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One of Ours
by Dylan Krider
It was supposed to go like this: Daren saw a blip on the radar
screen and Lance targeted it as Guy radioed in the coordinates.
Once Headquarters confirmed it wasn't one of theirs, they fired
shells until the blip disappeared. That was how it was supposed
to go, but Guy was having trouble reaching HQ for confirmation.
"Got him right in my cross hairs." Lance said, peering
through the scope.
"Let's take him out," Daren said, whooped and clapped
once.
"Hold up, guys," Guy said, twisting knobs. This would
be their fourth kill-there had been a tank, a jeep and a transport
previous. Four would be something to brag about back at the base
and odds were against it being UN. Still.
"Come on," Lance said. "I've got him right in my
sights."
Guy tried a few other channels. Nothing.
"He's about to move behind that gorge." Lance said.
Guy frowned. "Just give me one more second."
Lance shook his head, showing teeth. "I'm losing him."
"Wait!" Guy said. "I've got someone."
"Hurry up, man!"
HQ was still confirming the location of the target. "Come
on!" Guy said, knowing it wouldn't make things go any faster.
"Fuck it. I'm taking it out," Lance said, just as the
operator came through on the radio.
Stand down, the operator said far too calmly.
"Hold up!" Guy yelled not needing to wait for the operator
to say the rest. "It's one of ours."
That's a friendly you got there. I repeat, target is friendly.
Then it was like all the tension was suddenly sucked out of
the cabin and replaced with a gentler, quieter version of its
old self. It hung over them like a bad smell; it wasn't comfortable,
but they couldn't keep from taking it in. Lance was the one who
finally broke it. "Fuck."
And that was all that was said about it.
They continued to drive, searching for hostiles until they reached
the position they were supposed to hold at for the night. Guy
couldn't help thinking about it, though. Christ, he thought. Our
own men. He didn't know if he could handle that if they had done
it. He was that close to telling Lance to take them out. He could
have been responsible for someone's death, someone in his own
platoon, maybe someone he knew. That was too much responsibility
for someone straight out of high school, to have control another
person's fate. He found himself thankful for all the decisions
the army made for him: where to go, when to fire, who to shoot.
Then if he killed someone, he wouldn't feel as if it was really
him who had pulled the trigger. Those few minutes without
radio contact with HQ had been terrifying, more so than the sounds
of the first bombs, or the first enemy target they destroyed.
Guy had the last guard duty until morning. He slipped outside
before sunrise to heat some coffee for the others. The wind was
quick and biting. How could the desert be so cold at night, he
wondered, and so damn hot during the day? For the first part of
his watch it was dark without even a moon to let him see more
than a few feet in front of him, but he could see the stars, so
clear and plentiful, he felt as though there was nothing at all
between here and there but distance. He didn't know how far, exactly;
it ceased to matter after a certain point. What did it matter
if the miles were billions or trillions or a few dozen? They were
abstractions, tiny pulses of light that told him nothing of systems
they represented. Which stars were large? Which ones close; which
ones old They had all been reduced to microscopic pricks in the
glass-domed ceiling hardly doing justice to the infinite variations
from our own sun.
The sky glowed red as it became heavy with sun and sand, and there
was a weird smell in the air from something rancid. He woke the
others, handing them each a cup of coffee, and they took out their
rations, cutting into the packages with their knives. As they
ate, there were the sounds of dogs around them, trotting, licking
chops and harumphing, but from no specific place any of them could
pinpoint. Guy had heard them through the night, too, sometimes
howling in the distance, or panting as they sniffed around the
transport, never daring to come too close.
"If you see one, let me know," Lance said. "I'm
going to shoot one of them."
"Don't," Guy said, and felt weak for doing so.
They saw the dogs a few minutes later, a group huddled together
off to their right, gathered around each other in a circle. Lance
readied his M-16 and started walking toward them. One of the dogs
looked back, perking its ears up as Lance aimed. Guy didn't object
this time, having made as big a deal out of it as he was willing
to. Just a dog. But something Lance saw made him lower his gun
and lift his hand to his brow as if he decide to salute the dogs
instead. Guy walked up a few yards behind him, and they could
see then what it was the dogs were gathered around: an Iraqi soldier,
face down in the sand. Lance fired, hitting one of the dogs which
yelped as it leapt, trotting a few steps before falling over.
The other dogs sat up, startled but only scattering when Lance
fired the second time. They stopped about fifty yards back in
a perimeter around the body, waiting for their first opportunity
to return.
When Guy got closer, he couldn't make himself feel bad for this
corpse, this body, this thing because this was not a human being
lying on the ground in front of him. It was swollen and odd, made
from plastic or rubber or latex, much faker than anything he'd
seen in low budget horror movies, and black, far blacker than
he would have been if he were ever alive, as if the sun cooked
him to charcoal. In the spots where the dogs had broken him open,
he spilled a pastel of colors to the ground, primary colors like
blue and red and yellow, not the colors that would have come from
inside a real person. He became acutely aware of how terrible
it would be to see this body, if he had access to some proof,
a photo from his wallet, anything that showed unequivocally that
he was once walking and breathing rather than sculpted and placed
here. This was the sort of thing that was supposed to traumatize
him, he knew, that would return in his nightmares, but it just
didn't seem that bad.
"Enemy!" Daren shouted from his position by the Bradley,
and Guy and Lance hit the ground. Daren was pointing off in the
direction the tank was facing, to something waving not a hundred
yards away. Something white. It was rising out of some sort of
trench. "La! La!" they yelled. "Min Fadlak!"
They saw the hands next as an Iraqi soldier stood, muttering in
Arabic. He climbed out, unarmed.
Two others followed when the first wasn't fired upon, hands raised, jabbering incoherently amongst themselves. Guy had heard of the Iraqis burying their tanks to hide them from the surveillance satellites. It didn't make sense to leave them manned, if that was the case, but he spotted what looked like a hatch.
"Al-hamdu Lelah! Al-hamdu Lelah!" they kept saying,
bowing down in front of them.
"Shukran! Shukran!" One kneeled over and kissed Lance's boot, but Lance kicked him away, but the Iraqi didn't miss a beat. He kept chanting, leaning back holding both palms face out then clasping his hands together in front of him and touching them to his lips.
The second Iraqi went to do the same to Guy, but Guy backed away.
"Cut that shit out." Lance looked back at Guy, chuckling
as he shook his head, obviously amused. Guy realized that his
Iraqi was mumbling in English. It sounded like "thank you",
sometimes "please". "I said cut that shit out!"
Guy said, stepping out of his reach.
When Guy radioed HQ, they told them to take the prisoners back
to the nearest camp to drop them off. A truck would come and take
them from there. "Okay, lets move! Let's move!" Guy
said as the Iraqis climbed in, stumbling but afraid to lower their
hands to brace themselves. When Guy shouted orders, he said them
with real presence, showing he meant business. The way you were
supposed to handle prisoners. He even gave his a shove like Lance
was doing, to let him know who was in charge. They set the three
in back, facing each other, and Guy was supposed to stand guard.
He wasn't sure he had the strength to keep them in line, show
he wouldn't be pushed around. Best to let them know it from the
start. He held his gun on them as they drove, glaring at them
if they gave any looks. It was quiet for a long time. One of them--the
one who kissed Guy's boot earlier--snuck a look.
"What the fuck you looking at?!" Guy yelled, and the
Iraqi snapped back into position, staring down into his own lap.
Guy faced the wall, wanting this to be over soon. He hated this
never knowing if one of them would try to jump him, always having
to be ready. According to the army, Hussein told his men that
the Americans would kill and rape their families if they ever
allowed themselves to be captured so that they would be afraid
to give themselves up. Something compelled the Iraqi to look up
again. He was up to something. Could the Iraqi see through him?
Guy pointed the gun. "Did you hear what I said, fuck-face?"
But he didn't look away this time, but just sat looking, as if
trying to interpret what had just been said to him. "Guy?"
he asked without a trace of accent. "Guy Peterson?"
Guy did his best not to break character. "What the fuck are
you saying?"
"Sorry," the Iraqi said, looking down again. "You
looked familiar..."
Guy didn't like it. This was too surreal. "How the fuck do
you know my
name?"
The Iraqi looked up again. "You went to Katy high school,
right?"
It was true. Guy tried not to show it.
"I used to watch you play," he said, miming a free-throw.
Guy studied him, looking for some hint of insincerity. "I
don't remember you."
"I'm not surprised. Jocks didn't associate much with us computer
geeks...," the man said. Boy. Guy wasn't sure when the transition
was made, exactly. "We were lab partners once in physical
science."
Guy vaguely remembered something like that. It was hard to tell,
the Iraqi's face was so dirty, and he had a beard which he never
would have been allowed to grow in high school, but there was
something familiar about the man's eyes, you couldn't help but
notice them. Guy had come to class late, and was assigned to someone
vaguely similar who helped him put together a closed circuit during
the chapter on electricity, but he had thought he was from India.
Maybe Mexico, though his name was strange for a Hispanic--Farrell?
Freddy?: "Farid?"
"Yeah," He said--Farid did.
"I can't fucking believe it!" Lance and Daren exchanged
looks, as the two other Iraqis did, shrugging with their eyes.
One of the Iraqis interrupted and said something to Farid in Arabic.
Farid said something back which quieted them some.
Guy gave Farid a friendly nudge in the leg with the butt of his
rifle. "What the hell are you doing in the Iraqi army?"
Farid shrugged, chuckling a little himself. "Aw, man. It
was stupid. I came out to visit my grandmother in Baghdad on my
spring break, and when I went to pick up some things for her at
the market, these soldiers threw me on the back of a truck and
sent me off to Kuwait."
"Bullshit! What for?"
He smiled. His teeth were white and straight, making such a sharp
contrast with his scraggly black beard that they seemed to pop
out of his face. "No bullshit about it. I was fighting age,
that was all that mattered. Probably never even told my family."
Guy shook his head. He couldn't imagine what it would be like
to be whisked away like that. The only person he could blame for
being here was himself. "That's some crazy shit."
Farid nodded, and they were silent for a while. "You still
play?"
"What--basketball?" Guy shook his head. "No. Maybe
with some friends." The Iraqis were staring back down at
the ground, apparently acclimated to the situation.
"You were good," Farid said.
"Not that good, or I wouldn't be here." It was all starting
to come back to him. Farid was about as smart as anybody at Katy.
Straight A's, that sort of thing. Got some huge scholarship from
what he remembered. Guy thought about how he pushed him not too
long ago, before he knew who he was, and started feeling a little
embarrassed about it. He thought back to when he first saw this
guy kneeling below him, when he was still just another Iraqi soldier.
He laughed. "Never thought you'd be kissing my boots way
out here in the desert, did you?"
But Farid didn't laugh like Guy thought he would. It was as if
the words pained him. He shook his head mournfully, and Guy felt
bad for broaching the subject. "Ah, man, you have no idea
what it was like. We were just happy to see anybody."
Guy nodded as if he understood. It suddenly made sense why they
had given up so easily-Farid knew that there was no truth to what
Hussein told them about the Americans. Otherwise, they would have
fought to the death. These were the people of Jihad after all,
the ones who drove trucks of explosives onto military bases.
"We were clustered in that thing for over a week, man. We
baked all day, then froze all night. They wanted to keep the engines
running to keep warm, but I knew they'd use heat seekers to get
us if we did." Farid was talking to the floor then. "Man,"
he said as if he was reliving the experience in his mind. "Hey,
Guy," he said, snapping out of his trance. "We haven't
eaten for days--you think you could spare something?"
"Sure," Guy said, going for the rations.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Lance said as he twisted
around.
The speed of Lance's reaction startled him. He continued sorting
through the rations. "Look, he's a friend of mine, okay?"
"He's a prisoner of war, Guy!"
Guy passed out three MRE's, and they all started tearing at them
with their teeth, which was probably for the best. Lance wouldn't
stand for letting them use knives. Guy was pushing it as it was.
"I'll take it out of my share, okay?" Guy handed them
a canteen. Farid thanked him and started to eat. Guy leaned back,
not wanting to disturb their meal and lit himself a cigarette.
Lance lifted his hand to his mouth and waited for Guy to lean
closer. "Let's not get too cozy with these guys. That's all
I'm saying."
Guy nodded. Lance was right to be suspicious. He didn't
know them. The three were too busy eating to care what Lance and
Guy were saying about them.
"When we get to camp, he's going to be treated like any other
prisoner, no matter who he went to high school with."
Guy knew this, but it bothered him to hear it. Not that he thought
Farid would be mistreated-in fact, he knew he wouldn't-but he
felt he deserved better than that. He watched as Farid conversed
with his friends in Arabic, and they both chuckled softly between
bites. Farid was an Iraqi, after all. He wondered if they'd
send him back to Iraq after the war was over, or whether he'd
ever be allowed to return to the States. It didn't seem likely
that either country would allow it.
"So what have you been up to?" Guy asked when Farid
had finished. "I mean, before this."
Farid shrugged. "You know. School. I'm enrolled at Rice..."
His eyebrows seeped into the little nook at the bridge of his
nose until they connected. "Fuck, I hope they didn't fail
me."
Guy snorted a short little puff of a laugh. "I think you
have an excuse..."
Farid looked worried. "You don't understand-if you don't
withdraw... there are rules, procedures..." he trailed off,
finally swatting air.
"What about the rest of your family?"
He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. "They're still in
Texas for all I know. My brother was with me, last time I saw
him. In Baghdad."
"How old is he?" Guy asked before he could catch himself.
"Fighting age," Farid said matter-of-factly. Guy concentrated
on the rurr of the motor, the rattle of metal, the sway and vibration
of the cabin. Guy wondered if Farid's brother was in a tank, too,
and whether he would have been smart enough not to leave the engine
running. Farid was looking straight ahead, like he was thinking
the same thing. The Bradley rolled over some scarring in the desert
which interrupted the relatively smooth stretch Guy had been enjoying,
then it was smooth again.
"Fuck," Daren said then. "Will you look at this."
"What is it?" Guy asked. Guy could see that they were
approaching the camp.
"Will you look at that?"
Guy stood to open the hatch.
"Hey," Lance said. "You're supposed to be standing
guard."
The hatch fell back with the clank of a manhole cover. The air
was hot against Guy's face, like a hair dryer, making it so he
had to squint out the heat. Up ahead, there was a line of prisoners,
walking on a cloud of dust stretching toward the horizon where
the camp stood just visible, lined up like groupies waiting in
line for Rolling Stones Tickets. UN soldiers marched along side
them, one for every forty Iraqis or so, backed by a smattering
of trucks and jeeps. If the Iraqis had any will at all, they could
overpower their captors easily, but the UN soldiers walked without
fear, not even bothering to force the prisoner's to keep their
hands locked behind their heads. It wasn't until they got closer
that Guy could make out the details that distinguished each of
the prisoners from the whole. They were a tattered bunch, all
dirty with their clothes torn, some without shirts at all, moving
in slow motion. Some still thanked the soldiers, and clasped their
hands at their lips as Farid did not so long ago. Others stumbled
with their heads bowed low, hands thrust in their pockets, and
shirts wrapped around their heads and waists. Their skin gleamed
as if greased, some the color of charcoal, others as light as
the sand, with mustaches, full beards, or so covered with dust
that it was impossible to tell the difference. As Guy drove by,
one of the Iraqis looked up from his boots, head following Guy
as he passed, perhaps searching for some hint as the Bradley headed
toward the soldier's future.
One of the UN soldiers motioned for them to pull over. Guy sank
back down into the Bradley as it came to a stop. Farid and the
two Iraqis watched, waiting for orders. Guy found himself readying
his rifle on instinct.
"This is where you get off," he said.
Farid translated. Guy motioned to the hatch with his rifle, and
they climbed out, clasping their hands at the napes of their necks,
his prisoners once more. Guy followed, taking a seat on the roof
as the UN soldier helped them off and motioned them to the line.
Farid nodded, taking one last look over his shoulder. Guy felt
he should say something, something profound but settled for "see
you around."
"See you around," Farid said, leading his men away until
the line absorbed them without even slowing, instantly making
them part of it. Guy was amazed at how like the others Farid looked
then. So truly Arab, much the way he had appeared to him that
morning. When Farid disappeared from view in the dust, Guy climbed
down into the cabin and radioed for new orders. They were to head
back to where they were that morning, and go from there.
As they drove, Guy thought again of the day before, the tank he
almost ordered destroyed and his own men with it. He thought of
Farid's brother, and about how Farid might have cousins, too,
who had never even been to the States. And he thought of others
whom he'd never met, and how he'd always have to wonder about
who it was who had been reduced to a collection of ones and zeros
on his computer monitor. As he leaned back, he realized he left
the hatch open and looked up into the sun. Something buzzed in
his vision, translucent little strings and images of water bugs.
He tried to swat them away until he realized they were part of
him, in his own eyes. He leaned back, staring through the hole
to the sky, trying to take as much light in as possible. They
were thousands of tiny cells carried in the current of his blood
stream and reflected on the surface of his cornea, tiny blips
on his radar screen. When he had asked his eye doctor about the
phenomenon as a boy, his doctor told him that the cells broke
away like that when they had died, but it wasn't true. Some were
still squirming with life in them. So many. Were they always there,
dutifully moving along in their caravans until the light hit them
just right to make them visible? Guy couldn't fathom it.
"Close that hatch, will ya?" Daren shouted, not bothering
to look back.
But Guy didn't move. He didn't want to lose them. Clusters and
clusters rolled through his vision--how many in a given hour?
How many sighted, how many unseen?
Visit my webpage at www.dylanottokrider.com.
