"Went down to the levy, but the devil caught me there. 'Took my twenty dollar bill and vanished in the air"
~Grateful Dead
Hooah!...
Gildge said it, clearly wasn't feeling it. By this point, though, every snivel and whine is making my job a little easier. I let the deadpan delivery pass in service of a greater victory.
The Interpreter was to his left, i sat facing him from the next rack. There was a battered footlocker between us. I leaned in. I looked him in the eyes:
Specialist, I have concerns. This unit's never lost a man to discipline, and you will not - I cannot ALLOW - you to become the first. Are we clear?
Sir, yes Sir...
Way too quiet. We were not clear. I flashed a look at the Terp and he cleared out, leaving me and the kid in a dark tent. I leaned in:
Speak freely. This is the only chance I'll give you.
***
So that's how i got this job...
They drove through the frigid Kazmir night at speeds that felt very dangerous to private Gildge. The interpreter talked the entire time, but with the rush of air over the chassis, and the rocks and dust crunching between bigger road noises, Spec 1st Gildge was getting every tenth word and understanding none if it. After almost an hour on high desert hardscrabble, the road got at least semi-passable and the Terp's narrative came into focus:
...Fuck I'd been offered shit like this gig my whole life since I had no dick-hair, yo. The el tee, though, he's the first white man could meet my price. Six languages, six dialects or more in most of em, I know the high roads and the low roads. You gotta have self worth right? Dollahdollabill y'all right?
Gildge said nothing.
Going back ain't a thing to be ashamed of mang. I've seen it before too. Shit many times bro! I hear about these guys, Americans, big tough guys right? Hard. They be killin themselves faster than the tags can get 'em. I'm sayin "fuck bro...where these guys been workin? " Cause I know the aint seein' what I see, and they still eatin voluntary lead? What the fuck, right? Last week we napalmed a school after barricading the doors. Ain't a guy with us killed anything but a ragheads. Shit you saw the bus. That's our thing dude. Fuckin hellish. Death squad motherfuckers. We hard. You gotta be!
Terp's mention of the bus made Gildge all loopy again. He tried to stem the flood of disgust and confusion, tried to keep the awful images from his mind's eye. It was no use. What the fuck happened to that bus? Those people...
Specialist Gildge realized he'd spoke it inadvertently as he thought it and studied the interpreter for reaction. He was relieved to see none, then felt silly for all his worrying. All the noise, he could hardly make out the sound of his own voice much less an...
Glad you asked dude. The El Tee had a feeling you would so I got orders to make us a detour.
He jacked the brakes and the un-belted Gildge went head up against the windshield.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Interpreter #7
"Use all your well-learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste"
Later I took a small group to observe the scene and establish body count. Specialist Gildge accompanied, as did the Interpreter, two more medical officers, and sgt. Mason. We'd been on the ground for approximately 45 minutes before private Gildge became physically ill.
This occurred just after we scoped the wreckage for the body-count. It was high. We found 19 people - 15 adults and four kids - burned and butchered near the top of the high rise. We found whole families of people crammed into shitty, 1940's elevators burned alive and fused with the metal and wiring of the melted cars. We'd counted almost 50 enemy dead inside the primary target.
Out in the streets we had cooked six cars plus the old Laidlaw schoolbus. It was to these impact zones that I sent Specialist Gildge to scan for body count and assess the security component. I found him there 35 minutes later, no body count, no report. Gildge was hardly conscious, shaking, covered in his own filth. He tried to speak but could produce only convulsive grunts and dry heaves.
I sent him to the rear that night. By then word was getting around about Ris. Our orders mere to maintain position and assume a security posture while division tried to untwist the collective nutsack. With no spare parts and a soldier who's presence had become a danger to anybody around him, my choices had dwindled. The interpreter rode out with Gildge at 11:00.
Later I took a small group to observe the scene and establish body count. Specialist Gildge accompanied, as did the Interpreter, two more medical officers, and sgt. Mason. We'd been on the ground for approximately 45 minutes before private Gildge became physically ill.
This occurred just after we scoped the wreckage for the body-count. It was high. We found 19 people - 15 adults and four kids - burned and butchered near the top of the high rise. We found whole families of people crammed into shitty, 1940's elevators burned alive and fused with the metal and wiring of the melted cars. We'd counted almost 50 enemy dead inside the primary target.
Out in the streets we had cooked six cars plus the old Laidlaw schoolbus. It was to these impact zones that I sent Specialist Gildge to scan for body count and assess the security component. I found him there 35 minutes later, no body count, no report. Gildge was hardly conscious, shaking, covered in his own filth. He tried to speak but could produce only convulsive grunts and dry heaves.
I sent him to the rear that night. By then word was getting around about Ris. Our orders mere to maintain position and assume a security posture while division tried to untwist the collective nutsack. With no spare parts and a soldier who's presence had become a danger to anybody around him, my choices had dwindled. The interpreter rode out with Gildge at 11:00.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Interpreter #6
"My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon...I will return again."
~Led Zeppelin
We were southwest of the Kasmir border, moving on a small city called Tatet. I took a position on a high embankment and scattered the rest of the Mech down both sides of the hill facing the pathetic, burned out skyline.
The Interpreter was speaking into my right ear. He wasn't talking to me - I knew exactly what was about to happen. He was talking to the new guy Gildge, our replacement medic of almost one whole week. Specialist Gildge was about to witness Tarantula Hawk for the first time, and the interpreter was talking him
through it.
Sgt. Mason Dawes came up with the 'Hawk crew and began setting up while the 'Terp babbled out his lesson:
Fuck. Don't talk about this shit dude, right? Not even here. Fuck. Especially not here. See the bus?
I could see the bus: an ancient American model, no tires, no windows, parked down the block facing us at about 300 meters. Across the street was Tatet's only block of buildings. The highest one was seven stories, a burned out hi-rise poking like a dandelion from the rotted slums at it's base.
The interpreter ran a detailed play by play as Mase's crew prepared the rocket. He said:
The rag heads are gonna break for it They'll hear the strike and then run out the bottom. They gonna go out the back and up from the basement. Bad guys will run with they women, children, whatever the fuck, thinkin' we wont shoot. Gaines 'gonna put one on top and you watch...
Mase shouted "fire in the hole!!!" and there was a huge "whoosh!". We watched as the rocket cleared the quarter of a mile to the target in a split second. In movies, rockets are slow, with a billowy contrail to follow. A real rocket is like a giant, exploding bullet, clearing range in an instant rush of noise and impact and lingering aftershocks. The top of the hi rise burst like a salute, the ground shook beneath us, and the 'Terp spoke up again:
Here they come. Watch the fire escape, the doors...
Within seconds the street outside was full of people. We saw a few men, one or two with weapons. Mostly we saw women and kids, mostly running, some carried. There was a confusion, short lived, about who was going where. Within a few minutes the street was clear again. Silence on the hillside until I heard Gildge:
So that's it? Why'd..
The interpreter ignored him:
The fuckers think we're gonna shoot out some walls and move out. We blew the building to get 'em in cars.
Now fire teams on both sides of the hill begin an enfilade down the streets on both sides of the building. Short bursts punctuated the Terp's dramatic whispering, adding drama to his usual sense of the moment. As he spoke Sarnt. Mason brought up another detail: four men carrying two large black canvas bags. They worked without speaking in a miniature swarm of urgent movement. In seconds they were ready. Two simple black tubes on braced, four-point mounts now stood beside us on the hill-top, their long graphite appendages anchored deep in the ground. Mase turned on the juice as the last refugees made the bus. An odd sound came up, like a television running white noise. It seemed to come from everywhere, filling the air around us.
I watched the crews run their system checks and fall back, and I backed up a few yards myself, more out of habit than any realistic sense of danger. I heard Mase give the orders to hang fire, and the Hawks began to wind out. The TV noise in the air morphed into a din, like a fleet of prop-bombers over- revving on a runway. It rose in volume and octave to a haunted, mad wail, and a brilliant flash of red and orange light brightening the distance between our position and the targets in the street. Then it was over.
~Led Zeppelin
We were southwest of the Kasmir border, moving on a small city called Tatet. I took a position on a high embankment and scattered the rest of the Mech down both sides of the hill facing the pathetic, burned out skyline.
The Interpreter was speaking into my right ear. He wasn't talking to me - I knew exactly what was about to happen. He was talking to the new guy Gildge, our replacement medic of almost one whole week. Specialist Gildge was about to witness Tarantula Hawk for the first time, and the interpreter was talking him
through it.
Sgt. Mason Dawes came up with the 'Hawk crew and began setting up while the 'Terp babbled out his lesson:
Fuck. Don't talk about this shit dude, right? Not even here. Fuck. Especially not here. See the bus?
I could see the bus: an ancient American model, no tires, no windows, parked down the block facing us at about 300 meters. Across the street was Tatet's only block of buildings. The highest one was seven stories, a burned out hi-rise poking like a dandelion from the rotted slums at it's base.
The interpreter ran a detailed play by play as Mase's crew prepared the rocket. He said:
The rag heads are gonna break for it They'll hear the strike and then run out the bottom. They gonna go out the back and up from the basement. Bad guys will run with they women, children, whatever the fuck, thinkin' we wont shoot. Gaines 'gonna put one on top and you watch...
Mase shouted "fire in the hole!!!" and there was a huge "whoosh!". We watched as the rocket cleared the quarter of a mile to the target in a split second. In movies, rockets are slow, with a billowy contrail to follow. A real rocket is like a giant, exploding bullet, clearing range in an instant rush of noise and impact and lingering aftershocks. The top of the hi rise burst like a salute, the ground shook beneath us, and the 'Terp spoke up again:
Here they come. Watch the fire escape, the doors...
Within seconds the street outside was full of people. We saw a few men, one or two with weapons. Mostly we saw women and kids, mostly running, some carried. There was a confusion, short lived, about who was going where. Within a few minutes the street was clear again. Silence on the hillside until I heard Gildge:
So that's it? Why'd..
The interpreter ignored him:
The fuckers think we're gonna shoot out some walls and move out. We blew the building to get 'em in cars.
Now fire teams on both sides of the hill begin an enfilade down the streets on both sides of the building. Short bursts punctuated the Terp's dramatic whispering, adding drama to his usual sense of the moment. As he spoke Sarnt. Mason brought up another detail: four men carrying two large black canvas bags. They worked without speaking in a miniature swarm of urgent movement. In seconds they were ready. Two simple black tubes on braced, four-point mounts now stood beside us on the hill-top, their long graphite appendages anchored deep in the ground. Mase turned on the juice as the last refugees made the bus. An odd sound came up, like a television running white noise. It seemed to come from everywhere, filling the air around us.
I watched the crews run their system checks and fall back, and I backed up a few yards myself, more out of habit than any realistic sense of danger. I heard Mase give the orders to hang fire, and the Hawks began to wind out. The TV noise in the air morphed into a din, like a fleet of prop-bombers over- revving on a runway. It rose in volume and octave to a haunted, mad wail, and a brilliant flash of red and orange light brightening the distance between our position and the targets in the street. Then it was over.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Frye
Frye was beginning to get sick. The plan: drop off daughter - drive fast as fuck to get dope - drive fast as fuck back to retrieve daughter in time and none-the-wiser.
Frye dropped the girl at her party and the clock in his head began ticking. 1:30 minutes he had, with the place he needed to be about 40 minutes away. It would be close. He galloped back to the car after a rushed hug and brief pleasantries, bolted like hell for downtown.
It ended up taking 34 minutes to get to the spot and Frye was definitely sick: all farty and with fluctuating body temp. Along the way he'd fired off a confirming text:
Fifteen mins. Good?
Flying in his Yaris through the tiny narco-hood streets with thoughts stacking like jets in a holding pattern, Frye was having trouble. He could feel his eyes twitching in his skull...Dude wasn't getting back...One thing to be late picking up the girl...another whole thing to retreat empty...Frye was definitely getting sick.
A generic-sounding beep sequence announced a reply as Frye was pulling up. He read as he un-belted and turned off the car. It was a shitty, druggy, low-everything neighborhood but it was freezing, and just three days after a giant blizzard. Somehow that made him feel safer. Frye thought about weather or not people got robbed in freezing weather, decided probably not. The reply was:
Make it 20. I'm across town.
Disaster, possibly. "20" might mean "50", "100", "1000". His guy had no respect for time. The party-clock was still ticking off in his head and faster than before. Frye was sick. He opened the car door and dry-heaved stuff that looked like egg yolk for five munutes. Then he closed the door, prepared $50, waited.
He'd left the party 40 minutes ago. Frye wiped muddy sweat from his brow and thought about the social graces at stake as regards lateness to children's functions. He sat for 27 minutes, each second of which seemed both interminably long and amazingly brief.
Finally the guy showed, served, and disappeared back into the house. Frye, mega-late, and realizing the guy'd forgotten to take his $50, stabbed the throttle in reverse. By that time he'd been away from the party for one hour and thirteen minutes. Best case for pickup was 20 minutes late. "fuck" he thought, unable to think of a follow up. As it happened, that was the last thought Frye would have for a while.
The car that hit his car was going way too fast for the tiny street. It was also much bigger and heavier than the Yaris. Poor Frye had come blasting out of the driveway, reaching across his body with his right arm, for the seatbelt. At impact his car spun violently through 720 degrees and the centrifugal jolt send him ricocheting off the dash board and out the driver's side window. He landed in a snowball across the street, woke up seconds later in blinding, screaming pain from the ancient rebar once piled on the sidewalk, now forced through his back, out from his chest like a spear.
A few minutes later, an ambulance-and-cop siren symphony getting loud quick, Frye's guy comes out once again, runs over, frisks Frye's pockets (working efficiently around the rebar), tosses Frye's Yaris. There's cash - two 20's, two 5's - scattered around the driver's side. Before sprinting back to beat the first-response, the guy reaches over the rebar once more, this time to grab Frye's wallet, sticking neatly from the center console like a labeled tab on a file folder. He hadn't planned on that at first, but looking at him now, the guy knew Frye was dead, and, as such, would not miss the cash.
Frye dropped the girl at her party and the clock in his head began ticking. 1:30 minutes he had, with the place he needed to be about 40 minutes away. It would be close. He galloped back to the car after a rushed hug and brief pleasantries, bolted like hell for downtown.
It ended up taking 34 minutes to get to the spot and Frye was definitely sick: all farty and with fluctuating body temp. Along the way he'd fired off a confirming text:
Fifteen mins. Good?
Flying in his Yaris through the tiny narco-hood streets with thoughts stacking like jets in a holding pattern, Frye was having trouble. He could feel his eyes twitching in his skull...Dude wasn't getting back...One thing to be late picking up the girl...another whole thing to retreat empty...Frye was definitely getting sick.
A generic-sounding beep sequence announced a reply as Frye was pulling up. He read as he un-belted and turned off the car. It was a shitty, druggy, low-everything neighborhood but it was freezing, and just three days after a giant blizzard. Somehow that made him feel safer. Frye thought about weather or not people got robbed in freezing weather, decided probably not. The reply was:
Make it 20. I'm across town.
Disaster, possibly. "20" might mean "50", "100", "1000". His guy had no respect for time. The party-clock was still ticking off in his head and faster than before. Frye was sick. He opened the car door and dry-heaved stuff that looked like egg yolk for five munutes. Then he closed the door, prepared $50, waited.
He'd left the party 40 minutes ago. Frye wiped muddy sweat from his brow and thought about the social graces at stake as regards lateness to children's functions. He sat for 27 minutes, each second of which seemed both interminably long and amazingly brief.
Finally the guy showed, served, and disappeared back into the house. Frye, mega-late, and realizing the guy'd forgotten to take his $50, stabbed the throttle in reverse. By that time he'd been away from the party for one hour and thirteen minutes. Best case for pickup was 20 minutes late. "fuck" he thought, unable to think of a follow up. As it happened, that was the last thought Frye would have for a while.
The car that hit his car was going way too fast for the tiny street. It was also much bigger and heavier than the Yaris. Poor Frye had come blasting out of the driveway, reaching across his body with his right arm, for the seatbelt. At impact his car spun violently through 720 degrees and the centrifugal jolt send him ricocheting off the dash board and out the driver's side window. He landed in a snowball across the street, woke up seconds later in blinding, screaming pain from the ancient rebar once piled on the sidewalk, now forced through his back, out from his chest like a spear.
A few minutes later, an ambulance-and-cop siren symphony getting loud quick, Frye's guy comes out once again, runs over, frisks Frye's pockets (working efficiently around the rebar), tosses Frye's Yaris. There's cash - two 20's, two 5's - scattered around the driver's side. Before sprinting back to beat the first-response, the guy reaches over the rebar once more, this time to grab Frye's wallet, sticking neatly from the center console like a labeled tab on a file folder. He hadn't planned on that at first, but looking at him now, the guy knew Frye was dead, and, as such, would not miss the cash.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Interpreter #5
After I finished with the dude, Mink came up. I said : "that's the extent of it" gesturing at the prisoner with dramatic hands, like a magician presenting the rabbit-hat. Mink set his pack down, brought out the book, opened it up and began to read in a slow, raspy growl while the Interpreter did his thing:
"Cave Wave". Common name for the anti - bunker incendiary DC 190. Cave Wave was developed at Los Almos labs in 1987 and designed by Emmit Oslen at the instruction of Team Leader Scott George. It was tested in Los Almos in summer of '89 and commissioned in January of 1990. First stock was deployed in march of '90 during operation Desert Shield.
The guy's eyes were still bored. I kept watching, Mink kept reading:
"...Designed to strike at targets deep in the earth, or protected by reinforced earth. Cave Wave's explosive charge is equal to about two tons of TNT and its effectiveness is enhanced by a load of molten iron that deploys seconds before the explosive charge, spraying with force onto anything within a 20 yard radius. Dropped from an "invisible" height of 37,O00 feet, Cave Wave can burrow and penetrate to 100 yards depth, inundate the entire target depth with hot metal, and explode with enough heat and force to displace the earth in two hundred yard circumference.
The Interpreter motor-mouthing in Farsi the whole time, and now the guy's face is changing. The 'Terp finally stops so it's complete silence as we sat and regarded one another. I flash Mink a glance and he goes on.
"Cave Wave has a special second stage to its attack which makes timely retaliation in kind a virtual impossibility. Seconds after the initial detonation, another charge sets off what's known as a "Jacob's ladder" effect. A parcel of white phosphorous is blown into the impact zone from the remaining length of projectile, just after this ignition a third, smaller explosion blasts nano-thermite powder into the breach, setting every cubic centimeter of impact zone on fire for up to 24 hours.
The guy's face has gone shock white. His lips dissolve into an unbelieving rictus. He begins to speak but he can't find words. I turn to Mink, point at the guy:
Tell him ten minutes.
The Interpreter turned to him as well, said something, then another thing. None of it sounded like "ten minutes" but the guy started singing pretty quick.
Later on we watched the strike. I had the guy brought back. Left his family doing whatever in the village. Yes, that's some tough shit. this is a story that begins with me doing some tough shit.
Something that never comes across when you see fighting on tv: the noise. War is loud as fuck. Louder - probably - then anything most people are going to be exposed to during the course of sleep>work>fuck, unless they happen to work in demolitions. Even then, there's nothing like the sounds of armed, industrialized combat.
We took a position at the high point of an arroyo overlooking the village, and for a few minutes we looked down on them. There were kids playing. Goats. A group of women were gathered on the far side, tending to what looked like a stage coach from the old west.
I had them bring the guy up to watch. They cooperate, and they think that's it. They think they're going free. They need to be taught. The guy looked puzzled, but he was smiling. The interpreter wasn't around.
"Cave Wave". Common name for the anti - bunker incendiary DC 190. Cave Wave was developed at Los Almos labs in 1987 and designed by Emmit Oslen at the instruction of Team Leader Scott George. It was tested in Los Almos in summer of '89 and commissioned in January of 1990. First stock was deployed in march of '90 during operation Desert Shield.
The guy's eyes were still bored. I kept watching, Mink kept reading:
"...Designed to strike at targets deep in the earth, or protected by reinforced earth. Cave Wave's explosive charge is equal to about two tons of TNT and its effectiveness is enhanced by a load of molten iron that deploys seconds before the explosive charge, spraying with force onto anything within a 20 yard radius. Dropped from an "invisible" height of 37,O00 feet, Cave Wave can burrow and penetrate to 100 yards depth, inundate the entire target depth with hot metal, and explode with enough heat and force to displace the earth in two hundred yard circumference.
The Interpreter motor-mouthing in Farsi the whole time, and now the guy's face is changing. The 'Terp finally stops so it's complete silence as we sat and regarded one another. I flash Mink a glance and he goes on.
"Cave Wave has a special second stage to its attack which makes timely retaliation in kind a virtual impossibility. Seconds after the initial detonation, another charge sets off what's known as a "Jacob's ladder" effect. A parcel of white phosphorous is blown into the impact zone from the remaining length of projectile, just after this ignition a third, smaller explosion blasts nano-thermite powder into the breach, setting every cubic centimeter of impact zone on fire for up to 24 hours.
The guy's face has gone shock white. His lips dissolve into an unbelieving rictus. He begins to speak but he can't find words. I turn to Mink, point at the guy:
Tell him ten minutes.
The Interpreter turned to him as well, said something, then another thing. None of it sounded like "ten minutes" but the guy started singing pretty quick.
Later on we watched the strike. I had the guy brought back. Left his family doing whatever in the village. Yes, that's some tough shit. this is a story that begins with me doing some tough shit.
Something that never comes across when you see fighting on tv: the noise. War is loud as fuck. Louder - probably - then anything most people are going to be exposed to during the course of sleep>work>fuck, unless they happen to work in demolitions. Even then, there's nothing like the sounds of armed, industrialized combat.
We took a position at the high point of an arroyo overlooking the village, and for a few minutes we looked down on them. There were kids playing. Goats. A group of women were gathered on the far side, tending to what looked like a stage coach from the old west.
I had them bring the guy up to watch. They cooperate, and they think that's it. They think they're going free. They need to be taught. The guy looked puzzled, but he was smiling. The interpreter wasn't around.
Interpreter #4
"A man six foot tall, you could fit 30 billion of them into the earth. That's how big the fucker is: 30 billion dudes, big.
The interpreter - bringing up the rear, walking behind two prisoners - was speaking English. Loudly. He always spoke very loudly, like he wanted everybody around to get what he was saying:
"That's a thing they don't show on the news. On the news, the earth? Fuckin too small. 30 billion? Fuck no. 7 billion and shit is crowded - dudes fighting over gas and food. The news tells us that shit! why these guys over here fuckin whichoo! 7 billion. Ain't enough, no room right?
The interpreter's chosen method of thought completion was usually some variant of abbreviated rhetorical confirmation.
"So they bring me along, an I gotta talk to these guys...they ain't learning, they don't wana know. Easier they get a guy. Guy talks, says shit they want, the way they want, right? So Awright.
I was following behind by a few yards, alone. Listening.
"...but the news ain't tell you shit these guys don't want you to know. The news is all "them" not "us". Part of my job...Bring a little "us" to these Marines, Right? Look at this guy:
I knew without turning he was talking about me, and I knew what was coming. Daily occurrences since Quat: the interpreter running me down to prisoners / townspeople / other assorted ragheads, then laughing about it - loudly and with great purpose - with same ragheads. I didn't even turn around. He went on for a while and then he and both prisoners were laughing so hard they were almost silent.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Interpreter #2
I've spent my entire life doing the same thing over and over again, and I bet you have too. Let's run down the list:
First: we get up from having slept. I'm only 23 years old, and so a lot of my "having slept" meant "having slept more than anybody needs to sleep".
We eat. Some more than others, most more than we should.
We get a dumb fucking job. I only ever had one - my dad owns a car lot and I worked only there.
After work I usually call my friend Beece, and go out to a place where I'd a) eat dinner b) watch sports and c) drink beer and other alcohol Until a) somebody wants to fight me (or me, they) b) somebody wants to fuck me (rare), or c) I puke in the bathroom and go home to smoke weed. It seems like a pretty good list of options, I'll admit, until you run through the menu a few hundred times.
That's what sparked all this. If you pan back a bit, isn't that what everybody does down here? The lucky ones anyway: We sleep, get up, work, come home. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's the best we can do. Throw in an occasional vacation, a wedding or whatever - we get plenty of holidays - but for the vast majority of our time on planet earth, the best we'll ever do is a variation on that theme.
"The earth only ever spins one way" is how my own father put it. inspiring guy, my father.
We'll get into him later. For now, the important part is simply this: I joined the United States Marine Corps, got sent to the desert, saw and did really fucked up shit...and did it all because my world only ever spins one way, and I wondered if that way was the only way. I didn't think it was and - as it turns out - I was right.
First: we get up from having slept. I'm only 23 years old, and so a lot of my "having slept" meant "having slept more than anybody needs to sleep".
We eat. Some more than others, most more than we should.
We get a dumb fucking job. I only ever had one - my dad owns a car lot and I worked only there.
After work I usually call my friend Beece, and go out to a place where I'd a) eat dinner b) watch sports and c) drink beer and other alcohol Until a) somebody wants to fight me (or me, they) b) somebody wants to fuck me (rare), or c) I puke in the bathroom and go home to smoke weed. It seems like a pretty good list of options, I'll admit, until you run through the menu a few hundred times.
That's what sparked all this. If you pan back a bit, isn't that what everybody does down here? The lucky ones anyway: We sleep, get up, work, come home. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's the best we can do. Throw in an occasional vacation, a wedding or whatever - we get plenty of holidays - but for the vast majority of our time on planet earth, the best we'll ever do is a variation on that theme.
"The earth only ever spins one way" is how my own father put it. inspiring guy, my father.
We'll get into him later. For now, the important part is simply this: I joined the United States Marine Corps, got sent to the desert, saw and did really fucked up shit...and did it all because my world only ever spins one way, and I wondered if that way was the only way. I didn't think it was and - as it turns out - I was right.
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