T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

Achilles waited, the feeling shifting from neutral to impatient. He had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t want the driver’s knees, he wanted Pepper’s head; he was aiming for apricot, as the snipers put it. Patience was the key. He had known this moment was coming as soon as he heard that Troy was found outside of the Bricks. For all Achilles knew, Accomplice was involved, or another foot soldier, but nothing demoralized a group more than spilling the brains behind the operation. The bodyguard was pacing again, and as he walked thoughtfully, head down, in the shadow of the wall, it became clear that the swaggering step was merely camouflaging a limp.

Merriweather walked like that. When they went to visit him at Walter Reed Hospital, they were reminded of everything that could have possibly gone wrong for them but didn’t. At one point, Merriweather and Wexler had ended up in the same room. Achilles finally understood the meaning of the word irony . How had their luck changed all at once? They survived a baker’s dozen of snipers, mortars, IEDs, artillery, RPGs, bombs, land mines, claymores, numerous troops in contact incidents, missiles, grenades, friendly fire, and suicide. Then, barely a month before they’d be done, Jackson catches the IED, Merriweather unzips the kid, and Wexler, upset at Merriweather, runs off into the dark and ends up in a minefield. While he’s being carted off, the last thing Wexler says is, “Merriweather won’t get away with it.”

Wexler was right. A couple days later, Merriweather was shot in the ankle while the squad moved in on a residence where Taliban sympathizers were known to be hiding. But he took it like a man. After Wages ran out to the road and dragged him to cover, and Troy packed the wound with Quikclot that stopped bleeding but burned like hot sauce on the devil’s ass, Merriweather said, “I don’t know what’s fucking worse, the bullet or the so-called first aid.”

They laughed, but Achilles was thankful he’d never needed Quikclot. When they later went to see Merriweather show off his new foot, each time he adjusted the prosthetic, Achilles saw the permanent burns the Quikclot left on his calf. But no matter to Merriweather; he clipped his prosthetic on and strutted around the room like he’d never strutted before, a dip in his walk deep enough that you could miss the limp, if you didn’t know him. Wexler later claimed he hadn’t meant what he said, that Merriweather had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was how Achilles preferred to think about it. That’s what he told Sammy.

But Sammy’s second question was even more disturbing. If Wexler was in the wrong place at the wrong time, where had Achilles been? On the sidelines. He’d watched Wages dragging Merriweather, leaving two ruts in the dust and a trail of blood, the right foot skipping and twisting like a caster, picking up dirt like a dropped popsicle, and he couldn’t make himself take one step out of the alcove where he was hiding. Even when they were within arm’s reach, Achilles hesitated, afraid of being shot in the hand.

Troy was different.

Pepper finally exited the car. Achilles preferred to think of him as the dealer. Achilles held his breath for two seconds as Dealer walked around the car, as if inspecting it for damage, gesturing wildly at Accomplice, who momentarily blocked Achilles’s views. Sweat stung his eyes, and he took several slow breaths to steady his hands, quickly rearranging himself, tying his shirt around his head to catch the sweat and adjusting the folded gym bag serving as a makeshift tripod. Dealer was now on the phone, pointing at Accomplice as if relaying a message. He smiled as he did this, his gold teeth glinting. How much had those cost?

In one morgue, a dealer’s teeth had been yanked out after he was killed. He wondered if someone would lay claim to Pepper’s Devil Dog mouthpiece. The thought of putting someone else’s teeth in his mouth was disgusting, even if they were gold. Maybe they would be mounted like a trophy.

They were now laughing, rapping together, bobbing their heads in harmony, more like friends than employee and employer. Now they leaned silently against the hood, side by side like old buddies. Dealer clapped Accomplice on the leg, saying something that made them both smile. Achilles heard the tap-tap-tap of his own feet against the unfinished plywood. We don’t get mad, we get down. Wiping his burning eyes, Achilles held his breath again for two seconds, and then two more, and then ten, but nothing banished the tremors that traveled from his hands up his arms, down his back and to his legs, or the shameful suspicion that it was tears, not sweat, burning his eyes. He willed himself to pull the trigger. It’s not like he didn’t know exactly what the result would look like.

He had felt this way after turning a corner and coming face to face with a man holding an AK-47 in one hand and an infant in the other. Achilles had stepped back around the corner, rifle chest-high, and counted to ten. When he’d looked, they were gone, as was Pepper.

A couple of hours before sunrise, when the streets were quiet, the Hummer gone, and his pants dry, Achilles snuck down to the apartment where they kept the dogs. The eye-watering stench explained why Cornelius lit a cigarette each time he entered the apartment and spat each time he left. Dog crates were stacked in the living room, two rows per side. It was an ugly apartment with exposed block walls and the cheap fixtures found in barracks. A mattress leaned against the wall in the bedroom. The bathroom was relatively clean, save for two dead puppies wrapped in plastic bags in the tub and fast food containers stacked neatly next to the toilet. Rusty surgical implements were piled on the kitchen counter: shears, scalpels, razorblades, a propane torch, a shoebox filled with alcohol and gauze. In the corner stood a short wooden sawhorse with heavy straps attached to each end and padding taped to the spine. At the far end of the counter: Troy’s rucksack, empty except for the remnants of his blue envelope.

The pits were muzzled and in various stages of modification, some fully processed, others with only tails and ears clipped. A small white one appeared untouched, but when Achilles stepped closer, it hid its face in the back of the crate, revealing testicles bound in a leather strap. There were a few wretched mutts probably used as bait dogs. A terrier mix wagged his tail and followed Achilles’s every move, padding from side to side, panting. Eventually, she would be thrown into the ring with a new fighter to build his confidence. Janice’s brothers made good money from dogs. Pepper was diversified.

Achilles freed the terrier mix first. It was a scrawny gray dog with big eyes like those greeting cards featuring bug-eyed puppies. He let a tawny pit bull puppy out of his cage and it bolted for the terrier, which ran back to her cage. The tawny puppy whined and pranced. The terrier ventured closer. Soon they were playing, skidding all over the linoleum. Achilles opened the cages one by one, hoping for more of the same, but the fighters herded all the bait dogs. The terrier, whimpering now, hid behind Achilles, and when he turned to looked at her, she pissed. An adult blue nose knocked into Achilles, growling, trying to get to the wide-eyed terrier. Achilles pulled the blue nose away from the bait dog and toward the door. The bait dog went back to playing with the tawny puppy. The blue nose slipped out of his grasp a few times, and every time it did, it ran after the bait dog. Finally, the bait dog retreated to its own cage, followed by the tawny puppy. Achilles ran down the blue nose and pulled it toward the door. It was anxious about going outside, and kept planting its feet firmly in the carpet.

“There, there.” Achilles petted it between the shoulders. It was a regal, full-chested, bowlegged dog with a lustrous silver-gray coat. Achilles scratched it under the chin and tickled its thin pointy ears. Each time Achilles grazed the left ear, the dog sneezed and shook its head. When it was calm, Achilles straddled him. His heart knocked against its ribs and Achilles felt every breath on his thighs. Gripping the scruff of the neck, Achilles yanked him up on hind legs, took one of the razors, and stabbed the blade into the dog’s throat. He whimpered and twitched. Pinching the blunt end tightly between his thumb and two fingers, he drew the blade across the throat. The blade was not as sharp as he would have liked, and Achilles pushed hard to penetrate the hair and skin, thick as auto upholstery. It was like cutting leather with safety scissors, the line ragged and rough, more hacked than cut. The dog kicked and squirmed free, knocking the razor loose when Achilles was only half finished. The dog coughed through the wound, hyperventilating, its scrambling feet kicking the razor under the sawhorse as it ran for its cage. Achilles slipped in the blood as he yanked the dog out of the cage by the hind legs, half walking it, half dragging it to the kitchen, where the other instruments were. He finished with a straight razor. Throat clean open, it ran to the corner and dug its head into the carpet, legs running at full speed, like it could push itself through the wall. After half a minute, its legs slowed, then stopped, twitching only occasionally, like dogs did when dreaming. Achilles wouldn’t have believed so much blood was in a dog, or a person, if he hadn’t already known.