by Dorsey, Tim
Outside the office, secretaries heard the telltale sounds of a future insurance claim and came running. They saw the political blob roll one way and then the other. It slammed into a bookcase, and a row of autographed college footballs toppled from their tees and began bouncing off the men’s backs. Dempsey came up with Marlon in a headlock, and he held him immobile while the others began figuring the timetable for Marlon’s deployment.
Marlon looked out sideways from his father’s armpit at the appointment calendar on his desk. He realized that if he went overseas, they would have to postpone his wedding to Babs.
“You’ve convinced me.”
LONG before Marlon’s C-130 troop transport left Florida soil, the Pentagon, despite the short notice, was able to put together a quagmire. By the time Marlon’s plane landed in Albania, organizational chaos was epidemic.
There had been little action in Kosovo for a couple years, and even less on the horizon. But then came the refugees again. The Kosovars were afraid to return home and stayed massed at the fringes of the border countries. The Balkan allies applied pressure on the State Department, which responded by air-dropping leaflets featuring Serby, a cartoon Serb field mouse, and Alby, an ethnic-Albanian magic gnome, who embarked on a playful adventure traveling back home together through the enchanted forest. When cartoons failed, the United States tried to entertain Serbia with The Overwhelming Show of Military Force. The president deployed all available active and reserve troops not currently engaged in the fourteen other global hot spots, border clashes, ethnic cleansings and a parade at Euro Disney.
The president assured the American people not to worry—there would be no “action,” not even any mopping up. The Serbian military hadn’t made a peep in months. There would just be a bunch of marching around for the TV cameras to make the allies happy and get the refugees to their feet and moving in the right direction.
Marlon and thousands of other GIs had sat idle at the Albanian air base for two weeks. Nothing to do but write letters, chain-smoke and swap paperbacks. Then they had all of an hour’s notice to hurry up and move out. The generals got the news over CNN during a live press conference at the White House, when the president said troops would be in the air in sixty minutes.
Nobody was ready. Pieces of units were strewn all over the place, but Washington was applying a full-court press. The brass decided that if they grouped the soldiers by state, the common bonds would promote esprit de corps and fighting will. Also, that’s how everyone was rostered, and it was the only way to make deadline. Loudspeakers at the base crackled to life. The troops were ordered to muster in a large, empty aircraft hangar, where a giant map of the United States was being drawn on the floor in chalk. They were told to stand in their state.
As transport planes taxied up to the hangar, a different state was ordered onto each aircraft. At first they went alphabetically, but there was a lot of pushing and shoving, and a scuffle broke out when landlocked Colorado tried to muscle its way through the Midwest. So they went by who was closest to the door.
Back in Washington, the president deftly swatted questions like flies. He recognized the veteran correspondent for UPI, which hadn’t existed for years but nobody had the heart to pull her credentials. She stood and pointed at the president with her pen. “How many men do you expect to lose?”
The president leaned into the podium. “Our military is in such incredible fighting condition that I actually expect to gain men…. Next question!…”
Back in Albania, Marlon was incredulous. He ran up to a colonel with a clipboard. “But I’m supposed to stay in the rear. There has to be some kind of mistake. I’m the lieutenant governor of Florida!”
“Then stand over there,” said the colonel, pointing at the chalk outline of the Sunshine State.
“But—”
“Now!”
Marlon shuffled over and stood on Lake Okeechobee.
“Hi, I’m Tex Jackson,” said the man next to him, standing on Clewiston. Marlon reluctantly shook hands. He couldn’t believe this was being allowed to happen to him.
The rest of the men subconsciously gravitated to their hometowns. Standing on respective parts of Florida were Lech Kluzinski, De Funiak Springs; Roosevelt Washington, Riviera Beach; Enrico Marconi, Arcadia; Dino Schwartz, Indiantown; Fulgencio Zapata, Homestead; François Bordeaux, Sebring; and Hank “Vinegar Bend” Fulbright, Inverness. Marlon looked around. Sheesh, he thought, small-town bumpkins.
The others had mutual contempt for Marlon. They knew it was a cosmic accident that he was seeing anything but light pencil duty. The exception was Tex Jackson. Jackson was nearing his fiftieth birthday and sergeant major stripes, and even the colonels secretly looked up to him. He was genial and protective of his men, and his quiet maturity could unite even the most diverse units.
Jackson was an even six feet and his physique a notch toward the weak side. His features were also a bit soft and deceptively vulnerable. He wasn’t exactly the black Mr. Rogers, but it was close. What commanded respect was his judgment. Jackson’s temper and patience were inexhaustible, except when tactical swiftness was required. Nobody who had served under him could ever recall a decision that wasn’t fair or right. Within five minutes, Marlon thought he was a schmuck.
Three days of marching through the Balkans didn’t change his mind.
Marlon sat on the stone edge of a nonrunning fountain in a town circle. It was cold and still in southern Kosovo. Marlon looked around at the bullet-flecked buildings, the shelled stores, the filthy, underfed children that appeared now and then, running doorway to doorway. A crying old woman in tatters.
“What a bunch of losers.”
“We’re movin’ out!” yelled Jackson, and Marlon and eight other men hoisted their packs and stood.
They had been trudging through town and countryside, and Marlon was roundly disgusted by what he saw. Nobody seemed to have a job. He was just about to throw a fit and demand to be sent home when a love letter arrived from Babs. He kept marching.
At first, it actually hadn’t been half bad. The abject poverty had seemed kinda pretty, in its foreign way, and Marlon took lots of snapshots. The problem was his traveling company. Everyone else in his platoon was a complete idiot.
They made camp that night in a bombed-out farmhouse near Suva Prizka. Sergeant Jackson and Corporal Lech Kluzinski sat against what was left of a low brick wall that acted as a windbreak. They opened C-rations and joked.
Marlon walked over, and Jackson smiled and gestured to the spot of dirt next to him. “Pull up a chair.” But Kluzinski gave Marlon a chilly stare. He grabbed his food and got up without saying anything and left to sit with the others over by a well.
“What’s his problem?” asked Marlon.
“Don’t mind him,” Jackson said with a gap-toothed smile. “That’s just Lech.”
Marlon cut open a dark olive plastic pouch and squeezed out cold SpaghettiOs. “I think Lech is a loser.”
Marlon heard laughter and looked up. The other men were staring at him, and Lech had a sneering grin.
“Peasants,” Marlon said under his breath.
There was shouting in the road. Coming from a farmhouse was an ancient man, his face shrunken and stubbled, and his clothes a rag-patchwork. He stumbled toward them in weepy celebration, waving a small paper American flag on a little wooden stick.
“Great,” said Marlon. “Here comes another winner.”
Marlon grabbed his camera and took a snapshot for his album of scorn.
The old man approached the group by the well and started shaking hands, bowing, profusely thanking them in a rapid language they didn’t understand. He walked over to Tex and Marlon. He grabbed Marlon’s hand, but Marlon pulled it back and rubbed it on his pants.
The old man gestured toward the other group at the well and picked up Marlon’s camera.
“Thief!” said Marlon. He started to get up, but Jackson grabbed him by the shoulder.
Marlon turned and saw the consta
nt smile was gone, but there was still patience.
The old man motioned for the Yankees to get together as a group, making an exaggerated clicking gesture with his index finger—I take your picture.
The men gathered by the well and put their arms around each other’s shoulders. Marlon had started somewhere near the middle of the gang, but nobody wanted to touch him, so he slowly worked down the line until he wound up on the end, with only Jackson’s arm draped around him.
The old man gestured again and yelled a happy command.
“I think he just said ‘goat cheese,’” Marlon whispered.
The old man handed the camera back and overthanked everyone again and went stumbling back to his farmhouse, waving the little American flag over his head. Marlon rubbed his camera with a sock.
Marlon had been attached to a regular Army unit, but there was nothing regular about it. There were only nine of them. Marlon, a lieutenant, was the sole officer and held rank. But sergeants ran the Army, and everyone knew Jackson was the real authority. That was fine with Marlon, who didn’t want the work.
Marlon sat alone near the collapsing brick wall, sopping SpaghettiOs from an entrenching tool. Jackson had gotten up and was talking with Kluzinski by an empty chicken roost. Tex pointed toward Marlon; Lech shook his head no. There was more talking. They started walking his way.
“We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” said Lech, extending a hand to Marlon. The words came out like he was at gunpoint. “I’m Lech Kluzinski from De Funiak Springs.”
“Don’t complain to me about it.”
Lech spun to Tex and threw up his arms. “I can’t deal with this asshole!”
Lech stomped off, and Tex gave Marlon a look of disappointment. Marlon shrugged and cut open a plastic bag of saltines.
12
AS THE LAST light of day was leaving the Balkan sky, an Australian half-track rolled down the dirt road leading out of town. A sergeant from Brisbane inquired about the unit’s identity, then rooted through some duffel bags.
Mail call.
He tossed bundles over the side of the truck, and the men swarmed them. Then they dispersed to private spaces and read letters from home. A general pall of melancholy fell over the group. The platoon’s crooner, Dino Schwartz, sang a Harry Connick tune. A box for Marlon was left on the ground; Jackson picked it up and delivered it.
“Hot damn!” shouted Marlon. “Babs came through!”
He yelled so loudly everyone else turned around. They saw him reach into the box and pull out an economy-size bottle of Scope. They started laughing, and Lech made a crack about bad breath.
Marlon couldn’t help but rub it in.
“For your information, my fiancée used her hair dryer to get the plastic shrink-wrap off the cap and back on again so she could slip this by the Army inspectors.” Marlon held the bottle up proudly like a trophy. “This isn’t mouthwash! It’s Absolut vodka with green food coloring!”
The platoon could move like lightning when it wanted to, and Marlon never knew what hit him. He sat up groggy in the dirt as the men passed the Scope in a circle.
Marlon turned to Jackson. “Make them give it back!”
“You’re the lieutenant.”
“I can order them to give it back?”
Jackson nodded.
“Excellent!” Marlon took a step toward the men. He stopped and looked at Jackson. “Were you going to say something?”
“Nope.”
Marlon took another step, then looked back again.
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?”
“That way,” said Marlon. “Stop it!”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You think I should let them have it, don’t you!”
“This is your chance.”
Marlon simmered a moment. “All right!” he said. “But you’re really starting to get on my nerves.”
An hour later, under a harvest moon, everyone was getting a little fucked up. Marlon had let them have the vodka. He even asked if he could join their circle.
Jackson sat it out, lying in front of the farmhouse on his side, head propped up on his hand, enjoying the sight of his men finally coming together.
Before nodding off, they made a campfire and sat around telling dirty stories.
“Okay, okay, I got one,” said a tipsy Marlon. He told them about Babs and Howdy Doody.
At the very end of the night, Marlon grabbed the Scope bottle one last time. He held it up against the moon and saw a few drops in the bottom.
He stood and swayed a bit and raised the shatterproof bottle in a toast. “You’re all a bunch of losers!”
Kluzinski shouted back: “And you’re a rich pussy!”
They all laughed, including Marlon, and then they fell asleep.
THEY rolled out at dawn. Another day of walking their butts off. Their orders were to head northeast through timlje and across the Sitnica River, then swing back around, like cops circling the shopping mall during the holidays.
Lech and Marlon walked abreast, talking a streak.
“How does Babs do that?” asked Lech.
“She calls it her art,” said Marlon.
“Howdy Doody, eh? I think I could get turned on by that.”
“That’s because you’re a sick bastard,” said Marlon, and he punched Lech in the shoulder.
“Hey! You had your middle knuckle out!”
“I learned it from this football owner.”
“Oh yeah?” Lech punched him back on the shoulder, nailing the muscle.
“Ow!”
They marched on, rubbing their arms.
Tex Jackson strolled behind, listening to the two Chatty Cathys. What have I created?
Others began falling back in the loose column and joining the bull session. Washington, Bordeaux, Zapata, Fulbright, arms hanging on the rifles across their backs, like scarecrows.
Soon, the whole unit was yapping.
“…Name the Super Bowl’s only MVP from a losing team…”
“…Eddie Haskell was the genius behind the show…”
“…How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: That’s not funny!…”
“…Chuck Howley.”
“Who?”
“MVP. Super Bowl V, 1971…”
Damn, Marlon thought, these guys were a hell of a lot more fun than everyone back in Tallahassee. And they weren’t nearly as stupid as he had always thought.
“Hey, Marlon,” called Fulbright. “Everyone says you’re gonna be governor after old Birch retires. That true? Well, I’m gonna vote for ya.”
“Me, too!” said Bordeaux.
“Me, too!” said Marconi.
And on it went until Marlon had a solid voting bloc.
Washington moved up next to Marlon. “Let me tell you about the struggle of the black man…” He said it with a grin. “Damn! I can’t believe I’m talkin’ to the next governor. Wait till I tell Ma!”
The rest followed Washington’s lead, taking turns marching alongside Marlon, telling him what they would do if they were governor.
“Hold blowout kegathons at the mansion!” said Fulbright.
“Attack Castro on a moonless night!” said Zapata.
“Make the people at Motor Vehicles work on commission!” said Marconi.
Marlon nodded politely through it all.
“This is great,” Washington yelled to the whole platoon. “Finally, we’ll have a governor who represents us.”
Geez, thought Marlon, I’m starting to like the little suckers and all, but I hate to break the news to ’em—
Marlon and Lech were pelted hard in the face with a spray of wet, warm red chunks. A second later they heard the thunderclap. Zapata toppled over without a forehead.
“Sniper!” yelled Tex, and they dove off the road into tall grass.
“Where’d that come from?”
Bordeaux and Fulbright lost it, shooting in all directions.
The men heard the unmistakable swish of bullets cutting the air near their heads. Tex shouted commands and led the way crawling back in the direction they’d come. A concussion wave hit, the ground shook and the air filled with dirt, then the sound of the mortar round that had landed eighty yards down their intended path. They stopped crawling. A motorized noise from a third direction, getting nearer. From every possible escape route a threatening sound. Instinctive panic. Marconi stood to run, took a round and fell dead in one step.
Another mortar. They buried their heads as the dirt fell. Sixty yards away. “They’re finding their range,” said Tex. “After the next round, we go for the tree line.”
“We’ll never make it!”
“We’re dead here!”
A shell hit fifty yards off. “Now!” They jumped and bolted. Schwartz was cut down in the first ten yards, but the rest sprinted over the crest of a hill. It was a rolling half mile to the trees. The lactic acid cramped and burned in their thighs, but they ran through it. Ten yards into the forest they collapsed in the dead leaves, panting and shaking, about to pass out, the tops of trees spinning.
“On your feet!” Tex shouted.
They could see them now. Two Serb tanks on the road in the distance, heading south and passing them by.
But something else turned off the road and was coming over the hill toward the woods. A fast little vehicle bounding along. One of those renegade Mad Max jeeps with a machine-gun mount welded in back. It wasn’t Army-issue. It was civilian police—local thugs emboldened by the Serb army who went raping and marauding after the tanks shelled the villages.
Tex slung his M-16 over his right shoulder and began climbing a tree on the edge of the woods. The others were surprised at how fast and quietly he ascended for his age, but he’d done it a thousand times hunting deer from tree stands north of Okeechobee in the Avon Park Bombing Range.
“Get going and make lots of noise,” said Tex.
They heard yelling from the jeep, which was almost to the edge of the woods, and they took off, firing salvos as they went. They’d made it a hundred yards when they heard three distinct rifle shots.