F IRVING!

F IRVING!

(Excerpt from THE ALABAMA MERCENARIES: PIRATE SEASON)

CARLOS PATRICK REID





So I was gently tapping the oblong side of a ripe coconut with the back edge of a butter knife while slowly rotating it in my left hand.  After two rotations it split like a diamond and the milky white juice flowed through my fingers into the sink.  That is when I remembered Irving.

I met him at Basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  We were in Delta “Dogs” Company, 4th Platoon.  He was from some tiny coal mining hamlet in South Carolina. At least six feet tall.  He had those square hips that are sometimes called child bearing hips. Irving was slightly hunched back.  Nothing genetic.  Just a result of looking at the ground and carrying your head in a submissive way.  Most striking was his face. When he finally looked up he had these ocean blue eyes on a beautiful baby face.  He was a man with the Gerber baby head.  His main problem now was that he was afraid.  Worse.  He made desperate little grunts as he ran around.  This was the bleat of a lamb in the distance to a lion.  At least it was to our lions, the drill sergeants.  They tormented him relentlessly.  At night he would cry himself to sleep.  His main tormentor was a wiry little drill sergeant who was bowlegged and walked with his chest stuck out and his arms locked straight down at his sides almost like wings.  We called him “Chicken Hawk.”  He was a five foot tall “joke” to the average soldier.  But to Irving, he was the devil.  At first the drill instructors were content to degrade and torment Irving in front of the troops, but when they finally realized that Irving was too ignorant of his rights and too fearful to say anything, they started taking him inside to abuse him.  I had heard screams and paddle strikes.  I told myself that they were just hitting the wall and telling him to act like he was being beaten. He was a really good actor.

We stood there like statues on a chest board.  Three rows of 12 and one row with 11 soldiers. Heads and gazes locked straight forward.  A perfect picture except for a missing person on the second row.  Right in the middle.  A space and a hole in the formation.  A missing soldier right beside me.

Screams.  I take a step forward.  Puckett the squad leader snaps me a look and mouths the word no. I step back and freeze.

Quiet.

  I knew they couldn’t lay a hand on anyone.  It was thirty years ago, but they had some rules.  So far only seven young men had died during training due to heat stroke.

         Near the end of training we got to throw real live grenades.  The grenade training range was a wall with stalls for each soldier to throw a grenade.  The wall was 100 feet long with 10 of these stalls.  No back wall. There was a short front wall with a window- like opening that looked down into a canyon.  Each stall had sidewalls to protect the guy on your left and right side, if you screwed up.  You simply pull the pin on the baseball shaped grenade, throw it out the window and then crouch behind the low front wall.  I happened to be in the stall next to Irving.  He was always beside me because I was his fire team leader. When the range went hot, I threw my grenade so hard that it knocked over one of the man silhouettes in the mock bunker in the canyon.  I grimaced as it rolled out of the bunker and then exploded.  A second later the Range Officer issued all clear and I turned to the side to walk out of the firing line.  I was facing toward Irving's stall and my breath was knocked out as a grenade exploded there.  My ears were ringing and I was perfectly deaf.  I watched as a steel helmet shot straight up above the wall. Chin strap swinging in the air.  A tower of dirt and dust followed like a rocket engine blast.  The helmet rotated and the plastic liner separated and drifted downward into my stall.  In my ringing silence, I felt rain mist down on my face.  It was not rain. Wrong color.  The helmet liner rolled to my feet and a few pieces of hair and flesh coated the inside surface.

The drill sergeants reported that Irving had panicked and froze with the grenade.  But Puckett my buddy said that Irving pulled the pin and placed the grenade to his neck just under his chin.

Saturday around two in the morning, I was making rounds through the barracks. My turn for guard duty, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t sleeping anyway.  I was watching over my friends.          

  I walked thoughtfully through the 46 exhausted soldiers.

I had been staring at an empty cot when I heard a racket in the stairwell.  It was Chicken Hawk.  He was drunk and bored. In the past he would take Irving to the roof and torment him.  I guess he was too drunk to remember that Irving was in a body bag headed back to his parents in South Carolina. (Headed bac… poor choice of words. He didn’t have a head anymore.)

  I was the guard when the little bastard staggered up the stairwell.  He told me to go get Irving.  I reminded him of the tragedy.

He laughed, “Just as well, that pussy was no soldier.”  He pointed at me, “Not like you…Now, you are gonna be a great killer.  All the other drill sergeants are talking about you.  Your grenade bounced out of the bunker, but you hit the target so hard you knocked its head off.  Outstanding!”

He staggered up to the roof.  “No, you ain’t like that pussy Irving.”

He was confused but then he poked me in the chest, “Go get Puckett.  Yeah.  Puckett.”

         I watched him smoke three cigarettes in the darkness that covered the roof. I could just make out his image as he puffed on the Marlboros.

         I turned off my flashlight.

Lurking in the shadows, I waited for God to strike him down as he enjoyed his smokes. Nothing.  Not even a rumble from the above.  Chicken Hawk was smiling.

It was no surprise that he stumbled and fell on the way down the fifth floor flight of stairs.  What was remarkable was how he got up and threw himself over the guard rails of the next four floors.  Landing on his head at each flight platform until his head finally cracked open on the ground floor.

I am probably the only person who remembers Irving’s baby face, and surely his parents are long dead. He was an innocent kid.

Sure I catch myself getting thoughtful, but then it passes and is replaced by something else.  I have an urgent need to open more coconut. Many more.

I saw Puckett 10 years later.  I was fishing with the twins at Lake Pullman. It was a wonderful summer vacation. Dream vacation.  Puckett was fishing in a boat and he spotted me. He recognized me from 50 feet away.  He jumped ashore and ran over. Fat, balding, a face and nose riddled with broken blood vessels and blood shot eyes, I shouldn’t have recognized him.  After the greetings and inviting my family to supper, the first thing he brought up was that boy Irving.  Puckett just laughed it off.  But I noticed his eyes and mouth were open too far.  It gave him a maniacal expression.  He would tell you that he laughs to deal with these things.  He isn’t fooling me.  It fucked him up. He’s crazy.  Jackie never forgave me when I abruptly packed our stuff and went home, ruining our vacation.

Really sorry for this departure. I don’t mean to confuse you.  I only added this because …hell I don’t know why!  Fuck you if you are confused.  After typing that shit I got up and went to Wal-Mart and bought every coconut they had and a case of Budweiser.  I sat on the back porch till sunrise cracking open coconuts and getting drunk.  Somehow I feel better. When the coconut cracks open and fluid spills out.  I feel just swell. My only sadness is that Army barracks don’t have more floors. Six or even eight.  F Irving.  That’s right.  Forget Irving.