and was pointed to the Tactical Operations Center, a hemispherical office room with a satellite map of the Green Zone on its fuzzy wall, a couple of desktop computers, and some olive-green steel tactical radios. The two guys sitting in front of the computers looked up at him.

  “Can we help you, LT?” one of them said.

  “I’m the advance party for Bravo Company, 161. Washington National Guard.”

  They both raised their eyebrows and looked at each other. “Are you our relief?”

  It hit Montauk that yes, he was the new kid in school, but his arrival meant graduation for all these troops. Charlie Company had been here since the invasion and was one of the last companies of the 3rd Infantry to be sent home. The 1st Cav had been here a month, but the transition was slow. Now that Montauk was arriving with Bravo Company, these weary boys could return to their wives and girlfriends, or ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, depending.

  “Looks like it,” Montauk said.

  One of the radio guys hailed his commander on the phone while the other looked at Montauk like a fifth-grader who had just won a pizza party.

  20

  * * *

  “Faggot,” Mohammed Faisal muttered in English after the shop door jingled shut behind him. He made his way down Karada Dahil, his plastic flip-flops slapping against the sidewalk as he shifted the case of Mr. Brown iced coffee from one shoulder to another. When a gap in traffic appeared, he dashed to the median. A blue Bongo pickup carrying goats wafted its goat-smell over him as it passed along the parkway, and the boy made a face of exaggerated disgust. He shifted the box off his shoulder and onto his chest and ran the rest of the way across. He was a week short of his eleventh birthday.

  The line of cars started a full block and a half from the checkpoint. The drivers milled around, close enough to keep an eye on their vehicles but far enough to maybe survive the blast if one of the cars should for any reason explode. A pile of trash bloomed in a vacant lot, threatening to engulf the sidewalk and obliging Mohammed to sidestep the rank evaporate of what had been fetid pools. His hair clung damply to his forehead as he trudged down the line of cars toward the gun towers in the near distance. An Iraqi soldier sitting in a plastic chair looked up as he passed. “Hey, kid,” he said, cigarette smoke snorting out his nostrils.

  Mohammed stopped, surprised. The Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint were mostly from out of town and rarely spoke to him. They never bought anything because they didn’t want to pay his delivery markup. This one was young and clean-shaven. The palm hanging over his head shaded the Kalashnikov in his lap.

  “The new Americans just got here,” the soldier said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He smirked. “Hope they don’t kick you off the checkpoint.”

  Mohammed smiled defiantly, then hopped and slung the case up to his head and continued on, balancing the coffee on his skull like a ­Babylonian serving girl. His too-short F. C. Iraqiya jersey rode up, exposing a sliver of belly to the dusty air.

  “Faggot,” he muttered in English. He walked up the entrance lane and passed three soldiers, two of whom he didn’t recognize. He slowed down and twisted his head to take a look at them. The patches on their shoulders were different. Also, their helmets were smaller and had black metal squares on the front.

  The checkpoint seemed to be flooded with new Americans. Mohammed made his usual way past the gun towers in the center of the traffic circle and just north of it to the command post, which was made up of three tall concrete barriers with camouflage netting strung between them to make an area of dappled shade. There were five Americans standing under the netting. One of them pointed at him and they all turned. Mohammed hesitated.

  “Come on in!” yelled Lieutenant Watts. “Put the coffee on the table.” He turned to Captain Byrd and Lieutenant Montauk, his replacement. “That’s Monkey,” he said. “He’s one of the checkpoint kids. Gets you coffees and shawarmas and shit.”

  Mohammed stared at the group as he walked into the command post. Satellite photos were taped up on the concrete walls. A large steel desk sat at the rear with green metal radios on top of it. Mohammed hefted the case onto the desk, and Lieutenant Watts tore it open. “Iced coffee?”

  “Is it cold?” Montauk asked.

  “Room temperature.”

  “So, like, a hundred and fifteen degrees?”

  “Yeah.” Lieutenant Watts smiled, then dumped the cans of coffee into an ice-filled garbage bin.

  “That’s going to be the new checkpoint LT,” Watts said to Monkey.

  Montauk held his hand out for a fist bump. “What’s up, stud? Lieutenant Montauk.”

  The kid curled his hand into a fist and bumped Montauk’s.

  “Now beat it,” Watts said, handing him a c
ouple bills.

  Mohammed scurried off and started back down toward Karada Dahil, his plastic flip-flops sending small scraping noises through the thick, windless air.

  “Faggot,” he said once he was out of earshot.

  • • •

  Watts stood over the dusty, laminated satellite map of Baghdad. Montauk and Byrd crowded behind him. The Green Zone was outlined in marker; its eastern and southern borders followed the contour of the Tigris River.

  “Here’s Brigade,” Watts said, pointing to an X on the western edge of the Green Zone—the large domed palace where Montauk first reported. “And here’s the FOB.” He indicated the Iraqi Convention Center, Montauk’s new Forward Operating Base, marked by another X to the northeast. “And here we are at Checkpoint Eleven.” He pointed at a small traffic circle outside the Green Zone on the south side of 14 July Bridge.

  “We’re running three ingress routes to the Green Zone. Military Lane runs north on Route Steelers and into the checkpoint past the east bunker and east gun tower. That’s for Coalition military vehicles and US government vehicles. The east-west road that intersects with Steelers is Karada Dahil. It’s the main thoroughfare that runs the length of the dick.”

  “The dick being Karada Peninsula?” Montauk asked.