Ric sat in the back seat of the Humvee reading an American news magazine. Henry and Matson sat in the front slapping cards down between them on the gunner’s platform. Ric had tried to grasp the basics of the game, but Matson spoke quickly and Henry didn’t seem to understand the game himself so Ric had picked up a Newsweek and started thumbing through it. Ric understood English well enough to be an interpreter for the Americans, but he found it hard to read the language. The sounds of the words hardly matched their spelling. But he liked Newsweek, liked the cartoons in the front and the pages of shiny pictures. He stared at one of these pictures, a man and woman in green camouflage holding black Kalashnikovs smiled at the camera. Strung up behind them was the flag of the KLA, blood red with double black eagles. Ric’s chest surged with pride and he turned the pages to find the beginning of the article. It started, “Tensions are high after terrorists from the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army operating on the Kosovo-Serbian border launched attacks on Serbian police barracks. Slobodan Milosevic, leader of the Serbs, blasted the attacks saying they threaten the tenuous cease-fire that has held since the end of the NATO bombing campaign last summer.” Above the article was a picture of a border village, a village much like Ric’s. He thought of his mother and sisters back in that village, his murdered father buried in the village cemetery along side so many other murdered fathers.

Terrorists? Ric thought. They call us terrorists?

Henry slapped down a card and laughed and then picked up the pile of cards. He was apparently getting a handle on the game.

Why were the KLA terrorists? What about the Serbian thugs who had come into his father’s house that night, drunk and yelling, calling for all the Muslim dogs to “come out, come out where ever you are”? Ric climbed a tree and watched the Serbs kick in door after door. Women screamed and clawed at Serbian faces with their nails, but the men just punched them to the ground. The Serbs were bigger and drunker and had weapons and they dragged the Albanian men and boys down the road and into a field just outside the village. The Serbians made them dig a long trench and then they shot them. One by one by one. It took nearly all night. Ric thought he would lose his grip, fall to the ground, be shot too, but the Serbians, drunk on plum brandy and Muslim blood, carried each other home and he was able to slip into the dark mountains of Gnjilane.

“You suck, Henry,” Matson said. “You didn’t just win that last trick. Show me your cards.”

And while the Serbs were killing all his friends and his father, American planes circled overhead like impotent buzzards.

“Henry?” Ric said.

“Yeah, Ric,” Henry said. “What’s up?”

“What are we doing here? Sergeant Jackson said I could have the day off.”

“He told us the same thing,” Matson said. “But this is the army and you can’t believe anything they tell you.”

“Rodman wanted to come here to buy porn,” Henry said.

“Porn?” Ric said.

“He did not,” Matson said.

“Yes he did,” Henry said. “He’s always asking me to pick up Playboy for him.”

“That’s not really porn,” Matson said.

“What is this word porn?” Ric asked.

“Magazines with pictures of naked women,” Henry said.

“Or men,” Matson said. “And porn isn’t Playboy. Porn is fucking, pussy lips, hard dicks.”

“Oh,” Ric said.

“Well,” Henry said, “hard-core.”

“What?” Matson said.

“That’s all hard-core porn,” Henry said. “Porn is a broad nomenclature.”

“Nomenclature? Well aren’t you romantic?”

“Fuck off, Matson,” Henry said. “You know what I mean.”

“Nobody ever knows what you mean,” Matson said. “You gonna deal those cards or what?”

The sun dropped below the Sar Mountains turning all the clouds in the sky purple and plunging the land into darkness. Albanians froze to death while Americans played cards and looked at naked women. Meanwhile, the KLA prowled the border killing Serbians.

“What kind of magazine is this?” Ric held up the Newsweek.

“It’s a boring magazine,” Henry said. “Sergeant Rivera buys it. Says he likes to keep informed.”

“It’s a news magazine,” Matson said, picking up her cards for the next round. “You guys don’t have those?”

“No,” Ric said. “Not like this. Why do they call Albanians terrorists?” he asked, and pointed to the article.

Matson looked at it and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Ric scowled. “We are not terrorists,” he said. “We are protecting our families. Revenging our families.”

Henry slapped down a card and laughed but Matson stared at Ric. “We?” she said.

Her face looked like the soldier’s who stopped his car just outside Urosevac before the Americans came—eyes slit like a snake’s, her mouth turned up in a slight smile, her straight white teeth glistening in the hard light of the electric lantern. “Albanians,” Ric said quickly. “We Albanians.”

Matson continued to stare at him.

“What?” Ric said.

“Nothing,” she said, and turned her attention back to the pile of cards in front of her. “Jesus, Henry,” she said. “You fucking suck at this game.”

Two dirty men smoke a joint on a busy street corner. Henry can recognize that smell anywhere. Even through the rank odor of urine and shit and rotting teeth and rotting cities. He quit when he couldn’t find the words to match his thoughts. He’d think cat and write dog. Genocide became Happy Birthday. It was very confusing.

Henry’s waiting for a bus. It’s already ten minutes late. A girl waits too. Dark sunglasses cover half her face. She wears short shorts with her university’s name emblazoned across the ass, flip flops, white t-shirt, and a blue back pack bulging on her back. Her right hand presses a small silver phone to her ear, her left waves and swirls and floats as she talks.

Henry keeps headphones over his ears when he ventures out. They’re not connected to anything. The silver plug shoved into his front pocket. He hopes they keep people from talking to him, from asking for change or a cigarette or directions. But they’re not very effective. People here are persistent.

The light turns green. Cars and bikes and people surge away. Still no bus.

One guy is standing. He has short black hair and a sickly beard. The other, coughing gray smoke out of his toothless mouth, is in a wheelchair. His hair is long and dirty blond—layers and layers of dirt caked to golden curls. His beard is thick and matted and rests on his chest. He passes the joint, talks loudly about how his brother doesn’t approve of his life style. Doesn’t approve of his long hair or beard or of him pushing himself along in a wheelchair. His friend sucks at the joint like a drowning man sucking a straw.

“That’s it,” he wheezes.

“Bullshit,” wheelchair says.

“Yeah, they do.” Henry watches him roll the roach between grimy fingers.

“Damn. You got anymore?”

“No.”

“Fuck,” wheelchair says. “Guess we gotta get to work.” He moves his head around slowly, gazes at the bus stop through bloodshot eyes. The girl is closer to him. “You got any change?”

“Hold on,” she says into her phone. “What?”

“Change? Do you have any change? I’m awfully hungry.”

She smiles. “Sorry.”

“But you’re waiting for a bus,” he pleads. “I know you’ve gotta have some change.”

She shrugs her shoulders, looks across the street. “What? Oh…nothing, some bum…soon. Well, whenever this bus shows up.”

He looks at Henry, smiles, pushes his feet along the concrete, taps Henry’s arm. “How about you, man? You got any change?”

Henry stares at him. Henry pulls the bag from his back and reaches into it. At the bottom, under a pile of books and notebooks, his hand caresses a cold Colt .45. A beautiful weapon. Polished silver slide and barrel and dark wooden grips with angry swooping eagles carved into them. The Marines gave it to his father when he retired. The Marines don’t do anything half-assed. No gold-plated watches for those guys.

The man smacks his lips hopefully. One dollar and he can wheel himself across the street, get a cheeseburger. Five and he can get another joint, maybe a can or two of cheap beer. “Just a quarter, man? Or a dime? Shit, man, I’ll even take a dime.”

Henry’s dad loved this gun. It hung over the fireplace in an oak box frame with two dark Globe and Anchors flanking it. An inscription thanked him for his twenty years of faithful service to God, Country, Corps—Semper Fi. The old man would sit in his worn leather chair with a bottle of whiskey and stare at it for hours. When he was much younger, Henry would sit on the floor next to his father reading the Boy Scout Handbook or watching the Cubs lose or listening to a fire burn. “That thing makes a hell of a noise,” his father would say. “And a big fucking hole.” He’d wink.

It came into Henry’s possession after his father used it to put a big fucking hole in his head. “Fuck you all. And even though he joined the pussy army, give the gun to my boy.” His dad’s short note, his last will and testament. He never was much for sentimentality.

“Hello?” Wheelchair says. “Don’t act like you don’t hear me. Can you help me out?”

“No.” The man pushes himself forward and looks greedily into the bag. Henry’s knuckles are white and knotty around the grip, the hammer cocked, his finger dances over the trigger. “I can’t.”

The man slowly pushes himself backward, his eyes tight and vicious.

The bus arrives, its doors open. Henry zips his bag, slings it over his shoulder, climbs aboard.

***

Henry and two other soldiers were dug into a hill above Vrbovac waiting for the Mad Mortar Man to strike when he got the news.

Triple-M would pop up every now and again to lob one or two mortar shells at any gathering of Serbians. The division’s artillery scouts’ radar could detect each launch and pinpoint to within one hundred meters its point of origin. But by the time anyone responded Triple-M would be long gone. It was embarrassing. Four thousand soldiers from the strongest army in the world with billions of dollars of cutting edge technology couldn’t catch some redneck Albanian with a twenty dollar mortar tube strapped to the bed of a two hundred dollar pick-up truck? He was mostly a nuisance, never actually hit anything. But he either improved his aim or got lucky.

A Serbian woman nursed her new daughter in the living room of their small home when a mortar shell came crashing through the corrugated tin roof, killing them both instantly. The next day he shelled a crowded playground. Tom Brokaw told America about it over dinner. Video of shouting men and wailing ambulances and weeping women clutching brightly-dressed bodies flashed across the screen. American soldiers stood behind their body armor and machine guns trying to avoid the cameras. Henry was there. His mom saw him on TV and called all her friends. A general’s wife saw it too. She complained to her husband while he tried to watch a football game. He made a call, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, kissed his wife on the forehead, told her they would catch the bastard who did that, and went back into the living room cursing the Broncos. The next day, intelligence came down from Division and Alpha Team, 3rd Platoon, 212th Military Police Company—Sergeant Jackson and Specialist Jones and Specialist Henry—was dispatched to Hill 402.

They’d been on the hill, which was more like a mountain, for eight hours when the snow started. It snowed for forty. The eastern sky was turning pink for the first time in three days when the radio crackled. It was Company Headquarters—Henry was coming down, they wouldn’t say why. The commander was on his way to get him. He was bringing hot chow and mail, too. Sergeant Jackson asked if they all couldn’t come down given recent weather conditions. Negative, the radio answered. Seven days.

“Why the fuck does Henry get to go down?” Jones complained. “Why don’t they take us all off this fucking mountain? This guy ain’t gonna do shit until it gets warmer. He ain’t dumb. He’s probably nuzzled up next to some bitch in front of a roaring fire laughing at us.”

“I don’t know, man,” Henry said. “You know I’d rather be up here with you.”

“Bullshit,” Sergeant Jackson laughed. He sat against a tree and blew breath through cupped hands like an angry prayer.

“Man, fuck you, Henry,” Jones said. “Hey sergeant, why don’t we light a fire up here? Get some kind of heat?”

“Because, you dumb shit, they’d see us.”

“Who the fuck is they?” Jones asked. “And look around sarge.” They looked around. Jackson scowled, Henry smiled, Jones nodded. Their green and brown and black camo stood out brightly against the snow.

“Whatever.” Jackson dismissed him with a flick of his wrist, stood up and went behind a tree.

“Here they come,” Henry said.

The commander’s convoy, three Humvees, snaked up the white hill. The three soldiers watched the convoy struggle up the hill and brushed their teeth and scraped three day beards with icy, dry razors. After an hour, Jackson saluted the commander and Jones helped unload the mermite cans filled with cold eggs and sausages.

“Hello, Henry,” the commander said. The chaplain stood next to him. “Come with us.”

They walked away from the trucks to a clump of trees. The leafless branches sagged under the wet snow. The fog of their breath hung briefly in the light air before dissipating into nothing.

“How are you, son?” the chaplain asked. He was skinny, but his cold-weather gear made him look bulky. His long pale face was blotched red and a clear drop of snot hung from the tip of his nose.

“Not too bad, Chaplain,” Henry said. “A bit cold, but, you know.”

The chaplain scoffed. Stamped his feet. He had no idea.

“Why don’t we have a seat,” the commander said. They looked around. “Or not. Henry,” he said and looked at the chaplain. The chaplain watched smoke curl lazily from cooking fires in the town below. “Henry, I’m afraid we have some bad news. We got a Red Cross message last night. Your father. He, um, well, he passed away.”

The chaplain coughed, the commander lit a cigarette. Henry felt like he should say something. “How did he die?” he asked.

“We’ve got your leave paperwork all filled out,” the commander said. “You leave tomorrow. Down to Skopje and back to Germany and then to the States.”

The chaplain looked at the commander. Jackson watched them from the parked trucks. The commander looked at the ground.

“Well,” the chaplain put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. The dark cross stitched to his helmet was crooked. He looked through Henry. “It’s difficult.”

“Oh yeah?” Henry said.

The chaplain closed his eyes, bowed his head. “Actually, he killed himself. He….” He shook his head. Opened his eyes.

A brittle breeze wafted over the hill. The sun burned brightly. The snow hardened. Jackson looked away. Henry watched fat gray clouds move slowly down the mountain looming over the country. He felt very light, like he would float away if he wasn’t weighed down by his equipment. He walked to the trucks, got in, and waited to go home.

***

Henry was a senior in high school the last time he saw his father. After twenty years, his mother had had enough of her husband’s drinking and yelling and fighting and moved out. Henry helped her and his father watched them load small boxes into a borrowed car and drive off to a moldy apartment on the other side of town.

“Did you get everything?” his father asked Henry later that night. He was in the TV room, always in the TV room. He didn’t look away from the flickering screen.

“I think so,” Henry said.

“Do you?”

Henry’s face flushed. “Yeah.”

“I don’t,” his father said.

Henry looked around. “Why?” he asked. “What did we forget?”

Smoke rose slowly from a smoldering cigar on the coffee table, ice clinked against the glass in Henry’s father’s hand as he brought it to his lips. “Your stuff,” he sneered. He slammed back the whiskey.

“My stuff?” Henry asked. “What do you mean?”

His father stood up slowly and walked unsteadily to the small bar in the corner of the room and poured the glass full. “What do you mean what do you mean?” He picked up the glass and staggered back to his chair, sat down heavily, started flipping through the channels. “I mean get the fuck out of my house.”

“What?” Henry’s head felt disconnected from his body.

“Get out.”

“Where do I go?” Henry asked.

“I don’t give a shit.” He found an old John Wayne movie. He set down the remote. “Go live with your cunt of a mother.”

***

Henry’s on his way to work washing dishes at a small restaurant. He’s on the bus and is deep in a story. A boy pretending to be a bull just killed a boy pretending to be a bullfighter. The fighter’s blood empties from him like water draining from a bathtub. The police have the bull in hand, a doctor pronounces, a priest gives rites, the bus lurches to a stop. Henry looks up. Two police cars, lights flashing, block the road. The sun glares off their windows.

Two of them, in crisp black uniform, get on the bus. One is young, tall. His hair cut to stubble on the top of his red head. His face is chiseled and tan. His eyes stupid. A rookie. His partner is as tall. His gut spills over his pistol belt. His salt-and-pepper hair is messy. A bushy mustache crawls under his thick nose, over his thin lips. A veteran.

They look down the aisle. Henry looks at his book.

The rookie sees Henry and a smile creeps across his face. He leans into his partner and points at the plump white boy with skinny hair and a fat nose deep in a book. The veteran nods and they walk towards him. The rookie’s hand is curled around his pistol’s grip. The veteran’s hand rests on his weapon. Their holsters’ thumbsnaps are unsnapped.

“Hi,” the rookie says.

Henry pretends the officer is talking to someone else. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the story anymore. The letters and words have vanished from the pages in front of him.

“Hey,” a gruff voice snarls and the veteran’s hand is on Henry’s shoulder. “We’re talking to you.”

A bored female dispatcher asks for a bathroom break over the radio. Henry’s fellow passengers watch out of the corner of their eyes.

“Where did you get on?” the rookie asks.

“What?” Henry says.

“Where did you catch this bus?” the veteran says. “Where were you just waiting?”

Henry feels the blood drain from his face. His hand is shaking. He closes the book, puts his hands on his lap, looks at the bag at his feet.

“Don’t even think it,” the rookie says.

“Let’s go,” the veteran says and grabs the bag.

The rookie pulls Henry gently through the open back door and pushes him against a hot black Crown Victoria. The veteran reaches into bag. Handcuffs are slapped onto Henry’s wrists. The cool metal digs into his flesh.

“Gun.” The veteran holds Henry’s pistol in the air by the trigger guard.

The rookie nods, folds Henry into the caged back seat of his car. The door slams shut. Henry watches the bus drive away, the passengers staring out at him with detached curiosity, and then disappear.

***

Henry went back to Kosovo after the funeral. The Mad Mortar Man had vanished.

“Maybe he ran out of ammo,” Jones speculated.

“You think so?” Henry asked.

“Shit, man.” Jones scooped a large spoonful of gray mashed potatoes onto his plastic plate. “How the fuck should I know? What else would he be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I just hope they don’t send us back to that fucking mountain. It’s too cold for that shit.”

They were sent to a different hill a week later. “Fuck,” Henry said when Sergeant Jackson told them. “For how long?” For a week.

The snow melted during the day and turned the roads and hills into a thick sticky mud. The river was swollen and fast. Chunks of ice and trash churned against fallen trees. Everything froze solid again at night. A full moon shone through the skeletal trees as they dug into the hard ground.

“How was the funeral, Henry?” Jones asked. They had been digging for two hours in silence. Jackson leaned on his shovel and breathed out a plume of white steam.

“It was fine,” Henry said. Mud thumped to the ground behind him. He stopped and looked around. Jones smoked a cigarette. The red cherry lit his whole face when he inhaled on it. Henry looked at the moon. “No one was there though.”

“No one was there?” Jones asked.

“Nope,” Henry said. “Just me and my mom.”

“Hmm.” Jones sat down, pulled a green poncho tightly over his shoulders. Henry watched his face light and dim, his eyes dancing and distant in the red glow.

“You’re going to give away our position,” Jackson said. “Put that thing out.”

Jones pushed the cigarette into the ground and sighed. Henry slumped into his hole and pulled night vision goggles from his rucksack. He switched them on, a high-pitched whine emanated from the heavy black plastic. Through them, the night turned strange and green. He wondered if he would die like his father—alone and drunk. A rock crashed into the atmosphere and streaked bright green through the dark green sky. Henry made a wish. He scanned down to the field below them just in time to see the short green flash.

“Holy shit,” Jones said. “Did you see that, Henry?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that what I think it was?” Jones asked.

Before Henry could answer, a sharp burst of light filled the goggles and an explosion rumbled through the tiny village behind them.

“I thought so,” Jones said. He slid behind the Mark-19 machine grenade launcher, snaked his legs through its heavy tripod, jolted its seventy pound bolt back. “Give me a range!”

Henry aimed the range-finder. “300 meters,” he said.

Jones adjusted the weapon’s sights for range, pressed his thumbs against the butterfly trigger. 40 mm high explosive grenades rained onto the field below. The ground shook and the air smelled like sulfur and blood.

***

Henry calls his mother collect from jail. She accepts the charges. She’s confused. Where is he? And why is he in jail? What’s a bail-bondsman and how would she go about getting in touch with one? Why has it been so long since he called? She can’t remember the last time she’s seen him. Where is he again?

“I don’t have a lot of time, Mom,” Henry says. “Can you just get me out of here?”

“Honestly, John,” she says. “I wish you would just come home.”

“I will, Mom. Soon.” Henry hears her weeping quietly. “I promise.” The rookie taps him on the arm. “I gotta go, Mom.”

The rookie leads Henry to a cell, his polished black shoes click crisply on the polished linoleum floor. The cell is cold and hard. Henry lies on the thin mattress and closes his eyes.

***

It took them almost two hours to climb down that hill. Dried red blood was smeared across Triple-M’s mouth like cheap lipstick. His body mangled and stiff, his eyes still open. He looked very surprised.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jones moans.

“What is it?” Sergeant Jackson asks.

Jones stumbles away from the wrecked truck, vomits, weeps.

“Fuck,” Jackson says.

Henry walks over, looks into the cab. Two small, brightly dressed bodies cling to each other on the floor, tears slick and frozen on their pudgy faces. It looks like they’ve just fallen asleep, like the slightest noise will wake them. But Henry knows better.

Sergeant Jackson is on the radio with Company. The Division Commander will fly out in his Blackhawk. Henry will be on the news again. His mother won’t call anyone this time. But it’s silent now. The full moon, bright and fat and watching, sinks slowly behind the western mountains. There’s nothing to do now but wait.

A rich white man wearing a thousand dollar suit with a two dollar flag pinned to its lapel paced back and forth on a hastily set-up stage. He spewed the words Islamofascism and terror and crusade from his fat red mouth. With tears running down his face, he spoke passionately about honor and duty and freedom while dreaming of no-bid contracts and strong whiskey and expensive hookers in Washington.

Johnny got his gun. The army gave him a uniform and a rifle with some bullets and shipped him off to a foreign land to fight for god and country. “Jesus Jesus Jesus,” he whimpered and curled into a ball that first night. The mud sucked the boots from his feet and he cried for his mom as the rain and heavy shells fell and the earth shook and his friends vanished into a pink mist.

It’s a postcard California day. High fluffy clouds float through a baby blue sky like giant cotton balls. A cool breeze blows over the Pacific, over the manicured garden, over the deep hole and through the small group. Eight men in dark blue uniforms and bleach-white gloves move like silent machines. Their leader takes the now folded flag. He executes a right face, marches crisply to the disheveled and weeping woman, bows low at the waist, and speaks softly, “On behalf of a grateful nation…”

Henry was vaguely aware of a thing called history—it was something taught at high school—but he couldn’t begin to fathom the centuries of feuds and politics and geography that split these two groups of people. Serbian and Albanian. Neither Henry nor his friends could tell the difference. “Hey, Ric,” Henry said to the interpreter. “How can you tell the difference between Albanian and Serbian? What are you, anyway?”

“I am Albanian,” Ric said. Ric wasn’t Ric’s name. His name was some Balkan mess of A’s and K’s and Z’s no American could hope to pronounce. “And the Serbian nose, it is big, ugly. And they talk nonsense. This is how we tell the difference.”

“The nose, huh?” Henry said. It seemed flimsy, but he didn’t waste much time thinking about it. He was told: go here, stand here, watch here and he went and stood and watched. He watched as people drained out of buildings and flooded the road with a seething river of rage. He stood behind a machine gun and two leaking sandbags and hoped the American flag sewn to his uniform would protect him.

When the rocks started flying, Henry understood that he understood nothing.

Back at camp, he smiled his hockey smile through swollen lips and his fellow soldiers slapped him on the back and his commander shook his hand. And Henry hoped for many medals.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. He pulled out his computer to look it up.

They got off BART and found Haight and made their way to the park. It was a long walk uphill. At first the houses were plain, some were falling down. Gradually the street became more colorful. Large murals splashed on the sides of buildings. It seemed like every window was filled with tie-dye and pictures of Jerry Garcia. Groups of kids with dirty hair and eager dogs hung out on the sidewalks. Some played guitars and beat drums and sang. Some sat around talking loudly. Others sat around and stared at each other nervously.

At the top of the hill, Henry and Luke ducked into a sunny cafe. They ate chicken and salad and drank beer. Henry had moved to the city a month earlier and Luke had flown out to visit him. Luke had been to San Francisco many times and loved it. Henry wasn’t sure yet. They talked about friends back in Iowa. Luke said he wished he could move to San Francisco. Henry said he thought it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and Luke just looked at him over the sticky table.

Outside the sun was going down. Haight was bathed in flashing lights. The air was clean and fresh and cold. Henry and Luke put on sweatshirts and started downhill towards the park. “It’s not too much further,” Luke said. “Just at the bottom of this hill.”

A group of Evangelicals had set up at the park entrance. A man played an acoustic guitar and sang into a microphone. Luke and Henry walked past a bearded man handing out fliers proclaiming the saving powers of Jesus Christ. They weren’t interested in this metaphysical kind of redemption. They were looking for something more immediate, something a bit more earthy.

“Nugs, nugs,” the boy said under his breath. He wore tight black jeans and a large black hoodie and had black hair. “Nugs, nugs, you looking for some nugs?”

“Yeah,” Luke said and the boy swung around.

“Follow me,” he said.

Henry and Luke followed the boy down the path and through a forest into a clearing and back onto another path. Two of the boy’s friends had joined them and Henry noticed someone following on a bicycle, a shiny pair of handcuffs dangled from his pink belt. “Luke,” Henry said. “Hey, Luke.” Either Luke didn’t hear him or was ignoring him, because he didn’t turn around. Henry didn’t want to be there anymore. He wanted to be back in his apartment drinking a bottle of wine and reading a book.

“Let’s go to McDonald’s,” the boy said and Henry realized the deal was done.

Henry and Luke sat down under a clump of Redwoods and smoked from the twelve dollar pipe Henry had bought earlier that afternoon. A full-moon was rising over the city, its pale light floated through the trees. Everything was very quiet. They passed the pipe back and forth like communion and held their breath.

Luke was glad to be in San Francisco.

Henry was glad to be in San Francisco.

They stood up and headed back into the city. Under the arch, next to the McDonald’s, a skinny girl was crying into the microphone. She was recounting the moment she was saved. Her thin hair was clumped together and her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. A small crowd was gathered around her and would shout Amen sporadically. The bearded man was still there with his fliers. He held one out to Henry. It was baby-blue with bold black letters and a looming cross. Henry smiled and took it.

Henry’s waiting for a bus. It’s already ten minutes late. A girl waits too. Dark sunglasses cover half her face. She wears short shorts with her university’s name emblazoned across the ass, flip flops, white t-shirt, and a blue back pack bulging on her back. Her right hand presses a small silver phone to her ear, her left waves and swirls and floats as she talks.

Henry keeps headphones over his ears when he ventures out. They’re not connected to anything. The silver plug shoved into his front pocket. He hopes they keep people from talking to him, from asking for change or a cigarette or directions or to buy a newspaper for a quarter to help the poor. But they’re not very effective. People here are persistent.

The light turns green. Cars and bikes and people surge away. Still no bus.

One guy is standing. He has short black hair and a sickly beard. The other, coughing gray smoke out his toothless mouth, is in a wheelchair. His hair is long and dirty blond. Not “dirty blond” by L’Oreal—yellow speckled with brown, something to keep you guessing—but blond with layers and layers of caked dirt. His beard is thick and matted and rests on his chest. He passes the joint. Talks loudly about how his brother doesn’t approve of his life style. Doesn’t approve of his long hair or beard or of him pushing himself along in a wheelchair. His friend nods knowingly, sucks at the joint like a drowning man sucking a straw.

“That’s it,” he wheezes.

“Bullshit,” wheelchair says.

“Yeah, they do.” Standing man rolls the roach between his fingers.

“Damn. You got anymore?”

“No.”

“Fuck,” wheelchair says. “Guess we gotta get to work.” He moves his head around slowly, gazes at the bus stop through bloodshot eyes. The girl is closer to him. “You got any change?”

“Hold on,” she says into her phone. “What?”

“Change? Do you have any change? I’m awfully hungry.”

She smiles. “Sorry.”

“But you’re waiting for a bus,” he pleads. “I know you’ve got to have some change.”

She shrugs her shoulders, looks across the street. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing, some bum. Soon. Well, whenever this bus shows up….”

He looks at Henry, smiles, pushes his feet along the concrete, taps Henry’s arm. “How about you, man? You got any change?”

Henry stares at him and reaches into his bag. His hand caresses a cold Colt .45. A beautiful weapon. Polished silver. Wooden grips with angry swooping eagles carved into them. The Marines gave it to his father when he retired. The Marines don’t do anything half-assed. No gold-plated watches for those guys.

The man smacks his gums hopefully. One dollar and he can wheel himself across the street, get a cheeseburger. Five and he can get another joint, maybe a can or two of cheap beer. “Just a quarter, man? Or a dime? Shit man, I’ll even take a dime.”

Henry’s dad loved this gun. It hung over the fireplace in an oak box frame with two gold globe and anchors flanking it. An inscription thanked him for his twenty years of faithful service to God, Country, Corps—Semper Fi. The old man would sit in his worn leather chair with a bottle of whiskey and stare at it for hours. When he was much younger, Henry would sit on the floor next to his father reading the Boy Scout Handbook or watching the Cubs or listening to a fire burn. “That thing makes a hell of a noise,” his father would say. “And a big fucking hole,” he’d wink. It came into Henry’s possession after his father used it to put a big fucking hole in his head. “Fuck you all. And even though he joined the pussy army, give the gun to my boy.” His dad’s last will and testament. He never was much for sentimentality.

“No.” Henry holds the bag open. The man looks into it. Henry’s knuckles are white and knotty around the grip, the hammer cocked, his finger dances over the trigger. “I don’t.”

The man, eyes tight and vicious, pushes his chair back.

The bus pulls up, the doors open. Henry climbs aboard.

***

Henry and two other soldiers were dug into a hill above Vrbovac waiting for the Mad Mortarman to strike when he got the news.

Triple M would pop up every now and again to lob one or two mortar shells at any gathering of Serbians. The division’s artillery scouts’ radar could detect each launch and pinpoint to within one hundred meters its point of origin. But by the time anyone responded Triple M would be long gone. It was embarrassing. Four thousand soldiers from the strongest army on the face of earth with billions of dollars of cutting edge technology couldn’t catch some redneck Albanian with a twenty dollar mortar tube strapped to the bed of a two hundred dollar pick-up truck? He was mostly a nuisance, never actually hit anything. But he either improved his aim or got lucky or both.

A Serbian woman nursed her new daughter in the living room of their small home when a mortar shell came crashing through the corrugated tin roof, killing them both instantly. The next day he shelled a crowded playground. It was a mess. Tom Brokaw told America about it over dinner. Video of shouting men and wailing ambulances and weeping women clutching small dead bodies flashed across the screen. American soldiers stood grimly behind their body armor and machine guns trying to avoid the cameras. Henry was there. His mom saw him on TV and called all her friends. A general’s wife saw it too. She complained to her husband while he tried to watch a football game. He made a call, grabbed a beer from his refrigerator, hugged his wife, told her they would catch the bastard who did that, and went back into the living room cursing the Broncos. The next day, Division dispatched Alpha Team, 3rd Platoon, 212th MP Co—Sergeant Jackson and Specialist Jones and Specialist Henry—to Hill 402. Their mission was to watch for the short bright flash of a launch and, when they saw it, to rain down as many 40mm high explosive grenades onto his little head from their Mark-19 machine grenade launcher as they could.

They’d been on the hill for eight hours when the snow started. It snowed for forty. The eastern sky was just turning pink when the radio crackled. It was Company Headquarters—Henry was coming down, they wouldn’t say why. The commander was on his way to get him. He was bringing hot chow and mail, too. Sergeant Jackson asked if they all couldn’t come down given recent weather conditions. Negative. Seven days.

“Why the fuck does Henry get to go down?” Jones complained. “Why don’t they take us all off this fucking mountain? This guy ain’t gonna do shit until it gets warmer. He ain’t dumb. He’s probably nuzzled up next to some bitch in front of a roaring fire laughing at us.”

“I don’t know man,” Henry said. “You know I’d rather be up here with you.”

Sergeant Jackson laughed. He sat against a tree and blew breath through cupped hands like an angry prayer. “Bullshit.”

Henry sat on his packed rucksack. “No,” he smiled. “Really.”

“Fuck you Henry,” Jones said. “Hey sergeant, why don’t we light a fire up here? Get some kind of heat?”

“Because, you dumb shit, they’d see us.”

“Who the fuck is they?” Jones asked. “And look around sarge.” They looked around. Jackson scowled, Henry smiled, Jones nodded. Their green and brown and black camo stood out brightly against the fresh snow.

“Whatever.” Jackson dismissed him with a flick of his wrist, stood up and went behind a tree.

“Here they come,” Henry said.

The commander’s convoy, three Humvees, snaked up the white hill. Every once in a while it would slide back down and look for a different path. An hour later Jackson saluted the commander and Jones helped unload the mermite cans filled with cold eggs and sausages.

“Hey Henry,” the commander said. The chaplain stood next to him. “Why don’t you come with us.”

They walked away from the trucks to a clump of trees. The leafless branches sagged under the wet snow. The fog of their breath hung briefly in the light air before dissipating into nothing.

“How are you, son?” the chaplain asked. He was skinny, but his cold weather gear made him look bulky. His long pale face was blotched red and a clear drop of snot hung from the tip of his nose.

“Not too bad, Chaplain,” Henry said. “A bit cold, but, you know?”

The chaplain scoffed. Stamped his feet. He had no idea.

“Why don’t we have a seat,” the commander said. They looked around. “Or not. Henry,” he said and looked at the chaplain. The chaplain watched a crow circling high over their heads. “Henry, I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

Henry didn’t say anything.

“We got a Red Cross message last night. Your father. He, um, well, he passed away.”

Henry and his father started growing apart when he was 13 and quit the Boy Scouts. And then he helped his mother move to a small apartment across town. His father watched them load boxes from the window and didn’t say a word. The final straw, Henry thought, was when he didn’t join the Marines. His father looked as if he’d been slapped when Henry told him he enlisted in the army. He hadn’t seen his father in over a year. Maybe two. It felt like he had already died. The crow cawed, the chaplain coughed, the commander lit a cigarette. Henry felt like he should say something. “How did he die?” he asked.

“We’ve got your leave paperwork all filled out,” the commander said. It was important to bring some good news. “You leave tomorrow. Down to Skopje and back to Ramstein.”

The chaplain looked at the commander. Jackson watched them, a cup of coffee steaming in his hands. The commander looked at the ground.

“Well,” the chaplain put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. The dark cross stitched to his helmet was crooked. He looked through Henry. “It’s difficult.”

“Oh yeah?” Henry said.

The chaplain closed his eyes, bowed his head. “Actually, he killed himself. He….” He shook his head. Opened his eyes.

A gentle, brittle breeze wafted over the hill. The sun burned brightly. The snow hardened. Jackson looked away. Henry smiled.

***

Henry’s deep in a story. A boy pretending to be a bull just killed a boy pretending to be a bullfighter. The fighter’s blood empties from him like water draining from a bathtub. The police have the bull in hand, a doctor pronounces, a priest gives rites, the bus lurches to a stop. Henry looks up. Two police cars block the road. The sun glares off their windows.

Two of them, in crisp black uniform, get on the bus. One is young, tall. His hair cut to stubble on the top of his red head. His face is chiseled and tan. His eyes stupid. A rookie. His partner is as tall. His gut spills over his pistol belt. His salt-and-pepper hair is messy. A bushy mustache crawls under his thick nose, over his thin lips. A veteran.

They look down the aisle. Henry watches them. The rookie sees him—round glasses, long, curly brown hair, green T-shirt, blue jeans—and a smile creeps across his face. He leans into his partner and points at Henry. The veteran nods and they walk towards him. The rookie’s hand is curled around his pistol’s grip. The veteran rests his hand on his weapon. Their holsters are unsnapped.

“Hi,” the rookie says.

Henry nods at him, looks at his book.

“You want to come with us?” the veteran asks.

“Not really,” Henry says. He stares at the page not seeing letters or words. Henry didn’t know bums called the cops. Or that cops listened to bums. Shit.

The rookie grabs Henry’s arm and yanks him through the open back door and throws him against a hot black Crown Victoria. The veteran wrestles away his bag. Handcuffs are slapped onto his wrists. The cool metal digs into his flesh.

“Gun.” The veteran holds Henry’s pistol in the air by the trigger guard.

The rookie folds Henry into the caged back seat of his car. The radios crackle and buzz. The door slams shut. Henry watches the bus drive away, the passengers staring at him with detached curiosity, and then disappear.

***

Henry went back to Kosovo after the funeral. The Mad Mortarman had vanished.

“Maybe he ran out of ammo,” Jones speculated.

“You think so?” Henry asked.

“Shit man.” Jones scooped a large spoonful of gray mashed potatoes onto his plastic plate. “How the fuck should I know? What else would he be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I just hope they don’t send us back to that fucking hill.”

They were sent to a different hill a week later. “Fuck,” Henry said when Sergeant Jackson told them. “For how long?” For a week.

The snow melted during the day and turned the roads and hills into a thick sticky mud. The river was swollen and fast. Chunks of ice and trash churned against fallen trees. Everything froze solid again at night. A full moon shone through the skeletal trees as they dug into the hard ground.

“How was the funeral, Henry?” Jones asked. They had been digging for two hours in silence. Jackson leaned on his shovel and breathed out a plume of white steam.

“It was fine,” Henry said. Mud thumped to the ground behind him. He stopped and looked around. Jones smoked a cigarette. The red cherry lit his whole face when he inhaled on it. Henry looked at the moon. “No one was there though.”

“No one was there?” Jones asked.

“No,” Henry said. “Just me and my mom.”

“Hmm.” Jones sat down, pulled a green poncho tightly over his shoulders. Henry watched his face light and dim, his eyes dancing and distant in the red glow.

“You’re going to give away our position,” Jackson said. “Put that thing out.”

Jones pushed the cigarette into the ground and sighed. Henry slumped into his hole and pulled out the night vision goggles from his rucksack. He switched them on, a high-pitched whine emanated from the heavy black plastic. Through them, the night turned strange and green. He wondered if he would die like his father—alone and drunk. A rock crashed into the atmosphere and streaked bright green through the dark green sky. Henry made a wish. He scanned down to the field below them just in time to see the short green flash.

“Holy shit,” Jones said. “Did you see that Henry?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that what I think it was?” Jones asked.

Before Henry could answer, a burst flashed in the tiny village to their right.

“I thought so,” Jones said. He moved behind the Mark-19, snaked his legs through its heavy tripod, jolted its massive bolt back. “Give me a range.”

Henry aimed the MELIOS, shot the laser out. “300 meters,” he said.

Jones adjusted the sight for range and pressed his thumbs against the butterfly trigger. The field turned into noise and fire and shrapnel.

***

Henry calls his mother collect from the jail. She accepts the charges. She’s confused. Where is he? Jail, she knows, but where? And why is he in jail? What’s a bails bondsman and how would she go about getting in touch with one? Why has it been so long since he called? Where is he again?

“I don’t have a lot of time mom,” Henry says. “Can you just get me out of here?”

“Honestly John,” she says. “I wish you would come home.”

“I will mom. Soon.” Henry hears her weeping quietly. “I promise.” The rookie taps him on the arm. “I gotta go, mom.” Henry hangs up the phone.

The cell is cold and hard. Henry lies on the thin mattress and closes his eyes.

It took them almost two hours to climb down that hill. Triple M’s body was twisted and stiff, dried red blood ran from his mouth like smeared lipstick. He looked very surprised. Jones backs slowly away from the truck and throws up. They cling to each other, tears frozen and slick on their faces. It looks like they’ve just fallen asleep, like the slightest noise will wake them. But the soldiers know better.

Henry opens his eyes.

Jon Roberts, a single son from Arizona, is doing the over/under. A tent shaped obstacle five feet wide with beams of wood spaced—like rungs of a ladder—every foot, its peak fifteen feet above the ground. The objective is to crawl over one beam and under the next and so on and so forth until the end. Now Jon Roberts, who left his single mother home alone six weeks ago, who writes her a letter everyday, who receives a letter from her everyday, crawls to the top of this obstacle. And falls. And he didn’t fucking listen.

“Now listen up privates,” drill sergeant Johnson bellows before we start. “If you fall do not, do not, stick your arms out to break your fall. Here’s how you should fall.” He crosses his arms over his chest, tucks his chin into his chest, puts his feet together, bends his knees, rolls, stands up. “Easy,” he says.

Maybe. But Roberts forgot during his two second fall to the soft ground. He sticks his arms out in front of him. It sounds like a rifle shot when he hits. We wince, turn our heads.

“Medic!” Johnson yells.

Roberts is silent. His face, red from the sun, is gray. He rests on his back. His jaw clenches and relaxes, clenches and relaxes. He stares up to where he just was.

“Fuck,” Johnson breathes over him. “What the fuck Roberts? Didn’t I tell you to tuck your fucking arms in? Fuck.”

The medic jogs up, chewing gum, a large bag strapped to his back. He drops the bag, pulls out a pair of shiny scissors and cuts up the sleeve of Roberts’ uniform. “Don’t worry man,” the medic smacks his gum. “No big deal. You’re gonna be just fine. Look at me. Look at me. Open your eyes.”

Strange, I think, no blood. Only bone and cartilage like cottage cheese. Red muscle like ground-beef waiting to be cooked. Ten of us gasp. Elbows weren’t meant to bend like that.

Roberts looks at us. “How’s it look?”

“Okay,” I say. And I shouldn’t, but I’m curious: “How’s it feel?”

“I can’t feel shit.”

“That’s good,” Jackson says from behind me, turns and throws up.

“What the fuck are you privates gawking at,” Johnson yells. “Get your asses to the next obstacle.”

We jog to the next obstacle. Two privates run past us carrying a long green litter.

But here they are in the middle of the day, soldiers fighting the drug war. Winning the drug war. A police car stops for a red light. They don’t even see it. They pass the joint back and forth, forth and back like they’re sitting on a ratty couch in their own living room.

I’m waiting for a bus. It’s already ten minutes late. A woman is waiting too. Or a girl. Woman or girl? She looks like a girl. A student at the university just up the road. Dark sunglasses cover half her face. One hand holds a phone to her ear, the other waves and swirls and floats as she talks. Short shorts with the college’s name emblazoned across her ass. Flip flops. White t-shirt. Blue back pack bulging on her back.

I keep headphones on my ears while out in public. They’re not connected to anything. The silver plug shoved into my front pocket. I hope to keep people from stopping me, from asking me for change, for a cigarette, for directions, my phone number. But they’re not very effective. People here are persistent. I guess they have to be.

The light turns green. Cars and bikes and people surge away. Still no bus.

One guy is standing. He has short black hair and a stubbly beard. The other, coughing gray smoke out his toothless mouth, is in a wheelchair. His hair is long and dirty blond. And not in the sexy way. Not blond tinged with brunette, something to keep you wondering. But blond with layers and layers of dirt caked to it. His beard is black and matted and rests his chest. He passes the joint. Starts talking loudly about how his brother doesn’t approve of his life style. Doesn’t approve of his long hair or beard or of him pushing himself along in a wheelchair. His friend nods knowingly, sucks at the joint like a drowning man sucking on a straw.

“That’s it,” he wheezes.

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, they do,” he rolls the roach between his fingers.

“Damn. You got anymore?”

“No.”

“Fuck,” wheelchair says. “Guess we gotta get to work.” He moves his head around slowly. Gazes at the bus stop through bloodshot eyes. The girl is closer to him. “You got any change?”

“Hold on,” the girl says into her phone. “What?”

“Change? Do you have any change? I’m awfully hungry.”

She smiles indulgently. “Sorry.”

“But you’re waiting for a bus,” he pleads. “I know you got some change.”

She shrugs her shoulders, looks out over the street. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing, some bum. Soon. Well, whenever this bus shows up….”

“How about you, man? You got any change?”

I look away.

He pushes his feet along the concrete, wheels up to me, taps me on the arm. “Change?” he asks.

I look down at him and reach into my bag. My hand caresses a cold Colt .45. A beautiful weapon. Polished silver. Wooden grips with angry swooping eagles carved into them. The Marines gave it to my father when he retired. The Marines don’t do anything half-assed. No gold-plated watches for those guys.

The man smacks his gums hopefully. One dollar and he can wheel himself across the street, get a cheeseburger. Five and he can get another joint, maybe a cheap can of beer. “Just a quarter or two?”

My dad loved this gun. It hung over the fireplace when I was a kid. In an oak box frame with two gold globe and anchors flanking it. An inscription thanked him for his twenty years of honorable service to corps, country, God. The old man would stare at it for hours, slowly drinking whiskey while mom slowly moved out. “That thing makes a hell of a noise,” he would tell me. “And a big fucking hole,” he’d wink. It came into my possession after he used it to put a big fucking hole in his head. “Fuck you all. Give the gun to my boy.” My dad’s last will and testament. He never was much for sentimentality.

“No,” I hold my bag open. He looks into it. My knuckles are white and knotty around the grip, the hammer cocked, my finger dances over the trigger. “I don’t.”

The bus pulls up, opens its door. I climb aboard.

They walk towards an expensive restaurant along the tree lined avenue. The canal stagnant and pungent next to them. Her flowing black dress swishes over her moving legs. Her shoulders covered with a torn denim jacket. Her flip-flops flip and flop.

The boy beside her floats along the concrete. His mind in turmoil, he wonders if he should speak, if he should hold her hand, if he should take her by the elbow to guide her. He doesn’t notice her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her face lost in thought. He only notices the she’s walking next to him.

Ahead, a man is slumped between two trees shaking a cup of coins. The boy takes two five Euro pieces out of his pocket, smiles and jingles them in his hand. He stops and drops them into the man’s beaten cup.

“God bless you,” the man slurs. His irises are milky white, dirt is crusted into his cheeks and his breath stinks of vomit and decay.

The boy’s face cringes. “You’re welcome, brother.” He turns to smile at the girl. But she has already disappeared into the crowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Fort Knox Military Police
Patrol Posting
Date: 12 August 2003
Hours: 1800-0600 hrs

Duty Officer: SFC Vassalli

Desk Sergeant: SSG Williams
Dispatcher: PFC Garcia
Blotter Clerk: SPC Perlman

Supervisor: SSG Roberts
A Zone: PFC Jackson
B Zone: SPC Edwards
C Zone: SGT Moyer
D Zone: PVT Walker

K-9: SGT Bender

MPI: Inv. Kennedy

Traffic: SPC Henry

/s/ Sam Johnson
Sam Johnson, SFC
Operations Sergeant
Office of the Provost Marshal
Ft. Knox KY 40121

I

Henry drove slowly up the long, crowded road towards the Fort Knox NCO club. The strobing blue and red lights in his car’s grill and dashboard parted the crowd like Moses parted the sea. Edwards followed Henry. His car’s light bar grinded noisily above him and whirred blue and white light into the haze.

It was early Saturday morning. The bar had just closed and the bouncers shoved the drunk into the parking lot. The military police pushed them out of the parking lot and harassed them until they got off post. They became somebody else’s problem after that.

“Where’s the fight?” Henry asked. They stood in front of the locked front door and watched.

“I don’t know,” Edwards said. “Maybe they left already.”

“Stop it!” a woman screamed.

“Edwards,” Henry said.

A line of cars ebbed towards the main road while more military police flowed into the parking lot. Edwards spoke quickly into the radio on his shoulder.

A skinny man was locked in the large tattooed arms of another man. The skinny man’s face was pale and he struggled to breathe. A woman stood off to the side crying.

The man trying to kill this skinny man was a refrigerator with arms like boa constrictors strapped to the side. His bald head looked like a bowling ball unstably planted on top. His eyes were black holes.

“Stop!” Henry yelled. “Military police!”

The large man dropped the tiny man to the ground. It sounded like a large bag of potatoes being dropped.

“David,” the woman shrieked, “oh my god!”

The large man turned and faced Henry and Edwards.

Henry didn’t like the looks of this. Edwards stood behind him with the useless wood MP club in his left hand.

David was on the ground. The woman sobbed over him. Henry couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. It didn’t really matter now. He pulled the pepper spray from his belt and started shaking the can.

“Fuck you,” the man spat at Henry. “You guys ain’t gonna do shit. I’ve been to Afghanistan, Iraq. They couldn’t get me. What are you gonna do? I’ll rip your fucking throats out. You guys ain’t any better than fucking towel heads anyway. Man, I’m going to fuck you up.” His face was red and contorted, his neck muscles tight and bulging. He lowered his head and charged.

Henry shot a quick burst from the orange and black can. The man clutched his face and fell to his knees. “Agghhh! You fuckers! What the fuck? Fucking chemical warfare. Fuck fuck fuck, you fucking blinded me you fucking cocksuckers. You fucking bitches.”

Henry and Edwards pulled the man’s arms behind him. It took two pairs of handcuffs to cuff his hands together. They pulled him to his feet and stuffed him in the back seat of a patrol car.

“Hey Henry,” Edwards said. “You still have your pepper spray?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

Two patrols administered first aid to the beaten man, another tried to get a statement from the sobbing woman. An ambulance was getting closer, its lonely siren calling out into the now empty night.

“Johnson says we can’t carry it,” Edwards said.

“Why not?”

Edwards shrugged his shoulders. “Says we’re not certified. They’re supposed to certify us next week, though.”

“I thought they were certifying people in school now.” Henry graduated from the Army’s Military Police School seven years earlier.

“They are.” Edwards graduated three years earlier. “I’ve already been sprayed with the shit once. But what can I do?” Edwards asked. He wiped his forehead with his black beret. The temperature hovered at seventy five degrees, humidity around eighty percent.

“Shit,” Henry said. “What does Johnson want us to do with guys like this?” Henry asked, jerking his head to the back of the car. “And I was certified in Georgia.”

“Doesn’t matter. At least, not to Johnson.”

“Fuck Johnson,” Henry said. “What does he know about anything?”

“Yeah,” Edwards said. “Nothing. But he’s the Operations Sergeant. Gotta do what he says.”

Henry sighed. Edwards was right. And he hated everything about it.

***

Henry had joined the army right out of high school. He wanted to be a cop. Had wanted to be a cop since he was old enough to want to be anything. But police departments only hired those over twenty-one. The army let him be a cop at eighteen. Patrolling streets in a police car with a gun strapped to his hip. He loved it.

But then the war came. And another one after that. And everything changed. He was tired. The Johnsons of the army needed something to put on their evaluation reports. Sergeant First Class Johnson wanted to be Master Sergeant Johnson and he needed lots of bullet points.

“Johnson’s dangerous,” Henry told Woods during traffic shift-change. An orange sun blazed above and Henry felt like he was sleep-walking.

“Why’s that?” Woods asked.

“Have you heard? He wants to take away our pepper spray.”

“Why?” Woods loaded 9mm bullets into a fifteen round magazine.

“Who knows? I guess we’re not certified,” Henry said, spitting 9mm bullets out of his magazine with his thumb into a foam package. Thirty rounds issued, thirty rounds returned. A good night.

“Certified?” Woods slammed the magazine into the magazine-well of the 9mm Berretta semi-automatic pistol they carried and let the slide ride forward. “I was certified two years ago.”

“Where?”

“Washington. Fort Lewis.”

“Not good enough,” Henry said as they got into the patrol car. “I guess there’s a new training regime.”

Woods looked at Henry. His eyes hid behind dark sunglasses and his face was still pink from drinking and sleep and shaving. “Man, I’ve already been sprayed in the face with that shit. I ain’t getting sprayed again.”

“Amen,” Henry said. He got out of the car and grabbed his gear. “Have a good one.”

“Yeah,” Woods said. “You too. See you in a few hours.”

II

Pay sat low in a broken chair outside his barracks room sipping beer slowly from a sweating silver can. Waves of Kentucky rain hissed like frying bacon and Pay watched the trees wilt and the rabbits cower. A breeze moved down the long brick balcony. The clean air smelled of lilacs and tangerines, urine and vomit. Pay sighed.

The rain stopped abruptly and Henry stepped out of his room two doors down. An angry disc of sun lurked behind the gray clouds. White steam boiled off the black-top parking lot. Henry locked his door and pulled his black beret over his shaggy hair. He walked towards the stairs, stopping to stomp in fresh, dirty puddles.

“What’s up, Henry?” Pay asked without looking up.

“Nothing much,” Henry said, walking past. “Off to work. Again.” He had three days off after tonight. He couldn’t wait for the night to be over.

“Have fun.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “Save me some beer.”

Fuck off, Henry thought. The dark fabric of his battle dress uniform absorbed the sun like a solar panel and the dead weight of his bullet proof vest constricted his chest. Pay sat in threadbare shorts, no shirt, and sipped beer with a cool damp towel covering his oblong head.

Henry descended the three flights of stairs, walked across the parking lot towards his car, and saw Pay go back into his room. He shook his head and waited for the air-conditioner to kick in.

The sun was shining harshly now and the earth waited for night. Pay fell back into his chair with a fresh beer and watched Infantry soldiers partying riotously in the barracks across the parking lot. It was a combustible Saturday afternoon.

***

Pay was busy failing out of college when the recruiter stopped him in the common area of the student union. His life was rapidly falling apart and the recruiter’s sandpaper voice woke him suddenly from a hopeless day-dream.

“How’s it going?” the recruiter asked.

“Okay,” Pay said and stopped. “How are you?”

The recruiter shook his hand strongly and introduced himself. Staff Sergeant Davis. His crisp green uniform was heavy with many colorful badges and ribbons. His black hair was cut to stubble on top and the lights danced off the rest of his bald head. Pay could see a gleam of silver when he talked or smiled. A tooth knocked out many years ago in some distant land.

Sergeant Davis looked Pay up and down like he was appraising a race horse. Davis hated working this town. College kids were full of big ideas and were going to change the world. Everything was going to be peace, love, and understanding when they were finished. But he had a job to do and just smiled his silver smile and shook his head at their rhetoric.

“Have you thought about what you want to do after graduation?” Davis wasted no time.

“Graduation?” Pay snorted. “They’ll be kicking me out of here at the end of the semester.”

Davis brightened up. “Why?”

“I’m failing my classes.”

“What classes are you taking?” Davis asked.

“Mostly philosophy. I can’t read the books. Gibberish.”

“I know what that’s like,” Davis said. And he did. He had squeezed out an AA in liberal arts by correspondence to get promoted faster. He had no intentions of doing anything more. “But they’re not really going to kick you out, are they?”

“No,” Pay admitted. “But I’m going to lose my scholarships and won’t be able to pay for it anymore.”

“So what will you do next?” Davis asked.

“I’m not sure. Have to think of something, I guess.”

“Ever think about the army? We can help pay for college.”

No, Pay had never thought about the army. No one ever had until Davis brings it up. Three squares and a cot, free clothes, buddies, make money, see the world, learn skills. Davis could go on for hours without mentioning the tedious routine, the raging boredom, the complete submission to everyone and everything. He was the battalion’s best recruiter.

Pay nodded his head, but he wasn’t convinced. “What about wars?”

“What wars?” Davis scoffed. “We’ve been doing nothing but peacekeeping the last ten years. But I can get you into a job that doesn’t go to war. There’s lots of jobs in the army. Did you know that for every soldier fighting, there are three in the rear supporting him? Most of the army is non-combat,” he lied.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I don’t know if I could make it through basic training.”

Davis nodded. Pay was tall but pudgy. And he looked weak. Davis couldn’t put his finger on it. But he would be a Drill Sergeant’s problem. Not his.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so either,” Davis said. “But really, it isn’t all that bad, it isn’t as bad as it used to be. Everyone hates it, but most everyone gets through it. And after basic, the army is like any other nine-to-five job,” he lied again.

“Really?” Pay picked through the pamphlets on the table.

“Oh yeah. Here, let me show you this one,” Davis said, picking up a pamphlet. “Do you have student loans?”

“No,” Pay said. “I was here on a scholarship.”

“Oh yeah,” Davis said. He put the pamphlet down and picked up another one. “Here, look at this one.”

Pay took it from his hands and looked at it. The shiny cover showed smiling soldiers wearing camouflaged uniforms and working on helicopters.

“It has all the jobs of the army listed in it. What did you say your major was again?” Davis would talk as long as Pay stood there.

“Philosophy.”

“That’s right,” Davis frowned. “Well, what were you going to do with that?”

“I don’t know,” Pay said. “I didn’t know what to do so I took philosophy.”

“Well,” Davis said, switching tactics, “you’re a big guy. Ever think about being a cop?” Military police were in demand because of Bosnia and Kosovo. He got an extra five hundred dollars for everyone he enlisted into the Military Police Corps.

Pay brightened a little. “Yeah,” he said.

Davis reached for another pamphlet. “Hell yeah. Driving around in that souped up car, carrying a gun everyday. And MPs are the only ones in the army who get to carry a gun everyday.” Davis hated MPs.

Pay looked through the pamphlet. Smart looking soldiers wearing white gloves waving cars through a gate and others with mirror black boots issuing traffic tickets and others in black and white helmets and green and gold scarves guarding Nazi prisoners. He smiled.

Davis smiled.

Why not? Pay thought. What else do I have to do? I’m sick of college, of papers and classes, of professors who don’t know anything. I’ll go see the world. I’ll be a military policeman. And then I’ll start college again. Older and wiser.

“Yeah,” Pay said. “That sounds good.”

“Really?” Davis said, surprised. “Let me get your name and number and I’ll give you a call tomorrow so we can set something up.”

“Okay,” Pay said and wrote his name and phone number on the card Davis handed him.

***

“Pay! Hey, Pay!” brought him out of his daydreams.

Pay opened his eyes. Sergeant Stacey looked down at him through his gray eyes. “Yes, sergeant,” Pay said.

“The commander wants us at the company tomorrow to cut grass. It isn’t supposed to be raining,” Stacey said.

“But tomorrow’s Sunday,” Pay protested.

“I don’t give a shit what day it is,” Stacey barked.

“Shit,” Pay breathed.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing sergeant. What time?”

“0800 hrs. Bring some work gloves. Be in uniform and I’ll see you in the morning.” Sergeant Stacey walked away.

Pay sipped from the can. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking anymore. But nobody cared what he did anymore.

He started drinking in college. After Erin told him about the guy she had started dating.

Erin was a sparkly girl. Her blond hair fell just above her shoulders and her ice-blue eyes always danced with light. And she always flicked her tongue between her lips just before she said anything. Pay had admired her from across the room. One day the professor put them in groups and he met Erin for the first time. She was having trouble understanding Descartes and the whole mind/body problem and he offered to help her.

“Great,” she said. “This reading can run in circles, can’t it?”

“Sometimes,” Pay admitted. “But I think I understand most of it.”

They met at a coffee shop and talked and watched the people go by. Pay liked her and she smiled at him. She agreed to go for a walk. Erin called him for lunch one day and they started hanging out.

Pay paid no attention to the fact she paid for herself, that she offered no intimacy, that they had never talked about relationships. They talked about politics and classes and Descartes. But then she would go to her dorm room. And he would go to his apartment happy with the idea that things were moving forward.

He called her one Friday night. He was bored and wanted to get something to eat. She was out on a date. He went out and bought a case of beer and drank it very slowly. It was all he was doing until he met SSG Davis.

The army was okay at first. He was too busy to think about Erin or anything else. But he soon realized he had made a terrible mistake. He missed college, his home, his mother. When he finally admitted there was no escape, that they had him, all of him, for five years, he retreated into the bottle. Slowly at first. But he was soon going through a case a night. And then two.

One night at a barracks party he tried talking to a girl. He mumbled and slurred something and Corporal Peterson was there suddenly yelling at him. And Pay punched him. Pay woke up in the hospital the next morning and was sent to a detox program for a few weeks and put back to work.

He was pulled from duty after totaling a brand new patrol car. Henry put him on the Breathalyzer 5000 and charged him with driving drunk. The commander made him company bitch. Pay cut the grass, painted rocks, cleaned bathrooms, mopped floors while waiting for his discharge paperwork to come through. That was six months ago.

Pay watched the sun disappear behind the brick-red barracks. He thought about philosophy and literature. It wasn’t all so abstract anymore. He hoped to teach one day. He drained the warm beer down his throat and wondered if he would ever go home.

***

At the MP station, Henry knocked on Sergeant First Class Johnson’s door. Johnson was a lanky man with salt and pepper hair cut close to the skull wearing a red tank top that exposed his thin arms with grotesque tattoos.

“Hello sergeant,” Henry said. “Woods said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes,” Johnson answered gruffly, waved him in and looked back down at the report he was reading. “Just give me a second.”

Henry stood in front of Johnson’s desk while he finished reading the report. The windowless office was painted a sour-milk color and Johnson had hung various awards and certificates on the walls. Against one wall he stacked all the books he had never read on criminal justice and police administration.

“So,” Johnson said, not looking up from the report. “I understand you pepper sprayed someone last night.”

“Yes, sergeant,” Henry answered.

“Why?” Johnson asked and looked at him.

Henry didn’t say anything

“Well?”

It must be nice, Henry thought, to sit in this cool office all day and read reports.

“The guy just got finished choking a dude nearly to death…”

“The sergeant,” Johnson interrupted.

“What?”

“The sergeant. The man you pepper sprayed is a staff sergeant. And a war hero to boot.”

“Okay,” Henry said.

“I want to know why you pepper sprayed him.”

Henry balled his hands into fists behind his back. “Because, sergeant, lesser means of force seemed futile at that point.”

“Did you try any of them?”

“No.”

“Then how the hell would you know what would or wouldn’t work?”

“I guessed.”

“You guessed,” Johnson said and stared at him. “Don’t get smart-assed with me, soldier. I’ll have you on extra duty for a fucking month. Now, are you supposed to be carrying pepper spray?”

Henry didn’t say anything.

“Are you supposed to be carrying pepper spray?” Johnson stood up.

“I’m trained and certified, sergeant,” Henry said. “I’ve carried it for five years.”

“Has traffic not gotten the memo?”

“What memo?”

“Jesus, what’s Kitchner doing over there?” Johnson mumbled under his breath. “The memo where I order all MPs to turn in their pepper spray until they’re certified by Sergeant Franklin. Sergeant Franklin has just come back from Fort McClellan and has been certified to certify the company.”

“But I’m certified, sergeant,” Henry argued. “They sprayed me back at Benning.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Johnson said. “Give it to me.”

Henry pulled the sleek can out of its leather holster and placed it on the desk.

“That’ll be all,” Johnson dismissed Henry with a flick of his wrist.

Henry stood there for a couple of seconds before walking out of the office and to the car. He pulled out onto the quiet road. He was done for the night. No more, he thought. Never again. He flew back towards the barracks not caring about the speed limit.

Pay was still sitting on the balcony and laughed when the unmarked traffic Impala pull into a parking space.

“Hey, Henry,” Pay teased. “Going to work?”

“Yup,” Henry said. “I got half a pizza in my room I’m going to work on. And then I’m going to work on watching some TV. Maybe even work on a nap.”

“Have fun,” Pay called out after him.

Henry slammed his door and locked it.

Pay finished another beer before going into his room. He sat in front of a small fan and let the air blow over him lazily before getting up to close and lock the door. The room spun and spun and spun and he fell onto his bed and into the darkness.

III

Pay came into the night several hours later. A full moon hung lazily in the muggy sky and mosquitoes buzzed through the air.

A party poured out onto the balcony and people sucked on green bottles and drank from red cups while smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. Pay walked towards the party and could feel the bass pounding through the concrete floor.

“Hey guys,” Pay said.

They all looked at him, said nothing, and went back to their conversations. Pay walked into the smoky room and looked around. He wasn’t sure who the room belonged to. He had never been in it before and he marveled at the beat-up couch against a wall and the large TV screen blaring out music videos. His own room was sparse. Only a bed and small TV and smaller refrigerator which was always packed full of beer.

A girl sat on the couch sipping delicately from a red plastic cup and watching the TV. Her blond hair fell just above her shoulders and her ice-blue eyes danced with light. Pay stood and watched her. She felt someone watching her and looked up. She saw Pay looking at her and smiled.

Pay slipped out of the room and listened to an argument about which gun was better—the AK-47 or the M-4. He didn’t really care and didn’t pay attention. The two soldiers, dressed in baggy shorts and cut off t-shirts with shaved heads, drank noisily. Pay sipped at his beer and thought about the girl on the couch.

People were coming in and out of the room. The girl was standing next to him. “It’s hot,” she said to no one.

“I know,” Pay said.

She looked over at him and smiled.

“Hey, Carr!” Peterson called out coming up the stairs from the parking lot. “Glad you could make it.”

Carr looked at Peterson and gave a small wave.

“How are you liking the barracks?” Peterson asked, now standing in front of her. “Get settled in okay?”

“Yes, corporal,” she said.

“Don’t call me corporal,” he said and held up two cases of beer. “We’re off the clock,” he smiled and looked at Pay. “Pay?” he said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Pay was about to answer when Peterson went into the room. The music pounded dully and he could hear Peterson laughing and joking inside the room.

Carr, that was her name, was new and Peterson had already picked her out. Peterson preyed on all the new girls. He would get her drunk and fuck her, then disappear into the night leaving her to wonder if anything had happened at all. Pay couldn’t stand it.

“Are you new here?” Pay asked softly.

Carr turned around. “Did you say something?”

Pay looked down into his cup. “Are you new here? What platoon are you in?”

“Oh,” she smiled. “Yeah. Second.”

“Oh,” Pay nodded and took another pull from his can. “When did you get to Knox?”

“Just today,” she moved closer to him. “How long have you been here? It’s hot here.” She was already a little drunk and laughed at her own joke.

Henry walked by the gathering and eyed them warily.

“What’s up, Henry?” someone called out. “Come have a beer.”

Henry flipped them the finger and walked down to the parked Impala that hadn’t moved in hours.

“Almost two years,” Pay said. Jesus, he thought, has it been that long? “Where are you coming from?”

“McClellan,” she said. “Just got out of training two weeks ago. Can’t wait to get started.”

Pay nodded and Peterson came out of the room. His long face was red, his shaggy hair blond, and he had a strange way of walking, like he was always straddling a bull. “Pay,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” Pay asked.

“What do you mean, corporal?” he corrected.

“What are you talking about?” Pay said. “You just said we’re off the clock.”

“I said that to Carr here because she’s in my platoon. She’s a real soldier. A real MP at an MP party. I’ll ask again,” he sneered and smiled at Carr, “what are you doing here?”

Pay looked at Peterson’s fat red face. “I’m drinking a beer,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, shit,” Peterson screamed. “Pay’s getting tough.” He finished off his can of beer, staring at Pay. “You see,” he said, looking at Carr. “Pay here wishes he was still an MP.” Carr looked at Peterson and then at Pay and then down into her cup and shifted on her feet.

Pay stared at Peterson, his face hard and trembling.

“Ha,” Peterson laughed. “Look at him! He wants to hit me.”

Pay lunged at him and fell over. Peterson kicked him in the stomach and kicked him again before a group of people pulled him off. “Come on, Peterson,” one of them said. “Calm down. The commander will have your ass if you send him to the hospital again.”

“That fucker tried to hit me,” Peterson laughed. “Did you guys see that?”

They stood Pay up and brushed him off. “Get to your room, Pay,” Peterson ordered. “I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Pay staggered to his room and turned on the lights. After throwing-up, he fell on the floor and cried. He crawled to his dresser and opened the bottom drawer.

Pay pulled the knife out of its sheath, watched the light dance off its shiny surface, marveled at the razor sharp blade, the serrated edge meant for ripping. He stood up and looked in a mirror, his right hand clutching the knife. Tears cut canals down his dirty red face. His eyes were small and hollow.

He wiped his face, stood up, took a deep breath, turned around, pushed into the night.

***

Henry walked into the dully lit station feeling groggy, his eyes heavy from sleep.

“What’s up, Henry?” Staff Sergeant Williams asked. “Anything moving out there?”

“I don’t know,” Henry sighed. “I just drove from the barracks to here.” He fell into the leather desk chair behind the radio console. Garcia played video games on a TV perched on a metal filing cabinet. “Although the MP barracks seem to be letting loose.”

“Oh yeah?” Williams said without looking up from the blotter he was editing. “I hope they keep it quiet.”

“I don’t care what they do,” Henry said and looked up at the TV. Garcia walked through a dark room blowing zombies apart.

Henry closed his eyes and relaxed, a fan blew cool air over him.

“Heard Johnson had your ass today,” Garcia smiled.

Henry liked Garcia. Garcia was the only dispatcher who ever knew what was going on. He hated working the road. “Man,” he would say, “why do I want to drive around in a car going to fights. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” And he would smile like a boy and you couldn’t help but to like him.

“Who told you that?” Henry asked.

“Man, I know everything,” Garcia said.

“I believe it.”

“What’s going on at the barracks? Was the new girl there?” Garcia asked hopefully.

“Who?”

“The new girl, man? You haven’t seen her? You should,” Garcia said, not looking at him, still engrossed in blowing zombies apart.

“Why?” Henry asked. “What the fuck do I care? I should be out of here in a few weeks.”

“Yeah right,” Williams laughed. “You ain’t going anywhere Henry. The army’s got you for life.”

“Fuck the army,” Henry said.

Garcia giggled. “Yeah,” he said. “Fuck the army.”

“What are you talking about?” Williams said. “You’ve only been in six months.”

“Yup,” Garcia said and turned around. The zombies had just overtaken and eaten his avatar. “And I’m already sick of it.”

“Shit,” Henry said. “You got a long road in front of you. How much time you got left?”

“Four years,” Garcia said proudly and started the game over.

Williams and Henry laughed. Williams hunched over the paperwork he was working on, Garcia killed zombies, and Henry spun around lazily in the leather chair listening to the radio. Edwards called in a traffic stop and Henry took down the information.

“Fucking Edwards,” Garcia said. “Don’t he know it’s too early to catch a drunk?”

The phone rang. Garcia paused the game and picked it up.

***

Henry pushed the car down the road. It was empty and he pressed the accelerator into the floor. His lights and sirens exploded into the air.

He drove into the parking lot of the MP barracks and ran up the stairs to the third floor and walked into the crowd gathered on the balcony. The loud party he passed earlier was silent. A girl was on the couch crying, Peterson sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders.

“He’s fucking crazy,” Peterson cried out when he saw Henry. “Fucking crazy.”

“Shut up,” Henry told him. “Where is he?”

“I think he’s in his room,” someone answered from behind.

Henry walked down the corridor. Pay’s door was open. Sirens floated lazily through the air. He walked into the room.

Pay was crouched in a corner like a wounded animal. Two drunken off-duty MPs stood inside the door with their beer trying to talk him down and his eyes shot back and forth between them. He was breathing loudly and holding a big, shiny knife in his right hand. It was the biggest knife Henry had ever seen. That shouldn’t be in the barracks, he thought, but it hardly mattered now.

“Everybody out,” Henry ordered. The two MPs turned and glared at him. “Get the fuck out of here,” he shouted and they moved slowly out the door.

Henry stood in the door frame. “How’s it going Pay?” he asked. The sirens were louder now and Pay was growing more and more agitated. SSG Roberts was screaming on the radio wanting to know the situation. Was anyone there yet? He was pissed about being called off from his chow. Henry shut the radio off. “Can you put the knife down?”

Pay stared at him. Said nothing. His eyes worried Henry

“Pay?”

“Fuck you,” Pay slurred. “You all walk around here like you’re tough shit. Fuck you and your fucking car and your fucking gun. Fuck you fuck you fuck you, fucking shoot me.”

Henry stepped out onto the balcony. The room was way too small for that knife. He wouldn’t shoot Pay, but he couldn’t let Pay keep waving that knife around either. He couldn’t figure out how to solve this.

Henry hated emotions. It’s why he investigated traffic accidents. Accidents were nothing more than mangled metal, melted rubber on the road, measurements and mathematical equations. But here he was, face to face with emotion waving a big knife and he cursed himself for getting here with such speed.

“Pay, I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Why not?” Pay cried, stood up, moved forward. “Shoot me. I’m not doing anything else around here.”

“Calm down, Pay,” Henry said and reached for his pepper spray. He unsnapped the leather holster and grabbed at the air. Fuck. “Why don’t you put the knife down and talk to me?” Henry tried. “I just talked to you this afternoon for fuck’s sake. I’m not going to shoot you.”

Pay glared at him. “You didn’t talk to me,” he spat. “None of you talk to me unless you’re making fun of me.” Pay stumbled forward a couple of steps and stopped.

“What are you talking about?” Henry asked. “Didn’t I just see you talking to some girl at a party? Come on, Pay, put the knife down.”

“I’m fucked,” Pay cried. “I attacked an NCO again.”

“Who?” Henry asked. “Peterson? Fuck that guy,” Henry pleaded. “Nobody cares about him. Just put the knife down. I’ll write this up. You’ll come out smooth as silk,” Henry lied.

Pay stared at him. His chest heaved up and down violently. He moved quickly towards Henry slashing at the air with his knife.

Henry fell back onto the railing and Pay was over him, slashing at his chest. The knife went through the vest and into Henry’s chest. He could feel the pressure, no pain yet, and then the warmth of blood. And that was it.

He pulled out his pistol and shot Pay, point blank, in the stomach. He didn’t stop pulling the trigger, not even after running out of bullets.

Pay was dead before he hit the ground.

Screams shattered the air and the party across the parking lot shut down its music. It was eerily silent. Blood pooled quickly around Pay’s body and began streaming down the balcony. Henry’s legs collapsed under him and he fell to the ground holding his pistol and looking at the knife still sticking out of his chest.

***

Edwards slammed the brakes, slammed the door, and ran up the stairs. The parking lot was filled with people. They all stood silent. The loud music had been turned off. Edwards heard the sound of sobbing and distant sirens screaming in the air.

“Henry?” he said as he came up on him. “Holy shit.”

Henry clutched at the knife in his chest. Edwards grabbed his hand. “Henry, hey, don’t touch it. Everything’s going to be fine.” He looked over at Pay and saw the impossible amount of blood. “Dispatch this is four-one,” he said into the radio.

“Go ahead four-one,” Garcia answered.

“Shots fired up here. MP down. Subject down. Need an ambulance ASAP.”

“10-4, four-one, got a few on the way to you.”

“Henry?” Edwards said and put his hand behind his friend’s neck to support it. His eyes were closed and his breaths weren’t normal. “Henry?”

Henry looked up at him and chill shot down Edwards’ spine. He didn’t know these eyes.

“Henry? Everything’s going to be okay, okay? Just hold on. How are you feeling?”

Henry smiled, thin lips slid over dry teeth.

The sirens crescendo and ripped the air as Henry slipped into the silence.

***

The ringing jolted Pay’s mother out of a bad dream. She was being chased by an unseen man, was running for the ringing knowing, somehow, that it could save her.

She finally answered it. The man on the other end crushed her completely. She sat on the edge of her bed staring out into the black night wondering how she would get to Kentucky to bring her son home.

Another mother was getting the same call in Kansas now. The two would never know each other.

There was a cursory investigation. Everyone agreed it was tragic. A nice, clean report was written. Pay was to blame.

Six months later Sergeant First Class Johnson earned enough bullet points to be promoted to Master Sergeant.

And the army keeps humming along.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Fat Giggly Americans is an essay that accompanies this piece.