Brutus had joined the army in the first place because he had heard that it was easier for a black man to excel in the military than in any other profession. Without a college degree, he couldn’t find decent work back in Philly, so he had enlisted. He did his research. The military was the first American institution to get completely desegregated, and it was just about the only occupation where someone could advance on the basis of ability, regardless of race. But that was before he had read Fanon and Captain Blackman. Of course things didn’t pan out the way the government had promised. Racism ran uncontested in the military just like everywhere else. Brutus had been passed over for promotion a bunch of times while white and even Latino soldiers of lesser talent moved past him. He came to realize that the army was just the Man’s personal bodyguard, obligated to take a bullet so privileged college kids could continue to make money working at their daddies’ offices and car dealerships. But he wasn’t going to play the game, not like this Doornail punk in his Ralph Lauren shirt and pressed khakis. A rich-ass polo player riding a horse and swinging his stick at someone. Branded right on the black man’s chest no less. Or the red, white, and blue of those Tommy Hilfiger clothes brothers wore in deference to the flag that kept them hungry. These men in their preppy clothes looked like white minstrel entertainers in blackface, but that was simpler for them than creating their own identities. The easy way out was the only way out for most of his friends back home. Join the army. March and dance for the Man.
And he fell for it.
Doornail placed the whiskey and cheeseburgers on the center conference table and the soldiers swarmed on them. The bottle got passed around despite the hour, and people talked about where they were from and what they thought of Europe so far. The marine baited them, trying to get them loosened up enough to talk shit about Sullivan. “I hear he’s a punk,” he said, but no one went for it. Brutus wanted to be back in his room. He didn’t touch the food, but he helped himself to the whiskey when it came his way. He hated the implicit assumption that he could be made to feel at home by this marine’s shit talk and fake jive. Semper fi? Semper idem, motherfucker. He could hear the staff sergeant and the white soldiers’ laughter through the walls.
Then it was his turn to speak. “I’m from Philadelphia.”
“Yo, Philly.”
“No. Nobody in Philly calls it ‘Philly’ except people who aren’t from there. It’s ‘Philadelphia.’” That wasn’t entirely true, but he liked the idea of messing with him. “And as far as being in Hungary, well I ain’t really seen shit yet.”
Some of the others nodded in assent.
“You’ll get your chance,” Doornail said. “How ’bout you?” he asked another man. “Where you from, soldier?”
The conversation went on like that, and they hung on every word. Doornail took tiny sips from the whiskey and pretended to get tipsy. Once they went around the whole group, he riled them with stories about the titty bars in Budapest and the hot-blooded Hungarian girls. “Goddamn! Springtime in Budapest is a glorious sight! Play your cards right, toe the line, and I bet your man Sullivan’ll hook you up with a pass to come visit.”
The other soldiers bought the fake camaraderie like a five-dollar blowjob. One of them asked Doornail how he got the name.
“Back in O-Town … I mean, Oakland,” he said, looking at Brutus. “I got it when I was a teenager, and it just stuck.” He practiced his little laugh. “When I was sixteen I moved into my own crib. Sure, O-Town had a bad rep, but I never felt endangered in any way until then. I get there and I can tell right away that some of the folks in the hood were waiting to fuck with me.”
The word “fuck” sounded funny coming from him, like when an American solider spent too much time with the few remaining Brits and started saying shit like “bloody” and “wanker.”
“It’s a predatory thing in Oakland, and I was the new kid. Like you men here.”
Brutus paid a little more attention. He watched Doornail’s eyes as he spoke, but he couldn’t get any read.
“Day I move in, I pick up this dead rat out back. Big sucker. And I nail it to my front door, bam bam bam. I wanted to send a message to the neighborhood. You know, don’t fuck with me. Sure enough, I get up next morning and the rat’s gone. Somebody came up and stole it right off my door. Now this is a tough neighborhood! But you know what? No one messed with me after that. People didn’t shy away. I mean, they couldn’t let me be a badass by crucifying a rat on my door, but they didn’t mess with me neither.”
When the staff sergeant knocked on the door, everyone stood to shake Doornail’s hand. “Next time, I’ll see you men up in the city,” he told them, and exited like a rock star.
2.
Brutus picked up the Fanon book and then put it back down in frustration. The unorthodox visit from the marines was little more than another thinly veiled threat, a demonstration of Sullivan’s far-reaching influence, of the width and breadth of his might. Army life consisted of continuing battles of the will and the establishment of petty superiorities over one’s fellow man. He witnessed the ill-natured competitiveness most often in the mess hall and on the shooting ranges. Sullivan was the reigning champion of the big-dick contests, none of which had been mentioned at the recruiter’s office on Broad Street, under the gaze of that Quaker-ass William Penn.
The constant threat of terrorist attacks on American targets at home and abroad required Brutus to carry his firearm at all times, and his needed a good cleaning. The army was training the goddamn Iraqi police there on the base. That was what they called it. “Training” them in the fine art of torture, to be sure. Private jets landed every couple of days on an airstrip built specifically for the base’s restricted zone.
Doornail’s story stayed with him longer than he would have preferred. The image of the dead rat lingered on the periphery of Brutus’s thoughts, slightly out of focus but vivid enough to unsettle everything around it. There was a lesson in it — something foreboding, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He was taking apart his weapon when someone banged on his door. He didn’t answer it, but the knock came again. “Private First Class Gibson? You’re to report to Sullivan’s office immediately.”
Probably just a couple knuckleheads busting his balls.
“Hold up.” He clanged the pieces of his pistol together loud enough that they wouldn’t think he was jerking off.
A pair of Latino soldiers stood in the doorway, sending an elongated, fun-house shadow into his room. An open window backlit their helmets like two metallic haloes — a carefully cultivated effect. Brutus made a show of keeping his hands out in the open. He had grown suspicious of cops long before his arrival in Europe.
“You Gibson?”
“Yeah.”
One of the soldiers shifted his weight, sending a blinding light directly into Brutus’s eyes and rendering himself invisible. “Sullivan wants to see you.”
“Right now?” He looked back at the row of metal that had recently been a pistol. Regulations forbade him from leaving without it. He could go to jail for having an unsecured weapon in a barracks room.