Escape from Baghdad! (9 page)

“Eighteen months ago, the imam of the Al Sha-”

“Enough,” Kinza said. “Enough. These things happen every day in every street of Baghdad. I am not here to seek vengeance for borrowed causes.”

“Someone must speak for them,” the lady said.

“I am not the person you need, old mother,” Kinza said.

“I know, dear, not yet,” Mother Davala said. “But one day you will be.”

7: HEAVILY DRUGGED AND DEMENTED

“K
LONOPIN
, Z
OLOFT
, A
MBIEN
, O
XY
C
ONTIN
,” H
OFFMAN READ OFF
a list. “Tommy, what the hell is this?”

“Prescriptions, admiral,” Tommy said. “For Private Ancelloti.”

“Ancelloti? Our main gunner? Is he trying to get high?” Hoffman asked. “Does he think I'm an idiot? Don't answer that.”

“No, sir,” Tommy said. “He's hurting bad, sir. No joke. Last night I woke up to take a piss. Found him chewing on my leg, sir.”

“Gnawing on your leg?” Hoffman puffed on his cigar, incredulous. “Is that some kind of gay slang? Are you gay, Tommy?”

“No way, Hoff,” Tommy said. “I like women. You remember that titty bar we went to, and I pulled down that stripper in the black nun's outfit?”

“Ahem,” Hoffman said. “That was not a titty bar, Tommy. Not by a long shot. How do I know? No titty bars in all of Baghdad. Fact. And that was no nun's habit either. That was a hijab. And finally, Tommy, that was not a stripper. Not by a long shot, no.”

“Right, Hoff.” Tommy looked down, abashed.

“About Ancelloti,” Hoffman said. “You woke up to find him actually biting your leg, you say?”

“Yeah,” Tommy rolled up his pants to show a purpling circular wound denoting a marked overbite. “He was sleep-walking. Bit my leg and then started to make a house out of all our gear. And then he tried to make a bullet soup.”

“Tommy, this is a terrible failure in leadership,” Hoffman said. “I made you, er, vice admiral of this fleet. I gave you rank, status, actual
duties. I put you in charge of the whole squad. Now I see you're messing around making bullet soup. What the hell is bullet soup by the way?”

“Campbell's canned tomato with bullets in it. Everybody knows that,” Tommy said. “I'm sorry, Hoff, but Ancelloti does crazy shit when he runs out of Klonopin.”

“I see. And you've spoken to his doctor, I suppose?” Hoffman asked. “Or are you hiding a medical degree under that helmet, kid?”

“No, Hoff, honest,” Tommy said, worried. “I ain't a doctor.”

“Hmm, must be the hash then,” Hoffman said. “Even makes me paranoid sometimes.”

“The psych told him to take it,” Tommy said, relieved. “He's been taking it for a year now. Except they stopped refilling his perspective six months ago.”

“His perspective is empty, you say? Sounds serious.”

“Right, his perspective is finished, that's what I said, Hoff.”

“You mean prescription, Tommy.”

“Huh?”

“I think,” Hoffman said, “you had better call Ancelloti over.”

Private Ancelloti was a jittery, wheezing mess, a tall, olive-skinned man who had once been handsome. He had tomato soup all over his shirt and a bullet in his pocket.

“Ancelloti, what is the problem here?”

“Nothing, Hoff,” Ancelloti mumbled. “Can't sleep too good.”

“Trouble with your meds?” Hoffman asked.

“Ran out,” Ancelloti grinned, revealing bloodstained teeth, where he had ground down his gums. “Two, three months ago.”

“Sit down, son,” Hoffman sparked a joint and handed it over. “What the hell you on so many meds for anyway?”

“I was gunner on a street patrol in Basra. We didn't have that mine resistant armored crap the reporters ride. Just the normal shit,” Ancelloti said. “Got hit by IED. Knocked us flat on our ass. I got thrown clear. Then the bastards came and threw grenades at us. Little kids with guns, coming at us outta windows. Shooting at us, throwing
shit at us. Like a goddamn party for the whole neighborhood…it was raining legs, Hoff. Captain's boot hit me in the face, knocked me out for a few seconds. They put two bullets in me and fucked off.”

“How many you lose?” Hoffman asked.

“The whole damn squad,” Ancelloti said. “Whole damn squad. I was wearing half of them.”

“Bad luck.”

“Can't sleep at night anymore,” Ancelloti said. “Can't shut my eyes—swear, Hoff. My hands shake when I get up on that turret. Takes me half an hour to feed the damn bullets into the machine. I lost half my peripheral vision. Can't see more than 45 degrees either side.”

“What the hell did they send you back here for?” Hoffman asked.

“Hospital discharged me,” Ancelloti shrugged. “I told them about the shaking and the vision problem. They said it was psychological. Spent one hour with a grief counselor. He sent me to the psych ward. Thought I was faking it. Psych gave me Klonopin and buncha other stuff. Worked for a while. Knocked me out every night.”

“But now you're out of Klonopin,” Hoffman said. “Why the hell didn't you get refills?”

“I tried, Hoff,” Ancelloti said. “Pharmacy told me the army stopped issuing Klonopin months ago. Drug companies changed. They got a new supplier, new drug. Something called Icopin. Took Icopin for a week. It just made me puke and pass out. Couldn't even get outta bed. New psych gave me Zoloft and Ambien to counter the Icopin. I took all of ‘em. Now they're saying I'm a god damn drug addict.”

“Well, you are.”

“Yeah, but,” Ancelloti said, “what the hell, Hoff, they made me take this shit in the first place. They shoulda sent me home.”

“Got any family at home?”

“Got a two-year-old daughter. Beautiful,” Ancelloti said. “And my wife. They go to church every Sunday, pray for me, take a picture outside. I get a picture every Sunday. That's why I ain't blown up yet.”

“Lucky,” Hoffman smiled. “Nice.”

“Yeah,” Ancelloti looked miserable. “Except now I'm stumbling around at night chewing on Tommy's leg. What if I go home and start making bullet soup in the middle of the night, Hoff? Scare the shit outta that little girl? What if they see me acting weird and leave me? Send me to some psych ward or something?”

“Hmm,” Hoffman said. “We need a gunner. Can't run a patrol without a gunner. Top secret mission. Can't send you home. You know too much already. Means we're going to fix you up. That, or kill you.”

“Haw haw. You're joking, right, Hoff? Joking? Please, Hoff.”

“Er, right,” Hoffman removed his hand from his sidearm surreptitiously. “Way I see it, private, is that the army's diagnosis is correct.”

“Correct?”

“Precisely,” Hoffman let out a professorial plume of smoke. “They correctly identified you as a drug addict. The hitch, to me, is obvious.”

“Sir?”

“The problem,” Hoffman continued, “is the kind of drugs you have been prescribed. What you need, private, is a new prescription. I have just the man to help you.”

Back again, Hoffman at the wheel, racing through narrow Shulla streets with scant regard for pedestrians, barely avoiding disaster at every turn, the blind gunner Ancelloti lolling in his turret puking out tomato paste. Someone had, bizarrely, painted their hummer in the guise of a Holstein cow. The sight of the black and white vehicle barreling around tight corners on the wrong side of the road was enough to set a gaggle of laughing children after them, much to the consternation of Ancelloti, who tracked his gun around now in real fear. He was about to let loose when Hoffman pulled into a weed-grown courtyard, stopping abruptly to the horrible gnashing death knell of his transmission.

They stepped out into a small paved space, surrounded by running balconies eight stories high, an old building broken up into apartments, all of them using the yard as a rubbish dump. A garbage-fed dog sunbathed under a defunct fountain, too lazy to even growl at the marines.

“Hoffman!” A guttural cry, far above, from an immensely fat man. “You bastard, rot in hell!”

“Behruse, my friend. I want to come up.”

“Get lost!”

“My friend, I can explain. It was not me with your wife. I swear!”

“What's the use,” Behruse shouted down. “She's left me anyways.”

Taking this as assent, Hoffman hoofed up the steps, dragging Ancelloti with him. On the sixth floor balcony, they found Behruse blocking their way, holding an archaic looking shotgun. He was well over six feet, running to mountainous fat, wearing a red cape and a makeshift superman T-shirt, which had ridden up to reveal a well-carpeted stomach.

“Costume party,” Behruse said, holding up one sweaty palm. “Every time, I get stupid superman. They think it's funny that I have to wear my underwear over my pants. Stupid, useless kids.”

Behruse was retired Iraqi secret service: an old friend, drinking partner, supplier and gossip monger, a great tentacled octopus spreading corruption throughout the city with good natured cheer.

“My friend,” Hoffman approached to give him a hug, sidling around the shotgun. “I have missed you dearly.”

“I want to crush you like a bug,” Behruse rumbled. “Many nights I have dreamed of doing just that.”

“Vicious lies,” Hoffman said. “I swear, upon the life of your mother, I never…”

“Forget it,” Behruse slumped against his door, making it tremble. “She left last week. Took off with a Syrian dentist.”

“Forget her, Behruse, she was a troll. You're better off without her. I feel sorry for the Syrians,” Hoffman said. “Besides, I have the perfect chick for you. She's a marine, could tear the neck off a giraffe, looks a bit like you, come to think of it.”

“Come inside, my friends,” Behruse ushered them into a surprisingly elegant living room. “Tea? Hoffman, your friend looks a little bit ill.”

“No thanks,” Hoffman said. “He's the reason why I'm here. Well, partially.”

“So?”

“He's having trouble sleeping,” Hoffman said. “Nightmares, the shakes, sleepwalking, strange visions…”

“Bombed-in-the-street-syndrome?” Behruse asked.

“Yeah,” Hoffman said. “His whole squad got paid.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“You can counsel him, Behruse,” Hoffman said. “You know exactly what it feels like. How many people you lost over here?”

“Pfft,” Behruse said. “Thirteen direct bloodline. Twenty-five slanted bloodline. IEDs, hand grenades, land mines, falling buildings, tank shells, mortar shells, air strikes, crossfire, sniper fire, friendly fire, electric fire; and my uncle—he died when Saddam's statue fell on him. First casualty of the civil war. Fact.”

“That's a lotta people Behruse,” Ancelloti said. “Could be, we did some of that shit to you.”

“So what?” Behruse said. “It's a war. We kill you. You kill us. Who cares? The important thing is to have a sense of humor about it. When we were bombing the Kurds, do you think they were crying like babies?”

“I keep seeing those flying legs though, you know?” Ancelloti said.

“That's nothing,” Behruse said. “I once saw… hmft well, never mind. What you need, my friend, is something to calm the spirit.”

“That's exactly what I said,” Hoffman said. “Fuck that chemical shit. We need something natural.”

“Plum wine,” Behruse began to bring out numerous packets, including a dusky bottle. “To ease the digestion and give you pleasant dreams. And this high quality Afghan hashish, dried on the thighs of beautiful Pashtun virgins.”

“That's a joke right?” Hoffman guffawed. “Cause there ain't any Pashtun virgins.”

“Not among the women, anyways,” Behruse winked. “You interrupt. Dried on the thighs of beautiful Pashtun virgins, rolled in the
down above their lips. You take this, my friend, to steady your hands and slow down time. And finally, this bottle, containing tear drops of the finest opium, save it for those sleepless nights, guaranteed to give you the finest visions. Not too much of the opium, mind. Here, I'll put it in a bag for you.”

Ancelloti stared at the packet for a moment and then crushed it tightly against his chest. He appeared pathetically grateful.

“Now, Hoffman.”

“I have here, Behruse, ten packets of America's finest detergent,” Hoffman pulled out a catalogue. “Just pick your color.”

“What the hell am I going to do with detergent?”

“Huh?” Hoffman said. “Wash stuff. I'll throw in a washing machine.”

“You got a washing machine in there?” Behruse looked down at the parked hummer in admiration.