Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

He went to West Point because that’s what people like him did. I went to regular college because that’s what people like me did.

We both went to war because that’s what people like us did for countries like ours.

I considered the minaret and thought about our grandma. The spring before she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she attended my middle school’s poetry recital. She’d come to California some six decades earlier as a young girl, part of the great Okie migration. She never left, valuing home and family over everything but the Presbyterian Church, pocketing sugar packets and clean napkins at every restaurant we went to.

Will had just gotten into West Point, and even though 9/11 was still three years away, she held on to him in the audience as if it were December 1941 all over again. He sat there like a raw-headed figurine while our grandpa made sure everyone in a ten-row radius knew that they were sitting near the future chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

I stumbled through the four stanzas of “The Road Not Taken,” which somehow made it more endearing to the audience.

“I’m very proud of you both,” our grandma said after the recital. After she passed away, I learned her first fiancé had been mowed down by Japanese machine guns on a tiny island called Guadalcanal. “But, William, Jackson, too much introspection is bad for the soul. All things in moderation. Pray, then poet, then pray again. You come from devout stock. Never forget that.”

I tried to remember, but some days were harder than others.

Back in Iraq, I held up my cigarette and blotted out the minaret. A curl of smoke drifted from it, and I narrowed my eyes until the minaret fell out of focus and looked like a burning Twin Tower on a television screen. That day was a long time ago, now.

Alia would be in at eight, I remembered. As I checked my watch, a small rock skipped by my feet.

“ Molazim! ” I heard a voice trying to whisper and shout at once. My eyes scanned the patio, but no one was one there. “ Molazim Ja-ak!”

It was coming from the other side of the perimeter gate, to the north. I charged my rifle and walked that way, to where Chambers had dumped the prizefighting scorpion a couple of months before. The chain-link fence was covered with a semitransparent camo screen. Squinting through the zig hooks and the screen, I saw an outline of a frail man with a hunch in his back.

“Haitham,” I said, letting my rifle sling go slack. “How’s life on the lam?”

His response was irritated and incomprehensible. I’d no idea how he’d gotten through the outer perimeter of blast walls or avoided the American eyes on the roof — so much for our improved security, I thought. His soccer jersey was caked in dirt. Grabbing the walkie-talkie clipped to my belt, I considered my options.

“Snoooop,” Haitham sounded out. He pointed at me. “ Molazim .” He pointed at the outpost. “Snoooop.” Then he crossed his forearms into an X, something I took to mean he’d only speak to us.

“CP,” I said into the walkie-talkie. This is Hotspur Six. Wake Snoop and send him to the back patio. Got some paperwork for him to look over.”

We waited in silence, the early morning slashing our faces with light. I didn’t mind being alone, but hated sharing quiet with other people, something about the way it made my brain roll around. I began whistling a jingle from a Disney musical about a group of 1890s newsboys on strike, something Haitham mimicked. Is he making fun of me, I thought, or have I found a fellow fanboy? As a kid I’d memorized the matching dance steps, but before I could test the Iraqi on the routine, the metal door of the outpost clanged open. I whistled again, shrill and without melody, to get Snoop’s attention.

The terp proved too groggy to be confused or bothered. When I explained we had a visitor, he just shrugged and stuck a clump of sunflower seeds into his mouth.

“Arabs,” he said.

I asked if they’d speak slowly so I could pick out words and phrases; I was getting better at understanding Arabic, though getting people to understand mine was something else altogether. Snoop obliged, but Haitham was in no mood to play tutor.

“He asks about Ismail,” Snoop said. “The townspeople say the Iraqi Police are hitting him.”

“Who?” I didn’t know an Ismail.

“His nephew,” Snoop said. “The Barbie Kid.”

“Of course.” I’d heard the same rumor, and had been meaning to check on the teen, though I didn’t have the same pull with the Iraqi Police that I did with the jundi s. I promised Haitham I’d look into it and make sure his nephew was being treated well, though it might be a while until he was released. Through the fence screen, the little man nodded.

I turned to Snoop. “Tell Haitham the mukhtar asked about him,” I said. “Has a gift or something.”

At Snoop’s translation, Haitham’s voice became even faster and rose in pitch. The terp said to slow down, and then just cut him off.

“He say the gift the mukhtar has is a bullet. Then he speaks of the bad days in Ashuriyah again,” Snoop said. “He will tell us important things. But only if you promise him Camp Bucca. He wants jail, LT. Still.”

“For the love of Allah,” I muttered. None of the insurgents we wanted in jail could ever be found, while this guy, one of our sources, was begging to be locked up. “I’ll do what I can,” I said. “But he’ll probably have to cop to plotting against Coalition forces, or something.”

The little man nodded again, cleared his throat, and tried to straighten out the hunch in his back. Then he spoke, slow and deliberate, stopping occasionally so Snoop could translate.

“He’s stayed away from us because he must hide from everyone. The sheiks of Ashuriyah hunt him because of the mistakes of the past, which must be explained. Some years ago, he served a sheik named Ahmed. He served the sheik and his family loyally.

“He brings up Shaba again. He say Shaba and Sheik Ahmed were very close. He say — he say Ahmed promised his only daughter to him. They were to be father and son.”

Snoop turned to me with an arched eyebrow and spat out a few shells. “This is bullshit. No Iraqi father would marry his daughter to an American soldier. No offenses.”

I laughed. “Remember what Alia said about that woman Shaba wanted to marry? Maybe it’s not bullshit. Let’s hear him out.”

Snoop shrugged and kept translating through a mouthful of seeds, his voice soaked in doubt.

“The sheik’s true son was al-Qaeda. Karim. He hated Americans and swore to kill his father for working with them, and Shaba for violating his sister. So Karim recruited al-Qaeda in Ashuriyah. Every Sunni boy who could hold a gun heard his speech. ‘No foreign invaders!’ he said. ‘No Shi’a scum on our land!’ he said. ‘We will make a government of Islam!’ he said. Many ali babas joined him. They sneak-attacked Shaba at night, dogs with no honor.

“The sheik suffered over the betrayal for many nights. His blood son had killed his oath son. It was the saddest of houses during those days.”

I realized I was gripping the holes in the chain-link fence as I listened, getting as close to Haitham’s words as I could. I wanted to hear more about Rana, and about Shaba and Rana. Snoop had his face in one of his hands and yawned widely as he waited.

“The sheik still loved Karim, but he’d loved Shaba, too. And he loved Iraq. Not this place, the country he knew, but the dream. Iraq the idea. So, after many nights, he decided to help the Americans capture his son. His spies knew where Karim’s hideout was. Then the sheik told Haitham to lead the Americans there.

“Haitham wants us to know he is no traitor. He told the Horse soldier lieutenant that Karim was to be captured, not killed. Sheik Ahmed knew a life in Camp Bucca was still a life. But the kill team shaytan did not care. He only cared about making Iraqis dead.” Snoop paused in his translation, then grunted. “That’s not true, LT Jack. Sergeant Chambers is a good sergeant. I know this.”