Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

No one said anything as the Stryker ramp dropped. We just got in and drove to the outpost, under the arch and through town, the desert falling into a clean sleep no one deserved.

We met on the back patio as the night sounded its rale. I’d been sitting on a wooden picnic table in a long-sleeve shirt, trousers, and unlaced boots, smoking cigarettes. There’d been a steady rain through the early morning, and Ashuriyah smelled of wet dust. The burn pit had kept me warm in billows of thick smoke and soot; I’d fed it lithium batteries and Styrofoam and plastic bags through the hours, drenching it all in lighter fluid. Once the flame had reached my height and swollen out twice as wide, I tossed in the contents of our history. First the three sworn statements from 2006. Then the photograph of Shaba’s bloody vest. Then Haitham’s mug shot. Finally I burned the book itself, Lawrence’s tome folding in half and crumpling like a lost kingdom.

It wasn’t my past to dredge up anymore, if it’d ever been. The smoke made me cough, but I stayed until I had nothing left to burn and the fire turned to ash.

They’re probably dead, I realized. A mother and her boys. And it was all my fault, because I’d tried to help.

I was lost in those lonely stirs of nothingness when Chambers found me.

“You almost got us killed.”

Serenity cloaked his words, his movements neat and trim. He still had his body armor on, rifle at the ready. I couldn’t see his skulls but felt them through the black, pulsing. I took one last drag and tossed the butt to the ground.

“You’re toxic,” I said. He stood perpendicular to my line of vision, and I refused to turn, instead watching his piano frame out of the corner of my eye. “You won’t infect my platoon any longer. You’re going home, tomorrow. For our sake and yours.”

“Me?” His voice crashed through the night. “You’re the one chasing ghosts. You’re the one who’s turned patrols into fuck dates.” He was so angry he was stammering. “You’re the one who — that was fucking insane. I gave the order to shoot.”

“And I gave the order not to.” I shrugged. “Wouldn’t do it again, but it worked.”

Another fire had been stoked. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You, though — you got a lot to answer for with that empty backpack in the arms room. I think you gave it to the hajj bitch. That’s what I think.”

“Prove it.” I forced a yawn, silently thanking the soldiers for staying true to Iceberg Slim. “Junior officers don’t get fired for negligence. Not ones with war heroes for brothers.” I didn’t believe any of that, but convincing him was what mattered. “You, though, drop weapons galore. Anyone who’d defend you is already dead.”

“Prove it.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing this whole fucking time?” I wanted to push him past the controlled anger, past the fury, to find what lay on the other side. “People like you win battles. People like me win wars. Get over your bitch boy Elijah and you’ll see that.”

It wasn’t the threats that did it, but the “bitch boy.” A sound beyond rage burst from Chambers, a niagara of mania and broken nobility. The shadows blurred and then softened into a hard shape. His fist landed under my left eye, and I heard something pop. My head went astral and snapped back, but I managed to hold on to the top of his collar as I fell back onto the picnic table. Long seconds passed into blankness as I fought for consciousness.

I blinked and blinked until I could focus on the moon above. The world seemed fuzzy, especially at the edges. Something hot and wet ran down the side of my face and into my cracked lips. I’d held on, though. By clutching his collar with my right hand, I’d managed to sneak the M9 pistol I’d been hiding up under his chin, where his helmet couldn’t protect him. Sour breath blew down on me, and for the first time I recognized that the pouches on his face were too heavy for a grown man, like a baby’s cheeks were. Chambers had baby cheeks.

“You tricky fuck” was all he could offer.

“You know, Sergeant,” I said, concentrating on the thin vine of muscle wrapped around the pistol trigger, keeping my breaths shallow. “Punching an officer used to be a death sentence.” I smiled like a clown. “Firing squad, usually.”

His eyes were like gray flares, and his nose folded into the bottom of his forehead. Then he managed a hollow laugh.

“Quite the Mexican standoff.” His breathing was slowing, and the killer shine in his eyes was fading. I counted to thirty in my mind. The hand holding the pistol became damp, but I held it fast. He closed his eyes and tucked his overbite behind his lower teeth. For the second time in one night, the possibility of rampage collapsed.

He opened his eyes. “What happened to nothing else mattering but the youngbloods?” he asked.

I considered his question, then his pet phrase. “Means different things to us, I think.”

“He really was my friend.” He wasn’t speaking to me so much, not anymore. “He really was the best man I ever knew. That’s not bullshit. Every year, though, it’s like… sometimes I can’t even remember what he looked like.”

The first trace of sun touched the horizon. He asked if he could remove his helmet. I asked why.

“To show you a picture. It’s in the crown, under the padding. He’s been with us the whole time.”

I said I didn’t want to see it. Sliding off the far side of the table, I kept the pistol leveled at him. Runny blood fell off my face; I felt my cheekbone with my free hand and figured he’d broken it.

He sat down on a bench and took off his helmet anyhow. He looked into it like it was a kaleidoscope, acne scar pockets marking his temples, his high-and-tight cut a strip of order in the midst of chaos. It’s not that he lacks a conscience, I decided. It’s that the one he has is broken in the center, because that’s what going to war over and over again does to people. I walked around the patio backward, lowering my pistol. I’d already opened the door and propped it open with a foot when I remembered something.

“You need three for a Mexican standoff,” I said.

“I know.” He patted the top of his helmet. “That’s why I said it.”

I thought about that for a few seconds. “For what it’s worth,” I said, “I never would’ve pulled the trigger.” He didn’t say anything. “Why didn’t you shoot? Last night, I mean. You just gave the order. They would’ve shot if you had. You know that.”

“Still figuring that one out,” he said. His voice was so low, I could barely hear him. “Let you know when I land on something.” He looked up, so tired and so old.

“Let’s get them home,” he said.

“Let’s.”

“I’m sorry I punched you.”

“Sorry I pulled my pistol on you.”

“We good?”

“Yeah.” I was still going to get rid of him. “We are.”

As the metal door rang behind me like a cymbal, I cleared my pistol with shaking hands. The inside of the outpost felt very cold. I didn’t think I had much in my stomach, but the urge to defecate was sudden and strong. Climbing the stairs, using the banister to keep my balance, I noticed someone had smeared a crude veil over the Mother Hajj’s face, an eclipse of paint. Probably a jundi , I reasoned, or maybe someone from the town council. A soldier wouldn’t have put in the effort.

My legs had turned to juice, so I took a seat halfway up the stairs. The foyer was empty, and yellow light was spilling into it. I took in a breath of mop water and floaty, orange air and listened to a finch call from outside. I stayed there for a while. Then I walked to the command post.

The night shift sat around the radios in a semicircle of lawn chairs, all morning breath and jaded stares. I asked where the commander was.