Rock Paper Tiger

by Lisa Brackmann

  I snort. “That’s a good question.”

  But it’s not one I can answer, really.

  Harrison stares at me for a minute. Then he rests his hand on mine. “Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “Hey, it’s not prying till you ask me how old I am and how many kids I have.”

  He chuckles. “I see you’ve spent a fair amount of time in China.”

  I lean back in the padded leather seat and watch the lights on the sagging skyscrapers go by, the ones built twenty years ago that already look like they’re about to fall down. Billboards for expensive watches, medicinal herbs, fancy shoes, cars, new housing developments with names like “Good Fortune Silver City” and “Laguna Beach Resort Lifestyle Homes” flash by like we’re in some howling, neon-encrusted canyon.

  Harrison lives off Jianguomennan Dajie, not too far from the Ancient Observatory, in one of those luxury complexes perched on top of a Hong Kong-funded shopping mall. It’s so easy when you have money. The driver pulls up to the private apartment entrance and drops us off. We go up in a brass-lined elevator to the penthouse.

  “Here we are,” Harrison says.

  The elevator opens onto a foyer, for proper fengshui purposes. He leads me past the sculpture there, a parody of revolutionary imagery, which, instead of featuring your typical stalwart peasants and soldiers, has a guy carrying a briefcase and a woman talking on her cell phone, both casting beatific gazes towards the left of heaven.

  He wasn’t kidding about having plenty of room.

  We step into a living room where the entirety of one wall is given over to a huge picture window. Below us are the lights of Beijing, glittering in their Christmas-tree colors. I see a sign for China Rail, the encircled hammer. Next to that, the golden arches of McDonald’s. And, of course, a Starbucks.

  “Nice,” I say stupidly.

  Harrison shrugs. “It’s all rather crass. On the other hand, there’s no escaping reality.”

  The floors are polished granite. A fountain runs down the middle of the space, channeled over an arrangement of boulders tumbled near the window wall. On the other walls, paintings are hung, lit by discreet spotlights.

  “I just keep a few pieces here,” Harrison is saying. “The rest are at my other houses and in storage.”

  I don’t know what to say to this. I wander through the living room—gallery space is more accurate—sipping the remains of my whiskey.

  Huge canvases, bleeding landscapes, gaping mouths and eyes and grasping hands. Toy tanks marching across cartoon geography.

  I try to keep it all straight. In focus. My eyes burn. Just close them for a minute, I think. Rest.

  “Can I show you your room?”

  Harrison has appeared at my side.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  We go down a hall hung with smaller works, a few statues tucked into alcoves.

  Here is my room, a large bedroom with a picture window shuttered by automatic blinds, a bathroom off to one side.

  A maid lays out a pair of silk pajamas on the turned-down bed and smiles at me nervously as she ducks her head and backs out of the room.

  “You should have everything you need,” Harrison says, “but if not, just call for the maid.” He points to a button on a small console sitting on the nightstand.

  I stand there awkwardly for a moment. “Thanks, Harrison,” I say. “I really appreciate this.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  With that, he leaves.

  I somehow manage to undress and change, even fold up my clothes and place them on a chair, because it seems wrong to leave any kind of a mess in this pristine space. I brush my teeth (there’s a fresh toothbrush waiting for me in the bathroom) and swallow a couple of aspirin and vitamins from bottles conveniently left out for me on the counter. Then I crawl into the king-sized bed.

  For a couple of minutes, I play with the console, which not only calls the maid but also controls all the lights, the blinds, and the electronics.

  No disturbing images hang on these walls. A wash of color here, a traditional nature scene there, some delicate purple flowers, a few stalks of bamboo.

  I switch off the lights and open the blinds. Here is Beijing, around and below me, the harsh neon diffused by the treated glass and by distance. Across the way is another penthouse, muted lights softly glowing. It’s quiet, so quiet. No noise but the breeze-like whisper of the penthouse’s conditioned air.

  I close the blinds, and then I close my eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I JUST WANTED to sleep.

  Trey and me were lying on the cot in the Admin Core. I didn’t want to be there. It’s not him, I told myself. This isn’t some random hookup. I love him. It’s this rusty cot, the scratchy blanket, this stupid little room.

  I didn’t like doing it there. Didn’t like walking into the Admin Core, past the guard, with a wink and a nod.

  I almost said something then. I should have. I didn’t.

  “What did this used to be?” I asked instead.

  “This building?” Trey shrugged. “A government complex.”

  “But it’s not, like, the mayor’s office or something. It’s not even in town.”

  “Yeah.” Trey tapped out a cigarette and offered it to me. I took it. Between the cigarettes and the dust, my throat was raw all the time, and my chest nearly always ached. “Well, it was a Baathist complex. You know? They had a company of Republican Guards garrisoned here, to keep the LNs in line.”

  LNs = local nationals. Trey was hitting the acronyms pretty hard at the time.

  “Oh.”

  I remember staring up at the ceiling, at the yellow waterspots and peeling paint.

  “You know, sometimes I think this place is haunted,” I said.

  Trey frowned and lit a cigarette. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I forced a smile. “Yeah, I guess.”

  I was so tired all the time that it was like a weight in my bones: from the weird work schedule, from the mortars and RPGs going off every night—which hadn’t stopped, even if we had caught the muj in charge.

  Sleep felt better than anything. Better than being awake ever felt.

  Better than being with Trey.

  I was sleeping in my bunk one late afternoon when Trey’s OGA buddy Kyle came around.

  “Hey. McEnroe. Ellie. You in here?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  I’m thinking: fucking Kyle. Because I was actually alone, for once. I didn’t know where Greif and Pulagang were, and I only cared inasmuch as I was hoping they wouldn’t come back for a few hours so I could sleep uninterrupted by Pulagang slamming shit around or Greif’s constant tapping on her keyboard and muttering Arabic phrases to herself.

  “Hey, Kyle,” I said, sitting up slowly. I was wearing a T-shirt and panties and nothing else, so I pulled the sheet around myself. “What’s up?”

  Kyle was doing this thing with his hands, slapping his open palm over his fist. “So … you’ve been helping Trey out with the PUCs, right?”

  I had to think about this for a minute.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Great. ’Cause usually we use Hilliard, but he’s still OC.”

  “OC?” I asked, as it was an acronym I’d never heard before.

  “Off campus. You know, he was evac-ed out.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Hilliard was the guy with dysentery, only whatever was causing it we couldn’t knock out, and he kept getting sicker until all of a sudden he was exhibiting signs of toxic shock: so goodbye, Hilliard.

  “So now we have this situation with one of the PUCs,” Kyle was saying.

  “Oh. Okay. Give me a minute.”

  I kicked Kyle out and got dressed, threw on my field jacket because it was close to dusk and the weather had finally started to cool. We’d even had rain once, turning the dust briefly to mud.

  I started heading toward the aid station to pick up a medical bag, but Kyle stopped me. “We’ve got a kit on site,” he said. “It ha
s everything you’ll need.”

  Kyle and I entered the Admin Core the same way Trey and I did, passing a soldier standing guard who’d seen me there before. I could tell what he was thinking, me going in with Kyle, and I wanted to say: that’s not it, it’s nothing like that; but it’s not like I could really say anything.

  We walked down the familiar hall, past the rooms with the file cabinets, until we came to the wider corridor that I’d always passed by before. This time, we turned down it.

  I’d always seen a few soldiers down at the end of this corridor, and they were there tonight too, three of them, hanging out around a card table they’d set up, drinking water and shooting the shit. They were guys I’d seen around the base, in the DFAC for chow, playing pool in the MWR. I’d treated one of them for a sinus infection two weeks ago.

  Just ordinary guys.

  “Hey, McEnroe,” one of them said, “what are you doing down here?”

  “She’s helping me out with Sneezy,” Kyle told him.

  “Oh, man. Did you tell her to bring a facemask? ’Cause he’s just reeking.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kyle patted me on the shoulder. “McEnroe here’s a pro. Nothing she can’t handle.”

  I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t say anything. I tried to smile, to show I was one of the guys.

  We turned the corner, and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know any more.

  “So this was, like, the jail?” I asked. “I mean, before.”

  My voice sounded small. Weak.

  “Yeah. Not for car thieves or burglars or that kind of thing. More for regime opponents. Draft-dodgers. Or folks who pissed off the local sheik.” Kyle grinned. “Pretty convenient, huh?”

  I nodded.

  One of the soldiers—one of the guys—unlocked the door to a cell. Because that’s what this was, down this hall: it was a row of cells; and this one, I could smell the stink before he even opened the door. We went inside, into this tiny room, lit from above by a stark, bare bulb, and I swear to God, to my buddy Jesus, there was this naked guy lying on the floor, his wrists and ankles cuffed in front of him, chained to this big bolt drilled into the cement floor.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “He’s non-compliant,” Kyle explained.

  This guy was filthy and moaning, and he smelled like shit and he was lying in a puddle of piss.

  I just stood there, my mouth hanging open, because even though none of this should have been a surprise to me, I still didn’t know how to make it make sense.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “Well, you know, check him out.” Kyle shifted back and forth, shuffling his feet like he’d been caught cheating on a spelling test or something. “’Cause he’s just lying there, he won’t talk to us, so we were thinking maybe he’s sick.”

  It was one of those times when I didn’t know what to say. When the obvious words out of my mouth should have been something like “Well, what the fuck do you expect, dickwad? He’s naked, and he’s chained to a bolt on a cement floor, and he’s lying in his own—I hope—piss!”

  But I was a good girl, and I didn’t say stuff like that back then.

  What I said was: “Okay. Get me your med bag. I’ll check him out.”

  Sneezy was young, in his twenties, maybe even his teens, kind of skinny, with tangled hair and a beard even scruffier than most of the local terrorists. I checked him over, and I didn’t think he was that sick, but he was pretty out of it, banged up some, a little hypothermic and dehydrated.

  “When did he eat last?” I asked Kyle.

  “I dunno, a couple of days. He won’t eat.”

  “He drinking anything?”

  “Not much. Doesn’t wanna drink either.”

  “Nice,” I muttered.

  “I think he’s mental,” Kyle explained. “We brought him in; after a day he started acting crazy, throwing shit and spitting at everybody. His own shit, I mean. So we restrained him.”

  It was weird; the whole little drill from EMT class was going through my head: “Is the patient oriented times three? Does he know who he is? Does he know what day it is? Does he know who the president is?” And I almost laughed, thinking: yeah, who’s the president, you poor pathetic motherfucker?

  “Okay.” I stood up. “We should get some fluids in him. And you need to get him warmed up. Get him off the floor and in some blankets.”

  Kyle got this irritated look on his face and checked his watch. “He good for another couple of hours like this?”

  I stared down at the PUC, who lay there, shivering and making little nonsense sounds, somewhere between moans and a kid’s nursery rhyme. “Lah, lah, lah… .”

  “Like this?”

  “Yeah.” Kyle nodded vigorously. “’Cause obviously we don’t want to restrain him like this if he’s in serious distress. But the protocols are, we can do him another couple of hours if it’s not really gonna hurt him.”

  The light in there was so bright, it hurt my eyes.

  “I don’t understand,” I finally said. “I mean, if he’s got psychiatric problems, what’s the point?”

  Kyle leaned toward me, rested his hand on my shoulder like he was about to share a big secret. “He could be faking it. He had explosives residue on his hands. So we’re pretty sure he’s a bad guy.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said, stammering. “I mean, I don’t think he’ll die or anything, but … but I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Okay, Doc,” Kyle said, patting my shoulder again. “I appreciate your feedback. So, can you give him fluids like this? Or would it be easier if we put him in a different position?”

  I thought about it.

  A woman’s voice drifted down the hall. Speaking Arabic. Sounding pissed.

  Kyle rolled his eyes. “Oh, man. Sounds like the show’s starting. Listen, I gotta go ride herd. Andretti’s just outside the door if you need anything.”

  I nodded. And he left.

  I walked around the PUC a couple of times, assessing the situation and mapping out where I might want to stick him. I was thinking cephalic vein or maybe accessory cephalic vein, if the cuffs made the cephalic too problematic.

  I knelt down by the guy, checked out the veins, and scrubbed both sites with Betadine while he lay there, babbling and trying to spit, except his mouth was too dry to work up a good loogie.

  Then I learned why they called him “Sneezy”: his face wrinkled up and he practically convulsed, making this “chuh, chuh, chuh” noise and bobbing his head like some long-necked choking bird. I’m thinking, should I use a saline lock? Is there any point? Or should I just hang fluids and leave it at that? And where am I going to hang the bag, anyway, in this barren little cell? On the window bars, maybe?

  Then I noticed, above my head, screwed into a ceiling beam, what looked like a rusting meat hook made of thick, pitted iron.

  That could work.

  Whatever was going on down the hall kept getting louder, the woman’s voice punctuated now and again by male laughter.

  “Lah, lah, lah,” said Sneezy.

  I stared at the meat hook, thinking I’d need a chair to climb up there.

  And that was when it occurred to me that this was completely, irredeemably fucked up. I mean, what was I thinking? Here was this stinking, crazy naked guy caked with shit and lying in piss, chained to the fucking floor, and I was just going to give him IV fluids and leave? What the fuck was wrong with me?

  “Okay, Sneezy,” I said. “Okay. You need some fluids, but you really need to be in a bed. This is bullshit. I’m gonna take care of this, okay?” I searched through the med bag and found an emergency thermal blanket, one of those things that looks like folded tinfoil and fits inside a baggie. Better than nothing.

  I covered him with it. “I’m sorry, Sneezy, I’m really sorry,” I said. Tears were running down my face, and I didn’t know why, considering that this guy was some hajji who wanted to kill me and I really didn’t care what happe
ned to him. “Just hang in there, okay? I’m gonna figure this out.”

  Sneezy chuffed a couple of times and stared at the floor. Then his head rolled up, and he stared at me.

  “Cunt,” he said. “Cunt whore.”

  I had to laugh.

  “Wow. You do know English.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Be right back.”

  Outside the cell, Andretti leaned against the wall, playing on his Game Boy.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  “I need to talk to Kyle.”

  He jerked a thumb down the hall. “That way.”

  I could have just followed the sounds, the woman’s angry Arabic, the occasional barked laughter, coming from the cell at the end of the hall. Nobody really stood guard; there were a couple of guys clustered by the door, but why would they be worried about somebody like me?

  “Hey,” I said to the soldiers by way of greeting. And I stepped inside.

  First thing I noticed was Kyle, sitting on a folding chair near the door, tilted back against the wall like he was watching a movie and working on a giant tub of popcorn. A couple other guys stood next to him, guys I didn’t recognize, other OGAs maybe, no names on their fatigues.

  Second thing I noticed was two more naked PUCs. One of them had his hands cuffed behind him, the cuffs threaded through one of the window bars so that he was half-kneeling. I learned later that this position is called a “Palestinian hanging” and that it can put enough pressure on the lungs and diaphragm to cause respiratory compromise. An Iraqi general died at Abu Ghraib after being put into this position with broken ribs.

  But I didn’t know that then.

  The second naked hajji was kneeling in front of the first. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

  There was this woman, a small woman with brown hair and delicate features, stalking around them like some kind of predatory cat.

  My roomie, Greif.

  She yelled something, and one of the OGAs grabbed the second naked guy by his hair and jerked his head back.

  Greif got in his face. Screamed at him.

  Second naked guy turned toward first naked guy. His mouth and tongue sought out first naked guy’s dick.