Interpreter #11

"Easy...I love you as I watch you glide. We'll park beside the ocean on our moonlight drive"


So that's how i got this job...

They drove through the frigid Kazmir night at speeds that felt very dangerous the to Everett 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, the young Specialist 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. Gotta cultivate that self-worth, right? Dolladollabill y'all, right? Right bro?

Gildge said:

Where the fuck are we going? I thought Pakistan was East?

Yeah, no bro. That was just some El Tee bullshit about Pakistan. Aint a OP at the Pakistani border dude, fuckinnnnn…(The interpreter used the conjunction “dude, fuckinnnnn…” in place of most traditional punctuation devices.) El Tee told me to get to drive you out beyond the wire and drop you, leave your sorry ass for the snakes and the mouintain lions dude. You goin’ AWOL son! El Tee says: “Take him in the hills, answer all his questions, and put his lights out, yo. Bring me his balls” he says, just like that: "Bring me his BAWWWLes 'Terp"

Gildge reacted, physically, to each and every word. By the time the ‘Terp got to “son!”, the hapless private’s face was contorted and swollen with protests yet-to-come, and his brain was on fire trying to sort out the possibilities. He tried to speak:

What?…What…No...

The ‘Terp let him off the hook just seconds before the questions and the pleading:

TOTALLY FUCKinwhichooobro!!! Bwahhhhh!!

He fell out laughing for almost three whole minutes. Gildge, in contrast, could barely manage a shit-eating smile. He’d not found the gag nearly so funny. Guffawing, gasping for breath, and fucking with the night vision goggles as they went, the interpreter – just at that moment – seemed about as insane and damaged as a person could be. Everett Gildge found himself fighting the urge to wait for a slow-down between speed-jags and throw himself from the moving Humvee. The ‘Terp kept right on after the laughing fit:

Going back ain't a thing to be ashamed of mang. I've seen it before , yo. Shit, many times bro, many times. I hear about these guys, Americans, big tough guys right? Hard. So why they be killin’ themselves faster than the rags 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 ragheads. Shit you seen that fuckin’ bus. Melted that fucker. That's our thing dude. Fuckin hellish. Death squad motherfuckers. We hard. 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 had happened to that bus?

He realized he'd spoken the words inadvertently as he'd thought them and studied the interpreter for reaction. He was relieved to see none, and 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. We are on the way to an ISI station dude, no foolin’. El Tee really was concerned though. He said I could be straight with you if you needed more info. Said fix it on the ride, 'cause the dudes at ISI wouldn’t be able to answer your kind of questions.

He jacked the brakes and the un-belted Gildge went head up against the windshield with a dull thud. Pain exploded in the Corpsman's face as his nose and left cheek absorbed the bump. The 'Terp seemed now to be addressing him from the end of a long dark tunnel, and Gildge found himself momentarily blind and tearing up.

Sorry about the bump. Seatbelt, bro!

They popped off the Main road over a low culvert, and the Humvee screamed as the ‘Terp dipped into the throttle over terrain that seemed not so much a road as a hastily-chosen path between rocks and trees. The moon was low and new. They rode in total darkness, but Gildge had seen enough of the Kasmir to know the off-kilter infinity of hard geography stretching to every horizon. The place was an endless slew of rocks and bigger rocks, scattered over Hills and bigger hills. Everything here was cold, uncomfortable angles and roads far too small, no matter what the size of one's chosen conveyance. It made Everett Gildge cringe just thinking about that hard black void. His babbling, goggle - wearing valet wasn't helping in the least.

***

They’d pulled off the “road” for the Q&A. After almost twenty minutes the ‘Terp said:

So that’s everything I know dude. The El Tee prolly knows more and I’m sure the old man knows more than that fucker. Dude, Fuckinnnn…It’s a fucked up mission. We get a move on, we be at the Paki station in under an hour, unless you alright. We could just turn around, go back, like nothing ever happened bro…

Gildge jumped on it:

No, fuck no, man. Dude’s a fucking psycho. Take me the fuck to Pakistan and leave me. Any place but the fuckin’ Mech man.

Suit yourself homie

The ‘Terp had eased the Humvee back onto whatever path they’d been following, began to speed up again when he slapped his knee, jacked the brakes, and sent Everett Gildge beaming into the windshield once again.

Sorry Bro! Dude, fuckinnnn’ Again!? My bad!

They pulled back off the track and stopped, but ‘Terp kept talking:

Nearly forgot…

He said with a relieved flourish. He took a small notebook from the center console and threw it at Gildge.

Go to the last page where there’s no writing…

Gildge did, leafing through what appeared to be page upon page of the ‘Terp’s unreadable scrawl.

Ok…

He said, opening to the prescribed page.

You gotta sign there. I’ll explain later. Here, bro. Use my pen.