by Caleb Adams
“Jesus Christ!” the general shouted as he looked at me over the dying prisoner. “Someone get him something to wipe that fucking mess up.”
While I was waiting for one of the soldiers to find me some cleaning materials, I watched as the general returned to a position in front of the prisoner. Now he was crouching before him. He was watching him die, but not in a sadistic manner at all. It was as if he was saying to all of us, if you’re going to kill someone like that, then have respect for it, embrace it, and understand that by all of heaven’s justice it is in all likelihood that you will meet the same fate. The last exhalation from the prisoner finally came, and the general stood up.
“Get him the fuck out of here. Bathe him and send him to the Lime Line before sundown, whenever the fuck that is.”
The guards unfettered the prisoner from the chair, placed him into what looked like a laundry bag, and were starting to haul him out of the command center when the general shouted.
“Set the goddamn bag down and remove the body!” The two soldiers did as ordered, and the general spoke again. “Corporal James!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to take a look in the bag and tell me how many ears you see in there.” The corporal got on his knees and began inspecting the inside of the bag. “You only got one in there, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Only one.”
“And do you know how the fuck I know there’s only one in there, Corporal James.”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“Because the other one is still lying on the floor by the leg of the fucking chair we tied him to. Now go over there, pick it up, and place it in the bag. Goddammit, Corporal. Show death some respect. It was earned.”
I was out of my head at that moment. I couldn’t grasp onto anything of that which I had just witnessed. Fortunately, a soldier came over and handed me a bucket and a couple of rags. I was grateful for the cleaning duty. It gave me something else to occupy my thoughts with.
After I finished wiping up my vomit, I decided to keep going and started in on the blood and urine near the prisoner’s chair. The general had gone over to a metal storage cabinet in the back of the command center and took out a bottle of Scotch, from which he poured himself a drink into a Manhattan glass. He then sat down on the couch, which was to the right of me. It was almost like he had entered another room. And it reminded me of when I was a child, sitting on the floor in the living room while my father was having his nightcap.
I had already used up my quota of stealing looks in the direction of the general, so I put my head down and hurried to clean the last few square feet that I had left. I was perspiring profusely now, and my eyes were blurry from the sweat. I raised my sleeve to wipe away the film so I could see more clearly. And after doing so, I noticed that on the wall to my left hung a framed painting of Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist.” I had seen it many times as a child and teenager, on field trips to the Art Institute. It always struck me as the most poignant of the collected pieces. To me, there was nothing in the world that captured the loneliness of life more than that painting. I remember it made me want to die young. It evoked feelings inside of me that I never knew existed. I was so locked onto its magnetism and transcendence that I didn’t even realize the general was now speaking to me.
“It’s fucking real in case you’re wondering,” he said.
“How did you—” I started to ask.
“I went there my goddamn self and retrieved it. About two years ago. Only had to kill three of those fucking sand monkeys to bring it back. It was the one piece I didn’t want to see destroyed. The rest of the shit in there I couldn’t have given a fuck about. Doesn’t even come close to this masterpiece. You know anything about Picasso?”
“A little. I—”
“That goddamn Spaniard was around twenty-two when he did that. Who the fuck knows that much about death and suffering at that goddamn age. At twenty-two, the only thing I was thinking about was banging chicks and drinking beer. This guy was looking into fucking souls and God was noticing. He took hold of Picasso’s little hands and laid down the brush strokes for him. He said listen, motherfucker, you want to live this, this is the note that life resolves itself onto. You’re alone and you don’t have a fucking chance. And whether you like it or not, this is how I set this world up.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure if the man before me was real. If he had said he was the Archangel Michael himself, I would have half-believed it. I did know though that while I wanted no part of being his personal translator, at the same time, I felt no safer in these freight tunnels than at any other time. This was God’s son of the Old Testament. This was Moses with an M4 in one hand and a grenade launcher in the other. This was the man who would ensure all of our deaths would not be in vain.
“Get on your goddamn feet. And no more of that pussy shit. You hear me. I can get by speaking their fucking language, but unfortunately, I can’t read it. So, I need someone to replace the last motherfucker I had here.”
I nodded and stood. I had no intention of inquiring as to what had happened to the last motherfucker who held the position. He then set his glass down and walked over to where I was standing. My cheeks he took between his forefinger and thumb, squeezing so hard that I found my tongue being pinched. I fixed my eyes on his eyes, knowing that’s what he wanted from me. I expected black but was surprised to find the irises the color of blue lace agate. Like everything about him, it was another contradiction.
“Good, because you’re mine now,” he said and let go of my cheeks. “Lance Corporal Bates,” he then called out.
“Sir,” the soldier replied as he hurried over and stood beside the general.
“Put that hood back on him and escort him home. After that, go get him a uniform from the storage area. PFC Thomas will be waiting for you with further instructions.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Translator,” the general said as he turned to me. “Start packing up when you get there. You’ll be moving tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Oh, and welcome to the United States Marine Corps of Sector 4, son,” he then said to me. “You’re one of us now.”
I didn’t want to be one of us now. I didn’t even want to be me now. But what choice did I have? I nodded my fidelity and then was promptly hooded before being led away.
✽ ✽ ✽
After arriving at my quarters, the lance corporal left to find me a uniform. I sat down on the floor and put my head to the wall. I would have started to bang it against the clay if not for the other four people who were asleep there. I was still nauseous and I was still shaking. I felt as if I had just returned from a slaughterhouse, not of animal but of man. My thoughts had become my own enemy and to retain my sanity, I knew I needed to quickly befriend them. I certainly didn’t want to be a part of this, but now I no longer had a choice.
Whether it be naiveté or self-deception, I was unaware that our tactics were just as brutal as theirs. Were we no better? Perhaps it is just mankind I began to think. This is what we have always been and forever will be. We are cruel and inherently we are beasts. It would be hard to flip a page of history and argue to the contrary. But pacifism I understood isn’t a choice in a war such as this war. It would bring about our extinction. And maybe, really, that is all this life is about—survival. If one must fight savagery with savagery, then so be it. And we were already standing on the cliff of extinction. The general understood this. I was still having trouble with it.
I began to gather up my things. It didn’t take more than a few minutes. My two sets of clothes were already in a black shoulder bag, the same bag I had taken with me during the invasion. The same bag I had over my shoulder as I ran from building to building looking for sanctuary after the Mannheim Front had finally collapsed. I tossed in four books: one on the general history of Islam; another an Arabic-English dictionary; the third and most important in a plastic cover—a Neal Adams signed DC Comics�
� book from 1978 entitled “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.” Lastly, “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. I remember joking to a girl I was hitting on while attending a Northwestern frat party that those four books would be my desert island collection. She rolled her eyes and smartly walked away. I assume she’s dead now, most likely as is everyone else who attended that bash at Sig Alpha Ep. I do hope their deaths were merciful though, unlike the prolonged and inhuman one I now envision for myself.
I glanced at my watch. It was 3:17 a.m. For some reason, I don’t remember my last thoughts or my last words when I am going through a life change, but I do remember the exact time. When my father died of pancreatic cancer, my twelve-year-old eyes read the death certificate to see that the hospice RN had called the time of death at 4:25 a.m. After pinning Tommy Gagnon in eighth grade for my only first-place win, the clock on the gymnasium wall had the upset at 5:19 p.m. When my mother drove away after helping me unpack in my dorm room it was 2:14 p.m. When the girl I spoke of above broke from the conversation it was 1:17 a.m.
“They recruited you, haven’t they?”
“Yes, they recruited me,” I answered as I looked in the direction of the voice. From where I was sitting, I could tell the words were coming from a far corner of the room. Even with your eyes dilated, darkness down in the freight tunnels can be infinite. Though I could not see, I knew who it was. I had spoken to him on a few occasions.
“Did you meet him?” the voice said, and I understood he was referring to the general.
“Yeah, I met him,” I said softly so not to wake the family of three who also shared the same quarters.
“Is he like what they say he is like?”
“He is that and he is more,” I said.
“They say he’s crazy. They say he’s going to get us all killed sooner than heaven has planned.”
“Those who say that haven’t met him then.”
“Do you think you’ll get to go up there?”
“I don’t think so. They are using me only to translate, not to fight.”
“I want to be up there again. I want to feel the sun on my face.”
“I know. Me too,” I said.
“When you see him again, tell him he can use me. I’m ready.”
“You’re needed on the line,” I answered, referring to the food line where he was stationed.
“All they have to do is point me in the right direction. The first word of Arabic I hear, I’ll set it off.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t run suicide missions. You know that.”
“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
“None of us want to live like this anymore.”
“Please,” he entreated.
I didn’t know what to add after that, so I didn’t add anything. I kept in silence, a cowardly silence now that I think about it. But I could offer him no comfort. He was maybe nineteen or twenty years of age. I had never asked. Most of the time you don’t want to keep speaking too long for fear it might turn into a relationship. This is not a place for relationships. From the few conversations we had, I could only surmise that he was already blind when he got here. Most likely during the invasion as he did speak of things he once saw.
A lantern of light appeared outside the entrance. The lance corporal had returned. He parted the curtain and entered, after which he handed me a uniform and a pair of black boots. As I took them from his hands, I noticed the camouflage shirt had a dark stain at the neckline. The lance corporal also noticed it.
“I’ll find you another one tomorrow,” he said to me and then lowered the light just enough so I could no longer see the dried blood.
I wondered how old he was. The one who had last worn this uniform that is. I wondered how he had died. Was he shot in the head? Did the blood drip from the corner of his mouth? Did they drag his body back from Ayla or was he found in the sewers just above us?
“Be at the commissary at 11:55 a.m. Two soldiers will be there to greet you,” the lance corporal then said. “Here’s an envelope. You’ll be asked for the code word inside.”
After he left, I looked over to the kid. I felt him looking back. We both knew I wasn’t going to make a case to the general for his suicide. I probably should of though. His death was imminent. His left eye had been infected for the last two weeks. In a day or two, maybe a week, it would spread throughout his body. They would take him to the infirmary. A shot of penicillin perhaps if they happened to have some. A morphine tablet or two to hold his hand while death circled above him. I wasn’t sure whether I envied him or not. The fierce pain that would visit him certainly not. But the freedom that came after that, yes, maybe. It all depended, I suppose. Depended on whether you believed that there was truly a heaven after this. And then why, why was it necessary to die so miserably just to reach a better place? If any one of us was cast as God, we certainly would have fashioned a more benevolent ending.
✽ ✽ ✽
The alarm on my watch went off at 11:00 a.m. There was now no one there with me. The two children were already at school. Their mother was also gone, now five hours into her day at the hydroponics lab. The kid, to whom I had spoken with late in the night, of his whereabouts I could only venture a guess. Depending on his will, he had either reported to work at the food line or decided that his last days on this earth would be more comfortably spent lying supine on a makeshift cot in the infirmary. I was actually glad they were all gone. I did not want to say any goodbyes. I just wanted to leave. A callousness I could start to feel forming over me. Not unlike the ones that slowly began to cover the tips of my fingers after I had decided to pick up my guitar again back when I was a college kid. Jesus, what I wouldn’t give to be living once more in a time of studying and campus sin.
✽ ✽ ✽
I had already walked a half-mile or so when I heard loud voices up ahead. I wasn’t close enough yet to see any faces. The voices were of two men. That I could discern. Whether it was a friendly conversation or a heated exchange, I could not tell as the acoustics down here act to amplify and exaggerate all sounds. They could have just been workers from the Department of Streets and Sanitation, discussing how miserable their existence was.
When I made the turn around the bend, I saw there were actually three people and not two. One man had his hand on the throat of a teenage girl, and the other was brandishing a knife. I dropped my bag and stood as if I was a soldier, hoping they would disperse immediately. They did not. Although, the man holding the young girl’s throat did let go of it, and the other lowered the knife to his side. I looked to the girl and watched as she eased herself down the wall, then proceeded to wrap her arms over her knees and place her chin upon her chest.
I bridged the distance slowly, inserting myself between the one near the girl and the one brandishing the knife. My eyes bounced around the three of them a few times before I finally spoke.
“I’m under the direct command of the general,” I said in hope that the mention of his name alone would cause them to disperse.
“So fucking what,” the man who had been holding her throat replied.
“Her offense?” I asked, then checked the man with the knife to ensure he had not moved any closer. Even a small wound here could be fatal.
“Look. Look at her goddamn belly.”
“What is it with her belly?” I asked.
“Are you goddamn blind?” he said. “Don’t you see it?”
I honestly did not notice it when I first came upon them. A trick of the light I presume. Or perhaps I was just focusing on their eyes. But when he proceeded to free her arms from around her knees and then stepped a foot upon them to straighten her legs out, I immediately saw that she was eight months in bloom. I could also see her ankles were bound with some bike chain of sorts and secured with a padlock.
“Which one of you put this restraint on her? My God, she’s pregnant. Have you lost your minds?”
“We had nothing to do with that. She has been chained like that for months.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the Caliphate whore keeps trying to escape.”
I slowly crouched down beside her. Even though I had set a hand of comfort upon her shoulder, she still did not make her face known to me. It was then I noticed she was fingering a black rosary in one hand and Islamic prayer beads of olive wood in the other. The contradiction I would soon come to understand.
“I am going to see the general. I will take her there. Let him decide what to do with her.”
“You may take her, but it will not be while her lungs are filled with air.”
I had removed my eyes for a time longer than I should have from the man with the knife. He was now behind me and the flat of the long blade across my neck.
“What will killing one Caliphate girl accomplish?” I said.
“I did not say she was from the Caliphate. I said she was a Caliphate whore, seeded by one of them above. We barely have food and water for ourselves. We are not feeding one of their mouths.”
“The child to be born is unaware of which God it is to follow,” I said, though I truly had no conviction of the words I had spoken.
“It will know no God. And that will be the best for it.”
We all knew that would be the last line he would deliver. From his pocket, he took out a screwdriver, of which I understood was about to be plunged into her throat. I had no other choice but to gamble. I reached up to grab the wrist of the man behind me. His hand I directed toward the leg of the other. After the knife had entered his thigh, I pulled it back out and hurried to my feet. The man who was behind me fled. The other gave a look that made me believe that if an infection did not set in, he would be back for either me or her. I started to regret the decision to stop their intentions. Enemies you do not want here. Eventually, you will encounter them again.
The next few minutes I tried unsuccessfully to free her from the bike chain shackling her ankles. I could not pick the lock with the tip of the knife, and it would have been futile to try and sever a link of the chain.