"Hey, look—monkeys!" The other officer chimed in helpfully.
"-Plus the monkeys. And is that gun fire I'm hearing?"
"It's an art exhibit, officer, by what we think is a very talented young—"
"I'm waiting on that permit."
"Certainly." Jerry smiled his magazine-cover smile. "We're all about compliance, one-hundred-and-ten percent in favor of the law of the land and its designated officers. Roger, would you fetch our documentation?"
"Umm, yes, well." My sphincter puckered distressingly. "The thing is, the paperwork, it's umm-"
Jerry took the hint. "What my associate means to say is that of course we have everything filed, in triplicate, but—"
"Regulations, buddy, you need a permit, it's gotta be on the premises."
Then somebody yelled "Fifteen seconds!"
Millennium Eve. The future almost upon us.
The whole crowd looked at watches, voices rising to chant the numbers, a few for fourteen, a herd at thirteen, thunder by twelve. The police looked like they had more to say, but the noise drowned them out. The countdown to a better time overwhelmed everything else. Above us, the lingerie model swung to the beat, really putting in an effort for the team, and my heart swelled to see everyone caught in the spirit of the thing, the new world being born right in front of our eyes. Surely even the cops would understand what was happening here.
Then, as the crowd reached three, a motion from above caught my eye.
Up in the habitat, something was happening. For an instant I remembered standing in this very spot a month ago, listening to the Monkey Environment Specialist's irritatingly narrow-minded question, the kind of foolish detail, like securing permits for a party, that big thinkers are too busy thinking big to worry about. And falling through the air in a tumbling stream was the answer to his question, a bundle of small details and pissant nitpickery, twisting, slow, agonizing in its dark descent, and as the crowd reached zero, hooting Happy New Year and blowing kazoos and splashing champagne, just as the new world struggled to arise from the old, the shimmering perfection of vision born from the boring pedantic grime of details, just then the monkeys solved the problem of where to poop in a wet gray splat across the head and shoulders of a decidedly non-big-thinking police officer.
And quick as the bursting of a bubble, it was gone.
My second novel, At the City's Edge, is about a discharged soldier who returns from Iraq to find a similar war raging in his south side Chicago neighborhood. I did a lot of research for the novel, because it dealt with two fascinating worlds—street gangs and the military—that I wanted to get right. So I rode with gang cops and interviewed soldiers and went shooting with Special Forces and read memoirs by the truckload.
It was fascinating and horrifying in equal measures.
Eventually, I finished the novel and went on to my next one. But the things I’d learned haunted me. So when I was asked to contribute a story to Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down, edited by the legendary Clive Cussler, I found myself returning to the world of soldiers and the wounds they carry.
The following story was the result. I’m pleased with it—when a story is really working, there’s a kind of squirmy vitality to it that you can feel, a sense that it’s got a life of its own, and this one had that from the beginning. Others seem to agree; it was named one of the best short stories of 2009 by the International Thriller Writers Organization, and nominated for a Macavity Award.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
The Desert Here
and the
Desert Far Away
The Stones are on the stereo and you are wondering what you're doing here, in this dingy Las Vegas bar, with a man you last saw wearing combat BDU's half a world away. Cooper has his head in his hands as he says he can't believe how fucked he is. "A mistake, man. That's all."
You dip a chicken wing in ranch and strip the flesh from it. Cooper makes a hysterical little sound. "Vance is going to kill me. He wants to make an example."
And you laugh, because it sounds funny, something out of a movie, not something people really say to each other. Cooper gets that look, a half-sneer, like an older brother about to pound you, only you never had an older brother, just Cooper. "I'm serious."
"Okay," you say, and dump the chicken bone.
"Nick," he says, and puts his palms together like he's praying, and for a second you're back in the front room of a shitty cinderblock apartment, watching Cooper make the same gesture at you over a bloodstained body. "Nick, Nick, Nick, Nickie. I need you, brother."
And you sip your beer and listen to Mick Jagger tell you that ti-iiime is on your side, and think about the best night of your life.