T. Parker - Full Measure

Patrick knew that if replacement trees were watered generously, and did not get Phytophthora root rot, or stem canker or sunblotch disease, or fall prey to looper worms, amorbia larvae, thrips, mites, or worms, they would produce fruit in three years. Three years, thought Patrick. And there had already been no pick earlier this year because of the March freeze. He thought of Pharaoh and wondered what his father had done to bring all of this down on them, knowing he had done nothing.

But in the meantime, there was plenty to do. First was to paint the southwest exposure of each tree with a fifty-fifty mix of white paint and water to prevent sunburn of the unprotected trunks and branches. This should be done quickly. Then they’d replace the damaged irrigation line, risers, sprinklers, valves, and timers. When that was done the whole system would need to be flushed to keep the mains clean. After that they’d need to circle each tree with straw, out to fifteen feet per tree, to keep the fall rains from washing away the soil. All the while, Archie would continue to make the rounds to the other Farm Credit banks, begging them to do their jobs, as he put it.

The brothers started with the irrigation and Archie began the painting. Patrick worked with his shirt off and enjoyed the mild autumn sun on his back. He ducked under the seared branches and walked the grids looking for melted line and sprayers. Plastic was no match for a wildfire. He was soon as black as the trees, the ash got through his bandana into his mouth and nose, and his safety goggles needed constant wiping. He saw that Ted was mostly black also, but he had some lightness in his step, in spite of his bad feet, and he was moving about with his shoulders back, attempting to hold his gut in.

Patrick’s phone vibrated in his pants pocket and he was pleased to see platoon-mate John Bostik’s name on the screen. “Boss.”

“Hey, Pat. What are you doing?”

“Labor.”

“Everything burned up?”

“Pretty much. You?”

“Maria kicked me out so I got my own place in Oceanside. You should come over sometime. Party.”

“That’s too bad about the girl.”

“It’s cool. I just met her and I was driving her crazy. I can’t sleep or concentrate. The littlest things freak me out. Fuckin’ car backfired yesterday and I just about lost it. Everybody around me just pisses me off.”

“Yeah, me too, the little things. I’m getting some sleep, a little. It’s weird not being crowded in. Maybe you should see a doctor, get some pills.”

“I already got more pills than I can take. Maybe we all could hook up after the Three-Five memorial.”

“We’ll do that. I’ll talk to Salimony and Messina. You hang in there, Boss.”

Bostic had operated a heavy explosives detector known as a Minehound for thirteen straight months. He had often been silent, Patrick remembered — silent as he listened for the sound of metal registering through his headset. Bostic was the platoon’s silent ears. Now Bostic was quiet again for a long moment. “I heard ‘Paint It Black’ in a bar and almost couldn’t take it. That’s how I feel. I hate this. I’d way rather be back in Sangin getting my ass shot at. At least I had something to do and training to do it. The only job I can get here is boxing groceries at the PX on base. And outside base, man, it’s just children and grown-up children. America doesn’t go to war, America goes to the mall. Everybody smiles and says thanks for what I did. They don’t know shit about what I did and they don’t want to know.”

“That’s a fact.”

“Okay, Pat. Eat the apple, fuck the corps.”

Patrick thought about Bostic as he and Ted took the truck down to the barn. They loaded up the valves, filters, water lines, PVC cement, cutters, insulated wire, sprinkler heads, shovels, and picks. With ten summers of such work behind him, Patrick could do this in his sleep. But Ted knew almost nothing about irrigation and he tried to do whatever Patrick did, then lost interest and turned over branches and rocks, looking for creatures he might move into the bunkhouse.

Back in the grove, the digging felt good to Patrick’s muscles and he was pleased by how many valves they had replaced by noon. It felt good to be necessary. “This isn’t bad work,” he said. “Nobody’s shooting at us and nothing’s going to explode. In Afghanistan you were either bored out of your mind or terrified. The thing I like about this work is it leaves my mind free to wander.”

“What was it like on your first patrol?”

“Just the usual.”

“There wasn’t much usual in what you were doing, Pat. You should at least tell me something about it, since I’m your brother.”

Patrick dug in with his shovel. “When we first got there, the Taliban knew there had been a change of guard so they wanted to welcome us new guys. First full day at FOB Inkerman we were told to walk a hundred meters down Route Six One One, then turn around and come back. Just our squad, twenty-one of us. One hundred damned meters. With that much gear, a hundred meters can smoke you unless you’re used to it. We were supposed to get used to our stuff and the terrain. Six One One was narrow and rocky. Off to the east there was corn, high corn that time of year, all the way back to the Helmand River. Then hills. On our right, to the west, was all brown zone — flat desert and no cover. That hundred meters just about killed us. I carried a SAW machine gun, which weighs twenty-eight pounds. Plus ammo, grenades, water. When we started back we heard motorcycles out in the corn. That’s a weird fucking sound — high corn with motorcycles revving inside it. We had ICOM radio intercepts and ’terps to tell us what the skinnies were saying to each other. They were setting up an ambush is what they were doing. But we made it back with no contact. We were disappointed.”

“Disappointed you didn’t get shot at?”

“Yep. We’d all gone there to fight.”

“When was the first contact?”

“The next morning. It was a full-on op, with an early gear check and a map and orders to recon a village farther up the Six One One. We were only five minutes out the back gate when we heard the motorcycles out in the corn again and the ’terps said it was Taliban again, a lot of them. They lit us up with machine guns, heavy fire, and we all hauled ass into the corn and dove in. Then everybody was firing blind and there was corn flying around but you could barely even see your own guys. Loud. It was amazing how we hardly ever saw the ragheads. But we were happy to be shooting. So after a few minutes everybody’s done and the air is full of dust and gunsmoke and everything goes real quiet. You could smell the shot-up corn. And goddamned Salimony screams out, ‘America! Get Some!’ We went another forty meters up the road and Messina saw a hajji in a man-dress digging in the rocks. Blew him onto his butt. It was our first kill.”

“How many did you kill personally, Pat?”

“Eight for sure. Probably more like twenty, realistically. We could only do death confirmations maybe a quarter of the time because the contact was so heavy. They’d drag out their dead and we’d never know.”

Patrick wiped the sweat and soot from his forehead then Ted did, too. “Wow, Pat. That must have been a rush. I wish I could do something like that.”

Patrick looked out at the burned world that they were trying to repair, one sprinkler, one tree at a time. “Yeah, it’s a rush.”

Ted nodded and took up his shovel again. “I had a gun pointed in my face just two days ago. Right here in Fallbrook. I thought I might get shot for sure. I was driving my taxi and it was one of my fares. A young Mexican guy. He lured me to his ’hood on Ventana so his homies could watch him jack me. He took all the money I’d collected, and all my tips except for ten bucks. I was really scared but really mad, too. I could feel those two things fighting it out in me for what I should do. Scared and mad. I got short of breath and my vision shrunk down to like a tunnel like it always did, remember? I chased him but you know how slow I am. I went to the cops then turned around in the station and walked right back out. I’d seen the Mexican guy before around town and I’m sure I’ll see him again. His gun was old and the bluing was rubbed off the end of the barrel.”