Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

A tanker truck came in a convoy and brought them diesel fuel. The dull landscape rippled in the fumes. They unloaded thirty pounds of broken cookies from the USO. Sconyers, whose colorful full-sleeve tattoos included carp and long-throated birds, received a book from his parents, who were schoolteachers in West Virginia. He put his shades on and went behind the hangar and held the book in his hands. A great cloud of dust lifted up behind the tanker when it went away. Skinner drank warm Gatorade and read Muscle & Fitness and went in and out of sleep.

He woke up confused and disoriented. Something’s different, he insisted. Yeah, it is, they said. The other squad had had contact and it was serious. They waited up smoking until they came back. This sucks, they said unshaven, staring at the red horizon. It was dark and the truck didn’t turn on its headlights until it was inside the wire. They saw blood and pale skin in the light of their diesel generator. Dominguez shoved his way in saying no, no, no, dude, as they lifted Lawson’s body down. Give me the fucking needle. I’m type O. They reached to cradle Lawson’s head and unintentionally put their hands inside the cavity in his skull. Someone jerked his hand away and Skinner felt wet matter hit his boots.

Freebird got relieved. I’m reevaluating my lifespan, Sconyers said. The new commander parroted the colonel on area denial. Graziano said if you’re in a forward unit, you’re living on borrowed time anyway, and stared at them in a challenging manner. They stuffed spare flak vests all around the interior of the vehicle, in all the holes.

Saddle up, the Hell’s Angel’s sergeant said.

Having checked the fill, the Texan gave Graziano his radio.

His call sign is Battleaxe.

Skinner walked away from the others. No one said goodbye, they pretended he wasn’t leaving. He climbed up in the truck with all his weight. He gave his hand to Sconyers and heaved him in. Short, independent Nowling, who was from Georgia, got in alone. The Hell’s Angel’s sergeant took the wheel. Graziano slammed the creaking armored door. The engine started up and everything began to shake. He stared at nothing. They rolled out between the guns. He turned to look. Behind them, the road paid out and the black mounds where the sandbags and the 240’s were got smaller. Having nothing else, he ate the instant coffee from his MRE.

In his dream, the yellow land wheeled by too bright to look at. He saw a woman in a black burka on the road. They drove at speed for several miles and their dust drifted out behind them. They blew by a road sign in Arabic. Nowling shouted up front, Wasn’t that the no-go line? Obviously it was. No one answered. They entered a zone of burned-out gutted houses. Sconyers mouthed what the fuck? You looked in the window holes and saw the sun shining inside, no floors, no roof, just a shell. Sometimes darkness, metal wreckage white with ash. They weaved around a dead truck. A turn was missed. Graziano keyed the radio. Interrogative: Was that Omaha? The sergeant stopped and backed up. They jumped out to pull security, pointing their rifles up at the roofline, blinded by the sun, and mounted up again to make the turn into an alley, the walls nearly touching them on either side. Skinner covered the terraces above them, craning his neck. They bounced over rocks and he held his Kevlar on. There were intersections full of sunlight. They drove into the continuation of the alley, which kept getting tighter until they were scraping the sides. No one was saying anything. The voices on the radio spoke all at once and Graziano said: Battleaxe, say again your last.

Wait one.

The Hell’s Angel’s sergeant started slowing down. The way ahead of them appeared to be blocked by a car spun sideways, the front sheared open, wires and metal things spilling out. He braked and they rocked forward. Fuck me. We’re stuck. Something moved in the corner of Skinner’s eye but it could have been the caffeine. He looked through the holes in the building walls for movement.

Put it in reverse, Graziano said. I’ll guide you.

It was impossible to steer inside the alley. Every time the sergeant touched the gas, they went a foot or two and dug into the wall. It took them three minutes to go two vehicle lengths.

How deep in are we?

Nowling ran back and looked.

Two hundred meters to the last intersection.

What if we just power right through the car up there?

It’s got nowhere to go.

Okay, the sergeant said, steadying his voice. Gimme some security while we unfuck this.

Skinner climbed out, his insides feathery and weak. In his sleep, Skinner tried to say I cannot do this. In his dream, someone punched him hard in the chest — he did not know who — and said: You awake in there? Good to go — and handed him a grenade. It was almost impossible to lift his chest to breathe. He took a knee on his catcher’s kneepad and aimed at the trapezoid of sun between the walls. Behind him, he heard Graziano’s low voice saying straight back, straight back. Straight. Stop. Left. Little left. He heard the humvee dig into the mud stone and the engine revving up. The sergeant cursed, fuck. He wiped sweat out of his face with the green gun-oil rag. The countdown in his head had run out more than once already. The trapezoid changed shape and he blinked and stared downrange, but he could not tell what he was seeing. However, the eye sees shape, shine, and movement first and it was one of these. He looked around for anyone. His nearest friend was hiding in an alcove. Am I seeing them down there? he screamed. His face was a white oval beneath his helmet.

They’ve been there this whole time. We’re dead.

In his sleep, Skinner yelled and hit the bench.

When the firing began, he couldn’t tell how bad it was. The not-knowing lasted one second. Then the air started getting shocked by him and it was obvious he was close to getting killed. He thought someone was grabbing his harness. By this time, he was shooting back. Somebody should be on the 240 in the vehicle, he thought, but that never happened. He kept looking to make sure he saw at least someone in his uniform. As long as I can see them, we’re still here. By this point, when he put his hand on his chest, he was still feeling magazines. But there was not enough fire from us and, the whole time, you could hear the balance sliding like a scale, and it was just getting heavier on the other side. He felt the whole thing was just falling apart, that the enemy had fire superiority. Then he looked again and he couldn’t see uniforms. He couldn’t hear anything when they called him and they had bounded back. So then he had to run by himself, and the closest he came was when he almost ran in front of them while they were covering him — and it was almost another terrible accident in the middle of a giant disaster.

They took cover in a building that they shouldn’t have been in. The enemy was so close, they could be seen as individuals down to the details, pointing out where the Americans were. A fire mission was on the way and then it wasn’t. Seeing tracers was the first he knew how long they’d been there, that an unbelievable twelve hours had passed. That and thirst.

He heard a crack that echoed. Then another crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Pop pop pop pop pop. Then silence. There was nothing to see. Pop pop pop. A string of lights. Then a boom that traveled through the earth and he felt it in his legs, ears, chest. A strange wave that disrupted his pulse.

Graziano low-crawled over and hit him on the helmet and shouted in his ear and pointed from one black jagged formation to another sticking up out of the battlefield. See your field of fire? And crawled away.

Sconnie, he croaked.

Skin, that you?

Are we gonna get air or what?

I think they’re waiting on it.