by Suzy Parish
“Mac, did you hear me?” She was not giving up, whatever it was.
“Yes, I hear you.”
“I’m hanging up my cell phone. Call me on live video. Right now,” Sophie said.
The phone clicked off.
I ran my hand through my hair, before grabbing the hand sanitizer bottle to quell the stench of cigar smoke. When I clicked on Sophie’s photo, there in full-screen hilarity, was Phoenix. I forgot my hesitation at Sophie’s bad mood and felt a smile stretch across my face. Man, I missed the little guy. His face peered into the screen, his tongue hung out to one side in a comical way. His eyes were bright, and beyond his head, the tip of his tail wagged like a pendulum. I wanted to believe he was happy because he saw me.
My head was still fuzzy from sleep and cigar smoke. “Hello, boy,” I mumbled through clumsy lips.
The next picture was not so pleasant. Sophie’s face was right up against the screen, and she clearly was not happy to see me. “Sergeant Henshaw brought him by this evening. He came to the door and said you’d sent me a gift.”
“Good old Henshaw. I knew I could count on him. Did you thank him?”
But Sophie had not stopped talking long enough to hear me. “When he said he had a gift for me, I thought, ‘Finally, Mac remembered our anniversary.’ You do know today is our anniversary, don’t you?”
I wondered half-seriously if I could put in paperwork to extend my tour, but Sophie got over things pretty fast. Usually.
“Mac? Do you have anything to say?”
“His name is Phoenix.”
17
“Cease fire!” I whipped my pistol from its holder.
Foizi swung his gun erratically around the practice firing range until I was looking at the black hole of the barrel.
Travis ducked, Glenn cursed, and I turned my pistol into position.
Foizi’s face was in my pistol sight. Lower your weapon. Lower it! My finger tensed ever so slightly on the trigger. With earplugs in, my rapid breaths thundered.
Foizi grimaced and pointed the barrel of the AK47 to the ground just as my finger was applying pressure.
There was a millisecond for me to stop. I lowered my pistol and released the breath that felt as if it would explode my lungs. I strode across the range and jerked the weapon from Foizi’s hands. The whole incident took only seconds, but each action seemed an eternity as it played out in my head in slow motion. “Do you know you were almost shot?” My voice shook, and I grappled to control it.
He hung his head.
I took a deep breath and swallowed, but there was a peach-pit-sized lump in my throat. “What you did is called flagging. Wave that barrel like a flag again, and it’ll be a quick way to leave this earth.”
“I forgot,” Foizi said. He looked miserable.
“Keep the barrel downrange,” I said between gritted teeth.
The guys were like kids on a playground during training. We had to impress on them how dangerous Range was. Foizi was still a kid himself, a lanky twenty-three-year-old father of two. He was nine years my junior, but to me, he was still a kid. He needed to understand it was no time to goof around. As close as we became with the students, there were still incidents where instructors were attacked. We didn’t have the luxury of complete trust.
I handed him the AK47. “Let’s try again.”
Foizi nodded.
The shame on his face made me address him again. “You can do this, Fozzy,” A nickname we hung on him.
Foizi nodded again, this time determination was plastered across his face.
“Unload and show clear,” Glenn called over the bullhorn.
I waited until all ten students cleared their weapons before I approached the target stands. I marched down the lane, stapled a new paper target to the wood frame for each student and walked back up the line toward them, hand on my pistol all the way. Beneath my bullet-proof vest sweat ran down my back between my shoulder blades. I’d never taught a class in the States where I had to worry about students shooting me. Green on Blue attacks had been increasing. As much as we joked and cut up with our students, we never really knew who might be the one to shoot us in the back next range time. Taliban had a way of infiltrating police academies. It had happened before. My goal was to train these guys to the best of my ability but also to make it home in one piece.
I reached the lineup and walked the row, straightening students’ stances. Adjusted a barrel here, a hand-hold there. Foizi still looked off balance, so I tapped his foot with my own to get him to distribute his weight evenly. When everyone appeared ready, I nodded to Glenn.
“Load,” Glenn shouted.
Ten magazines slammed into rifles, and the metallic sound echoed off the sand-filled Hesco barriers that surrounded our practice range. We counted on the wire-framed, canvas-lined walls to stop any errant rounds. They also protected us from incoming fire.
Glenn placed the bullhorn in front of his mouth and clicked the button.
“Treat every weapon as if it is loaded. Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to kill. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger, until you’re ready to fire.”
He paused to wait for Rasool to interpret and then added, “Be aware of your target, background, and surroundings. Make ready,” Glenn continued. He glanced at Foizi.
Foizi gripped the barrel of his AK47 until his knuckles showed white. The end of the barrel shook, but this time it remained pointed at the target.
“Standby.”
The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
“Fire.”
The sound of ten rifles crashed off the walls of the Hescos. Again, we had the students unload. Again we retrieved targets. We kept this up until we had completed several iterations. When the guns had been cleared and the last targets collected, Travis and I approached Glenn.
“Mac and I have a prize for the best shooter today,” Travis said, as he produced a watch in a box from his pocket. The watch was just like mine.
“Line up with your targets in hand,” Glenn said over the bullhorn.
Students stopped talking and retraced steps to their shooting positions. Each one had a fist full of paper targets. Every student was so different in appearance. I could see the impact of several nationalities having occupied Afghanistan. It seemed every nation left part of its gene pool there.
“Abdul, let me see your targets,” I said.
He handed them over. Self-assurance showed in his eyes. Abdul was the father of three and a learned man. He kept meticulous notes and shared with the other students. I could always count on him to keep them on track.
Travis and I studied Abdul’s targets. Round holes punched through the paper made a tight pattern on each one. Abdul was a serious contender for the winner.
He grinned when I handed him the papers and patted him on the back. “Good job,” I said.
The men were competitive. It worked in our favor to teach them when we did exercises such as this. Next in line was a student nicknamed Boom-Boom. He’d earned that moniker the first day we practiced with RPG’s. To prevent the scenario we had with Foizi, we trained with plastic RPG models. Boom-Boom was so named because he beat all the other students to the RPG and refused to relinquish it during any of the tactical exercises. He loved that weapon, and he answered to the nickname with pride.
Boom-Boom’s target patterns were not as precise as Abdul’s, an outcome I would have predicted. His preoccupation with big guns did not lend itself to smaller weapons target practice. Still, his effort was applauded.
Foizi stood with his head down, nervously tapping target papers against his thigh.
“Let me have a look.” Travis extended his hand, and Foizi reluctantly gave up the papers. It wasn’t a great score, but it was an improvement over the last time we’d practiced.
“Fozzy, your patterns are getting better. Next time we go to the range you and I will get some extra practice in, what do you say?”
A nervous smile spread across his fa
ce, and he nodded. Despite his clumsiness with weapons, Foizi was a friendly guy, always acted like a clown with his fellow students. He had a lanky frame and short-cropped, wild hair. His uniform was always a mess.
The last student in line was a seventeen-year-old who fudged his age on his application to the Afghan Uniform Police. The minimum age to qualify for application was eighteen, but evidently, someone looked the other way when his request was turned in. To the extent that Foizi’s uniform was a mess, Ace’s was immaculate. His boots were always clean, laces tied, which was not the case for most of our students.
I found it amusing that most of them, accustomed to wearing sandals, thought laced boots were too confining. We would march out to the range only to have to stop and order someone to tie his boot laces. One student or another always walked, laces dragging the ground behind him, boots dog-eared. But not Ace.
He handed his targets to Travis and leaned across us as we studied them. Travis and I counted the number of holes punched through the inner circles. Flipped the papers back and forth. It was a close match between Abdul and Ace.
“What do you think?” Travis’s brows lifted.
I walked back to the front of the line. “Abdul, let me see your targets one more time.” He handed them over, and I carried them to the back of the line where Travis and I compared them to Ace’s.
The students were unusually quiet. Every ear strained to hear the first words out of our mouths.
I looked at Travis, and he nodded. I walked back to the front of the line and returned the targets to Abdul.
He took them with a questioning look.
“Travis, come on up here and help me announce the winner,” I said.
Travis ambled to the front of the line, fished a box from his pocket, and handed it to me. He took the bullhorn and, with a nod from me, announced, “The winner of today’s shooting competition is Ace.”
“Please come to the front to receive your award,” I said.
Ace’s face colored, and he walked quickly to the front.
I was the first to reach him. I grabbed his right hand and clapped him on the back.
The other students clapped raucously.
“This is from Travis and I, to show how much we appreciate the hard work you guys put in each day.” With that, I handed the box to Ace, who drew his brows up in a question. He fumbled with the top and flipped it open.
A collective “Ah” escaped from the students.
The silver watch face gleamed in the dry Kandahar air. Ace pulled the watch from the box and excitedly strapped it to his wrist. He admired it for a moment before an exclamation came from his lips. He pressed his wrist next to my strapped-on watch and said something in Dari I could not understand.
“He said ‘Thank you, Mac. Every time I look at it, I will remember you. I will never take it off, never,’” Rasool said.
If I had a son like him, I would have been proud. The thought settled into the back of my mind, but I shoved it further down to the ‘what could have been’ compartment.
“Line up single file, back to the academy,” Travis said.
Gravel crunched under the feet of ten students, walking in single file for the instructor’s safety. We could keep a better eye on them that way.
The wind, ever-present, blew grit into my eyes. Some of the students burrowed down into their scarves to shield their noses and mouths. They looked impressive in steel blue uniforms, squared off caps, and black boots. I felt a burst of pride.
I glanced down at my boots. O Positive, my blood type, was printed neatly in black marker on the tops. Earlier in the day, I thought I’d come close to needing that information. I hoped to make it off Camp Paradise without doing just that.
18
“Tricia wants a divorce.” Travis grabbed a swig from his water bottle and set the treadmill another level higher. The belt flew, and he spoke in short bursts. I struggled along beside him on the next treadmill. Travis was a long-distance runner, one of those guys who went into withdrawal if he couldn’t make it to the gym. That day he needed exercise for a different reason.
My knees were taking a beating trying to keep up with his speed. I lowered the number on my treadmill. “What happened?” I asked.
The belt on his treadmill gave a high-pitched whine.
“Our bank balance kept declining. At first, I thought Tricia was taking classes, or hanging out with friends.” He shifted the treadmill incline up a notch. “Tricia was never one to stay still for long.” Sweat flew off Travis. “Today I got an e-mail from her. She was taking classes all right. Guitar, from some hippie guy. Next thing I knew she told me she was sleeping with him.”
“What will you do?”
“I thought I’d take emergency leave to see if I could save us.” He grabbed another drink from his water bottle. “She said, ‘Don’t come.’ Said it was too late, wouldn’t do any good.” He grimaced. “Don’t come? Who says that after years of marriage? How did she just shut us down?”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say, and it felt inadequate.
“I’ve been there for her through every trial in her life. When she had emergency surgery and when her parents died,” Travis said.
We ran along for another thirty minutes.
Travis was sweating out his pain.
I was sweating for a different reason. Travis put in the work, tried to have a good marriage. I left my wife to hide from my own pain.
Travis’s treadmill belt was screaming. His footfalls were closer together. He was stomping out his past.
I didn’t have another thirty minutes in me. I shut the treadmill down and decided to hit the free weights while I waited on Travis. Bicep curls felt good. The burn made me feel alive. When I completed my reps, Travis was still running. He was in his zone, so I let him be. I arrived at the tent gritty, tired, and badly in need of a shower. I grabbed my towel, trudging down the gravel path, and headed to the Conex boxes.
The sun had slipped down the mountainside, surrendering itself to dusk. The stars were beginning to pop through, and I recalled Travis’s words about feeling small. I wished for redemption, only this time for Travis.
Soldiers were milling around the outside of the Conex boxes.
I started to get that skin-crawling feeling I used to get on patrol as a police officer. The feeling something was about to go wrong. An odd thing had taken place that morning. None of the local workers showed up. When that happened, it made me nervous. They knew something we didn’t. I grabbed the nearest soldier’s attention as he passed. “What’s up?”
“Shower’s closed.”
“Why?”
“Pump truck came to empty the tanks and clear a blockage. We stopped them and searched the truck. It was packed with explosives.”
My skin prickled. I was still staring at the “closed” sign, partly in disbelief and partly because I desperately wanted a shower to feel human. I could almost feel the water washing off the day’s dust.
Travis came puffing up, towel slung over his shoulder. He turned around when he saw the sign taped across the shower entrance.
We returned to the tent in silence.
When we got back to our tent, I ran inside and grabbed a few bottles of water. Outside beside the trash barrel, I hung my head over the side and doused it with water and shampoo.
“Great minds think alike.” Travis grinned at my elbow, shampoo dripping down his face. “I may live in a tent, but I don’t have to smell like it.”
“Then while you’re at it, get your feet. They stink all the way down the hall,” I said.
Travis threw water in my face. I grabbed the empty bottle and pitched it at him. It was good to see the old Travis back again.
Later, alone in my room, I went through my evening ritual of answering e-mails.
Sophie,
We had a successful day at the range. The students shot well, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We had a couple of students that’d never fired a weapon before, so it was fun watching t
hem. This is the first formal class they’ve ever been to. A lot of these guys are hired and put right to work and have to wait for a slot in an academy, so this is essential for them.
The important thing is no one got hurt. I checked the zero on my rifle, and it was right on. I even shot my pistol.
No shower tonight. Taliban almost blew up our Conex Boxes. Just another night in Camp Paradise.
Love, Mac
The emptiness of the tent got to me. Down the hall, I could hear Travis arguing with his wife on the phone. I needed to see Sophie’s face, to see our home in the background. On the computer, I searched for Sophie’s name, hoping she was online. “Sophie?”
The picture pulled up, and Sophie had a smile on her face.
“I was just answering your e-mail, but I’d rather see you in real time,” I said.
Travis’s voice boomed over mine, from down the hall. He and his wife were still arguing.
“Who was that?” Sophie asked.
“Probably Travis. He’s having a horrible week.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think his wife left him.”
Sophie’s face crinkled. “Oh, Mac. I’m so sorry.”
“It happens,” I said. “Last leave one of the guys went home, and all the locks were changed on his house.”
“Awful.”
“Yeah, it is. How are things going with you? You look cute,” I said, wanting to change the subject.
Sophie was covered in flour. She was wearing one of my old tee shirts, baggy and tucked under an apron. She had finger stripes of white flour on her cheeks. There was a smudge on one ear. She wiped her hands on a towel and adjusted the laptop screen.
“What are you baking? Whatever it is, I want some.” I wished I could smell through the computer. Better yet, I wished I were home.
Sophie pushed a strand of hair behind her ear depositing even more flour on herself. I didn’t dare tell her because she’d wipe it off, and it looked too comical right then.
“I was waiting to tell you later, surprise you, but you know how the neighbors are always asking for my homemade bread?”