“I NEED SOME THING TO TAKE THE EDGE OFF.”
WEEK 1, DAY 5, IRAQ
1800 HOURS, SLEEPING AREA
Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living; however, he ended up having to kill himself because he wouldn't compromise his way of life. I wonder if it could then be said that he examined life and found it not worth living.
Today I'm celebrating my twenty-first birthday. Actually, my birthday was last month, but I didn't celebrate or mark the occasion. I think it's finally time for me to examine my life.
WEEK 1, DAY 7, IRAQ
2200 HOURS, OR
We've been on second shift for two days now and not a single case has come in; first shift, however, has been getting at least six a day. It's boring, which is why we are playing baseball inside the hall of the OR.
“HOME RUN!!!” Reto yells as he throws his broom handle baseball bat to the ground and runs for first base on our makeshift field. I chase after the baseball, a rolled-up Ace bandage, and Reto runs from first to second base. “That's not a home run,” I yell as Reto goes from second to third base. “A home run is when you hit it over the door frame, and that was under it.”
Reto doesn't listen and heads for home plate anyway, which is a crumpled up pair of pants.
The OR door slams. Reto and I look to see who it is to make sure that we're not getting in trouble. We invented our OR version of baseball yesterday, and we've already gotten three complaints about the noise. We look over, though, and are relieved when we see it's just Proust, a specialist and a medic in the ER. He's twenty-two but looks about seventeen — six feet tall, white, and has a pot belly and random tattoos all over his body. He also lived in my barracks in Wisconsin and always walked around naked. He also masturbated at least twice a day — I know this because he would announce it so that he could have some privacy in the bathroom. I didn't like the fact that he walked around naked, but I did like the fact that Denti had to sleep next to him. It was funny to hear stories about Denti waking up to an eyeful of Proust's ass.
The dirt on him concerns raunchy e-mails he sent his girlfriend, Clementine. She's twenty-seven and a staff sergeant in charge of the supply section for our unit. She's about 5′8′ with washboard abs, dark Portuguese skin, and size D fake breasts that her ex-boyfriend bought her. For reasons unbeknownst to any of us, nobody in the command (especially First Sergeant Mardine) likes Proust or Clementine, and the second it was found out that they were a couple, they were forbidden from seeing each other and put on separate shifts so that one would be sleeping while the other worked.
Long story short, Proust and Clementine couldn't see each other so they e-mailed each other really raunchy, nasty messages. This girl Consuela, who works in supply with Clementine, hates her because Clementine wants Consuela's job. Clementine works late one night and reads the e-mails from Proust. She gets horny and decides to “take care of herself” in the bathroom. While she's there, Consuela walks in and sees the computer on. Proust's email is still on the screen, so she prints off twenty copies of this completely raunchy e-mail. I mean, Proust was talking about all the toys he wants to use on her and vice versa. Around midnight, Consuela takes the copies of the e-mail and tapes them to the back of all the bathroom doors — male and female.
First Sergeant Mardine sees the papers on the doors and orders someone to take them down. Consuela is sent down south, and Clementine is fired from being in charge of supply. She is now First Sergeant Mardine's assistant so that she can “keep an eye on her.”
Thankfully Proust is alone and not with his significant other, Clementine. Ever since the two of them got in trouble for that email incident a few months back they've been trying to hang low and stay under the radar.
“You guys have got to come see this,” Proust yells over to Reto as I take my at-bat.
“What it's about?” I yell as I swing and miss.
“You guys have just got to see it,” Proust says, backing away from my batter's box.
I put the broom handle bat down and we follow him into the ER.
“I was randomly looking through our paging logs and I found some interesting pages between certain people in our unit. Since you guys are the only ones on shift that I like, I figured I'd show you,” Proust says as he sits behind a computer screen.
Certain people throughout the hospital have pagers, and the paging log is a computer program that everyone has to log into if they want to page someone.
“I was just randomly playing with the computer and then I found that there is a log of every page ever sent to anyone within the system.”
Proust starts naming eight people that are having affairs and shows us all the pages with the texts being sent back and forth between them.
I miss you baby.
Meet me by the bathrooms.
I'm thinking about last night big boy.
I'm wearing your panties you left at my place.
Reto and I go through all the pages with Proust, but it's not that impressive; we already knew all these people were having affairs.
“That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's yesterday's pages between Staff Sergeant Blett, she's married to a man back home, and Chief Ward Master Pyne, who is also married to someone back home.”
I found someone to cover guard duty for you. Come straight to my office when they get there.
“That son of a bitch!” I yell at the computer.
Reto and Proust look at me and I point to the screen.
“I'm the person he's talking about. I'm the guard they sent so they could get it on.”
‘Thank you so much for this,’ Blett said to me, and then she runs into Chief Ward Master Pyne's office. Forty-five minutes later, she comes out putting all of her gear back on and tightening her belt.”
Later I go into the bathroom and take half of a pill out of my pocket. Denti went to a doctor a week ago and told him he was having problems with his back. The doctor gave him a prescription for Percocet, and Denti then sold me some of the pills at five dollars apiece. I usually only take half a pill at a time, partly because I don't want to get too messed up in case something important happens and partly because the pills cost five bucks a pop. I take them because I know I shouldn't be taking them, but they make me feel good. I don't have to deal with the pain and … I know that it can be harmful, but … it helps me forget that this is the Army and a high-ranking sergeant made me do extra guard duty just so she could have an adulterous quickie.
WEEK 2, DAY 3, IRAQ
2200 HOURS, OR
“Soldiers keep disappearing and no one says anything about it. One day they're here and the next day they're gone, and it only happens to the female soldiers.”
Hudge is on the computer sending an e-mail to her mom; she doesn't look up as she speaks.
“They're all pregnant, silly.”
“So you're telling me that all these girls have gotten pregnant here in Iraq?”
“I think one of the three has a husband and was trying to get pregnant while on leave. The other two haven't been on leave, yet, have husbands back home, but got pregnant here,” says Hudge.
The whole situation is like the reversal of the old milkman story from World War II. All the men are off fighting the war and the women at home get lonely, and some of them sleep with the milkman. Then the men come home and there's a little baby waiting in their house. The wife tells him that someone just left the baby on their doorstep. Meanwhile, the baby grows up to look an awful lot like the milkman. In Iraq and in our unit it's the reverse. The men stayed home, and while the women are away they get pregnant.
WEEK 3, DAY 4, IRAQ
0100 HOURS, MY ROOM
The pins-and-needles feeling you get when your hand or foot falls asleep is now vibrating throughout my entire body. My body feels numb, yet I feel as though every inch of my body is being poked with a needle. I feel as if I am the static on a television screen.
I took one-and-a-half Percocets, the last of the pills that Denti sold me. I also took one sleeping pill and smoked three Camel Light cigarettes.
I can feel all the different substances working at once. The sleeping pill is making my mind hazy, the Percocet is combining with the sleeping pills and giving me the reverberations, and the nicotine is what's keeping me awake. As my mind drifts off from the pills, I can feel the nicotine coursing through my veins. It's like giving my mind the equivalent of a B12shot. I still can't move my body, but my mind is awake and aware. It wants to sleep but it can't.
I hear shouting outside. The base military police must be doing surprise room inspections. A few days ago, two Marines were doing a search of houses in a nearby Iraqi town and they came across a stash of dozens of pounds of marijuana. One of them grabbed a handful and took it back to the base with him. Somehow he got caught, and now the military police are conducting random checks. They're using one of the dogs from the K-9 unit to sniff out the drugs. It's actually a bomb-sniffing dog, but, hey, leave it to the Army to reclassify someone.
WEEK 4, DAY 1, IRAQ
2000 HOURS, OR
“Hey, man. I was wondering if you've got any Percocets or Vicodins?” I ask Proust as I look around, making sure that no one's watching. Denti's prescription ran out, and he told me that Proust has one for Vicodin and that he sells his pills, too.
“Not right now, man. I sold them all. Two more weeks. Why don't you try Robo tripping or Coricidin tripping?”
I stand there and consider Proust's advice, but I let the thought fade out of my mind as I remember all the people I've known who've done one or the other. Robo tripping is when you down a bottle of Robitussin as quickly as possible. It's supposed to give you a trip similar to an acid trip. When I was in San Antonio doing my initial training to become an operating room medic, there were too many people that got sent to the ER from overdosing to make me ever want to do it. But in San Antonio there were twice as many people who would go Coricidin tripping. Coricidin is a cough and cold medicine for people with high blood pressure. If you take ten to thirteen pills, you will feel as though you are in a cartoon. But if you take too many, your life will permanently feel that way. I've heard countless stories of people who have gone insane after Coricidin tripping one too many times.
“Nah, that's cool, man. I just want to forget some things; I don't feel like going retarded. I'll just come back in two weeks.”
WEEK 4, DAY 6, IRAQ
0910 HOURS, CHURCH
There aren't many people here, maybe thirty, and they're all taking up the first three rows or so on either side of the aisle. Just like in school, I'm in the back where it's easier to avoid eye contact.
At first I was hesitant to go; it's been a while since I've gone to church. I was raised Catholic, but ever since I left home at eighteen I haven't really gone to church. I know that going now couldn't hurt. Besides, it's getting too expensive to pay five dollars a pill, and I need something to take the edge off.
The choir is getting up to sing. It's Captain Tarr, Colonel Reke, another woman, and Reto. I'm staring at Captain Tarr as I try and let her voice penetrate my soul. Her face shines brightly and her lips are rosy red, but the comfort of the song leaves me. I can only think about how in a few hours those lips will be wrapped around the penile shaft of some civilian contractor, like the time I saw her. In the dining facility, I hear all the Marines calling her “The Viper” because she pounces on all the guys she sees. Sixty years old and she's singing “praise be to God.” A few hours later her mouth will be muffled by some anonymous dick, and a few hours after that she'll most likely call home and tell her kids how much she loves them.