Peter Cawdron - Xenophobia

Bower could hear Smithy and Elvis joking with each other as they worked on the truck.

“Pass me a wrench,” said Smithy, her feet sticking out from beneath the vehicle.

Elvis was too busy looking at himself in a cracked wing-mirror on the side of the truck. He was running his hands through his hair, slicking back his dark locks.

“What the hell are you putting in your hair?” asked Smithy, her dusty face appearing from beneath the truck.

“Brake oil.”

“You fucking idiot,” Smithy laughed. Such strong language sounded strange coming from her baby face. “We need brakes. Don’t go bleeding them dry for your damn hair!”

Elvis laughed. “I can’t help it if I’m sexy and you’re hot.”

“Dream on, loser,” Smithy replied as Elvis handed her the wrench. They both laughed.

Elvis was humming a tune. Bower couldn’t quite make out the song as she walked past, but she was sure she knew the artist, and he hadn’t been alive for decades.

“Hey, baby.”

Bower knew exactly what was going on. Elvis was fishing for a response, trying to bait her. He must have known she was not one to condone sexism, and ordinarily she would have jumped down his throat. On this day, however, the pressure of the moment elicited a different response, one tempered by her appreciation for how the soldiers were sticking their necks out for her and her team.

“I am not,” she said with a deliberate, polite smile, “your baby.”

The very word resonated only as a reference to newborns in her thinking.

“Sure thing,” Elvis replied, a swagger in his motion. “Whatever you say, sweet lips.”

Bower paused for a moment, looking down at her feet, trying to compose herself. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry or to laugh. She pointed her finger at him, shaking it softly and smiling as she turned and walked on, saying, “You’re outrageous.”

It was the accent, his southern drawl. Bower just couldn’t take Elvis seriously.

“She’s got your measure,” Smithy added, laughing.

Elvis grinned.

Jameson was sitting on a stone wall, his M4 rifle leaning beside him. With the sun sitting low on the horizon, his face was lit up in the soft warm hues of the coming sunset. Bower wandered over.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Nope.”

She sat down beside him, looking out across the valley toward the tableland. Dry grasslands gave way to dense jungle leading up to the mountain plateau.

“This wasn’t a good idea, was it?”

“Nope.”

Well, he was honest, she figured. What had she expected him to say? It was only after she’d asked that she realized how silly it must have sounded. Jameson was chewing on the end of a long blade of grass and seemed lost in thought.

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Nope,” Jameson replied, grinning.

“Very funny.”

He smiled. “You see the dirt track leading down through the jungle?”

“Yeah,” Bower replied, struggling to make out sections of the road as it wound its way down from the highlands.

“At least a dozen trucks have driven down there in the last couple of hours. Our friends are on the move, spreading out in force.”

“That’s not good, is it?” As the words left her lips, she knew what was coming.

“Nope.”

“So what do you think will happen?”

“Oh,” Jameson replied. “I think all hell is about to break loose. I’m just hoping we’re far enough away that we don’t get too much attention too soon.”

Bower was silent. Jameson must have picked up on her concern.

“Bosco got through to Af-Com. The task force is already steaming north, but there’s a destroyer bring up the rear, just off the coast of Madagascar. If we miss the flight from Lilongwe, they’ll dispatch a helo once they’re in range. We’ll get your people down to Kasungu and assess the situation from there.”

“What about all this other stuff?”

“What? The aliens?”

“Yeah,” Bower replied, leaning back on her arms, enjoying the cool, evening wind that was beginning to cut through the stifling heat of the day.

“I hardly believe it myself. Seems surreal. I try not to think about it too much. I need to focus on here and now. Once we get out of here, I guess there will be more time to think about that.”

Bower nodded her head in silent agreement.

“And you? What do you think?” Jameson asked. “Do you think they’re anything like the movies?”

Bower laughed. “Oh, no. I’m not too sure what to think, but I doubt they’re anything like what we see in Hollywood. I just can’t imagine an intelligent alien species tracking a bazillion miles through space to blow up the White House, draw crop circles, and conduct anal probes on rednecks.”

Jameson laughed. “Yeah, seems pretty silly doesn’t it? I wonder what they’ll make of our movies.”

“They’ll think we have an overactive imagination.”

“And we do,” Jameson replied.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds before Bower said, “You and your men are surprisingly calm given the circumstances.”

“You learn not to stew in the Rangers. Most people think the army is about combat, but the reality is, firefights last five to ten minutes, maybe half an hour but rarely any longer than that. Firefights are few and far between. More often than not, we’re marching or hiking, scouting or tracking. The glamour is pretty quickly replaced with boredom, excitement is the rare exception to mundane routines, so we learn to take it all in our stride.”

Smithy climbed over the front of the radiator on the old truck. She had her baggy shirt off. Her breasts were prominent beneath her tank-top, but Elvis wasn’t distracted by the view. He shimmied underneath the truck, following her directions. The odd swear word drifted by. As the wind changed direction, Bower overheard Elvis saying, “A-huh, a-huh. I’ve got that bad boy. Y’all just leave this to The King.”

Smithy said something in reply, but Bower didn’t catch it, something about king-dinga-ling. They were an unusual couple, thought Bower. Elvis was so muscular and imposing, while Smithy seemed fragile by comparison, but you’d never know that listening to their banter. They were clearly the best of friends.

“Don’t you think he’s a little strange?” Bower asked.

“What? Elvis?” Jameson replied, turning his head slightly to one side as he looked curiously at her.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he’s got his quirks, but he’s a great soldier.”

“But don’t you think the whole Elvis routine is a bit… immature.”

Jameson laughed. “A bit, I guess. We’re all children at heart, Doc.”

Bower didn’t have an answer for that. She didn’t agree, but she didn’t want to say something that might offend Jameson.

“When did you grow up, Doc?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s no line of demarcation. There’s no border to cross, and yet, here we are, all grown up, or at least we like to think we are.

“These guys are kids. Look at them. Most of them can’t even go into a bar, and yet they’re old enough to die for their country. Take Smithy. She’s barely nineteen and looks like she’d get blown over in a storm, but she’s as tough as nails. She’d never been outside of Iowa before, let alone seen the waves of the ocean. And here she is, on the other side of the world, surrounded by global political forces and tribal tensions that make no sense to the daughter of a garage mechanic, but she’s got a job to do and so she gets on with it.

“And as for Elvis. Sure, he’s a little silly at times and plays the whole rock star thing a bit too much, but in battle, there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side. He’s one cool cat under fire.”