“Game time!”
“Be there in a few,” Miller calls. “Don’t wait on me.”
Folson closes the door, and Miller is alone again. He looks up at Obama. As much as he’d like someone to blame, the only common denominator in war is a string of impossible decisions. There’s no god of war presiding, no black-and-white definition of good and evil either, and it strikes him then that if anything can be called “commander in chief” of these twenty-first century wars, it’s the almighty dollar. He reads the articles in a rush. Of course his country is double-dealing. Of course he’s a pawn. When has he ever really believed otherwise? Proof doesn’t change the fact that he’s still in Afghanistan, decidedly not home, not with his wife or daughter, not even sure what family should feel like anymore. He’s had enough—of news, of sand, of failure, of phone calls, of himself, of whoever that self is these days. He closes the web browser and heads out the door. Gotta sweat this one off.
It’s all in good fun, these pick up games on Forward Operating Base Copperhead on the outskirts of Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan. By landscape and amenity, the multi-national base could almost be in southern Nevada, eastern Oregon, or any place dry and bleached and American with too much of what you don’t want and not enough of what you need. Taco Bell? Check. Burger King? Check. Tube socks, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Facebook, Double Stuf Oreos? Check. And football, of course.
Two plays after kickoff, an Alpha Platoon linebacker slams into Miller’s ribcage, and it feels like a blessing. A crisp smack and thud. Miller falls to the ground the only way gravity allows. His side hurts, which is good because if it hurts, he’s alive—exactly what he must be in order to keep everyone else alive. He lets loose a grunt as the play moves past, then presses his palms into the grit to get up. This is what he does: try and try again. He’s the leader with a reputation for meticulousness, effective decision-making. Nearly everything his career has brought him to so far has given him the chance to prove himself in this way, again and again. But what if perfection is its own kind of failure? He’s so close to finishing the tour and getting back home. A muddy centerline, the cool slap of cleats on wet grass, the freedom to fuck up. For now, home is miles out of reach, light years. So when Miller rises from the makeshift field and feels a heat-laced head rush pulling him down as though someone roped sandbags over his ears, he knows this is all that remains: to stand up anyway, even as his own country tries to push him back down.
The game is in Spartan Platoon’s favor now, PFC Folson hustling downfield with the ball clutched to his chest in a manner not unlike the picture pinned above his bunk. Miller has seen it: twenty-two-year-old Folson cradling his infant daughter right before their first goodbye, the wife frozen sternly in the background. The photo appears both unique and unoriginal, a sad foreshadowing played out more times than Miller can count. A letter addressed to Folson is waiting on Miller’s desk right now with a return address that suggests divorce. Folson might have some clue of what’s coming—he’s acted lackluster lately. Slacking on weapons maintenance, missing meals, even turning up late once for a division-wide meeting with the company commander. But Miller can’t be sure how Folson will react, and the Spartan Platoon sergeant has been too fed up to bother dealing with Folson’s misdeeds as he should.
Twenty yards downfield, the Alpha linebacker tackles Folson, and they tumble into the dirt. Miller hustles to catch up, tornadoes of dust rising with each step. If a devoted father like Folson is screwing up, what might be said about Miller? He and Tenley already worked through one scare, shredding divorce papers together over a toast to new promises. He’d stop trying to protect her from the details of his experiences on tour. He’d answer her questions straight; he owed her that much. She’d stop blaming him for being gone. Stop being coy as he tried to find his way back into routines each trip home. That was three years ago. Now it’s 2009, and he’s four tours into this mess. No one would guess that he stockpiles pills just in case he can’t hack it anymore. That the letters are already printed—one for Cissy to read when she’s older, and one for Tenley that, he hopes, explains losing Sergeant Mercer and why everything changed afterward. This tour is Miller’s final chance to find his cool again, forget he ever drafted a suicide note, and land softly back home, back into marriage, composed and capable as ever.
Blind spots. That’s what Miller heard someone call those unforgivable missteps from the past once. Like thinking you can see the folds of your own asshole simply by turning on the high beams. But nothing works that way this tour, what with his National Guard unit attached to a bro-bra army division that has bigger things on its mind. Nothing ever works—not night vision goggles, not spark plugs, not good luck charms, and certainly not high beams. Even the interpreters supplied by an on-base branch of the Afghan National Army seem to come up short—if the Spartans are lucky enough to get one for a mission. Miller simply hasn’t found a way to fully see what’s coming yet, and today’s headlines about US funds are just one more example. Abdul-Bari Gawri, the Oruzgan district chief Miller’s negotiated with for the past six months, has been rolling in US dough all along. Now, Miller knows Gawri’s cash supply directly correlates with the unending stream of trucks delivering to Forward Operating Base Copperhead. The soldiers on base have clean water, electricity, PlayStations—freaking Facebook out here—and all of that is because no one’s blowing up Afghan supply trucks contracted by the US Department of Defense. Yet anytime Miller’s platoon tries to bring aid to people in need, they’re at risk of getting shredded by a roadside bomb. This week will bring what Miller likes to think of as final harvest: a trip to the remote village of Imar and back—Spartan’s last mission outside the wire. Then, blind spots or not, Miller can call it done. In the bag. Trimmed and tied. All of the Spartans can. Every last one of them rip-roaring ready for home, alive and lusting for the long legs of the women who love them.
“Hey, hey, hey,” somebody shouts. “Chill out, Folson.”
Miller closes the distance on the huddle of shirtless bodies centered around Folson and the linebacker. The heat of the day almost immediately suffocates him, the sun pinking his skin into a perma-burn. It’s as though he’s a lobster, the light a buttery condiment of death. Is there any relief on this tour? Miller would be hard-pressed to say yes. Except, perhaps, in moments like this next one, where he’ll get a read on Folson and try to help fend off the quake. This is what he does best. All of them, even the opposing Alphas, would give him that. He elbows his way into the middle of the pack.
“The hell?” the linebacker says. His voice squeezes through blocky muscle and bone.
“You heard me,” Folson says and slams the ball into the ground. It bounces off the dirt and pings into someone’s shins. “Tackle me around the neck like that one more time, and I’ll stuff your nutsack down your throat!”
“Dude, it was a fair tackle. All shoulders,” one of the Alphas offers.
“Just drop it, Folson, would ya?” Specialist Rachmann says. He’s with Spartan, a know-it-all. The kind of guardsman that makes it easy for army fuck-sticks to poke fun at Miller’s unit. If it were possible, Miller would have duct-taped Rachmann’s mouth shut for the duration of their tour.
“Hey, Folson?” Miller says. He gives Rachmann a stay-out-of-this look. “PFC FOLSON!”
And there it is—that brash confidence, that heady bellow. Miller’s voice makes for an odd pairing with his creaseless skin and boyish, button nose. He would have laughed out loud if someone played a recording of this to his teenaged self ten years back. Now, it’s a voice that upholds his standing, embodying the dependability everyone counts on. “PFC Folson, you’ll respond when I address you.”
“Yes, LT. However, I’ve got a problem here,” Folson waves his hand in the direction of the linebacker, as if shooing a fly. For a moment, the sun catches the glint of his wedding band, though everyone has warned Folson he’s better off noosing it around his neck with his tags.
“We
