Grunt Life

by Weston Ochse

  “My father was in the Navy,” Aquinas said. “He was a Navy mess chief. It was how he became a citizen. I would have grown up in Subic Bay instead of Seattle if it hadn’t been for that.”

  The rest of us had our sleeves rolled up, but Aquinas and a few others, most of them women, had theirs rolled down. No one commented about them. We all sort of understood.

  “501st APR,” Olivares said. “82nd Airborne Division. If you ain’t airborne then you ain’t shit, and all that crap they used to make us sing during cadence.” His face was pure hate as he said the words. “They drilled it into us that we could only count on each other. Taught us to hate everyone else. I could live with that. It was how I grew up.”

  “My name’s Tim Thompson,” said the quietest of us. Barely five feet four inches, he had elfin features. His normal speaking level was just above a whisper. “I was a drummer in the Marine Corps Band. All I ever wanted to do was play music. I never once thought it would be in Afghanistan.”

  I remembered reading in the Stars and Stripes about the suicide bomber who took out most of the band. Looking at the scarring on Thompson’s face and hands, it was no mystery where he’d been on that day.

  “I’m a Marine, too,” Ohirra said proudly. I’d gotten to know the slender Japanese girl. She wasn’t cocky, but she was confident, and so far she’d been able to back everything up, including being the master of the mat. Her father was a small circle jujitsu master. “I was never in combat, so I don’t have the same stories as the rest of you.”

  She said more in that sentence than the rest of us had all day. What was it that had made her try and kill herself? What was in her past? What had she seen or done that made her hate herself enough to want to end it all?

  I tried to get out of it, but it was Olivares who cornered me. “And what about you, Mr. Gringo? What’s your story?”

  I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at his choice of name. It was stupid, really. How could he expect me to be angry with something so stupid? “U. S. Army. I’m a grunt through and through. Infantry. Until recently, assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Logar Province. Spent time in Iraq and Bosnia as well.”

  Thankfully, that was enough. It might have been that they remembered me from our confessionals. It took awhile, but once I was able to hear Ohirra’s voice again, I realized I’d recognized it. She’d never been in combat, but she’d killed a family of five one night drinking and driving. It’d been her twenty-first birthday. She never really drank alcohol, other than a taste here or there. But some friends had met her at a restaurant and proceeded to get her plastered. Ohirra had stayed in her car in the parking lot for hours afterward, trying to sober up. But when it began getting close to time for morning formation, she decided she absolutely had to leave. She’d never once been late to a formation and ‘couldn’t imagine living with the embarrassment of being late.’ That’s how she said it: the embarrassment of being late. Thanks to her size, her blood alcohol was still well above the legal limit when she took to the road. Plus, she’d hardly slept, nervous and jittery with terror at merely being in such a condition. Fate being what she was, Ohirra took to the road, and halfway back to base she crossed the center line. She caught herself at the last second and swerved back into her lane, but the damage was done. Bob Willis had decided to miss the traffic by driving at night. Taking his family back to New Jersey from their annual trip to Virginia Beach, he saw the oncoming car and swerved violently. The reaction caused his minivan to flip, and by the time the vehicle came to rest in the front yard of a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant, the van was half the size it’d been just a few seconds before. The family never had a chance.

  And after that, neither did Ohirra.

  We couldn’t be more different.

  We couldn’t be more the same.

  A single event had changed her entire life, reforming her into something she’d never thought she’d ever become. Mine was the culmination of years, each event chipping away, reforming me into a hateful being. And here we were, me, Ohirra, and the rest of us, destroyers of lives.

  After introductions, we were given a list of exercises and events we were supposed to do. We started with sparring.

  No pads. No rules. We fought until someone gave.

  It became very evident that Ohirra was the most talented on the ground. But standing up was another matter. While she had the edge, Olivares and Frakess had the bulk. They also had the strength. Frakess hit her twice in the face, hard enough she was rocked back on her heels. Olivares feinted to her face, then sunk a fist deep into her stomach.

  I almost launched myself off the mat, but Aquinas grabbed me and shook her head. “Let her get out of this,” she insisted. I glanced at her hand on my arm, just as she hurriedly pulled it away.

  It was clear that both Frakess and Olivares had thought getting her on the ground was to their advantage. Twice they almost managed to tap her out by lying on her. Each time she was able to circumvent what had seemed a sure thing by locking their arms into chimeras and forcing them to tap.

  We urged Ohirra to take a break, but she wouldn’t have it. Aquinas was next. She kept her sleeves down and stood awkwardly. Three times Ohirra tried for a takedown, but all three times Aquinas slipped free, looking off-balance and scared. When Ohirra came in next, feinting a takedown and rising to grapple, Aquinas was ready. Her left leg shot out and caught Ohirra on the side of the head, sending her tripping sideways. When she recovered, the small Japanese-American girl gave the lithe Filipina-American a look halfway between surprise and suspicion. But Aquinas gave nothing away. She backed awkwardly, and moved clockwise around the mat. Ohirra held her hands out, ready to grab and attack. This time she feinted to the head and dove for Aquinas’s legs, only to meet a knee dead centre in her face. Ohirra fell hard to the mat, her nose gushing blood.

  Aquinas barely reacted. She walked calmly over to a table, grabbed a towel from a stack, and returned.

  By the time she was back to the mat, Ohirra was sitting up, one hand cupping her nose. She accepted the towel as I helped her to her feet. I began escorting her off the mat, when Olivares stepped in front of me.

  “Not so fast, Mr. Gringo. Let’s see what you got.”

  I tried to ignore him and push past, but he shoved me hard enough to knock me back several feet. I felt the steam rise. I knew my face had turned beet red. I could never hide my anger. When I got pissed, it was like a neon sign was flashing over my head, which was one reason I’d gotten picked on as a kid.

  Olivares grinned at me and unleashed a string of Spanglish that succeeded in putting my mother and the family pet in an awkwardly symbiotic relationship. Then he began to dance on his feet. I watched the way he carried his hands as his feet moved across the floor. He’d been trained as a boxer. I immediately knew I had no chance with my hands, but I stuck them up nonetheless. In fact, I wanted to see exactly what he could do.

  He lunged in and snapped a lead left into my face.

  My head rocked back. I felt my lips begin to swell.

  He came in again, but this time I covered up. He switched to try and hit me with a kidney punch, I brought my elbows in and let his fist land on the edge of the bone.

  He shook his hand. “So you’ve been hit before. Good, Mr. Gringo,” he said happily. “But you haven’t been hit by me. Not really. Not yet.”

  All the while he spoke, he danced around me. I stood in one place, light on my feet, turning to meet any attack he might launch.

  He had me in weight, but I had him in height. His arms seemed about the same length as mine, the way his shoulders sloped down. But my legs were longer than his. It was all a matter of timing.

  He came in again, his cockiness increasing. I ducked a right cross and let him hit me with his slower, weaker left. He caught me in the side of the head and I feigned hurt. Seeing weakness, he came in, first swinging for an uppercut. When that missed, he tried for several left hooks. I leaned into his range and grabbed him around the neck. Whil
e he began to punch me in the stomach, I raked my right foot down his shin and slammed it into his instep.

  His reaction was immediate. He gave a little squeak and raised his foot. Which is when I did the same to his other foot. He backed away, hopping from one foot to the other.

  “That’s right. Dance, motherfucker, dance.”

  The Nunez brothers had taught me well. Born to surf and fight, each of them stood just over five foot two. They’d been in daily fights right up until the point their father had put them in martial arts. Six months later, there wasn’t a fight they couldn’t win. Their swift savagery destroyed any opponent’s will to fight.

  I stood a little taller as Olivares began to circle counterclockwise. Gone was his smirk, replaced by a grimace. He was tender on his feet. Exactly how I wanted him. He feinted twice with his left hand and I just smiled at him.

  He came in quick. I brought my right leg up, but instead of kicking him high, I brought it down on the side of his knee, following through with a yell.

  He dropped to the ground as his knee collapsed.

  I stepped in to catch him with a right cross, but he blocked his face and head with his arms. Instead of hitting him where he expected, I brought a knife hand down on his carotid artery. He fell to the mat, his eyes rolled up into his head.

  I’ll give Aquinas credit. She’d shown professionalism; I didn’t have any right now. I walked back to where I’d been, grabbed a towel, and sat down cross-legged. Everyone stared at me. I didn’t even shrug. I just watched Olivares as the blood once again began to flow to his brain. His legs twitched. His arms spasmed. Then he snapped back to consciousness. Throughout it all, I had a smile on my face.

  It was only when I registered the WTF look from the rest of my team that I realized that I’d done something wrong. And then it came to me, as my blood settled and my breathing relaxed: I’d let him get into my head. I’d made it personal. And although he was an asshole, there he was laying on the ground.

  Now who was the asshole?

  My face began to turn red again, but this time my anger was directed at myself. What the hell had I been thinking?

  One minute can decide the outcome of the battle, one hour the outcome of the campaign, and one day the fate of the country.

  Russian Field Marshal Prince Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “LISTEN UP, BOYS and girls. I’m going to show you how to kill someone eighteen different ways, using only your hands.”

  “And a bottle opener,” someone added, from behind me.

  Everyone who heard laughed. The muscle-bound behemoth standing in front of us looked like he drank a gallon of steroids for breakfast. He stood about five foot five and seemed to have shoulders as wide as he was tall. His arms were as large as my thighs. Even so, he was so fastidiously serious with himself that we could hardly stand it.

  “Who said that?” he said, squeezing his hands into fists that could crush pool balls.

  I’d seen his type before. An expert at fitness who parlayed his good health into the idea that he knew how to fight. Not fight on a mat in a studio, but fight during the piss and shit of war. These pretenders were all cut from the same cloth. The first time he was forced to run from one point to another with full battle rattle, a rifle and a helmet, he’d pull up with a strained muscle, screaming like it was the end of the world and never get to the point where he’d get to use any of his eighteen ways to kill someone, much less call 1-800-GETMEOUTTAHERE.

  When no one spoke up, he continued. “You all might be experts at one or two things, but I’m certified in seventeen forms of martial combat, including...”

  As the Giant Pretender rattled off a list of martial arts like he was a walking Wikipedia, I let my mind wander. This was the fourth expert to come into our facility to give us instruction. Now that we were in Phase II, they’d taken away our tablets. I never realized how much I’d come to appreciate that thing. I wished I had it now. My tablet was a lot less stupid than this shit, but then every military in the world had its own form of professional development where good-intentioned leaders brought in experts who ended up being ill-prepared for the reality of a roomful of soldiers.

  Mr. Pink and several of the senior facilitators, now dressed in black slacks, shoes and Polo shirts with the red, stylized TF OMBRA logo on their left breasts, had been interacting with each of the groups. They’d been stressing the need for team building, which was ironic, since my team pretty much hated me. I’d beaten down Olivares three weeks ago and hadn’t been able to get much traction since. We’d fought every day. As it turned out, the first day was to test our control. It looked like I failed. The next day they issued padded kicks, gloves and helmets.

  “You,” I heard from somewhere far away.

  I unglazed my eyes and realized that the steroid monster was looking at me.

  Pretending like I wasn’t sure, I put on a patented who me look and pointed at my own chest.

  He nodded. “Yes. You. Why don’t you come up here and let me demonstrate?”

  I glanced at my team beside me, but their eyes were everywhere but on me. No one wanted to help. Why should they? Every group had an asshole, and it looked as if I was that guy. I stared for a moment at Olivares, hoping he’d give me one of his snide smirks, but he was playing his part perfectly.

  I shook my head.

  “You want me to come up there, sir?”

  “Yes, Sleeping Beauty. I want you to come up here so I can give you a kiss and wake you up.”

  I blinked as everyone laughed. I could feel my face turning red. “Seriously?”

  Steroid Monster rocked his head back and laughed; it was surprisingly high pitched. “Of course not, genius. I need you to help me demonstrate moves. I need you to attack me.” At this, he turned to the audience and grinned, all teeth and confidence.

  My blood had begun to rise and I fought to keep it down. I excused myself to leave my row, then walked to the front of the room. I was dressed in the same urban cammies as before, but now, like everyone else, I wore white running shoes. The number 19 over my left breast showed which team I was on.

  At the front of the room, I glanced back at the thousand-odd people staring back at me and turned to Steroid Monster. Although he was several inches shorter, he was as wide as a minivan.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  I hated being called son. “Mason.”

  “Well, Mason, where are you from?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Do much fighting there?”

  “Some.”

  He smiled again. Teeth and confidence. “Good. I didn’t want to get an ‘expert,’” he said, his fingers making air quotes around his last word.

  I sighed on the inside. Why was the world filled with so many asshats? I was so busy rolling my eyes on the inside that I missed what he said next.

  “What?”

  “I said, attack me.”

  “Any particular way?” I asked, wondering what he was up to.

  “Surprise me.” He flashed the crowd a smile again, and the first few rows laughed.

  “Aren’t you going to get into a stance?” I asked. He was just standing there, his right leg in front of him as he put his weight on his left leg, his hands resting imperiously on his hips.

  “I’m good. Ready whenever you are.”

  He gave me a look that said you can’t do nothing to me, you sniveling little excuse for a man. I’d never been one to be intimidated. I glanced once at the crowd, scanning the rows until I found the rest of Nineteen. They were all watching except for Olivares and Aquinas, who were deep in conversation. I saw a smile on her face, then a smile on his.

  “Come on, son. We haven’t got all day.”

  I shouted a loud Keeya, turned and in one swift move brought my right elbow down on his left thigh, just above his knee. I felt the point of my elbow dig through muscle until it tapped his femur. Then I stood and stepped back.

  He crumpled to the ground,
screaming.

  I looked at the shocked crowd and gave them a smile. All teeth and confidence. Then I shrugged, and walked back to my seat. My team, as I suspected, didn’t give me the time of day, which was fine. I didn’t need them. After all, I was the designated asshole.

  Mr. Pink and three others went to the front of the room. He directed that they help the man writhing on the floor, while he turned to the crowd.

  “Looks like our ‘expert’”—he aped the man’s air quotes—“wasn’t prepared for your expertise.” He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked at home in front of a big crowd.

  He pointed to me. “Sorry to do this to you again, Mason, but would you come up here?”

  A low murmur went through the crowd, the collective sound of people who thought I was in big trouble. I felt the same way. I got up, excused myself yet again, and walked to the front, thinking of the dozen walks to the principal’s office I made when I was a kid.

  “It’s okay. Mason isn’t in trouble,” Mr. Pink said. “On the contrary. He’s demonstrated two very important things to you. Can anyone tell me what they are?”

  I found myself looking at the ground. Being talked about in third person always made me uncomfortable.

  “That he’s a jerk?” someone offered.

  It seemed as if everyone was laughing.

  I stared at a space a thousand feet past my toes, nodding and smiling, as if I was part of the joke.

  “No, no. I was talking about what he did up here,” Mr. Pink said.

  “We were, too,” someone else said, to another round of titters.

  Mr. Pink glanced at me. I caught his gaze. I could tell he wasn’t happy. Then he turned his gaze on the audience. They soon shut up.

  “What we’ve learned here is not to be reckless. Underestimating your enemy is reckless. You saw what happened to your instructor, right? He expected Mason to throw a punch or a kick; that Mason would demonstrate a move the instructor had practiced defending against a thousand times.” He began to pace, but kept his head towards the audience. “You’ll note, however, that I said practice. Which means he probably has never used it in real life.”