Fives and Twenty-Fives (24 page)

“Roger, Actual.”

“Did you give those guys water?”

“Affirmative, Actual.”

“See an old man with a gray beard? Cuts on his face?”

“Negative.”

Zahn waved to the lance corporal driving the cargo truck and pointed to the empty patch of dirt. I latched the armored door behind me and held the convoy net to my ear, waiting for Gomez to give the order.

“Combat off-load, motherfuckers,” she said.

Combat off-load, standard procedure under threat of an ambush, was used when the convoy needed to get back on the road, and fast. The platoon wouldn’t have to explain itself, and I even found myself wishing that I’d been quick-witted enough to give the order personally. As usual, Gomez was way ahead of me.

“Nice.” Zahn laughed, getting settled behind the wheel. “She’s pissed now. Everyone look out for their ass.” He craned his neck to watch her through the windshield. He kept his eyes on her, stomping around and waving her arms to direct the truck, a few seconds longer than necessary. He smiled with a satisfaction built of something more than just professional admiration. He could’ve watched her all day, I knew.

I wish I would’ve let him.

Instead I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Zahn. We need to go. Get us lined up at that gate.”

He nodded sheepishly, found his can of Skoal. “Aye, aye, sir.”

As we pulled away, I watched in the side-view mirror as Gomez directed the cargo truck. It pulled forward and turned right. The driver lined-up his rear wheels and put the truck in reverse. He gunned the engine and gained speed for about five seconds before slamming on the brakes. The pallets slid off the tailgate, air conditioners first, followed by the chow and water. The air conditioners bounced off each other and settled into the sand with an alarming, metallic groan. Half the water bottles ripped open on the sharp corners, and a mud puddle began to grow at the base of the pile.

“Holy shit,” Zahn said, choking back his laughter. “That was awesome.”

Dodge laughed, too.

I turned around and saw that he’d taken off his hood.

Doc Pleasant handed him an open bottle of water.

I keyed my radio. “All vics. Oscar Mike.”

And we rolled through the gate, into the desert, back through the little town. Women stood at a safe distance and watched the outpost for any sign of more white trucks.

A pile of alfalfa lay abandoned in the traffic circle, slowly giving itself to the wind. A small clump landed on the windshield and strands floated in through the open turret. It smelled like Alabama in September.

Findings of Fact:

Corpsman Pleasant had unsupervised access to the controlled-medications locker as a field medic assigned to Engineer Support Company. Following Corpsman Pleasant’s transfer to Surgical / Shock Trauma Platoon, inventories taken of
the controlled-­medications locker showed significant discrepancies in stocks of Percocet, Vicodin, and Demerol. In his official statement, Lieutenant Donovan claims to have witnessed Corpsman Pleasant behaving erratically in the weeks before his transfer. Lieutenant Donovan further describes this behavior as consistent with opiate abuse.

A Box Where I Can Keep These Things

Landry tells me I should be careful about Lizzy. “Seems a little fast, partner. All I’m saying. Living with this girl already? The first girl you’ve met in, what, five years?”

I shrug. “It’s nothing like that. Just that my boss owns an oil-change place up here, too, and he says I can pick up with that branch, no problem. Lizzy’s just letting me crash for a little while. Isn’t it you always telling me to get out of Houma?”

“Sure, but, you know . . . I thought you’d be living
here
at first. With
us
.”

Paul walks in from the kitchen with a beer and picks up his video-game controller. “Didn’t that Lizzy girl just kick some other guy out?”

“What?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Sebastian,” Landry says. “I don’t know if he was Lizzy’s
boyfriend
, or whatever, but, yeah, he lived up in that house for a while.”

“You’ll probably meet him soon,” Paul chimes in as he starts up his video game. “Lizzy’s a real scenester. Knows everybody. Goes to every metal show. One of those art-student types. That run-down house she lives in? Her whole department’s lived there, one time or another. I doubt she’s even on the lease.”

“But this guy Sebastian,” I say, “who’s he?”

I’m a little surprised by the chill I get at the thought of Lizzy and some other guy. Why should I care? I just met this girl.

“He’s just . . . I don’t know—a guy.” Landry sighs, trying to be gentle with me. “I think he’s more like her best friend, actually. He plays acoustic guitar in a few bands. Real pussy-ass folk-rock shit. Works at a coffee shop. I think he gets money from his parents. You know—that type.” Landry stops, like he’s got the idea that he isn’t helping, and he’s right.

“Fuck it,” I say, standing up. “No worries. I’m just feeling this thing out.”

I walk into the kitchen, my heart beating fast. The linoleum floor in here has soft patches that get deeper and more fucked-up as you approach the fridge. I’m surprised the fridge hasn’t fallen through to the apartment below us, it’s so weighed down by cheap beer. Old concert leaflets cover the door like fur, and the handle’s stained black. I open the fridge and peer in at all the beer cans, packed tight like ammunition in a magazine.

Landry and Paul never offer to grab me a beer when they get up from the couch. But they don’t ever make it feel awkward, either. They’re real friends that way. I should treat them better.

I’ve never talked to them about the meetings, or why I got kicked out and sent home, but they know. And now I want a beer, more than I want Marceau’s coffee. What’ll they say if I go back to the living room with three cold ones? Will they confront me about it?

I close the fridge, step away, and march quickly across the tired linoleum until I reach the wooden creak of the hallway floor.

All of a sudden I’m calm. I take three slow steps and listen through the noise of Paul’s video game to the sound of my bootheels against that solid wood. It brings my heart rate down. I close my eyes and wrestle with my breathing.

It’s the wood floors in my dad’s house I’m missing. The way those boards creak when you walk across them, each board making the same sound every time. Like people talking. Familiar voices that might distract me from that arsenal of beers in the fridge.

But sometimes I’m trapped in my room while dad watches television, and I end up rummaging through old stuff. Old letters, old books. Eventually that old cigar box, from my uncle. Ordered from some specialty website. Cigars for military types. Shitty ones, too. Even Dodge thought so. Nasty, convenience-store things, slapped with military logos and sold at a big markup. My uncle had the box engraved LESTER
“DOC” PLEASANT
. Etched into the lid like he thought it was my special nickname, Doc. But Marines call
every
corpsman Doc. Even shitty corpsmen, guys who don’t know what they’re doing.

I keep that cigar box on my dresser at home and put stuff in there. Things I brought home. My dog tags. Different patches and things. My medals. A stack of memorial-service programs.

The programs are kept down at the bottom, buried. Down where I have to dig. The chaplain’s assistant made a new program for each memorial service. They all look pretty much the same, though. He just changed the name and the picture. Maybe put a different quote from Scripture in there, depending.

It’s good to have a box where I can keep these things. Pictures up top. Then medals. Then patches and stuff. Then memorial services. I put the memorial services in order. Gunny Stout first. Then Marceau.

Sniper got Marceau in Fallujah, that day on Phase Line Fran when we were coming back from delivering those air conditioners. We were rolling west through the city, later than usual. Too much traffic. That afternoon sun painting us. Marceau was in the turret of the lead Humvee. The lieutenant sent him up there at a security halt after we left the Iraqi Army post. Said we’d been hogging him, that it was the lead Humvee’s turn to have the more experienced gunner.

Sniper snuck the bullet through a seam in his flak jacket. Right through his armpit and into his heart. Crazy shot. Everyone heard it, but no one knew Marceau’d got hit, strapped to the turret like he was.

Gomez came on the net and told everyone to push through to the bridge. Get clear of the city and establish a cordon. Get accountability there. Lieutenant didn’t say nothing, so I guess he agreed.

The vehicle crew realized something was wrong at the security halt, from the way Marceau hung there, blood soaking down through his trousers. Corporal Watkins, the vehicle commander, yelled into his radio, which you’re not supposed to do. Stepped on all the chatter, all the fives and twenty-fives talk.

“Corpsman up! Corpsman up!”

Dodge, I think, understood what was happening before any of us. The pitch of Watkins’s voice, maybe. The way he couldn’t control the volume of it. Dodge knew this wasn’t no sprained ankle. He unstrapped himself from his seat and pulled off his headset.

Lieutenant Donovan tried to stop him. “Wait. Dodge, it’s not secure.” It was halfhearted, though. Like he couldn’t even convince himself. Dodge didn’t hear it, anyway. He was already sprinting down the highway toward Marceau’s vehicle.

Lieutenant Donovan flipped to a page in his notebook and changed the frequency on his radio. “Sheriff, this is Hellbox Five-Six. Stand by for casualty evacuation nine line.” He took his finger off the transmit button and said to Zahn, “Get up there. Go.”

Zahn spat into his dip bottle and gunned the engine. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Lieutenant Donovan turned in his seat. “Are you ready, Doc?”

I just nodded, my heart pounding up into my neck, tongue bouncing off the roof of my mouth like a basketball.

Zahn stopped short and I jumped out with my bag.

As I ran, I saw Dodge dead-lifting Marceau out the turret. Like a goddamn burly fireman, skinny, little Dodge. He slipped his arms inside Marceau’s flak and hauled him up onto the roof of the Humvee. A crowd of Marines waited at the front bumper. Watkins and Gomez took him, lowered him to the pavement and opened his flak to look for the wound.

I ran over and yelled at them, “Stop! Stop! Leave his flak on!” I dropped to one knee and opened my bag. Everything was organized just right. I reached for the compression bandage. The ventilation bag. The morphine syringe. Didn’t even have to look.

I heard Lieutenant Donovan on the radio behind me, calling in the nine line.

“Line one. Route Michigan approximate two hundred meters west of the Euphrates River Bridge. Grid follows . . .”

I took Marceau’s pulse. Nothing. Dodge dropped to a knee next to me. I grabbed his hands and put them on Marceau’s chest. “Push down. Like this. Keep doing it, every three seconds.”

He nodded. “I understand, Lester.”

Then I found the entry wound under his armpit.

I heard Lieutenant Donovan, still talking slow and calm into his radio. “Line three. Urgent surgical . . .”

The blood from Marceau’s wound was just dribbling out. No heart to pump it. Torn to shreds by the bullet. I knew it from the first second I touched him. I looked up at Gomez and Watkins. They searched my face for a clue, so I said, “Go get my backboard.”

They nodded and ran off, thinking they were helping.

“Line eight. Landing zone marked by smoke . . .”

Marceau was dead. His pupils were fixed and dilated. But I kept working on him. Can’t tell you why I did it, even today. But I put a compression bandage on the seeping hole, strapped him to the backboard, and prepped him for transfer. Dodge kept on with the chest compressions, too. Working on a corpse while everyone watched and hoped. When the helicopter landed a few minutes later, Dodge and Gomez helped carry the backboard.

The flight medic took one look at Marceau and knew. I didn’t even try bullshitting him. He gave me a real look—frustrated. Pissed, almost. And I knew why. Flying all the way out here and landing in a bad spot? For nothing. For a corpse. For my own little pretend-time fantasy. But the flight medic didn’t rat me out to Gomez or Dodge. He just quietly took Marceau away, and the helicopter flew his body back to Taqaddum.

Gomez, Dodge, and I jogged back to the cordon where Zahn had the convoy team, everyone who wasn’t on security kneeling in a circle. The Marines on security listened to us pray, “Protect our brother, O Lord,” while they scanned the horizon, spun the heavy machine guns in their turrets, looked for targets. Looked for something to shoot at. They needed to shoot something so bad it made them crazy. All those weapons, all that ammo, all useless. Nothing to shoot at.

My medical bag was just as useless. Organized just right. Everything where I could get at it fast, and what did it matter? Nothing.

We got back to Taqaddum before dinner, but no one wanted to eat. Gomez kept the platoon around the barracks while Lieutenant Donovan and Gunny Dole went to the shock trauma tent.

We saw the two of them coming back from a long way off. Everyone else watched them for a clue about what I already knew. Soon they did, too.