A Short Story
CW: Language and sexual content
Noah lost his legs because he picked the wrong time to take a push.
He won three hands that night before he pushed himself away from the card table. Trash talk and laughter trailed away as he walked into the latrine. I don’t know whether Noah was in mid-push, squatting with his pants around his ankles, when the mortar landed outside the stalls.
The first indirect fire in months was over in minutes, only a few rounds. We found Noah face up on top of the rubble. His head snapped back, and his eyes stared at the endless desert sky. Bone peeked out where the skin should have been. I cradled Noah’s cheeks while Gene checked for a pulse. Shouts and screams muffled in the space between horror and fear.
“Guzman,” Gene said. “Are you in or out?”
We were home on leave now. Gene rocked from side to side, edging toward the lights and noise a few streets away.
“I’m in,” I said, turning on the ignition. “Let me find a parking space that’s not in fucking Fallujah.”
Gene grinned. “What are you talking about?” he said. “Fallujah is great, especially this time of year.”
“You and I have very different memories of Fallujah,” I said. “Besides, I’m wearing heels tonight.”
“When did you become a girl?”
“The moment we traded in our battle rattle,” I said. “Get back in the car. I’ll find a closer spot.”
I parked in a patch of shadows near the backside of a pawn shop and a Subway. The smell of raw onion, beer, and urine. A bent metal door. No persons in the doorway. An unmarked cop car two spaces over.
Drunken shrieks and battered guitar riffs of cover bands battled the fierce March winds. I drew my black wool coat tighter against my body and instinctively threaded my arm through Gene’s. He pulled away, “Guzman, how are women going to know I’m single if you’re hanging all over me?”
“Tell ’em I’m your sister and we come from a very close family,” I replied.
“First off, nobody’s gonna believe that because you’re Black and I’m a Russian Jew,” Gene said. “Second, do you know how hard it is to get a woman to do a threesome? Sure, she and her friend might tongue each other in the bar to make you hard. But once you’re alone with ’em, they won’t even lick a stamp.”
Gene ignored the angry faces as we bypassed the swelling line outside the 80s/90s bar. Instead, he smiled at the girls in the front of the line, shivering in their open-toed heels and mini-skirts. We flashed our military IDs at the bouncer, who waved us in. The bouncers and bartenders always remembered him, thanked him for his service, and ignored mine.
Once inside, I ordered a whisky, neat and scanned the bar.
A three-to-six-inch wound is possible using one of the oak bar’s pint glasses. No concealed weapon hidden under a black J.Crew puffer jacket. Cord dangling from the neon Bud Light sign. It could be used to choke a possible threat, especially the kid shaking his curly blond hair to the trills of Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Membrane.”
“Two o’clock,” Gene said.
The target was a pretty, petite brunette with huge hazel eyes and a spray tan so dark her teeth glowed in the fluorescent lights. She scraped the label from the beer bottle with her fingernail. I understood why Gene chose her – she was easy.
I imagined the trajectory of her life. First, the target would marry one of the douchebags she met in this or another downtown dive. The wedding would take place on the coast. They would marry at the Outer Banks if her family had money and pretensions and Carolina Beach if they didn’t. Her husband would work for a company whose 20-something CEO encouraged his employees to “do epic shit.” They would post Instagram photos of themselves at the company Christmas party, which included a craft beer garden and a Polaroid booth.
Within two years of the wedding, the target and her friends would start popping out children with appropriate Southern family names like “Jackson” or “Harper.” Then, once a year, they’d gather on “girl’s night out” and pretend their best days were still ahead. Between drinking $30 cocktails punctuated by the occasional Jaeger shot for old times’ sake, the target and her friends would discuss sex, babies, houses, and heartbreak.
I approached the target, “Hi…Amanda?”
“No, Kendra,” she said.
“Gosh, I am so sorry,” I said. “My name is Pilar and I’m with my friend Gene. He swears you’re the girl he had a crush on at State. He wanted me to talk to you because he was too nervous. I am so embarrassed.”
“No problem,” Kendra said, fumbling with the infinity scarf draped around her neck. She smoothed her jeans into her boots.
“Listen, I hate to ask you this,” I said. “But could you just talk to Gene? I don’t have the heart to tell him you’re not her. If you don’t like Gene, I promise to drag him away.”
Pondering tonight’s man menu, Kendra looked at the dance floor. A tall, husky guy in a pale blue polo shirt and matching hoodie looked like a humped-back whale, as he did the “Humpty Dance.” His friend snaked across the hardwood floor and then spun around on his back like a beer cap.
“Sure,” Kendra said, turning back to me.
I waved Gene over. Walking like a panther, Gene’s swagger undercut my lie of his shyness. His black cashmere sweater clung to his taut stomach and arms. Kendra’s face brightened. I rolled my eyes.
“Amanda, right?” Gene said, tilting his head. “I used to sit behind you in Biology….”
“No,” she said. “My name is Kendra.”
“I’m sorry,” Gene said. “I thought you were Amanda. She was this amazing girl I knew at State before I enlisted. I often think about her when I’m in Iraq. You look just like her. Guzman, why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. Kendra said, “You’re in Iraq? God, it must be horrible over there.”
“We do what we can to serve our country, m’am,” Gene said.
A glass shattered on the floor. The iron door slowly descended in my mind.
Shouts tangle with glass shards. Feet scurrying to avoid cuts. Small droplets of blood. Patting my coat. Searching for my weapons. I burst through the bar doors. Pacing outside, puffs of cold air escape my mouth. Where are the detonators? Where is Gene? Shit, I left him in the field.
“Yvgeni!” I said, calling Gene by his Russian name.
Didn’t anyone else see it? Why were these people laughing and dancing? We had to seal the perimeter. Where’s Noah?
Gene grabbed my arm, “Guzman, everything is fine.”
I nodded. He threaded my arm through his and led me back inside the bar. The iron door in my mind snapped open to the present.
“Is she okay?” Kendra asked.
“Yeah,” Gene said, lifting my chin so our eyes met. “Everything is fine.”
A mirage of normalcy returned. The blood orange walls were lined with posters of popular 80s movies. The staccato baseline of the David Bowie/Queen duet, “Under Pressure,” folded into the teasing, opening strains of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.” Girls screeched the lyrics to songs released long before they were conceived. Gene returned his attention to the target. Laughing at something he said, Kendra tipped forward and steadied herself against Gene’s flinty chest. I knew she was a goner.
***
I changed the radio station three times before finally switching to Missy Elliot’s “Pass That Dutch.” The song’s throbbing baseline shook the car frame as I sped away from downtown and onto the Beltline. I didn’t care about leaving Gene at the bar. If he could survive three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he could call a cab home. I only hung out with Gene because we were from the same town, he knew where to find the good weed, and his presence served as a bridge to normal when we were home.
Sushi and sake were what I needed to extract the emotional shrapnel. That was how I found myself flirting with a man twenty minutes later at the bar of an upscale Japanese restaurant. The man was watching college basketball when I sat next to him.
Two additional exits. One off the side by the kitchen and a door next to the sushi bar.
Skimming the folds of his crisp, blue button-down shirt and olive pants, I scanned his Irish wedding ring on the left finger. No wires or detonators visible.
“Kentucky is going to crush U-Conn,” the man said to the bartender.
“Nope,” I said. “This year’s tourney is breaking 30-year records for the highest level of unpredictability and the most upsets. Before this year, there was a 20.8 percent deviation from perfect high-seed dominance. Now the record stands at 21.4 percent.”
“And you are…?” the man said.
“Does it matter?” I said.
“It does when I have five-hundred bucks riding on this game.”
“If you have five-hundred bucks to bet on a basketball game, you can afford to buy me a sake.”
Nodding to the bartender, I said, “I’ll have a Midnight Moon, please.”
The bartender raised an eyebrow and looked to the man for confirmation. When he didn’t answer, the bartender explained, “It’s ninety-eight dollars for 720 milliliters.”
I read the description from the drink menu, “It will melt your heart and soothe your restless soul. Midnight Moon has a rich deliciousness with a hint of melon sweetness and lychee.”
“A Midnight Moon for the lady because I’m clearly insane,” the man said to the bartender. Then, smiling at me, he said, “For ninety-eight dollars, it better make sweet, sweet love to your gorgeous mouth.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And also, no one told you to bet five-hundred dollars on a basketball game.”
“No one told me to fall for a beautiful woman who knows her college basketball,” he said. “Do you have brothers who play?”
Counting Noah and Gene, I had about 40 “brothers” who played out their hoop dreams each week during pick-up games outside the containerized housing unit we called home. Either I learned basketball stats, or I swept up the sand that collected on the linoleum after weekly games. Survival was more than carrying a gun.
“Are you asking me because I’m Black?” I said. “We don’t all throw, catch, or run a ball.”
“No,” he answered, running his fingers across his gleaming, tanned, bald head. “I asked because I’m out of five-hundred dollars, now five-hundred and ninety-eight dollars plus tax, and I’d like to know if the rest of my bracket is shot to hell.”
I smiled and took a sip of the sake.
“And I asked because you’re Black,” he said smiling back.
The man explained he was in town for a tech conference and staying at a nearby hotel. He and his conference colleagues had dinner and drinks earlier at the restaurant. But no one took him up on the suggestion to end the evening at a strip bar. His co-workers begged off with excuses about attending an early-morning network breakfast. I diverted questions about what I did for a living and where I lived because it was nice listening to a normal man talk about normal things.
“Awww, I wish I came earlier,” I teased. “I would have gone with you to the strip club.”
“Really?” he said. “Why?”
“Why not?” I said. “Women are beautiful.”
He smelled of sandalwood and citrus. Sweat, fear, dust, and death clung to the pores of the men I saw every day. This man smelled clean. It seduced me into thinking that with this man I could be pure and whole. I wanted him inside of me at that moment, if only what it felt like to have sex with a man who didn’t have a revenge fantasy. He ordered another scotch and soda.
“Do you work out?” he said. “You have some guns, and your thighs could crush cans. What do you do – yoga, CrossFit?”
“Hey, the 70s just called and said they want their pick-up lines back,” I said. “I’m a Virgo in case you want to know my zodiac sign.”
“I thought, ‘come to my hotel room and fuck me’ might be a little too forward,” he said.
I laughed and took another sip of sake, “It might have worked.”
“You don’t seem like that type of girl,” he said. His arm draped the back of my chair, pulling me closer.
“Alright, I’ll play this game,” I said. “What type of girl am I?”
“Articulate, intelligent, great smile, hot body, and knows her college basketball,” he said. I let his fingers trace the outline of my triceps, straining against my black dress.
“How am I doing so far?” he whispered in my ear.
“Not bad,” I said, leaning away from him. I pulled the cell phone from my purse and pretended to dial. “Hold on while I call your wife and ask her what she thinks.”
The man stood up and walked behind me. Three seconds. That’s all I needed to head-butt him and knock him unconscious.
Reaching around, he gently took the phone from my hands and placed it face-down on the bar. Where was my weapon? For the second time that night, it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. My heart raced, not knowing whether to head toward desire or death. I inhaled the scent of sandalwood and citrus again.
“It’s complicated,” the man said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
War was a labyrinth of moral dead-ends. I enlisted in the Army after 9/11 because the world was broken, and I wanted to fix it. It took only two months in Iraq to realize that sometimes evil wears the same camouflage. I gathered what intelligence I could through building relationships with the local women. They shielded their tormentors with veils of misdirection told with perfect smiles. I protected the women anyway because that, too, was the mission. And this guy thought marriage was complicated.
“Try me,” I said.
“I like you,” he said. “That’s not complicated.”
“Why do you like me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” I said. I thought I meant it.
“Come to my hotel room and fuck me.”
“Okay.”
***
Guiding me out of the restaurant bar, the man put his hand on the small of my back. We said nothing during the short walk to his hotel room. He sat on the edge of his bed and removed his clothes. I straddled him. He kissed a path from my throat to the middle of my breasts. I peered over his shoulders.
Standard-issue bolt lock on the hotel room door and window. Diving inside my black, lace bra he pulled out one of my pendulous breasts and flicked his tongue on its raisin nipples. Fire alarm and sprinkler on the ceiling to the right of the bed.
“I love your nipples,” he said. His tongue kissed one and then the other. My breasts spilled out of his hands as he mashed them together, his tongue alternating between them. Pulling away, I stood up, untied my wrap dress, and removed my bra. Door adjoining the next room. He stared at me in the moonlight as my clothes fell to the floor. He tugged the scalloped edge of my black, lace thong and slid it down my legs.
“I wasn’t joking about your thighs,” he said. “CrossFit? Pilates? Yoga?”
“U.S. Army,” I said.
He paused. “Really? What’s a nice girl like you doing in the Army?”
“I ask myself that question every day,” I said. I pushed him back on the bed and nibbled his ear. “But who said I was a nice girl?”
The man jolted up, knocking me off his lap, and sat on his elbows, “Do you kill people?”
Pressing my palm against his chin, I leaned over him and pushed him back on the bed. I kneeled in front of him and caressed his balls and his cock. I paused before licking the tip, looked at him, and said, “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”
I took him in my mouth, slowly sliding down the shaft.
“I couldn’t care less,” he said moaning.
We spent the remainder of the night suspended in the liminal space between ecstasy and exhaustion. He fell asleep with his arms wrapped around me. I burrowed my face into his hairy chest, catching the fading scents of sandalwood and citrus. A sheen of sweat coated our bodies, cooling me off.
His cell phone buzzed on the nightstand on my side of the bed. Reflexively, I moved to answer it. A photo flickered on the cell screen. It was of the man, his blonde wife, and their three blonde, adorable sons laughing on the beach. The man and his sons had matching haircuts, and each wore a white shirt and khaki pants. His wife completed the portrait in a white sundress and held onto hold the floppy sunhat that threatened to drift away.
“So, that’s what family bliss looked like,” I thought.
He snored. A phone buzzed again. This time it was mine.
“R u awake?” Gene texted.
“Yes,” I answered. “What’s up?”
“Can you pick me up?”
“Get a cab.”
“Can’t,” Gene said. “No mo money.”
“Send coordinates,” I wrote back.
I sighed and put the phone down. Never leave a team member in the field. I tried not to disturb the man as I searched the floor for my dress and underwear. He stirred.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Stay. They have a helluva breakfast. Check out isn’t until 11.”
Buttoning my coat, I stood up and said, “Thanks, but I should get going.”
He got out of bed. I stared at his fully erect cock, the tip gleaming. The man held me by the shoulders and kissed my forehead. My fingers twitched, but I allowed myself a moment to linger in the cocoon of our bodies. I licked my lips. French toast would be excellent right now. Our cell phones buzzed simultaneously. The photo of his family lit up again on his home screen. My stomach lurched. Without checking my phone, I guessed Gene texted the address of Kendra’s apartment.
“Is this the part where I thank you for your service?”
I winced and brushed him away. Why should he thank me? I was home and whole. Noah and so many others like him were injured or dead.
“You already have. Thanks for the sake and sex.”
“No problem,” he said. His nakedness seemed stark under the glare of the hall lights as I opened the door. “What’s your name?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I said and winked. “And we both know I will.”
The phone buzzed again in my pocket. I answered it as I walked down the hotel corridor.
***
I hated watching Gene chew. A speckle of scrambled egg dangled from his bottom lip. The server held a coffee pot high above her head as she threaded through the line of bedraggled partiers, college students, and third-shift emergency crews. She filled a third cup of coffee for Gene and me. He nodded at her.
“Would you wipe that egg off your lips?” I said. “God, that’s disgusting.”
“I’m hungry,” Gene said, with a full mouth of food. “Fucking makes me hungry. Speaking of which, Guzman, you’re still wearing last night’s clothes.”
Jabbing his fork in the air at me, he said, “Don’t tell me the ‘Virgin Mary’ finally got laid?!”
“How’s Kendra?” I asked.
“I knew you were up to something,” Gene said, ignoring my attempt to change the subject. “Who was the lucky bastard?”
“Wipe your mouth,” I said. Like a good soldier, he obeyed. “It was…none-ya.”
“None-ya,” Gene said. “Who the fuck is that?”
“None-ya damn business,” I said laughing.
“You can play coy all you want, Guzman,” he said. “But I know you women are just like men. You want it too. Admit it.”
“Yes, we want it too,” I said. “But over there, it’s just so fucked up. As a man, you can fuck anything that moves. But the minute I even kiss a guy, I’m treated like a whore or worse, sent back home. But it wasn’t like that with Noah. We loved each other. Before that night, we decided it was going to be our last tour. We were going to go home and make a life together.”
Gene tore into his toast, “Noah was…is a good man. But there’s nothing you can do for him. Suck it up and drive on.”
Noah’s gift of making us laugh in the face of human cruelty and death was never counted among the casualties. I visited Noah in the infirmary the day after the blast. Noah told me he lost his bargain with God to survive the war in one piece. Maybe, he said, he’d have better luck with me. I promised to visit him the first chance I got. My days in the field stretched into months without leave. When I never visited Noah in his hometown in Montana, he emailed me, “You lied. Fuck off.”
Swerving a pancake chunk through a maze of maple syrup, I wondered how many times I would betray Noah. A montage of images gurgled and bubbled – the man’s tongue circling my stomach and dipping between my thighs; Noah’s cocky smile after winning the third, consecutive, hand; and the crack of his bones when the medics moved his body. I jumped up from my seat. Shoving my way through the diners, I raced outside, found a grassy patch alongside the restaurant, and threw up.
“Can’t take her liquor,” someone tutted. A girl laughed.
Open shower stalls. Staccato shouts of the marketplace. The smell of saffron mixed with mortar fire. The gorgeous, tawny sunsets that stretched across the Iraqi sky. Sand that felt like flour when you stepped on it. The space between heartbeats of time. Everything was fine until it wasn’t.
I wiped my mouth on my coat sleeve. Woozy, I stood up and headed back inside. Gene stood in front of the restaurant and held a to-go cup toward me. I took a swig. It was the orange juice I ordered.
“Let’s go, Guzman,” he said. “I took care of the bill.”
“But how? I thought you didn’t have any money.”
I don’t,” he said. “I took out the fifty-dollar bill you always stash in your wallet and paid for it. The server was grateful for the tip. Very grateful.”
I punched him in the arm as we walked toward the car. Ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of Gene’s sister’s house. It was a white, stucco bungalow in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. The day’s paper lay inside the metal fence.
Gene looked at me and said, “You served your country, now save yourself. Pilar, go home and have a normal life.”
He placed his Styrofoam cup on the dash and climbed out of the car. Beside it was a roll of dollar bills and change. The steam from the coffee fogged up the inside of the window. I watched the fog spread until it was the size of a fist. I looked at the rearview mirror. The limbs of the dogwood tree shivered, shedding blossoms on the concrete. Gene crushed them beneath his boot heel as he walked toward the house. Behind me, the morning stretched and yawned.