penfist

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short story

Dinner in Kabul

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I spent some time in Afghanistan working for NATO. There are many places in the world that have a high quotient of misery, and I have lived in a few of them. Where we happen to be born, and also when, largely determines the kind of opportunities that will or will not present themselves during our individual lifetime.

He had no legs below the knees. I do not know how he learned the words of English that he said to me.

“Mister, mister, please help me.”

I had seen him coming. Our whole group had seen him coming. He pulled himself towards us on a piece of wood with wheels bolted to the underside. His ragged jeans were rolled up and pinned where his legs ended abruptly. We were on our way to a dinner hosted by our military bosses. It was inside a heavily fortified area we had no parking clearance for. He picked me, out of our group of more than a dozen.

I was in a bad mood. My back hurt, and we had spent several hours fighting Kabul’s insane traffic, moving across the city from our hotel to this base for a dinner I didn’t really want to be a part of.

“I need medicine. I need doctor.” His outstretched hands grasped up at me. He tried to hold onto my pants. Black eyes pleading for something, anything better than his current existence.

I pushed him away with my own functional legs.

He tried again. “Mister, mister.”

“Yawazi mee pregda! Leave me alone.”

He didn’t leave me alone. He visits me often when I sleep, rolling towards me, saying, “Mister, mister, please help me.”

My quotient of misery, on his rolling board, always pulling on my pant legs. Reminding me to be a little better than I am next time.

I don’t remember what dinner tasted like.

Density propensity

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I was taking the subway home. Like I do every day after work.

I work for an organization that uses technology in ways. Well, let’s just say what I do isn’t considered legal or ethical. In a world where 100 multi-billionaires control 62% of the earth’s wealth, I could give a fuck about what’s considered legal or ethical.

I have a family to take care of, and bills to pay. I use my talents to get what I can, keep my family fed, and keep our quality of life as high as I can. No one’s getting hurt. I just skim money out of the system using my technical and social abilities. Backdoors, phishing expeditions, social engineering. These are my domains. I have a good crew. The operation that employs me pays good bonuses when I do a good job. My kids don’t wear shoes with holes in the soles. They aren’t malnourished. We’ve got mad bandwidth and they can learn whatever they want about the world.

Meanwhile, I’m taking a little here, and a little there. Rich people don’t need that much. So I shave a little bit off, carve a slice out, make a piece of the pie mine.

This world is crazy. It’s people cutting each other’s throats, just like it always has been, except now we do it in a vast ocean of zeros and ones. People don’t have to get dead in the streets and alleys like they did back in the olden days. You know what? That’s alright with me. People get paid, bank accounts get switched around here and there.

Oh shit. Mother fucker just stabbed me. I was taking the subway home.

Minding my own business. Bam. Dude comes up on me. It doesn’t hurt. Just cold. Spreading cold. That mother fucker.
My monitor flashes a red warning and I hear a voice in my head. “Biological damage detected. Emergency protocol active. Hibernation mode priority one.”

I can’t see right. Can’t hear right. It’s like I’m in a tunnel going down into the dark and that mother fucker is getting smaller and smaller. Did he just kill me? What the fuck for? I wasn’t doing nothing to him. Oh shit. I’m not going to get to say goodbye to Brianne and Jonas and little baby Paco. This really sucks. What the fuck?

“Tomas. Tomas, can you hear me?”

I realize that yes, I can hear someone talking to me.

“That you Jonesy?”

“No shit it’s me. How you feelin?” I feel someone touching me. Holy shit. Either I’m not dead, or Jonesy and I are both dead and made it across to the after.

I think about it. Run a systems check without realizing that I’ve engaged it. The voice says, “Systems no longer critical. Running full diagnostic. Please stand-by.”

“Brianne called us when you were late.” Jonesy. “She was upset. ‘He’s never late. Never.’ That’s what she said when I took the call. ‘Something’s wrong Jonesy. I know you got him chipped. Go get him! If you don’t I’m gonna kill you.’”
They really like each other. She’d never threaten him if she didn’t think something was seriously fucked.

“You know I like her Tomas. You got a good woman. Man, if you wasn’t with her, I’d get with her. You know that shit is true.”

I do know that shit is true. I seen those two looking at each other. If she didn’t love me so much, and we didn’t have them two kids, she’d get with him. I might even be alright with it. If I wasn’t around. Shit, life is short. Too short not to have some love.

I cough. Try to speak. My throat. It’s so dry. Feels like it’s full of sand.

“You found that motherfucker that stabbed me?” I welcome my voice, despite the discomfort it causes me.

“Relax Tomas. Just take it easy. He got you right in the liver. We had to call in a favor with OmegaCorp. They printed you a new liver while you was bleeding out. Hey man! Carlos came down and donated two liters of his blood to keep you from dying man. That Carlos. I know what I said about him last month, but that vato is alright. I take back all that shit I said. You owe him man.”

I think about what I’m hearing. Open my eyes. Look at him through the heads up display. He looks tired.
“Jonesy, man. I’m glad it was you. Hey man. I got questions. Was this about the Princeps Corps job?”
Jonesy shakes his head.

“No man. This shit is payback for that Russian thing we did last year.”

I close my eyes. Think back. Mother fucker. That guy on the subway looked like he was related to Pavel.  I open my eyes.
“You’re talking about the Lisin thing?” Jonesy nods. “I thought so.”

That mother fucker and all those Russian mother fuckers. I have a family to feed. They’re worth more than 15 billion nuEuros. It isn’t enough that we’re on the brink of an environment that won’t sustain human existence. It’s not enough that we fought a world war that extinguished 80% of the planetary population just two decades ago. No, we’re still stabbing each other with metal alloys over fractions of fractions.

“I’m calling in my favors Jonesy. I want all the processing cores I’ve saved. Upload me into the mesh network. There’s hell to pay.”

He hesitates. I can see it in his eyes and I know what’s coming.

“Jonesy. She’s waiting for me to call. She wants to bring them to see you.”

I harden my resolve. Some people just have a density propensity. I’m not one of those. Not me. From now on, I’m a ghost in the machine, and I’m going to ramp up the income redistribution to a whole new level.

Fuck my freshly printed replacement liver. I was just taking the subway home. Mother fucker should have minded his own damn business. Don’t care who he works for. He’s freshly slaughtered meat now.

Is it legal? I don’t care. Is it ethical? Couldn’t give a shit. I have a family to take care of. I’ve told you what that means to me a million times Jonesy. Now it’s your turn. Cause there’s hell to pay and I’m the devil.

Radio chatter

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You’re not going to believe me, and that’s OK. I really don’t believe it myself. I’m writing it down because I have to. I don’t know how much time I have. There isn’t anywhere to run.

I listen to those app scanners on my phone. Used to listen. The police scanners. You can choose from all over the place. All the big cities and some of the medium ones. I used to like listening to Chicago PD. It’s amazing how calm all of them stay. The professionals who keep society from fraying. I wouldn’t want to face the kind of grind they do. Constantly dealing with people who are on the edge of disaster, or have gone over the waterfall completely.

The situations play out in ways more macabre than any reality show writer could come up with. The questions and conversations baffled and fascinated me all at once.

“Seven children being taken into protective custody. Parents argumentative. Need assistance at 1024 Roberts. 10-4.”

“I have a recovered box of stolen items. Do I need to hold it for fingerprinting?”

“What’s in the box?”

“Clothing.”

“They can’t print clothing.”

“Short hair, hoodie, dark jeans, white shoes.”

“Time for a shift change. Good night everyone, and get home safe.”

Male voices. Female voices. Impassively discussing the fragility of civilization and the bad behavior of the days and nights in the cities where they act as counterweights to every type of bad behavior imaginable. It’s a show, and I’m in the audience nearly every night.

Or was. Until I tuned in last week. I dialed up Chicago PD, except that’s not what I got. Something got snarled up.

“What’s the status of the shipment?” I couldn’t place the accent on the male voice. Perfect English. Like too perfect. Everything enunciated crisply. Like someone who isn’t from anywhere at all. Maybe someone who has lived everywhere and been to some kind of school that teaches you to talk perfectly.

“Shipment due at 2300. Agent is in place to receive.”

“What about the entry team?”

“We’re go. Team is assembled three clicks from insertion. Status yellow. Will go green when shipment has been delivered and QAed. Primary and secondary extraction plans look good. Six approved.”

The feed squelched. Then I heard, “Passing 5100 block of Walcott. Wearing green shirt and blue jeans. Wanted for eluding police. One Amelia Anderson. She is a 27-year-old female, short blonde hair, blue eyes.”

“Two male blacks aggressively panhandling and grabbing people walking by. They have a bottle of whiskey.”

“Rolling northbound.”

“Thank you units.”

“The kill order is confirmed. We are Romeo, Echo, Alpha, Delta, Yankee. Will update when the package is in place.”

“Two black males, shoplifting.”

“He’s in the alley going through garbage.”

“This is the leader of the free world we are talking about. This is the highest profile target in the United States. There will be fallout.”

“Three male Hispanics having a loud argument, West Plains and 30th. Six one eddy. Headed to complainant.”

“Stand by a second. Twenty is going east. How is the victim?”

“She’s fine. We’re rolling to the hospital.”

I hear the static of an open mic and then, “Watch your keys, watch your keys. We’ve got an open key.”

I shake my head, trying to make sense of the secondary conversation. Someone must be playing a practical joke. I wonder who will be getting a visit from the Secret Service in a few hours or maybe days. I wonder how they track down trolls making jokes about stuff like this.

“We’re cleared.”

“Two one Robert we need a welfare check. Four two three Robert, who has the plate reader?”

“Thirty-three is coming in with it.”

“Confirmed with the client that there is an individual bonus. Double the standard rate. Whoever gets the best body cam footage of the terminal moments earns triple. Verification that team will be extracted to non-extradition territory per original discussion.”

I shut it off then. I was scared I could get in trouble just for listening. I’m not dumb enough to shout “bomb” in a crowded airport, and I don’t want to be party to people playing jokes that are also felonies. Christ they sounded serious. People. Never cease to amaze me with their stupidity.

I took some NyQuil and lay down in bed. Next day, I checked Google News. Nothing. Trolls. Just trolls.

Except two weeks ago, the President was assassinated. That was less than 72 hours after the weird radio chatter I heard.

I deleted all those scanner apps. Too late.

There are people following me. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what they want. I don’t know who to tell. No one is going to believe me.

I didn’t do anything wrong. You need to know that about me. I was just listening.

The TV news people are saying it was probably the Russians, but I know what Russians sound like. They weren’t Russians. They sounded like broadcast news anchors to me. Broadcast news anchors who kill important people for a living.

Shit. I’m fucked. Maybe all of us are.

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 fire tender

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I have a job to do. The cold creeps around me like the monster it is, always waiting, always worming its way into the circle where we share stories and meals.

They sleep. I watch. This is Chesowanja, and I am the fire tender. Others share my task. Denjoween, Hamrath, Scordus, and Yunnan. They gave us a great task. We who keep the cold at bay, and the sparks from dancing too wildly. We are the ones who fight the most insidious enemy. The nature of flames.

The fire went out once. But first it roared like a lion. Before I was born there came a great wind. In those times, they used to keep the fire alive in a different place. Under the stars, closer to flat places. The cold was great in that season and much snow fell. They had stored enough wood to keep the flames alive through the worst of it.

It betrayed my tribe. Approaching slowly, like a friend, the wind fed the heat with breezes. The fire flickered and danced while most slept. The tender was an old woman, so said my uncle. After, they took her name and threw it away.

Uncle said she drank too much of the heavy milk. It made her tired. The wind tricked her with its gentle caresses. She closed her eyes, thinking it would only be for a moment. But the moment became a minute. The minute turned legion. Then the wind whispered to a spark. The spark followed its nature and jumped across the old woman, landing where the wind guided it. Sparks like to be lied to. They want to fly more than they want anything. I think they know how short their lives are.

We keep them closer now. We have our Way. It must be spoken each time we begin our task, and each time we pass the duty.

We tend the moments, we stir the flickers, we know that the cold wind lies in whispers, waiting. Chance and circumstance are our enemies, and we are vigilant. Keepers of the light and masters of ash, we are the fire tenders. Never will the spark be left alone, never will we stray from the circle that must be guarded.

The old woman whose name was taken from us burned up in the cold. Many others burned. Denjoween, Hamrath, Scordus, Yunnan and I each carry a scorched finger bone with us as a reminder that sparks are demons and the wind is a liar.