Pulling security, she takes stock of her surroundings. A bleak landscape, not so much a desert but a poisoned wasteland that looks as drab and disordered as an abandoned construction site, it stretches flatly and with little variation into fields of brittle gray clay, the kind that would turn to gumbo mud in the rain and cling to your boots by the pound. Debris is strewn everywhere, mounds of jackhammered concrete, garbage hauled from Triangletown piled here and there and set aflame, some of it still smoldering, big black steaming mounds of trash like the devil’s shit. Judging by the amount that’s accumulated, this area near the roundabout must’ve been used as a dumping site long before the war started. Rotten plastic sacks blow in the wind. A goatherd trudges through the middle distance, driving his flock from a trash mound abuzz with horseflies to a cesspool where the animals lap up verdigris sludge. She looks through the binos and sees that one of his goats has four horns, four looping horns—a genetic freak. No grass to speak of, not a green living thing in sight except for a narrow margin of canes rooted in the banks of the canal, so the goats would appear to feed primarily on garbage. She knows their meat must taste foul.
“Let’s go, people,” McGinnis says, refolding his map. “Make it nice and obvious this thing’s closed to all civilian traffic. I know our tasking here isn’t the sexiest, but it’s important—we can’t afford any screwups.”
After delivering this tired motivational speech, he launches into constructing the roadblock, directing the work and doing more than his share; in less than an hour they transform the neglected crossroads into a makeshift citadel. He assigns one truck to each of the four spurs radiating from the center of the roundabout, with every machine gun on every truck oriented outward, and in the middle of it all, the statue of Saddam offering his unmoving blessing.
They put on leather work gloves and unlash hoops of concertina from stowage on the trucks’ hatchbacks, drawing out the wire in looping barricades to close a perimeter around themselves. Fifty meters farther they pop road flares and set them in a burning red line across each spur. Those mark the point of no return. Drive your vehicle through it, and expect to be fired on.
As the work continues, the kids from Triangletown descend on them like buzzards to carrion, having followed the platoon almost a mile down the highway. Pretty soon there are dozens of them past the flares, jockeying for prime spots close to the concertina that separates them from the Americans. It isn’t just curiosity that draws them; again they’re begging. Feeding the local nationals has been forbidden from on high, and Cassandra can tell that McGinnis disapproves, but she and some of the other soldiers take pity—charity as relief from boredom—and tear into their less desirable MREs: bean-and-rice burrito, jambalaya, chicken à la king. They rip open the plastic pouches and toss the contents piecemeal to the kids. Within minutes an economy develops. Most valued are the miniature glass bottles of Tabasco sauce and any dessert item: minipacks of M&M’s, Charms hard candies, pound cakes, and chocolate bars manufactured with a higher-than-normal melting point for high-temperature environments, desert, jungle.
The children crowd around and shout requests for MRE items like ecstatic commodity traders working a pit. A large group gathers near her truck. Even more fascinating to them than the prospect of candy is her sex. Her short blond hair matted with head grease and dust, its texture having coarsened to something like tawny fur, still manages to exert an entrancing power, especially over the little boys. They chatter and point. “Emirah’at Ameriki’at jundi!”
A blond American woman: this is something they’ve only seen captured on film before today, the day the war comes to their doorstep and carries with it an American blonde—not many would call her a bombshell, but she’s youthful, pretty, armed, and in uniform, all of which qualities taken together elevate her status to something grand and exotic, a reclusive celebrity, a mythological being.
“Allo, madam! I am Haider! What is your name?”
The boy is very thin, with brown eyes that at first glance appear bright but are actually just fierce. He reaches across the wire, shouting at her, missing both front teeth, jabbering with mouth full of the chocolate she has just given him, the last she had. She claps empty hands together and shows her palms to him and the others.
“I’m out, guys. No more. Sorry.”
They understand much of what she says, most of all her empty hands, and everyone except the little boy, Haider, moves off to Corporal Treanor’s truck, parked the next spur over. A few soldiers there are still tossing out food. But Haider stays, holding one hand forlornly over his heart.
“Madam. What is your name?”
To her mind the kid seems off. Too friendly, given the circumstances, talking to her across razor wire, and sort of robotic sounding, with little variance between the first and second time he’s asked this same question.
“Specialist Wigheard,” she says.
“Special-ist,” he repeats, mulling over the name incredulously.
“My rank.” She tugs on the sharp black insignia pinned to her collar. “Like my army name. Wigheard is my last name.” For a moment she feels more an elementary teacher, less a soldier, pointing to each letter of the name tape on her uniform, announcing in turn, “W-I-G-H-E-A-R-D. Wigheard.”
“Yes. Army,” he says solemnly, reaching with his chocolate-smeared hand for her rifle. “Jundi.”
She takes a quick step back from the wire so he can’t touch the weapon, hefting it, readjusting its strapped weight on her neck, pinched from the constant load; she smirks at him in a kindly sort of way, not wanting to rebuff him too harshly but at the same time wary of anyone, even a child, who lacks sense enough not to grab for a soldier’s gun. Maybe a cultural thing, she thinks. The Iraqi men she’s met so far have been close talkers, with a different conception of personal space. And he’s just a child, seven, eight. But still, should be old enough to know to keep hands to himself. If this place isn’t the school of hard knocks, she doesn’t know what is. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s a woman that makes him feel free to take dumb liberties.
“My friend, madam, I love you. Please, chocolat-tay.”
She chuckles, having been in country long enough to detect a pattern and find pleasure in its repetition: for all his simple appetites, Haider speaks in the ingratiatingly polite way of Iraqis taught with British-made textbooks, transposing Arabic conventions into the second language. Words and phrases like madam, mister, my friend, are not genteel placeholders but vital ways to show respect when addressing a stranger.
She’s been surprised at how formal the kids sound and also by how many of them know at least some English. Haider’s face beams with hope as he removes the candy wrapper from his pocket and displays it to show proof of need.
“Sorry, kid. Like I said, it’s gone. Maybe there’ll be some more tomorrow.”
“Tuh-maura?” he repeats, having trouble with her accent. “Ah.” He nods agreeably, getting it. “To-morrow. Inshallah.”
He flings the wrapper to the wind, and it tumbles into the canal that passes through a galvanized culvert near the spur of the roundabout where their crew stands watch. Crump is awake now, perched on top of the Humvee like a lanky gargoyle, his long legs draped over the windshield, rifle resting unprofessionally across his lap. To the rear of the truck, McGinnis has lowered the tailgate to use it as a shelf for holding his canteen cup as he shaves in the reflection of a handheld signaling mirror.
“My friend, where are you from?”
“We’re, uh—” She almost says Fort Hood. “Not really supposed to tell you that. But I’m originally from Missouri.”
“Where is Missouri?”
“Dead center of America. Pretty much the middle of nowhere. Kind of like this place. Dead. Not really, but not much happening, you know. So we’ve got that in common. No offense.”
“My friend, I love America. Soon I am going to the Missouri with you, yes?”
“If you say so.”
“I am eight years old.” Small for hi
s age. He holds up his left hand and flashes five fingers, then three. For the first time Cassandra notices the defect in his other arm, which he has been holding close to his side, pressed against a careworn soccer jersey. The boy’s right arm is normal except for the very end, shriveled and misshapen. Without a hand or fingers, it tapers to a diminutive paddle like a fleshy spoon. Her first thought is trauma, but she doesn’t see any scar tissue. She keeps her gaze moving, not wanting him to grow self-conscious, and with the pretext of stretching her lower back, which does in fact ache like crazy from the rifle and her body armor, she looks around the traffic circle at some of the other children. In that hasty survey she sees two more with obvious birth defects.
“My friend, you are Christian?”
“No,” she says flatly.
He tilts his head, regarding her with newfound suspicion. “You are Jew?”
“No.” She decides to preempt this tired line of questioning. “I’m not a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim, Buddhist, or anything. I’m nothing.”
“You have no god?”
“Right. I’m not religious.”
“This is very bad,” he mutters, shaking his head and looking genuinely concerned. He shuffles his feet and glances away, like he might move on and search for another soldier to talk with, but something keeps him from leaving.
“My friend, how many sister you have?”
“None.”
“I have two. One is sick. She need hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“My friend, you are doctor?”
“No.”
“He is doctor?” Haider points at McGinnis, still shaving behind the Humvee.
“None of us are doctors. But that guy over there, Aguirre, is a medic.”
“Hey, don’t go telling him that!” Crump chimes in from his perch on top of their truck. “Little bastard might be a spy for al-Qaeda or some shit. Can’t trust these dirt kids for nothing.”
“Seriously?” she says, voice heavy with sarcasm.
“He’s right, you know,” McGinnis says, though not with any immediacy. “Maintain op sec, Wigheard.”
Haider seems lost in their jargon but does realize his talk of a doctor has provoked some kind of kerfuffle, so he switches tack, returning once again to a less controversial topic, the previous one, their respective ages, not yet exhausted. “I am eight years old. How old are you?”
“Nineteen. One nine.”
“Her birthday’s next week,” Crump says. “You should get her a present. Something that really says ‘Iraq.’ Let’s see. Whatta y’all make around here other than piles of fucking garbage?”
“Happy bird-day to you, happy bird-day to you. Yes? This is right?”
“You look like a monkey, and you smell like a bag of assholes,” Crump sings back sneeringly. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dang, not even kidding, son. You ever heard of a bath?”
“Like you could really smell him from up there,” Cassandra says. “Like you smell any better.”
McGinnis peers around the back of the truck with razor pressed against cheek, shaving cream bearding his lower face. “Knock if off, Crump.”
“Your bird-day is soon. My bird-day is soon. We are like this.” Haider crosses the fore and middle fingers of his good hand, looking pleased with his logic, apparently unbothered by Crump’s teasing. A look of transgression comes over him, as if he’s just thought of something wickedly clever. “He is your husband?” He thrusts his chin toward the back of the truck, McGinnis.
“Nope. She don’t have one,” Crump says, happy to make this known. He lowers his voice to a deep bass, faux pidgin English. “She, no-man. You, yes-man. You like the cock. She, no likey. You, she, no-same-same.”
Haider scowls in confusion and anger at the gag being played on him. He turns from Crump to Cassandra, seeking guidance: she purses her lips, eyes wide, nodding, yep, no husband here, and kind of glad to blow his little mind with that. He lets out a wan huff and silently mouths words, searching for the right ones with which to inquire further, when Crump cuts him off.
“See, little G, in America the ladies got the power. We don’t make them wear those black beekeeper suits and work in the fucking fields all day like fucking slaves. And they get to choose when they wanna get married. Ain’t like here. Can’t just trade in a few camels and cop yourself a wifey from your uncle.”
“Go fuck yourself, Crump,” she says, picking up a small stone and winging it at him, and, while missing deliberately, sending it close enough to make him duck.
Haider laughs, voice lilting, taking joy in the petty violence and also in learning a new English phrase that probably means something obscene and most definitely produces a combative response.
“Oh, I’d love to,” Crump says. “If I could get a minute’s peace, I’d rub one out for you, Wigheard, no problem.” He sets the butt of his rifle in his crotch and pretends the weapon is a phallus, jerking off the barrel into the overcast sky.
“You, Ali Baba,” Haider says, wagging his finger at him. “You, fuck yourself.”
“Wrong again, dumbass. It’s ‘go fuck yourself.’ Little mutant fucktard, fucking dirt kid—you’re the only Ali Baba around here.”
He springs from the roof to the hood of the truck, vaults to the ground, and feints a charge at Haider, who sees it coming in plenty of time and is already dashing away. The boy stops and turns to make sure they’re watching. Then, very purposely, points his left index finger at his shriveled right hand, which he holds at his midriff. It looks like a fixed, meaningful gesture. He directs it at Saddam’s statue, then at Crump.
“You, Saddam, like this!” Satisfied the message has been received, he runs off to join the other children, now mobbing Treanor and his crew for their private stash of beef jerky.
“I think that little bastard just flipped me off in Iraqi,” Crump says.
McGinnis wipes off the last of his shaving cream, not dispensed from a metal can of Gillette like most of the men have brought, but a tube of something expensive, organic, ordered off the Internet and shipped from California to Fort Hood; in addition to several common dyes and industrial fragrances, McGinnis is allergic to nearly everything. Tree nuts, gluten, shellfish, penicillin, the dander from more or less any furred mammal. The dust in Iraq has been giving him hell, and he takes an antihistamine twice a day. Symptom of growing up rich, Cassandra thinks—high strung, with HEPA filters and live-in help to scrub everything clean. Whatever the cause of the allergies, she can’t remember ever meeting a poor kid who had them that bad. McGinnis’s Achilles’ heel. He carries an epi shot in his thigh pocket at all times and has a list of his most serious allergens, penicillin right there on top, pinned to the inside of his helmet where a medic might find it if McGinnis were too fucked up to convey the information verbally.
He tosses out the sudsy gray shaving water from his canteen cup and slams shut the tailgate, truly angry now. “Get your ass to parade rest, Crump. Didn’t I just tell you to knock it off? I catch you treating any more civilians like that, you’ll be in the front-leaning rest until I get tired. Roger? These people’s good graces are all that’s standing between us and a shit storm. You show them respect. Better yet, just keep your mouth shut. We clear?”
Crump rogers him petulantly.
“Good. At ease.” McGinnis drops the sanctimonious drill sergeant routine. “Kid didn’t flick you off, though. Not exactly. When they do that, point one finger at five fingers all bunched up like that?—it means one into five. Like, your mom was such a slut, she was with five dudes in one night. Then you were born.”
“Except the way he did it with that hand was more like one into two,” Cassandra says.
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“What’s wrong with them?” In the short time since Haider has darted away, she’s spotted yet another deformed child, a girl with a stooped back who throws out one leg in an exaggerated circular motion with each step. She wonders if this could be Haider’s sister, the
sick one he mentioned.
“Who knows,” McGinnis says, eyeing the canal. “Could be some toxin leaching into the water. I wouldn’t even wanna guess what’s buried out here. Hell, could be good old-fashioned inbreeding. Case you didn’t notice, the gene pool back there in Triangletown wasn’t too big.”
“Fucking hajjis are bass-ackwards,” Crump says.
They ignore him, their attention catching on Treanor’s spur, where Haider and a tall kid with big ears have started to fight. The larger boy throws Haider over his hip and snakes an arm around his neck; Treanor hovers over the two like a wrestling referee, shouting pointers that are completely lost on them due to insufficient vocabulary—“Fist in your elbow! Lock your fist in your elbow!”
Haider struggles gamely, but it’s impossible for him to escape the hold with the use of only one arm. He flails the bad one blindly over his shoulder, the withered hand a blunt object useless for anything other than striking. The big-eared boy chokes him until he submits. A disputed piece of beef jerky is the prize of this fight.
“That’s about enough of that,” McGinnis says. He buttons up his uniform blouse, which he removed while shaving, grabs his helmet and weapon, and heads across the roundabout to Treanor’s truck. As he approaches, he yells, “Ishta! Ishta!” and the mob of kids shrieks and scatters like a flock of gulls disturbed into flight. He takes careful high steps as he crosses through a hidden gap in the wire and, when on the far side, picks up the pace, driving the children down the road, in the direction of Triangletown. “Don’t come back here! It’s dangerous! Ishta, ishta!”
The kids retreat, begrudgingly ceding ground, but some will not take him seriously until he runs down the road after them like he’s on fire, holding his rifle at port arms, charging the last few holdouts. They backpedal down the highway, taunting him in Arabic. One boy throws rocks to no effect.
She’s impressed by their fearlessness. She imagines what she would’ve done as a girl if an invading army had shown up and closed down the intersection where county road meets state road near the turnoff to her grandparents’ land. What her mother and father would’ve done in the same situation. Probably locked the doors and drawn the shades and absolutely forbidden her from going outside. What parent in their right mind would let their kids come down here? Struggling to understand, she recalls one of the briefings they suffered through at Camp New York, “Understanding the Arab Mind.” Typical army class, taught from PowerPoint slides, delivered by some public affairs officer flown in from Central Command to school the grunts. He lectured them on the Arab sense of fatalism, the whole martyrdom thing, how it fits into Islamic beliefs, the Five Pillars, jihad, the hajj, circling clockwise around the black cubic Kaaba, praying five times a day, abstaining from pork, graven idols, the whole bit.
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