“Here she comes.” Each of four turbo-fan engines gulped 42 tons of air per minute. Air traffic controllers stood and leaned forward. They didn’t need binoculars to track the aerodynamic hippopotamus as it extended its rubber feet and dropped from the sky. Emergency vehicles idled, beacons flashed, fingers crossed, and, “Come on baby, slow down, slow down, easy does it, easy does it . . . She’s . . . she’s . . . touchdown. That’s two.”
Touchdown indeed. Twenty-eight tires blistered runway 4-R, and the Galaxy C-5 lumbered flat-out down the wet concrete like an aerodynamic Hilton Hotel sheared from its foundation. After plowing the length of 26 illusory football fields–26 pair of offensive goal posts included–the aircraft pulled up half a mile short of the Babur Gardens Airport terminal. Jinny’s seat-belt had relaxed against her torso, but Huck Devereaux’s took his breath away. The thrust-reversal—followed by a violent jerk—rumbled and sounded like the entire population of Albuquerque bailing out and bouncing off the fuselage screaming bloody murder. Jinny laid a reassuring hand on Huck’s white knuckles and patted his paw as a pet lover would a trembling lap-dog. Huck heaved a sigh of relief. Jinny sighed too, grateful that Huck had heaved up nothing else.
Huck shook his head and muttered, “Okay, we’re stopped. Drop the ramp and let me run down and kiss terra firma on the lips.” Jinny grinned.
The com went live. “What a ride,” the first officer announced. “Ladies and Gents, welcome to Kabul, Afghanistan. Together we just elevatored from 47,000 to 6130 feet, one floor at a time, in twenty-seven and a half minutes—ding-ding-ding. Ya gotta know that’s a lot of stairs.” Razor Shick was still lathered up and clicked microphone cheerfully. “How did I do, Cap? We’re alive, right?” he asked.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Razor. Are you done with your monologue?”
“Almost, Cap. I wish Orville and Wilbur—pardon me, may they rest in peace . . . I wish they coulda have watched me land. Army personnel, you can tell your kids back home that the plane you’re riding on is longer than the first Kitty Hawk flight. To you who’ve rode with us, welcome to beautiful downtown Kabul, nestled all comfy-like in the Hindu Kush Mountains, and tenth on the list of the highest elevatored national capitals in the world, right Cap?”
“Right, son.” The Captain, who usually left the talking to his first officer, added: “Some argue that Washington D. C. is—to borrow your word—the most elevatored in the world; at least that’s what’s nosed around by those who camp free of charge on Capitol Hill year after year.” Razor chuckled condescendingly and was about to continue his monologue, but the captain put a lid on it. “We’re still on duty here, Shick, so keep to business and pass the peanuts.”
“Sorry Sir. Everybody please remain seated until ordered to disembark . . . No, I didn’t mean you, Cap, you’re the pilot. Moving along, when you folks step out on the mezzanine today, it’ll be slippery. Step lightly.” The banter got mixed reviews by the troops.
Jinny sneezed and relaxed, but Huck Devereaux tightened his seat-belt and closed his eyes while the C-5 powered up, rumbled to the hanger at five miles an hour, slowed, and stopped. Engines spooled down, load-masters lowered pneumatic ramps fore and aft, and two behemoth mouths opened to gobbled up some daylight. Within minutes armored vehicles and equipment rolled from the rear of the plane. Troops grabbed their gear and walked off single file like a company of well-disciplined army ants who’d learned to walk on their hind legs.
Without moving her lips, Jinny offered a thanksgiving prayer, but it wasn’t Thanksgiving—the date was 15 March. Beware the ides of March. Shakespeare was furthest from her thoughts. She looked up one last time to apprehend the intricate design of the rounded inner-shell of the fuselage, and then fell in line behind Devereaux and mused aloud, “I didn’t cough up what I ate, but our ride made me seasick, too, Jonah!”
Devereaux warbled, “Say Jinny, have you forgot? My name’s Huck.” Jinny felt hot breath on her neck and it wasn’t Huck’s.
“You can christen ME, Jonah, Corporal O’Dwyer. Wanna pair up and party after we get off the ark, little lady?”
Baggar again. “I’ll say this just once, so listen up. I’ve got a job to do here, Lance Corporal, so enough with the party line. Go campaign somewhere else; and so that you understand, it was Noah that walked down the Ark ramp, not Jonah.”
“Hey Bud, who is she and what’s a babe like her doing in Afghanistan?” Bagger looked over his shoulder to reply, stubbed his toe, and fell into the least tolerant staff sergeant in the United States Army. Over they went while Jinny marched alongside Private Devereaux down the ramp toward the bus, whistling, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Huck grinned for the first time since they’d met—that is, until they espied Eagle Camp to the south of the airport and east of Kabul. The army installation reminded Jinny more of the backside of Leavenworth than a refuge from the enemy.
“Huck.” Jinny pointed. One by one, five Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawks, looking like wasps fleeing the nest, caught air and lifted from seclusion at the middle of the fortress. Jinny and Huck shaded their eyes and watched over one hundred million dollars fly into the sun. “What a sight.” Jinny gently elbowed Huck. “Tomorrow, that could be us.”
They stowed their gear on a flatbed truck and climbed aboard an overcrowded bus. Its driver, a dark-complected woman, glared at Jinny and cranked the door closed behind her. “No seats. Step back. Hang on,” she demanded in broken English. Jinny grabbed a seatback. Bus breath smelled like an army surplus store as the aging conveyance lurched forward and ate up the road. Sealed passenger windows had been burglar-proofed, but Jinny supposed for more lethal reasons than back home in Abilene’s troubled neighborhoods.
The seventy-five-acre base of operations—shrouded by a twenty-five-foot-high chain-link fence loosely laced on top with spiraling razor wire—was well-fortified. To a height of fifteen feet the fence looked like the Green Monster at Fenway park, but jagged tears suggested its skin was vinyl, or perhaps canvas. Gated guard stations, buttressed by concrete jersey barriers, blocked points of egress, and a serpentine road snaked around the perimeter of Eagle Camp. At the Beta Gate German Shepherds sniffed for explosives. “All clear.” After rolling several hundred yards into the compound the brakes squealed, and the doors folded open. Jinny avoided the driver’s gaze and was first to bounce to the ground, where she was greeted by a trio of MP’s who silently checked her ID and pointed to a door. She and Huck grabbed their gear and hustled into one of two mammoth warehouses flanking the east and west perimeters of the base. The warehouse interior reminded Jinny of Costco, only much longer and wider. Among those first in line, she and her new friend signed in, were issued the accoutrements of war, and along with the rest of their weary platoon were escorted to quarters—one of a dozen corrugated metal Quonset huts, their shells painted olive green, begging for a furlough or a new property manager.
Three weeks later.
“Any word from home, Huck?” Jinny tenderedthe question without looking up. She straddled the mess hall bench sideways, scribbled on a napkin, swatted at a fly nibbling on her pizzas, and tried to ignore Devereaux’s poor table manners. His irregular slurping sounded like a sump pump, and he’d only just begun to empty the bowl.
Jinny asked again, “Any word from home, Huckleberry Hound?”
“Negative, Nadine,” he countered cheerfully, acknowledging Jinny’s fondness for alliteration.
“Is the tortilla soup good as the last ten times you’ve eaten it? It’s just as noisy.”
“I already ignored that question ten minutes ago, and I’ve only had soup twice, Jinny. May we move to a different subject?”
“We may,” Jinny replied sullenly.
“What are you writing on that napkin?” Huck asked, trying to draw his sour companion from a dark place into the light but not knowing how. “You already have myphone number.”
Reflective for a moment, Jinny slapped her pencil down on the table and confessed, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to reply to Mama’s letter.”
“On a napkin, Jinny? Really?”
She shrugged and pressed the napkin flat. “Is this a fair description of our first month in Kabul?”
“Make that three weeks, Jin.”
She wrinkled her nose, studied the napkin, and translated her scribbles into English: “Up and down. Round and Round. Get shot into the air; then dropped to the ground. Crawl like a bug; dodge, jump and roll; the ratty-tat-tat’s taking its toll.”
“Have you ever been told you have a gift?”
“A gift for what?”
“Writing poetry.”
“No, why?”
“Huck dropped his spoon, watched it drown in the bowl, and chuckled. “I was going to say something sarcastic, but I broke that habit before I dropped my spoon. Jinny, you’re the most gifted, talented, funny, and—I must add—the best sharpshooter I ever saw. But I think what you wrote is too negative to fire home to your mother, not after what she’s been through.”
Jinny pocketed the pencil and wadded up her napkin. After missing the trash receptacle from the three-point line, she drained the last few ounces of chocolate milk, twisted her straw into a knot, dropped it in the carton, and fired again. “Game over.” Chocolate milk sprayed the wall. “Worst day of my life—learning of Conor’sdeath was the worst day of my life.”
“Do you still have the letter?”
“What do youthink, Huck? Do you think I’d toss itin the trash?” Jinny extended her lower lip—as she often did—and blew hair from her forehead. She threw her leg over the bench and turned to face Huck straight-on. “Sorry, I’m out of line, I shouldn’t have come to you for grief counseling.”
Huck patted Jinny’s hand. “No damage done. He got up, wiped the drips from the wall, and deposited the soiled napkin and milk carton in the trash container. Returning to his seat, he asked, “Are we close enough friends that you’d share the letter with me, or is it too personal?”
Jinny’s eyebrows boomeranged as she leaned back, tucked her chin, lightly patted her Kevlar vest, and ended the search at the pocket over her heart. She retrieved the neatly folded two-week-old letter and relaxed its folds as if she were handling a fragile fragment of the Isaiah Scroll. After clearing her throat, she leaned her elbows on the table and suspended the letter between paired, slender fingers as one would a string of paper dolls. “I wouldn’t share this with anybody else, Huck, but are you sure you’re interested?”
Huck nodded and put his own worries on pause; he missed Jinny’s native cheery temperament. Her voice seemed without life–tone deaf:
3:00 p.m. Two days from retirement, Angie Wickham—our white-haired postie—rolled her Grumman off the pavement into a custom-made rut and idled out front by our mail-box.
Jinny paused without looking up. “I suspect Mama copied this from her journal some days after she stopped crying—if she ever stopped.
Jinny braced her elbows against her sides and sat up straight before continuing.
“My heart skipped a beat or two like it does most days at this hour. I watched Angie two-finger a brown, official-looking envelope and lift it from a reinforced plastic bin. Before leaning out of her boxy white truck she wrapped the envelope in a Target add, unlatched the weathered lid and—as if handling an anthrax- laced greeting card— gingerly slipped it into the mailbox box andshoved the lid shut, all in one motion. She caught me staring through the window and shook her head.
No news or bad news? I telegraphed, but she couldn’t read code. Our postie pointed at the mailbox, and I knew why—one of our RFD numbers has come unglued and the flag is broken. The Grumman groaned, pulled over the lip onto the road, and motored away; Angie didn’t wave goodbye. I waited until the put-put-put broke through the sound barrier before hurrying out the front door. My heart jumped up in my throat like the night dad died; I feared the worst.
“Maybe someday I’ll ask Jinny why the army didn’t send someone to deliver the news in person, but then, maybe I shouldn’t ask. Maybe there are too many boys and girls dying over there for anyone to bear the pain of it all—except Jesus; that said, neither Conor nor Angie will ever stop by again.
“’We regret to inform you that Captain Conor O’Dwyer was . . . .’” Before I finished the first line, the words fuzzed on the page. Next thing I knew, the screen door banged and Lance dropped his books on the couch. The TV evening news was muted, thank heavens, but the harbinger of bad tidings lay on my aproned lap screaming ‘murder.’
“’Lance asked, “should I turn off the TV, Mama? . . . What’s wrong, Mama?” Then he saw the letter. He didn’t need to read it. He looked into my eyes then buried his head in my lap. Isabelle walked into the house three sobs later.
“‘I’m home, Mama.’ Home, I thought. She’d come home.”
The tinkling utensils, gulps, gobbles, and soldier salutations filled the mess hall, but Jinny heard nothing. Huck, anchored like a lighthouse on a stormy night, his inner light still flickering, didn’t know how to toss Jinny a life-line. He wondered if he should bump knees under the table, speak, or leave his friend to ride out the storm alone. A minute dragged by; Jinny stared right through Huck, then down at the letter, and continued.
“’At 7:00 p.m. the grandfather clock chimed five times and stopped. What a day. I told the children that we needed to share the news with Uncle Albert. Isabelle said Uncle Al doesn’t know how to fix clocks. Lance said he’d heard a noise out back and went to investigate. I said, “if its Albert, ask him to come in a minute.” I watched Lance tiptoe to the back door; he opened it and peered through the screen into the dark. The cold came inside uninvited. “Close the door, please.” Lance slipped outside and reappeared a few minutes later. No Albert. Lance looked befuddled. “Where’s your uncle?” I asked.
“’Mama, he called me Conor; I failed you.’ I caught my breath so I wouldn’t burst out crying. Lance said the yard light had burnt out, so he’d stood quiet, listened, and hoped he wasn’t about to be ‘ate by a critter or something worse.’ (My land, what a boy.) He said, ‘I heard a sound like somebody was dragging something through the snow, so I called out, ‘Uncle Albert?’ Uncle swung around over by the fence and shined a flashlight in my face. He said, ‘land sakes, Conor, you scared me, boy.”
“’I asked what he was dragging, and he said, ‘Well, I’m not walking the cat, if that’s what you’re getting at. I am out of potatoes.’ He told me to go ahead and snitch on him and tell you Icaught him stealing potatoes from our root cellar. Then he said, ‘scoot.’ I tried to tell him you needed him. Then he got all ornery like when I kicked over the milk bucket last Friday. He said, ’Now you get back inside. It’s cold out here, Conor. I gotta go, bad.’ Would you believe it, he called me Conor again? I’m sorry, Mama.’”
“Honestly Jinny . . ..”
“Well, Huck, I think that’s enough.” Jinny folded and put away the letter. “Thiscamp makes Fort Sill look like a Palm Springs resort—not that I’ve ever been to Palm Springs. One day here is like spending a month at the Dickinson County Fair without any money.”
“Interesting analogy. How so?” replied Huck.
“Stuck in a dusty gondola; a bar across our laps, round and round we go: Freeze-drill-practice-freeze-drill-practice, morning, noon, and night; then we get dumped out without a refund.”
“I may be missing your meaning, but shucks, when we signed up we knew there’d be highs and lows—that’s army life. Onegruntplus one gruntequals a grunt, grunt.” Jinny picked up on the “grunt.”
“Oh yes, and the Ferris wheel is operated by a grumpy, distracted military contractor, who yells, ‘Maybe today you’ll get YOUR ticket punched, little lady!’”
Huck got serious. “I’m going to tell you something you need to hear.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t forget who you really are and why you’re really here.” Devereaux downed a last bite of coleslaw with a plastic fork and slid off the bench as Jinny threw her pizza in the trash.
“Who am I, Huck?”
“You’re a patriot and a warrior, Jinny O’Dwyer; and now you’ve skipped the main course. You ought to sweeten up with dessert, but I’ve got to hustle.” Both smiled; Devereaux had cabbage stuck in his teeth, which Jinny was quick to point out.
“Oh that? I’m saving it for a snack time. See you later, Corporal. He paused, turned, and raised his left hand. “Promise me you won’t get a stomach ache on that Ferris wheel today. I won’t be there with a sick sack. Ah, Jinny, gal.” Huck placed a hand over his heart, bowed, and as he walked away he pled, “Remember, don’t forget your pal.”
“Thanks, I needed that.” I won’t forget you, Huck. Thanks for the kindest face time I ever had. Deity-Duty-Deliverance. Go find a flag to salute, soldier. She did.