Fratricide–The Thesis (Final)

Criminal Investigations Command, Ft. Knox KY—MPRC 2003-1898 appendix 126

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.


Creative Commons License

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.

One Response

  1. I remember

    Ken McLeod - August 2nd, 2009 at 4:44 pm