The Sandbox (15 page)

44

I leave the
lieutenant’s office at 1900 hours. Rankin and a couple of others are on their way to the mess tent, so I fall in with them, even though I’m not very hungry. Somebody’s telling a hajji joke, but I’m not listening, just sort of staring off at the Noses. Jagged purple shapes against a deep blue sky. When I stop to tie a bootlace, I notice a figure running along the wall of the garage toward the back of the old fort. Rankin stops to wait for me, but I tell him to go on ahead, that I have to take a leak and I’ll catch up. I lie without thinking and don’t stop to wonder why. No one else is on the parade ground. A light burns in the Comm Trailer. Laughter spills out of the mess tent. Once Rankin and the rest of them are several yards away, I sprint over to the garage.

The night is dry and cold. A wisp of cloud races past a three-quarter moon that’s rising just above the largest of the Noses. It shines like a brass artillery-shell casing. The sand on the parade ground seems to glow, and the scattered rocks are slick and shiny in the moonlight. My shadow stretches out for klicks, pursuing me like a cartoon villain. When I round the corner of the garage, no one is there.

The fort is sectioned off into two parts. The front, which we reconstructed and stabilized, contains the motor pool and the garage machine shop. Behind this are several large rooms that have been converted into storage areas for food and vehicle parts and ammunition. The original structure was made of large undressed purple stones. The Army added cinderblocks to this, creating an outer shell. Inside the motor pool, they stabilized the ceiling with steel I-beams borrowed from the old cement factory building. The result is extremely ugly but solid and functional. The rear half, what we refer to as the old fort, has two levels and once served as Omar’s barracks. The upper level has almost completely collapsed, although here and there it is still possible to make out the original crenellation. The building appears to have been built in pieces over many years, and the walls wander in a strange zigzag pattern for almost a hundred yards. This is where I saw the shadow man. Back where the new storage rooms butt up against the old fort. He was running in quick bursts from one pile of broken rock to another. This is not how an innocent man moves at night.

I stand perfectly still and watch for any movement among the heaps of masonry and crumbling stone. Nothing. Perhaps I made a mistake. The manual we used in Basic advised against staring into the darkness during nighttime guard duty. Too much of this and bushes start to move. Each one becomes a potential enemy. Stare a little longer and you’ll find yourself attacking the shrubbery.

Just as I’m about to give up and go back to the mess tent, a brick falls in one of the half-collapsed rooms behind the secure storage area. In the stillness, the sound is huge. Someone mutters. I finger the safety on my M4 and pat my cargo pocket to make sure I have an extra clip. Maybe it’s just Cox checking on one of the vehicles. But he would have used the bay doors in front. I grind my teeth and angle my head for a better view. Several twitchy minutes pass. Hazel’s donkey laugh drifts over from the mess tent. From where I squat behind the oil drums in the dark, it is a lonely sound. This is a waste of time, I think. But then, even before I shift my weight and take a step, a figure emerges from the ruined room closest to the motor pool’s eastern door. His head is wrapped in a cloth. I wish I had some NVGs. I should have brought Rankin. I click off my safety and lead this guy with my rifle. When he comes out into the moonlight, I let the barrel drop. The scarf wrapped around his head is yellow. It’s Ahmed. I consider shooting him. In light of recent events, it would be justified. I could just say I didn’t see his face and thought he was another mad bomber. But I don’t. Instead, I stay crouched behind the barrels until he’s about twenty yards away, then I follow him.

Ahmed runs quickly with his shoulders hunched and head down. Every so often he stops, cops a squat and glances around. I drop flat when I see him slow down. His movements are regular and easy to predict. Even the dumbest grunt can tell you this is a foolish way to operate. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t see me. When he reaches the northern wall, I think I’ve got him. Ahmed stops and pulls something from the sack slung over his shoulder. I want to move closer, but I’m afraid he’ll hear me. He walks right up to the wall and seems to be punching it. What the hell? Ahmed pushes and shoves the stones with his shoulder, wriggling something as he does it. It looks like he’s completely lost his head. But then, slowly, a small section of the wall swings inward like a door. He disappears in the dark space behind it and the wall closes again with a soft scrape.

I wait for a few mikes before I go in for a closer look. It takes me a while to find it. A narrow crack in the wall, edged with metal. I can make out abrasions in the rock at the base of the little door, but just barely. There is nothing around this section of the wall to help me find it again later. I feel around in my pockets. Cigarettes. I place one on the ground at the base of the door and cover the tobacco end with a rock. Unless you were looking for it, it would be almost invisible.

45

Rankin stares at
me when I reach the mess tent. I’ve been gone a hell of a lot longer than a piss should take. I load my tray and sit between Rankin and Doc Greer. Dinner is chipped beef on toast or, as it is more popularly known, shit on a shingle. Boyette takes the bench across from me and slams his tray down hard enough to spatter gravy. He narrows his eyes and looks at his food like he wants to kill it.

“Unhappy about the menu selection tonight, Chef Boyarette?” Doc Greer asks.

“What? This?” Boyette gestures at his tray with a plastic fork. “I haven’t ate so good my whole life.”

“God help you,” Doc Greer says, and seems relatively sincere.

“Fuck, man, I don’t care about this shit.” He shovels a heap of brown goo into his mouth, chews rapidly, and swallows with relish. “Durrant’ll be burning it in a week. No, it’s Hazel that pissed me off.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“He says I’m a soldier for fucking Exxon. That’s a load of crap.”

“He’s just giving you shit,” I say.

Doc Greer puts a hand over his heart. “I pledge allegiance to the tiger—”

“Shut up,” Boyette says.

Rankin lets slip a gruff, “Heh, heh, heh.”

“What’s so funny about that? I’m fighting for the fucking U. S. of A. I don’t give two shits what Hazel says. What about you, Rankin?”

“Poontang,” Rankin says.

“The only one I know who actually likes this shit,” I say, flicking Boyette on the arm with my sticky spoon, “is the Boy here.”

“Hooah,” Boyette shouts.

It’s loud. We all wince except him.

“What about Salis?” Doc Greer asks. “He re-upped in-theater.”

Rankin looks around the table, catching each eye. “When I was home on leave, all I could think about was this fucking place. What you all were up to. What kind of shit was going down. I couldn’t even enjoy a movie. I couldn’t enjoy nothing. And then I get back here, and all I can think about is getting the hell away from your sorry asses.”

“What’s that got to do with Salis?” I ask.

“Easy. I can go home and find some other way to live my life. But him?” Rankin says, looking over his shoulder at the man in question. At the moment, Salis is standing on the bench beside Cox, kicking his legs up and flapping his arms like a chicken. “He’s a battle-rattle adrenaline junkie. He’d engage a camel if they told him to. After working weapons squad and firing a 240 Bravo, you can’t just go home and cook French fries. Salis barely cleared high school. The poor dumb fuck was two months away from his twentieth birthday when they stuffed the diploma in his pocket and made him leave school. Could of gotten arrested for statutory rape those last couple of proms. Then Uncle Sam puts his sad, unloved ass in the infantry. Did they teach him how to work computers or fix engines? Hell, no. The only training he got was how to make pink mist. He ain’t going home with a skill he can sell. This is it for him. It’s as good as it gets. He may be dumb, but he ain’t so dumb he can’t see that.”

“Yeah,” Doc Greer says, “after this, none of us belong anywhere. We’re mutants. They don’t even know a war’s going on at home. When I was back on leave, old men would come up to me in the grocery store or wherever, pat me on the back and say ‘I support the troops.’ How the fuck do you do that, I wanted to ask, by buying more gas or TV dinners? That phrase doesn’t mean shit. It’s just a bunch of sounds.”

“They don’t know what the hell to say to you,” Rankin says. “Same as a funeral. Nothing anybody says will make a difference either way. I feel for your loss. I support the troops. Same fucking shit.”

But Doc Greer is on a roll. “Well, then they should just shut the fuck up.”

“Hooah,” Boyette adds.

“Or people’d ask me if I got to fire my weapon,” Greer says. His lip curls up on one side so his dog tooth shows. “How can you even talk to people about it when they ask you shit like that? We’re no good for normal life now and this ain’t no life at all.”

“We’re war orphans,” Rankin says.

“War mutants more like,” Doc Greer says.

“Fuck you all,” Boyette says, pounding his chest. “I’m a war-yur. Hooah.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of that hooah shit,” Rankin tells him. On this, we’re in complete agreement. “Didn’t your mama teach you manners? No hooah at the dinner table.”

“I’d rather fight them here than back home,” Boyette says, throwing out some half-remembered campaign slogan, something he probably saw on TV.

“Not me,” I say, “at least that would make sense. If I was fighting them back home, I’d feel like there was an actual reason for doing it.”

“Hooah to that,” Rankin says.

Doc Greer gives me a bland look. “I wish we were fighting the Canadians.”

46

The next morning
Ahmed shows up for the burn a half-hour late. He looks like shit—a thumb-sized bag under each bloodshot eye and rough patches of stubble on his cheeks. We didn’t bring enough fuel and the shit remains a thick boiling sludge at the bottom of the barrels. There’s no way I’m driving all the way to base and back. I make Ahmed suck on the hose to start the siphon I’ve placed in the fuel tank. His face turns red and his eyes bulge a bit. When the gas fills his mouth, he chokes and then spits several times.

I decide to play stupid.

“Cox wanted me to thank you for returning that wrench last night,” I tell him.

“Wrench?” he asks, alarmed.

His discomfort is satisfying to watch.

“Yeah, the wrench. That is what you were doing in the garage last night, wasn’t it? Returning the wrench?”

“I am sorry. I do not understand.” I notice Ahmed’s hand shaking slightly. He stuffs it in his pocket when he sees me looking.

“You all right? Swallowing gas can do funny things to your head. Your hands are shaking.”

“It is okay.” He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

“That’s some trick you have, getting onto the base. None of the sentries saw you. That could come in handy.” I wink at him. A knot of anger hardens in my chest, but this isn’t the time to let it loose. “You’ll have to show me some time.”

“This is no trick. Perhaps the gate man he sleeps. Ha, ha.” His laugh sounds like a cough.

“Ah, so you were there.” I clench my fists so hard that one of my fingernails breaks the skin on my palm.

Ahmed grunts and looks away. “I am not understanding,” he mumbles.

“I’m just fooling with you, bud.” I give him a hearty laugh and pound him on the back. Hard enough to make him grunt.

He doesn’t smile back. “Yes,” he says, “funny fooling.”

We don’t speak on the way back to the village, but while I’m watching the road ahead, I feel his eyes on me. Usually, I drop him at his door. Today he asks me to stop at the village café. He glances down the track leading to his family’s house and then back at me several times in quick succession. I say good-bye, but he just shuts the door and walks quickly to the entrance of the little restaurant, not once looking back. I have to pull into the dirt road in order to turn the truck around. As I’m punching in the clutch, I notice a group of men waiting in the yard of Ahmed’s house, which is only a few doors down from the highway. Five grim guys decked out in dusty, baggy-kneed suits and red-checked scarves. They smoke their cigarettes and stare at their feet with a kind of forced casualness. If I was part of a squad today, we’d probably shake them down. They have that look. But I’m alone, so I grind the stick into reverse and drive away. One man takes off his scratched-up, drugstore sunglasses and stares at me through the windshield of the truck. There’s a raw pink divot where his left eye should be.

Instead of going straight to the toy factory, I turn onto the washboard gravel road that leads to the base. I drive a couple hundred yards and then stop at a curve in the road where it dips beside a mound of boulders. Here the truck is hidden from both the village and the sentry post. The desert is nearly soundless and the air is heavy and still. I get out and wait fifteen minutes near a patch of stunted brush, hucking rocks at lizards and blowing smoke rings before I climb back into the truck and drive down to the highway that leads to the factory. I can’t see Ahmed watching the road much longer than this. His enthusiasm for spying seemed limited today.

I managed to snag a couple of cans of 7-Up along with five more MREs this morning before I left. I’m in a cheerful mood when I park the truck behind the factory gate. The thought of seeing Herman makes me smile. There is a slight breeze now. It stirs the dust and chases bits of paper across the factory yard. Several large dark birds, vultures maybe, drift in the thermals high above me. I see a flash of movement in the window as I’m jumping down from the truck. There’s my boy. As I step into the building, I whistle the chorus to “Don’t Rock the Boat.”

Herman waits in the doorway of the factory office, crouched like a sprinter at the block. I smile and wave. He’s changed into a new outfit. The old outfit was ambiguous, but this one is definitely a dress of some sort, constructed from butcher paper.

As soon as Herman sees who it is, he stands up and walks toward me. This bodes well. I set the MREs on the floor and pull the 7-Up cans from my cargo pockets. He must recognize them; his eyes light up and he rushes over to take one from me. After a long sip, he frowns and gestures for me to sit. I do. He brings the can to my lips and tilts it up. This I didn’t expect. I almost choke. He laughs soundlessly. Maybe Herman’s mute. He gulps the 7-Up in a series of fast, noisy swallows, spilling soda all over the front of his new paper dress.

When he’s finished, I motion for him to sit across from me. He hesitates and then sits. I demonstrate how the heating mechanism in the MRE works by pouring the last of the 7-Up into the special plastic bag that comes with the box, but I’m not entirely sure he understands. He tries to drink it and I have to show him using sign language that this would kill him. Maybe I should just let him eat the MREs cold.

“I’m going to have a baby soon, Herman.”

He plays with the MRE heating bag. It expands like a balloon as the 7-Up reacts with the granular, black heating agent.

“If it’s a boy, I’m going to call him Herman, too. I don’t care what Clarissa says.”

Herman looks at me in an attentive way. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he understands me. He smiles. Another first.

For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, I tell him stories about growing up in the salt marshes at the edge of Savannah. I sing the theme song to
Sesame Street
and encourage him to sing with me. Herman nods along with the melody but remains silent. I run through it several times before giving up.

“I wish there was some way I could bring you back to the base. Maybe we could get you cleaned up and teach you to work in the kitchen or, better yet, in the garage after I get rid of Ahmed.” I don’t know why I say this. It doesn’t seem possible.

At the mention of Ahmed, Herman leaps to his feet.

“What’s wrong?” I pat the floor with my hand and smile. Sit down. His entire body hums with tension. Then he spins on his tube shoes and darts off. I wait for a few minutes, then stand and leave. The mixup with the diesel fuel has made me late enough.

As I’m about to climb into the cab of the truck, he reappears. Tucked under one arm is a package wrapped in the same brown paper he used to construct his dress, tied neatly with pink thread. What I find inside astounds me. Somehow Herman has managed to sew together the parts of several stuffed creatures. The needle work is so neat it almost looks as though it came off the factory line. The plush purple body appears to have once been an elephant’s. Sewn to its neck is a pink teddy bear head and attached at the rear is the long fuzzy body of a snake. A red felt tongue flickers at the end. Herman beams at me. I beam back.

“Thank you,” I say. My eyes moisten. God, I’m turning into the biggest pussy.