Ryan took these psychology courses in prison, thinks he’s Dr. fucking Phil now. Thinks his head’s on right. That day I wanted to tell him it’s not on right. That deep down in his guts he’s still that fucked-up trench-digging drunk vet, and it’s that guy that’s going to bite him in the ass one day.
Bipolar, shit. I didn’t say anything, though. I didn’t. I wanted to find Jay before I forgot, and make sure I hadn’t lost him.
I guess I’ll go see him, I said.
After the group, I drove to the VA. I headed toward Elm Street, took a left on Turk Street and a right onto Van Ness Avenue, and then everything got dark for me and just like that I forgot where I was. I knew I’d been at the Vet Center. I knew I’d talked to Ryan. I knew I wanted to see Jay, but it was less of a plan than an idea I’d had a long time ago and that I had now just remembered. I pulled over to a 7-Eleven, bought some fudge grahams and Twizzlers and strawberry wafers and asked for directions to the VA.
I see you still have your army-issue sunglasses, Jay says.
Yeah. Want some more wafers?
Please.
I hand him a couple.
I have wacky dreams, Jay says. I see dead kids. I’m in the dream. I’m holding a .50 cal. Some are dead already. Some I’m killing. The enemy’s firing from all sides, we’re firing from all sides. One kid just stands there and watches me. I call him the one who got away.
Do me a favor, Jay.
What?
Next time you fall asleep, don’t let him get away.
Yeah, with a .50 cal.
That’ll do it. I was stationed in Balad. The C-130 carrying us in from Kuwait couldn’t land—the base was being bombed. The pilot had to maneuver like a motherfucker to avoid getting hit. I saw flames below us and I thought, If an RPG nails us, that’s it. A guy next to me started crying. I was shaking, felt like puking. It seemed like we circled a long time before we got the OK to land. When the doors opened, we put our heads down and ran. The guy crying got hit. Lost an arm, a hand, and both legs. He lived.
Balad was shit. Nothing but sand and heat like someone had left the oven on broil overnight and you open it in the morning and the heat blast melts your fucking face off, and dust storms and diesel exhaust that layered you brown and black, and more tanks than I’d ever seen. My unit occupied a girls school. Guys collapsed on the floor, passed out from dehydration. Mortar fire and snipers every night got them up. As soon as it got dark, that was it, the hajis opened up on us. We called the place Mortaritaville. A real kick in the ass, I can tell you.
My third month, I was part of a supply convoy to Forward Operating Base Concord. The LT assigned me, Perez, and four other guys to Humvee soft top, double-armored, third from the rear. I rode shotgun, Smith drove. Jones, Perez, and McGuire sat in back.
We left Balad at 0800 and bounced along a wadi heavy with rocks, the land like the bottom of a dried-up, forgotten ocean with villages bleached beyond white scattered here and there but a ways off Nowheresville, Iraq.
The IED was a remote detonator mortar round. I was listening to radio traffic and Katy Perry on my iPod when, wham! my door blew the fuck open and the Humvee blasted off the ground like a rocket, dropped back down and filled with smoke so dense I couldn’t see my hands. My ears rang like someone was banging pots and pans inside my head. I turned around. Jones, Perez, and McGuire glued against each other, fried black, their bodies ripped open red and spilling guts. I yelled, No! and reached for Perez and his skin came off in my hand and Smith grabbed me and hauled me out screaming. Shrapnel had totally bent the Humvee’s frame, but I still had my weapon. We crawled, scrambling like snakes on the ground and shot at anything that moved. I was shaking, dizzy, my throat raw, my hands sticky from Perez, but I could shoot, goddamn it, I could shoot. I saw a woman walking a cow, my heart beating so hard I had a hard time breathing, and thought she had better get under that fucking cow.
She didn’t. The cow blew up. Just this big fan of fucking red and the woman disappeared into it, swallowed, sucked into another dimension, gone, and I just kept firing at that spot, plowing under whatever pieces were left. We ripshit houses and trees, anything standing, anything someone might hide behind. When we stopped shooting, the sound of our breathing and thudding hearts consumed the silence and the nothingness we’d wasted.
Back at the base, I couldn’t stop shaking. I puked and puked. My LT told me to see the medic and followed me to the clinic. The medic shined a light in my eyes. I blinked, felt spear tips jab through my temples. He told me I had a mild concussion. He asked me if I could still handle my AK, still walk, still drive.
I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but not the soldier’s motto: I will always place the mission first, I will never accept defeat, I will never quit, and I will never leave a fallen comrade. Other guys had lost their arms and legs, I wasn’t going to complain.
I told him yes.
That’s good enough for me, the LT said.
I didn’t know I was all screwed up. The next day I had a hard time concentrating. I understood just bits and pieces of conversations. Mouths moved but only a word or two stuck in my head. I rambled. Guys called me on it. What the fuck, man? You retarded or something? No, I said, I got a concussion, douchebag.
Weeks’d go by. A ringing in my ears kept me awake. Food lost its taste; the air, its odor of sand and wind. I’d see that kid and his mother near Tower Three and I’d scope them with my AK. Why do we let hajis so close to the walls? Why do we hire them to work on base? After what they did to me, three guys in my vic vaporized, why?
Then I started forgetting to Skype Katherine, forgot to email her too. When I did call, she told me I sounded stressed. What kind of a thing to say is that? I said. It’s a war, you know. I didn’t tell her what happened. I asked if she had sent my Christmas care package. It’s only March, she said. Really? Bullshit. I thought she was fucking with me. That’s not funny, I told her. I don’t appreciate it.
When did you join the army?
Two thousand two.
Because of 9/11?
Yeah.
Two thousand two for me too, Jay says. Because of 9/11. It was like instinct. The thing to do. I thought I’d go to Afghanistan. Who were you with?
Fifteenth Brigade. Fort Sill.
Oklahoma?
Yeah.
That’s where I’m from, Jay says. That wind down there throw off artillery shells during basic?
A little. Not dramatically.
I think I already asked you this. Have we had this conversation before?
I don’t think so, I say.
I was hit by an IED several times, Jay says. One blew up eight feet from my face.
I got hit once by an IED. That was enough. Were you wearing arm guards and everything?
