Fives and Twenty-Fives

by Michael Pitre

  They were tall brunettes, both about my age, and each with a glass of white wine in hand. They wore heels, perfectly pressed slacks, and silk blouses. They smiled, apparently taken in by Tippet’s charm, and they looked down at me showing what seemed like a fifty-foot wall of white teeth.

  “This is the young man I was telling you about. This is my friend Pete, just home from Iraq. And, boy, wouldn’t a few minutes of your company cheer him right up.”

  “Oh, wow,” one of them said, pressing her wineglass against her cheek.

  “That is really just so amazing,” the other said. “Thank you for your service.” She held out her hand in a strange way. I wasn’t sure whether she wanted me to kiss it or shake it. In my growing stupor, I pulled her hand toward me and pressed it against my forehead.

  “Ha! Hey now, Pete.” She laughed. “Had a few?”

  “A gentleman stands,” I heard Tippet say in a stern tone. “A gentleman stands, Lieutenant.”

  I let go of the brunette’s hand and pulled myself up, out of what had become an impossibly comfortable chair.

  The brunettes introduced themselves, but I couldn’t process their names. They reminded me of girls I’d known in college. Perfect and put together. They’d both be married any minute, and the conversation we were about to have would become a story at cocktail parties. They’d stand next to their husbands and tell the story of the Iraq vet they once met. How he was drunk beyond belief in the airport.

  The nausea crept into my mouth. My tongue swelled, and the brunettes laughed at something Tippet said.

  “I’m sorry.” I pushed between them, dragging my duffel by its strap. “I’m sorry.”

  I searched for some place, in lieu of a bathroom, where I could throw up without attracting too much attention. A trash can. A janitor’s cart. The nausea abated slightly as I careened through the concourse, and it occurred to me that I might just need some air. The concourse exit materialized in front of me. Beyond it, I knew, was a door to the outside, to the cool San Diego night, and to the ocean air wafting from the bay across the street.

  I doubled my pace, kept a straight line, and managed to leave the terminal without vomiting. I crossed the street and moved toward the smell of ocean air until I found a empty bench next to the bay. The world spun out of control, and I passed out with my head resting on my duffel.

  I woke as the sun rose and rolled over to find a bay full of sailboats. A few were on their way out to sea, showing all canvas and heeling slightly with a westerly wind. Free.

  A gentleman stands, I thought.

  Sitting in my car, on the side of a Dallas cul-de-sac, I think about my father. We could talk about nothing at all and I’d be grateful for it. We could talk about football. He could tell me how many bales he cut from the fields. Square bales or round bales. I could play with my nephew and give my brother-in-law a firm handshake.

  I don’t deserve all that, but I want to. And I certainly don’t deserve Paige, but I take out my phone and dial her anyway.

  She answers on the first ring.

  Zahn—Thanks for the heads-up about the lieutenant. I checked in on him and he seems fine. He’s an idiot, of course . . . But he’s good to go.

  So it’s okay that I come visit? What if I feel like staying for a while? I need a change in scenery, if you got a place for me. —Doc

  Floorboards

  I stayed at the lieutenant’s place for about a week. I lost my job, but no harm done. I got enough money saved to live without a problem for about six months, I think.

  The lieutenant talked to me about his visit with Sergeant Gomez and her sister, and he kept apologizing. I told him to stop. Then he asked if I had a way to get in touch with Dodge, and I lied. Told him I had no idea.

  Dodge’s gone dark, anyway. He hasn’t replied in a week and seems less and less interested in catching up. He doesn’t even mention his visa anymore. Just news from Tunisia. I can’t follow everything he’s talking about, but I still liked hearing from him.

  The lieutenant also told me about some of Zahn’s troubles. Like he was telling me about a Marine in the platoon with bad foot rot, and implying I should go take a look. Maybe offer some antifungal cream and give a quick class on the importance of changing your socks. Like he thinks I’m his corpsman again, or like he wants me to be.

  Then he introduced me to this pretty college girl I think he’s dating, and she seemed nice. I used my truck to help them move this wreck of an old sailboat into a covered workspace near the harbor. She reminded me of Gomez a little bit, with her hair tied back in braids and covered with a red bandanna. While we maneuvered the sailboat into place, she offered me all kinds of advice about Lizzy. Said I ought to drop in on her just to clear the air. The lieutenant said the same thing. But I told them it would have to wait. Some other time. I had to get back down to Houma to see my dad.

  I’m in my bedroom now, packing. It’s a haul up to Missouri to see Zahn, and there’s no coming back if I forget something, so I’m making sure I have everything I need for a long visit. My dad’s out in the hallway, right outside my door. I can feel him there, thinking about whether to knock. He’s pulling out all the air, just by standing there. The room is shrinking. I feel the door straining at the hinges, ready to break into a thousand splinters.

  He walks away, and the floorboards talk about it as he passes.

  He goes out to the porch, and as the screen door bounces shut, I feel the house tilt in his direction. This is a house full of gossiping ghosts and I’m fucking tired of it.

  He walks out across the lawn, out to the shed to work on his tractor. It’s too cold for that nonsense, too late at night, and for some reason I finally have it in mind to tell him so. So I march outside. I’m halfway to the shed before I notice the trauma bag in my right hand.

  I drop the bag, leave it where it is, and wander over to the oak tree to have a quiet sit. The lights are on in the shed, and I listen to my dad work. A little after midnight he comes out, wipes his hands on his pants, and starts toward the house. He stops when he sees me and squints to make sure. He waves, stiff and awkward, before walking up and standing over me with his hands on his hips and his dark eyebrows furrowed. He doesn’t say anything.

  “Wanted to make sure you were okay,” I tell him after a minute.

  “I’m fine, Les.” He sits down and puts his hand on my shoulder. He inhales deep and holds it, like he’s gonna say something. But he doesn’t. He just lets it out and sits there with me.

  “He stayed on the ground for six hours, Dad,” I say after a while. “He laid there, and no one could get to him. They had to call in another team and use line charges to clear a lane twenty meters wide. Bombs everywhere.”

  After a while, sitting there in the quiet, I tell him the rest.

  “Stout. He rolled over. Everyone says I imagined it, but I saw it. He was probably conscious. Knowing it was bad, but thinking I was on my way, even. Thinking he might pass out for a minute, but that I’d get there. Put tourniquets on his arms and legs. He died thinking he’d wake up in Germany. But he didn’t. Just bled to death, right there on that hot fucking asphalt, too. Not even in the dirt. Just a stain.”

  That’s all I tell him. We sit there for a while longer, and the whole time he has his hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t ask me any questions. He doesn’t say a word.

  But Huck cannot go home. He has grown to prefer freedom to what is right. “I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest,” he says, “because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”

  Few People Are So Lucky

  “Our revolution is your revolution!” I shout this into the camera. “We must all come home to this!”

  Behind me, my flatmates and their new girlfriends cheer for me each time I raise my voice, even when they do not know what I am saying. Will it never stop, this absurd trust in me?

  “Look behind me at all of these people,” I tell the camera. “
They have all made the decision to die in these streets with their friends and countrymen before they spend one more night in houses, alone and scared.”

  The light is too bright. I cannot see who is behind the camera filming me. An English journalist was asking me questions before, but I think he has gone. Or maybe he is letting me talk without interruption. Foolish of him, if so.

  “Do you understand what started all of this?” I ask the invisible reporter. “Do you understand what happened in Sidi Bouzid? A young man named Mohamed was selling fruit he had procured on credit. He had a wife and children, and only a simple fruit cart to support them.

  “A policewoman. She confiscated his cart on a false charge, and with this one act of corruption made Mohamed and his family destitute. But she did not stop with this. When he pleaded for his cart, she slapped his face and spat upon him. There was no purpose in this, no profit but to see him humiliated. Only to show him that she and President Ben Ali were strong and that he was poor, frail, and weak.

  “What was this man, Mohamed, to do? Go home? Accept shame and poverty? Watch his children grow painfully hungry? Was he to strike this policewoman with all his rage and have some measure of violent revenge before they took him to a dungeon without trial? If he had done any of these things, the common people you see here would never have heard of him. They would never have come to this square to stake their lives on this revolution.

  “No. He did something far more brave. He fought back not with his strength, but with his frailty. He went to the police station, doused himself in paint thinner, and set his flesh ablaze. He burned himself, right before the policewoman’s eyes, to show her just how frail he was.

  “And he survived for a time in hospital. The wounds did not take Mohamed until this morning, and in a great mercy from God, he lived long enough to see his countrymen filling these streets because of what he did. Not because we admire his strength, but because we share his weakness and his frailty. We are united by it.”

  I stop speaking to catch my breath. I feel my friends pressing against my back, cheering even louder than before.

  “And I made this decision, too,” I continue. “To die in these streets if necessary, though I am not Tunisian. Did I tell you that? Also, I am not Syrian, though my passport says that I am. And I am not Iraqi . . .”

  I stop and take a final, deep breath before finishing this thought.

  “I am weak. And that is all. But I am not without a home. To be weak? To be scared and frail? This is to have a home. These people behind me are all very weak and all very scared. We are so easy to kill. President Ben Ali has made certain that we are all reminded of this. But to die here? Outside where it is cold? This would be to die at home. And few people are so lucky as to die at home.”

  Finally, after a long time, I stop talking.

  The English journalist, hidden behind his bright lights, speaks. “President Ben Ali claims he will send the army into Tunisia’s cities tomorrow if the crowds have not dispersed. Will you stay here even if the army comes?”

  “Of course.” I laugh. “Where else would I go?”

  The crowd shifts again, running from some danger. The cameras disappear from me. There is something more interesting to film now. Perhaps some violence. I see the camera light pushing through the protest camp before I am pulled away by my flatmates. They drag me into a side alley and push me down behind a Dumpster.

  We hide through the night, taking turns with the watching and sleeping, wondering if we will all die before we see the sun again.

  I fall asleep sometime before the dawn and am awakened by a satellite phone being shoved into my hand.

  “Now is the time,” a flatmate tells me. “The Army did not come. They refused their orders. Ben Ali is finished. Call your American friend. Read him the letter.”

  The number has been dialed into the phone for days, waiting for me to gather enough courage. My friends are right. This is the time. I must call.

  I press a finger into one ear to muffle the noise of celebration and wait for an answer.

  A confused, familiar voice speaks to me. “Hello?”

  I swallow my fear. “Lester?”

  “No, you’ve reached Pete. I think you must have the wrong . . . wait. Who is this?”

  “This is Kateb. I am calling for the Doc. Can you get him?”

  There is a long silence.

  “I can barely hear you. Say again? Who is this?”

  Then I recognize the voice. “Mulasim.”

  “Dodge?” he says into the dirty connection. “Wait. Who is this, really? This isn’t someone messing with me, right?”

  “Please, Mulasim. Please hurry to get a pen and paper. I have something to read. You must write this down.”

  I pull a wadded page from the front pocket of my jeans, ready to begin.

  Acknowledgments

  The characters in this story are fictional, but their battles are real. Among the thousands of Iraqis and Americans who lived through the war in Anbar Province, there are a few to whom I owe an inexpressible debt: Gunnery Sergeants Anderson and Priester, who were mercifully patient with their young lieutenant; Sergeants Bouttavong, McBride, Dixon, and Alviderez, whose gifted leadership humbled me daily; Jack Dietrich, Autumn Swinford, Joslyn Hemler, Rachel Forrest, Steve Ekdahl, John Sorenson, Brad Aughinbaugh, Eric Beckmann, and Ed Donahoo, who have honored me with their friendship; Jaguar, whose real name I never knew, but whose courage defies description; Colonel James Caley, who taught me the imperative of disciplined thinking; and all those Iraqis who risked everything for a chance at a free society, and a life at peace. A generation of Marines will grow old wishing we’d done better for you.

  Space permitting, I’d acknowledge dozens more by name. But you know who you are. You’re never far from my thoughts.

  By dumb luck, I stumbled into a community of writers when I settled in New Orleans. I never would’ve finished this book without the help and encouragement of early readers such as Nicholas Mainieri, Rush Carskadden, Brock Stoneham, David Hoover, John Van Lue, David Parker, and Cullen Piske.

  Rob McQuilkin, thank you for taking a chance on me. Kathy Belden, you protected me, and gave me what I needed to finish this story. I’ll always be grateful.

  Truly special thanks go to Joseph and Amanda Boyden, who are quietly raising the next generation of New Orleans authors. Amanda, sharing my manuscript was only the most visible of your countless acts of generosity. Joseph, your modesty, fortitude, wit and spirit enrich the lives of all those around you. I treasure our friendship.

  I have a remarkable family, with siblings who are my best friends, and parents who indulged our every daft scheme. Mom and Dad, your children built their lives on the unconscious assumption that all things are possible. My older brother, Brian, and my little sister, Julie, growing up wedged between the two of you made me who I am.

  Above all, credit goes to my wife, Erin, who is ultimately responsible for whatever good can be found in these pages, and in me. My life orbits twin mysteries: What compelled you to take in the foul, wreck of a man you found, and how, in all the days that remain to me, I could ever repay you. I love you so much.

  A Note on the Author

  Michael Pitre is a graduate of Louisiana State University, where he was a double major in history and creative writing. In 2002, he joined the Marines Corps, deploying twice to Iraq and attaining the rank of captain before leaving the service in 2010 to get his M.B.A. at Loyola. He lives in New Orleans.

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael Pitre

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Pitre, Michael.

  Fives and twenty-fi ves / Michael Pitre. —First U.S. edition

  pages cm

  eISBN 978-1-62040-756-1

  1. Iraq War, 2003–2011—Fiction. 2. Marines—Fiction. 3. Translators—Iraq

  —Fiction. I. Title

  PS3616.I88F58 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2014004161

  First U.S. Edition 2014

  The electronic edition published in August 2014

  Designed by Sara Stemen

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