NOTE: DogCanyon will publish this short story serially, in four parts.
To read Part 1, click here.
As soon as we drove away from the children, Turner had the .50 cal at the ready. He loved that Ma-duece, cradling it like a baby. After each patrol he’d treat it to a good cleaning, cursing the very dust that coated his pride and joy. The commander riding shotgun looked every which way for snipers on the rooftops or the glint of a rifle in a window, watching every vehicle on the road ‘cause any motherfucking one of them could’ve been a suicide bomber, easy. It was when the kids weren’t with us that we had to be careful.
A couple of us went to the BC after that to tell him the candy thing wasn’t a good idea, but he told us orders were coming down the pipes that candy for the kids was a PR must. Fuckin dog and pony show is what it was. Motherfucking goatrope, but I’m just a grunt, just you’re average trigger puller and following orders is what I do, no matter how incompetent.
The last thing I ever wanted was to be the cause of some little kids getting their asses beat. But it happened every time. When the kids saw we were out of candy, they didn’t believe it at first, but then they’d fall into fighting more fiercely ‘cause there was no hope of anything else coming from us. And even when we had enough for all of them, the meaner kids still beat up the smaller, weaker ones and took their candy and there was nothing much we could do about it.
more at the jump….
‘Course it wasn’t all just passing out treats. There were the raids, going door-to-door. Sun blinding us or night vision goggles letting us see and we’re kicking down doors and moving through, cornering old ladies and kids and the pretty locked up women we’d never see otherwise (no spoils for us in this war, no pussy at all); the bunch of them so scared they’re chattering away like monkeys; and silent men, their dark eyes glinting with so much hatred. The hatred of having somebody come in your house and scare the shit out of your old lady and your kids and you not being able to do anything about it.
Sometimes I want to tell them I’m not political, I’m too busy drilling and patrolling and trying not to get my ass blown off to think about that stuff anymore. It’s not what we talk about over here, we’re just doing our jobs; that’s what I want to tell the Iraqis sometimes when they’re cowering or looking at me like they’d blow me the fuck up if they had half a chance.
Nat Turner saw how the others liked the action, but he said raids were actually what he hated most. He’d way rather light shit up on patrol than bust into a house. He was as stout as anybody going in, but he said the Klan came around for his grandaddy when his own daddy was eight, came right into the house and dragged out Nat’s grandpa in front of his grandma and all their children. After the funeral, Nat’s grandma picked up with her kids and went north to Detroit. Turner said his daddy wasn’t ever right after that. That was black and white, though, Turner said. This ain’t nothing like that. All sorts of browns and grays in this situation, Nat said and when he laughed I smelled peppermint.
How can you keep eating that stuff? I asked. Candy started to turn me off months before; but he’d just smile at me, his teeth white like a commercial.
Back in the hootch, Turner taught me how to throw bones. I’d never been one for games, but there was something about it, the click of the white dominoes with their black dots on the table. The rules of the game, the order of it, the motherfuckin clarity, and through it all, Turner talking shit with a peppermint between his teeth.
Diggety diggety diggety bone diggety, he’d say, when he laid down something good and he’d smile big at me.
He’d ask me about the pictures I had up by my bed of my nieces and nephews, my sister’s kids. There’s the one of Kylie, looking sassy and redheaded and missing her two front teeth. In the picture of Randy he’s serious and reading a book like always, a little man at eight. And the baby, Ellie, four years old and so sweet. Their dad ran off and my sister’s got M.S. and can’t work. My own dad dropped dead of a heart attack four years ago.
That’s why I enlisted, even though I knew I’d be deployed for sure. I send my checks home. It ain’t much but it buys clothes for the kids, pays for doctor’s visits and school supplies, groceries, too. I tell Turner about all that even though I’ve never talked about it to anyone before. Turner listens and nods like he gets it. He’s not like I am, he signed up to get his confirmed kill and he’s gotten it five times over, but he understands me all the same.
You love those kids, he says, and I nod and swallow hard and it’s okay that my eyes burn because it’s just Turner sitting there.
While we played bones he’d ask me about it, where I’m from. I’d tell him about my family’s place, Texas hill country land between Johnson City and Marble Falls. Turner was surprised Texas isn’t all desert.
Nah, I said, Rolling hills and when you can get up on a ridge, in the distance it looks dark blue. Settlers got tricked, I told him. The land seemed so lush but really there wasn’t much water. Harder to make a go of it there than they thought it’d be.
When I was a kid, cedar was always threatening to take over and choke out the oaks. Suck every last drop of water up out of the ground. My dad had me out there after school, on summer breaks, chopping down the dark green cedar and stacking it in big burn piles. That’s how come I did better in the Baghdad heat than most.
Turner didn’t care so much about the cedar, he wanted to hear about the chickens. Being from Detroit he said he damn near thought all there was to chickens was what he saw wrapped up in plastic wrap and Styrofoam. I told him about the little banty rooster named Buster that terrorized the big rooster.
That big rooster could’ve stepped on little ol’ Buster, I told Turner, but he didn’t know it. I learned something from Buster. It’s not your size, I said, but the spirit in you. It’s how bad you want it. It’s what you think you’ve got.
To be continued…. Stay tuned to DogCanyon for the next installment of the short story “Henhouse.”
Mary, I am so enjoying this story! Hard for me to think that you are inhabiting these soldiers, and it’s good to hear about them and what they are going through. Never thought about what happens when the candy runs out…
Thanks, Reba. Several veterans of the Iraq war worked with me on the story, as well as one soldier–Michael–who was in Iraq at the time I wrote the piece.
Michael also gave the story a test run, showing it to a dozen or so other soldiers to make sure that–with his expert help–I’d gotten things right.
It was a humbling experience.