A Hard and Heavy Thing

by Matthew J. Hefti

  Nick shook his head. “Nah, man. I’m good. It was just a rush, that’s all.”

  “You just miss it or what? Was it hidden? Hooper said it was on the surface and yelled for you to stop. How’d you miss it?”

  Nick reached into his pocket, pulled out the nummular rock, and handed it over. Levi analyzed the rock and placed it in the small pouch fastened to his vest, just over his heart.

  “But you’re okay. And so,” Levi said, trailing off. He paused. He looked Nick up and down. “All right then.” He walked around the other side of the Humvee and yelled to Gassner. “LT is working on calling EOD. I told him to make sure they came up from the south so they don’t hit the same traffic jam we did.”

  Levi let his rifle hang in front of him, and he pulled out a pack of imitation Marlboro cigarettes. He shook one out and tossed it up to his own gunner. He walked around his Humvee passing out cigarettes to his men, stopping to light each one. He walked over to Victor One and tossed a fake Marb to Tom Hooper, who lit it by shining his contraband Iranian-imported, Chinese-manufactured green dazzler laser on the end of it.

  He offered one to Gassner, but he refused. “Always a gas, eh Gassner?” Levi snickered. He passed out cigarettes to Jalaladin and Weber the Mute and finished by putting one in Nick’s mouth. He lit it for him. “Better just settle in boys. We’ll be here a minute, I’m sure.”

  Nick pulled the cigarette from his lips, exhaled, and with shaking hands, put the filter back in his mouth. “Vertiginous,” he thought. “Vertiginous, vertiginous, vertiginous.”

  2.3 WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN UP

  KNITTING OURSELVES

  (It Would Have Saved Us a Lot of Trouble)

  Children and men stepped out of their vehicles and walked up to the front line of cars. Rusty Toyotas and Opels crossed the median and spread across all lanes and the shoulder. Cars pressed into the barley field to the west of MSR Tampa. Had a canal not blocked the east side, surely the cars would have spread in that direction as well. Within minutes, hundreds of men and cars lined the busy highway, every one of them an enemy. Every one of them otherworldly and less than human. Every one of them apt to key a radio in his pocket to turn an unprotected, dismounted American infantryman into nothing but a torso, bleeding out where his legs used to be.

  Levi had to contact Lieutenant Michaels over the net because Gassner’s comms got knocked out during the blast. Lieutenant Michaels had to contact the tactical operations center; the TOC, in turn, had to contact the bomb disposal team; the bomb disposal team had to get back to the TOC; the TOC had to get back to Lieutenant Michaels; and then the LT, of course, had to get on the horn to reach Levi, who was standing less than a half a mile away.

  All Levi could gather from the LT was that the EOD team from O’Ryan was tending to a large vehicle-borne IED near the south gate of Logistical Supply Area Anaconda, a massive Army post on Balad Air Base inhabited by Army Fobbits and Air Force Chairmen. The post-blast investigation for a strike against Archer platoon, which caused no significant casualties, was of little import to the execs and operations officers at the TOC. It was barely a blip on the radar. When Levi suggested to Lieutenant Michaels that they Charlie Mike—continue mission and move on—he was told that securing the scene was critical so the EOD team could collect evidence from the blast crater before clearing the scene of any additional hazards. When Levi asked the LT why they couldn’t get another EOD team from Anaconda, he was told their post-blast investigation was not a priority.

  Private Weber knelt between the two Humvees and quietly finished the cigarette Levi had given him. When he finished it, he put his rifle across his knee and looked out upon his sector for nearly half an hour without so much as cracking his neck or brushing away a fly. After that first half-hour, he began looking over at Levi in ever-shorter intervals. The longer Levi bantered with the LT on the radio, the more often Weber looked over at him.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” Levi shouted.

  Weber said nothing but turned away, looking back at his sector.

  “Didn’t you know that’s The Mute?” Nick called over. “Hasn’t said a word since he got here.”

  Weber looked back at Levi. Levi barked like a dog, and Weber turned back to his sector.

  After a few more similar exchanges, Weber finally said what was on his mind. “Sergeant Hartwig,” he called, sounding almost afraid to speak. “Do you think I’ll get my CIB for this?”

  Levi looked across the top of the Humvee at him and went back to talking on the radio. “Archer One-Six, personnel Weber, a.k.a. The Mute, wants to know if he’ll get his combat infantry badge for being in a victor when it passed by a few fireworks.” He listened to the headset pressed against his ear. “Roger, One-Six. I’ll tell him.”

  “What’d he say?” said Weber.

  “He said he’ll write you a CIB in return for sexual favors.”

  “C’mon. Seriously. What’d he say, Sar’nt?”

  “He said watch your damn sector and stop worrying about the chest candy.”

  After another long while, Weber called out, “How long until EOD shows up?”

  “They get here when they get here,” replied Levi.

  “What’s so important about a hole in the ground?”

  “They need evidence. If they have evidence, they can tell us what bad guys to go catch. If we can kick down the right doors and kill the right bad guys, we can all stop the insurgency. Kill the bomb maker and you’ll have no more bombs, but if you kill the guy who plants the bomb, all you have is another dead farmer. That’s what’s so important about a hole in the ground.”

  “Well is some scattered dirt really going to bring down the network? Aren’t we just as likely to get hit just sitting here?”

  “Who knows? They have to clear the blast site of additional hazards.”

  “Does lightning really strike twice?”

  Levi looked across the Humvee at him, mouth taut. “You sure have a lot of dangerous questions for a noob.”

  Weber shut his mouth for a solid five minutes before shouting out, “What are we doing here, man?”

  Levi pulled down his Oakley sunglasses and raised an eyebrow at Weber. “Since when did you find a voice?” He pushed his glasses back up. “I don’t know why we’re all here.” Levi spread his arm out and gestured to the rest of the guys. “But I know why you’re here. Would you like to hear a story that will explain why Private Weber is here?”

  “Sure,” Weber muttered.

  “We used to have this guy in the platoon. Name was Private Ferguson. An excellent soldier. He kept his mouth shut. Didn’t ask dumb questions, and he could shoot a farmer digging a hole in a road from 400 meters using just his iron sights.” Levi crossed his arms and rested them on his rifle butt. He looked up into the sky, as if remembering better times. “Now Private Ferguson thrived on combat. Absolutely loved it. He would have loved today. Nothing would have made him happier than getting hit by that IED.” Levi shook his head. “But he couldn’t take the winter, man. Couldn’t take the lull in the action. No outlet for the aggression bred in him by your United States Army. His anger manifested itself in increasingly self-destructive ways. It started with little things, like fist fights with guys who wouldn’t trade him their jalapeño cheese and wheat snack bread for his peanut butter and cracker. It escalated into death threats against his TC, and to make matters worse, he started taking trips to the fence line to score needles. He literally lost his mind. Completely forgot who he was. And then one day?” Levi snapped his fingers. “Done. It was all over. No more trips to the fence, no more needles, no more nothing.”

  “So what’d he do?” Weber asked. “OD? Kill himself?”

  “Worse,” said Levi. He pulled out his box of cigarettes. He took his time taking one from the box and lighting it.

  “So what’d he do then, Sergeant Hartwig?” said Weber, growing annoyed.

  Levi blew out a stream of smoke. “Carpal tunnel got him.”

  “Carpal tunnel? W
hat?”

  Levi blew out a stream of smoke. “He took up knitting.”

  “Knitting?”

  “You deaf? I said knitting.”

  Levi heard Nick snort. He looked over and nodded at him. Nick shook his head.

  “At first,” Levi said. “He tried cross-stitching. Old Ferg’s the one who did up that really ornate looking genie lamp hanging in the TOC.” Levi turned. “Hey Nick, that genie lamp still hanging in the TOC?”

  Nick nodded gravely. “Sure is.”

  Levi continued. “But that didn’t work. Too mindless is what he said. So he took up knitting. He cut his teeth by making these little—I dunno, I guess you could call them nesting dolls. You know, like, a knitted bunny rabbit with a pouch, and a bunch of tiny knitted bunny rabbits to go in the pouch so you could pull all the tiny knitted bunnies out of the pouch and make it look like the bigger bunny rabbit gave birth to all the little ones.”

  Weber put his rifle up to his shoulder and looked through his scope to get a clearer look at something in the distance. “That’s insane,” he mumbled.

  “Seriously,” Levi said. “But when we busted his balls for wasting his time on something so dumb, he made a pair of mittens and a nice little watch cap for every guy in the platoon. And it was winter so it was great for the rest of us. It really mellowed him out. I think it really changed his life. Heck, it changed all of our lives. Before he could finish one for the LT, however, he came down with a nasty case of carpal tunnel syndrome.”

  “Carpal tunnel syndrome?”

  “It’s a stress injury that comes from repetitive motion, numbnuts. From all the knitting. It got so bad he couldn’t squeeze his trigger. They had to send him home.”

  “They sent a dude home because he got carpal tunnel syndrome?” Weber said. “From playing Martha Stewart?”

  “You got it,” said Levi. “And that’s why you’re here, Sunshine. Got any more stupid questions?”

  “No, Sar’nt,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “Welcome to the party,” Levi said. He walked off.

  He had no real answers to give, of course. Ferguson had been shot in the head. There was no carpal tunnel. There were no bunny rabbit nesting dolls. And there were no life-changing watch caps and mittens. There was only a split-second, a chin on a chest in repose, the dull slump of a body being pulled from the turret, and then nothing. There were no real stories and there were no real answers, so they made them all up.

  Now the men sweated in the middle of MSR Tampa for hours, hemmed in on all sides by geography, impassable lines of cars, and a growing mob of angry locals. Men desperate to do something—anything—smoked cigarettes and longed for nothing more than to finger their triggers.

  A few minutes later, Levi heard chatter from members of Second Platoon, who were escorting the EOD team. He looked up and saw the top of a tan, boxy Air Force M116 Humvee that looked more like a bread truck than a war machine. As it grew closer and the honking of cars grew louder, he saw that the EOD team was bumping the Toyotas out of their way with the giant steel bumper mounted to the front, much to the chagrin of the locals. Levi called Second Platoon’s six on the radio and let them know they had a visual on the EOD team.

  When the bomb disposal team finally did break all the way through the line of cars, they dropped their black robot and got to work right away.

  Levi huddled over Airman First Class Matthew Hefti’s shoulder. The young Air Force EOD tech, who looked like he had barely finished high school, let a cigarette dangle from his lips as he worked. He squinted his eyes against the smoke that wafted up from his cigarette; sweat dripped from under his Kevlar, down his face, and onto his robot controller.

  Tech Sergeant Pat Cazalet, the leader of the two-man EOD team, came up behind the two infantrymen. “Don’t you think you two should be worried about your sectors? Let Matt here drive the robot, and he’ll let you look for bad guys.”

  Levi sheepishly turned around. Nick, however, continued to stare at the screen. The Tech Sergeant’s not-so-subtle order didn’t register.

  “Sergeant Hartwig,” said Cazalet. “Maybe you should square away your troop.”

  “Nick,” said Levi, looking over his shoulder. “Eyes out.”

  “Huh?” Nick said. He snapped out of it, and his eyes grew wide.

  When Levi turned to look at what Nick saw, a white Toyota blazed down the gravel road that ran parallel to Tampa on the east side of the canal. Two military-aged males hung out the windows spraying AK fire. He looked down the sight of his weapon, but he couldn’t focus on anything beyond his rear-sight aperture. When the shot was lost, he looked up over the barrel of his rifle to see Gassner already running toward his truck.

  Levi barked orders as he ran. On his way back to the EOD truck, he stopped between the two Archer vehicles and looked up at the gunners. “I know you want a fight, fellas. If you have the chance, send them to their virgins, but use your brains, okay? Just look around at this mess.” He gestured to the jam of cars and observers. “Some spray-and-pray potshots aren’t worth the hell you’ll have to pay if you hit any of these civilians.” He stood there a second, waiting for acknowledgment. “Got it?”

  The gunners said in unison, “Hooah, Sar’nt.”

  “Good. Now go get some.”

  Levi then ran around the truck and grabbed Nick’s arm as he climbed into Victor Two with Gassner. “Nuh uh, buddy. Not this time. You’re staying with me. Someone needs to guard EOD.” He pulled Nick back over to the EOD truck and stopped when they reached Hefti and his robot controller.

  Hefti looked up from the controller at the two Humvees tearing away. Levi put his gloved hand on the airman’s shoulder. “You look this way,” and he pointed with his other hand at the robot control screen. “And be quick about it so we can get the hell out of here.” He removed his hand from Hefti’s shoulder and put it on Nick’s. “You, watch this way.” He pointed behind the EOD tech and waved his arm in an arc. “One hundred and eighty degrees behind this guy. Get his back and don’t pay any attention to what he’s doing. Got it?” Nick nodded, but said nothing.

  Levi walked around to the other side of the truck where Cazalet was on the radio with his own chain of command. He spit tobacco juice onto the asphalt and keyed the mic again. “Alamo, this is Caz. Roger, we’re in contact here and gotta get movin’, so we won’t be using the bomb suit on this one.”

  The radio crackled, “Roger, team one, stand by while we seek approval for that.”

  Levi took a knee and faced out.

  Cazalet keyed his radio again. “Negative Alamo. I ain’t requesting it, I’m frickin’ tellin’ ya.” He tossed his radio mic back into the seat of his truck and ignored their response. As he walked around the front of his vehicle, he called out, “How’s it going, Matt?”

  Levi glanced over his shoulder and saw a flash down the road. Cazalet flinched and hit the ground. Not a full second later, Levi heard the ear-splitting crack of the IED and he saw the main body of the robot fall from the sky onto the highway. He scooted around the backside of the Humvee and pressed himself against its protective steel as he heard the thud of rocks and the clink of metal falling around him.

  When the sounds stopped, he looked around the other side of the vehicle at Hefti and Nick, who were now looking at the static on the robot screen. Cazalet picked himself up off the ground and walked toward them. Hefti dropped his cigarette on the ground and noticed that Levi was looking at him. He shrugged. “Oops,” he said.

  He closed the robot control unit and jumped into the driver’s seat of the Humvee.

  Cazalet turned to him and said, “Just a second, Matt.” He walked around to the back of the vehicle to meet Levi. “Sorry, man. We gotta go down there and get that thing and clear it.”

  Levi nodded.

  Cazalet turned around and stepped away from the Humvee to look at the dissipating mushroom cloud. “You can stay, or you can ride down there with us to be in the armor, but I think you should stay. No sense in a
ll of us going down there. They’re trying to kill us, ya know?”

  Levi couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

  The EOD bread truck pulled away and rattled down the highway toward the scene of the blast. Levi nodded in the direction of the runaway and said, “Who needs to square away their troop now?”

  Cazalet ran after the truck a few steps and yelled, “What the hell, Matt?” Then he gave up and watched.

  “What’s up with that?” Levi asked.

  Cazalet shook his head in a mixture of frustration and wonder. “If he doesn’t get killed down there, I’ll kill him myself when we get back to the FOB.”

  Nick, Levi, and Cazalet watched Hefti drive right up next to the main body of the broken robot. When he jumped out of the truck, he was practically on top of it. He bent down and picked it up. Struggling with its weight, he shuffled to the back of the Humvee. He dropped it onto the ground without ceremony, opened the squared-off back hatch, picked up the robot body again, and heaved it into the truck. He scampered around the truck picking up other assorted pieces, and after making a full circle around the truck, he dumped those in the back as well. He got back into the driver’s seat, stood up on the sideboard, looked around and over the top of the Humvee, sat down in the seat, slammed the door, and put it back into gear. He drove in reverse all the way back to where the other men stood. He tossed his door open. “Problem solved. Let’s roll.”

  Cazalet shook his head, told Levi and Nick to hop in the back, and he got in the TC side.

  “Caz,” said Hefti when they were all in. “I had a perfectly good—”

  “Not another word from you, Matt,” said the EOD team leader.

  Levi was secretly pleased about the EOD team’s misstep. It could have taken them hours to robotically separate all the hazardous components. At least now they were on the move again. Levi’s knees pressed against the steel bar that braced the back of the driver’s Humvee seat. He tried adjusting himself, but despite his own diminutive stature, there was not enough room for his legs. He leaned forward to scoot his butt back on the dusty canvas seat as far as he could, which wasn’t easy on account of his body armor. He put his hands on the back of the driver’s seat and leaned up, pointing across Hefti’s shoulder. “Cut the median and stop right before that foot bridge. I’ll get out and spot you over.”