The War After Armageddon

FOURTEEN

The Arab girl was pretty enough to make Sergeant Garcia jumpy. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Muy caliente. And walking around like she knew it. So much, he figured, for all that Muslim modesty stuff.

“You,” Garcia told her. “You understand me, right? You tell your mother that all of you got to stay in that one room. Understand? Nobody comes out, unless they ask permission. And it’s okay now. We’re done searching in there.”

The girl stared at him. Absolutely no emotion on her face. Like some hard little high-school bitch back home.

“You tell your mother,” Garcia continued, “that nobody’s going to hurt anybody. You’re safe. But you all got to stay in that room until we leave.”

He hoped they’d be safe. He understood how his Marines felt when they looked at the girl. He felt more than he wanted to feel himself. Skinny, yeah. But the good kind of skinny. The bend-me-every-which-way kind. She could’ve been from some high-class Latino family back home.

And that little mustache. Like a smudge of ashes.

“Go in there now,” Garcia said. “Tell your mother what I said.”

After an insolent few seconds, the girl turned toward the room where her mother and little brother waited. But first she let Garica and the other Marines watch her expression turn from a blank to sheer snottiness.

Garcia read the air in the hallway. “I don’t want anybody hassling her,” he said. “Everybody got that? No conversations, nothing. That’s jailbait. And I mean it.”

“They get married when they’re, like, six years old,” Cropsey said.

“Yeah, well you want to marry her, you come back when all this is over. All right. Corporal Gallotti, your squad has the roof and the first guard rotation. Make sure you got visual with Third Platoon and no dead space you don’t know about. Corporal Banks, your squad’s in the shacks out in the courtyard. Suck it up. Every-body else is in here. Max four to a room. In case any shit goes down. And get some sleep. There’s orders coming down, and we’ll probably be moving out at zero-dark-thirty.” He paused. Examining the tired, dirty faces. “And one more thing: No souvenirs. No breaking shit, either. Show some respect.”

Some murmurs. But nothing to worry about. For the moment. They were tired. Crashing. Like meth-heads at the end of a long run. The Marines began to disperse, guided by the surviving NCOs.

“Cropsey, Larsen. Polanski,” Garcia called. “You’re in here. With me.”

He wanted to keep an eye on Cropsey. Garcia still wasn’t sure how to handle him. Best fighter in the platoon. Natural-born killer. But he needed to be kept on a tight leash.

Sergeant Ricky Garcia didn’t want any more trouble. Just a little sleep. The past twenty-four hours had sucked, from the second the clock started ticking. First the new lieutenant. Next, the new lieutenant getting himself killed. Then two more firefights with stay-behinds and a death march, followed by the company commander reaming him because the dead lieutenant, who Garica had pegged as right off the block, had been the nephew of some general. Even after Garcia explained what happened, backed up by Corporal Gal-lotti and Corporal Banks, Captain Cunningham had left him with a line that burned his ears like battery acid:

“As platoon sergeant, it was your job to look out for him.”

How could you look out for an asshole the size of the Central Valley? Garcia asked himself. But the words still ate at him. Because he wanted to be a good platoon sergeant. The best. To show them all.

And he wasn’t sure he could do it.

He dropped his gear on the floor. When he slipped off his body armor, his uniform was sealed against his chest and back with old sweat. He wanted to take off his boots and leave them off but decided it wasn’t a good idea. He settled for changing his socks and dusting some powder between his toes.

The room smelled of piss and insecticide. Low couches lined three walls. Other than that, there was only a crap rug, some Mr. Raghead portraits hanging a few inches from the ceiling, and a table with a tinwork top that reminded him of border-town Mex crap. Could’ve been some junkie’s room, he decided. After he sold off everything anybody would buy.

“Where you going, Polanksi?”

“To the shitter. It’s outside, Sergeant.”

“Take your weapon. And put your body armor on. You think you’re at the swimming pool at Lejeune?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The lance corporal slung his weapon over his shoulder, then stumbled over a fold in the rug. Clumsiest Marine in the platoon. And maybe the dumbest.

Cropsey flopped down on the cushions in one corner. Cradling his weapon. Larsen had his trousers down to his knees, inspecting the prickly heat on the inside of his thighs. Garcia broke out the chili he’d saved from his last ration pack. It didn’t need heating. His pocket had warmed it just fine.

Suck-ass, rat-hole country. Who’d want it? He wondered if he should tell the old lady who owned the house to lock her door. Just in case.

Did the Mussies even have locks on their inside doors?

“Yo, Sergeant Garcia,” Larsen said. Messing with a pimple on his thigh. “I ask you something?”

“What?”

“You ever think… that maybe those MOBIC guys have it right? That we can’t really live with these people? That it’s us or them?”

“Those MOBIC fucks don’t have anything right.” Garcia leaned back and closed his eyes.

“But what if it really is us or them?”

“Larsen, you need to get some sleep. You want to talk philosophy, go to college.”

“I just meant… Maybe they have a point. You know?”

Garcia sat up. Tired and short-fused. “You want to know what I think of those MOBIC shitheads? First, they aren’t Marines. That’s strike one. Second, they’re just loco gangbangers. I grew up around fucks like that. ‘Hey, you’re either in our gang, or you must be in some other gang, and you’re the enemy, and we’re going to mess you up.’ I had enough of that shit back home.”

“But there’s a difference,” Larsen pressed on. “They’re defending our Christian faith.”

“Who says?” Garica was getting angrier than Larsen, who was fascinated by his own reddened skin, realized. “Just who the fuck says? Where does Jesus say, ‘Kill everybody who isn’t with the program, who isn’t in my gang, who isn’t running with the J-Town Disciples?’ Those MOBIC pukes are gangbangers. Plain and simple. Except the drug they push doesn’t come from some lab in a house trailer in Barstow.”

Without opening his eyes, Cropsey put in, “Come on, Sergeant G. You got religion like a bad case of superstition yourself, man. That tattoo of the Virgin Mary on your arm and everything.”

“It’s the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

“Same difference. It’s still the Virgin Mary.”

“Well, it is, and it isn’t.”

“No, man. It is. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the Virgin Mary. As she appeared to some Indian dude back at the Alamo or something.”

“It wasn’t at the fucking Alamo.”

But Cropsey had taken over the conversation. “At least the MOBIC guys don’t take any shit from the rags. You got to give them credit. And you heard what they’re saying around battalion. How the J’s have been crucifying prisoners.” Cropsey sat up, grinning. “You know what I think? I think we ought to interrogate that girl. She speaks English. We could ask her where all the men went. Where her daddy is. You could scare her with the Virgin of Guadalupe. You and me, Sergeant G. Good cop, bad cop.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Come on, Sergeant G. You telling me you wouldn’t like to fuck that little bitch’s brains out?”

Garcia rolled to his feet. “That’s it. Outside. Now. This is two days in a row you’ve used up your shit ration. And you. Larsen. Either see the corpsman, or stop playing with yourself. Cropsey, move. And put your armor back on.”

Polanski came back in from the hallway, blocking the doorway just as Garcia was dropping his body armor over his head.

“Stop dawdling, Polanski. Clean your weapon and go to sleep.”

“I was cleaning my boots, sergeant. The out house has turds all over it.”

“Just clean your weapon and go to sleep.”

Weapon in hand, Garcia led the way under the dangling lightbulb in the hallway and out through the drapery that served as a front door. He wondered where the electricity was coming from. It was hard to believe that anything still worked in the entire country.

Just outside, in the fading heat, Garcia turned on Cropsey. Keeping his voice low. And making a note that it was time to turn out all the inside lights, to go blackout.

The evening had gone the color of his mother’s favorite sweater, a soft purple. What did you call it? Lavender? The blotches on her face had been the same color just before she died.

“What’s your major malfunction, Cropsey? What is it, man? You don’t like the Marines? You don’t like sergeants? You don’t like Hispanics, maybe? Or maybe you just don’t like me.”

“I love you, Sergeant Garcia. It’s just that I’m afflicted with moral dilemmas and quandaries. I think I’m being traumatized by war.”

Garcia wanted to hit him. But he didn’t. Instead, he changed his tone of voice.

“Come on, Cropsey. What’s eating you? You afraid of something? If you weren’t such an asshole, you could be a great Marine.”

Cropsey just stared at him. Pale eyes in a fading face as the dark came down. As insolent as the Arab girl.

“We’ll settle this another time,” Garcia told him. “Meanwhile, I don’t want to hear one more word about that girl. That’s an order.”

Cropsey shrugged.

“You clean your weapon?” Garcia asked him. He wanted things to be normal. As normal as they could be in war. And he felt that Cropsey was getting the better of him.

“My weapon’s always clean, Sergeant.”

“Then go in and get some sleep.”

Cropsey pivoted and pushed aside the drapery.

Just in time for both of them to see the girl. She was standing at the doorway of their room. With a grenade in her hand.

For an instant, her eyes met Garcia’s. Then she tossed the grenade into the room and ran.

Cropsey began to swing up his weapon, but Garcia pulled him to the ground. Just before the explosion.

The blast blew out the light and thickened the air with dust and smoke.

“That little cunt,” Cropsey screamed. Then they were both on their feet. Weapons up. Heading for the room into which the girl had fled. Kicking masonry scraps out of the way.

“In first,” Cropsey yelled.

“Got your back.”

“Grenade!” Crospey screamed. He dived forward.

Garcia hurled himself back out through the doorway.

As he hit the ground, the concussion slammed him. And he realized what had just happened, as if watching an instant replay.

Cropsey had thrown himself on top of the grenade.

Garcia stormed back into the house. There were moans now. A male voice. Not Cropsey. And shouting upstairs. Boots thumping.

“Everybody stay put,” Garcia shouted.

He rushed toward the room in which the girl and her family had been promised a refuge. Disregarding everything but the need to spill his rage.

He emptied one magazine blindly into the darkness. Then he pulled another magazine from his vest and shot it dry.

He reloaded. But he didn’t pull the trigger immediately. He listened.

When he heard a stuttering groan, he spent the third mag in the direction of the sound.

With the room silenced, Garcia dropped to the ground, cradling his weapon amid the dust and smoke.

When the firing stopped, Corporal Tony Gallotti waited for a voice, a command. But all he heard was a faint moan from below: a Marine.

“Sergeant Garcia?”

No reply.

“Sergeant Garcia?”

Gallotti flipped down the night-vision device on his helmet. Peering through the dust and debris.

A voice from down below called, “Sergeant Garcia?”

That was Corporal Banks. Yelling in from the doorway.

“It’s Gallotti. I’m coming down from the second deck. Tyrrell, take my back. Yon, you’re overwatch. Corpsman! Marines down!”

As Gallotti felt his way down the stairs, adjusting to the spook-light in his reticle, he spotted Sergeant Garcia. Slumped against the wall. Not moving.

“Sergeant G? Yo, Sergeant Garcia?”

Then he saw the body. What was left of it. Through the smoke, he couldn’t identify the Marine.

He thought he saw Garcia’s chest heave.

“Corpsman!”

Moaning haunted the background. It sounded like it might be Larsen.

Gallotti crossed the hall to where Garcia sat. Breathing all right. No blood-shine. Then the corporal saw that Garcia’s hand rested on a helmet containing a severed head.

Gallotti flipped up the night-sight and tore the flashlight off his armored vest. With the red light in his face, Garcia looked up. He was crying, but there was no par tic u lar expression on his face. Tears streaked the dust caked on his cheeks.

Garcia dropped his head again.

“Sergeant Garcia? You okay? Hey?”

The sergeant didn’t respond.

More boots. A lot more boots. More voices. Murphy, the corpsman, spoke from the corporal’s rear.

“Who’s down.”

“I think it’s Larsen. In there. Just check it out, Murph.”

The corporal squatted by Garcia. He passed his flashlight in front of the sergeant’s face. “You okay, Sergeant Garcia? You hit, man?”

Garcia looked up. So abruptly that the corporal recoiled.

“That’s Cropsey’s head,” he told Gallotti. “We have to put him back together.”

Garcia hoisted himself to his feet, sliding up the wall, thrusting his body armor against the force of gravity. He walked outside.

“Sergeant G? You all right?”

Garcia didn’t speak again until they were in the courtyard. With Marines gathering from beyond the compound. Captain Cunningham materialized. The company commander had washed his face and shaved.

The captain rushed up to Garcia and Gallotti.

“What happened?”

Gallotti was about to speak for the sergeant, to cover for him, but Garcia’s shoulders relaxed, and he answered for himself.

“We didn’t check the women, sir. I mean, we kept our hands off them, didn’t frisk them or anything. I was worried about things getting out of hand.” Garcia’s voice was flat, as if he were reporting on missing tent pegs. “She looked like a kid, sir. Not a little kid. But a kid. She tossed a grenade into the room where Larsen and Polanski were bunking. It was quick, sir. Me and Cropsey went after her. I’d been giving him some counseling outside the doorway. Cropsey went in first. And she flipped out another grenade. He jumped on it.” Garcia looked past the captain and into the night. “I think I killed them all, sir. There were three of them, and I think I killed them all.”

The captain turned to the gathering Marines. “First Sergeant?”

“He’s checking the OPs, sir.”

“Gunny Matthews?”

“Sir?”

“I want every Arab in this ville strip-searched.”

“The women, sir?”

“Girls, women. Give them what privacy you can, and no nonsense. But everyone gets searched. Down to their underwear. Two Marines present at all times. Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You all right, Sergeant Garcia?”

“Cropsey threw himself on the grenade, sir.”

“You told me that.”

“I don’t know why he did it, sir.”

“He was a good Marine.”

But Garcia was stubborn. “I just don’t know why he did it.” “Make a hole!” The corpsman and another Marine lugged out a stretcher.

It was Larsen. His face had been erased. His eyes were gone. The cavity where his mouth had been bubbled pink over scarlet meat.

“I knew the girl was trouble, sir,” Garcia said. “I just didn’t know what kind of trouble. How could she do some crazy shit like that? I mean, she was a kid. Why would she do that?”

“She’s dead now?” the captain asked. As if he hadn’t heard all that had been said to him.

“I fucking hope so,” Garcia told him.

The patient evacuation holding area had gone quiet. Now and then, the sound of a man confused by pain and drugs rose and fell away, but the new calm seemed almost eerie to Major Nasr. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he lay intermittently aware of the battery of clamps, splints, ban dages, and tubes controlling his body, only to find himself back in Nazareth again, being beaten for reasons he couldn’t remember or imagining that he’d pissed himself bloody again.

Had he pissed himself again? He wasn’t sure. He wanted to know but couldn’t tell for certain. Then he decided, again, that he didn’t care.

He counted the crucified men. Thirty-six. He counted them again. Thirty-seven. Again. Only thirty-six.

Why wouldn’t the number come right?

Where was he? The doctor was there. No, that had been earlier. He was sure it had happened, though. In a lucid moment, he’d asked a doctor how bad his injuries were. The doctor, a lieutenant colonel, told him, “We don’t know. You need tests that we can’t do here. But you’re going to live.”

To live.

What would they tell his parents? He wished he could speak to his father first, before they got to him. His father, who had always seemed so strong but wasn’t.

The pain was so strange. He knew it was there. The way you knew another person was in the room, even though you couldn’t see him. Plenty of painkillers racing through his bloodstream. But the pain was still there. Dressed up in a bizarre costume.

Guess who I am?

Pain, in an Arab robe. In a crisp uniform patterned on the British military of a previous century. Only Arabs wore those Sam Browne belts nowadays.

He was an Arab.

Was he? What did that mean? Wasn’t being a Christian more important? Being an American?

It was all in the blood. It would be there after the painkillers thinned out. You knew things with your blood. Things that others couldn’t understand.

An officer in battle dress had tried to ask him questions, overriding the nurse and then the doctor. It was urgent. What was urgent? “I have to ask you a few questions… I’m sorry… The Corps G-2 needs to know…”

Who had a need to know? What could be known, anyway? A hundred transfusions wouldn’t change what he knew in his blood.

I know that I am still alive. In a field hospital. I know… that I’m going to live.

Nasr wondered if he’d be able to have sex. The boots of Arab policemen gravitated toward testicles. Testicles and kidneys.

He’d always heard that badly wounded men wanted their mothers. But he found his thoughts returning to his father. Who had seemed so shockingly frail, so bewildered. “But my son… He is in the specialty forces…”

Dad, it’s going to be okay. You hear me?

Had he accomplished his mission? In Nazareth? Who had he better served? His own kind, or the enemy? But who were “his own kind?”

Not them, not them. American. I’m an American. Dad, we’re Americans. They can’t change that.

A charley horse in his left leg made him cry out. The leg was immobilized, and he couldn’t cock it up to ease the spasm. It seemed worse than the pain he’d felt during his beating. Or after.

Then it subsided. “These things, too, shall pass away.”

If he could revisit any old girlfriend, who would it be?

That didn’t work. For him, it was always the one he was going to meet. The perfect one. Who was waiting.

The nurse who had come into his field of vision while he was lucid had looked like a pit bull. While he was in ROTC in college, he’d had to read A Farewell to Arms for a survey of 20th-century American literature. It struck him now as the most dishonest book he’d ever read.

Dad, it’s going to be all right. Don’t worry. They’re not going to take you and Mom to any camps.

He faded again, swirling in and out of dreams of torture. He was in the snack bar at the bowling alley on Ft. Bragg. He told them they had to stop because there were children watching. Then he was back in the Bradley that had evacuated him from Nazareth. But that was impossible. That had to be a dream, because he was already in the field hospital. He was sure of it.

I did my duty, he wanted to scream. I did all I could do.

It wasn’t a bowling alley after all. And he was doing the torturing. With kitchen knives.

Nasr woke. To the fitful quiet of the evacuation ward. It took him a moment to get a grip on reality. Then, all at once, everything seemed clear.

He was going to live.

Dad, I’m going to live. Everything will be okay.

A man in scrubs loomed over him. The man wore a surgical mask. He held up a syringe.

“Who are you?” Nasr asked, alerting.

“A friend,” the man said. He stabbed the needle into Nasr’s forearm.

A fierce burn spread up Nasr’s arm and over his body. In just under two minutes, he was dead.