Fobbit

by David Abrams

  At last, the chief swung back around, gave his PAO a significant look, and said, “You’re right.”

  “I-I am, sir?” Snuffle.

  “Yes, you are. One hundred percent Grade-A undeniably right.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “IT’S THE WORST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF MAN!”

  “Sir—?”

  “Now get the fuck out of my office and don’t let me see you again unless your fat fingers are holding a file folder containing a plan that doesn’t include global scandal on an idiotic level. You come up here and your hands are empty, I’ll chop ’em the fuck off.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a Swiss Army penknife his father had given him on his fourteenth birthday—the blades now rusty and dull—as proof that he’d carry out his threat to Harkleroad.

  “Sir, if I may—”

  “ABOUT FACE . . . FORWARD, MARCH!”

  Eustace did as ordered and promptly marched into the wall next to the chief’s door. He recovered with a bounce and, cupping his hand over his nose, marched at a good clip down the marbled hallway. He left a trail of nose blood that a Twee contractor named Majid would mop up later that night, wondering what in Allah’s name had taken place here in the former dictator’s palace, what terrible violence had erupted amid the gold water fountains and taxidermied water buffalos to take the life of another man? Majid would cluck his tongue, worried not for the first time about the safety and sanity of his American protectors.

  From: eustace.harkleroad@us.army.mil

  To: eulalie1935@gmail.com

  Subject: Dispatch from a War Zone, Day 291

  Mother,

  I’ve been missing you powerfully hard lately. (And Pap-Pap, too, of course.) Most nights I sit on my cot, mortars screaming overhead, the occasional AK-47 round pinging off the reinforced walls of my trailer, and I swear on all that’s holy I can smell your sweet potato casserole baking in the oven all the way over here in Saddam’s former kingdom. I don’t mind telling you, it brings a tear to my eye—and a flood of saliva to my mouth.

  Speaking of which, thank you a thousandfold for your latest care package and all those Moon Pies. I immediately put them to good use. And thank the First Redemption ladies for their little treats as well. I am already using their “Jesus Saves” coasters and they look very nice underneath the bottles of Gatorade.

  Speaking of which, Gatorade has become my drink of choice over here—especially the Glacier Freeze flavor, which just by its very name does wonders for transporting me away from this crushing heat. I often joke with my subordinates that if I could carry around an IV drip bag full of Glacier Freeze, I would. They all laugh appropriately. I’ve become something of the comedian among my staff since coming over here. I often catch them laughing at something I said when they don’t think I’m looking. It does my heart good to know I have built that kind of rapport with my fellow staff officers.

  I guess I owe you an explanation for not writing to you more frequently as of late. The truth is, I’m so terribly, terribly busy, dear Mother. Demands come at me from left, right, north, and south. My schedule is filling up faster than a cop’s belly in a donut shop! This explains, in part, my lack of correspondence with you as of late. That and the fact we are being shelled every other day. But NOT TO WORRY, Mother! I am fine!

  I have been spending far more time here at Headquarters than I would have liked. You know me, I’d much rather be out in the thick of things, bullets whizzing past my earlobes, pulling my men through the hot zone with courage and fortitude. But alas, the CG demands I stay put here at the palace where, as he says, my “services” are “vitally needed.” It pains me to surrender all I could be doing out on the battlefield for another round of long, dry, boring, insufferable staff meetings. But, if the Old Man says it must be so, then I have no choice other than to dutifully comply. I don’t want to burden you with too much in the way of fret and ulcers, Mother, but rest assured I am performing up to the very limits of my capabilities here in Baghdad. I long to be out on the streets, pounding the pavement on patrol, but Duty calls and I must answer by remaining at my desk for more hours than I’d like. Fluorescent lights are my trial, cubicles are my tribulation.

  Invariably, this means a good deal of staff meetings. Some days, it feels like all we do is talk our way through this war. If only words were bullets, we would have slaughtered the “hajji bastards” (their words, not mine) a thousand times over. This morning, for instance, we sat around the table—me literally at the CG’s right hand—and talked for hours and hours about the “Shrinkle Situation.” Have I mentioned this particular gnat-in-a-sow’s-ear before? If not, it’s only because it’s been one of those Super-Secret HUSH-HUSH sticky wickets that should go no further than the front entrance of the palace. Even now, my telling you about it is, I am guessing, a breach of some international-level security classification. But not to worry, Mother! I’ve been personally assured by a Major Leipley over in G-6 that personal e-mails are NOT monitored (not like the old days when they used to black out entire sentences with Magic Markers and families on the receiving end couldn’t make heads or tails of what their soldiers were writing to them about). There is no Big Brother here at Headquarters, Major L. tells me. Even so, it would be best to delete this e-mail after reading it. If you have printed it out to read—as I know is your habit—then I suggest you tear it into tiny pieces and eat it. All in the name of National Security, Mother!

  Back to Shrinkle: that’s the name of a very unfortunate captain in one of our brigades, a poor fellow who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I tell you that it was the aforementioned Australian pool, then I’m sure you can guess the magnitude of this tragedy. By dipping in the Aussie waters, Captain Shrinkle made this an Incident of Global Proportions.

  And that is what we were arm wrestling about at today’s staff meeting, which had been called by a very apoplectic commanding general. I was able to calm him down by reassuring him that word of the incident had not yet reached the media and that I had managed to contain any and all leaks. This calmed the CG down. He even clapped his hand on my shoulder (right there in front of everyone!), called me his hero, and compared me to the Hoover Dam in holding back all the waters of misinformation and gossip. I assured him this was one dam that was never going to crack.

  The rest of the meeting proceeded apace for hours on end as we “cussed and discussed” the Shrinkle Incident. G-1 talked about their role in the whole situation, the poor major stumbling and bumbling through his apologies about initial misidentification (they thought our American KIA was a British National!!) and then trying to save himself by reading a three-page report on how they had immediately corrected and un-notified the British parents of a certain Richard Belmouth (a nice, doddering couple from Liverpool who had no idea their son was in a war zone) and how strategic guardrails were being put in place in G-1’s daily operations to ensure this kind of thing would never happen again. G-1 even had a PowerPoint that charted what he called the New and Improved Personnel Notification Process. Snoozeville! Though I did my very best to stifle my yawns in front of the Old Man. A hero never yawns, after all.

  After G-1, we went around the table and G-2, G-3, and G-5 all had their chance to chime in. If the poor Captain S. had not already been blown to bits, we would have talked him to death in that room.

  I’m sure by now you’re probably wondering what in the glory blazes this “Shrinkle Incident” is all about, aren’t you, dear Mother? Well, as they say in the movies, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

  —that was a joke, Mother. Ha ha ha! Of course, I would never DREAM of harming a tender hair on your beautiful head.

  But seriously, I really am not at liberty to tell you all the details. Suffice it to say there was a man (Capt. S.) who was fond of engaging in unauthorized activity (swimming) at an off-limits location (the Australian pool), until one day his nefarious habits caught up with him and he fell victim to enemy action (ka-BOOM! ker-SPLAT!). The fall
out has been potentially disastrous but, as I told the Old Man in the meeting today, I have managed to avoid and avert (that’s my new motto: Avoid and Avert) any mention of this in the press. That’s why you won’t be reading or hearing about this particular black eye any time soon (or EVER, if I have my way). Captain Shrinkle is being laid to rest in two days and so, too, I hope, will the rumors surrounding his demise.

  I’m sorry to be so obscure about this, Mother. Rest assured, I will tell all when I return, cupping my hand and whispering in your ear. Until then, please NOT A WORD of this to Jim Powers at the Murfreesboro Free Press or the ladies at First Church of Redemption. This is just our little globally proportionate secret.

  Your ever-loving son,

  Stacie

  31

  GOODING

  From the Diary of Chance Gooding Jr.

  When it happens, I’m in my hooch, lying on my bed in my underwear. I’ve fully recovered from the Great Bloodletting Incident of 2005 but in some respects I still feel drained. Lethargic, depressed, sparked out. We’re so close to going home—the word “redeployment!” tolls like a bell, distant but clear—that the thought of it binds me with fear. I’m certain I won’t make it to the end, but that the end will come for me instead.

  Redeployment is like the slip of paper in a fortune cookie. What are the chances of “You are about to stumble into great wealth” happening? Slim to none. The chances of you walking out of the Snapdragon Chinese Restaurant and stumbling off the curb into oncoming traffic? Confucius say, “Chances are good.”

  These days, I’m trying not to think of Captain Shrinkle and his sad demise but it’s impossible. He keeps coming back to me again and again. I only met the guy once, but now all I can think about is him floating in that Qatar pool on R&R. I want to go back in time, throw down my book, jump in that pool, grab his hand, and pull him out of there, out of Qatar, out of the war zone entirely. It would be like a Medal of Honor heroism nobody knew about. Saving one man’s life from the death that waited for him to step off the curb.

  But I didn’t. I just sat there with Catch-22 in my hands, watching him float on the water, his hands fluttering at his sides, swimming toward his future.

  So anyway, today I’m here in my hooch, partaking of my daily half hour of reading before I go to breakfast, then on to the fourteen-hour shift at the grist mill of Army Public Affairs. This time, Don Quixote is in my hands.

  I’m in the midst of highlighting a passage with a neon-yellow pen—Fictional tales are better and more enjoyable the nearer they approach the truth or the semblance of the truth—when it happens. The sky splits with a scream and a bone-buzzing explosion shakes my trailer. The cheap wood-grain paneling creaks and cracks from the concussion and the sound is so loud and startling it’s like someone punched my heart.

  I toss Don Quixote aside and sit up, completely uncertain what I should do. I’m in my underwear and slippers. Should I get fully dressed in battle rattle, grab my M16, and run outside to see what happened? Or should I just throw on my T-shirt and shorts and poke my head out the door to, as LTC Harkleroad is fond of saying, get “situational awareness”?

  I opt for the latter.

  I look up and down the gravel lane running through our trailer city, fully expecting to see the headquarters building smoking from where a mortar punched through the roof. Several other half-dressed soldiers have also stepped out onto their porches, blinking in the early-morning light. We scan the sky for black smears of smoke. When we don’t see anything, we look at each other, shrug, and go back into our rooms.

  I pick up Cervantes and start reading again. Less than thirty seconds later, another sharp boom shakes Trailer City, and another one forty-five seconds after that.

  Okay, that’s it, I’m getting dressed and getting the hell out of the room—though if I think walking around outside, or even running to the office, is going to make me any less vulnerable to being hit by a rocket, then I’m as stupid as a man who enters a rainstorm without an umbrella.

  I go to the chow hall, seeking safety in numbers and comfort in eggs and bacon.

  When I get to work, the first thing I ask Specialist Carnicle is, “Just what the hell was that?”

  “I know! Did you hear it, too?” She’s all eyeballs and slack mouth. Apparently her cage was rattled, too. “I mean, Double-U, Tee, Eff, Sar’nt?”

  “How could I not hear it, Carnicle? What was it? A mortar? A car bomb just outside the wire?”

  Carnicle shakes her head. “They were chattering over SMOG a few minutes ago. They said it was a little wake-up barrage from our terrorist friends in Sadr City: Goooood Morning, FOB Triumph!”

  “Jesus, they’re getting bold.”

  “It’s like they can see our Deployment Clock ticking down. Bastards are going whole hog before we leave.”

  “Any damage?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I guess a mortar landed at the Fitness Center. Punched a hole clean through the roof.” She makes a whistling sound that ends with a saliva-burred explosion in her mouth. “SMOG guys say no casualties. Unless you count the deaths of a treadmill and two exercise bikes. Which, come to think of it, is no great loss for the lard-asses around the palace here. They’ll probably think it’s a good thing. One more excuse for them not to exercise.”

  The fitness center? Isn’t that where—? Ho-ly fuck! My blood turns to ice. The fitness center, the place where Captain Shrinkle worked, was just bombed.

  So that’s it. Fate being what it is, he would have been killed anyway, no matter how many times I pulled him out of that pool in my dreams. Death is relentless and unswerving.

  Carnicle starts grabbing her things. “Can I go now? I wanna get to the chow hall before the terrorists turn it into a pile of smoking rubble.”

  “Sure, go ahead, Carnicle,” I say, but I’m not paying attention to her anymore. I’m thinking about the way those booms rattled my teeth. I’m thinking about a swimming pool full of blood, bone, gore. I’m thinking about mortar trajectories and how thankful I am that hajji’s numbers were off by .001, sparing me and the rest of Trailer City. I’m thinking about the minute hand on the Deployment Clock freezing at five till midnight, never to click forward again.

  Then tonight, as I’m walking back to my hooch after work, I hear the war. I mean, really hear it.

  Up ahead of me, somewhere just outside the wire, there’s a crescendo-ing boom. It’s a flower of sound opening its petals.

  Five seconds later, a red tracer round shoots up in the air—a signal of some kind.

  Then comes the gunfire. It’s Our rifles and Their rifles talking back and forth. For nearly three minutes, there’s a steady vomit of M4 and M240 gunfire: Brrrrappp! Tut-tut-tut-tut-tut! Brrrrappp! Brrrrappp! Chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug! Tut-tut-tut-tut! Brrrrappp!

  The war is Out There; but on nights like tonight, it sounds like it’s In Here.

  The longer I’m in Baghdad, the more I’m convinced I’ll be leaving in a pine box.

  In fact, the closer we get to redeployment, the faster the attacks seem to come—a horse increasing its gallop as it sees the finish line. It’s as if Death has a quota that must be fulfilled before the Seventh Armored Division leaves Iraq. I don’t know how the door kickers do it out there. Don’t they feel Death’s cold scythe grazing their shoulders every day?

  I may be a mere Fobbit, but I feel it—that blade against my neck. Honestly, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

  32

  DURET

  How much more were they expected to take? First, Jerry the XO who got his legs cut off at the knees, then those three (what were their names, dammit?) eating burgers at the food court when the mortar struck, then that unforgivable rash of suicides (two in First Brigade, one in Third, and then another in HQ Company), then Major Woody with the sore groin that had turned out to be a problem with his prostate that turned out to be cancer and he was whisked off to Walter Reed, then the staff sergeant (name? . . . again, it was a blur) in Secon
d Brigade who’d taken a sniper bullet in the neck, and now this—the gruesome death of Abe Shrinkle, parts scattered everyfuckingwhere.

  Lieutenant Colonel Vic Duret leaned over the toilet and puked again—this made three times since breakfast—and saw, with some small measure of relief, it had finally turned to bile. His stomach had nothing left to bring up. He flushed the toilet and, for a moment, stood watching his sour yellow anger swirl down and disappear.

  He went to the sink and rinsed his mouth. There was no one else in the latrine, a small mercy of privacy. But, unbidden, the image and smell of what had been left of Shrinkle coming from the unzipped body bag—a solitary arm, rigor mortis fingers still clutching a can of beer—as the doc asked him, “Was he yours?” rushed back to Duret and he started gagging all over again. He spit one last bitter wad into the sink and willed himself to stop it, just stop it.

  Ross was there again—his flaming body careening through the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, his screams choking off into a harsh, staticky crackle—but Duret pushed his brother-in-law away as well, putting all his concentration on something, anything else—how his wife’s nipple puckered beneath his tongue, for instance.

  That’s better. Focus on the Real World. Grab what scraps you can and call them your own.

  Duret’s wife was back there in Hinesville waiting for him and she was expecting him to get through this. She demanded he pull through in one piece. She didn’t care about whether or not he brought all of his men home (though he cared, oh, yes, he cared), but he damned well better return to her none the worse for wear. She told him this in so many words on the phone every week and, like it was one of their marriage vows, he would do his best to please her. For his efforts, he would be rewarded with her breasts at the finish line.