“You keep saying puck. What’s a puck?”
“PUC. Person under control. Click forward.”
The next picture showed Qasim hanging against the cell door, naked now, blood across his chest and thighs, his face cut, bruised, swollen, and bleeding.
“This was two days later, after some stressing and a couple beat-downs. I remember when I came on duty, I took this picture, right, and the flash woke him up and he started babbling, my friend this and that, mistake, mistake, Mista Mista, blah blah blah, my friend, my friend. Click forward.”
The next picture showed the man still hanging against the cell door but now his eyes were open and he gazed up at Aaron, who’d opened the door and was standing next to him. One blue-gloved hand rested on Qasim’s shoulder and the other made a peace sign.
“I got Sergeant Dickersen to hold the camera for me. Click forward.”
The next picture was the same, except Aaron was pulling Qasim’s head back by his hair and holding his other hand flat in a karate chop against Qasim’s neck.
“That’s Judo Chop. It’s a joke we had, ‘Judo Chop. Hiyah!’ Next.”
“What happened to all these people?”
“The pucks?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, either they died or got transferred or got let out. Mostly they just got transferred.”
“Just transferred? Like, just sent to another prison?”
“Yeah. Click forward.”
The next picture was of the same scene, only now Qasim’s face was pressed into the cell bars. Aaron grinned, standing behind him forcing his skull into the metal, one hand pulling the crossbar for leverage.
“Just this once, right, I let someone else take the pictures. I mean, it wasn’t a real interrogation. Just fucking around.”
“I thought…”
“It’s a weird thrill, having that much physical control over somebody, knowing what you’re doing. It’s…”
The screen door leading out back squawked. Both men looked up. Matt minimized the photos just as Dahlia came in.
“Dark in here—what are y’all doing, looking at porn?”
“War porn,” Aaron said. “Wanna see?”
“Hell yeah!”
“No,” Matt said, yanking out the thumb drive.
“Hey, I wanna see,” Dahlia said.
Matt rose to his feet and shoved past Dahlia toward the back door. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
“Show me the pictures.”
“Dahlia, sugar,” Aaron said, “I’ll give you a private show later.”
“Will you—can we just go outside?” Matt said.
“We cashed another bowl,” said Dahlia. “We’re gonna go up on the cliffs and watch the sunrise. You punks up for it, or y’all gonna pussy out?”
“It’s late,” Matt said. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Matthew, give it a rest. You gonna party with us or not?”
“Fine. Sure. Whatever. Let’s just go outside.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Aaron, standing. “My thumb drive?” He held out his hand.
Matt looked at Aaron, then at Dahlia. Aaron snapped his fingers. Matt dropped the drive in his palm.
“Good work, citizen. Now let’s all take a hike.”
Stones and stars. The journey undertaken, in ten minutes they reached the mouth of the narrow canyon leading along the dry creek to the heights, the plateau above town. It’ll be twenty minutes or half an hour before they clear the ravine’s brush and make it into the open. They warned each other to watch out for coyotes, snakes, cougars, then plunged in, up.
The noise of drunken revelers pushing through brush dried all summer long. The clatter of rocks and shoes, the murmur, the occasional shout.
Why doesn’t he do something? Say something? But no, there they are, whispering together, sharing some secret. He came up behind them.
“Hey, hero,” Aaron said. “What’s up? I was just telling Dahlia about Iraq.”
“What?”
“It’s terrible,” Dahlia said.
“Yeah, well.” Aaron frowned. “It’s always the children that suffer the most. I mean, we did what we could, you know?”
“The children?” Matt said.
“I was telling Dahlia how one time we had this VBIED attack on the ECP, and there was this bus full of kids coming in that got caught in the blast. It was bad.”
“It must have been so hard,” said Dahlia.
“It’s just—these kids, their lives are basically fucked. They’re never gonna get out of Iraq. Their schools are shit. Their hospitals are shit. And they were coming in for medical stuff, right, like basic vaccines, and when the truck blew… it just… We lost seven. I spent the whole day in the aid station, helping the medics with triage. The boots I wore that day—I had to get rid of ’em. The blood wouldn’t ever come out… Seven. We saved the rest, but we lost seven. And one of our own, Private Ballard. That was a tough day.”
“You have pictures of that, too?” Matt asked.
“Jesus, Matt, what wrong with you?” Dahlia said. She turned back to Aaron. “Sorry about him. You must find it hard now being out of the army—I mean after Iraq—the way people react sometimes.”
“It’s been difficult, no doubt. But you deal with it. You drive on.”
“I can’t even imagine. It must be so strange, such a strange and different world.”
“There or here?”
She laughed. “Either one.”
“Honestly, it was weirder coming back than it was going over, because… I mean, you go, and you’re thinking one thing, you’re thinking about the military and Iraq and America, and what you learn when you get there… You learn that nothing’s quite what you thought it was. It’s a cliché, but you really learn what you’re made of.”
“Ha, I bet,” Matt said.
Aaron and Dahlia looked back, then Dahlia tripped on a stone and flung forward. Before she hit the ground, Aaron had her, one hand on her arm, the other sweeping under and picking her up, setting her on her feet. She could smell him, close, the tobacco and fresh sweat and something else, something warm and hungry. “Thanks,” she said, flushing.
“Hey,” he said, stepping back.
“You should watch where you’re going, honey,” Matt said.
“Big help you are, riding my heels. I nearly took a face plant ’cause you’re hovering. You want me on crutches again? Is that how you like it?”
“I just…”
“Why don’t you go chill out somewhere?”
“Matthew,” Aaron said. “How ’bout you go check up on Wendy.”
“I do what I want,” Matt snarled.
“Jesus, Matt,” Dahlia said. “Go! Buzz off! Go chill out somewhere!”
“Yeah, fine! Fine. I’ll chill out. Totally chill out. Like ice. And you can talk with Rambo fucking Himmler here all you want.”
“What is it with you people tonight and Nazis?” Dahlia said. “Will you just go? We’ll talk later.”
Matt made a face and waved his hands in the air, stalking away.
Aaron looked at Dahlia and she at him. He grinned his crooked grin at her, and she shook her head and smiled. It burned her arm and waist where he’d touched her, and she knew she was hurting Matt and part of her felt terrible about it. But only part.
Once when she was young, she and her family went to a lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains where you could dive off this low cliff into the water. It was only twenty feet or so but it seemed stratospheric, and the water deep and cold, and she was terrified the first time, shaking with fear and about to throw up, but she closed her eyes and jumped and didn’t open them until she came back up through the water into the light, dizzy and gulping.