by Will Mackin
The monastery gates had parted, revealing a world unto itself. Able had stood at the threshold of that world in a blue work shirt. The patch over his left pocket had advertised: POSEIDON. The name tag over his right pocket had been embroidered: DAVE. Through falling maple leaves, Able had looked down the road that led to the ivy-covered bell tower. Previously, he’d walked down that road, around the bell tower, and into the classroom. Previously, he’d admitted to the following shortcoming: he couldn’t let things be.
Able had pushed the button on the call box again. “I’m not doing the assessment,” he’d said. “I have a long drive home. So, please, just bring out the dog.”
It was hard to explain. The leaves were so gigantic, and bright as hell. Some had fallen as if they were riding an invisible conveyor belt. Others had spun and flipped the whole way down. Able had started wondering if the monk, on the other end of the call box, had heard what he’d said.
“I appreciate that you’ve come a long way, Mr. Jones,” the monk had said, finally. “But I must insist that you take this last step in the—”
Able had cut him short with a click of the call button. “Bring out the dog,” he’d said.
Able didn’t know how much we paid for a dog, but he figured it was a lot. And he figured the monk at the other end of the call box didn’t know about the money, either. The reason for this, Able suspected, was that the monk in charge of the monastery had always told his subordinate monks that this dog-training business wasn’t about the money. In fact, it wasn’t even about the dogs. It was about them. It was about overcoming their weaknesses as human beings via the dogs.
The call box was silent. Able imagined what was happening. The monk he’d been talking to was going up the monk chain of command, asking had they ever given a dog away without completing the assessment? The monk’s boss hadn’t known the answer to that question. Neither had his boss’s boss. Finally, the call box monk went to talk to the top monk, who knew exactly how much we paid for a dog.
And the top monk had been like, “The man wants his dog, give him his dog.”
And the call box monk was like, “But what about the mirror?”
“Pray with me,” the top monk had said. Then he’d taken the call box monk’s hands in his. He’d shut his eyes, bowed his head, and said, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…”
So the first time Able had seen Mir, the call box monk was walking him on a leash toward the open gate. Mir was happy and looking all around—like he was already downrange, doing his favorite part of the mission, which was mop-up. The monk, on the other hand, appeared to be unhappy. He looked as though he might’ve been done with all that monk shit.
At the gate, Able had offered, “You want to come with?”
The monk had thought about it while the bells rang, sounding more like a tape recording of bells than actual bells. “No, thank you,” the monk had said. Mir, however, had hopped right into the car and sat down on the blanket that Able had spread out for him on the backseat. He was looking at Able like, “Let’s fuckin’ go.”
Able’s chair creaked as he sat back down. The room smelled like the stale breath that had carried our words. Chuck leaned into me, as if he were already under the spell of an orange whip. As if the memorial was, for him, spinning. The chaplain began his benediction with “Long ago, the dog ran free.”
* * *
—
MIR BLED OUT in the field. Goon, our medic, bagged him. Able wanted to carry him out, but Hal said no. Going forward with the assault, Hal needed everybody’s head in the game. He told the breachers to carry Mir. Big Country stopped trilling, pulled back the bolt on his 60, and saw brass. The snipers set out first. Hal followed Able, Big Country followed Hal, and I fell in line. Cutting the last waypoint, we walked directly to the compound. About two hundred meters out, under a bare sissoo tree, Hal told the breachers to lay Mir down. This would’ve been our fallback position. Meaning, if everything had gone to shit during our raid on the compound, we’d have worked back to this point, and taken stock.
* * *
—
THE CHAPLAIN TOLD us to go in peace. Outside, we raised our hoods against the shit, and there was Big Country under the lean-to with the dirt bikes. His bags were packed and stacked next to him. We could forgive fear but not the inability to control it; therefore, Big Country was going home in shame. He was boarding a transport that night.
The shuttle that would carry Big Country to the airport was parked nearby. Its doors were locked. Telling me to wait right there, Chuck set off to scare up a driver. He jogged like his knees hurt, out the gate and left, toward a part of the FOB I’d never been to. As I waited, a transport lifted into the sky. The twang of its engines at full power wormed through the night air. It wiggled in the space between me and Big Country. The transport climbed into the shit clouds, leaving a transport-sized dent in the overcast.
It was not hard to predict what would happen to Big Country. He’d go home and be transferred to another unit. Though he wouldn’t tell anyone at that new unit what had happened, everyone would know. Big Country would try to reinvent himself, nonetheless. He had the rank to make it to twenty. He had the experience to lead his people into the battlefields of the new century. But every time he told them what he wanted done, or how he thought things should be, they’d think, He killed one of our own. And seeing them think that would make Big Country think it, too.
Best case for Big Country, then: his transport would be empty, allowing him to unbuckle at altitude and stand at the center of the cargo bay, where he could imagine himself an actor on a stage. Where the thunder of aerodynamic drag could be his applause, and all the cables, pulleys, and counterweights that rigged the hull would open the curtain on his performance of Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night. Worst case, he’d be surrounded by happy soldiers going home.
* * *
—
ONCE BIG COUNTRY was on his way, Chuck and I walked to Skip’s ER. The shit reservoir was nearly empty, the diesel all but burned off. Dying blue flames reflected against the low clouds. Normal clouds formed among the shit clouds.
Skip was a veterinarian. He cared for all military working dogs on the FOB, plus the CIA’s horses. Occasionally, he went outside the wire with civil affairs to vaccinate and deworm the GENPOP’s livestock. Every once in a while he’d need to bring a sick animal back to base.
Skip’s ER, therefore, was equipped with a full surgical suite, including slings, trocars, speculums, and refrigerators full of barnyard IVs. Whether the IVs were tinted orange by some chemical agent or by the sodium lights that hung from the vaulted ceiling, I didn’t know. I’d never seen them outside of the place.
Chuck and I entered through a corrugated steel door. It banged shut behind us.
“What’ll it be?” Skip asked.
“Three orange whips,” Chuck said.
Skip did Chuck first. Chuck’s eyes went glassy the instant Skip connected the IV. Maybe even a second before. Then Skip swabbed my arm and pushed the needle into a vein. Crimson blood filled the catheter. The taste of balloon filled my mouth, and the brightness of everything increased. I developed X-ray vision. Thus, I could see through the ER’s wall and into the stables. I could see all the way down the shadowy line of stables to the last one. There, a white horse popped its head out. Way back at the beginning of the war, we used to ride these horses, too. We used to dress up in purple cloaks and kufis embroidered in silver. We wore bandoliers full of bullets like golden eggs. Armed with ivory daggers and breech-loading flintlocks, we’d whip our horses to run faster through the darkness. I missed those nights. Meanwhile, Skip swabbed the crook of his own arm. He pushed the needle into his own vein. Reclining into a throne of hay bales, he sighed.
* * *
—
NOT MUCH LATER, we walked along a gravel berm tha
t passed for a road. Light from the streetlamps fell halfway to the ground. Shit rain mixed with real rain.
“Where are we going?” asked Skip.
“To eat,” Chuck said.
“Now?” Skip asked, even though we always went to eat after orange whips.
“Yes, now,” said Chuck.
Shit cut with water was even slipperier than pure shit. All around us, soldiers clung to one another, so as not to fall. Other soldiers set out on their own in halting steps. They all knew where they wanted to go. Some crouched, teeth bared, eyes slammed shut. Others stood their full height, arms outstretched, as if ready to throw lightning bolts. One soldier slipped and fell, landing hard in shit. Lying on his back, he told the story of a war that had been born to a mother, upon whom he wished a thousand dicks. We walked past him, undaunted. The trick was to walk as if there were no shit at all.
Inside the chow hall, the smell changed from shit to stir-fried garlic. A Korean outfit had won the latest contract, replacing the KBR chefs in their tall white hats. A Korean lady banged her spatula, took orders, and shook ingredients into her wok. Between customers, she wiped the wok clean with a paper towel, then poured in some oil, and steam rose, hissing.
“What you wan’?” she asked Chuck.
Chuck’s eyes went from chicken, to shrimp, to meat. “What kind of meat is it?” he asked.
“Meat!” she said.
“No, what kind,” Chuck said.
“You wan’ meat?” she asked.
“Sure,” Chuck said.
So Chuck wouldn’t be alone, I got meat, too.
“What’s in the meat?” Skip asked.
A soldier behind us in line said, “Woof!”
The three of us sat down in the corner, near the stage, where a tuba and a trombone rested on their bells. A clarinet rested on a chair. Skip sat down, shut his eyes, and started to pray. One reason I liked Chuck so much was that he didn’t pray, or if he did, he didn’t make a big deal about it. He just sat there, not talking, perhaps thinking about his ex-wife, or his Harley back home in Texas, or maybe letting the situation unfold.
The tuba player returned from break wearing his ceremonial uniform, complete with bow tie, cummerbund, and silver braid. We sat before him in our dirty T-shirts and duct-taped boots, with dust in every crack and orifice, our hair slicked back with shit. The tuba player took his seat and lifted his instrument to his lap. The entire population of the chow hall appeared, inverted and blurry, in the polished brass bell.
Skip opened his eyes, looking as if he’d prayed for a tuba player, and there he was.
I forked some meat, cabbage, and a water chestnut, and put it in my mouth. The meat was chewy. Chuck’s jaw worked up and down. Skip, who also had a mouthful, flashed a momentary expression of concern.
“Good evening!” yelled the tuba player. He was alone on stage. His medals, awarded for perseverance in the accomplishment of administrative tasks, used to mean something before the war. They jingled as he adjusted himself in his seat. When someone asked him how he got those medals, I wondered, what did he tell them? What did he tell himself? To his credit, he didn’t seem to care. He looked happy with his instrument properly balanced and ready to play.
“What do you folks want to hear?” he asked.
Anything, nothing, go fuck yourself.
“All right,” said the tuba player. And he started to play.
The helicopters left us on a high plateau, in a fog of warm exhaust, late one spring night. They departed, rotors thumping, up and over the mountain on which we stood. A breeze pushed the oily fog off the plateau. Through night vision I watched its warmth tumble downhill, then snag on a patch of sagebrush. The plateau was surfaced in hard, luminous chalk. Hal stepped off its bright edge and into the valley, creating a seam in the night for the rest of us to fold into.
Digger followed Hal, Lex followed Digger, and so on, ducking into that seam, proceeding westward along a narrow footpath lined with sawgrass and wildflowers. Mooch followed Green, who followed Scrape. I watched the patrol stretch into the night, waiting to take my place at the end of the line. Lyle jumped off the plateau like a paratrooper. Goon stepped into the valley behind Lyle. Hank was supposed to go next, followed by Q, then me, but Hank and Q were having an argument. They stood chest to chest by the footpath, exchanging words, and I was too far away to understand why, let alone get there before Hank shoved Q, Q lunged at Hank, and the two men crashed into each other.
Hank and Q were Afghan soldiers, attached to us. But we didn’t claim them, necessarily, and they didn’t act like ours. Higher had forced them on us at the beginning of the deployment, six weeks prior, in order to make it look like their strategy was working—i.e., the Afghans were standing up while we were standing down. Nine years into the war, however, with no end in sight, we weren’t going anywhere. And as far as standing up went, Hank and Q had managed—until that night, at least—to stay out of the way and not cause any trouble.
Locked together, Hank and Q fell off the plateau and rolled downhill, bumping over rocks and crushing knots of sagebrush. Their old Soviet rifles, slung to their chests, clattered like beach chairs. Lasers shone back from the patrol, illuminating the commotion within its own dust cloud. I leapt off the plateau after Hank and Q, while Goon quit the footpath on a diagonal line of pursuit. I tripped over the bullhorn that Hank and Q took turns carrying, and Goon accidentally kicked one of their helmets. The Afghans rolled into a boulder, leaving Q, a hairy, slow-twitch endomorph, on top of Hank, a lanky, fine-boned gatherer of wool.
Q delivered a solid blow to Hank’s face, then another. Goon pulled Q off. I helped Hank to his feet.
“Fuckin’ idiot,” Goon said, shoving Q in the direction of the patrol.
Q’s chubby face jiggled in indignation. “Not me,” he said.
“Walk,” Goon ordered, pointing.
Q picked up his helmet and walked. Goon, muttering curses, fell in behind Q. The patrol started moving again. Hank stood with his head tilted back, trying to control a nosebleed.
I dug a bandanna out of my leg pocket. “Here,” I said, offering it to Hank, who, without looking down, reached out a wide, long-fingered hand.
Starlight filled Hank’s open palm and cast its shadow on the ground. I relinquished my bandanna and, as Hank’s fingers closed on it, I had the odd sensation of having seen Hank’s fingers slowly close on my bandanna once before. Not only that, it seemed as though I’d been on this mountain before, on a spring night exactly like this, watching Hank hold the bandanna to his face, hearing blood drip off his elbow and onto a stone.
Wind eased through the wildflowers. I felt each stem bend, every petal rise. I’d experienced déjà vus in the past, but never one this intense. Looking at the ground, for example, I was aware of every rock, pebble, and grain of sand, and I knew how each one had come to be. I sensed every ray of starlight that fell in the valley—on the winding river, on the sleeping cattle—and I could trace each one back in time to its cosmic source. It was a pleasant feeling, understanding how things were put together, not to mention knowing what was going to happen a few seconds before it did. My future self remained dumbstruck in the throes of that déjà vu, deep in enemy territory, as the troop moved farther away. As far as I could tell, however, there was nothing to be afraid of. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. But then, without warning, one grain of sand became no different from the next. Stars transformed into nothing special. The déjà vu collapsed, leaving me light-headed and short of breath on the side of that mountain.
Hank stood slightly uphill from me, holding the bullhorn. He looked out from under a purple lump that swelled over one eye.
“Ready?” he asked, like I hadn’t answered the first time.
* * *
—
WE PATROLLED WESTWARD along the north side of the river: across
dry opium fields whose pods bumped softly against my thighs; through emergent wheat fields whose tillering shoots appeared white-hot on night vision; and over stubbled cornfields clustered with roosting crows. Every now and then I’d stop and look behind myself, to make sure no one was sneaking up. I saw a slinking dog or two. I watched sissoo trees bend in the wind. I considered a glacier, snaking down from the Hindu Kush, glowing like uranium. Turning back toward the patrol, I saw Hal in the distance, standing off to the side.
Whereas everybody else’s infrared signature appeared bright and, therefore, a little desperate in the cool night air, Hal’s was muted. Hal ignored Q as Q walked by. He nodded at Goon. He stared Hank down as Hank walked by. Precisely at smile range, Hal smiled at me.
“What happened back there?” he asked, nodding up toward the plateau.
“Hank shoved Q,” I said. “Q jumped Hank.”
“Then what?”
“Goon and I broke it up.”
Hal spoke in a forced whisper, directly into my ear: “I want those fuckheads slapped around when we get back. I want their shit burned and the ashes dumped in their mouths.”
We crossed a hard stretch of dirt while Hal stared off into the distance—past Hank, Q, and the rest of the patrol, past where the mountains ended and the valley opened on what the Afghans called “the Kingdom of Sand.” Judging by the look on his face, Hal saw something out there that we’d someday have to deal with. For now, though, right in front of us: Q dragged his heels, creating dust clouds, and Hank swayed, causing the tethered lens cap of his night-vision monocle to swing back and forth.
“They’ll just send us two more,” I said.
“Fuck that,” Hal said.
A faraway donkey brayed. The day’s heat rose from the ground.
“You say anything to them?” Hal asked.
“No,” I said. “You want me to?”