“Why is it a bad idea?”
“With all due respect, sir, they’ve got us out here with three of the most obese shitbags in the company, and those are your dismounts. Think about it. Do you think you can take those guys dismounted, off road, in the fucking dark, through all those shit canals for a klick? That’s gonna make a lot of noise. Those hajis will hear us coming all the way. We might as well drag a fucking piano with us. I’ve seen those guys on dismount patrols before, sir. They’re a fucking disaster. They fall all over themselves. Borges can shoot, but he can’t walk for shit, and the rest of them are an out-and-out fucking liability. No upside. You can’t expect to take those guys and one medic, not one NCO, and shoot it out with four armed men who will hear you coming from a mile away. I’m sorry, sir, but it’s a real bad idea.”
“…I don’t know.”
“Sir, with all due respect, it’d be different if we had any chance of succeeding. But look at what you’ve got to work with. It won’t end well. Best-case scenario it’ll be a waste of time. But do what you think is right and I’ll go along.”
He keyed the radio. “Echo mike, this is echo tree six actual….It doesn’t look like we can get there from where we are.”
* * *
—
OUR LAST night on the FOB, some of us got together and passed around some cans of duster. We huffed duster till Sergeant Bautista lost touch with his central nervous system. He swayed back and forth like a blind piano player. A stream of drool ran from Bautista’s lip and pooled in his lap.
We said, “Oh, shit. Look at that.”
We asked was he alright.
After a minute he said he was alright.
Then we huffed one last can of duster.
And it was alright, like we were kids.
PART FOUR
HUMMINGBIRD
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The airliner touched down at Fort Hood around eleven on Tuesday morning. We were bused from the airfield to a parking lot on Battalion Avenue. We were told to line up on the sidewalk because we were supposed to go running into a gymnasium where a lot of guys’ families were. A subwoofer was going in the gym, and you could hear the kick drum a hundred yards down the avenue. I was at the end of the line. We started moving up. Ahead guys were running into the gymnasium. The bass line was coming through along with the kick drum now. It was mostly joes towards the end of the line, mostly joes who hated shit like this. The dog and pony shows. I didn’t feel like I’d done anything to go running into gymnasiums about.
There were smoke machines and we came in through the smoke. The DJ was playing the refrain from “Disco Inferno” on a loop:
Burn, baby, burn…
Burn, baby, burn…
Burn, baby, burn…
The families were in the bleachers, cheering and yelling guys’ names out and waving and taking pictures and filming. The soldiers formed up in ranks. First Sergeant Hightower told us anybody who lived off-post was free to leave after they picked up their duffel bags. Anybody who was going to live in the barracks would report to the barracks and wait to be assigned a room. He said we were on pass till next Monday on account of that Thursday being Thanksgiving. He said we could fall out and we fell out. Guys looked for their people. Husbands embraced wives. Fathers embraced children. I had to get the fuck out of the gymnasium because I felt a panic attack coming on. Dry heaves and everything. And I guess I was ungrateful, given all the people in the gymnasium and the DJ. But they weren’t my people and fuck the DJ. You do the best you can.
Things went faster than expected at the barracks. They had everything sorted out already since they’d been expecting us. We only needed to sign for our rooms. This is when I got separated from Echo Company and reassigned to HHC. Suddenly I wasn’t a line medic anymore. My roommate was a random motherfucker I didn’t know. He had come to the battalion midtour and had been in HHC the whole time. I don’t remember his name. I remember he bought an Xbox 360 and he drank Pepsi and wore eyeglasses and had brown hair. He had a little headset so he could talk to his girlfriend in fucking Kansas or whatever while he played video games. That’s all I remember about him.
I went to the mall in Killeen and I bought a cell phone at a kiosk. I got ripped off on the contract. People had started texting while I’d been away and I didn’t know what texting was supposed to cost. I called my parents and told them I’d made it back okay. My mom said she and my dad were flying down to Texas because a friend of my dad’s was about to die in Dallas. They’d arrive in Dallas on Thursday, and Dallas was only a few hours from Killeen so it would be easy enough for me to get up there and see them. I said I’d try and do that.
I took a cab to Walmart and bought some clothes and some bedding and a table lamp. I went back to post and drank heavily. There was a 24-hour PX gas station–liquor store on post near the main gate, so drinks weren’t ever going to run out.
When I was drunk, I called Emily, and it didn’t go well. I was hurt as fuck that she wasn’t there. I wanted her there so bad. I said I knew she’d fucked around on me.
I said, “You broke my heart, you fucking cunt.”
She said, “What are you talking about? Baby, you sound like a psycho.”
I said, “Why would you do that? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
She said she hadn’t fucked around.
It was a bad time.
* * *
—
WEDNESDAY NIGHT I was over on the Echo Company side of the barracks, and Borges got in an argument with Haussmann. I don’t know what it was about. But Borges tried to stab Haussmann and Haussmann got away and called 911.
The police came with North. North was CQ that night. The police weren’t MPs, they were Killeen PD. I had already explained to Haussmann that he had fucked up and that he needed to unfuck things, and Lessing had done the same for Borges, and it seemed like we were all on the same page. The police split us up. One of them was over talking to Borges and Lessing and the other was talking to me and Haussmann, and I helped Haussmann tell the police there had been a misunderstanding. No one had actually tried to stab anybody. There had been some loose talk. That was all. Regrettable, yes. But really no big deal. We were sorry for the inconvenience.
“Loose talk?”
“Yessir. Loose talk.”
He said we were full of shit. He said, “I think you’re full of shit and I think you’re full of shit.”
He was pointing his finger in our faces and everything. I asked him why he was acting like that.
“I didn’t fucking swear at you,” I said. “Why the fuck are you swearing at me? I just got back yesterday, motherfucker. I guess that shit means yer fucking welcome, doesn’t it.”
North told me to calm down. And I heard something in his voice, like he wished he could be the one arresting me. I felt sick and I tried to ignore it.
Haussmann said, “Look, Officer. I’m sorry that you got called down here and that I’ve wasted your time. It was a misunderstanding. No one tried to stab me.”
Borges was a ways down the hall with Lessing and the other policeman. Now he turned towards us and shouted, “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM, OFFICER. EVERYTHING THEY’RE SAYING IS LIES.”
Somehow nobody went to jail. And everything was okay. There were no hard feelings. We all went to Bennigan’s: Borges, Haussmann, Lessing, and I. The waitress was no less than a hundred months pregnant. She had the name Shawn tattooed in big script on the side of her neck. But it didn’t discourage Borges from trying to seduce her. He was unsuccessful. And the waitress said she wasn’t going to serve Borges any more Long Island iced teas.
Then Lessing said, “Is that motherfucking Lieutenant Nathan?”
And it was Lieutenant Nathan. We went over and said hello to him. Nathan was a good guy. Maybe he was a bit fucked up from the brainwashing. But who wasn’t? And he was glad to see us. He said, “How ya doin, men?”