Her eyes filled with tears again but she blinked them away. The feed was so bad I couldn’t make out the deep blue of her eyes. I wished I could reach through the connection and seize those irises and keep them as stones in my pockets, to hold anytime I wanted.
“Why did you order my boyfriend a box of elephant dung, Jack? How do you even find something like that? It was gross. And so immature.”
I asked her to repeat herself so I could think of something.
“No idea what you’re talking about.” I sat on my hands to keep them from moving. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend.” I clenched my molars together, and my heart pounded against its cage. “But if it’s who I think, he’s a fucking tool. Thought you were better than that.”
Marissa closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. I shouldn’t have snapped at her for mentioning Alphabet and Ortiz, I thought. She’d been trying, just as I’d asked. When she opened her eyes she leaned in and kissed the screen. There it is, I thought. Two stubborn souls raised on too much reality television, our fights always ending as quickly as they began. And even though we were arguing, we were talking now. That seemed important.
I was about to return the kiss when she said, “I’m sorry, Jack. I love you. But I can’t do this. Please don’t write, don’t call. Not until you get back and become you again. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough. But I didn’t volunteer for this.”
The connection winked out and went dead. She’d logged off. As I sat there staring at a black hole of a screen, the creeping sense that something irreplaceable, something matchless, had just broken within. I realized she hadn’t asked how I was.
I hadn’t asked her, either.
Stumbling out of the cybercafé, I passed a joe Skyping with a kohl-eyed goth lady holding a toddler. The two adults were laughing together at the child’s burps. I paid the Kuwaiti employee in the front, walked outside, and found a Porta John to dry-heave into.
• • •
It was twilight when I came out. My hands were shaking and everything seemed fuzzy and distant, and I decided I needed something to do, like eat. I walked through the gray dusk to the chow hall, passing tents and warehouses and clusters of soldiers in workout clothes talking softly. A dark melody had filled the desert, a blend of finches, seething air, and helos slicing through the sky.
The chow hall was a big white magnet north of the shopping gulch, a massive canopy that seemed to hover over the pale sands. Part circus tent, part martial pretense, it was ringed by blast walls and protected by counterbattery radar. It could serve over a thousand soldiers at a time and up to fifteen thousand a day, not including the ones who gorged at the nearby fast-food shacks.
As I replayed my conversation with Marissa over and over again, the shock and hurt wore off. My steps turned to strides. I pushed up my patrol cap high so the back was on the crown of my head and the brim pointed to dull stars. It was more comfortable this way, and it identified me as a field officer who didn’t give a fuck. I held my rifle from the rails, not bothering with the sling. In the land of fobbits, I was king. No one approached or even gave me a sideways look, which made me angrier. More than anything, I wanted a fight. I needed a fight.
I found one at the chow hall entrance.
To the side of the snaking line stood three of my soldiers, Washington, Batule, and Doc Cork. Washington was arguing with a soldier whose back was to me, his face contorted. He took a step back and started to raise his fist before Doc Cork grabbed it with both hands and held it down. In response, the unknown soldier shot a wagging finger into Washington’s face, cursing. I moved between the bodies like mercury.
“Corporal Washington! Chill.” Doc Cork squeezed Washington’s forearm and whispered “The LT” in his ear. Washington exhaled slowly and his shoulders drooped.
“Sir,” he said. “Me and the chief here was just discussing what he meant by ‘you people.’ As in ‘You people never know who’s boss.’ ”
Everyone separated, and we stood in a tight circle. The chief warrant officer was built for a parade, every corner crisp, his boots unsoiled. His face exuded the pink shine of a daily high-and-tight.
“We’re supposed to be postracial now, Chief,” I said. “I’m sure you were just about to explain that.”
“It has nothing to do with him being black!” The chief shook his finger again. “I meant young soldiers who have been promoted too quickly and have no discipline. He in your platoon, Lieutenant?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can tell me what the hell that scorpion is.” He pointed to Washington’s patch, but his eyes were all over my lopsided cap. “I don’t care what medal he got today, he’s still a soldier. Their uniforms are un-sat. Yours, too. This isn’t the bush.”
I smiled goofily. “You a regs man, then? Regulations are important.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw uncertainty cross my soldiers’ faces. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” So certain. So smug. “That’s why I stopped him.”
“Then why the fuck aren’t you at attention when addressing a commissioned officer of the United States Army?”
It was like I’d backhanded him. He snapped to attention, unleashing a sarcastic salute and yelling, “Sir, yes, sir!” Every eyeball in the chow line was now on us. I had two options: escalate the spectacle or end it.
“Your service to country tonight is noted, Chief.” I leaned down into the man’s face, our noses touching, his stunted seafood breath tickling my chin. “You’re dismissed.”
“Lieutenant.” He spoke low now so only I could hear him. “Do that again, you’ll spend the rest of your life drinking through a straw.” I was going to call his bluff, but he continued. “You think you know me? You know shit. Just ’cause I don’t wear it, don’t mean I don’t have it — I’ve been blown up more times than years you’ve been alive. Your boys are out of control. So are you. Rein it in. Be a leader. Respect the uniform. Respect yourself.” With a salute, he was gone into the dirty night, just another shape drifting through the camouflage sea.
“Show’s over!” I shouted to the line, where heads ogled and voices jeered. The madness had passed. Now I was just embarrassed. “Enjoy your meal, vote Republican.”
“Holy shit, sir.” I turned to the soldiers. It was Doc Cork. “That was awesome.”
“Thanks, LT,” Washington said as we exchanged knuckles. “Owe you one.”
The three soldiers moved away while I got in line. Then something gloomy pricked at me and I called them back. I asked Washington and Batule to remove their scorpions until we returned to the outpost. They balked.
“That guy was a racist,” Washington said. “Why you taking his side?”
“I don’t doubt that. But he’s right about the patches. Tell the same to anyone rocking the scorpion at Salsa Night. We’ll be back soon.”
“But, sir—”
“Did I stutter? Move out.”
Whatever goodwill I’d earned was lost. They walked off grumbling about power-tripping officers, but replacing one another’s patches. I envied them for their solidarity.
“Lonely,” I sang to myself, not ironically, not cheerfully, watching the three soldiers fade away. “I’m Mister Lonely. I have nobody… for my own.”
They served surf and turf for the holiday. The cooks wished me a happy Fourth, and a thickset female with a dreary smile told me she’d been up twenty hours preparing food, and I felt bad for every mean, nasty thought I’d ever had about fobbits, because the truth was we needed them more than they needed us.
I ate in a back corner. On a nearby television, I watched Cleveland sports fans burn the jersey of some basketball player, a self-proclaimed messiah who’d left because winning was hard there and it’d be easier in Florida. After a tenth jersey burned, the howling of proletarian pride and pain broadcast across the globe, I went outside and bummed a cigarette from a contractor. We tried small talk, but his English proved rudimentary and my Korean nonexistent, so we smoked next to each other in quiet, observing the night.