? ? ?
We figured that the kid had grabbed his dad’s AK when he saw us standing there and thought he’d be a hero and take a potshot at the Americans. If he’d succeeded, I guess he’d have been the coolest kid on the block. But apparently he didn’t know how to aim, otherwise me and Timhead would have been fucked. He was firing from under fifty meters, a spray and pray with the bullets mostly going into the air.
Timhead, like the rest of us, had actually been trained to fire a rifle, and he’d been trained on man-shaped targets. Only difference between those and the kid’s silhouette would have been the kid was smaller. Instinct took over. He shot the kid three times before he hit the ground. Can’t miss at that range. The kid’s mother ran out to try to pull her son back into the house. She came just in time to see bits of him blow out of his shoulders.
That was enough for Timhead to take a big step back from reality. He told Garza it wasn’t him, so Garza figured I shot the kid, who everybody was calling “the insurgent” or “the hajji” or “the dumbshit hajji,” as in, “You are one lucky motherfucker, getting fired on by the dumbest dumbshit hajji in the whole fucking country.”
When we finished the convoy, Timhead helped me out of the gunner’s suit. As we peeled it off my body, the smell of the sweat trapped underneath hit us, thick and sour. Normally, he’d make jokes or complain about that, but I guess he wasn’t in the mood. He hardly said anything until we got it off, and then he said, “I shot that kid.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You did.”
“Ozzie,” he said, “you think people are gonna ask me about it?”
“Probably,” I said. “You’re the first guy in MP platoon to…” I stumbled. I was gonna say “kill somebody,” but the way Timhead was talking let me know that was wrong. So I said, “To do that. They’ll want to know what it’s like.”
He nodded. I wanted to know what it was like, too. I thought about Staff Sergeant Black. He was a DI I’d had in boot camp, and the rumor was he’d beat an Iraqi soldier to death with a radio. He’d turned a corner and run smack into a hajji so close he couldn’t bring his rifle around and he’d freaked, grabbed his Motorola, and bashed the guy’s head in until it was pulp. We all thought that was badass. Staff Sergeant Black used to chew us out and say crazy shit like, “What you gonna do when you’re taking fire and you call in arty and it blows that fucking building to fuck and you walk through and find pieces of little kids, tiny arms and legs and heads everywhere?” Or he’d ask, “What you gonna tell a nine-year-old girl who don’t know her daddy’s dead ’cause his legs is still twitching, but you know ’cause his brains is leaking out his head?” We’d say, “This recruit does not know, sir.” Or, “This recruit does not speak Iraqi, sir.”
Crazy shit. And crazy cool, if you’re getting ready to face what you think will be real-deal no-shit war. I’d always wanted to get hold of Staff Sergeant Black after boot camp and ask him what had been bullshit and what was really in his head, but I never got a chance.
Timhead said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So don’t,” I said.
“Garza thinks you did it.”
“Yeah.”
“Can we keep it that way?”
Timhead looked serious. I didn’t know what to say. So I said, “Sure. I’ll tell everyone I did it.” Who could say I didn’t?
That made me the only sure killer in MP platoon. Before the debrief, a couple guys came by. Jobrani, the only Muslim in the platoon, said, “Good job, man.”
Harvey said, “I’d have got that motherfucker if fucking Garza and Timhead hadn’t been in the way.”
Mac said, “You okay, man?”
Sergeant Major came over to the MP area while we were debriefing. I guess she’d heard we had contact. She’s the sort of sergeant major that always calls everybody “killer.” Like, “How’s it going, killer?” “Oo-rah, killer.” “Another day in paradise, right, killer?” That day, when she walked up, she said, “How’s it going, Lance Corporal Suba?”
I told her I was great.
“Good work today, Lance Corporal. All of you, good work. Oo-rah?”
Oo-rah.
When we were done, Staff Sergeant pulled me, Timhead, and Corporal Garza aside. He said, “Outstanding. You did your job. Exactly what you had to do. You good?”
Corporal Garza said, “Yeah, Staff Sergeant, we good,” and I thought, Fuck you, Garza, on the other side of the fucking MRAP.
The lieutenant said, “You need to talk, let me know.”
Staff Sergeant said, “Oo-rah. Be ready to do it tomorrow. We got another convoy. Check?”
Check.
Me and Timhead went right back to the can we shared. We didn’t want to talk to anybody else. I got on my PSP, played Grand Theft Auto, and Timhead pulled out his Nintendo DS and played Pokémon Diamond.
? ? ?
The next day, I had to tell the story.
“Then it was like, crack crack crack”—which it was—“and rounds off the fucking blown-up fucking mine rollers and me and Timhead see hajji with an AK and that was it. Box drill. Like training.”
I kept telling the story. Everybody asked. There were follow-up questions, too. Yeah, I was like here, and Timhead was here… let me draw it in the sand. See that, that’s the MRAP. And hajji’s here. Yeah, I could just see him, poking around the side of the building. Dumbass.
Timhead nodded along. It was bullshit, but every time I told the story, it felt better. Like I owned it a little more. When I told the story, everything was clear. I made diagrams. Explained the angles of bullet trajectories. Even saying it was dark and dusty and fucking scary made it less dark and dusty and fucking scary. So when I thought back on it, there were the memories I had, and the stories I told, and they sort of sat together in my mind, the stories becoming stronger every time I retold them, feeling more and more true.
Eventually, Staff Sergeant would roll up and say, “Shut the fuck up, Suba. Hajji shot at us. Lance Corporal Suba shot back. Dead hajji. That’s the happiest ending you can get outside a Thai massage parlor. Now it’s over. Gunners, be alert, get positive ID, you’ll get your chance.”