Fives and Twenty-Fives

by Michael Pitre

  She turned and ran, screaming, “Button up! Vehicle commanders, get your reports ready!”

  I settled into my seat and examined Zahn. The blisters had receded on his cheeks under a sheen of ointment, and his eyes had begun to dry out. “You good to drive?”

  “I am, sir. But, you . . . Sir, you need to look at yourself.”

  Right then, and for the first time since I’d stumbled away from the pool, I felt the pain. As if hungry creatures, microscopic and clawed, had filled expanding cracks in the skin around my eyes and were digging their way into my sinuses. I winced and checked my face in the rearview mirror. Weeping blisters grew in concentric rings around my eyes. Horrifyingly symmetrical and moving relentlessly south.

  Doc Pleasant leaned over my seat with a tin of salve. He’d had to dump the contents of his medical bag in the backseat to find it. “Rub this under your eyes, sir.”

  I did as he told me, and the relief made me gasp involuntarily. I closed my eyes, leaned my head back, and spread the ointment with quivering fingers. The stuff of luxury. My face felt suddenly cold, even in the stifling Humvee. I took deep breaths and sighed.

  When I opened my eyes, both Doc Pleasant and Zahn were smiling at me.

  “Good job, sir.” Zahn reached out his gloved hand and slapped my knee.

  Gomez came up on the radio. “All vics. Oscar Mike.”

  I frowned at Zahn. “Just go.”

  Zahn steered us out of the subdivision, back into the ruts and pits of the dirt road. Dodge pulled down his hood, took off his sunglasses, and showed his face, pale and dry.

  “You good, Dodge?” I asked.

  “About as well as you, Mulasim.” He swallowed hard like he might vomit.

  From: Road Repair Platoon Commander, Engineer Support Company

  To: Hospitalman Lester Pleasant

  You are counseled on this date regarding the following deficiencies:

  Failure to adequately prepare for missions.

  Failure to arrive on time for mission briefs.

  Unprofessional personal appearance.

  Unprofessional behavior toward superiors.

  You are directed to take immediate corrective action. Assistance is available through your chain of command. Failure to take corrective action will result in adverse judicial or administrative action, including but not limited to administrative separation.

  Overpressure

  Christmas at home had a strange feel to it, and I wasn’t expecting that. These last few years, since I messed up things with the relatives, it’s been just Dad and me eating takeout for Christmas dinner, exchanging a gift or two, and watching college football. And that was good enough.

  But this year, after I’d left Lizzy’s place and driven home, I felt like a stranger in the old house. Like I’d violated some trust by leaving him alone down there and now the house had it in for me.

  The floorboards groaned when I walked down the hallway with the framed pictures of my grandmother, my dad, all my aunts, uncles, and cousins. They smiled at me from the walls, and the groans started to feel like them talking. Asking me who I thought I was, leaving him down here without someone watching. You really think you can keep things straight out there with that punk-rock girl and her friends?

  It seemed like wherever my dad went, the house leaned to follow him. When he walked out to the porch and let the screen door bounce shut, I felt the house tilt in his direction and the awnings settle over him like palmettos. When he walked into the dining room, my grandmother’s crystal china in the old hutch rattled off a tune. More than once, I felt him standing outside my bedroom door thinking about whether to knock.

  I gave him a pocketknife on Christmas morning, and he handed me a hundred dollars.

  “Thought you might need cash, right now. For a lease, or things like that.”

  “Thanks for this, but I’m still not sure if the New Orleans thing is permanent. I’ll probably see you in a few days.”

  That was Christmas morning. It’s New Year’s Eve now, and I haven’t called him since I drove away with my truck all loaded up.

  I stashed all my stuff at Landry’s, so Lizzy wouldn’t see it. I don’t want her getting spooked by the sight of my things, ready to move in some place, and have her start wondering if I’m reading too much into this. Her friends are all back in town, and I’m not sure how much she needs my company anymore.

  But then Lizzy invited me over to her house in the middle of the day, and now, after we’ve fooled around a bunch, she’s asking me to come out with her and her friends to watch the fireworks. “Are you sure you won’t go? Do you worry about my friends? Because you shouldn’t. They really like you.”

  She rubs up against me under the sheets. Like she feels bad for mentioning Sebastian. Like she thinks rubbing on me that way will fix it. It won’t, but I don’t mind so much.

  “I’d really rather not. I’m still pretty tired from work, plus it’ll be crowded down there on the levee. Not sure I’m in the mood for all that.”

  She sighs, disappointed. “Okay . . .”

  “Sorry,” I whisper.

  And the air in my nostrils gets hot. It’s the shame burning me up. Here I am, keeping this girl from what she wants. Keeping her from seeing her friends. And I won’t even tell her why. Won’t tell her the truth, anyway.

  She should just go by herself. I open my mouth to tell her so, but stop. I’m selfish. I want more of this. I like her chest brushing up against me. Her lacy bra scratching my side each time she takes a long, slow breath. I could do this forever.

  But outside the knuckleheads have already started in with their fireworks. The noise of it boils up from everywhere. Cracks and whistles in flurries all across the neighborhood. Black Cats and bottle rockets cooking off in bursts.

  It sounds like the machine-gun range, when we would park the two Humvees up on the berm so the gunners could practice. They didn’t let me shoot or nothing. I just stood off to the side with my medical bag in case someone got burned by hot brass flying out the guns.

  Zahn ran that show. He’d walk around behind the Humvees during the shoot, and when the gunners squeezed off a burst he thought was too long, or when both guns fired at the same time, he’d yell, “Talking guns! Talking guns, damn it!”

  Later, out on the road, he explained what he meant by that: “Making sure they only fire one gun at a time. Saves the barrels. A short burst, twelve to fifteen rounds. Then you let the barrel rest. The other gun takes over, then back and forth. Sustained fire without stripping the rifling or overheating the weapon.”

  Back when he used to talk crisp and clear. Before the knock he took to the head slowed him down.

  The fireworks outside get thicker, more intense. It’s feeding on itself, this amateur hour before the big show, and starting to sound less like a controlled machine-gun range, and more like something worse.

  But it’s just parents in folding chairs, I tell myself. Letting their kids go crazy with the cheap fireworks that their dad drove over the parish line to get. Teenagers trying to show their girlfriends how they’re brave. Holding on a little too long after they light the fuse. Laughing while the girls run away angry.

  A bottle rocket flies by Lizzy’s bedroom window. A bright, white flash like an airburst mortar. No pretty lights, nothing. All smoke and noise. Who could enjoy this?

  Lizzy, I guess. She sits up and squeals. All giggles, this girl. Excited for the fireworks in a way that I must’ve been as a kid but don’t remember anymore. Her eyes get round and she waves me over to the window to see. Her smile. It’s different than normal. She can’t control it. I look at her lacy, white bra while she’s distracted and want it back up against me. So I shimmy over to the windowsill with my legs under the covers.

  I can’t see anything. Just blue smoke drifting down the street from over the top of the neighbor’s roof and from around the blind corners at the intersection. I’m glad I can’t smell it, yet. That sulfur smell, empty as death. A string of Black Cats cooks o
ff somewhere and Lizzy’s face lights up again. She smiles and tackles me, squirming like a goddamn puppy.

  Another bottle rocket screams down the street, right past the window, and Lizzy cranes her neck again to look. She doesn’t see me wince, and I’m glad for that.

  We cuddle for a few minutes more, with me keeping my hands outside her little pajama pants. Staying a few inches back from her so she can’t feel my heart pounding. Her hair dangles in my face and I try to bury myself in it, thinking the smell will calm me down. So clean, her hair. Like it’s never had a single drop of sweat roll through it. I breathe it deep, and my heart slows a bit. Things get comfortable. We start spooning and I wonder if maybe she’ll just fall asleep. She must be tired from working all last night. If Lizzy goes to sleep for an hour or two, I can put on her nice headphones and turn up the music real loud. I can wait it out while all the yahoos finish blowing shit up. Then maybe go out after the fireworks are done, just after midnight and in time for all the romantic New Year’s Eve shit.

  But she sighs. “You sure you don’t want to go meet my friends down by the river?”

  It’s not really a question, I know.

  I pull her closer. “Just a little while longer.”

  My breath pushes a blond curl down her cheek. She pushes it back behind her ear. Right into my face. Right where I can smell it.

  She rolls over to look at me. “Please. Please, Les?” She smiles at me sweet, and there’s nothing I can say. Nothing at all. I’ll do anything she wants. Anything to keep her smiling.

  “All right. The fireworks just for a bit? Then maybe that party Landry told me about?”

  “Yes. Fireworks, just for a bit.”

  We take her car down Elysian Fields. The traffic thins out as we pass Rampart. Must be everyone is already up on the levee, what with only a few minutes left before they start the big show. Lizzy finds an illegal parking place and jumps out before I can argue with her.

  I chase her down through the French Quarter, past the Old Mint. It seems like the whole city is gathering up on the levee. Families carry chairs and blankets to lay out on the grass between the railroad tracks and the walking path. Young people carry open twelve-packs of beer under their arms and hand out cans to friends as they pass. Lizzy takes me by the hand and pulls me through the throng. She’s smiling. So excited.

  With the sun down, it finally feels like winter. Might even drop below freezing tonight.

  Still, my palms sweat and I keep losing my grip on Lizzy’s hand. She slips away into the crowd and I hustle to keep up. I already feel panicked, but Lizzy doesn’t seem to notice.

  When I catch her, she smiles and kisses me on the cheek. “Come on! It’s almost time!”

  We cross the tracks onto the levee and find Lizzy’s friends with their spot all staked out, blankets weighed down by bags of fireworks and cases of cheap beer. I see Sebastian first, lighting a sparkler, then opening a beer. He’s tall and skinny, wearing tight black jeans to match his hair. Lizzy runs over and gives him a hug. He holds the sparkler way over his head and puts the other arm around her. I walk up from behind, through the nasty sparkler smoke.

  Sebastian sees me and keeps his arm around Lizzy a second or two longer than I appreciate. Then he frees his arm and shakes my hand. “Hey, man. Glad you came down.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “wouldn’t miss it.”

  A couple of Lizzy’s friends from the art program whose names I can’t remember, the redhead with the big fish tattoo down her arm and the fat brunette with the crew cut, fumble through their arsenal of fireworks. Even from a distance I can tell that they’re hammered drunk. They find what they’re looking for and clap.

  “I think they’re about to start,” Sebastian says to Lizzy. “They’ve got the barge in place. Should be any second.”

  A family is on a blanket next to the drunk girls. Three little kids. The drunk girls light the fuse anyway. One of those whizzing, flash-bang numbers. It cracks into the air over the family, throwing sparks. The nasty thing spins, right over our heads, wailing like crazy, and the little kids duck under their dad’s arms.

  “Hey!” I snap, taking a step at the drunk girls. “What the fuck!”

  They look at me baffled. Everywhere, the smoke from their idiot fireworks reeking like a sulfur pit. Like hell.

  “Look what you’re doing! Fucking kids right here! Dumb fucking assholes!”

  I move toward them as the first big fireworks kick off from the barge. The show starts with red starbursts just above the water, meaning to impress. I see the flash, feel the concussive thump in my chest, and hear the crack of the report in a tight sequence. Just how I remember it—

  When it hit, I was looking at Zahn in the rearview, not out at the road like I should’ve been. He was looking at me because of the dumb question I’d asked him. Then I felt the kick, the overpressure, coming in through the gunner’s hatch.

  Not until the vehicle stopped rolling did I hear Lieutenant Donovan telling everyone to stay strapped in for a second, just to be sure we weren’t still moving. Then I heard the machine gun rounds cracking overhead. A complex attack. A prestaged ambush. First they hit you with the bomb, then they engage with small arms while you try to get out.

  The Humvee was already on fire. Smoke poured in from the engine compartment, forward of the armor plates. I heard loose machine-gun rounds falling out from the wrecked turret where the gunner had been standing, ready to cook off and bounce steel frag all over the crew compartment. We couldn’t stay in the truck. I went to work on my seat belt.

  Dodge got himself free before I did. “Lester man, come on. Out this way.” He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward his door.

  Wasn’t until we were outside that I thought about the gunner. Where the fuck did he go? Did the Humvee crush him after the blast threw him out? And what about Zahn? Was he dead?

  Lieutenant Donovan grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me down into a ditch. He’d pulled Zahn out by the straps on his flak jacket. “Take him. He’s out cold. Take him.”

  I nodded as Lieutenant Donovan ran off, talking calmly to Gomez on his radio. Then I was in a ditch, Sergeant Zahn’s head in my lap while the firefight grew around us. I unbuckled Zahn’s helmet and felt around inside for blood. I smelled the smoke in his hair and watched him open his eyes.

  I smell the smoke in Lizzy’s hair as she puts her shoulder into me and pushes me away from her friends. She yells at me over the sound of the fireworks, flashing and thumping in the sky all around. Faster and faster.

  “Stop it, Les. You’re screaming. Stop it!”

  Sebastian’s here, too, standing between me and the drunk girls. They’re all looking at me, sneering.

  I look down at Lizzy, and her smile is gone. I’ve ruined it for her.

  “I’m sorry.” I turn and walk off into the French Quarter, looking for a bar she’d never go to, the smell of her hair still with me.

  Crazy-man Lester. This is Dodge. Remember me? Actually, my name is Fadi now. I had to change this due to certain dangers. Truly, it has been a long time, and I did not say good-bye to you when I left. For this I am very sorry. Things became dangerous for me after Ramadi. Many people would have soon known me, and I had to leave quickly.

  I am in Tunisia, now. Things are difficult here, as well, and so I want to come to America. Can you help me? The American government needs a letter saying that I worked for the marines in Iraq. When the telephones work again, I will find a way to contact you, if you can give me a number to dial.

  The Triggermen

  I send this note to Lester and turn off my computer monitor. I am embarrassed, but it must be done. We need contacts in America, and I am the only one in the flat who can achieve this. The only one with names.

  Ben Ali is working to block access to the Internet, and our methods to defeat his firewalls work only in short bursts. Messages must be short. It is still New Year’s Eve in America, and Lester needs to be out kissing girls, I should think. I might not hear
from him for some time.

  Here in Tunisia, there have been girls to kiss but neither celebrations nor music. Only serious kisses that carry our fears. After that first protest in the square, those first real bullets, and the bodies left in the streets, my flatmates finally came to understand. And now I think I like them better. Before the first protest, they wanted only an excuse to party. But when the police showed them death, they did not run and quit as I had expected. They grew committed.

  Now they are making plans for the next protest and hosting this new committee of university students in our flat. They make calls to people in France and America using satellite phones stolen from the police. They make hacker friends across the sea who show us the tricks to defeat Ben Ali’s shuttering of the Internet.

  And they talk more and more about sending me to speak in English for the cameras. They do not even ask me. They just say this. A weapon, they say to each other. His polished English is a weapon. We must use him.

  I wonder if Hani would laugh at this. Kateb the weapon. Much truth in that.

  My brother, Muhammad, dropped me at the lake in the morning, while Hani, Mundhir, Haji Fasil, and Abu Abdul were only just stirring. After my brother had gone, I produced the stack of dinar I’d managed to hide in my trousers and took Hani behind the farmhouse.

  “Hani, look at this money. My father gave this to me last night. We can leave now, Hani.”

  Hani’s eyes grew wide and he began to count. “At least half must go to Haji Fasil,” he mumbled. Then he shook his head unhappily. “But it is not dollars. We need dollars if we are to cross into Jordan or Syria. Dinar will not help us.”

  “We can find a way to change them to dollars along the way,” I said, trying not to sound desperate.

  “But what better place will we find than this for changing money? Pederson is coming back today. You can ask him for help with this, yes? Maybe at Government Center in Ramadi they would have dollars for us?”