Fire and Forget (29 page)

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: “R
ED
S
TEEL
M
AIN THIS IS
R
ED
S
TEEL
F
IFTEEN
. B
E ADVISED WE GOT A VEHICLE STOPPED ACROSS THE ROAD
.”

“R
OGER THAT
, R
ED
S
TEEL
F
IFTEEN
.”

“That's our tower.”

“Yeah.”

“R
ED
S
TEEL
F
IFTEEN THIS IS
R
ED
S
TEEL
S
EVEN
. M
ONITOR THE VEHICLE
. I
F IT STAYS LONGER THAN FIVE MINUTES CALL US BACK
.”

“R
OGER
, R
ED
S
TEEL
S
EVEN
. S
TANDBY
.”

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

“R
ED
S
TEEL
S
EVEN THIS IS
R
ED
S
TEEL
F
IFTEEN
. T
HE VEHICLE HAS LEFT
.”

“R
OGER
R
ED
S
TEEL
F
IFTEEN
. R
ED
S
TEEL
S
EVEN 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.

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: “M
EEEOW
!”

“What the fuck?”

“M
EEEOW
.”

“It's the fuckers in the towers.”

“M
EEOW
.”

“T
HIS IS
R
ED
S
TEEL
S
EVEN
. W
HOEVER'S DOING THAT, YOU BETTER KNOCK IT OFF
.”