Deserts of Fire

by Douglas Lain

  Niagara Falls: located on the enlarged-prostate-dribble American half of the thundering majesty of Canada’s Horseshoe Falls. Home of the off-brand casino and the outlet mall. Buffalo, nearby, was a national joke. But a joke like a buddy who could never quite get his shit together, was always getting turned down by women at the bar, was perpetually broke and asking to borrow twenty bucks for gas for his car to get to a job interview for a job he never seemed to get. Niagara Falls was simply sad. Economically depressed. Broken in spirit with everyone who could get out already long gone. Or stuck in an endless cycle of drugs and unemployment. In short, exactly the kind of place that makes joining the army look like a step up in life. And Boston’s hometown.

  I think my main problem in life is never quite knowing when the party is over. The army, advertising, my “career as a painter.” They all dragged on long past their “best before” date. I should’ve quit the army the day I got to basic. Some did. But like an idiot I decided I needed to prove to myself I could get through it. At first they try to talk you out of quitting. They all give you the same speech about how “if you quit this you’ll quit everything in life.” Which is just more army bullshit. Sometimes quitting is the best option. We should’ve cut and run in Iraq. It’s what we did eventually anyway, after dumping billions of dollars into a rat hole in the desert.

  I told Boston I planned to quit at the end of our first leave. After he had spent a week with me and my girlfriend (her judgment a simple “weird but fun”). After I swung back and picked up Boston in the Urban Warfare Mockup Village I expected to drop him off in Niagara Falls. Maybe go out for some drinks and then drive back to Albany and my girlfriend. It was only when I finally got up the nerve to ask him where he wanted to go home to on the way to Niagara Falls that I could tell he had expected to spend his leave with me. But I didn’t make the offer, madly trying to justify in my head why leaving Boston on a street corner somewhere was a good idea.

  Boston directed me to his house, asking to be let out at the end of the street, not even offering for me to come in and take a leak before driving on. Word of advice: when someone asks to not be let out in front of their house, there’s usually a good reason. I watched Boston walk up the street and through a gate beside one of the postwar bungalows that lined the street. And it wasn’t until I braked to a stop just before the interstate on-ramp that I finally got so pissed at myself and my selfishness that I turned angrily around and headed back to Boston’s house.

  No one answered the front door so I went around back, through the gate as I had seen Boston do. The back door was unlocked and opened on to the kitchen. The smell hit me first: stale, sour beer which hit my still-hungover senses like a slap in the face. It took me a moment to make sense of what I was seeing. It was dark. All the blinds and curtains were drawn tight even though it was after noon. All I could see was a forest of king cans: Bud, MGD, Coors, everywhere. Everywhere: every available horizontal surface: stove top, on top of the fridge, every inch of counter space, covering the entire floor except for a path just wide enough to walk into the rest of the house, diagonally from the door to the living room. Everything was filthy. But in a way that seemed to defy explanation: covered in a black, greasy film as if whoever lived here had been burning coal oil or styrofoam. Embedded in the film, and then apparently shellacked again with more of that used-motor-oil misting, was hair. The sink was piled high with filthy dishes. Here and there, like some sort of citadel or particularly old tree that had pushed resolutely through the forest canopy, was an empty, giant sized bottle of vodka. An enormous water stain, covered in black mold, Rorschached the ceiling, a remnant from some upstairs plumbing disaster? I smelled shit. Further inside, in the darkness of the house, through a crack in a bathroom door, I glimpsed an arm hanging over the edge of a tub. Water sloshed. A voice squeaked “Hello?” I didn’t answer. I left the way I’d come in.

  As I sat in the Buick, Boston appeared at the end of his street carrying groceries. His expression was one of curiosity and hurt, and I knew I could not admit to seeing what was inside his house, and I did not have the courage to ask about it. We drove to Albany. At the end of leave we took a bus back to base. I told Boston I was going to quit.

  The last time I saw Boston was behind the wheel of that Winnebago Brave, the Neal Cassady to the Saddams’ Sexual Merry Pranksters in the spring following the real Saddam’s capture in winter 2003. The Saddams had given up on ever going home and branched out from the ejaculatory to the excretory. They had a new venture: a show (produced by Vice, of course) where they broke into people’s homes to deposit an epic dump in a cleverly concealed location, filming the reaction of the home owner on a hidden camera. It was called Mystery Shit, and America took to it instantly. Whether at the request of Vice, or on their own initiative, the Saddams all wore matching, numbered jumpsuits and vintage football helmets, making them look like a cross between an expanded Dr. Seuss Thing One/Thing Two combo and the starting offensive line for the 1961 New York Jets.

  In his brief time in Albany, I managed to piece together Boston’s life after I left him in the army: a long string of disciplinary infractions that let him to a decade-long binary oscillation from private to corporal to private to corporal and so on. Quitting the army. Going Broke. Re-enlisting in the army, beginning his two-chevron hokey-pokey all over again. Finally (in true Boston form) quitting for the last time on the day after 9/11. Because any chump can volunteer the day after 9/11 for imaginary combat fighting for imaginary freedoms. In the “fools rush in where Angels fear to tread” post-9/11 enlistment surge of middle-class precious snowflakes whose sense of entitlement was so all-consuming it gave them the right to win the War on Terror singlehandedly, Boston’s quickly forgotten gesture proved one truth: that the first-year arts students who dropped out of college to become Navy Seals in a weekend did not understand the reality that the best part of having an all-volunteer army is that you don’t have to volunteer.

  Ray Daley is an indie writer who has written a lot of flash fiction. His collection Lightning Strikes Twice was published in 2012. Daley is also a veteran. He served in the Royal Air Force from 1990 to 1996 and took part in Operation Granby, which was the name given to British military operations during the first Gulf War.

  “Seeing Double” is original to this anthology.

  “seeing double”

  RAY DALEY

  Tikrit, January 3, 1990

  “go through, Corporal, he’s ready for you now.” The young Iraqi officer stood, simply looking at the man in front of him. It truly was staggering, how much like the great man this Corporal looked.

  Corporal Waris Hussein (no relation) was lost in thought. He hadn’t heard the Captain, or if he had, it’d failed to register on any level.

  “Corporal Hussein! He doesn’t like to be kept waiting!” The words of the Captain snapped him out of whatever daydream he’d been in, back to reality. If this could be called reality. This place. This palace.

  Corporal Hussein walked through the door, fully aware who was waiting inside.

  “Please, come in. Sit down. Corporal Hussein, yes?” The man was sitting behind a large mahogany desk, Waris knew nothing of antiques so was unaware this was a Louis XIV writing desk, bought as a gift for the man sitting behind it.

  Waris nodded, “Yes, sir. My name is Waris.” It was almost like looking into a mirror. Their faces were nearly identical, just the odd wrinkle here and there, a few grey hairs on the head to give away their minimal differences.

  “You know why you were asked to come here, Waris?” the man asked.

  Waris didn’t really know, not exactly. He knew his impressions of the great leader had somehow been seen and overheard, they had only been shown to a few friends. No one of a higher rank, no one who would have informed on him.

  Yet here he was.

  “Sorry, sir, I’m afraid I don’t.” Waris replied, figuring honesty was the best policy here. He was aware of the penalty for speaking out against the regime and its lead
er, Waris valued his life and his head. He hoped he would still have both after this meeting.

  “War is coming soon, Waris. People will want to kill me. Powerful people. People who will be able to get their men into places close to me. So I must be protected,” the man explained.

  “You have many guards, many troops. No one could ever touch you, sir,” Waris interrupted.

  The man behind the desk smiled at the genuine concern of the young Corporal in front of him. “What do you know of an Operation Mirror?” he asked.

  Waris shrugged. “Nothing, sir, it’s the first time I ever heard of it.”

  The man smiled. “This pleases me, Waris. It means secrets are being kept as such. What I am about to tell you must never be retold. Listen carefully.”

  The man then recounted the details of how the enemy leaders sought to assassinate him, in order to remove him from power as quickly as possible in order to avoid the likely upcoming war. The man said he was aware of many enemy agents, snipers, assassins, and elite troops from many nations sent to kill him. And his own plans to avoid that outcome.

  The man pressed a button on his desk. “Captain, can you send them all in please.”

  The door opened. One after another, fifteen identical men entered the room and stood behind the man in the chair. Waris was no longer looking at one reflection.

  The man behind the desk saw the confusion in the Corporal’s face. “Is it not amazing, Waris? To see your own face, so many times?”

  Directly behind the man in the chair, one of the recent entrants tapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, you may stand with the others now.” The man behind the desk stood and joined the other men behind him.

  The one behind the chair sat down in it. “You are confused? Corporal Hussein, is it? Are we related?”

  Waris didn’t know what to say; he no longer knew which of these men was the great leader. “It is a common surname sir, I do not believe we are related.”

  The man in the chair smiled as he undid his jacket, he stood to take it off and placed it on the desk between them. He pulled out a desk drawer and removed a beret, placing it on top of the jacket. “You wonder if I am the real thing, Corporal?” the man asked.

  Waris nodded. “Yes, sir. You all look exactly the same.”

  One by one each man behind the chair took a step back and stated his name. Each man sounded the same, each man looked the same. Exactly the same as the man currently occupying the chair. When all of the others had spoken, the man in the chair repeated the name. “So Corporal, which of us is it? Which of us is telling the truth?”

  Waris had no idea. One of these man was the great leader. But which, it was impossible to tell.

  The man in the chair motioned to the jacket and beret. “Remove your jacket and headdress, Corporal. Please put those on. Let us now see this great impression we have heard so much about.”

  Waris stood and quickly removed his jacket then hat, throwing both onto the chair behind him. He pulled on the jacket and buttoned it up. He placed the beret onto his head carefully.

  The man in the chair looked at him. “Now the likeness is much better, much closer. They tell me you do the voice as well? Please show us?”

  Waris froze, suddenly unable to speak, unable to move. Sweat trickled from beneath the beret, down his forehead and into his eyes.

  The man behind the desk frowned, his face became menacing. “You will show me now, Corporal. Or it will be the last thing you never do.”

  The man pulled a pistol from the desk drawer, pointing it straight at Waris who fell back into his chair, paralyzed with fear. He realized he had just completely crushed his best hat. The man behind the desk held the pistol, frozen and leveled directly at the chest of Corporal Waris Hussein.

  The door opened. There was laughter. Yet another reflection entered the room.

  “No, not another reflection, Corporal Hussein. I am Saddam,” he said.

  Waris snapped to attention and saluted. “Sir!”

  “At ease, Corporal. These men are all my doubles. Surgically altered to look exactly like me, sound exactly like me. The Americans threaten to send in their Delta Force and their Navy Seals, the British threaten to send in their SAS. All of these men, coming here to kill me. So this is my plan.”

  Saddam gestured to the group of lookalikes who were behind the desk. “Each of these men were ordinary soldiers just like you, they volunteered to undergo painful cosmetic surgery to look like me. Then surgery on their vocal chords, to sound like me. Did they fool you?”

  Waris nodded. “Yes, sir. I had no idea you weren’t even in the room. Any one of these men could be you.”

  Saddam nodded. “And that is what I hope the enemy will think. Each one of these men works in a specific region of our great country, commanding troops as though he were really me. No one officer ever knows where I really am. My official location is never revealed. And this is the job you have been called to do, Corporal. Or should I call you President Hussein? Just a few procedures, to add some lines to your face. A little dye in your hair. But you must show me that you can imitate my voice. Now, please.”

  Waris spoke easily now, going through the same impression he had done only days ago in front of his friends in the barracks. He was unaware one of his friends had reported the matter to a senior Sergeant. The report had been diligently passed up along the chain of command until it had come to the attention of Saddam himself.

  Saddam was more than aware how much the West wanted to kill him. Another impersonator was ideal! Especially one who looked so much like him already. It meant little investment and he would be ready that much sooner.

  In front of Saddam, Waris was now finished. Saddam started to applaud. As did all the other impersonators. “Yes, Corporal. You will do fine. You will do just fine. You have just one thing to remember, no matter what happens, never let the Americans take you alive.”

  December 13, 2003, a farmhouse in Ad-Dawr near Tikrit

  “Get out of the hole! NOW! Okay buddy, let’s see those hands! Nice and high, Mister former President.” American rifles were leveled at the former Dictator who found himself tied and on the ground.

  “No. I am not Saddam! My name is Waris, he just hired me to impersonate him.”

  A man placed a hand on his shoulder as he crouched beside him, “Listen, my name is Samir. I am the translator here, I will be sure to tell the Americans of the truth. You will be fine. They will take you for questioning, then you will be released.”

  “What did he say Samir?” the soldier asked.

  “He wishes death to all Americans, sir! He is a dog! He is the devil! He killed my country!”

  “So he’s the right guy then?”

  Samir nodded. “Yes, sir, he is Saddam. He just admitted it to me.”

  life after wartime?

  At the conclusion of World War II there was VJ day when the Japanese surrendered. The most iconic image from the spontaneous celebrations that sprang up across the United States is the VJ Kiss. An American sailor kissed a woman in a white dress, dipping her back as people marched in the streets behind them. We know what that victory looked like. It looked like an American flag, a kiss, a newspaper headline that read “PEACE.”

  The end of the war in Vietnam was more of an auditory experience. Both the war and its end sounded like helicopters. The end of Vietnam brings to mind the helicopters carrying American soldiers away from the battlefield, and the final helicopter leaving the American Embassy in South Vietnam, as Vietnamese desperately try to clamor aboard.

  But the end of these more recent wars are undefined, seemingly taking place between the news cycles. Troops come home only to go right back out again. Conscripted men are replaced by mercenaries, one invasion is followed by another, and while the names of the countries change, the battles keep raging on.

  And yet, soldiers do come home. Their tours of duty end. While our collective life during wartime may seem indefinite, for the individuals involved—for the ones who don’t com
e home in boxes—there is an ending. The war stops and civilian life begins.

  We used to call the damage war caused the psyche “shell shock.” Now we call it a “post-traumatic stress disorder,” but no matter what it’s called, soldiers find themselves reliving the war in memory, even as it continues on in various guises on television. Life after war is a life where a soldier can often find a new enemy. And that enemy is his own emotions. Life after war feels numb unless it feels dark, unless it feels angry. Life after war is a life wherein the war has moved from the outside to the inside.

  These stories that follow aren’t just about PTSD, but are rather explorations of that external-to-internal flip. They look at how the world is turned on its head by war and what it means to live when the war continues on, covertly and internally.

  Robert Morgan Fisher has written for TV, radio, and film. The son of a Naval Flight Officer, his fiction has appeared in many publications, including: The Seattle Review, 0-Dark-Thirty, Psychopomp, The Spry Literary Journal, and 34th Parallel as well as The Missouri Review Soundbooth Podcast. Robert holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, where he works as an Online Instructor, Book Coach, and Writing Specialist.

  His short story “Sealed” was originally published as an audio story on the Golden Walkman Magazine podcast.