Scar Tissue(24)
When it's over, you walked through the humming distance of things, amidst rubble and trash and thousands of spent shell casings. The forward vehicle survived, but the rocket killed two soldiers immediately, and though the ringing in your ears muffles sound, it's not enough to shut out the screams of a third whose belly was opened.
And the funny thing is that it's in the aftermath that the fear really hits, as you realize that it was just chance that their vehicle was in front; not strategy or fate or a plan, just chance, a matter of which driver had pulled out first. That the difference between life and death was measured in feet and in seconds. Fear burst the door of its basement cage and seized you and didn't let go, not then and not since.
"Sorry," you say, and don't explain what for, and don't have to. The two of you sit in silence. When the door bangs open, you jump, and even though it's been six months, reach for a weapon that isn't there. It only takes a second to come back to the bar, but when you do, you see that Cooper jumped too.
He gives you a sheepish grin, spreads his hands. "It's funny," he says. "People ask what it was like. And I can't remember. Not really. Too big, too much. After awhile, it started to feel like nothing. Beyond computation."
You sip your beer, and nod.
"The guy Vance is sending," Cooper says, "they say he cuts your ears off first." He looks at you, and in the neon light of the bar, you can see fear twist in his eyes like a trash bag in a dark ocean current.
"That's not going to happen," you say.
#
The M1126 Stryker is 23 feet long by 9 wide and features an 8x8 suspension, tires that can adjust pressure on the fly and roll for miles after being blown, and a 350 HP Caterpillar engine capable of driving the 17-ton vehicle at speeds of 60 miles per. It looks like an olive drab duck with too many legs, and the inside smells of the sweat and farts of eleven men.
It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.
You are the assistant gunner for the rear weapons team. You wanted to be the primary, even though you're not sure you have what it takes to pull the trigger on a living, breathing person. Still, at the zeroing range you nailed more targets than anybody, figured you had it in the bag. But the sergeant picked Cooper as the primary. You saw the two of them talking, Coop gesturing at you, and he says that he was telling the sarge you should be gunner.
But walking around the Stryker that will be yours, the one you will share with ten other men, the one in which you will serve your country, it doesn't matter. You run your hands gently along the armor.
"Would you look at that?" Cooper stands in the doorway. He nudges the soldier next to him. "I think we got ourselves a true believer." He smiles to let you know he's just busting balls. "Hey, you sure it's your arm got the flag tattooed on it?"
#
After you leave Cooper in the bar, you drive for a while, watching the sun set the sky on fire. It's that hour when the shadows are soft and everything is lit from within. Tourists wander the Strip holding three-foot souvenir glasses. People in business suits talk on cell phones. A cute girl steps out of Whole Foods carrying bags stuffed with free-range macrobiotic whatever. Everyone is happy, on vacation or on their way home.
For a second, you want more than anything to turn the wheel of the Bronco hard and jam on the gas and blast right through the bright front window of the grocery story.
You clench and unclench your fists, take deep breaths. A car behind you honks, and you move along.
From the corner market you get a cheesesteak and a six-pack. You go to the room you rent and turn on the TV and eat dinner sitting at your counter, the news you aren't watching running in the background.
You think about what Cooper said, how life over there had been too big to grasp, to hold. You remember a conversation with a soldier who was re-upping, how when he talked about getting back to Iraq, he slipped and called it home.
You light a cigarette and think about the girl who watched you win at the Golden Gloves. About the way her hair always smelled clean, and a moment a lifetime ago, laying in bed, when she looked up with eyes like June and said she loved you.
#
The body on the floor of the Mosul apartment has half a dozen wounds. He's on his belly, one arm out like he was reaching for something, head cocked sideways and part of his face missing. You recognize him. He's one of the men who frequently hangs around the forward operating base, selling Miami cigarettes. Other things too, the rumor goes.
Cooper kneels beside him, bent over the body at an awkward angle as though he is going to hug it. The image sticks with you, comes back sometimes months later, along with the abruptness with which Cooper straightens as you come in, and how the first words out of his mouth are, "I had to."