ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 32
again, I knew: I am alive.
Being deprived of a mirror, unable to visualize my face, I was fairly
positive that at that point my mother would be hard pressed to call me son.
But my heart kept beating. Keeps on beating. So, what? What was I going
to figure out there when I sure couldn't figure it all out with a full belly and
books and friends to talk about it with. All I knew was that I was alive
A-live. Very alive. Alive to face this. "Fuck God."
A rifle butt smacked my head in a neat arc back to the dirt. What ajoke.
They hit me because they thought I was talking to them. No one spoke
English here. I would have been questioned if that were the case. I learned
the language quickly, though. Translated, that rifle butt meant "Shut-up!"
I got it.
Alli ever wanted-ever, ever-was a gun. I remember the sports place
with its rows of anything from shotguns to blackened, clean, crisply-angled
assault rifles. Who had six hundred bucks to buy one? But always, always,
handling those weapons was better than handling (ha!) a girl. They felt so
damn good in the hands. Balanced. Substantially heavy while still gliding
easily with your motions. Accurate. Responsive. What girl was ever,
always, all of these? I wanted, all I wanted, was my hands and a gun.
So what the hell was life to me? I'd been in the bush too long to believe
in John Wayne. My friend Rick ... Rick. They got him, and when we found him
-yeah. My CO was probably typing up a form letter with my name on it,
and meanwhile five Joe-Blows had lost their heads and only God knows who
they were and he sure ain't going to come down and tell who they were. What
the hell am I, next to all this? The CO is more concerned whether or not there
are lima beans in his chow than about me. You want realism? I feel I am very
realistic, here, as realistic as the wire that was wrapped around my numb
hands.
Three years of Spanish in high school. Who'd have ever thought I
should have done my homework and stopped passing notes to Diana. Three
years, and what do I remember? "Donde esta' el bano?"
Laughter. I said that, didn't I? My captors are laughing. Where is the
bathroom? I was soaked anyway from head to toe, and from the way I
smelled, I guess the bathroom was no longer really a concern. I didn't laugh.
I didn't say that.
Some of the soldiers appeared, herding some campesinos like chickens
in front of them. Chickens except for the feathers. Who could blame them?
If someone had wired your park and dumped bodies in piles on your land,
you'd cluck too. Christ. That kid.
The kid had no shirt-practically no pants for that matter-and you
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