penfist

stories are the bones of everything

revenge

Seven sunsets

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March13, 2016

Florida is pretty this time of year. Not too hot, not too cold, and the biting bugs are at their tamest. I finally broke down and took Vergaard’s advice. I’m here. Ready to paint. Let’s see if my shrink has any shitting idea what he’s talking about. One week in one of the world’s biggest swamps. This part of the Okefenokee is pretty empty. I haven’t seen anyone since I turned off the state road onto this old single lane dirt one. Not counting my subject, of course. I hear lots of sounds, but none of them are being made by humans. Not counting the muse I brought with me. Doc told me that the sunsets this time of year are spectacular. I can’t wait to see that for myself. Maybe being in this place will bring me back to life.

January, 2011

My name is Caleb Marks. I’m 54 years old, and I was an average middle class American until this year. On the first damn day of the year of our lord twenty-ought one one, an asshole drunk driver killed my wife and baby girl. Rebecca and Ava.

I was working. Construction is like that. You’re at the job site all hours. I used to be a project manager, and one of the subs, the electrical contractor, put in the wrong light fixtures for this 11-story hotel reno I was working on back then. Fuck me. The usual story, someone not paying attention to what the plans called for. If I had to put money on it, the guy responsible was a boozer too. Probably had too many fingers the night before and misread the spec. The globes were supposed to be frosted, not clear. That’s the kind of mistake that can suck all the profit out of a job.

I had to get down to the site pronto.

“Sorry honey,” I said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I gave them both a kiss, like always, and headed to the site. Rebecca texted me a few hours later to tell me she needed a couple things from the grocery store. Later, I learned she had been planning to make me Boom Boom meatballs. My favorite meal.

Dwayne Tucker, an unemployed sheetrock hanger, and a guy I’d seen around a couple of my job sites in years past, was going down the road past the Kroger when they were turning out. In his lifted Ford F-150 with the LED ground kit. Fuck me.

Dwayne had been drinking, as usual. At 6:32, he blew  through a red light in his Ford F150 and hit the front driver’s side of Becca’s Lexus IS250 going 67 miles an hour. The speed limit on the stretch of road where this happened, at the intersections of Beecher and Broad, is 35 miles an hour. Becca died instantly, so they told me at the hospital. Why the fuck they take corpses to the hospital is something I still don’t understand. Dwayne’s engine block replaced the space where Becca’s body was supposed to be safe and sound inside a steel and glass bubble.  The cast iron and aluminum block caused massive trauma to her entire body. We had to have a closed casket funeral for her. Fuck, I hate funerals. They’re so morbid. I was glad it was closed casket. I got Sue, her best friend, to do a photo collage of when Becca was at her happiest.

Ava hung on for seven days in the ICU. She missed the funeral, which I was grateful for. At one point, the doctors thought she was going to make it. She opened her eyes and told me she loved me, asked where Mommy was, and then went back to sleep. I didn’t have the heart to tell her Mommy was just ashes and memories. I told her Mommy was going to be back soon. She slipped back into oblivion and the machines they had hooked up to her started beeping like crazy. I got kicked out of the room. I raised hell but the staff got security and security got me out despite my best attempts to fight them.  Later, they eventually let me sit in there with her. My dear Ava. When it became clear she wasn’t coming back, they gave me time to say goodbye.

I talked to her for a whole day. Told her how much we both love her, and how Daddy was going to make everything right. I hate lying. I hate it more than anything. Except maybe than my family dying.

I didn’t cry. I’m not that kind of man. Instead, I had a quiet, extended nervous breakdown. It started a few days after the second funeral. I poured a lot of Maker’s Mark down my throat and cursed god a lot.

Still had bills to pay, so I climbed out of the bottle and went back to work. Numb and full of hate for Dwayne. After a couple weeks of shitty performance, the boss told me to take some time off, and I did.

I drank some whiskey. Then I tried to make sense of what happened. Then I drank some bourbon. Again. And again. My new cycle, sans family.

I failed. Soon, I was on a permanent vacation from work. It was filled with a burning throat, numbness, and dreams. Terrible, clearly focused, horribly vivid dreams. I was in the movie Groundhog Day, except reimagined as a shit show redneck numbly killing my family. Over and over, I watched Dwayne’s blue eyes look down into the passenger side compartment, to the floor where his remaining Budweisers sat in a tightly noosed grouping, held together by a white plastic hangman’s concoction. First Dwayne burps loudly. Then he farts. It’s a real ripper, one of the ones where you lift one leg to let it out. He sighs contentedly over the country song playing too loud out of the shitty base model factory radio. The speakers are humming with distortion. Dwayne peeks at his treasure trove again, then leans down to grab another one. That’s when he blows through the red light and kills my family.

Dwayne Tucker appeared in court two weeks later for a hearing. I was there. I wanted to kill him. They have metal detectors at the doors, or I would have brought my .45, and that would be it for good ‘ole beer lovin’ Dwayne.

I sat through the whole trial, silently squeezing my right hand, feeling the trigger pull and then release. Daydreaming something good. Vengeance is mine, saith the lord. I intend to steal from god.

Judge Connor, that cowardly bastard, sentenced the man who murdered my family to three years in the lockup and five years of supervised parole. For killing two innocents.

I felt numb when the words came out of the fat, black-robed fool’s mouth. I didn’t think, I just acted. I even managed to get my hands around Dwayne’s neck. I’m six five, and he’s about a foot shorter. The deputies didn’t give me enough time. He was coughing by the time they pulled me off of him. His face was red, and his eyes were bulging. Then they pulled him up and got him out of there. Got that murderer into a holding room where I couldn’t crush the life out of him. Connor gave me a lecture. Two deputies held me while he did. Then they drove me home. The shorter one told me he understood why I’d done what I did during the ride. “I don’t need your sympathy,” I said through gritted teeth. “I want my goddamn family back.” They shut up after that.

At the front door, they warned me to keep a lid on my temper, and told me I would be getting a call from the county. A referral to talk to someone. “Good head shrinker,” the shorter one said. “He helped me get my head back on straight a couple years back.” The cop shrugged like that said everything that needed saying.

March, 2011

The insurance money came through. A silver lining. One million dollars to replace my wife and my child. At least I’ll have a roof over my head while I figure out how I’m going to balance the scales.

April, 2015

I sort of respect Vergaard. He’s the kind of man you almost have to respect. One of those self-starters that comes from nothing and makes it into something. The guy is smart. I’ll give him that. He says a lot of things that make me think twice. Likes to quote folks. Here’s an example. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” That’s supposedly from a guy named Lao Tzu. I looked the guy up. Ancient Chinese philosopher. I think there’s good and bad people in every time, and in every place. I’m not sure how you tell them apart while they’re alive though. It seems to me like history decides all of that for us. I’m not quite sure I trust history, whatever that means. It’s just something deep down in my guts.

Anyhow, Vergaard is a patient guy. He’s been helping me “channel my rage” and “redirect it into positive force.” I know, it sounds hokey, but hey, so does church, if you ask me. I believe everyone has something to teach us, even if that just means they teach us how not to do things. But Vergaard, he’s alright. He listens. Then he gives me ideas about how to be better. I think I’m slowly getting better. I don’t dream that Dwayne killing my wife and daughter dream as much. Now, I dream about sunsets and solitude. We’ve been talking a lot about letting go, and forgiveness. Sometimes we talk about Dwayne. He’s getting out of prison in a few months.

“What do you think you’d want to say to him, if he were in this room with us?” Vergaard asks me.

“I’d ask him if he forgives himself for what happened,” I say. We’ve had this conversation before, and I’m still not ready for forgiveness. Maybe though, I’m getting closer.

“That’s a good question to ask,” Vergaard says. “Often, those who unintentionally harm others struggle with it for the rest of their lives.”

I don’t say it out loud, but I don’t believe this statement. In my opinion, Dwayne Tucker is getting better quality of sleep than I am. And he’s damn sure getting better quality of life than Becca and Ava are.

After the session, I go out to where my family is buried, and I talk to them for a while. I like Vergaard, but what they tell me makes more sense than some of what he does.

March 14, 2016

I’m not a great painter. I took a few classes before I planned the trip down here. It’s fascinating, how you can take a bunch of colors and swirl them all together to make a picture. This swamp is called blackwater. There’s so many pictures here. I’m close to a place called Billy’s Island. I have no idea who he was, but I like this place he left behind. Going on my second day, I’ve seen otters, sandhill cranes, ospreys and even a water turkey. Those things are kind of ugly, if you ask me. The centerpiece I set up is looking good. My goal is to paint the center piece with sunset overhead seven times. Wish me luck. I think this experience is going to be cathartic.

March 15, 2016

A few mosquitos bit me when I was painting while the sun fell last night. Oh, and the centerpiece fell over. The ground is pretty marshy, so that’s no surprise. I called the Doc when I was back in the RV for the night. I promised him I’d check in. “How are you Caleb?” he asked. “Is the vacation treating you well?” I told him about the water moccasin I almost didn’t notice because I was so caught up in getting the colors just right. “You be careful,” he said. “Lots of the creatures that live down there bite. Some of them are venomous. I wouldn’t want you to get into any kind of a situation.” I’m in a situation all right. I didn’t say that out loud. What I said was, “I’m OK Doc. The sunsets down here are just like you said. Spectacular.” Doc asked me about how the RV was working out. I paid for it out of the insurance settlement from Dwayne’s company. Two million dollars. It’s what I’ve been living off since what they call an accident happened. Blood money, if you ask me. Blood money that’s paying for these amazing Florida sunsets.

“Will you send me a painting?” I think Doc Vergaard is genuinely curious. I told him that I would. I promised him I’d mail it from the closest post office in the morning.

Florida is pretty this time of year. I think its proving good for my soul.

March 16, 2016

I mailed off a canvas to the Doc. Had it packaged up in one of those roll up tubes they used to deliver blueprints to the job sites. I’m sure it will get to him in time. I wonder what he’ll think when he sees my sunset. Maybe he won’t like the style. I’m pretty sure he might not. The center piece fell over again tonight. It was a little harder to set the scene back up this time. The swamp critters are more interested than when I first pulled up in the RV. Maybe they like the smell.

March 17, 2016

The sunset tonight was just amazing. It was full of reds and purples, and some lightning! I made sure I took a digital photo so I could get all the details. I shot about 100 frames and then went through them. Frame 18 was a really big spike. It went all the way down to the ground and blazed up. I got every detail of the tree on fire at the bottom. My center piece almost seemed irrelevant next to the glory of that strike. I have to admit, that sometimes, I wonder if there isn’t a god directing the show. But then I think of Becca and Ava. Strike. You’re out. Nah. It can’t be. If there is something, it or them doesn’t or don’t care about what happens down here.

March 18, 2016

The center piece is starting to look wilted. I’ve been watering it, but not enough. That’s all part of the plan though. Still life in decay.

March 19, 2016

I haven’t been eating enough, and when the center piece fell over this time, it was really hard to set everything back up. I had to re-asses the plan and take a break. I missed the sunset, but it was necessary. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I made myself Boom Boom meatballs and felt better. I finished sunset six around 2 a.m. and fell into a deep sleep devoid of dreams. I haven’t slept this soundly since the “accident.”

March 20, 2016

On the road. The project is complete! I’m so glad that Doc Vergaard encouraged me to come down here. Something about this week has felt right from the beginning. I left my still life scene feeling serene. I think it died sometime last night. That was the plan. Start with seven ounces of water and then reduce it by one ounce a day until we reached zero. Dwayne made a perfect centerpiece for those seven sunsets I painted. I feel so much better. At the end, his desiccated body made me feel like everything under the sun was in its right place. Most beautiful sunset of my life.

My painting is dry, rolled and ready to mail from Okeechobee. I wonder what Vergaard will think of it.

Highlands, North Carolina

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Forty-four hundred feet above sea level. We’re sitting in comfortable plastic and aluminum chairs next to a rushing stream in a magnolia forest. Winter is coming on, the temperature mild and the fresh air mixed with our camp smoke are incredibly aromatic. They are smells I thrive on. This sun is starting to dip, and a gentle breeze is coming across the ridges all around us. Kimber, Low, Simmons, and me. We’re old men now, the only ones left from the time over there.

Baghdad. We spent a year together, in the way back. A year in which the sound of things exploding seemed more common to me then gunfire, which I don’t tend to think of as an explosion, but more of a controlled detonation. Although I have to admit, a lot of the trigger fingers in Baghdad weren’t starting controlled explosions during that year. More like panicked ones.

I think all of us knew, somehow, that this would be the last trip to Highlands. We’re old now, and we want our comfort. Plus. What happened.

Kimber was the first sergeant. Low, Simmons and me were one section in his public affairs team. Our job, reporting on the war from inside the war. I suppose it was important. But it was also a heaping helping of bullshit. We weren’t reporting from an unbiased perspective. We were mouthpieces for men who loved metrics and spin. You know the type, I’m sure. They act as talking heads on the boob tube daily, even though all that shit happens in holovision now. War isn’t the same when you’re projected right into the middle of it. It’s harder for those power mongering fucks to start wars these days. An invasion in holovision, well, you can’t control the footage that gets out of a war like that, and it shakes people up a lot more than what they got to hear and see back in 2005. I had a fucking panic attack for the first time in 20 years the first time I watched Dark Descends on Baghdad in holo. Fuck, that brought it back.

Mortar attack, Christmas, twenty o’ five. I ran for my life. Ran like I never had before in all that rattletrap bullshit gear they gave me to wear. Wished I wasn’t wearing anything but some track shoes. The ones who weren’t wearing body armor made it into the bunker precious seconds ahead of me. That fucking war movie sent me right back into the moment. Whooooop. The sound of  a mortar coming in is something you never forget after the first one lands near you. Your brain trains itself to get running the instant that whooooop starts. Cause you know more of them are coming behind and you better be inside a concrete structure quick.

I was proud when the IVAW got that Pentagon rule about showing wounded and dead troops rescinded. People need to see what the ones in charge are responsible for. On all sides of any given argument or dispute. I believed it then, and I still believe it now. It gets a lot hard to make bad decisions when the results are right there in your living room, in full holo. Those nicer units give you the smells too, and believe you me, the smells of war will make a protestor out of you. I think the Chinese incursion of 2030 had a lot to do with that policy being rescinded too, while I’m rambling. Alaska being renamed New Hainan kind of shook things up and made us take a step back when it came to being the world’s loudest blowhards.

Kimber is a human piece of shit. We’ve been doing this trip once or twice a year since we got back alive in 2005. This is the first time Kimber made it. Why?

We all hate him. Plus, he’s been incarcerated until recently, so even if we’d gone crazy and asked him to come along, he wouldn’t have been able. Couple years after the unit got back from the sandbox he got arrested for touching his stepdaughter.

No one was surprised except Kimber. Fifty shades of self-delusion and an untouchables complex that stood a foot taller than he did. This guy. Kimber. What a bull necked, hard-headed, misogynistic, crude loudmouth. Or just bully for short. Big guy. Of the kind that goes sorta soft around 30. Fat rolls around all the vitals. Running up into the neck. Enough size and muscle to push the medium size guys around still, but would go down hard if a real brawler showed up. Kimber was a real pro when it came to using verbal threats and cajoling to get things done.

He used to trade favors over there. “Hey,” he’d say, “I’ll get my guys to write a story about you, a real good one, that you can send to the fam back home. You get me some better meals.” Shit like that. He wrote himself up for a bronze star at the end of our year. It got approved. You know, connections. Fucker stayed under cover in a fortified parking garage the whole time we were there, but the commendation didn’t mention that. Bronze stars are supposed to be for folks who actually take risks and achieve something that means something. The first sergeant didn’t take any risks, and he sure as shit didn’t achieve a damn thing unless it somehow made him more comfortable or forwarded his career somehow. He spent all his time handing danger out to us, and he enjoyed the hell out of it. One week it was a story in Mosul, the next in Mamudiya. We’d come back in one piece somehow, and have to listen to his endless critiques about our shortcomings as war reporters. He liked to use massive, ripping farts as punctuation marks for the creative verbal beatdowns that flowed unceasingly out of his mouth along with foul smelling breath.

He liked to touch us inappropriately, pretending he was some sort of crossbred father/teacher/wiseman, and that he was only telling us how much we sucked because he wanted to make us better at what we did. Bop in, put an arm around your shoulder all friendly like, and start talking in a low conspiratorial voice about whatever his latest great idea to fuck us all over happened to be. By the end of our year in hell with him as the main decision maker, I lost count of how many times I’d fantasized about shooting him in the back of the head just to shut him up.

There was one guy, Escridida, who was from Guam or somewhere, I can’t remember for sure, and had a hard to understand accent. Short little guy who talked really fast and got nervous often, which made him screw up the simplest tasks. Escridida made it through the year in Baghdad. He ate a bullet about three months later. I’ve always believed it had something to do with the fact that Kimber spent a year riding his ass and mocking his accent. Truth be told, the guy was hard to understand, but none of us are perfect, and most of us don’t need someone riding our ass about it 24/7. Kimber and Escridida were only one rank apart, but Kimber treated that poor guy like he was a private. Fucking asshole.

He was more than a standard issue fucking asshole though. He drew energy from the simple pleasure of making everyone under his control as miserable as possible. How we all got through those missions he sent us on for a year unscathed is something I still wrestle with. Touch of survivor’s guilt. I’m pretty sure of that. We weren’t really unscathed. More like the scars just weren’t visible. They were there, and lots of things would make them scream. The scars he put on us were up in our grey matter. Most people don’t jump under a table in a restaurant when the server drops a plate and it shatters. I’ve been doing that for a couple of decades.

Kimber found Jesus when he got pinched for touching little girls. He served 27 on a 30-year sentence. It happened about three years after we got home. While he sat in jail talking to Jesus, Low and I went to the VA for counseling and to get some of the road wear looked at. I ended up on the middle of that scale they use to calculate just how fucked up you are from going to war. Only fifty percent fucked up. Yeah, that’s me. I get a little extra paycheck at the end of every month, and have been for a good long while.

You might be wondering why the three of us were sitting around that little campfire with a guy each of us hated with a passion. I was too, back on that night. Kimber always was a good cajoler and convincer. Even though we hated him, I gotta admit he’s a good talker. He told us that he wanted to talk about Baghdad and make some amends. You know, like those AA guys are supposed to do. Apologies won’t do much for Escridida, was what I was thinking, but Low and Simmons wanted to hear him out, so I grudgingly said yes, he could come along and have a heart to heart if that’s what they wanted.

Anyhow, he made his apology, while we were all sipping on some Jim Beam. It didn’t sit right with me, mostly because of the way he kicked it off. Nothing he did really ever sat right with me. I gotta admit that. Don’t start an apology by telling someone that you’re not guilty. Don’t tell three people you put through hell that you didn’t touch little girls, that it was just she made the story up because she got in trouble. I’ve heard enough of his horse shit to know when he’s lying, and when’s he twisting up reality. Plus, while I didn’t attend the trial, I read the court transcripts. He was guilty as shit, and he’d been doing it a good long while. He messed both of their heads up, bad.

I let him finish telling the three of us what Jesus did to make him a better man, and how sorry he was about the way he treated us back in Baghdad. I only asked him one thing.

“Did you send us on missions out of the wire just to get in good with people?”

He lied and said no, that all those missions, especially the hot ones, came from the major. It disgusted me. I’m not sure quite how to put how gross the man made me feel inside into words. I’d heard him plotting through the thin trailer walls on phone calls more than once. He sent Pincher to Fallujah for a week just so he could get on some pogue run to the biggest PX in the city, and buy who the hell knows what. Probably some goddamn Xbox game. Pincher came back different. Fallujah was real hot back then. Lots of stuff flying around. Pincher saw things people really aren’t supposed to see. He told me one of them. About the wounded enemy laying in the street. What it sounded like when the Abrams ran over his head and it went pop. Pincher told me about what the brains felt like running down the inside of his uniform collar. And how the pulp went real far and got on everything.

There was no plan. I’d swear to that. Not that night. I got up and said, “who needs a refill?” I was thinking about Jim Beam. Everybody held their cups out. I went around the circle and filled. Kimber was the last one. When he leaned back to take a nip, he smacked his lips and something broke. Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking.

When I looked down, I realized that I’d put my Benchmade into his gut. That Benchmade has got me out of some shit over the last 30 years. Kimber looked down and dropped his plastic cup. A waste of good alcohol, if you ask me.

First, I didn’t feel anything at all. Then, I felt the need to get my knife back. It’s expensive, and well made, and I am never without it. I pulled it out real hard so it wouldn’t hang up on anything. The back is serrated. Kimber, even though he’d shrunk an inch or two from getting old, was still way bigger than I ever hoped to be. He tried to grab me. I just put one arm on his face and pushed.

That’s what another thing I wasn’t expecting happened. Low and Simmons put their knives in him too. They went for the neck. He bled out in maybe a little less than a minute. Couldn’t talk. He was trying, but nothing came out except some air, and a lot of blood. You cut on either side like that, and it’s over quick. It was done, and we just looked at each other when he fell backwards into the camp chair with his mouth open in a way that felt obscene to me.

We dragged him a good half-mile, dug a hole, dumped him in. I told Jesus how sorry Kimber was for all the wrong he’d done. We burned the camp chair because it was easier than trying to clean all his blood off.

It’s been about a year since that night, and I just had to write down what happened. It’s what I do. No one ever came looking for him. I don’t think anyone cared enough to do that. The three of us have never discussed what happened, and we never will.

I don’t know if this story has any lesson in it, but every word of it’s the truth and I needed to write it down. I still have a conscience. Somewhere deep, it’s telling me that maybe what we did needs the light of day. I slept good in my tent that night though. Better than I had since 2005. My night terrors and the teeth grinding rarely pay a visit now.

Sometimes the wrong things die, and sometimes they don’t. I’m just a guy who tells stories. I’ll let you sort out which kind are what.

The faceless

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It’s a hot day. Not the kind of hot you know. The kind of hot only Satan could have dreamed up. The air is dry. No breeze. Everything outside is baking. Eight in the morning and the temperature is just creeping over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We’ll hit 130 in the shade later. If only heat was my biggest problem.

Today, I’m going outside the wire. To the place where all the abuse happened. They call it Abu Ghraib. A prison. A place of hopelessness. The generals want me there to show that we don’t beat and torture people there anymore. That progress is happening. A prisoner release with media coverage. That’s my job today. I’ll take pictures and sing them a happy song made of words. About how great and beneficent we are. I’ll be fascinated by the truth beneath the pastiche and hate my role as the troubador of bullshit.

We will be driving through the most violent place on earth. An occupied city called Baghdad. One of the oldest settled places on the planet, where millions are currently involved in what the leadership of the occupation calls a “low intensity civil war.” I wonder how the thousands dying in that war each month would feel about the description of their murders.

I am a coward scheduled to ride inside an armored bus they call “the Rhino.” Tons of steel and air conditioning with convenient gun ports for shooting comfortably at any attackers. The ride will be more than an hour, on roads that are swept daily for evidence of bombs. Yet I am afraid. I know from personal experience that no one is immune to the numerous types of bombs that the occupiers are constantly being attacked with. I am an occupier to most of Baghdad. The ones who don’t actively hate me are mostly indifferent to whether I live or die. They have their own survival to worry about, and none of them live inside a protected, fortified perimeter like I do.

No, the average Iraqi lives in a city full of gangs, bandits and murder squads. They are subjected to a dusk to dawn curfew where uniformed gangs roam and terrorize. Some of the gangs are trying to make things better and others are just there for revenge. Sunnis were in charge for 30 plus years. The ethnic minority, they had all the privileges. Now the Shia are in charge, and they want revenge for being oppressed. If the Americans don’t break down the door and take away all the fighting age males in your house it might be one of the other gangs. If you’re Sunni, the Shia might come and take your brother or father away. They’ll tie his hands behind his back and put a power drill up to his skull and start drilling holes in his head. Take whatever information they can and then put a bullet or six in him. Or if you’re Shia, the Sunni might blow up your car while you are on your way to work. It’s a back and forth. Both sides hate each other passionately. Both sides pay lip service to the occupiers and make bombs to attack the foreigners with.

The convoy leaves on schedule. Schedules are important to us. We are sandwiched into our armored box on wheels. In the front and in the back are Humvees with machine guns mounted in the turrets. I would hate to be one of those guys. Bullet magnets.

We drive through the maze that exits our “Green Zone” and enter the world most who were born here have to live in. We call it the Red Zone. They call it hell. Eyes take note of us. Thousands of eyes. Dark eyes. I can feel them boring into the armor and penetrating the thick glass that is designed to stop projectiles. The hate is palpable. It settles onto me like a heavy weight. My chest sinks. My heart beats faster. I wonder if today will be the day. Every day feels like it might the last day here.

These people are fatalistic about death. I am not. I do not want to die. I do not want to be torn apart by a blast. Two days ago I was knocked down by one while in the shower. The concussive force of a car bomb a mile away rattled the trailer I live in so much that it was lifted up and then slammed back down. When I got back up from that, I found myself trembling. The aftermath made it worse. A thick column of black smoke outside attended by the attack helicopters that always swarm like angry bees to watch over the rescue responders on the ground. They told me after that explosion was a targeted attack on policemen waiting to collect their monthly pay. Many of them were ripped to shreds. And I am afraid it is my turn now.

The others on this bus annoy me. Some pray. I do not believe praying will make any difference. Sometimes I do it anyhow but only because it is an old ritual. Some talk to avoid introspection. I avoid them. I do not want to make small talk to pass the time while waiting to die. I sit in the back, with the interpreters. If anyone on this bus is hated more than the occupiers, it is the people who speak for them.

One of the men talks to me. “Where are you from,” he asks? I tell him I am from everywhere. It’s true. I have lived all over the world. I claim no place as my own. He tells me about his family. How his brother, father, uncles and cousins have been killed since the occupation begins. He wants to leave Iraq. That is his only goal. To get a visa to go to Europe or the United States. He wants to get away from his city. He wants to leave his country. I understand. Not everyone here is a fatalist. He doesn’t want to die for nothing. Like all the males in his family have.

I give him my e-mail address and tell him I’ll try to help. We arrive at the prison. Behind rusty barbed wire and chain link fences, hundreds of men are milling. They are quiet, calm and carefully watched. The air crackles with their energy. It stinks of their sweat. I see a man in a wheelchair. He has no legs. I wonder what he possibly could have done to be locked up in this sweltering hell. Hundreds of eyes watch me. Some are guarded, some are cold, but all are interested. They see my camera. Many turn their faces away, to avoid being captured in the lens.

Guards around the perimeter hassle me. “No cameras,” says one. He has a Mossberg shotgun. I show him my badge authorizing the camera. He grimaces but shuts up and walks off. I walk the fence line trying to shoot through the fences, trying to focus on the eyes of the prisoners. I am frustrated. I climb into a guard tower after making small talk with one of them. He becomes accommodating when I take his picture. There are always some like him. They want to be recognized. They are proud of the freedom they bring to foreign lands. Of the bad guys they stop.

A politician begins speaking. Then some generals. The foreign general goes first. Then the Iraqi general. I don’t know what they are saying but I know it is mostly bullshit. I take a few pictures. That is required. The commanding officer will want at least one photo of these people to make himself look good to them. I can hear him ingratiating himself now, in his deep drawl. He believes Jesus wants him here to help these ignorant people who are too stupid to manage their own country.

The gates of the prison open. The guards tense, ready for any trouble. Men begin to emerge from the pen. They stink. The temperature has risen to near 120 degrees now. I am sweating freely and drinking water non-stop. Running around with my camera. One man is clutching a Quran, his fingers spasmodic, his lips pursed in prayer. The legless man is pushed awkwardly through the double gates by a fellow prisoner. I wonder if they are friends, or if some guard just said, “Hey you, push the legless guy. Now!” I wonder if he had to wave a shotgun around to get taken seriously. I wonder what these guys did to get locked up in a sandy cage where the heat cooks them all day every day. And I remember the pictures. Of the ones my fellow soldiers beat and tortured and made into human pyramids covered in their own excrement. I am sad, but I keep snapping the photos and taking my notes so I can write a story about how great we are now at freeing prisoners who have promised not to rabble rouse anymore.

I see haunted eyes among the faces. Other men have hopeful eyes. A few look desperate to get away from this place. Some are fighting their own urges to run to the waiting buses. I am getting dizzy from the heat. Many of them are wearing towels on their heads but I have to wear a Kevlar helmet. It’s heavy and doesn’t allow any airflow. Eventually, I am finished photographing and taking notes. Four hundred men are distributed onto buses that will take them to different parts of the city where they will meet family members and be reunited. I wonder how many of these men have no family members left. Then my retinue is back inside our armored, air conditioned bus. The recently freed prisoners get to ride in non air-conditioned, unarmored charter buses that look like should have been put in a junkyard 20 years ago. The temperature is nearing 130 degrees. I am spent. I sit in the back of the bus again, and prepare to cross the world’s most violent city back to my bubble of unreality where we can swim in a dictator’s pool and sing karaoke at night while the life flight choppers bring the injured and dying in over our heads from all around.

I am somber. I hear a bomb go off somewhere far away. Gunfire punctuates the moments all around us. These sounds have been my normal for months. I look at Ali, the interpreter. His eyes are sad, haunted. He goes to sleep. I wonder what he will dream about. Maybe his dead uncle, whom he said was very funny. His favorite person in the whole world. Murdered with a gunshot to the back of the head and dropped off in the street in front of his house, a piece of rotting meat.

I drink water.

The bomb goes off unexpectedly, ripping the world to shreds. Dozens die in the 130 degree heat. But today is not my day. And the target is not my convoy. Instead, one of the buses full of prisoners is attacked by a suicide car bomber as it pulls into the depot where waiting family members stand. Men, women and children are blown into pieces. I see the pictures later and wonder if the legless man was on that bus or another one. I’ll never know. I see him in my dreams sometimes. His thick glasses falling down the brim of his brown nose and the scars on the nubs where his legs used to be. I sobbed for him once. And for myself.

Now, years later, all those prisoners are blurring in my mind. They are becoming faceless ghosts who haunt me everywhere I go. I wish I could tell you each of their stories, but I can only tell you mine. Sometimes I wonder if Ali the interpreter made it out alive. He never e-mailed me.

Hemlock

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You did this. You bastard. Things would have been fine if you could have acted decent once in a while. Why did you insist on drinking all the time? Why did you insist on beating me? I hate you. I always will. It didn’t start that way. I used to love you with everything I had. You used to love me too. At least I think you did.

Back in high school, you were so gentle. At least I thought you were. You didn’t hit me until later. I knew you had a mean streak in you though. I remember when you kicked your dog. What was his name? Jack. That’s it. When you kicked Jack for shitting on the carpet. He couldn’t help it, and you broke his ribs. I remember thinking maybe that was too harsh. I had no idea you would be breaking my ribs too, just a few years later. You fucker.

You were such a sweet talker. So full of promises. You told me you’d buy me that cabin in the mountains. Why did we end up in a duplex in the valley? Because of you. Your goddamn temper made sure you couldn’t hold down a job. And you decided I needed to be constantly pregnant. How did you think I could hold a job when I was constantly preggers? Six children, you gave me. You fool. We couldn’t afford one child, let alone six. You cursed us to poverty. You cursed us to mediocrity.

If I didn’t love books, you would have undone me. I’d probably be dead right now because of you. You beat me within an inch of my life so many times I can’t count. But I’m resilient. I always came back from the beatings. You scarred me, but you never broke me. You worked me over good, but you never won. The six kids did more lasting physical damage than you did.

You. I’m not sure where it started to go wrong with you. Long before you broke Jack’s ribs and punched out a few of my teeth when I questioned you not paying the rent. I suspect you were broken when you came out of the womb. Your mom used to tell me that you were special. I think she was willfully ignorant when she said that. You were just mean. I’m guessing you used to get your jollies torturing small animals before we met and you whispered all those sweet lies to me. You deserve to rot in hell.

Why am I even talking to you anymore. You’ve given me everything I needed. I should just walk away. I don’t know why I’m standing her explaining anything to you. I should walk away. But for some reason I feel the need to stand here. You have to listen now. It is my turn. Shut up. You just shut up.

When you started hitting Shelly, I knew I had to do something. She is only seven years old, for God’s sake. I let you sucker me, and that’s my fault. But Shelly didn’t have a choice. You had no right to beat our child like that. She had no control. The doctors told you. I told you. She has nocturnal enuresis. It would have resolved but I think you were the main cause of it. You scared her. You shouted at her. You lurched around the house drunk and mean. They all hate you. I didn’t do that. You did that.

In the summer, I started researching. Hemlock seemed the easiest. I considered dimethylmercury, but it is too hard to get. Arsenic is too easy to test for. There were other choices, but hemlock seeds were easy to order. If you have taught me anything, you’ve taught me patience. I grew the plants in our backyard. It took four days to ship from Ohio. It took a year to get the plants big enough. You made fun of the plants, like you made fun of all the things in my garden. And you kept on being your rotten self. Treating me like dirt, and treating our children like a curse. You were foul that whole summer while the hemlocks sprouted.

When I started to mix the flowers into your meals, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. You got sick that night. Threw up a lot and complained that it was my fault. You weren’t serious, but you were certainly correct about that much. I did make you sick. I made you very sick. That whole month, I experimented with dosages. I got things just right so that you were too weak to be yourself anymore. But not so weak that you couldn’t suffer through it.

Remember that time you raped me? The first time? The one you apologized for? That was the last time you apologized for anything you did to me, to our children. You blamed your actions on the alcohol, but that was just a cover story. You always take whatever you can, whenever you think you can. I never forgave you for that. The insurance policy was my idea. Do you remember? No, of course not. You took the blood tests and I paid the premiums. So you wouldn’t think about it. I can’t believe I used to love you. You beat the love right out of me.

Tomorrow, they are going to pay out on the policy. George, John, Jr., Susan, Shelly, Michael and Tom are never going to have to cringe from you again. I’m glad I killed you. Now we have a chance at a real life. All the good you are ever going to do started the moment I decided you had been punished enough. I’ll never forgive you. I take no comfort from the fact that you are lying in the ground rotting. Your ugly face still haunts me. Your fists still pound me awake in the night. You voice still rattles around in my head. Sometimes, I wish I could kill you all over again, just to make sure you cannot come back.

Goodbye John. May you rot in hell. The children and I are going to the pound after we get the check. We’re going to get a dog no one wants. We’re going to name him Jack. He’s going to have a good life John. I’ll never come back here to visit your grave again. I hope it’s lonely where you are.

Whispers

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Born near the sea on a black stormy night during the winter, Abaddon’s emergence into the world was accompanied by a loud thunderclap. The walls of the mud hut where his father, Argos, a fisherman, watched anxiously as the midwife pulled Abaddon into the world, were shaking from the force of the winds. Icy missiles struck the roof as the blue-eyed, fair-haired boy emerged from his mother’s womb.

Rachel spoke when the midwife lifted and slapped the boy into crying life.

“May the same storms that accompanied him into the world guide and carry him always.”

The midwife shook her head, and spat. But that did not matter. It came to pass that Rachel’s words were prophetic.

Rachel doted on the boy. The boy doted on life, and the wonder of being alive. He learned to walk, then speak, then fish, and then read. The fisherman and his wife owned only one book. It was a treatise of the Milesian school of thought concerning the rise of all life from water. Abaddon read it hundreds of times. He learned all the names of the creatures in the sea. He learned how to tell what mood the sea was in by the color of the water, and by the motion of the waves.  From the book, Abaddon learned the knowledge of how to dive, and make himself heavy and light in the water. He began to swim for hours, then days. He would go out beyond the reefs and dive deep. By his tenth year, he was swimming out to his father’s fishing boat, catching up to it after it had been gone for two or three days. He would bring the book in a waterproof satchel, and read to Argos and the silent partner, Orto, who could not read.

Orto would stop working and listen. His craggy face would grow intent, and he would suck on his pipe. Unconsciously. He would almost go limp, entranced, his head wreathed in a cloud of smoke. The stories from the book made Orto’s eyes dance while the rest of his body almost forgot it was alive. Argos loved that power in his son’s voice, so he tolerated Orto’s lack of attention to the nets, and did his partner’s work in addition to his own while the boy read.

After reading the stories of how all life comes from the sea, Abaddon would share a meal of bread and fish with his father and the older fisherman. While Orto told him what a good and special boy he was, he would listen from his father’s lap. The old man’s gnarled hands would come together respectfully after his lips ceased praising the boy. Then, Abaddon would carefully pack up the precious book in his satchel, gravely shake each man’s hand, and dive into the sea. Just before he leapt from the small boat, the boy would salute and say, “I return to my mother.” And then he would swim with the dolphins, or dive to deep places no one else could go. Sometimes, when he arrived back on the shore, he would be carrying strange pearls, or other small treasures he had taken from the sea. Rachel’s smile would light up her face when this happened. Abaddon’s mother was much too beautiful to be a fisherman’s wife. Her red hair and fair complexion were the envy of the fishing village’s women. Rachel’s beauty was the undoing of everything.

One day, when Abaddon was 11, and had become renowned  along the entire coast for his swimming and diving exploits, a ship appeared on the horizon. It was a strange affair. Bigger than any local ship, and crewed by men rowing oars.  The sails were black and white. All the local ships used red sails. Some villagers sounded an alarm, but it was too late. The ship dislodged a landing party, and the landing party quickly took what it wanted from the town. When Argos the fisherman protested that his wife was not available as loot, he received a sword in his gut for the trouble. It took him hours to die, gasping and groaning in the sand outside his hut.

Rachel became the captain’s new toy, and Abaddon was beaten senseless after a fruitless struggle. When he woke, and protested, he was beaten again. The third time this happened, he saw his mother shaking her head. He stopped resisting, and was put to work as a ship’s boy. In time the ship was done plundering the coastal fishing villages. It began the journey back to wherever it had come from. One night, while Abaddon was cleaning the decks, his long hair falling over his face across his eyes, he noticed someone standing above him. Rachel bent and whispered in his ear. He nodded. She stood and left silently. Abaddon went back to scrubbing, his hands raw from the constant immersion in vinegar and the wood splinters that always jabbed him, no matter how hard he tried to avoid them.

The ship arrived in Silcyas, the greatest city of the three seas, and was heralded. Prisoners were unloaded, and some were sent to the auction blocks. Gregos, the captain, made the decision to keep his new ship’s boy and his concubine. He also kept three of the women from Abaddon’s village as whores for the crew. The rest of the villagers disappeared, never to be seen again. The captain, whose beard was almost always full of bits of food which he would sometimes pick out and then eat, was contemplative.

“Boy,” he shouted. “Come here.”

He glanced at the giant black who served as the ship’s warmaster and first mate.

“Teach the boy the sword, Davos. Every man on Styros fights when we need it.”

And so Abaddon was taught to fight. He learned the warrior’s trade from the very man who had stabbed his father in the stomach with a sword. Abaddon applied himself. He listened intently and only spoke when asked a question, never volunteering any more information than was necessary.

Abaddon read his book, which he had kept. He listened to the whispers his mother brought him from time to time. The two of them never spoke, except for the whispers which she breathed into his ear on dark nights.

The ship stayed in port no more than a few days. It resupplied, refitted as needed, and returned to the water, intent on plundering the shores of the three seas. Gregos, cunning and cold, guided the ship to the places least defended. He knew when and where the ripest fruits were. He plucked the excess food from his beard with his rough fingers and chewed it thoughtfully while instructing Davos on how to split the loot.

“Lash that man, Davos,” Gregos would say, and the man in question would be lashed. Like Abaddon, Davos rarely spoke. He merely nodded and grunted from time to time. His huge rippling shoulders in motion were enough to strike fear into the crew. The sunlight gleaming off of his oiled body sometimes blinded enemies in the heat of battle.

In teaching Abaddon, Davos grew to trust the ship’s boy. In time, he was promoted to the ship’s war crew. More time passed, and Abaddon grew tall and strong. He earned Gregos trust. And Gregos, who had a wife and family back in Silcyas, the greatest city on the three seas, began to think of Abaddon like a son. He allowed his concubine to visit her son, and she whispered to him. Sometimes, when she was done, he read to her from his book of the sea.

Abaddon became so trusted that he was allowed to swim next to the ship, and to disappear when he wished to explore the secrets of the sea. He always came back before he was needed. The crew became used to seeing Abaddon strip off his shirt and dive into the sea. A rope ladder was installed on the side of Styros to facilitate his returns.

One bright day, when the sun was at its hottest, Gregos called his ten best men to come up into the city and eat with him. Davos and Abaddon walked in the lead, side by side, silently. Everyone parted without a thought for the grim pair and their retinue. The ten men arrived, and were greeted by Gregos, his wife, and Gregos’  daughter Apollonia, a beautiful maiden of 15.

Ushered in gracefully, the crew were entertained by household slaves. A long retinue consisting of carnal acts interspersed with displays of skill and culminating in a gladiatorial match ended with a formal meal. Gregos stood, signaling silence.

“Shipmates. I am growing old. I have no son. It is my intention that one of you take my daughter and wed her. In this way, my legacy will live through one of you, my trusted men.”

Coughing, Gregos sat.

“Who volunteers to wed my daughter?”

All ten men stood silenty.

“Who is willing to die to have her?”

Six men sat.

Davos, Abaddon, and two others remained.

“Fight to see who will wed Appallonia.”

Davos struck down the fighter called Appos in a single mighty blow. Rykos fought longer, but as ineffectively against Abaddon, who was now 18, and as feared a swordsman as Davos. Abaddon never gave any indicators of what might happen next. He simply and silently parried every blow Rykos rendered. When that man grew tired, Abaddon struck his head off with a single, sure blow.

Davos and Abaddon rested for a time, and were offered wine. Abaddon shook his head. Davos drank his fill. Then they were joined. Just before their blades touched, Davos said, “The gods are with me Abaddon.”

Abaddon fought with his usual lack of flourish. Every move cold. Every stroke intentional. Davos, his teacher, fought with the wine fire in his belly, and the confidence of a teacher who knows his pupil is not yet ready. And Davos died with a look of surprise on his face when Abaddon blocked his sword blow easily and shoved a small dagger up through his chin and into Davos’ brain. The most feared warrior on the three seas crumpled to his knees and then rolled gently to his left side where he went to the waiting gods.

Quietly, and without emotion, Abaddon whispered, “Return to the mother Davos.” And that is where the three crewmen were buried by their shipmates the next day. Davos, Rykos and Appos returned to the mother, shrouded in cloth and rope. They fed the sea for its service to them. Gregos and the crew watched silently while Abaddon oversaw the burial.

After, Rachel appeared and whispered in her son’s ear.

The marriage was scheduled for the next week, to be held at sea. A good omen to overshadow the passing of three crewmen. At the feast, the entire crew became ill and died violently, racked by heaving and uncontrollable spasms. Only Gregos, his wife and Appalonia were spared the violent end. Shocked and confused, they rushed from one dying man to another, pleading and begging with them not to go to the gods. But go they all did, within minutes of one another. On a deck awash with bile, the sure footed Abaddon approached Gregos.

“You owes lives to the sea, my dear captain. I am collecting the debt now.”

Rachel watched as the old man fought desperately. When her son finished breaking both of the captain’s arms with sharp blows from the flat of his blade, the captain knelt. His useless arms dangling, and his face contorted in pain, he pleaded for mercy.

“The sea shows no mercy. My mother has none either.”

With those words, Abaddon cut open the stomach of Gregos wife and threw her overboard.

“My lovely bride,” he said, turning to a horrified Appallonia. “I fear I will never know your pleasures. Go to my mother, and please her instead of me.”

And the Abaddon cut off Appallonia’s hands and threw her into the water. Rachel whispered something in his ear, and he nodded.

Abaddon sailed Styros back to the village where his father had once tried to defend his mother, and burned the ship in the harbor. He returned to his shack, and lived there with his mother.

Years passed. Every day, Rachel whispered to Abaddon. Every day, he swam out into the water, looking for his father’s boat, diving and gathering necessities from the sea. In the evenings, son and mother would share the fire and fresh caught fish silently, mourning their loss together.  Abaddon read from the book the explained how we all come from the sea, and sometimes, just before they slept, Rachel would whisper something into his ear again.

One night the sea leapt up and swept both of them into her arms, taking them home, down into the places where Abaddon had dived as a child. Down to where no storms ever reached. To where Argos waited in the embrace of the mother of us all. To where Abaddon and Rachel wanted most to be. In the arms of eternity with the fisherman.