the yard. Sinclair stood watching the vehicle drive off and trying to get the grit out of his mouth and eyes and deciding he’d continue with the convoy briefing just in case they got lucky and were able to finish the school and also trying to ignore his father’s voice, which suddenly intruded on his thoughts.
“You make your own luck!” his father liked to say, as if luck and opportunity hadn’t both come up sixes for him and his children, all boys, all athletic, all destined to follow the trajectory of Sinclair success—all of them quick to shout out “Buy!” or “Sell!” or “Anti-fragility!” which was an investment strategy that not only withstood a turbulent market but performed better under such conditions, just like the Sinclairs. Of the four brothers, only Penn had no interest in finance or the family business, but he had internalized the lessons about running down the hall and shouting, “Follow me!” What he had learned was that people tended to do it without asking where they were going. It was a useful skill for a leader, although unlike his brothers, he had a tendency to overthink things, the way he was doing now.
Facta, non verba, he reminded himself. Deeds, not words.
This led to a thought about how the word “fact” was more closely allied with actions and fabrications than with bits of discoverable truth and how words sometimes contained elements of their opposites, which was the kind of insight he loved and the kind his father hated. “Interesting thought,” his old man would say. “But who’s going to pay you to think it?”
Deeds, not words, Penn reminded himself just as Velcro came up and said, “I’m a little worried about the troops.”
2.3 Danny Joiner
T heir tours were being extended. That’s what the colonel’s long-winded meandering had been about. That’s what the muffled grumbling in the front rows and the funny silence meant. The news reached Danny Joiner where he was sitting in the shade of a makeshift shower stall taking his weapon apart in order to clean and oil the action for the third time that afternoon. He had been absorbed in this task and only realized something was going on when Pig Eye ran around the corner of the yard shouting, “Can they do it? They can’t do it, can they?” As if somebody had a definitive answer as to what the U.S. Army could and couldn’t do.
Pig Eye was desperate to get home, and with each passing day, new fantasies about his wife’s infidelity blossomed in his brain. “Extending our tours would be illegal, wouldn’t it?” he whined. But they were talking about the people who both made the rules and interpreted them.
“What planet you livin’ on, man?” asked Specialist Le Roy Jones, and Staff Sergeant Mason Betts, who was their squad leader and who happened to be walking by just then, batted the side of Pig Eye’s head with an open palm and said, “Toughen up, man,” before he disappeared into the shower stall.
Everybody had some factoid to contribute, some phrase from their enlistment papers, some personal theory of right and wrong honed on the steel of their childhoods, some favorite chapter or verse guaranteed either to make sense of their personal situations or to start an argument if not a war, until Le Roy got everyone’s attention by whispering, “Slave labor, that’s what it is!”
The whisper passed through the unit like a pressurized stream of combustible gas. Le Roy kept whispering, “Slave labor,” over and over again to anyone who came within earshot. He said it to Danny just as Danny was trying to convince himself that the trickling sound of water from the shower stall was rain. What he wouldn’t give for a downpour—send in fucking Katrina if that’s what it took to break the heat that sucked the spit from his mouth and the sweat from his pores and the glaze from his ever-aching eyeballs.
“Jeezus, Le Roy,” he said. “Can’t I have some peace?”
“You heard, didn’t
“You make your own luck!” his father liked to say, as if luck and opportunity hadn’t both come up sixes for him and his children, all boys, all athletic, all destined to follow the trajectory of Sinclair success—all of them quick to shout out “Buy!” or “Sell!” or “Anti-fragility!” which was an investment strategy that not only withstood a turbulent market but performed better under such conditions, just like the Sinclairs. Of the four brothers, only Penn had no interest in finance or the family business, but he had internalized the lessons about running down the hall and shouting, “Follow me!” What he had learned was that people tended to do it without asking where they were going. It was a useful skill for a leader, although unlike his brothers, he had a tendency to overthink things, the way he was doing now.
Facta, non verba, he reminded himself. Deeds, not words.
This led to a thought about how the word “fact” was more closely allied with actions and fabrications than with bits of discoverable truth and how words sometimes contained elements of their opposites, which was the kind of insight he loved and the kind his father hated. “Interesting thought,” his old man would say. “But who’s going to pay you to think it?”
Deeds, not words, Penn reminded himself just as Velcro came up and said, “I’m a little worried about the troops.”
2.3 Danny Joiner
T heir tours were being extended. That’s what the colonel’s long-winded meandering had been about. That’s what the muffled grumbling in the front rows and the funny silence meant. The news reached Danny Joiner where he was sitting in the shade of a makeshift shower stall taking his weapon apart in order to clean and oil the action for the third time that afternoon. He had been absorbed in this task and only realized something was going on when Pig Eye ran around the corner of the yard shouting, “Can they do it? They can’t do it, can they?” As if somebody had a definitive answer as to what the U.S. Army could and couldn’t do.
Pig Eye was desperate to get home, and with each passing day, new fantasies about his wife’s infidelity blossomed in his brain. “Extending our tours would be illegal, wouldn’t it?” he whined. But they were talking about the people who both made the rules and interpreted them.
“What planet you livin’ on, man?” asked Specialist Le Roy Jones, and Staff Sergeant Mason Betts, who was their squad leader and who happened to be walking by just then, batted the side of Pig Eye’s head with an open palm and said, “Toughen up, man,” before he disappeared into the shower stall.
Everybody had some factoid to contribute, some phrase from their enlistment papers, some personal theory of right and wrong honed on the steel of their childhoods, some favorite chapter or verse guaranteed either to make sense of their personal situations or to start an argument if not a war, until Le Roy got everyone’s attention by whispering, “Slave labor, that’s what it is!”
The whisper passed through the unit like a pressurized stream of combustible gas. Le Roy kept whispering, “Slave labor,” over and over again to anyone who came within earshot. He said it to Danny just as Danny was trying to convince himself that the trickling sound of water from the shower stall was rain. What he wouldn’t give for a downpour—send in fucking Katrina if that’s what it took to break the heat that sucked the spit from his mouth and the sweat from his pores and the glaze from his ever-aching eyeballs.
“Jeezus, Le Roy,” he said. “Can’t I have some peace?”
“You heard, didn’t
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