Pup

by Christopher Slater

  “But would you have truly understood?” she returned. Damn, she was good. I helped her pack up, and we talked a little in the process. It turned out that she had attended college in the United States, not far from my hometown. It explained why she was so fluent in English and how I recognized the accent. She was as intelligent as I had supposed she was, but she also had a quick wit and sense of humor. I found myself stumbling often over my words, which she seemed to find amusing. She laughed at the mistakes, but she didn’t seem to be laughing at me quite as much. By the time we had packed up, I decided that I really didn’t want her to leave.

  She was almost to the door when she stopped. “I have a question for you, Pup.”

  “Yes, Ms. Ogawa?”

  “It’s Mayumi. Mayumi Ogawa. I was wondering if you think they will end up sending you to the training. I’m the one that teaches the classes, and I want to know if you will be there.”

  I’m no expert on these kinds of things. I’ve never really learned the art of flirting. To this day I know that if I were to try and flirt with a woman, the embarrassment resulting from the idiotic things that I would say would probably live on in movies for decades to come. However, even I heard what sounded like a flirtation in her question. “They just might,” I replied as smoothly as I could. “I do plan to become an expert on your equipment.” Now that I hear myself making that statement, I realize how incredibly stupid that sounded.

  Mayumi seemed to mull that over in her head. I held out hope right until she got a look on her face that indicated disappointment. “No offense, but I hope they send your lieutenant instead. I mean . . . whoa!” She got a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes, then exited the tent, bumping into the doorframe on the way out, lost in her fantasies. Her stupid hormones.

  Just call me The One . . .

  җ

  Winter fell on Camp Wildcat and two things happened. First, the Professor traveled to Japan to take part in the training classes on the new night vision gear. I hoped that made Mayumi happy. I couldn’t help but admit jealousy. Well, I guess that it was jealousy. Although jealousy would imply that I had any sort of chance with her to begin with, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t in the cards. Maybe it was more disappointment than jealousy. I’m not sure. Still working on those inferiority issues. The Professor wasn’t gone for very long. The training and travel only took a little over a week. Still, it was a long week. The Professor tended to be the only person in the whole platoon who was able to explain things to me in a way that I understood and had the patience to do it. I couldn’t wait for him to return so that I knew I had someone in the camp who I could work with without pissing them off. Plus, the longer that jerk was in Japan, the more time he was spending with Mayumi Ogawa, which meant there was less chance that I would ever . . . sorry. I’m working on it. Really, I am!

  Second, I discovered the true meaning of the word “cold.” It wasn’t like I was raised in the tropics or anything. I had experienced snow and ice and cold weather before. There were some important differences, though. My mother used to dress me up like the Michelin Man. I’d had enough layers on to stop high-powered rifle rounds. I hadn’t been able to put my arms down, could barely move my legs, and turning my head had been physically impossible, but I’d always been warm. I couldn’t depend on that kind of approach to stay warm in the Hiss. I had to be able to move, maneuver, and operate my weapon. The stuff the army gave me was pretty good, and it allowed me to move a lot more than my mother’s preparation-for-spaceflight approach did, but it wasn’t as warm. Also, if I got too cold back home, I would just go inside. At Camp Wildcat, “inside” was a tent. They kept heat going in all of the tents in various fashions. Some used electric heaters and others used old-fashioned stoves, but they all suffered from the same failure: if you were next to them, you were too hot. If you moved away, you were too cold. There was no middle ground. It was the worst of both worlds.

  The cold was a living thing that invaded your body and sought out your weaknesses. My weaknesses were my extremities. I made that comment to some other soldiers once. The jokes continued for a month. Now do you see why I wanted the Professor to return? My hands and feet always seemed cold no matter what the weather was. When the cold crept in, my hands and feet stopped being cold. Instead, they started being absent. My brain forced my eyes to look down every once in a while to make certain that my feet hadn’t gone off on a walk of their own. I was constantly fighting numbness in my feet and hands. It became a daily problem. Eventually, I wound up wearing gloves all day and night. The only time I took the gloves off was when I would take a shower. I even slept in them. It looked like I was trying to start a new fashion trend and failing miserably. It helped me out with the numbness in my fingers, but it didn’t do wonders for my reputation. Of course, my reputation was already that of an oddball, so I reckoned it didn’t hurt my reputation either.

  My squad was sent to set up a security checkpoint on a road known to be used by enemy insurgents and saboteurs while the Professor was off on his training trip. (He better have been training. Come on, LT, you can get any girl out there. You can at least leave this one . . . sorry. Inferiority. You know the deal.) Naturally, this work required us to stand outside in the blistering cold for hours on end. Since we weren’t on a patrol but instead manning a fixed point, it also meant that we weren’t moving a whole lot. Within twenty minutes, I was starting to lose feeling in my hands, feet, ears, lips . . . I was wondering if I was going to go numb from the neck up. “I can’t feel my hands,” I announced.

  Boom walked over to me and gave me a withering stare. “The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that I can’t feel your hands either.” Despite our earlier interactions, I was still scared to death of her. When she fixed me with a gaze like that, anything that she said to me sounded like a threat to my ears. The worst part was that she knew it. She held her fierce countenance for about three heartbeats before reaching out suddenly and grabbing my hand. I flinched. I always lost in the “two for flinching” game. She tore the glove off of my left hand. She took my index finger put it into her mouth, and sucked on it. Everyone’s eyes went as wide as saucers, including mine. I had only heard stories like this being told in hushed tones in the mess hall. (I wasn’t eavesdropping. I promise. I just have good hearing.) A few appreciative sounds were made by other members of the squad. She removed my finger from her mouth, but she didn’t let go of my hand. She held it up a little above eye level. I found that I couldn’t speak in actual words, but I think I made a few squeaking noises. She had a very mischievous grin on her face now. Everyone around still seemed in shock at what she had just done. Without looking away, she announced to all of them, “Wait for it . . .”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted them to wait for, because my mind was still locked up. That was when I started to notice some sensations. OK, some other sensations. With my hand held a little bit above my head, there was nothing blocking the blowing of the wind. I remembered hearing that the temperature was well below zero, and that was before the wind was factored in. My index finger had stayed warm for a moment, but then the saliva that encompassed it began to lose its heat. The blowing wind and the bitter cold combined with the saliva, which was beginning to freeze on my finger. Once my brain was able to unlock itself from its state of shock, it recognized the new sensation. It was known as remarkably excruciating pain!

  Stifling a curse, I pulled my hand down and lowered it into a jacket pocket. Everyone was laughing, including Boom. She reached down and picked up the glove she had torn off and handed it to me. “Put this on before you get frostbite, Pup.” I quickly donned the glove and felt the pain start to subside, though the throbbing in my finger continued for a little while longer. “I’m sorry, but sometimes you are just too much fun to pick on,” she said, still laughing. She gave me a kiss on the cheek, then a punch in the arm, and then walked over to the other side of the road.

  A few minutes late
r the temperature seemed to drop even lower. We all put on our winter face masks, which we all hated but they really did help protect our faces from frostbite-level temperatures. I hated the masks because I never felt like I could open my eyes all the way and I couldn’t see anybody’s lips moving when they were talking. It was scary. It turned our squad into the world’s most creepy and well-armed ventriloquist act.

  The day had been a pretty slow one. The trick Boom played on me was the most excitement that we’d seen all day. A grand total of seven vehicles had driven through our checkpoint, all filled with families. It gave me a chance to play around with the little kids. I love children. They find me goofy and funny. Adults find me annoying. This made the stop at our checkpoint much more acceptable to the parents until we had to put our cold-weather masks on. I discovered that trying to talk and be friendly to kids with a face-covering mask is both scary to the kids and concerning to the parents. The parents needn’t have been concerned. Their children were very capable of defending themselves. I discovered this when I knelt down in front of one of the children to say “hello.” He promptly kicked me in the face. The black eye remained for several days.

  Night fell in earnest. We had spotlights shining down the road while Nickel scanned the distance with night vision gear. We all became restless and grumpy. This type of duty took a lot of time and energy, and it always felt to us like little was accomplished. I knew it was necessary. Saying that it wasn’t effective was trying to prove a negative. Still, there were a lot of other things I would have rather done. Trimming my toenails, eating undercooked fish, and challenging Hannibal to a wrestling match to the death all topped the list. However, since no one had offered us any other option, we ran the security checkpoint.

  I really had lost track of time. It was dark, cold, and boring, and checking my watch would have just reminded me of how long it had been. I looked over at Nickel and felt especially sorry for him. At least the rest of us were moving around or getting to shift our attention every few minutes. He was stuck with monitoring the distance with night vision goggles. I knew from experience that looking through them for that long could cause a nasty headache. He never said a word, though. I had asked him about it before. He told me that he was used to this type of thing. His old neighborhood was in gang territory. He’d never joined a gang, and neither had most of the people in his neighborhood. This hadn’t set well with a local gang, and they’d started damaging properties and had even perpetrated a few drive-by shootings to try and convince the local high school boys that they needed the gang’s protection. Nickel said that he’d had to spend many nights as the neighborhood lookout. It had become such a habit that he’d continued to do it even after the gang had been wiped out by rivals.

  Even knowing this, I felt bad for him. The fact that he could do it didn’t mean he should have to. No good deed goes unpunished. I would have offered to take a shift from him, but I’m pretty sure I would have lasted only about six minutes before I would have either gotten a headache, passed out from exhaustion, or gone insane from boredom. Still, I decided that I should risk it about the time I saw him move. It was apparent that he had seen something, and it had definitely grabbed his attention. Suddenly he grabbed his carbine. “Eyes up! Eight hundred yards and closing fast!”

  We all raised our weapons. We started to hear the noise of a big engine running at high speed. At about five hundred yards we saw the outline of a four-wheel-drive truck with its headlights turned off. That was like a giant neon sign that yelled “imported insurgents!” Those trucks had been used by insurgents for decades in Afghanistan. That was when the first shot was fired from the truck, blowing out one of the spotlights. “Pup!” shouted Hannibal. “Light ’em up!”

  Lifting the squad automatic, I didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. My first shots went through the windshield. I heard everyone around me fire as well. I didn’t let off of the trigger but continued to pepper the truck with everything I had. At two hundred yards, we could tell that the driver and passenger were dead, but the truck kept coming. There were several men in the back, but our fire was keeping them down. It occurred to me that the truck was going to smash right through us and the Humvees we were using to block the road. It was going to be nasty.

  That’s when Jethro stepped up. He was our marksman and his rifle carried armor-piercing bullets. He took half a heartbeat to aim, which was about three heartbeats longer than we were comfortable with. When he fired three rounds, they were all perfectly placed. His rounds pierced the engine block, causing it to seize up. The wheels of the truck locked, and the riders in the back flew out of it. The truck started skidding sideways, but it had enough inertia to keep it moving. A quick calculation in my mind told me that the truck wasn’t going to stop before it made it to us . . . and I was right in the path.

  I’ve seen way too many movies. In the movies, this was when the hero would shoot out the wheels and make the vehicle flip over and go flying over the hero and his friends. Of course, this always happened in slow motion and with incredible camera angles. The problem was that I was no hero and this wasn’t happening in slow motion. The truck ate up the distance with a complete lack of concern for our safety. Before I knew it, the vehicle was within what Jethro referred to as “spittin’ distance.” In my peripheral vision, I saw everyone else diving to one side or the other. I didn’t quite do the same.

  The Professor told me that he thought I had good instincts. I have a world of respect for the Professor, but I honestly think he was full of crap. My instincts lead me into doing some of the most ridiculous stuff. This entire incident is a great example. Every member of the squad had the good sense to dive out of the way. It was the right instinct. It made sense and had the greatest chance of success. My instinct was different. As the truck came so close that I could almost touch it, I didn’t jump to the side. I jumped straight up.

  I still remember everything that happened and how it felt. I jumped as high as I could and tried to draw my legs up. The next thing I knew, my feet felt like they were back on the ground, and I ran forward a few steps to try and get away from the wreck. After two or three quick steps, it seemed like the ground fell out from underneath me. I could feel myself falling, and then I was back on the ground and running. I heard the haunting sound of metal grinding on metal as the truck plowed into one of the Humvees, and then the night descended into an awkward silence, punctuated by the moans of some of the truck’s passengers lying injured on the road.

  The squad sounded off and reported no injuries. We quickly gathered the survivors from the truck, assessed their injuries, and had them bound and placed under guard as we awaited a Dustoff bird to carry out the wounded insurgents and for MPs to come and collect the prisoners. It had turned out to be a successful night after all.

  Once the scene had been cleared, the squad gathered up its equipment and got ready to return to Camp Wildcat. Not more than ten seconds went by before Nickel, Jethro, Rabbit, Boom, and even Hannibal started to express their shock at my accomplishment. The problem with this was that I didn’t have the first clue as to what they were talking about. “You’re gonna tell me that you didn’t plan that?” Rabbit asked in disbelief.

  “I don’t even know what ‘that’ is that you’re referring to.” Honesty. It always seems to lead me to the truth . . . that I can do some strange stuff.

  “What did I miss?” chimed in Nickel. “I didn’t get the NVGs off, so I missed it.”

  Hannibal didn’t seem to want to encourage the discussion any further, but he reluctantly told Rabbit, “Go get the tape.”

  Starting in about the third year of the Second Korean War, security checkpoints began keeping a digital video record of the checkpoint. It was for the security of the soldiers as well as for civilians passing through the checkpoints. It was also transmitted in real time to a computer server in Japan where it could be monitored or stored. Rabbit grabbed the camera that had recorded the entire incident and s
et it to play back the attack. We all gathered around the tiny screen. Everything happened about like I expected. Nickel gave his warning, and I opened fire a split second before everyone else did. Jethro fired his rounds, and the truck began to skid.

  What happened next was so fast that Rabbit had to rewind it and play it again in slow motion. The truck was coming dangerously close when everyone else dove to the side except for the skinny little idiot in the middle that seemed frozen in place. That was me, if you haven’t figured that out. Just as it seemed certain that the truck’s front fender was going to have an intimate meeting with my abdomen, I jumped up off of the ground. Appearing to break all laws of common sense and physics, I leapt high enough to land on the hood of the truck. With the truck still moving, I ran along the hood of the truck before dropping off of the other side and running away down the road.

  I just sat there in silent shock as they watched the video. I couldn’t have planned to do something like that if I had tried. I discovered later that one of the technicians checking the videos in Japan witnessed the stunt and sent the video to some friends in America. I made ESPN’s Play of the Week. This from a guy who got cut from his high school’s table tennis team for not being athletic enough.

  The drive back to Camp Wildcat was a long ordeal of nonstop replays of the video and pats on the back. Everyone thought it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. Freerunners do neater stuff than that all the time. Why did they think so much of me doing it? I was quiet the entire ride. Normally, I would have loved the idea of receiving this kind of attention. I knew I would never be the quarterback that throws the winning touchdown pass in the championship game. This was as close as I would ever get to that kind of adoration. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy it. Maybe it was because I hadn’t planned to do it. Maybe it was because I was too embarrassed by it. Maybe it was because I was shocked by what I had seen and amazed that I had lived through it. It must have been that last one, because as soon as we got back to camp I went straight to my bunk and started to write a letter home. It started with Dear Mom and Dad, I’m OK. There have been a lot of exciting times over here, but someone must be watching over me because I’ve managed to get through them all unscathed (that means I haven’t been hurt, Dad). For example, tonight . . .