Profane Men by Rex Miller

firefights.
    Jon affected the hero’s sensibilities. Small-unit tactics and strategy. Fortifications and fields of fire. Camouflage and concealment. Escape and evasion. The gospels according to the mercenary testament. Their vital signs hummed and ticked and glowed. Mere work was their thrust. And the coldness was there, even in the youngest among them.
    I can still see Jon D. all these years later, see him back there with Shooter Price and the others, guns up, barrels hot, surrounded by warm brass and death stink, and never a moment of fear showing. They would just look at each other and sort of go, “Well, smack it. Good fuckin’ luck, eh? Next case.” They could just breathe deeply and step back from it and be right where they were before. Not me. I was fucking paralyzed. Scared shitless doesn’t describe it.
    â€œMerci, mon amour,”
I tell her as Chi laughs, setting the bottles of Luke-the-Gook “33” down on our scarred, chipped table.
    â€œHere’s looking up your address,” he says, taking a long pull at the beer. I do likewise. “Aaaaaaahhhh. Now
that’s
formaldehyde.”
    â€œYou ’bout half wrecked already, right?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œBullshit.”
    â€œReally. I did a little hash with the magic man downstairs. I was waitin’ on you, asshole.”
    â€œWell. What the fuck are you waitin’ on now, asshole?” We laugh. I get up.
    â€œYou get any of that good righteous dew?”
    â€œIs piss yella?”
    â€œHey.”
    â€œSay?”
    â€œHow’s it feel to be drinkin’ and smokin’ witcher big-time, freelance gunman. Huh? Pretty exciting or what?”
    â€œHuh? Oh, yeah. Shit. Golly. Gee. It’s hard to put into words.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHow about, lower than shark shit and it’s on the bottom of the fuckin’ ocean.”
    â€œThat’s the way you feel too, eh?”
    â€œI feel lower than a snake’s dick.”
    â€œThat’s pretty fuckin’ low.”
    â€œWe got this big ugly motherfuck of a war goin’ on, and here we’re supposed to waste a fucking radio station? This is a mission? This is a hand job.”
    â€œâ€˜This is no mission, it’s a fuckin’ sentence.”
    â€œâ€˜Shit.” I pinch the twist off.
    I flashed on the Mission Profile Acceptance. We had to sign a fuckin’ contract, like we had some kind of fuckin’ choice. What would they have done if we’d refused to sign the son of a buck, send us to fucking Vietnam? I barely glanced at the shit. My impression was that it was one of those contracts where the big print said you were forbidden to read the little print.
    â€œI know how I feel.”
    â€œâ€™Zat right?”
    â€œI feel like somebody butt-stroked me right between the running lights.”
    â€œFuckin’ weird lash-up.” I ask him about the contract. “Is that some shit? Sign a contract for a mission. I’ve already signed every goddamn thing from an agreement that I never belonged to the Sons of Italy or the AFL-CIO or the German Dickbinders Club or whatever, to a fuckin’ hazard waiver, what the fuck more is there to sign? They own our balls for the tour, man.”
    â€œI didn’t even read that mother raper. I’ll sign anything. I don’t give a rat fuck.” We down the last of the warm formaldehyde and I light up.
    â€œBe with this — some good gangster.” He takes a big hit.
    â€œUmmmmmmf.”
    â€œUnnnnnnnn. I love that routine where he lays the ole eyeballs on ya and doesn’t say anything for about a minute and a half. Whatever works for ya.”
    â€œSom’bitch stared me
right
down,” I tell him. “I just said fuck it and looked around at the maps. Evil-eye motherfuck.”
    â€œWhooofffff. Shit’s all fucking right.”
    â€œUmmmmm.” Room is starting to smell pretty damn fine.
    â€œWin some