built for that, we’ve been told a hundred times but so many are coming at once that I watch the panel buckling right in front of me, puffing like the wrapper around the popcorn in the microwave. I’m embedded, the writer, the carry-along, an extra, an amusement most times, a burden at the moment. I have a gun in my belt but it might as well be a cap pistol.
We’ve got to move—Ram it! Monroe tells Gunner, the driver. If his name is Gunner, why isn’t he the fucking gunner, dammit? Nonetheless, Monroe says Ram it so Gunner puts the thing in gear but then all at once, there’s a different banging on the doors, banging and screaming—two of the guys from the medic Vee want in. Get us out of here! I hear someone screaming and Philips opens his door at the same time Grover opens his. Just in time for the poor son-of-a-bitch on Philips side to get riddled six or seven times in his vest—not dead but knocked over and that saves him and us.
For just a second, everything slows down as the guys on the end lean out to pull the two grunts into the Vee. I’m sitting, staring out the windshield, a dazed drugged-up sedation case and my eyes widen as up the road on the other side of the burning Humvee crawls a bus . The local town bus, the rattle-trap skinny-tire flaking-paint Fallujah regular city bus, low-cost rapid transit fucking bus on its rounds, following its route, the driver doing his usual civil service job of looking exactly ten yards ahead of him and no more. And now he’s opening his doors at the bus stop—which just happens to be in the middle of a firefight. And as the doors are open on both sides of our Humvee and a thousand rounds are flying at us and Gunner is about to drive right over the flaming fucking Vee in front of us to get out of here, I see a procession of soldiers in uniform filing neatly off the bus . Like they paid their fare downtown and waited politely with their guns for twenty stops from there to the war. And now they’re lined up, joining the rest of the warring neighborhood factions, shooting at us while the last two start setting up a rocket launcher and aiming it right at me .
“Gunner GO!!!” I yell and Gunner puts the thing in gear as they haul the last soldier in through Grover’s door. Right then, Philips takes a round right in the neck that spurts all over the cab and he slumps to the floor. The rest of us all lean over to grab him and pull him up. At that instant, I hear a sharp hiss and raise my head a fraction, a millimeter, a milli-millimeter or whatever’s smaller than anything—and see a rocket, the one launched by the bus soldiers, hovering right in front of my nose, passing so slow, so slow I can read the serial number on the side, right through the cab of our Humvee, screaming in one door, across the aisle between front seat and back and then out the other door without touching a thing, a person, anyone or anything. It explodes against the cinder block wall, happily about five yards behind us as we jump the other Hummer. My nose is singed black for a week. It’s three days before I can hear much of anything, even Metallica. But Gunner hit the pedal at the right time and we will live, at least a little longer.
~~~~
And then I woke in a sweat and Tauber was creaking back and forth with a cup of evil-smelling coffee, singing some classic rock song I knew I’d heard but didn’t really recognize. And Max was seated on the edge of my bed, worried face taking me in. And I knew he’d shaken me awake. He was dressed pretty neatly and had even brushed his hair, for all the good it did.
“You’ll want a shower after the day you had,” he said. “And the night.” My dreams were already fading. He probably remembered a whole lot more of them than I did. “You should start getting ready,” he urged softly.
When I came out of the shower, they were both staring at the TV, rapt. “…Matthews, the chairman of Mainline Technologies, a security
We’ve got to move—Ram it! Monroe tells Gunner, the driver. If his name is Gunner, why isn’t he the fucking gunner, dammit? Nonetheless, Monroe says Ram it so Gunner puts the thing in gear but then all at once, there’s a different banging on the doors, banging and screaming—two of the guys from the medic Vee want in. Get us out of here! I hear someone screaming and Philips opens his door at the same time Grover opens his. Just in time for the poor son-of-a-bitch on Philips side to get riddled six or seven times in his vest—not dead but knocked over and that saves him and us.
For just a second, everything slows down as the guys on the end lean out to pull the two grunts into the Vee. I’m sitting, staring out the windshield, a dazed drugged-up sedation case and my eyes widen as up the road on the other side of the burning Humvee crawls a bus . The local town bus, the rattle-trap skinny-tire flaking-paint Fallujah regular city bus, low-cost rapid transit fucking bus on its rounds, following its route, the driver doing his usual civil service job of looking exactly ten yards ahead of him and no more. And now he’s opening his doors at the bus stop—which just happens to be in the middle of a firefight. And as the doors are open on both sides of our Humvee and a thousand rounds are flying at us and Gunner is about to drive right over the flaming fucking Vee in front of us to get out of here, I see a procession of soldiers in uniform filing neatly off the bus . Like they paid their fare downtown and waited politely with their guns for twenty stops from there to the war. And now they’re lined up, joining the rest of the warring neighborhood factions, shooting at us while the last two start setting up a rocket launcher and aiming it right at me .
“Gunner GO!!!” I yell and Gunner puts the thing in gear as they haul the last soldier in through Grover’s door. Right then, Philips takes a round right in the neck that spurts all over the cab and he slumps to the floor. The rest of us all lean over to grab him and pull him up. At that instant, I hear a sharp hiss and raise my head a fraction, a millimeter, a milli-millimeter or whatever’s smaller than anything—and see a rocket, the one launched by the bus soldiers, hovering right in front of my nose, passing so slow, so slow I can read the serial number on the side, right through the cab of our Humvee, screaming in one door, across the aisle between front seat and back and then out the other door without touching a thing, a person, anyone or anything. It explodes against the cinder block wall, happily about five yards behind us as we jump the other Hummer. My nose is singed black for a week. It’s three days before I can hear much of anything, even Metallica. But Gunner hit the pedal at the right time and we will live, at least a little longer.
~~~~
And then I woke in a sweat and Tauber was creaking back and forth with a cup of evil-smelling coffee, singing some classic rock song I knew I’d heard but didn’t really recognize. And Max was seated on the edge of my bed, worried face taking me in. And I knew he’d shaken me awake. He was dressed pretty neatly and had even brushed his hair, for all the good it did.
“You’ll want a shower after the day you had,” he said. “And the night.” My dreams were already fading. He probably remembered a whole lot more of them than I did. “You should start getting ready,” he urged softly.
When I came out of the shower, they were both staring at the TV, rapt. “…Matthews, the chairman of Mainline Technologies, a security
Similar Books
