“ABC”
A bullet popped out. Beneath the stone tile and the stone brick that had been laid together for generations among the mortar, it leaped into space. The man who hunted for it was Duncan, an American. A beefy, taller-than-tall-than-tall American whose musty blonde with gray hair flowed. There was the stubble of a beard that he had shaved on the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy just before landing at Kabul. He remembered the scowl for one of his seatmates when he came back from the lavatory having done the deed.
That is when the moment happened, he smirked and said at the seatmate: “A, B, C. Although I said to my wife that I would not shave my beard before I left Amerooca. But the orders said no beard once I hit the ground in Kabul, therefore it had to be shaved in the air. See?”
There was nothing but a roll of the eyes. But his seatmate understood, women were like that. As the expression goes: even a soldier has to have a soul, even if he is a contractor. But that was before the ops got going. Now Duncan was here on a dusty road that wended its way towards the capital of Afghanistan. He was doing repairs on a hovel largely out of payback towards the local headman, though Duncan called him “Juju man” in private, it rang a distant chord with him going along.
But that was past. In the now, he was surrounded by the mountain air with only the only hovel in this land. He looked down to the ground.
“You know,” he said, “we can fix you up in a new place.” The rungs on the ladder groaned.
The answer came from a rough-shaven Pashtun man, considerably shorter and slighter with a crook on the left side of his mouth.
“The old way is the better way.”
But he watched the finishing hammer as the claw grasped to see if the was another shell. There wasn’t.
“I have not seen any stray bullets careening around.”
“They have not happened here since the old days.” Absentmindedly, the Pashtun flipped a coin over and under his knuckles but then put it away.
“Which old we talking about, exactly? End of 1979? Say December 24?”
The Pashtun stood a moment in his Afghani trousers and boots. Then laughed.
“This is a joke? Bullets used to be common when you Americans first came. The world was different then.”
“Drier.” The sun had pulled out from the roof into spring-like lands. There was a gray-green fuzz on the hills and on the distant horizon.
“Though the joins had not cemented.”
“Nor the partnership,” replied Duncan. He looked back down the valley to see if men were walking off the road. Could not be too careful because bullets didn’t just lodge in houses or bazaars. He glanced overhead into the bluest of air. No vultures or ravens turned in the sky.
“You seem more comfortable laughing.”
“I kept some amused. Repeated for me you're named again, I almost have it on my tongue.”
The Pashtun slowly pronounced his name again: “Khandawar.”
“I will try to remember it, this time.” Coming off the ladder he stamped his L.L. Bean boots, for not being military had advantages. In his pouch, he counted the nails and screws. The contractor realized he needed to change tack. “Do you want a spigot pipe for water? I can just about do that tomorrow.”
“And where do I get water from? Every week my grandmother goes down to the well at the bottom of the hill.”
“She handles that drum?”
“One of the young men pushes it for her.” The Afghani man looked at his clothes. On the top level, they were of a hippie-derived style, on the other hand, the ensemble was neatly pressed and well-crafted in color. “You are very careful.”
“I try to be meticulous.”
“Sorry, I do not know that word.”
“It means very careful and precise.”
“Maybe I should be careful when I laugh around you.”
Only then did Duncan fixed the hammer on his construction belt. He almost tried a greeting in Dari but thought the better of it. But the Pashtun saw something on his face. A perplexment, perhaps.
“You want to say… what?”
“Nothing, I just was remembering my time at Languages School.”
“What did you learn?”
“What I did not learn was any form of speech in Dari or Pashtun. Only a little writing.”
The Pashtun man paused perhaps to clasp hands together. “This is another joke. You must have made people laugh.”
It was strange because Duncan never thought he was gifted with the art of glee or gab. He looked into Khandawar’s eyes and saw that look which people in World War II called ‘the thousand-yard stare.’ Off to an unknown future.
He saw it as a poster many times at his uncle’s apartment in Burlington, Vermont up on splendid Lake Champlain. It was an apartment along a side street on the main drag. It was the only metropolitan area in the state, and then only when they waited for the students to come back. He saw it many times in the apartment when his mom sent him up on the creaky Greyhound bus to parts unknown. The poster hung there in his uncle’s study. When his uncle was alive, that is. It was in Life having come from death.
Another connection with his uncle: a base, he learned languages there where his uncle had learned to kill. It was down in old Virginia way, a vision which was fresh because it was different. It was amazingly humid from the rivers seethe and amazingly heated from the bay’s deep growl. The tin can buildings were lined up just so after your eyes had been bedazzled by the old pink brick edifices that lined the boulevard. Old hiding the young.
Memory is a funny thing: as Duncan remembered the crush of his boots on the sand: snap, crackle, pop. That was also the cereal he had for breakfast. The first thing he looked upon was the creased military uniform of a junior officer: hair was brown with no gray and all fabric was crisp. As far as Duncan was concerned, he was on the other side.
Then came the first words from the Army captain’s mouth: “You must be a contractor.” There was a Southern hymn on the downside which smoothed the drone of diction. And a universal awe at the 1-foot difference in height.
“It shows, doesn’t it? I left the Grateful Dead stickers at home… Do I say ‘sir’ as a civilian?” Duncan did an imitation of the hymn-like theme. But no homage to its melody.
“Not required. Get ready because this is a fast indoctrination to language, culture, and mission. Got to hurry.”
“What is the rush?”
“I have to teach the young First Lieutenants about the basis of containment. Atomic, biological, chemical.”
“Many specialties under your hat.” If he did not mention the hat was pointed it was because of effort.
“Linguistics is not my forte”. The captain scrutinized Duncan up and down and it sent a shiver on the tall civilian. The military man continued: “First time in Central Asia? Not going to be too brown for you?”
“I’ll get along fine - it’s not like we are going to Glennross. By the way, then, where is a bathroom?”
“We still call it the latrine. It is the one in the building on the left.”
“Thank you kindly,” Duncan looked for the name, “Captain Cotton.”
“Be in class in 15.”
“Yes sir.” With a rich green flatness on the “sir.”
Then his eyes turn to the present, in the ruined road toward the apex of Afghanistan. Duncan turns toward Khandawar, full face because he learns on his first day that over the shoulder could be conceived as impolite.
“I have to go now. Are you sure you don’t want me to put you on the list for a new home?”
He got the thousand-yard stare back as if the Afghan man was looking to the horizon and beyond. Finally, the resident of the home said: “My son is in the military. I will tell him to ask to be with your bodyguard.”
“Thank you kindly.” Though in truth, having to keep an eye on another person was a pain from the collar of the neck, down.
An Army-green bus came by to pick Duncan up. A heavily armored bus with leatherette-lined seats, but still a bus because there was installed a plexiglass shield between the passenger and native driver. Duncan wondered which way the glass was protected because he did not feel safer, to say the least. But he plopped down near Alec Blake, and after a bit of hesitation: “I hope you did not see anything untoward today.” There was one other military man aside from Alec: straight and almost at attention.
“Got a middle-aged man to sign up for a new condo. That’s 6 extra units this month. And you?” Alec actually listened for an answer.
“You and you're Always Be Closing attitude. My bit was repaired two elder huts.” Duncan ignores both the Afghani driver and the Military Police Office.
“That does not sound promising at all. Sure it wasn’t - thatch?”
“They’re happy.”
Alec looked at the driver realizing that the next words out of his mouth would be ‘worse than a crime, it would be a mistake:’ because he was about to prattle on that the contractors did not worry about Afghan happiness.
Always Be Closing: move the native population from ancestorial homes to shiny, new boxy condos made out of ticky-tack. The home was cheap, but the money would come in little ways: electricity for example. Duncan thought this ‘Now I’ve got you, bleep bleep, bleep’ formula was going to hurt the Coalition one day. Soon actually, thus he bore a note in his pants pocket from the Major in charge of his rebuilding group to reconsider his return to the States. He knew that while he did not upsell, he kept the local chiefs’ content by fixing houses for the locals and thus was useful, ‘useful’ in quotes. Every local honcho was corrupt as all get out and need to be kept on side. A little grease must be provided.
“What’s so funny?” Alec’s Brooklyn accent interrupted Duncan’s chain of thought.
“Nothing, just half away through a busy week.”
“ABC.”
“I’ll wait for TGIF.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time down on corner street U.S.A. This is my fifth tour because the is nothing back home out country.”
Well, at least we have pot now, sort of. I’ll go back to numbering trees.”
“Who is paying for that?”
“Interior.”
“Well trust me on this, there is a great deal more in protecting the country than in living in it.”
“Which basically means there is more dying for the country than living for the nation.”
“So how did you come by this racket?”
“My uncle was a medic in some the war without honor in a country without peace. I wanted to serve, just at contractor wage-scale.”
“Vietnam? Did not like to be shot, did he?”
“Oh, he likes to shoot, just not being shot at. He’s one of them.” Then he amended: “There also was a thought he might want a doctor when got out.” He remembered going out to shooting afternoons with his uncle and ex-aunt. Noisy affairs.
Then there was a pause that grew into an interruption. At least, Duncan could soundlessly think rather than mindlessly talk. That is the way with halts in conversation, sometimes you could cut them with a paring blade.
On Friday he was back in Kabul, at the headquarters, when he bumped into a young Afghani soldier whose face he ought to remember. A look of surprise grafted itself onto Duncan’s face almost by accident. Then nonchalantly he said: “I should remember you, but unfortunately I cannot quite remember the scene.” Duncan waited for a moment to let an MPC going by.
That it was an Afghani man was clear in the face and had a uniform one size too large. He also had a small hint of a beard. “You probably remember my father, rather than me. He asked me to join your team because he said you were going north.” There was another one of those pauses but Duncan strangled the pause with a knife. There was a thud inside his head because that information was restricted but then he remembered that the father was connected to the mayor and some other would-be officials in a very small part of this war. That means Duncan moved to a more guarded stance and tried to begin again.
“In the north, there is a bridge that needs some attention; it is quite old, and higher-ups want to know whether it should be repaired or simply started over again.”
“And they picked you to determine this?”
“One of the things that senior officers know is who gets the job done. And, on this occasion, they have picked me. For some reason.”
“I am sure that you are the best.”
“You’re already talking like an officer.”
“It must be your way to flatter your subordinates.”
“No, just a habit.” Which, thought Duncan, you share.
That night on his bed he viewed a different world, in a place where the internet flow like water. The was no email from his wife so he sent one out into the void, and hoped it settled between the other stains in her mailbox. To be read from subtropical drizzle on Washington’s coast in however many hours would come to pass.
It had no leavening, but he sent it out. To a place where women are not hidden in any respect. He hoped it would be only children who would interrupt her.
On the next day, yes, a Saturday, Duncan was in a strange place indeed: a military base with precious little military. Some loose white buses and piles of crates are covered by a wall of concrete. But no orange-brown butterflies because the nectar had already run dry. Around the rim ran a concrete bulwark and outside the main road along the Kabul River with traffic wallowing on the ramps. Sandbars looked up from the river at the counterparts on the tarmac.
It was at this point that Duncan realized that it was underground that he needed to go, and so he went. Blown-out beige walls greeted him. None of the tidy micro-clean of the developed world. A fortress standing on the edge.
Inside the double-wide door was open, and a man looked upon him with quizzical interest. Duncan flashed his badge and was let in. To wait for his guide. He did not wait for long but a little while, enough to make the ears steam. Lightly.
Then they were walking and looking up the guide asked:
“This was arranged rather quickly. Strange for a low-level job.”
“You’ll have to take that up with your command.” It was a retort, and both knew that: if there was funny business, it was on the Afghani side. The guide left him at the arsenal with a view of the shooting gallery from the back. Instantly Duncan recognized his man. Or rather the plunging shot which rang out from his weapon which identified him. There he was blazing away at a pace like kingdom come. There was a satisfying crunch with each shot. The shots were center-pointed; clearly, the young Afghani was superb as a marksman.
The young man slid the headphones off and turned to recognize the contractor instantaneously. Duncan made quick work with a glum face and handed him a sealed copy of the orders. There were only nods at that point.
Soon Duncan left the stultifying air for the base.
It was night on the northernmost part of Afghanistan, in the crinkle mountains before Tajikistan. It is cold beyond cold. This stream coughed its way to the Kokcha River in its multi-banded flurry of multi-layered slurry and the main road which mimicked it. The convoy steams its way to the base with the main driver scowling at the local guardsmen. The guardsmen knew that they were not getting a bribe from the US military but that is alright since there were easier pockets to pick with leaden hands under leaden heavens. Not on the World News Tonight with David Muir, that’s for sure.
Duncan and his crew were here to address to state of the truss that connected the Northern part of the provinces. All the time Duncan counted the seconds to his leaving. In World War II, say at Market Garden, a scene like this would have been set to swirling rain. The rain covered your face after having drenched your hood on your parka and slid down your back. But there was not here, and instead, the cooler breeze flowed down from that North with only sand and cold as its legacy. There were hulking trucks carrying both GI regulars and Afghan forces. He backslapped the American security guard, hard, and then peered over the side.
It was a long way down to the muddy wash that passed for stream between two stoned mountain passes. There was no green on the rocks. Duncan cracked a smile, recalling one of his children chanting “Slime!” with every running step.
The signs of the trestle staying up were not good. His uncle would say ‘It’s trashy, so trash it. It isn’t human.’ Everything yet was of old beam without knots, but dilapidated. He also checked for munitions; in case the Taliban were going to blow the span while he delved. Looking back at the men, they were, unfortunately, milling around. Duncan went back and took pictures on his phone for reference, for in the morning he studied all of the photographs and, by nightfall, decided to go back again for another look.
Alone.
Duncan thought he could disappear in a stasis in the dark, thus he headed out to borrow a truck from the motor pool. It was illegal to borrow. But better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission. He learned the lesson, in clubs. Then was no chance for him to creep so he did not bother. Ambling along between the temporary buildings, he saw a few military people taking communion from a priest with the light from a nearby barrack. He vaguely heard the words of atonement: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. The drone of purification made flesh and blood.
Then he set his footsteps towards the motor pool with a particular truck being in mind. Step by step, foot by foot, the truck came into view, awaiting orders. He had some. He stepped up opening the door. With his foot just inside the driver’s side, he heard a snap of fingers. Duncan turned around. It was the man in the young Afghan military uniform with his beard slightly longer. With a pistol. Pointed straight at Duncan’s heart. Duncan knew he did not miss.
It screamed more like an M79 Grenade Launcher with a wide hungry maw for coin.
The American pulls up to his full height. “You are not going to shoot me on the base, are you?” The voice sounded like a wisecrack but did not feel like it.
“This is an insult that was delivered to my father, to take our house away, so I know that I will not make it through to the morning. Thus, it does not matter where I shoot you as a great husk, only that the deed has been done and recorded in remembrance. My life is meaningless compared to the vengeance. Even your YHWH knows the power of that.” The first three letters of the new hijāʾī order are YWH. ABC in another tongue and a pun on their view of an unfinished being who needed a name.
“I can recognize a home rather than a house, I tried to live and let live.” Duncan’s time was gassed, he thought, but then his eyes smiled. “Go ahead and shoot me.” He spread his hands.
Then a shot rang out. But it was not Duncan who rolled forward with the bullet, instead, an MPC had stealthily pulled up behind the Afghani, because the MPC had seen the Afghani slide the Beretta up his sleeve. And, of course, the MPC followed him. The Afghani soldier flowed blood from the mouth.
“Thank you kindly.” And a nod.
“You should not release a truck from the motor pool, sir. The sergeant closes the books till tomorrow.” It was a straight reply from the clean-shaven face.
The heap of a contractor looked around, at the mountain peaks, then at the sergeant. He scratched the stubbled on his chin for the difference between them. He wished and dreamed it in a waking nightmare to travel the gap between mental ridges and communicated through the skull, though he knew MPC would never do because the MPC could not grasp the nettle flight with bars of solid brass. Duncan knew this but vainly tried to make the MPC understand like a vial of sand seen by an eagle in flight. He took the commanding bearing that he learned from his uncle. “I’ll be on an airplane before close. You should all but consider doing the same.”
Fin