Anyway, medals. They were a big deal because they were shiny and colorful and if you wore your dress uniform to the bar back home, you could probably get yourself laid. And they were worth promotion points. The easiest way to get a medal was to change duty stations, to go from Fort Benning to Germany, or from Germany to Fort Knox. Sometimes, if you saved a dying baby, they might throw a medal your way, but generally that was considered only doing your job.

In Kosovo, I found myself in the middle of a swarming mob of angry Serbians. It was a strange place to be, but there I was. We were still a peacekeeping Army back then and instead of grenades and bullets and RPGs, they threw bricks and rocks and flowers pots. It was a very confusing time.

I don’t remember it, but something hit me in the face. Broke my front tooth clean in half. There was no blood, no bruising, it was strange. I must have been smiling at the Serbians, wondering why they were so mad, trying to show them that I was a nice person. At some point, I licked my lips, felt my missing tooth and leaned down into the truck. I tapped the commander on his shoulder and when he turned, I smiled and said, “What do you think, Sir? Can I get a medal?” “Goddamn,” he said, making me think it was much worse than it was.

Back on Bondsteel I went down to the medical tent where a dentist slapped a new tooth into my face and the commander put me in for the Purple Heart. It was, obviously, downgraded. I thought I might get an ARCOM for not spraying the crowd with two hundred 5.56mm jackets of lead. At least that was worth an AAM. But nope, a Certificate of Achievement. Signed by a light-colonel. It wasn’t even worth five-fucking-points. And certainly wouldn’t get me laid. Which made it absolutely worthless.

I liked telling this story in the backyards and on the balconies of the lazy Fort Knox. When some departing soldier was bitching about getting his ARCOM downgraded to an AAM. I would chuckle, finish my beer, get another, and say, “Boys, let me tell you about the time my Purple Heart got downgraded to a fucking COA.”

I still like telling this story today. But somehow, it just isn’t the same.

I am writing to express my discontent with my current subscription. I am living in Topeka, Kansas, and look forward every week to the new issue. I love the reporting and the essays, the Talk of the Town. The fiction? Hit-or-miss. Try not to take yourselves so seriously all the time.

Anyway, the new issue, by the time it arrives in my mailbox, is the old issue. It usually arrives so late I cannot even submit to your fun Caption Contest. I’ve been a subscriber to your fine publication many times over the years and when I lived in Iowa City or San Francisco the current issue arrived even before it showed up on newsstands. So I wonder, What is the problem of getting it to Topeka in a timely manner?

Your disdain of the Midwest is well-known. What is it Harold Ross said? This will not a publication for the people of Dubuque? But he was wrong, is wrong. There are many people in these fly-over states who cherish good writing and good reporting and good wit. But if you cannot make your magazine arrive in Topeka before all that is new is old, I’m afraid I will have to cancel my subscription and demand a refund for the remaining issues—my subscription expires in January of 2012.

So, I give you a month. Please do try better. Because I really do not like having to go to Barnes & Noble every week, they always try to sell me a Nook. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

Very Sincerely,

Robert R Herring

PS: and please don’t think I’ll buy your magazine from Barnes & Noble. Nobody buys magazines from those stores. We sit in the nasty—or in Topeka, the quite comfortable—chairs and read it from cover to cover while sipping a mocha. And then put it back with our greasy fingerprints smudging the print for the next person to find.

Anyway, the chief of staff of the Army was a tanker and he brought his plane and security detail all the way from Washington D.C. And the military police had to sit on the perimeter—ever vigilant—bored and itching to shoot something. Please god give me someone to shoot because I’m so tired of carrying this thing around for nothing.

Three MPs sit in a Jeep just off Chaffee Ave. They’re there to control traffic, but there is no traffic. It’s just after 2100 hours and the eating and toasting is done and the party is moving on to the heavy drinking.

“I’m hungry,” Matson says from the backseat. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Shit,” Henry says. “Sergeant Doyle would kill us if we left this post.”

“Let’s order a pizza,” Martinez says. “They deliver.”

“Yeah,” Matson says. “Let’s order a pizza.”

They laugh. They’ve been in this Jeep since 1700, drinking Red Bull and telling lies.

“Sure,” Henry says. “A pizza.” He pulls out his cell phone and calls Papa Johns.

“And what’s the address?” Papa John asks.

“We’re at Chaffee and Custer, just across from the Armor Inn,” Henry says.

“And the building number?”

“There is no building number,” Henry says, Matson and Martinez laughing. “We’re in a military police Jeep on the side of the road.”

“Uh?”

“Quit laughing assholes,” Henry says. “He’ll think it’s a prank.” And to Papa, “Come on, man. We’ve been out here since five and they won’t let us go for chow. You’re our only hope.”

“Um.”

“There’s a big tip.”

“Chaffee and Custer?”

“Yup.”

“Okay,” Papa John says. “Forty minutes.”

“Well?” Matson asks.

“I don’t know,” Henry says. “Papa sounds skeptical.”

“You should’ve told him his drivers would get a pass for the year,” Martinez says.

“Yeah,” Henry says. “I didn’t think of that.”

An hour passes. The first cars coming down Custer from the Armor Inn and turning right on Chaffee. Drunk tankers going home to fuck their drunk wives.

“What the fuck is this?” Henry says, headlights in his rearview.

A pimpled face in the window. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Holy shit,” Matson says. “Do you want to get shot, boy. Don’t come up on the police from behind.”

His face goes white. “Oh, no. Please don’t shoot me. You ordered a pizza?”

“Calm down, Matson,” Martinez says. “Don’t worry boy, she won’t really shoot you. You brought our pizza?”

They tipped the driver ten dollars and send him on his way saying, “Tell Papa John that the military police appreciate this. And that we’ll remember it.”

They eat the pizza—hot and greasy—gathered around the hood of the Jeep as if they were in the field eating from MREs. And when they’re done, they throw the box into the ditch to dissolve under the rain just starting to fall.

So I was in the grocery store the other day and found myself standing in front of the eggs. I like eggs, I thought. And they seem easy enough to cook. So I bought a dozen and have been making fried egg and cheese sandwiches for lunch. No big deal. But eggs freak me out. Every time I crack one open, I half expect a baby chicken to fall into my buttered frying pan. I know this is unreasonable.

I did eight years in the Army. Military police. Got some medals, a few citations, the governor of Kentucky once shook my hand. No big deal. The Army fed me lots of eggs. But never once did I see an actual egg. In the Army the only good egg is one that’s dropped into a giant metal bowl—shell and all—with hundreds of thousands of others. Throw in some ham and cheese and stir. Bake in industrial ovens and cool on conveyor belts before being pressed down like a sponge and vacuum-sealed in high impact plastic and shipped to the troops. To be as good twenty years from now as today.

I got out of the Army eight years ago. And still I’d rather eat a ham and cheese omelet Hot Pocket than make an actual ham and cheese omelet. Maybe it’s time to stop blaming my laziness on the Army.

Isolated by snow. Suffocated by cold.

He watches the birds—flying and chirping and preening.

He thinks, Maybe I could learn.

And falls into a whiskey haze.

He grows weary of these text messages—lazy and fleeting and meaningless.

He wishes for more.

But it’s like wishing for the moon to warm the night.

But something happens and our star grows small and cold and white. Who knows why. All its hydrogen fused into helium? The proton-proton chain reaction stops reacting? These technical answers can’t satisfy.

Maybe it’s tired of being a star, tired of keeping us warm and alive.

Our planets flung out into infinity. We grow smaller and smaller in our night skies waiting for new stars. And our messages—pathetic radio waves flying off into the crushing nothingness of dark—search for new planets.

A woman with tangled hair asked you where Haight was. Her hemp necklace heavy with beads, her hands grabbing each other. She told you that she’d been on the bus for a long long time, that she didn’t want to miss her stop, that she had friends. Friends for her waiting at Haight.

You sighed and closed your eyes, rested your head on the window. You were like the beach we’d just left—all shifting yellow sand.

“It’s in a little bit,” I said. “That red light up there will say Haight. Hey, we’re getting off at Haight. Just look for me.”

“But this is the right bus?” she asked. Her eyes wide. Her mouth tight.

“Yes.” I closed my eyes, put my arm around you. “This is the right bus.”

There are no seasons here. Only fog and sun and a month of rain. The rain only if we’re lucky. Because if the rain fails. We’ll drink from the toilet. Wash in the toilet. Play in the toilet. And once a week we’ll flush the toilet.

They’ll collect it, filter it, send it back to us. Dirty water made dirty.

They ban cigarettes and circumcision and toys in happy meals but please don’t ask for the bus to arrive. We huddled masses, in sandals and flats, struggling down Market and up Van Ness, yearning to be free.

At least the weed is good. And cheap. And legal.

But even that isn’t enough. Not anymore.

“911, state your emergency,” she answers.

“Yeah, there’s a vehicle to bike accident at Haight street and Pierce street.”

“8th street and Pierce street?”

8th and Pierce? I think. Do 8th and Pierce ever intersect?

I say again, “Haight and Pierce.”

“Ah, Haight and Pierce,” she says. “Let me get you San Francisco. This is CHP. Please hold for San Francisco.”

Now there’s this weird transaction where CHP is talking to San Francisco and now they both talk to me and now it’s only San Francisco.

“Pierce and Haight?” San Francisco asks. “We got a report of one at Waller and Fillmore, but you’re at Pierce and Haight?”

Bike dude is up and walking around. His bike is fucked. Everybody else has gone.

“He’s up and walking around,” I say.

“Is he injured?” she asks.

“He got hit by a car. And he’s bleeding from the side of his face.”

“Any heavy bleeding?”

“No.”

“We’re sending an ambulance and police. Tell him not to move too much and not to eat or drink anything and if he has to lay down, to lay on his side in case he starts to vomit.” She’s obviously busy, reading through the sheet, has to move on to the next call.

So now it’s just me, driver, and bike guy. Driver wants to leave. Bike guy does too.

“What do you think I should do?” he asks me.

“Man, I don’t know. But your head’s bleeding and an ambulance is on its way. And you never can tell with a head injury. Sure, you feel fine now, but two hours from now, you’re dead.”

“Oh shit,” he says. “You called an ambulance?”

“Yeah,” I say. But I’m feeling foolish because he does seem okay.

He says, “I did land pretty hard on my head.”

“Then you should probably just wait. I hear them coming now.” The fire truck roars around the corner. four police cars scream from the four directions. And I don’t have to worry anymore.

My friend once told me that he just wanted to leave after his accident because he was embarrassed. And I can see that. It is embarrassing probably, all that attention, all those lights flashing and streets closed, focused on you. But this is what we pay taxes for.