Kaboom (6 page)

“You ate all me Lucky Charms!” Private Van Wilder cracked, while his sheik shook his finger in anger. “You are fat enough already, Sheik Marshmallow, and you did not even leave me the rainbows! You know how much I love the rainbows!”

“I have daughters who are more intimidating than you are,” Corporal Spot responded, just as his sheik rose to defend himself against the wagging
finger. “I stole your Lucky Charms because I could and you couldn't stop me. Just wait until you find out what I did to your Pop-Tarts!”

Private Van Wilder grinned at the softball tossed his way. “I am familiar with your daughters,” he said, pausing just long enough on the word “familiar” to cause Corporal Spot to break character and laugh. “I friended them on MySpace and later blessed them with my super sheik sperm.”

I looked down again while my soldiers continued to banter. Whatever keeps them alert, I thought. Below, Captain Whiteback looked frazzled, as his hair rose wildly out of place and dark circles sagged underneath his eyes. I thought about asking him over the radio if he wanted his posse to escort him out of this clusterfuck, Death Row-style, but thought better of it. He was surrounded by colonels, and colonels did not generally appreciate my sarcasm or ill-timed quips. Especially ones based on 1990s gangta' rap.

I walked over to a group of the Iraqis on the roof with us. They numbered six in total. Nearly all of them were younger than me, and even at a very average 5 feet 10 inches I stood four to five inches above the tallest of them. I nodded and smiled, which spurred a reaction in turn by the paramilitary security guards.

“Salaam aleichem,” I said, doing my best not to butcher the most basic of Arabic statements.

“Hello, mistah,” they said together, and then one of them continued, “Hello, Lieutenant.” One of the others pointed at my gloves. I smiled again, took them off, and handed them over. Young Iraqis were always fascinated by the hard plastic that lined the knuckles of our combat gloves, and the inevitable occurred when the teenager put them on.

“Eeeehhhhh!” Plastic had met skull. The guard punched in the head by his friend exclaimed in pain, while the rest of them roared in delight. This process went on for a couple minutes until I asked for the gloves back. They were returned, and then one of the Sahwa pointed at my M4, and then pointed at his AK-47. He wanted to make a trade.

I shook my head and said, “Sorry. No trade.” I was no gun connoisseur, but I knew enough to understand that an M4 armed to the teeth with sights and accessories outclassed a bare AK-47—not to mention the bureaucratic uproar such a deal would cause. As this teenager lifted up his AK, attempting to display its killing prowess, his uniform—really just a plain long-sleeve brown shirt—raised up, revealing the dull pink shade of dead scar tissue. I grabbed his arm and pulled up the sleeve, causing him to bring his weapon
back down. The dull pink encircled his entire arm and extended to the elbow; it was smooth like a layer of cream cheese. A faint scar ran up the arm, parallel to the bone.

“Big bomb,” said another Son of Iraq, pointing to his peer's arm. He said something in Arabic to the boy with the scarred arm, who responded in kind.

“He say American sky bomb do this when war start. It kill abu [father].”

Per Iraqi tradition, I lifted my hand to my heart and began to express my sympathies, both for his father's death and the permanent shrapnel wound, when both teens broke out into wide grins. “No, no, very good,” the makeshift interpreter said. “He and family get lots of fuluus after!”

I smirked.
Fuluus
meant money. Our condolence funds program was well known in this country and had incurred many a recipient since 2003. Despite the morbid nature of the program, at least these Sons of Iraq appeared to be happy and satisfied customers. We had that going for us—which was nice, especially when the alternative tended to take the form of deep-buried IEDs or rocket propelled grenades (RPGs).

I shook the hands of the Sahwa members—two of them insisted on a fist-pound instead—and strolled back over to my soldiers. Sergeants Axel and Spade were kneeling together in the corner. I heard Sergeant Axel say, “The sir might know,” and they waved me over.

“What's up?”

“What the fuck are these guys arguing about? I thought they already voted.” Security for the election had been the only task and purpose about which I had briefed the platoon, as these fire-team leaders were subtly pointing out. I made a mental note to include “and maintain security for subsequent bitching session” the next time we drew this mission set.

“Do you know who any of these guys are?”

I nodded. “A couple of 'em. That fat guy in the white man-dress? The one who looks like Jabba the Hut?” I pointed at a rotund man with a thick black moustache sitting at the head table, dead center, between our brigade commander and a civilian from the State Department. He yawned openly and pawed at his nutsack while one of the lesser sheiks ranted in front of him. Our brigade commander blinked his eyes in surprise and leaned away while this Iraqi scratched, focusing intently on the other Arab who spoke. “That's Sheik Nour, head of the Tamimi tribe in this area.” The Tamimis, in addition to being the richest and most powerful of the local tribes, also,
apparently, bred like jackrabbits. They were everywhere and seemed to control everything.

The two NCOs shook their heads in disbelief. “That fat fuck is the one we have to guard?” Sergeant Spade asked incredulously. The line platoons in our squadron rotated security duties daily and nightly at Sheik Nour's house because he was petrified that everyone but Americans wanted him dead—everyone, according to him, included the not-to-be-trusted Iraqi army, the even-more-not-to-be-trusted IP, foreign Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), local Sunni extremist groups like Jaish al-Rashiden (JAR), the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, local Shia extremist groups like al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, al-Sadr himself, foreign Shia extremist groups like the Iranian-influenced Asaib Ahl Haq, and the local retarded bum who slept at the underpass down the road and masturbated constantly. Because Nour was a rising political star in Iraqi nationalist circles, our squadron commander had complied with his request for American support, despite the fact that the sheik employed his own 150-man personal militia. Of course, our squadron commander and his security detail wouldn't be the ones staying up for twenty-four plus hours guarding pavement, eyes dripping like stale glue. Funny how that worked.

“That's him,” I said. We looked down again. Another man had stood up to speak, and even Sheik Nour now paid attention. I recognized this man immediately as well—it was Sheik Haydar from one of Saba al-Bor's eastern villages and of a rival tribe to the Tamimis. Although his village was small, poor, and comparatively rural, Haydar commanded an audience here with presence; a good fifteen years younger than most of the other sheiks, he was stocky and compact with a back as straight as an ironing board, and his voice carried throughout the courtyard.

I had already met Haydar five days before. Upon our introduction, I distinctly remembered thinking, This man has killed before. There was a dark hardness about him that men cannot replicate, no matter how talented they are at feigning to be something they are not. Shortly thereafter, Haydar told me he intended to feed me a whole goat, just to see if any weight would stick to my bones. Although we both laughed, his eyes never left mine, and I could feel him probing my face, testing me for something unseen. Resisting the impulse to pull my eyes away, I responded that I'd love to share a meal with him, but that I didn't mind being lean and hungry, as it kept me from growing too comfortable. I could tell that my answer had pleased him.

Sheik Nour attempted to interrupt Haydar in Arabic, but Haydar pressed on. The past and future of Iraq was symbolized rather starkly, if a bit rudimentarily, by these two men. Nour was the by-product of a large petroleum inheritance and looked the part; his white dishdasha hid the rolls of fat underneath as well as a bathtub would hold an ocean. Haydar, meanwhile, sported a modern camel-skin coat, designer collared shirt, blue jeans, and a well-trimmed goatee. This chic ensemble, however, could not hide his obvious military posture and mannerisms, as he had previously served with the army for many years—both in Saddam's Baathist military and then in the initial free Iraqi army—only returning home to take control of his people after his father fell gravely ill. Even their headdresses conflicted, Haydar with the Sunni's red-and-white pattern, Nour with a black-and-white headdress to signify Shia. If the various power struggles currently being waged in this country and the Middle East as a whole could ever be simplified into one lucid microcosm, this was it.

“That's Haydar, right?” Staff Sergeant Axel asked. “We were just at his house the other day.”

I nodded again. “Yep.” I paused. “His tribe hates the Tamimis.”

“Right. I remember. He said that the Tamimis get all of the contracts from the Americans because they own the gas stations on Route Tampa.”

“Think that's true?” Sergeant Spade asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. I had no clue, and whether it was true or not probably wouldn't change anything in the greater Taji area. What mattered was that Haydar and his people—and pretty much every other sheik and tribe who wasn't a Tamimi—believed it to be true.

I felt a large shadow behind me. I looked up, finding that SFC Big Country had joined us. Men that big shouldn't be so good at sneaking up on people, I thought, no matter how many years they've been a scout.

“Think this will ever end?” he asked.

“Inshallah,” I replied, using an Arabic term Suge had taught us. It translated as “God willing,” and Iraqis utilized it early and often in conversations, especially when making plans for the future—even if that future was only a few hours away. As a result, we had quickly picked up on the secondary meaning of this term, which translated roughly to “Probably MaybeUhhIAmNotSureQuiteYetProbablyNotYeahDefinitelyNotCanWeTalk AboutThisLaterQuestionMark.”

As if on cue, though, the gathering below started to dissipate, and the stream for the exits marked the conclusion to Sheikapalooza. We moved out
of our security positions, loaded back up on our Strykers, and returned to Saba al-Bor.

Once we got back, I walked to the terp room and found Phoenix, Captain Whiteback's interpreter for the meeting. He was playing a World Cup soccer video game with our other young terp, Super Mario, and paused the game when I came into the room. I asked him what the sheiks had been discussing after the election for so long.

“Nothing,” he said. “They have election, and then they just argue to argue about election. Then they ask about the Sahwa moneys. Always about the moneys. Then they argue some more about contracts and projects until they are tired and then they go home.”

“Is that what Haydar was talking about?”

Phoenix nodded. He shared Suge's midnight-black skin and North African heritage, but our youngest terp was rail thin and wanted nothing more in the world than to become an American soldier. “Yes. He say that it is not fair same tribes and same businesses always get big contracts with Americans. He say that his village need water-plant contract.”

Haydar's village fell in some of the most arable terrain in the greater Taji region, but it was also some of the most unfunded. Haydar and his Sahwa had done an excellent job at chasing three AQI cells out of their area—supposedly by means that would give the Geneva Convention some more grey hair—and deserved the massive contract the water treatment plant would provide, in my definitely biased and narrow opinion.

“Well, what did they say to that?”

“The American man in the sweater”—I assumed Phoenix referred to the State Department representative—“tell him that he need to make good bid, and if he make good bid, he will get contract.”

That sounded fair, I thought. Very capitalistic. Very democratic. Very American. I slapped Phoenix on the back and stood up to leave the terp room. “Was Haydar cool with that?” I asked at the doorway.

Phoenix laughed. “No. He pretend to be, just because it was big meeting. But how can he make better bid than Tamimis? That man with the sweater sound crazy saying that.”

“Awesome,” I said, feeling a rant come on. “I love it when humanitarian missions reinforce the rich-get-richer notion.” Phoenix and Super Mario nodded in agreement, eager to return to their soccer match.

I shook my head and walked back toward my platoon's rooms. I wished the business deals over here didn't always seem as crooked as a corkscrew.
Then I hoped another delivery of mail had come into the combat outpost, as I expected a large batch of cookies from my mom. That package wouldn't arrive until the next day.

I yawned.
Sometimes, after I finished yawning, I was surprised at where I found myself. Like I knew I was supposed to be there, but not then, not yet, not again. Then I yawned again. I don't know why. I just did.

I found myself on a roof staring at a smiling ball of bright, and I was tired.

When it happened, I didn't know my platoon was a part of Operation Phantom Phoenix. The only reason I knew such an offensive had occurred was because I read about it on the Internet later. Things like that didn't always make it down the chain to our level; layers upon layers of brass, taskings, and PowerPoint presentations separated me from General Petraeus. All I knew at the time was that my platoon had perched itself up on the roof of an Iraqi household on an early January morning, scanning into a neighborhood with binoculars and optics. We were watching the Iraqi army clear through a neighborhood house by house, providing outer cordon, while Lieutenant Virginia Slim and his platoon overwatched them directly as the inner cordon.