John Ridley: What Fire Cannot Burn

You don't go into the fight asking questions. You can't. You can't hesitate, you can't think too hard. There's a call to duty, you do your duty. You trust the people who are sending you to do the fighting, the killing, have already spent a lot of nights not sleeping hut up thinking. Worrying. Considering.

Then the fight goes on a little too long. Then you start asking questions. You start thinking the people who sent you to do battle don't have one idea in hell what the battle 's about. Or maybe they know too well what they 're doing. Maybe their fight isn't really what you're fighting for. It's not about Archduke Ferdinand or the Tonkin Gulf or WMDs.

Excuses. Not reasons.

But by the time people like me start asking questions it's way too late for going back. All there is, is slogging forward in the normal as we know it.

So the struggle continues. Of course it does. Probably will beyond my lifetime. But in my lifetime how do I engage-how do I reengage-the struggle? Who am I fighting for? What am I fighting against? Even if I knew what the end objective was, I've got no idea what I've got to sacrifice to achieve it: the law or morality?

As I write this, I feel, I feel like a pugilist between rounds. Beaten about badly, trying to get bearings. Knowing no matter my hurt, when the bell sounds I've got to take center ring.

Okay.

That's okay.

Every other round I took to the fight with my fists, my balls and my father's knife. They've gotten me this far. But next time I go do battle I'll have one thing more.

I've got Soledad's gun.

John Ridley is a triple-threat writer of novels, film, and television, plus he is a regular contributor to NPR on their "Morning Edition." Ridley gained considerable attention for his first novel. Stray Dogs, which was made into the motion picture U Turn directed by Oliver Stone. Ridley followed with the critically acclaimed, Love is a Racket, Everybody Smokes in Hell, A Conversation with the Mann, and The Drift. His science fiction titles include Those Who Walk in Darkness and its sequel What Fire Cannot Burn.