A Lover's Lament

He whips his head around and locks his nervous eyes onto mine. “What exactly do you expect us to do, Sergeant Clay? Let me think for a goddamn second!” He turns back around and gnaws at his thumbnail. I look out my window and spot one of the policemen who isn’t wounded but dazed and cowering behind a truck. He has a radio clipped to his belt.

I wait no more.

“What the fuck are you—?” I quickly swing open my door, hurling myself to the ground and slamming the door shut behind me, effectively cutting off Lieutenant Dixon’s next words. I wait for the gunfire to slow, clutching my helmet to the ground with both hands. Once it finally does, I get up, duck my chin to my chest, and barrel toward the policeman’s location. A few poorly aimed shots crash in around me and my stomach turns with each strike and puff of dirt. It’s as if they’re shooting at us blindly.

Several excruciating seconds later, I reach the truck and kneel before the frightened policeman. He doesn’t look at me but mutters prayers under his breath and rocks back and forth. His face is pale and eyes are wide. His mouth gapes as he fights for oxygen. I grab him by his shoulders and shake him until he looks at me.

“Do you speak English?” I shout slowly. He shakes his head from side to side, his eyes still unfocused.

“FUCK!” I release him and snatch the radio from his belt, clipping it to my own. I leave him there on his knees and run to Sergeant Adams’ truck, which is positioned strategically behind ours. I hear a few more rounds fire behind me and I say a quick prayer of my own: Lord, get me through this day.

I meet Adams behind his door, sweat running freely down my face and temples throbbing. He stands with his rifle, scanning the road adjacent to us, and lowers it upon my arrival.

“The fucking gunfire’s coming from the other checkpoint a half mile down the road,” I say between heavy breaths.

“Not a fucking surprise. Dumb bastards.”

“I need the ‘terp. I’ve got one of the IP radios. We need to call these fuckers ASAP … see what the fuck is going on.”

I pass the radio off to Adams and he chucks it to “Mike,” our interpreter, then orders him to make the call. Before Adams can get another word in, I take off in the direction of my own vehicle, my heart attempting to punch a hole through my ribcage.

Looks like it’s gonna be another long day in hell.

“Weight of the World” – Young Guns

COME TO FIND OUT THE shots were fired by a bunch of frightened IPs in response to the explosion. This led the checkpoint down the road to assume the other one was being overrun. Sure, why not fire blindly toward another checkpoint based solely on assumption? Dumb fuckers.

After helping the IPs load the dead and wounded onto new trucks that arrived, we eventually made our way back to base. The whole mess took the lives of fourteen Iraqi Police and one dedicated suicide bomber. It stole six hours of our day. As we quietly cruised the road back to base, I couldn’t help but wonder which of those made me more upset. I’m a little ashamed of that.

After reaching base and debriefing from our mission—and getting my ass chewed out by Dixon for taking matters into my own hands—my squad and I took up our usual spots on lawn chairs around a fire pit in the center of the three tents our company stays in. It’s not so much a fire pit as it is a giant ashtray¸ since protocol dictates that we can’t have fires at night.

A smattering of blue chemical lights cast a glow around us. The moon dominates the night sky, shining flawlessly with the absence of pollution. We have canteens full of oversweetened Kool-Aid and a carton of cigarettes between us. We won’t smoke them all, but after missions we wish we could forget, we certainly give it a valiant effort. The Army owns almost every hour of every day we spend in this place, but this time … this is ours.

About two canteens deep, my squad’s conversation turns to ‘sickest anal stories,’ but I tune them out. I’m lost in the moment. I’m lost in that shining freckled orb in the sky. I’m wondering who else could be looking at it too … at that very moment. With my legs outstretched and hands behind my head, I nearly forget I’m even in a combat zone. I lose myself in thought as the conversation flickers around me. I shut my eyes and drift far, far away.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy on a Hawaiian beach. The story is about a man and a boy on a journey in a desolate wasteland. The ocean is as blue as I've ever seen it, and so clear I can spot dolphins playfully jousting in the distance. A beautiful girl sits beside me. A romance novel is cradled in one of her hands, while the other rests against my chiseled abs. I love her touch. Her frequent glances and heartbreaking smile make my body numb. She tells me she loves me. Twirling a strand of her hair between two fingers, she bites the edge of her lip, then she tells me I’m her everything. This is perfection. This is my oasis. This is—

“Time to go, brother. Going to be an early morning.” A swift kick from Navas is the sobering thud that jolts my eyes open, and immediately my heart sinks back into its resting place. I groan and rise to meet him. He’s right. Five a.m. will be here in no time.

After a quick field shower, which pretty much consists of baby wipes and bottled water, I make my way to my bunk. In the tent where we sleep, our cots are lined up one beside the other with equipment strewn about. Posters of half-naked women are duct taped against the tent’s walls, and a stale, dingy aroma sits heavy in the air. It’s not much, but it’s our home for now.

When I reach my cot, there’s a letter positioned on my pillow. I turn to Navas, who has entered behind me, and ask, “We get mail?”

“Yeah, man. The radio dispatcher just dropped them off. Who the fuck is writing you anyway?”

“I’m assuming just some random person from that pen pal shit,” I say, thinking back to the program I reluctantly signed up for a few months back. I’m not even sure why I did, since I haven’t bothered to read any of the letters that have come to me, but it’s hard seeing these guys get letters and packages from home. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, but I’m envious too, and I fucking hate envy. It’s such an ugly shade on anybody. So I do my best to hide it.

I pick up the envelope, and just as I’m about to toss it with the others, I notice the name and address. My heart lodges at the base of my throat.

Katie Devora

1224 N. Main St.

Rock River, TN, 62442

“Holy fucking shit!” I exclaim, drawing Navas’s attention.

“What’s up, man?” he asks, but I ignore him.