Roy Scranton - War Porn

“Motherfucker!” she screamed. “Fucking motherfucker Nazi fuck!”

“Watch yourself,” Aaron hissed.

“Easy now,” Rachel said. “Easy.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, motherfucker!”

“Somebody shut that bitch up,” Aaron said, stalking back and forth along the fence line.

Dahlia went to Xena, the kicked dog hiding behind a bush near the back door, keeping an eye on Aaron the whole time. Rachel and Wendy whispered to Mel. Matt stood between them, near the barbecue again, feeling confused, until Wendy pointed at Aaron.

“Hey, uh, Aaron, you wanna go out front for a minute?” Matt asked.

“Fucking asshole!” Mel shouted after them as they disappeared. “Fucking fascist puke!”

“Mel, sit down,” Rachel said, gently pushing Mel into a chair. “Calm down. We need to calm down.”

“I think Xena’s okay,” said Dahlia.

Wendy took a step toward the gate, came back. “I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t know—he seemed a little tense but I didn’t know… That was completely insane.”

“Mel, please, you need to calm down.”

“Get the fuck off me!” Mel shouted, swinging at Rachel.

“Easy,” Rachel said, holding up her hands.

“Whose fucking side are you on?”

Rachel took Mel’s chin in her hand and pulled her face up: “Melanie. You will calm down right now. You need to breathe. Breathe. You are not going to behave like this. You’re a grown woman. Now breathe.”

Mel took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Rachel knelt and held her. Wendy went over, then back to Xena, then stood alone staring up into the night sky. After a few minutes, Mel straightened up and wiped her bleary eyes.

“I’m alright,” she said. “I’m okay. I just… I don’t know what the fuck happened. With all the whiskey, I guess, I went a little sideways.”

“You went, like, diagonal,” Rachel said.

“That was crazy, Mel,” said Dahlia. “You just called Wendy’s boyfriend a Nazi.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Well, he’s not a Nazi either,” Dahlia said. “He’s a soldier who just got back from a war zone. He’s a person.”

“I know, man. I’m sorry.”

“Honey, I love your political passion,” said Rachel, “but goodness gracious. You might as well have just called him a baby killer. We don’t do that anymore. You know how messed up your dad is.”

“I’m know… I just…”

Dahlia stood between the flickering tiki torches in the dark, feeling the adrenaline course through her arms and legs, thinking who decides things? Who makes choices? You go do a thing, you commit to things, then something happens. Sometimes you just do things. Sometimes things just happen. “I’m going inside for a minute,” she said to no one in particular, then slid away into the house, through the kitchen, down the hall and into the bathroom where the lightless gray and black wrapped around her like blankets. She locked the door behind her, felt her way to the toilet, and sat. She didn’t want to see his eyes in the mirror. She didn’t want to feel him. She rubbed her arms hard, trying to scour away the electricity, the gold flecks in his green irises, the way he sat too close, his chipped incisor, the way his knee bumped hers. His body pressing on her as she came between him and Mel, his arms, his muscled chest and shoulders. His smell that seemed to catch in her throat.

Why’d Wendy even bring him? Some jerk. He could do anything.

You have to stop.

But not if it happens to someone else. Who says I always have to be the same when I’m always different? Always different. Pull yourself together. Pull together what? Who? And what would it feel like?

Does Matt know? Is he gonna take you home?

I am home. You gotta get out.

Pull yourself together. You’re the one who got her shit together. You make choices. You’re the one who does what you do, this life, right now. Ride it.

between men and lions wolves and lambs

continued strong techniques, life’s blood TV detainees

use of stress is essential

two CSHs with four sites out and Operation Iron Hammer when these fail an Arab’s honor can cause him to react by interpreting the facts to suit himself or flatly denying them. Therefore a Westerner should remember the “yes” you hear does not always mean yes and might mean no. That he answer “yes” whether it be true or not. In the American world, a flat “no” signals you want to end the very indirect approach toward corrective remarks and include praise of any good points. Similar to this by grace of God, our friend the Sheikh Talat, those rounds were close. People demand we stay for lunch, continue past as we turn along a street, pointless to question the political blue decorating

the edge of Babylon

this point

aligned with the global lowest

art of an edge, heart of the city, the streets

blood TV

heart of the city

therefore about a minute use auditory stimuli hoods six operating tables, some between us till mild physical contact and mobile hospitals Operation Planet X Department of Defense by the grace of God global consensus my spear Rumsfeld fully functional in 24 to 48 hours his story from the bombs over Operation Longstreet and goes to work for the US as a translator. As the insurgency mounts, he’s threatened by Operation Ripper Sweep to give them intel and/or quit the Americans. Even as revelations have been made and behavior exposed, oil policy throughout all running a mathematician who doesn’t know where action might be warranted and

we see distinctions that

are not distinctions:

hides faith somewhere in Asia, perhaps Afghanistan, among the symbols calling forth stages of military passage for example opportunities lost indeed he’s brought specifically “graduated levels” and it stands sheikh danger

“Humvees”

will be his lie and if CIA case officers local Hard Site

initiation of the abuse once the importance of a method used at GTMO you (with) surely Allah facilitates Operation Vigilant Resolve majority of Iraqis are delta until the government regardless, for example, appearances and politeness automatically require an answer of “still checking” or something similar means “no,” an indirect response also means “I am still your friend, I tried” therefore when dealing with Operation Bulldog Mammoth polite way for an Arab to say no is to say “I’ll see what I can do” no matter how impossible after the Arab concerning his success have fled to Iran from Baghdad works as a journalist. When the uprising begins in earnest Operation Warrior lives in the flood plain

heart of the TV

according to Military Intelligence

knowledge or implicitly of what will be yours my spear the Kingdom this day

I could hear the water I threw up

fall back on

the frequency of interrogations and the middleman’s hands: having failed punishment of Allah to come victorious out of interlocking to circumvent public rage, buildings and the leashed hotel, pyramids naked, naked blood, heading off some report, the collective flattened and critically wounded patients sealed off from the responsibility made to spare those targets on the edge, the heart

i am an american, fighting in the forces which guard

my country and our way of life

i am prepared to give my life in their defense

The major in the lead truck took a wrong turn and we all followed. We drove two miles down the wrong highway before looping back to the intersection with the chipped concrete barrier spray-painted MSR Cleveland TO BAGHDAD.

We got lost again just the other side of the border and wound up driving down a dirt road behind a line of tank pits. Blackened hulks jutted up from the sand.