Fives and Twenty-Fives (19 page)

I remember the lawn, and I remember what we did in this room, too. What I don’t remember is how we got in here. It was so damned fast. I roll over and try not to drown in this girl’s wedding cake of a bed. It’s midmorning, judging by the angle of the light coming through the cheap, metal blinds. Probably not past nine o’clock, though. Can’t ever sleep that late, even when I really want to.

I sit up and listen for voices or the sound of someone moving around on the other side of that door. Can’t hear nothing, so I’m willing to believe I’m alone in this house. A good thing, too, since my underwear are gone and my crotch is rough and sticky. Goddamn, I need to find my clothes.

This girl Lizzy’s got laundry piled up on the floor so high I can roll onto my feet without bending my knees. It’s hard to find my clothes, though, with hers lying all over the place. I pick through skirts and skinny black jeans, little dresses and undershirts. Nothing of mine.

Am I gonna have to crawl out this window? Sprint to my truck buck naked in the cold and grab the change of clothes from my overnight bag? What if someone already stole my bag, my truck sitting unlocked like it is? What then?

I’m starting to consider it seriously, then I spot my name on a piece of sketch paper, taped to the wall over the only corner she keeps clean.

“Lester,” it says, a big arrow pointing down to an old architect’s plotting table where all my clothes are folded, nice and neat. I pick my way across the floor, trying not to step on too many bras. All those clips and wires hurt my cold, bare feet.

Another note’s sitting on top my underwear, like the one she left on the wall:

“These are very aggressive underpants, Lester. Did you get them in the military? Olive drab. Official but silky smooth too. They’re like danger panties.”

Goddamn adorable, this Lizzy. She’s right, of course. Marine Corps silkies are a strange beast, like boxer shorts with a liner. They do feel odd at first. But now it’s the only underwear that don’t bother me, and since I gave up the dog tags, the last bit of my uniform still in daily rotation.

I shake the pair off the top of the pile and pull them on. Soft and dry. That’s the advantage of the silkies. You can wear them for days if need be. Helps out on the road when you have to sit in the Humvee for hours, sweating and steaming. I pull on my jeans and undershirt and fall back across her bed, feeling a little more relaxed now. No one’s gonna walk in on me naked. No roommates. Or parents, if I’ve messed up that bad.

That grass smell is all over me again. Beautiful.

The phone in my pocket vibrates. I take it out and see the voice message from Landry. I delete it without listening. He’s probably looking to congratulate me. I could listen to it, but then I’d just feel worse. This girl Lizzy. She’ll get to know me soon, so there’s not a lot of time left in this. I’ll just stick around until she comes home. Just to be polite.

Goddamn, that grass smell. What
is
that? What does this smell remind me of? What am I trying to remember?

The grass down at Nasr Wal Salam. That’s right. Thickest damn grass I ever saw.

We stopped there one day, on our way back from fixing ten miles of potholes. Everyone just exhausted and hoping to push through. But Major Leighton himself got on the radio and told Lieutenant Donovan to stop there and pick up some State Department reconstruction types. They had their own vehicle. Just needed an escort back up the river to Camp Fallujah.

The State Department types, they had grass down there in that little compound, a legit lawn out front of their command shack. A crazy thing to see in the middle of all that.

Lieutenant Donovan went inside to talk to them while Dodge and me leaned against the Humvee. Marceau, up in the turret, stood and took off his helmet. I stared at the lawn and even went so far as to get down on my knees and stick my nose in it. So damn sweet, that grass.

Dodge kicked me in the ass. “Crazy-man Lester. New things for you every day in this war, I see? If truly there is no grass in America?”

“This is a good lawn” was all I could say. “They really take care of this.”

“They must be using bottled water,” Marceau said, looking down from his turret.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah. The gray water around here, the kind they pull from the river and have us shower in? It’s alkaline. Put water from the shower tanks on that grass and it’ll shrivel up.”

That got Dodge’s attention. “How do you know so much about plants, James? Are you a farmboy?”

Marceau looked straight ahead. “Yeah. Kind of. Parents had a farm when I was a kid.”

“Ah! Goats and cows. Corn and wheat,” Dodge said. “This is why you are always waking so early? A farmboy habit of childhood?”

Marceau looked straight ahead. “Lost the farm a long time ago. Dad’s a security guard, now. Mom’s a substitute teacher.” Then he dropped back into the Humvee to prep his gear, before anything else could be said about it.

I plucked a few blades of that grass and shoved them down in my pocket.

When Lieutenant Donovan came back, he had a look on his face like he was nervous about something. Not nervous about an ambush or a roadside bomb. Nervous like someone had just told him a funny secret by accident. Like now he knew something embarrassing about these guys he wasn’t supposed to.

Two private-security guys with beards and expensive sunglasses came stumbling out behind him with a big transit case. They were big, these guys, yoked like bouncers, but even they were straining under the weight of that case. An armored Suburban came around from their vehicle lot and the security guys loaded the transit case in the back. Real quick, like they couldn’t wait to wash their hands of the thing.

“Sergeant Gomez!” the lieutenant called out as he wiggled into his body armor. “Corporal Zahn!”

Zahn walked over slow and calm as ever, a nice slug of dip behind his lip. Gomez jogged, her back stiff and straight. So different, those two.

“Do a quick radio check with these guys,” Lieutenant Donovan said to Zahn. “And make sure they have our freqs. If we lose track of these guys, it’ll be bad.”

Zahn chuckled. “Worse than usual, sir?”

“Yes.” The lieutenant nodded, leaving it at that.

Zahn shrugged and walked off to coordinate with the civilians.

Sergeant Gomez stuck around. “Something I should know, sir? Before we get on the road?”

Lieutenant Donovan smiled like he wanted to tell her, but then just said, “No. Treat it like any other vic. We’ll do a quick, rolling stop at Fallujah to drop these guys off and head home. Easy day.”

We got settled in the Humvee, and the lieutenant said to Zahn, “Put the Suburban in front. Keep them sandwiched between us and Gomez.”

“You gonna tell me what’s in that truck, sir?” Zahn smirked as he worked the used-up wad of dip from behind his lip into the half-full spit bottle.

“Sure. A million dollars in cash for the sheikhs.”

Dodge reacted first, laughing. “Yes, man! I
knew
it! You Americans are very clever, indeed!”

Zahn sat still, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant. “You serious, sir?”

“I am. These State Department guys are delivering it to the civil affairs guys in Fallujah, who are delivering it to the sheikhs west of Ramadi. Not enough local Sunnis joining the army, so the million dollars is a bribe to get their sons in uniform.” The lieutenant buckled his helmet strap. “Get a comm check with Gomez.”

Zahn keyed his radio and, speaking over the sound of Dodge’s laughter, said, “Vic four is up.”

“Thug life!” Dodge laughed.

The lieutenant turned around with his mouth open, like he wanted Dodge to shut up. But then he turned around like a father too busy to argue, or too honest to try.

Myself, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the back doors of that Suburban. We left the compound, and desert filled the window on my armored door. The black and yellow curbstones blurred away into one color, and all I could think of was that million dollars. What’d that even
look
like? Would I get to see it before the Suburban drove off at Camp Fallujah? I thought about the stacks, like the kind you see in movies. How many stacks make a million dollars? I thought about what
one
of those stacks could do for my father. The new tractor he could finally get.

And then, in an instant, the Suburban disappeared in a big-ass fireball.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I heard myself whisper, as Zahn swerved to avoid the Suburban, skidding sideways off the highway and into the sand. As we passed, I could see that the explosion had only taken the back half. The security guys up front, in a separate armored compartment, looked unhurt.

“Yahtzee!” Marceau screamed, laughing over the hiss and crackle of the burning vehicle.

Lieutenant Donovan keyed his radio. “Vic four is up. Fives and twenty-fives.”

The other vehicles checked in, calmly as he had. But the contractors in the Suburban—they were a little more hopped up, you know? Jumped up onto the net all screaming and cursing. Not what you’re supposed to do. No injuries, at least. But no saving that truck.

Reaching for his can of Skoal, Zahn nudged the Humvee off the side of the road.

Dodge bumped me. “Lester, man. Check your window. Fives, Lester.”

We checked around the Humvee while the dismounted team secured the road and the desert around us. When we didn’t find any secondary devices, the lieutenant said, “Doc, go check them out. Make sure they’re okay.” He sounded kind of put out by the whole thing.

I took off down the road at a quick walk, cutting by Sergeant Gomez as she was pushing a security team farther out into the desert, getting ready for the bomb team on its way to do a postblast analysis.

The Suburban was in full inferno by this time. The security contractors sat on the curb looking like a couple of guys who knew they were about to get fired. But they were fine. Cuts and bruises only.

Lieutenant Donovan walked up behind me. “Is that case fireproof?” he asked the lead contractor.

“Nope,” the guy said from behind the beard and the fancy sunglasses—not even bothering to look up.

Just a few steps behind the lieutenant, Dodge was laughing his ass off. “This is even
more
gangster, man! It’s like some rap video! Right? You Americans, you have money to burn!”

And then I started laughing, too. I stood up and looked at Dodge, laughing so hard tears ran down my cheeks.

Then, over my shoulder, damned if I didn’t see the lieutenant laughing, too. But just for a second. He had to go back and radio Major Leighton. Guess the poor bastard had to compose himself for that.

Huck has difficulty abandoning friends
, even when they pose an obvious danger to him. “Well,” he says of
the Duke and the Dauphine, “it’s a rough gang, them two frauds, and I’m fixed so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not. I druther not tell you why; and if
you was to blow on them this town would get me out of
their claws, and I’d be all right; but there’d be another that you don’t know about who’d be in big trouble. Well, we got to save HIM, hain’t we? Of
course. Well, then, we won’t blow on them.”

Tourist Town

My flatmates come screaming and chanting around the corner, waving flags and stomping feet. I fold
Huck Finn
into my back pocket and step into the middle of the sidewalk where they will notice me. It seems they have waited for the other university kids to pass in order to sweep up all the pretty girls who have fallen away from the protest for fear of the police.

It is a fine strategy. My flatmates comfort these girls and offer protection, telling them to meet at this building on the corner if anything goes wrong. We live here together in a spacious flat, they say. Follow us back here for safety.

They see me and call out. Our friend, they say. He is Iraqi and has seen much worse than this. And look. He is not afraid. Come with us, friend.

I join with them, but only so my flatmates are not embarrassed. They would not forgive me if I stayed away. We are pushed closer together by the growing mass of people, my flatmates and I, closer and closer together with these pretty girls. The crowd becomes louder and more serious in their chanting as we are pulled forward into the smell of riot gas and gunpowder. We march closer to the main square. Smoke drifts through the abandoned cars ahead of us, the overturned carts.

Our Iraqi friend speaks perfect English, my flatmates tell the pretty girls. He can talk to the Western journalists should we find any. You girls are too pretty to not go on television. He will find a reporter and speak in English for us. You girls will stand behind him and smile for the camera. This is the best way to fight Ben Ali. We will show to the world what pretty girls we have in Tunisia.

A few of the girls laugh, but most of them frown at this foolishness. They are smarter than my flatmates and seem to know better what awaits us in the square.

A pretty girl asks me if I fought the Americans before I left Iraq.

I tell her that I did not. That I am a coward, you see.