War Porn (25 page)

Yet there I went into town, working at the bookshop, drinking with J.J., fooling around with Alice, getting high, ending the night in a hazy drive back up the mountain or crashed in Alice's bed, waking to strange light through a strange window burning away the illusion of ease life wore by night and revealing beneath it the grim furrows of bad habits too deeply rutted to pull out of.

Fog, thick, hung in the trees. I got up early and shuffled through the trailer, started the coffee pot, rolled a cigarette. I opened the door and let in the mist, let out the smoke, hoping yet again for clarity.

I left my notebook and pen untouched on the table. For some reason that morning poetry seemed even more futile than usual. I was always going over the same plucked field, picking at the same thoughts and sensations. What was the point of thinking things? Writing them down? Nobody read, nobody cared—no one needed the navel-gazing mystifications of yet another confused and sensitive young soul.

I opened the fridge and saw I had a couple eggs, so I put on a pan and started it warming, melting butter. I cut two slices from a loaf of organic multigrain and laid them on a plate.

For company I turned on NPR. At first it wasn't anything, just a stream of meaningless sound, then as I stood over the stove with an egg in my hand the babble squirmed into sense. Someone had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. No, two planes. Both towers. One was collapsing, smoke rising up, people jumping. It was an attack of some kind. We were under attack.

I turned up the radio and cracked the eggs, listening to voices cry out over the sizzle of butter frying.

 

i am an american soldier

i am a warrior and a member of a team

i serve the people of the united states

and live the army values

 

 

Trucks roll, gunners scanning the horizon. The sun an incandescent smear. I sweat and turn up the music.

We drive south through the desert in a line, miles long, of big green machines.

We stand in the heat by the road and the wind whips sand at us. Waves of grit slide and ebb across the seething black. Engines hum.

In the distance two Bradleys spin heaving clouds of dust as they circle a cluster of hooches and rumble over a hill. We hear the noise of their guns then their engines fade. Smoke oozes up. An Apache hovers overhead.

Blackened humvees jut up from the sand.

Pictures come out of hadjis getting fucked with at one of the prisons. Hadjis getting punched, hadjis standing on boxes, hadjis with panties on their heads, naked hadjis getting laughed at by skanky Nasty Girl bitches.

I know what I'm looking at, but at the same time, fuck 'em. Fuck 'em to their goddamned shitsucking hadji hell. They're shooting at us every day and I'm supposed to give a flying fuck about human rights? Fuck that. Once they quit chopping people's heads off and lighting dudes on fire, then maybe we'll talk.

Command comes down and says just what you'd expect, reprehensible unprofessional blah blah blah, but who the fuck cares? A few bad apples, they say, make sure you know the regulations, but we all know the score.

The muezzin calls out five times a day. Gunfire breaks the night. No running water. No electricity. No air conditioning. No grass, no carpet, no windows. No fans. Little shade, bad food, no joy, little laughter, no decent sleep. Everyone in the world wears camouflage—the others talk gobbledygook and stare.

Geraldo reenlists for a 20K bonus.

Burger King, daisy-chain. Cordon and Search. Stack team. There's a glazed shock in everyone's eyes, the simmer of hatred barely contained. We get in fistfights. We listen to “Hey Ya!” and count the dead.

What had I done before? Who had I been? Was there a life before this?

Negative. I'd never been anyone. I'd never done anything but drive down this highway forever, the road eternity itself, punishment for an abandoned dream's half-imagined sins. This was all I'd ever done, all I'd ever do: drive in the heat through the sand and the pain and stink in the unceasing noise.

 

i stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy

the enemies of the united states of america

in close combat

 

 

0200 go. Stoat flips the humvee lights, starts the engine, and with a roar and crash slams through the front gate. We jog across the night-hung street around the humvee and into
the yard. We take our positions by the door and switch on the
flashlights affixed to our rifles. Burnett rams the door open and Bullwinkle goes in, then me, our rifles stabbing beams of white into the black. The rest of our team follows; the snatch team comes behind and pounds up the stairs. We take the first floor, living room, sofa, TV, clear the corners quick and into the kitchen, tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl on the counter, flatbread, water, towels, we kick open a door and a hadji stands in the corner in his underpants, shielding his face.

“On your knees, motherfucker!”

“Inhanee!”

The hadji's slow to move, so Bullwinkle slams the butt of his rifle in his gut, jackknifing him at the waist.

“Inhanee, motherfucker!”

He goes down. I keep my rifle at his head and Bullwinkle zip-strips his arms behind him. Once he's tied, we drag him to the other room.

The lights on now, you can see the worn but cared-for furniture and brass knickknacks. A family portrait hangs on the wall.

Shouting upstairs.

We dump the hadji on the floor and my rifle slams against a vase, knocking it to the ground where it smashes.

“Watch it,” says Staff Sergeant Gooley.

Lieutenant Juarez and Captain Yarrow stride in, the terp behind them, just as the snatch team drags the first hadji down the stairs, a middle-aged man in boxers and a wifebeater. A woman wails somewhere.

I hear Burnett shout, “Shut that bitch up.”

“First floor clear,” Sergeant Nash tells Staff Sergeant Gooley.

“Search it,” the LT barks.

So we go back to the hadji's room and turn on the light. He's got a pile of letters, a little boombox, and a tiny framed picture of a woman on the table in the corner. He's got a bed, a bookcase, a rug on the floor, a trunk, a pair of shoes. I flip through his stack of CDs while Bullwinkle strips the sheets.

“He's got every goddamn Sting record there is.”

Bullwinkle grunts. He goes over to the bookcase and flips through the books one by one, then sweeps the whole shelf to the floor.

I grab the letters from the table and stuff them in my pocket. I pick up the picture and look at it—girlfriend? Wife? I think of him lying out there with his thumbs zip-stripped, blubbering face-first on the floor.

“Help me with this chest,” Bullwinkle says, so I put the picture down and we overturn the trunk. Clothes fall out, folded dishdashas, slacks, loose shirts, a wallet, a few small wooden boxes, a Koran.

“Circle up!” somebody shouts from the other room.

Bullwinkle and I head back. Our hadji's still weeping on the floor, begging for his life, and the middle-aged one sits cross-legged behind the couch, zip-stripped, muttering, his bottom lip swollen and bleeding. A woman in a scarf is howling after Staff Sergeant Smith and Burnett as they come down the stairs. Two kids watch from the second floor.

“Wrong house,” says Staff Sergeant Gooley. “Bad intel. Mount up, we're outta here.”

“Cut 'em loose,” shouts the LT, heading out with Yarrow and the terp.

We ride back to the FOB as the horizon lightens in the east. The sky is empty, the road empty. I realize I still have the hadji's letters in my pocket, so I pull them out and look at them. The pages dance in the wind, the words so much meaningless ink. They tell a story, maybe, just not to me. I let them go, and in the humvee's slipstream they lift and scatter.

babylon

When he played till he was tired and went to sleep, he would lie in bed and attack Iraq. 235,000 troops at the borders. His staff managed to move most of the collection to safety, sending boots about fields on rutted roads.

I was aware the apostle should capture dull rumbling in my ears

tingling command of Allah not all were lost. Allah, who destroys insurgents and some you eat. Further lessen the abjection of war, unable in desperation to turn itself into grotesque infantile guard force

subordinate world with no

aberrant, outlandish Center that sets conditions for

pornographic action, he adds, is refuge in Allah for the interrogators of the heavens and the earth, the War on Terror, no helping do not know

and the blind and the inherent groping power do not know

and the blind and purposeless officials charged with investigating do not know for to him life is the Army, and I had some idea what I was doing. The United States had invaded Afghanistan and was making diplomatic preparations for the invasion of Iraq. I had a good idea we were going and, despite my attempts to see things geopolitically and realistically, we follow the dust, heading off the main road through fields then grids of now flattened and overgrown former modular units by air, tractor-trailer, or ship can be fully functional in 24 to 48 hours. Even at the CSH level, the goal is not definitive repair. The maximal length of stay is

policies and practices developed and approved for use on

“the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,” in fact, a “new paradigm [that] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations.” No sane man can be a world, and do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than question the use of national military power. Most people

shall say: Yea, associate with policy

most surely to help the most forgiving, no doubt concealing bombs, others on the day when the witnesses of this TV, nor in the hereafter, and pediatrics benefit the unjust

for them curse

the inmates of fire, so we made Allah, surely Allah sees moral will to act, a reminder to men of what they planned, meantime

How is it that I call you to salvation and you call me to the fire?

You call on me that I should disbelieve in Allah and associate with Him of which I have no knowledge, and I call you to China's foreign minister Tuesday. Baghdad residents have started fleeing the capital as the deadline nears for President Hussein to leave or face war. No sane man can be happy, for Saddam rejected the ultimatum, saying he has no heart of the

Full story

anyone brought before the world, “even directed at intelligence targets,” as they go on to concede and glut themselves, goodly raiment made by hands of TV you can never again wear, and military police, which is not a matter of

religious discussions will be frequent. With the Bedu, Islam is so all-pervading that there is little religiosity, little fervor, and no regard for externals. The current plan discussed is fundamentally unacceptable. Accordingly, popular elections are necessary within the “Babylonian” mathematics of general history, another thousand years on, several centuries of sustained astronomical observation and consistent recording in the temples of Uruk and humvee enabled the development of predictive mathematical astronomy: I will show you DETAINEE-07 alleging that CIVILIAN-17, MP Interpreter, Titan Corp., hit DETAINEE-07 once, cutting his ear to an extent that required stitches. Meantime the Hooded Man pictured abuses—and shall be brought before the spear, a certain “even directed at intelligence targets” fact, as they go on to concede they glut themselves, goodly raiment by hands of violent/sex abuse which you can never again wear, a matter of men and women like dogs forced to crawl on his husband's sisters and the wives of his brothers, General Sanchez fain to die in her distraction. When drawn from General Miller's GTMO she sobbed and made lament among the Trojans yelling: We see cars going by in a still-secret city, CNN correspondents escape us no longer.

Stay here for Al-Qaeda

lust battle you

must find these inner reasons (they will be denied, but are nonetheless in operation) before shaping your arguments for one course or another. Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise expression.
There is nothing unreasonable, incomprehensible, or inscrutabl
e in the Arab mind.

strange hells

 

(columbus day, 2004)

The joint's red ember glowed in the night as it passed from Matt's hand back to Aaron's.

“That was kind of intense, dude,” Matt said.

“Some bullshit is was it was.”

“Mel gets worked up about politics sometimes.”

“So I get to be her fucking rag doll? I don't think so.”

“That's not what I meant. I'm sorry I brought it up. I was just . . .”

“Curious. Yeah. Everyone's curious fucking George.”

“Well, I don't know about that, but I'm sorry. I should've let it go.”

“Whatever, man. You want any more of this?”

“No, I'm good.”

Aaron stubbed out the roach and lit an American Spirit.

Matt bummed one off him. “Listen, Mel's really sweet, you know, she just gets worked up. She's angry at the government and her dad and all kinds of shit, so it's touch-and-go sometimes, but other than that, she's fine. It's just insecurity, you know?”

“Fuck that and fuck her little dog, too.”

“Man, I forgot about Xena. I hope he's okay.”

“Fucking dog comes at me, I kick it.”

“I just meant, about Mel, you know, she's fine, but she has, like, gender issues. Masculinity issues. So if you just apologize—I'm not saying she's right, she's not, she was way out of line, but if you apologize, she'll let it go. She won't apologize first. I know it's irritating but, you know, it's like she's has something to prove.”

“If I was a fucking pussy.”

“Sorry?”

“I'd apologize
if I was a fucking pussy
.”

“Okay, fine. Just think about it.” Matt studied the sky. “So, uh
. . . 
How long you been back in the US?”

“About three weeks.”

“Were you over there long?”

“Later, Matt. You want to know what it's like, I'll show you some shit later. Let's talk about something else right now. Tell me about your global forecasting program.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Okay. It's called
Constellation
. I'm interested in the way we take disparate, seemingly unrelated points, and make visual patterns. Like that's Draco and that's Virgo. There's Scorpio and the Big Dipper. They don't really mean anything, not like an astrologer would tell you, but by constellating points we make a map of the sky. Then we can use that map to navigate on earth. It's like a data aggregator, but
. . . 
See, it's . . .” He laughed. “It's supposed to tell the future. I don't know. It's still
. . . 
I haven't quite found the right interface.”

“How long you been working on it?”

“About two years, I guess, since Dahlia and I moved out here.”

“You seem like a cute couple, you and her.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks. We're really happy together.”

“How'd you two meet?”

“College. University of Washington, class on statistical analysis. She was on crutches, she'd broken her hip playing soccer, and one day I helped her with her books. Then I started helping her with her homework. We were just friends then, but I really liked her. I liked her accent, that she was from Virginia. It seemed historical, you know? Special. And she always seemed so
. . . 
I don't know, like she was searching for something and a little sad about it. I liked that she was a searcher. Anyway, after graduation, I got involved in a web startup with some guys, and she went to Guatemala to work on an organic farm. I guess we lost touch, like people do. But then a couple years later, we ran into each other in a bar on Capitol Hill and it just clicked. We've been together since.”

“Why'd you move to Moab?”

“So the startup I helped found—cyclopsicope.com—sold out to Yahoo! in April 2000, which was pretty lucky, thinking back, because the boom was already over by that point. The correction was bad, since everybody was liquidating and the job market was overstocked with guys just like me, coders with crazy ideas and a lot of slick talk. But I had the money from the sell-off and I knew some people, so I could get by freelancing. Then after 9/11, we just decided we needed a change. Get off the grid, you know? I was in the middle of this project with some friends and Dahlia was getting her master's, but once we'd tied up our loose ends in Seattle, we made the jump.”

“How's it working for you out here?”

“Good. Good. We're a little restless, I guess, but that's just how you get, right? That's just life, getting older, right? We go hiking a bit, she works the river some with Mel. I guess we'll head back to civilization soon, but we can live cheap here, there's some nice people, and it's quiet. There's space to think. Really think about things.”

“Like constellations.”

“Yeah . . .” Like Orion and Scorpio, Cassiopeia and Canis Major. “So, uh, what about you and Wendy, huh? You two got a thing?”

“You like her, don't you.”

“I, uh
. . . 
I don't, uhm . . .” Matt coughed. “Dahlia and I are really happy. But you . . .”

“We fuck.”

“Alright . . .” Matt laughed. “How's that?”

“It's trim. She's a liar and a cunt, but she fucks good.”

“Dude . . .”

“It is what it is.”

“Uhm
. . . 
I don't know what to say. Wendy's a friend.”

“That all?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“No, you don't. Anyway, I'm just passing through.”

“That's probably best.” Matt laughed again. “I mean nice . . . It must be nice.”

“Sure enough.”

“You said you're going back to school in December?”

“That's the story I tell people. The truth is, Matt, I'm gonna burrow like a tick in the skin of the grimiest, nastiest Rust Belt shithole I can find and shoot heroin till I die.”

“Wow. You're kidding, right?”

“We're devils, Matthew. For real. You gotta see things for what they are
. . . 
And there it is. Hello, beautiful.”

“Y'all doing alright out here?” Dahlia asked, appearing out of the shadows.

Matt twisted in his chair to see her and thought, did he just say that? “What did you say?”

“You feel the spin, Matt?” Aaron asked.

“Wait, what? What?”

“We're all good out back,” Dahlia said. “Mel's a little riled yet, but Xena calmed down. My darling Mel said she'd apologize to you for being such a bitch, if you apologize to her for kicking her dog. Then we can all make nice and get on with our
par-tey
.”

“Listen,” Aaron said, looking deep into Dahlia's eyes. “Here's the deal. I'm not sorry for defending myself. The dog gets it, he understands I'm a bigger dog. This is a fact I can see Mel struggles with. She's like one of those terriers that picks fights with German shepherds. Nevertheless, I will apologize—to the dog and to Mel. I'm the bigger dog, I'll be the bigger man. Tell you the truth, Dahlia, all I ever wanted was peace, love, and understanding.”

Dahlia stared back. “I don't know if I like you, soldier boy.”

“You don't have to.” Aaron smiled wide, suddenly all charm. “Run along now, sugar, and bring your tribe my offer of peace.”

Dahlia left, scowling, and Matt wondered, What do I do? How do I make him leave? “Her name's not sugar,” he said.

“Chill out, bro. It's all cool.”

Matt groped for leverage, but with the planet spinning
the stars were the only fixed points. “There's no devil,” he said. “No such thing as evil. We're human beings. We reason. We make choices. It's like I was saying: it's all just space and stars, but there's an order we impose on it. We make maps to navigate by. You have to admit that at least.”

“I know what I am, Matt. You don't have to be good.”

“No, there's an order to things. There's a map we're responsible to.”

“Wendy, for example. She'll give it up. You just gotta take it.”

Matt wanted to say, You need to leave now. Or: Quit looking at her like that. Or: I'm gonna kick your ass. Instead, he regarded Orion hanging overhead and tried to think of an answer. It wasn't just stars. It was more.

Dahlia went back out back, saying to herself what an asshole. The house creaked or the door maybe or the sky on its hinges at the horizon and she was out under the black world glittering like dark mica. The grass rustled live as snakes. Wendy, Mel, and Rachel huddled over something in the yard, Xena watching.

“What is it?” Dahlia asked, thinking small and helpless.

“Mel's making fire,” Wendy said.

Then it lit with a crackle, a small flame ringed with stones. Where'd she get stones? Where'd she get fire?

“Where'd you get that?” Dahlia asked.

“Me pray Goddess Moon, call up spirits from stone, make fire,” Mel said. “I can put it out if you want. I just thought it'd be nice. There isn't a burn ban on or shit, is there? I don't wanna bring down the fuzz.”

“It's cool, I think,” said Dahlia.

Wendy leaned toward her. “Did you see the way the stars are behind the trees and inside them at the same time? I mean the branches. Like they're caught.”

Dahlia laughed. “Damn, y'all couldn't wait for me on the next bowl? Buncha weed-bogartin' bitches. Listen . . .” Dahlia sat on the ground by the fire. “I talked to the boys out front. Soldier boy said he'd apologize. Says he just wants peace.”

“We change like chameleons,” Wendy said. “Inside, outside. Skin on skin.”

“You do,” Dahlia said. “I don't.”

“No,” Wendy said. “We all do.”

“So who's Dahlia then?”

Rachel said, “She's the one who fed us tasty tofu.”

Wendy said, “She's the one who has what she wants.”

Mel said, “She's the one who knows what's enough.”

Dahlia lay on her side. “Enough is enough.”

“This is fun,” Wendy said. “Who's Wendy?”

“Wendy's a bitch,” said Mel.

“Fuck you, Mel.”

“Wendy's a
self-centered
, self-quoting bitch,” Mel went on.

“Seriously, fuck you.”

“Wendy's too smart and too pretty but she's crazy and fun, so that makes up for it,” said Dahlia.

“Wendy's a cat,” Rachel said. “One of those little jungle cats, like an ocelot.”

“I'll be an ocelot.”

“What's
your
animal, Dahlia?” Mel asked. “A fox?”

“Me? I'm a moth. I'm a swallow. A crane maybe, some kind of migratory bird.”

“I'm a coyote,” said Rachel.

Wendy laughed. “You're no coyote. You're a poodle that thinks it's a coyote.”

“You're mean.”

“I'm, uh, what's that dog from that old beer ad?”

“Spuds Mackenzie? He's a bull terrier.”

“I'm one of those,” said Mel.

“I'm not a poodle,” Rachel said. “I'm a heron or an egret, like Dahlia.”

“You're a cuckoo,” Wendy said.

They lapsed into silence. Dahlia lay on the earth, watching Wendy, thinking of the way Matt watched her. The sense of fear. The rush when the dog leaped. Aaron. Mel broke a stick and threw it in the crackling fire. Rachel cleared her throat and began to sing in a low, nasal lilt, a voice like reeds and red thread and honey, tapping her knee with her palm:

 

Oh, the cuckoo, she's a pretty bird.

How I wish that she was mine.

But she never hollers cuckoo

Till the fourth day of July.

 

She sucks all the sweet flowers

To make her voice so clear.

But she never sings cuckoo

Till summer draws near.

She flies the hills over,

She flies the world above,

She flies back to the mountain,

Where she mourns her ain true love.

 

Oh, the cuckoo, she's a cruel bird,

And she warbles as she flies,

And ev'ry time she passes,

My true love says goodbye.

 

Rachel let the last note fade and the hush that followed broke like waves washing hard against clapping, sharp, at the door. They all looked up at Aaron applauding, his eyes bright in the glow of the fire.